FREE ARRIED ON DEMAND OK INSIDE: UNIONS-RAR TOUR-NURSESCOMICS- LETTERS- IRAN-SCHOOLS... youth.
citizens at all.
dependent they can organise.
women access to contraception. tion. Why did we want to do this?
Most importantly, we want to the self-organisation of youth are second-class citizens, they are not In the family they are totally on the goodwill of their parents. This is used as an excuse for denying them their basic rights: to decide where they live, what they do in the evenings, how Youth are told that they cannot make up their minds about sexuality - to 'protect' them, they are denied sation any right to express sexual feelings. This has the effect of denying young caned and denied the right organise. NUSS, is hanned by most schools students' authorities.
At work young workers lowest paid, not integrated into the which do little for their particular needs and the least secure in their jobs. Youth are the biggest section of the unemployed.
The revolutionary left has often ignored the fact that youth are oppressed as youth. Revolution was launched to promote the self-organiof youth against oppression: through building a union in schools, organising the ployed, fighting for social facilities.
to organising as revolutionaries. union, Thus Revolution is the first step on school the revolutionary youth The IMG launched Revolution, but are the already it is under the control of representatives groups around the country.
Between when a conference will be held, we hope to see established so that a representative editorial board can be elected.
The success of these plans depends their on regular monthly Revolution; - UCHE separate oftice. a telephone and one For two workers. All this will cost at through depends establishing contributions.
organisation. Teachers, Revolution to send autumn, groups So start production it will also require reaching this 4,000 target CYCL heavily on your parents, lecturers in particular have a responsibility to contribute to helping the youth organise, as they play a direct role in their oppression. We appeal to them contributions Revolution's £4,000 fund drive.
The new Revolution is now out -its main theme is sexual polities. Make sure that we can produce another and another and another.
fund-raising activities, send in a day's wages as a donation, and win support for the Revolution rally to be held in London on 5 May to make sure that we meet that target.
Socialist Challenge 15 March 1979 page 13
SOCIALIST CHALLENGE EVENTS Camden NUPE members reply YOUR article on the Camden settlement (1 March) leaves one important question unsettled: is the Camden deal a victory or not? The lett press including Socialist Worker Socialist Press were in no doubt on this question; they saw the Camden victory as a boost to the fight for the full claim nationally.
In Socialist Challenge, however, the title of the article was routine and ambiguous, the IMG member leading the struggle suddenly became anonyLOUS. strike committee branch leadership were criticised, and were Toeinat me weakened the fight national action' It may help before you finally decide on this question if you get your facts straight. It is true that two-thirds of the workforce will get a £17.50 increase; it is not true, as you say, that the remaining one-third will get a 10 per cent increase. In fact they will get the nationally negotiated whatever that is, and over two-thirds these members will additional increase per cent as a result of increased bonus There seem to be two different kinds of criticism of the Camden settlement. recognise it as a victory but to suggest that with better leadership it would have been an even bigger victory.
The other criticism rejects sell-out Camden ending its strike on whatever basis, even if the full claim ad been won; Camden has been bought off and this weakens the national fight. The IMG Political Bureau seems unable decide whether it is attacking Camden settlement as too small a victory or too big a sell-out.
On the first kind of criticism, we do not claim to have made no mistakes in our strike, nor do we deny that there are many comrades who would have been able to give us useful advice during the strike. We do, however, by dynamic operating within the Labour group, by our assessment of the strengths and weaknesses strike, and by our decision that correct leadership meant a recommendation to accept the council's offer.
These tactical considerations were based on a detailed knowledge of the situation, and while we are flattered that the IMG Political concerns itself in these minutiae, we feel that unfortunately its enthusiasm publication.
NORTH WEST WARRINGTON Socialist er Socialist Challenge offices for details. 061-236 2352 GREATER MANCHESTER Socialist Students support the paper and would like to gel in anti-fascist activity, please orters can socialist contacted Mancheste Centre c/o 14 Piccadilly, Manchester with a view to forming a Salford SC group.
group a meets fortnightly on V01100 200Z 4 Piccadilly view manchester ou centre, cl MOSS Centre Sature paper at Moss Side SlUt Socialist Centre, Saturday, 1 Socialist Challenge 15 March 1979 page 14 and and Enose comrades settlement Camden for all-out be DCLICUS council workers country have approach economic rise, the self-organisation get an confidence of around 0 victories for demands for higher pay.
quite strengthening the as a contributions as possible.
inevitably real names from the request.
through collective action.
the struggle.
Camden's example — Bureau they should do so or not.
NEWCASTLE Socialist cal supporters are active! If you want 2905in them, phone Pete on (0632) DUKHAM Socialist Challenge Sup oners Grou ror details contact ave Brown, 2 Pioneer Cottages, Lov Pittington. Durham MIDDLESBROUGH Socialist Socialist STOCKTON-ON-TEES readers can buy ocialist unalengetrom areen dooks upstans in me opencer nail snooping SCOTLAND ror intormation about ine paper or its coland pease contact Glasgow. Open Wed, Thurs, Fri and -04 Phone for alternative ourth International publication EDINBURGH Socialist hon: details.
DUNDee intormation about socialist chanence activities tom o4 queen ot who feel that "bought off should reminded that local throughout SUnC a struggle precisely for higher pay. To suggest that Camden workers went on strike for anything else is to deny realities.
Of course, revolutionaries do not struggles only from the standpoint of pay. They are above all concerned with developing and selfclass collective action in But we should not forget that of or salsaon council workers today hinges entirely THE LENGTH of letters printed will usually be kept down to 400 words in order to encourage as wide a range of All letters published, although we will withhold may publication on busting through the government's pay limits and winning higher pay That is what we did in Camden and that is why the union has been strengthened and unified locally and why other sections of NUPE have seen the Camden deal as a boost to the overall sitting on the fence. You have to tell other workers thinking of following all-out action for a similar size of deal - whether Challenge Saturday 11am-2pm HAMILTON supporters sell Socialist Hamilton shopping centre Sm Fe challenge celans or local activities contactuonr Ford, 553 Eliot Crescent. Hamilton ABERDEEN Chal- YORKSHIRE trades HUDDERSFIELD group meets fortnightly on thursdays DEWSbURT Socialist Challenge sales regularly Westgate socialist walmoate thursdays UnIVerSITY Vanbrugh days (11.30-3.30) at Coney Street LEEDS Socialist Challenge Challenge when Leeds Utd are playing at home!
meets fortnightly on ROGER GALLOWAY, member, Camden Strike Committee JOHN DEVITT, Chairperson Camden NUPE General Branch DAVE BARNES, member, Camden Strike Committee about Kampuchea? C2 February). In the same article invasior however, he justifies the Vietnamese invasion of grounds (a) that the Pol Pot regime was a 'blot on the world workers movement' and (b) that there was a serious danger that imperialism might return to Phnom Penh, Kampuchean capital.
There are, of course, many "blots' on world socialism. Should they all be dealt with in the same way? China's short-term action against Vietnam well bea "crime socialism', but so Is Vietnam's long-term occupation of Kampuchea. GREGOR BENTON (Amsterdam)
Bread and butter of Chartism WHAT is James Francis on about (8 February), claiming that Chartism was "before imperialism' and fore political and internationalist?
Surely British imperialism predates both Chartism and Lenin's analysis of its developed capitalist phase in the beginning of the 20th India by the East India Om West century? The ruthless exploitation of combined with profits from Indian slaves and sugar to make the formation of British industrial capita possible at the beginning of the 19th century.
The plebeian morass that formed NOTTINGHAM SocIalISt Musnroom books, Meatncore s LEAMINGTON Contact 311772.
For details of activities Chal ol eyewitness account Genting ham (21) be 200 contact o Trades Council. Adelphi toti SOUTH WEST detals Socialist sales evar at ta. erland St. 1 March: speaker ISLE WIGHT 44 Union St. Ryde. mornings te PORTSMOUTH sales. Saturday:
Commercial Road Precinc York college satur Bristol 6 SOUTH EAST Chartism's shifting base in the 1840s was a product of Moreover, weavers, unskilled mill hands, small shopkeepers and different kind of working class from the skilled respectable engineers who set their stamp on the New Mode Unionism of the 1850s James Francis's picture of a quick change in political consciousness and organisation brought on by a sudden and dramatic imperialism in the late 1840s - what Vietnam was it, anyway: the Irish famine of 1849, the Great Exhibition of 1851, or perhaps the anti-popery riots of 1853? on the - is real economic determinism. The problem is not that he asserts that imperialism, politically economically, consciousness and organisation. It the does. The problem is that he forgets just how old and deep-rooted British imperialism is, and ludicrously overestimates the degree of consciousness and organisation of working class before 1850 against An illustration to close: in hi eulogy of the 1842 'sacred month', he neglects to point out that what was driving those thousands of mill hands Pennines was not Chartist agitation but hunger, as the revolt coincided with a periodic trade depression, unemployment and wage reductions.
How 'day to day' can you get?
PAUL ATKIN (York)
there- 'Blue Collar' chorus THE letters contesting my review of Blue Collar (15 February) are a chorus of confusion.
Sue Aspinall tries to vindicate the film's 'realism'. I always thought that realism meant taking fictional characters and showing how, through their concrete actions and specific circumstances, they typify the processes of history.
No such processes are glimpsed in the Wedge cafe/ bookshop, High St. arket) ai readers Can " ay Challenge regularly Challenge every other Sunday. of local upporters throughout the Midland Challenge Street, LONDON BATH Socialist Challenge sales ever saturcay -s soom. oursice mactis Ring Bath 20298 for further SOUTHAMPTON Socialist Challeng readers Socialist Challenge from the Oz Shop Socialist 30pm-1 pm. Challenge Logan Sr run Centre, Surays:
Saturdays, Ma. London No.
c/o Fullmarks, 110 Cheltenham Road, VORWICH Socialist Challenge sale very Saturday in Davey Place (opi at Anson this imperialism. sinking handloom to a vicIous Partisans were a Darwin.
TaCISH and rots "working" class the town to town all over the formal genres, etc. a group o to Blue amerity of ast Anglersdays BRIGHTON SC forums fortnightly Contact Micky on 605052 COLCHESTER Socialist supporters meet regularly. For details phone Steve on Wivenhoe 2949 SW LONDON sales every Saturday Clapham Damnall TUDE his or boonstalls ourside oval tuDE OWCH HAMLES Socialist Chal lence supporters sell everv weekend aturdays meet 10.30am, Whitechape ube, oundays meet tuam, brick can wAL nAm rUnEs paper sales ever Eize, Hoe St, Walthamsiow, London oaturudy, ram-noon outside ne pos HAMLETS Socialist Chalfortnight RENT supporters sell every Saturd 30pm, at Kilburn Sq., Kilburn Hic PADDINGTON/N. Kensington Social Gorton • Hi all enday or ey through the characters in Blue Collar, where the creaky plot reduces history circle. The form pessimism which this gives rise to pushes the film's critical treatment o the unions into a reactionary rather than progressive direction.
Paul Gilroy says that law of the is a racist metaphor, when I clearly use it to refer to the animal and popularisations Gilroy ought to have concentrated his pedantic energies on Blue Collar's myopic presentation of The film starts from the unrealistic premise that, in the most ghettoised city in the US, black and white workers are the best of mates. The racist confrontation at the end of the film is caused by the machinations of the Mafia, the FBI and the "baddie' union bureaucracy. In other words racism does not necessarily spring out moat and imperialism, but is the result of a series of unfortunate accidents and backfiring plans.
By now, Paul Seligman and Wendy Baptiste will be crying out that this letter, like my review is all politics and not a discussion of "film as film'. I appreciate their point, but it's the task of a socialist reviewer to highlight the political implications of any work, regardless of whether or not the work has an overt politics.
Besides, politics are always bound There's no room to develop the point more formal questions. here, but, in the context of American cinema, Blue Collar's partial critique of individualism doesn't match that in Taxi Driver, which in turn doesn't match that in Penn's Night Moves The reasons for this are political and particular techniques, subversion of Hollywood *The politica Road, NW2. 7.30pm. Everyone -wercome revolutionary plu: invited from SW 7.30pm, at the Britannia pub, Mare St HACKNEY outside Sainsbury's HARINGEY Paper sales at Finsbur Park and Seven Sisters tubes evening; Muswell Hill and Crouch En *Broadway: N8: and newsacent Middle Lane bookmarks. rinsoury rar TOWER HAMLETS Socialist ChalChoices NAilm alread 21 March. Bethnal Green Road (Bethnal oktore mouse. DerovsnirE WALTHAMSTOW readers can porters meet regularl Box 50, London N1 2XF
about Vietnam', Cimino.
Certainly, in technical and dramatic terms, The harrowing spectacle. reputed that even hard-bitten New York film critics broke down in tears at the preview.
But what IS the film's meaning for a mass audience — particularly an American one, for whom it was primarily What vision of the Vietnamre-presented four years after me tall or saigon!
The blurred TV images grow 'BEST FILM of the year', 'the definitive statement 'an unsurpassed anti-war movie'.
These are some of the accolades currently being showered on The Deer Hunter, directed by Michael corrupted and wrecked by the mightiest economic and military machine in the world, Deer under the banner of 'freedom'.
Perhaps a little doubt is in order, perhaps a little guilt?
Not according to Cimino's epic vision.
Our courageous boys, magically whisked across the globe, courageously did their suffered and died at the hands of a sadistic, inhuman enemy who played lives.
This is a film which revolves almost totally around discomfort and pain of the uppressors, a is one in wnict best, DEISOLICTS
----- pull-quotes -----
Manchester SC Centre, 14 Piccadilly. SALFORD Socialist Challenget sup
JOHN SUDDABY, Secretary, to provide leadership has outstretched | Camden NUPE General Branch NORTH EAST
Dear Mrs Thatcher, CENSE, CORRECT its knowledge of the local situation.
may be cut at the Editor's discretion. Unsigned letters will not normally be
The IMG leadership should give a clear answer: was Camden a victory for the workers or was it a setback? In the course of a strike you cannot lead
HUDDERSFIELD Socialist Challenge she Pragularly Saturdays 11am-1 pm ir
YORK Socialist Challenge is on sale at he York Community Bookstop, (12.30-45)
MIDLANDS meets fortnight on Tuesday dr
jungle' kingdom
change in
Adorno's phrase might be adapted Collar:
falsehood stains the aesthetic form." PAUL TICKELL (London SW9)
HACKNEY Socialist Challenge grour eer and Richard Kirkwar
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