Last week 1 went to the theatre — a rare event for me — to see the Half Moon Theatre's production of The Mother by Bertolt Brecht, which has transferred from the East End to the Roundhouse for a three week season. Never missing the chance to agitate, however, even on our 'night off', we took in with us some leaflets in defence of the Ligue Communiste, which other contrades were distributing outside. As reviewed in Red Weekly" No 4, this is an excellent production of one of the very small number of plays totally committed to revolu tionary socialism - despite what I have to relate, it can still be heartily recommended. One of the main scenes in the first half of the play, is the victimisation of revolutionaries in 1905, in Russia, for giving out strike leaflets to the workers, In a later scene, the Mother, in an argument with a liberal school-teacher, who is trying to teach the workers to read, says: 'We don't read for entertinment. Reading it cuss struggle. Telling scenes, but so far they romained simply part of the play and therefore "not real', something unrelated to Chalk Farm 1973 MECCA OF 'CULTURE' During the interval we gave out our leaflets. which were on the whole received not antago-nistically by the mostly petty-bourgeois intellipentsia who inhabit this mecca of trendy "culture" (whatever flowery illusions the Round House may once have had about its "alternative", subversive nature, must have long since withered and died).
And then we were stopped. - yes, stopped from helping to defend present-day, flesh-and-blood communists, our own comrades, in the middle ofa-play which unequivocally denounces the repression of revolutionary socialists 70 years ago and unashamediy explains and celebrates tbeir cause.
The immediacy of those early scene, came home hard when the teachionary fool of a floortrunager, in an attempt to justify bis ban. uttered the immortal words, the ultimate apology of the mealy mouthed, uncommitted liberal: He pur on this play for enternment only. That ting in his grave HISTORICAL CURIOS IE was then I realised that the presentation of Red Weekly 13 July 1973 Pape B LASS BIAHE this play, in that place, to that audience was a rather hopeless gesture the revolutionary content, the whole intention of the play. what it isahout — was totally lost on him as 1 suspect, on the majority of that first-night audience. To the bourgeois theatre-goer, art is entertainment, something other" and finer than life, and the brutal reality of existence under capitalisin must not be allowed to intrude or interrupt the illusion.
Truly revolutionary dramatists such as Brecht wrote plays to bridge the pap between art and lite, to give lessons to the oppressed, to help them realise what they had to do to rid themselves of their oppression. theatre must castrate Brechr, when it produces his plays, because the bourgeoisie has no immediate interest in didactic, 'unsophisticated (in other words de-mystified) plays, unless they can ignore or minimise the intense meaning of such works, and regard them as interesting historical curios, ARCHAIC PALACES Such plays as this only come abre, only gain tbeir foil meaning, when seen by the working-class, for whom they were made and to whom and for whom they speak. In our society they are almost always put on for the bourg cois and petty-bourgeois classes, those who deceive themselves that only they have been educated to appreciate drama. And they are put on in those archaic palaces of culture, the theatres, which are allen to workers because of what they traditionally stand for — the glorified portrayal of the values of the ruling-class, with which the working class has nothing in This is a serious gap which socialist theatregroups like Red Ladder and General Wil are trying to fill, with their political productions to trade union groups and in factory-canteens. Only when the bourgeoisie can no longer deprive the working-class of those small areas of culture which serve the workers' cause, can agitational lool, Only lhan can we begin la use the theatre to do what a comrade was shouling, as he leaflerted the audience with the news of the banningot the Ligue Corrutiste: and the Inal of the Shrewsbury 24, at the end of that pertormanoe - Bring politics our of the Thecere, Into rest ife. The bourgeois premisos al: 24 Boundary Road London NW8 01-624 4504 Opening hours Monday to Thursday Fridey and to coer on Saturdays. Directions:
station [Euston: Matford tire] roundabout 31 busi (Bakerico line] Red Books are now OPEN DAILY in new 10.30am to 2.30pm 200pm 10 7:00 pm It is expected shortly to extend these hours.
2 mens walk from South Hampstead BR 3 mins waik from South Hampstead 6 mirs walk from Swiss Cottage Tube Red Books should distribute it as widely as possible. There is, however, one major weakness - the pamphlet does not accopt the logic of its own arguments, and is still prepared to talk about other non-pay people in the bands of psychiatrists as neurotics, this accepting psychiatry's view of society. This weakens the artack on peychiatry as a whole. It is made posuble by the pamphlet's failure to link the appression of pry people by psychiatrists with the entire system of capilalist social relations from which it springs and which it maintains. In some sense the authors still sce psychiatrists as acting in the interests of 'society, with the treatment of homosexuals being just an exceptional misdirection of energy and resources.
This is a big weakness: a cegression on the Gay Liberation Manifesto published two years ago. In sum, then, this is an important pampitlet but it only goes part of the way.
Psychairy and the Homosezini in avatable front Ge Toformation, cio 2 Thane Mansions, Thance Villas the first ten years of the Left Opposition by Max Shachtman with an intruduction by Avgilable from Red Books
reached, which permits funds for bombing the Prince Sihanouk inspecting Red Khmer guerrillas in one of their forest bases, during his extensive tour of the liberated areas in Cambodia earlier this year.
and back aguin, as the Cambodian United Front becomes snore and more the real authority in the country, the choice becomes clear for American imperialism negotiate at all costs or risk certain defeat.
Such a defeat would strengthen the revolutionary forces throughout Indochina, capecially the PRG (Provisional Government of South Vietnam). So, with Lon Nol's statement that he is prepared to 'negotiate with a delegation of Cambodians from the other side," the diplomatic offensive is under way. Sihanouk's position has been to reject any negotiations with Lon Nol and to speak only to the Americans themselves. But he has also denied that he will talk to Kissinger when he visits Peking. He refuses any outcome involving a conipromise with Lon Nol, which is the US's aim in aborting the progress of the Cambodian revolution. Ar the moment Le Duan and Pham van Dong from North Vietnam are in Moscow. There they will have their arms twisted to exert pressure on the Cambodians to go to the negotiating table The Kremlin bureatcracy has no direct line to the Cambodian fighters becnuse it continues to recognise the Lon Nol clique as the legitimate government of Cambodia.
Not so the Chinese. Their representative in the
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Genesis of Trotskyism