raised anew in Sweden in the beginning of the sixties, it started a fierce and fruitful debate. But in a few years the "woman question" had been transformed into a question of male and female sex roles. The politicians were happy to declare that there was no longer a woman question. There was only a sociological question of different roles according to SCA- -and that was just as much a problem for men as it was for women. The solution was to polish the school-books a little (father is preparing dinner while mother is washing the car") and to get some more female mechanics and male nurses. The question was robbed of its economic and political content.
Not surprisingly the liberals have up to now dom nated the scene. The left has faile to provide a socialist alternative, for several reasons. Among the most important are the theoretical deficiency of earlier marxists and the lack of new analyses of this question among younger socialists, coupled with the lack of interest shown by traditional socialist organisations.
There is also a new tendency within the Swedish left today to look at the woman question as a subordinate problem- -the emancipation of women will automatically be fulfilled by and through the socialist revolution. Today groups within the maoist home, care for their children and activist men, ins Sweden-KFml-urge women to stay tead of letting themselves be exploited by the employers.
Long ago Marx pointed out that women suffer a do the ordinary this ores nisations to min hed gh to the ordinary left organisations -dominated men. The fact that women are discriminated against and exploited even within their own class demands a special form of womens liberation movement outside the traditional socialist groups. This insight made it mandatory to start such a movement among women—if socialist revolution is to mean a liberation for all- even women- from exploitation and subjugation.
Two years ago such a group started in Sweden-Group 8. It has up to now-by its own choice-remained a small and homogenous group The emphasis has been on small-scale actions over such questions as part-time-employment (part-time employed women being heavily exploited by the employers) and abortions. Recently the group thought the time ripe to broaden the movement and small local groups of women-in many cases including men-are now being started all around Stockholm, and in Uppsala, Gothenburg and Lund.
The ideological basis for the movement is openly declared as socialist and the class struggle and the struggle for womens liberation are seen as interdependent. The work in the movement is hoped to be a combination of practice and theoretical studies. So far the work has only begun and it is too early to evaluate or even predict what will happen. things are moving fast-faster every day.
Irene Matthis Group 8
Here is Nixon in training for the Presideney. The picture was taken in 1948. ts or the House of UnAmerican Activities Committee. It looks like picture from bad gangster film. Which is not accidental. Nixon still models himself on the worst American movies. Lately he saw PATTON for a second time, and then decided to invade Cambodia. Not that he only identified with General Patton's megalomania. Like Patton Nixon had served under Eisenhower, like Patton he was forced by "Ike' to make an abject apology (when his corrupt fund stealing was uncovered he went on Television to beg the people for their sympathy) and like Patton he was frustrated by his inability to launch a direct assault on Soviet Communism. This picture confirms the formative political Lys experience of the most powerful man in the world. Mindless bigoted anti-communism was the basis of Nixons power and it remains so to this day. The Black Dwarf congratulates James Roche for the daring CS gas attack on the House of Commons, and we cherish the memory of the MPs hiding under the Dispatch Box with great pleasure. To those MPs who were "overcome" by the fumes of this "harmless" gas we offer no sympathy whatsoever. The Members of Parliament of the House of Commons bear full responsibility for the vicious and repeated gas attacks on the people of Northern Ireland by British troops and Stormont police. It was pointed out in Black Dwarf No. 33 that it is invariably the very young and the very old who suffer when CS bombs are exploded in the vicinity of their houses. While rioters are able to run away from the smoke, people trapped inside their houses in the narrow streets of Belfast and the Bogside receive sustained and dangerous doses of the gas. As a result of these attacks many innocent people have been taken to hospital and at least one child has died. The House of Commons on the other hand is the perfect environment for a CS Gas Attack. A fully enclosed space custom built for the exchange of noxious fumes, packed with servile and timid political opportunists, hissing smoke that brought tears to the eyes of our legislators and sent them into a panic scrabbling like rabbits into the safety of their lobbies, at last found its true home. For once the balance was reversed; the politicians wheezed and cried while the people laughed.
BOMB BORE One of our correspondents was watching MASH in Leicester Square's Rialto on Sunday August 23rd. Just as the funeral scene was flickering before them a spotlight went on and diminutive cinema bureaucrat announced that the police had received a message that there was a bomb in the cinema. He asked them to vacate the house while it was searched. Bomb scare! Not at all, far from the panic of sales hungry evening paper headlines the audience groaned, demanded to know why they couldn't simply all look under their seats, complained at the length of time it took to search the cinema (twenty minutes) and were generally irritated. Yet another boring hoax had been played out.
DETROIT DOCUMENTARY John Watson, a representative League of Revolutionary Black Workers, Detroit, was in London last week. He brought with him an hour long film called "Finally got the news", to show and discuss it in factories around the U.K. The film is the first the League has produced, and analyses the historical development of black struggle in the U.S. along class lines The League has been functioning for one year only, growing out of such groups as the Detroit Revolutionary Union Movement and the Ford Revolutionary Union Movement. These groups were formed to combat the white racism and reactionary politics of the big United Auto Workers Union. Dwarf readers will have noticed, from time to time, the words "Liberation News Service" at the bottom of an article in the paper. Two comrades from LNS who were passing through England visited our offices recently and were able to tell us a bit about this remarkable threeyear-old organisation.
Run by a collective of about twenty comrades operating from New York, Liberation News Service sends out a package of news and visuals (cartoons and photos) twice every week. The material is usually well-written and well-researched Not only reliable but vivid. But as well as being a major achievement in itself, LNS is politically extremely significant in the States. Two factors combine to make a syndicated news service important in the USA. One of these is the geography of the country, which goes against the easy development of countrywide communications. Virtually every major city in the states now has its own underground paper. But the immense distances between each city mean there is little contact and cross-communication between them-or would be, were it not for LNS. The other factor is the increas ing self-censorship of the Bourgeois press, which means that many vitally important national and international events are either not reported, or are reported in such a way as to give a totally distorted picture of what happened. In this situation underground newspapers, and syndication of news amongst them, become an absolute necessity people are going to have a well-informed picture of what is happening even in their own country.
Liberation News Service now has over 600 subscribers in the States alone. Although some of these are establishment or fringe organisations like non-conformist religious sects (these are the ones that provide the money) the vast majority are under ground papers, which gives an idea of the size and importance of the underground press in the States. The total readership of an LNS news item has been reckoned to be between 5 and 6 million.
Naturally, these underground papers reflect the confusions of the American movement. Some of them are still merely sex and drugs papers, promoting little more than a pleasure-oriented life-style that offers real alternative to the capitalist system. But over the last year even these papers have become increasingly politicised and many of the underground papers are now clearly and consciously moving towards a revolutionary position.
WORKERS CONTROL Last year nearly a thousand people attended the national workers Contro conference in Sheffield. Now the first big conference under a Tory government has been planned. It will be held in Birmingham at the Bullrings New Mayfair rooms. The three main themes of the conference, which will take place over the weekend of October 24th 25th will be combatting the threatened Anti-Trade Union legislation, developing Trade Union democracy and building the workers movement in Britain. Already Moss Evans, T & G, and Bob Wright and Ernie Roberts of the AEF have agreed to speak from the platform. Like last yea there will be seminars on all major industries. For Black Dwarf readers who have not been to one IWC conferences it will be an opportunity to listen to and learn from genuine discussion of working class struggles.
SENATE HOUSE TRIAL DEFENCE FUND A defence fund has been set up to raise monetary support to help deal with past and future court costs of the students involved in this trial; to fight the deportation recommendations; and in general to make sure that victimised students do not have to resist this kind of University/Police/DPP/Court collusion in isolation.
Contributions from individuals, socialist societies, TU branches, Anti-Apartheid groups etc are urgently needed, and should be sent to:A.M. CLIFTLAND, 14A Tollington Park, London N.4.
Advice to aspiring playwrights in the latest Writer's Guide: A word about some things in which we are definitely not interested: The "Kitchen Sink" sex, drugs, politics . "Permissive Society, militant students, foul language, violence, offence against existing tastes, blasphemy, denigration of existing societies, sects, groups or institutions, and so on. In other words there is endless drama without raking around in the gutter. It comes from Andrew Osborn, Head of Series, Drama, BBC-tv