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A Spectre Haunts The East

The polish press, light-years ahead of the soviet media in its degree i marxism today february 1988  east germany population: 16.7m *nmp per capita: £4,507 nmp growth: 1987 2.0% 1988 2.5% • strongest economy in eastern europe • society least touched by glasnost and perestroika apart from romania poland population: 37.4m nmp per capital: £1,232 nmp growth: 1987 3.2% 1988 3.2% • second stage of economic reform started in january • could seethe most dramatic political reforms in eastern europe czechoslovakia population: 15.5m gmp growth: 1987 2.0-2.s% 19882.2-2.8% • 20th anniversary of the prague spring • some sign of economic reform romania population: 22.9m nmp growth: 19872.0-3.0% 19882.5-3.5% • the most centralised and inflexible economy in eastern europe • very serious shortages • outlook for reform bleak hungary population: 10.7m nmp per capita: £1,313 nmp growth: 19871.7% 1988 1.2% • economy in serious difficulties, with large debts to the west • most liberal of the east european societies • kadar soon to retire, with grosz, the pm, the most likely successor bulgaria population: 9.0m nmp growth: 1987 2.0-3.0% 1988 3.5% • the ussr's most loyal east european ally • programme of economic restructuring 'net material product approximates to gross national product less depreciation and the output of most services. Coming after a whole retinue of consultative councils, revamped elections and sweeping amnesties, which 28 the referendum offered the most far-reaching economic reforms and deepseated political democratisation yet to be encountered within eastern europe' caught even their beneficiaries by surprise, the referendum was another example of a leadership reaching out to society but, as always, on its own terms, ver the preceding years, this j society had witnessed a ' plummeting standard of living for the bulk of its population, and greater social inequality in favour of those who could turn poland's economic predicament to their own advantage.

Parent Power At The Chalkface

Parent Power At The Chalkface Kenneth Baker is appealing to parents over the heads

In The Land Of The Dispossessed

These divisions are the product of irrevocable changes in britain's 'employment base': the rise and persistence of mass long term unemployment, and recurrent short term unemployment; while the growth of a peripheral workforce of part timers, temporary workers, and the self employed, have accompanied rising security and prosperity for those in full time employment. The differences which existed within the full employment labour market, differences of earnings and skills, have been superseded by a much more radical polarisation between those secure within the labour market, those bobbing in and out of employment, and those stuck firmly on the edges in long term unemployment.

Labour's Pain, Alliance Pleasure

In fact, like all political feelings, that populist 'normalcy' exists in relation to other political 17 'since 1983, labour has ducked the political implications of who and what it is trying to represent' forces; if the voices of trade unionism, of blacks and gays and feminism etc, can be heard to speak for shared political beliefs; no more, for shared political advancement, the less the identification as 'normal people' will be clung to. That is not the same as replacing labour as the alternative to conservatism, an alternative which would force marxism today april 1987 'his words are turned aside and mocked as windbaggery; he goes not for the jugular but the funny bone'  the alliance to pick up on precisely those labour traditions which it has had to eschew to show it's not labour under another guise.

How much is it worth?

the two films, jack hazan’s a bigger splash and fass­ binder’s the bitter tears of petra von kant, are both built round a homosexual love affair; in the german film it is a lesbian relationship, in hazan’s it is a relationship between two men. In the hockney film directly, in petra von kant symbolically, this society is shown as one in which the cult of possessions vitiates even human relationships, reaching an extreme that becomes hysterical.

Economism & The Question of Women

At a time when patriots are jailed without trial in theory & practice—the real divide northern ireland or shot down for oppos­ this seeming contradiction between ing the sell-out in rhodesia, when the theory and practice can be seen in the level of prices at home is only matched by trade unions’ lack of mobilisation on the the level of unemployment, is it not equal pay issue, it can be seen in the low possible, even given the fact that women numbers of women in leadership positions are oppressed, that the liberation of in labour organisations, and it can be seen women must wait until these more crucial in the ambivalent attitude the labour problems facing the working class are movement as a whole displays to the women’s liberation movement-the only solved-until we have socialism and every­ part of the left to take on aggressively the one can be liberated. establish socialism and the struggle against the oppression of women-that this male chauvinist piggery socialist system can come about in britain without any prior significant change in if one is a supporter of the women’s liberation movement, it would be tempt­ the role and status of women.

THE HARDEST GAME OF ALL

professional boxing in this country is monitored by the british boxing board of control. The sport's rehabilitation as a major spectator draw was confirmed in june when barry mcguigan fought his way to the world featherweight title before a packed loftus road stadium and the biggest tv audience of the month - even coronation street had to take a back seat.

Let a Thousand Enterprises Bloom

A complicated system of tax reductions and exemptions is also suggested in order to help offset the higher cost of raw materials although industry is supposed to absorb most of this cost by reducing wasteful consumption.  december 1984 marxism today the fifth modernisation the reforms demand therefore much higher standards of administration and leadership by the chinese government and party bureaucracies than have been previously achieved. planning (a) planning: planning in a socialist society, argues the document, can only be 'rough and elastic' for a long time to come, and should seek 'to exercise control over major issues while allowing flexibility on minor ones'.

The Changing Face of Royalty

of all the royal family, it is the queen herself who must rest on a plane higher than everyone else's - especially if the natural order of british life is to prevail.  july 1984 the recent scandals that have risked 'dragging the queen's name down into the dirt' all indicate the extent of moral panic that is generated when some unworthy person comes too near the queen. the best of british to start with, the royal family say something about british identity: what it means to be british.

Feminism is Dead? Long Live Feminism

As act, made it more difficult for women to jean gardiner has pointed out,2 it is not so at the sharp end of women's oppression claim unemployment benefit, and cut the much that women are being forced back by men, the national women's aid service sector on which thousands of absolutely into the home; more to the federation have reported an increase in women rely for support and in which point is that their rates of pay and working domestic violence. More optimistically, however, it could also mean that there is a greater willingness amongst women to report domestic violence and an increased effectiveness of the women's aid federation in providing an escape route for battered women and their children and in breaking the silence surrounding the battering of women.

For whom the Block Votes?

What they're trying to do is two things; first, weaken the power of the trade union movement, in particular the power to take effective action against the employer or indeed against government; and secondly, change the political nature of trade unionism in britain and in particular to weaken the historic political link between the trade union movement and the labour party. The trade unions for labour victory are saying to the labour party you ought to do x, y and z. now for labour there is a credibility problem: at the end of the day there is no actual evidence that they can deliver the goods because their members didn't vote labour.

Keeping Women in their Place

But although both equal opportunities and health and safety aspects might tactically be useful ways of explaining why sexual harassment at work is a legitimate issue for the union, we need to take the bull by the horns and confront what is really the problem: that we live in a world which is patriarchal and oppresses women, and that whenever men and women come into contact, the power relations between them surface, to the disadvantage of women. marxism today 23 first in the field was nalgo which issued a statement following the work done by the equal opportunities working party of their liverpool branch,6 and the appalling case of two nalgo members in brent who were dismissed after complaining of harassment.7 then natfhe's women's rights panel initiated discussion and put out a statement.8 both of these statements give advice about how to tackle an instance of sexual harassment, and also point out the necessity for agreement between management and union that sexual harassment will not be tolerated.

Coming in from the Cold

Some of the arguments we had to fight in the early stages of the march were for instance: we want a class march not a peoples march; we want a socialist alternative programme as the peoples march alternative instead of simply the demand for full employment; when bobby sands died there was a move to get all the marchers to wear black armbands; there was continuous harrassment against the church by certain sections of the march. tb it is worth analysing what is meant by non-political because you talked about non-political in terms of non-political trade unionism and you talked about the peoples march as a non-political march now... pc non-party political.

The English Rising of 1381

What is remarkable is the way that their vision of a society of free and equal men and women fused with the ancient peasant demand for freedom of status and tenure, in the fomulation of a programme which, though entirely incapable of realisation, given the historical forces at work in the late middle ages, did challenge root and branch the ideas of the ruling class. however, whatever the grievances of craftsmen, journeymen, small free landowners and burgesses, the basic motive force of discontent and action is to be found in the landlord-tenant relationship, which was as much the defining relationship of feudal society, as the capitalist-wage earner relationship is of capitalist society — even though in both cases many elements seem to be outside that relationship.

The Forward Face of Feminism

types of organisations although i don't want to rigidly classify organisations and groupings which are continually changing and developing, illustrations of what i mean would include socialist feminist groups, conferences, and journals like red rag, feminist review and more recently women in action; groups of public sector workers such as the politics of health group, health fightback and groups in specific unions like nalgo and nupe, and the new journal critical social policy; the national housing liaison committee which brings together activists from tenants' groups, women's groups, ucatt branches and trades councils; several combine committees 3 and left groupings like the poeu, broad left; research, information and campaigning centres like the coventry and nottingham workshops and the network of such centres which has now been created. The extraordinary response, interest and enthusiasm shown by trade unionists to the plan for socially useful production first developed by the lucas aerospace combine committee; the success of the poeu broad left's campaign around alternative policies on new technologies; the four trades councils' inquiry into state intervention; 2 the growing involvement of industrial trade unionists in campaigns on nuclear power and  discussion environmental issues, and on the other hand the increasing involvement of socialist economists and other socialist academics with industrial trade unionists are all indications of this development.

The Forward Face of Feminism

For, over the last 10 years feminists haven't simply been underwriting traditional labour movement demands — for the right of women to work and for welfare services which enable women to enter paid employment — we have october 1980 15 also been looking at the quality of welfare services on offer, the relationship they have to womens' lives in general and not just to the lives of women as workers, and at the specific relationship of women to paid work.3 yet as the crisis develops and we begin to see something of the extent of the tories' reactionary programme, it is tempting for the left to abandon the lessons of 68, that socialism needs to be for something as well as against something, that it must involve people in its making rather than acting on their behalf, and to see feminism as a luxury, which in a period of retrenchment and recession we cannot afford. There is a real danger, too, that we will avoid the difficult task of defining socialism in relation to feminism and feminism in relation to socialism by creating a new, basically humanist movement which assumes a fundamental human unity between men and women, and which places the struggle against all social hierarchies, rather than the oppression of women as women, at its centre.

Education and the Right Offensive

The following could each form points of policy: (i) cease state subsidies to independent schools now running at some £60 to £80 millions a year, in the form of school fees paid to diplomats, military personnel, and etc, and instead provide boarding places within the maintained sector (many are already available); (ii) remove charitable status to endowed schools (as most independent schools are, especially the most prestigious such as eton and harrow), by which such schools are not subject to taxation; (iii) connected with this, remove the de-rating measures on independent schools, ensuring that they pay full rates; (iv) by act of parliament remove the power from local authorities to set up trust funds to finance pupils at independent schools. As greater proportions of the secondary school population in maintained schools were reorganised into comprehensive schools (30 per cent at the end of labour's 60s governments, 60 per cent at the end of thatcher's four years at the department of education and science to 1974, and now 82 per cent), and as initial enthusiasm and public support began to wane, no new perspectives for more radical educational change linked to social change were, or, within this ideology, could be advanced.

Heat from a small fire

But even before aussat was on air, the pitjantjatjara and warlpiri community operations had developed an easy-going style of local programming: they covered events in their area, like any other local station, but also started to use video in a process of 'cultural maintenance', recording stories (tjukurrpa), songs and ceremonies in the areas of country to which they referred.2 this wasn't a simple matter of heritage but a vital process reaching into the heart of cultural survival: re-infusing the landscape with their creation-myths in the act of singing, dancing and recording, reclaiming the country for the 'dreamtime' on video. i was in alice for a rather different purpose: making a documentary with an aboriginal media group for channel 4, about aboriginal television and video.1 the visit to the feature film location was a fascinating glimpse of how the other half lived - particularly interesting as some of the aboriginal people we had been working with on our programme had been hired as extras on the film.

Keyboard cowboys and dial cowgirls

In the other story, the immune system is depicted as a complex communication system, with several centres and peripheries where ongoing negotiations take place on the boundary between self and other: 'immunity can also be conceived in terms of the semi-permeable self able to engage with others (human and non-human, inner and outer).'1 donna haraway prefers the second story because it leaves the separation between self and other behind and offers instead a continual interaction between different elements, in which the boundaries between self and other, or between own and alien, are constructed and changed. And my scepticism about the heroic status of high technology grows when i see that a lot of activities done by women are hard to describe as high-tech.

How Wild is my Wilderness?

But, in detail, who does what and with which class and to whom?  110 the new reasoner i'm no expert on the middle east any more than on cuba; as it looks to me, both nasser and kassem spring from the lower middle class (military sub-division), both in some measure improve the lot of the masses by virtue of curbing the old rapacious imperialism, both therefore have the backing of the working-class such as it is. Blake taught us this, and engels himself recognised it when, on one of his many inconsistent moments, he talked of the triumph of a ' truly human' morality under communism - without asking, as macintyre has asked, how this conception consorted with a purely relativist and class theory of morality.

Nyasaland: The Case for Secession

(c) nyasaland alarmed at the failure of a cowardly british government to meet its obligations towards its african wards and that, instead of defending them, it connives at and condones the ruthlessness of a white minority in mowing down unarmed africans in their own country, shocked by the arbitrary mass arrests of african leaders and the suppression of the african political movement, the nyasaland african congress (and the zambia african congress of northern rhodesia) as well as the use of jet vampires in terrorising the villages, (1) appeals to the british people to condemn the disgraceful behaviour of their government which has brought shame to their country, and calls upon the british government to halt this wholesale massacre of africans and to punish those responsible for perpetrating these acts of barbarism contrary to the principles and objectives of the united nations charter and the universal declaration of human rights. documents 1. declaration adopted by the emergency meeting of the steering committee of the all-african peoples' conference held in conakry, on the 15th - 17th april, 1959: (1) in response to the urgent appeal of african nationalist leaders of nyasaland, the rhodesias and the belgian congo for aid and assistance against the brutal offensive of the forces of imperialism and colonialism let loose on the peoples in these territories, and conscious of our responsibility to our fellow african freedom fighters, the steering committee of the allafrican peoples' conference convened a special emergency meeting in conakry, guinea, on april 15th.

'Communist Social Democrats' in Kerala

The new reasoner spring 1959 number 8 international chronicle ' communist social democrats' in kerala for nearly two years the state of kerala has been governed by communists under the bourgeois-democratic federal constitution of india. minister of education joseph mundaseri, a political independent of catholic family, author of 20 books in kerala's malayalam language and a former college professor, said: ' the new textbooks put more stress on science and avoid mythology without condemning religion; none of our reforms differs substantially from those proposed by the previous (congress) government in its draft education bill.'

John Stuart Mill and E.O.K.A

mill took his stand upon two simple, but essentially revolutionary assumptions; first, that the rule of law means what it says, namely, that those who take human life or are guilty of any kind of felony or misdemeanour must account for their actions, whatever the provocation, before a civil court of law, and second, that within the wide area of empire where english political power is exercised and english law rules, there can be no distinction between the legal rights of subject peoples and the rights of citizens of the united kingdom. After the german occupation of europe (and the crimes which the german people " did not know about "): after kenya (and the crimes which we " did not know about "): after algeria (and the crimes which the french "do not know about"): after the publication of alleg's ' la question ' - how is it possible for the majority of her majesty's parliamentary labour party to accept without demurr the smooth official denials such as those of mr. lennox-boyd in the house of commons on november 4th: " as members will know, reports of ill-treatment on this and other occasions have been deliberately and systematically fabricated or exaggerated . . .

Anti-Semitism in Great Britain

If russian-israeli difficulties are exacerbated, the communist party here may follow suit, and it might bedifficult to distinguish anti-semitism from such antagonism against the opponent of anti-semitism and other racia] or religious prejudices, the fight led by the late mr. gaitskell on the commonwealth immigration act, even against some quiescent opposition within the party and a probable majority of opinion in jews in israel, like its foreign counterpart the communist party has difficulties because it pro- the country, is continuing evidence of this. Considerable difficulty was experienced during the war and for a few years following because of the publication in national and trade papers of legal cases affecting jewish traders and of delinquency in trade, a survey at the time showed that a jewish firm had three times as much chance of being reported in the press compared with a non-jewish firm charged with the same offence, discrimination in services, such as insurance, credit, advertising, hotel accommodation, does take place.

The Psychology of Persecution and Prejudice

Both their origins in his own exr ei th to ng ti bu ri nt co s ea id e os th d an , ce perien views persecution 5, : f o om fr d ve ri de s ha formation which he v' al aw l ful his ed ce ex must almost certainly ci spe © t. en em dg and capacity for acknowle oks “po 7 om’ rec to e lik instance i would t a n w s, or th au n ai rt ce to indebtedness of ity f o e ng ra a me to have conveyed d are un of pr 4 d an , ion vis 4 breadth of z v be t no d ul co i h ic wh t ou th wi , wisdom ude ‘~ cl in ey th l al 2 e. ; to attempt this lectur tue nature of prejudice. In the bib l e ( a c t s ‘ of of 68 oo told that god cre ated all nations o logi® ff he of man; and geneticists, a , r s _ a biologists, would agree that aa a tha” species; but they would als o ag cio? are a number of race s of that sp  david stafford-clark must presently consider the precise implications of this statement: but what is immediately tragically and painfully apparent is that this division into racial groups has from time immemorial been the focus of so much inherent antipathy, cruelty, rancour, arrogance, hatred, spite, and all that sheer uncharitableness which so often mars the relationship of human beings with each other.