Between 12,000 and 15,000 people marched through London's crowded streets on Saturday, 20 January to demonstrate on the war in Indochina. This march was part of an international day of action to coincide with Nixon's inauguration as President. It was neld at a time when the whole world was waiting to see if the Paris accords and the 23 point agreement would be signed by the principal participants. The British demonstration was preceded by two separate rallies, one by the British Campaign for Peace in Vietnam, (BCPV) the other by the Indochina Solidarity Conference (ISC). This state of affairs arose because the BCPV refu-sed to have a joint rally with the ISC with shared speaking rights.
The International Marxist Group took a contingent of about 1500 militants down to the ISC rally on Charing Cross Embankment. Speakers included Dick Jones from the AUEW (TASS), Tom Culver from the Union of American ex-servicemen, Althea Jones from the Black Panther Movement, Ralph Miliband, and Gery Lawless from the Anti-Internment League.
TAKING SIDES Althea Jones said, *The Vietnamese are not passive victims - they teach us how to resist as international revolutionary socialists. This is the country which has forced us all co take sides between the rulers and the oppressed."
Gery Lawless reminded the 5,000 strong gathering that after breaking from the servile traditions of the British Labour movement, in taking a clear position of solidarity with the Indochinese people, it would be inconsistent and wrong for them not to solidarise with those fighting their own bourgeoisie in Ireland. Judging from the numbers on the Anti-Internment League demonstration a week later this call did not fall on deat ears.
Ralph Miliband said that it was our clear stand in solidarity with the NLF and for the victory of the revolution in all of Indochina which brought us together at the Embankment instead of in Trafalgar Square. He finished by saying, "If the Paris agreements are signed our solidarity must not end because the struggle will not end. The signing will mark a new phase in the struggle ...
what the US can't achieve in one way it thar meane The Viet namese will need us then."
SOLIDARITY The ISC regrouped virtually every political organisation to the left of the Communist Party, as well as Irish organisations, groups in solidarity with other anti-colonial struggles (such as Dhofar and Palestine) and many colleges and universities from up and down the country. Although the ISC majority supports the "Sign Now" position, it was crystal clear that this was posed within the framework of active solidarity with the NLF and not from a position of Peace in Vietnam. This was evidenced by the slogan which dominated the whole march"Solidarity Till the Final Victory'.
The demonstration of the BCPV was separated by the police from that of the ISC behind, Its preparation had been the main focus of activity for the Communist Party for a month previously, and it proved to be the largest demonstration of a non-industrial issue organised by them for some time. The International Socialism Group brought a sizeable contingent of some 750 people to the ISC rally, demanded a speaker and were refused one. They turned right and marched to the BCPV rally.
An estimated 7,000 people marched behind the BCPV to the slogans of "US Go Home" "Yankee Murderers Out" and "Peace and Socialism In" with here and there, especially from the General Union of Arab Students, the cry of "Solidarity with the NLF".
In Grosvenor Square, while BCPV supporters were trickling off home there was a tense moment when the police threw a cordon in front of the IMG's contingent, thus blocking most of the ISC section of the march from entering the square.
But, threatened by other demonstrators on the other side, they had to relent and the march ended with a speech from Tariq Ali, the shouting of slogans and the singing of the Internationale.
TASKS The fact that a movement in clear solidarity with the revolutionary process in Indochina is emerging is a very welcome event in the context of British politics. But a demonstration is a wasted event unless it can fulfill two tasks:
the first is to provide a focus for the political work in work-places, colleges etc. which has preceded it; the second is to arm and prepare the people mobilised by the demonstration for the political tasks they will have to undertake in the future.
While it is self-evident from the numbers involved that this demonstration fulfilled the first task, the second task has still to be done. Already we have seen that the ceasefire deadline on Saturday 27th brought no silence to the guns or planes. As the civil war continues in Indochina, as the dual power in that country is seen to be what it actually is - the confrontation of two fundamentally opposing classes around alterative organs of state (including military power, we will see what those people whose only ideological armaments were Peace in Vietnam' will have to say and do. We will see what those who really thought that peace and unity in Vietnam could result from the strokes of four pens, will do when the bourgeoisies of the entire world mount their ideological offensive against the NLF and the North Vietnamese regular army claiming that they have broken the accords. Will they retreat into playing the same game as those bourgeoisies, into producing counterevidence of similar actions by the puppet army? Or will they do not only that (for it is necessary but also come out openly for the destruction of the Thieu regime, for the Provisional Revolutionary Government to power, for the release of all political prisoners, for the establishment of workers and peasants committees? And will they carry on their propaganda and agitation until these goals have been achieved, until the 'Final Victory'?
These are the tasks which face the solidarity movement today. These are the issues which must be taken up with all those sincere and hard-working militants who marched with the BCPV that day, and also into wider layers of the labour movement.
The question of Peace in Indochina can only be decided by the victory of the revolution there. Until that time the need for building and strengthening the solidarity movement here in Britain must remain high on the agenda for all revolutionaries.
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