I 30thJanuaI_')/.1981 anarchist B i Vol 42, No.2

THAT is the comment of J. Carter of Human Rights. This was c'alled after they had dropped their (Ex- President USA) on hearing ‘torture’. that some of the 52 Americans The,SundayWTimes prints a WeApr?d1%hat does Iran get out of re leased from Tehran had been comment fromian (uh-named) all this ? As President Bani-Sadr ill-treated. This involved things ‘Senior Official‘, that Carter said in his newspaper, they get like solitary confinement and instructed the State Department some of their own money back, sensory deprivation. Also, various ‘to focus all public attention on they get the lifting of sanctions, forms of psychological tnrture building up a wave of resentment which we re imposed only because such as blindfolding and then against the Iranians‘. A _ ' of the hostage-taking and they get clicking a rifle bolt. One was told And when all this disingen- a pledge that America will not that his mother had died (she uousness has been accounted for, interfere in Iran‘s affairs, which, hadn't). There was shoving and we ask ‘What do you expect ?‘ says the President, will satisfy hitting. Several had broken teeth. ‘Would all you spies please the ‘most naive and simple minded‘ R. Reagan (President USA) is come along and be our guests for And the Royal we alth, which helped ‘outraged’ at this treatment of a while ?' to start the whole thing ? They ‘prisoners of war‘ and ‘innocent haven't received a ‘dollar with a heroes‘. Howard Baker (Repub- It is wrong to hold hostages. hole in it‘ from the ex-Shahs lican Senate Leader) refers to It is wrong to mistreat them. It ‘degenerate family‘. ‘brutality, barbarism and is also wrong for these people to So Eni-Sadr gets some ammun- possibly even the atrocities. ‘ get sanctimonious about it. Why ition to use against his opponents. The western media is gene rally not leave that to the liberal press. And Iran gets to afford some real indignant. For example, those in Britain who ammunition for its war. These various people have not are now so shocked that the SAS And the Iranian people, what do giv en a definition to the treatment shot some of the Embassy seize rs they get ? t £1]-_ A given in Iranian prisons before the Revolution. This included whipping, electric shocks, burning, general mutilation and death. Before the Revolution, Iran was wk pmocmcywas//r A an ally of the USA. The American M 50/r/weAmy/we/an Embassy in Tehran was regional headquarters for the CIA. Ex- Ambassador Richard Helms used to be Director of the CIA, new Vice-President George Bush used /I/EVE’? em/aw wmx /r to be Director of the CIA. The /vz/M M!/527.5 techniques used by the CIA have 40rz/4¢g(/ been widely reported. William Daugherty, who was in solitary confinement in Tehran for 425 days, worked for the CIA . So did Malcolm Kalp (374 days). John Limbert (about nine months) <'__ says he didn't. His title was ‘Political Officer. ‘ L 41¢ The USA is currently supporting dictatorships in A rgentina, Bolivia, Chile, all sorts of places. It has just resumed military aid Iiyoucare... to El Salvador, after a fit of pique when 4 actual American AT an Extraordinary General Saturday, a new method of re lecting‘ citizens were killed. I> Meeting of the Labour Party at the leader of the Party was est- " The USA‘s ally, Great Britain, Wembley (more often the scene of -ablished. This meant the setting up has been found guilty of the use of important national events like the of an ‘Electoral College‘ rather sensory deprivation and similar football Cup Final, or visits from like that which elects a Pope, techniques by the European Court the Harlem Globe Trotters) last although it is not yet clearwhether a 2 FREEDOM

smoke will emerge from anybody's There are therefore many nice jobs ary Party. This week's special nostrils or chimneys to indicate to be handed out - Ministers for meeting was arranged to settle the that a decision has been reached. This and Chancellors for That - in procedure by which the Leader is ~ There are three main, recog-I the course of which many profitable to be elected. -nised, G parts of the Labour Party, contacts are made and many jolly Several balances of power viz: the ‘Constituency Parties‘ - good sensible, practical and . between the three sections of the which are the local branches of the pragmatic ideas can be absorbed. Party were proposed, and of * party throughout the country; the Not only, therefore, is a job in the course there was a lot of horse- Parliamentary Party -- the number Cabinet valuable in itself in terms dealing in smoke-filled hotel room of Labour Members of Parliament of salary, expenses, privilege and rooms. The one that carried the in the House of Commons at any power, but it opens doors to a safe day was immediately hailed by the one time; and the Trade Unions, future in the event of not winning a Press (which has had a jamboree which originally founded the Labour seat in an election. - lately about the extreme left Party in 1906 to represent the This is how it was in the good capturing the Party and that devil workers in Parliament (oh do stop old days before last Saturday. Tony Benn, etc, etc) with a part- laughing Z) which remain the main Now things are vastly different, icularly loud shriek about a Ieft source of money for the Party and so we are told. It had been decided triumph. which to this day still have the at the usual Annual Conference Do you know what it was ? It privilege of nominating candidates last A utumn that changes must be was a decision that gave 40 per for election, who almost certainly made in the procedure for electing cent of the votes in the Electoral go through on the nod, both for the Party's Leader and that the College to the Trades Unions, 30 nomination and in an election - for power to do that should be taken per cent to the constituency they are usually candidates in out of the hands of the Parliamen- partbs, and 30 per cent to the industrial areas offering safe Lab- -tary Party. This decision in itself Parliamentary Party. -our sea_ts. was enough to raise howls of pain The only way in which this can It is thus assumed that all A from the extreme mode rates of be construed as a victory for the members of trades unions are . the party who saw the move to Left is if you think of the Unions members of the Labour Party and - give greater control of their Mem- as leftish .‘ New it is true that so at party conferences union -be rs of Parliament to the rank and the structure of most unions and delegates are allowed to vote by file of the Party as a deep laid the apathy of most of their rank the block vote system, whereby plot by extreme extremists to and file membership makes it they simply raise their tmion card introduce Trotskyist dictatorship possible for ‘militants’ to sway and something like 1, 284, 976 by the back door. re solutions, just as the Trots votes may be recorded. You may Part of the joke of course is have been able to do in the const- think this gives the unions imm- that this is precisely what it is. ituency parties. . But in the -ense power, but since they are Since the four-way split in the old _ Unions, the Communist Party themselves as divided as any Revolutionary Communist Party in (Stalinist) have their infiltrators other family, their immense in the late forties (was it 19 48 ?) and ‘militants’ and there's no way block votes often cancel each other there has been a faction practising they will collaborate with the out. 'entryism‘ boring from within. You T rots in the local parties - so Party Conferences have the task cannot be a member of the Labour they cancel each other out. of drafting the Party Programme Party and any Bolshevik party as Anybody who proclaims the for the following year and, we ll, but the Trots are. careful Trades Union Cotmcil as ‘left’ together with the unions, as (unlike the Communist Party, for either wants their head examined aforesaid, this is where the instance) not to be a party. Trots or is looking for bogeymen. So, constituency parties come in. They love tendencies, so what they are really, the right of the party is pass motions, discuss, accept or is the Militant Tendency. still safe. But having shot their reject amen dments, go in for ln's1de the Party, general mouths off so strongly, the ‘Gang horse-dealing, etc, and vote dissatisfaction with increasingly of Four‘ (Shirley Williams, David according to the number of reactionary leaderships and the Owen, William Rodgers - joined members in their branches. Pot- patently undemocratic structure now by Roy Jenkins, fresh back from ential candidates will certainly of the party have given the Mili- a cushy job in Brussels) have got vote along with their contituency -tants their opportunity to bring to make their own arguments stand parties - but actual Members of pressure to bear from below in up - so they are in process of Parliament are not so likely to do favour of changes giving the rank ‘(forming another ‘Centre’ party. so because: and file more control of their MPs. A ll this by way of a caption for The Parliamentary Party is a Smug establishment figures like the cartoon on Page 1 showing law unto itself. Once a Member is Shirley Williams re acted hotly William Rodgers, left, and David in the House he becomes a Rep- against the very suggestion that Owen, ex- Foreign Minister in the -resentative. That is, he represents MPs should be expected to face last Labour Government, who the contituency in the House. All their own supporters every elect- faithfully maintained his support the constituency, including tn6§ ion time and be reassessed for re- for the Shah of Iran after the who voted against him in the elect- election - a fairly mild and sober Iranians had toppled him from -ion which put him the re . He does suggestion you might think. his vile dictatorship and right up not therefore always follow the Anyway, to cut a long and to the time the Shah fled the party line. boring (sic) story short, a cotmtry with all that money. Owen Further, this numerically small resolution on re-selection was proved himself more faithful to section of the Party has the power passed last year, as also was one the Shah in adversity than he has to elect the Party leader - making the choosing of the Party's .- to the Labour Party. If you care leader a matter for the whole about such things, that must tell C The Party Leader also has the you something. ' _P_.f_‘,_ power to elect his own Cabinet. Party and not only the Parliament- FREEDOM 3

ion and to resist. (Of com-se we also support those who do their time and want to get out as soon as poss- Solidarity First ible, by writing letters and sending‘ BE LFAST Ararchist Collective courts. We have outlined these be- books). , l reply to the FREEDOM editorial on fore and so would now like to deal You seem horrified at the prospect political status (vol. 41, no. 25). with the points you raise. of Scottish, Welsh, Asians, blacks In this editorial arguments are put You say that special status should and women demanding political status forward against anarchist support become general, and how could an- if they were imprisoned. Of course for special or political status being archists disagree? Given the limitat- they shouldn't be imprisoned in the awarded to specific groups of 1x-is- 1 ions of om‘ size and the nature of first place, but if they choose to oners, as opposed to the “demand prisons here we try to encourage defy the label of criminal and resist for self-organisation for all who the politicisation of all class prison- within the prison system we should wish it". _ ers. But given the surgence of opp- support that resistance. If they osition by republicans inside the limit their protest to their own ex- jails against the label crimiml and periences, the question for anarch- IT WAS GOUD to see your issue of the authority of the British state, ists_.,after giving solidarity, is to 20 December lake seriously the help generalise that protest and to problems of repression and political and given that state's reaction, we responded by supporting the prison- help make it non-recuperable - status. In the context of a hunger which is more likely if it remains strike and mounting tension, we ers. As we all know, struggle is not uniform but breaks out in different sectional. were disappointed in you originally - areas and in different ways. We will We do not suggest the struggle commenting glibly, in less than a here is ‘more important than the column, upon another article. This not help to generalise that struggle by ignoring instances of specific than the war against patriarchy or led us to react angrily. However, racism‘, and that one is supported you have now given much thought and and sectional protest. ,1 You mention the ‘prisoner of war‘ at the expense of the other. They due space to the question of political . and other areas are part of the overt- status and we would like to reply. demand and the elitist nature of pol- itical status. Pow has appeared all nature of'British and West Eur- The north of Ireland is not in a regularly and Féileete the en-inst opena slates. For the last six mon- revolutionary situation - it is in one ths the level of protest and counter- of severe I‘e[1‘8SSi0n because the nature of republicanism, but we support (and have made it clear) insurgency has reached a critical existence of this slate is being quest- stage here. Its intensity left us no ioned. (We realise it is not the nat- the prisoners on the basis of our opposition to the criminalisation choice but to put most of our energy ure of the state per se. that is being policies. We have no illusions about into that struggle. We believed you challenged, but its excesses, injust- a war of ‘Ireland v. England’, since in Britain should also have support- ices). We are faced with the prob- this would be a war of slate against ed it. lem of resisting that repression. Just a short comment on your It is not only the IRA, INLA etc. slate, and we reject the concept of the state. While nationalism plays first page article ‘British Army - who face constant harassment, a domimnt role in the ideology, Out’. It is not only the future you murder, etc. but all those who re- organisation and methods of resist- must fear, but the reproduction of o fuse to accept the legitimacy of ance, the reasons for opposition to imperialist values in everyday life. British sectarian rule. The fact that there has been no sub- One of the most important ele- British rule are based on its injust- ices and repression. Republicanism stantial protest to the presence of ments in counter -insurgency has been is the dominant ideology because it the British Army in the north is an the criminalisatlon of opposition - indication of the success of that especially through use of the Diplock is to the forefront in attacking the source of injustice - the sectarian reproduction. If it is not challenged m slate. now, maybe the British state won't WORKERS WANTED need to use the army against ‘its Anarchists (as we point out: eds) FREEDOM needs skilled or semi- don't decide "to champion one lo_tT>f own people’. , skilled building workers of nearly Finally we would like to thank prisoners as special against another. those groups and individuals who an Skills, Some expenses available. For a start they are not in a posit- replied to our circular and did supp- Ring 01-247-9249. ion to ‘sit in judge ment', but support ort work in the form of stickers, Mon, Thurs eves, Tues, Wed all those who resist and encourage oth- day. posters, videos, meetings, etc. ers to become aware of their posit- BAC‘

q._

WILDCAT ° T3929.‘ 9i?"::°{:id"§ P°°““‘:" AA, \.“‘|>,[1HEAR.' %,fAA,A fortunately {Er mji istjgritatty; 'i.+§Z°.§'1§.',§.IY-... .i'i‘§.§.'l§’.§..=, ' "’ a'""°me '5“ 8 em°m'. "?7 ‘L when it's in their favour!!! AM-’ “AAA! SAM! AAA, B ‘MM 7 5444 ;\4_,_ 3:?‘ . 1| fl 35%! I EQAAI BAAA; BA44 B,qA;(§ .

‘ "l\’ \ i 5A5A! BA‘ gahhi 8AfiAi C A! BAAAF BA A 3AAA! eAAA!

f

_-f (k -if 4% .. __q__ ‘:;‘

Rwfik 5 E

l-at 4 FREEDOM r p Libertarian Scapegoats See also Octavio Alberola's letter manager) Giscard and Peyrefitte lift the lid in FREEDOM, 1'7 January. - Pierre Guiber (teacher of of fascism in the name of democ-

1 -Q-Q-ii t Physics) racy.- Unable to bring the abduct- BETWEEN the 19th and 30th - Daniele Haas (student) ors to their theatre of the Assises, January, Paris will see the beg- After the release of Suarez they throw out their stinking net hming of the trial of 10 libert- (Paris director of the Bank of into the air and bring in (where arians, charged seven years ago, Bilbao, who was abducted on 3 May have we seen this before ?) symp- in 1974. They are charged with 1974), these ten were arrested in athisers, friends, courageous being found vaguely connected with t France. They were detailed for activists of ‘Guilt Unknown‘. The anti- Franco activitie s, activitie s periods ranging from 2 to 9 months name is security and liberty - the claimed, in fact, by GARI (Inter- Those charged have their different game the mobilisation of an opp- national Revolutionary Act ion qualities and points in common: ressive force to make a land fit Group) which had as its immediate differences in age, nationality and for whom ??? The bowed and broken aim to prevent this last European political committment - some are We call on all readers to stir all dictator from killing other mili-- militant libertarians of long-e stab- support for the 10 accused. Letters tants, after the assassination of lished organisations. Some are of solidarity may be sent to: Comité the Catalan anarchist, Salvador with CNT (anarcho- syndicalists), de Solidarité avec les Inculpés Puig Antich. FIJL (Iberian Federation of Yotmg anti-franquiste s, Anne-Marie The accused have been at lib- Libertarians), solidarity committ- Agurre, Cercle Garcia Lorca, erty for seven years, but now, in -ees for Latin American refugees - 15, rue Gracieuse, 75005 Paris. the name of the sacred democracy others define themselves as libert- To organise the publication of of France, are due to experience arian commtmists, outside any texts, posters and other propag- again French prisons. They incl- established anarchist movements. anda to counter the distortions, ude two Spaniards, one Scottish Others are friends of the militants hysteria and lies of the internation- girl, five French girls and two A s for points in common; whether al establishment press will take Frenchmen. Plus one Frenchman, militants or sympathise rs, they all substantial ftmds, so please send who has- since died. . . . abhor totalitarianism in all forms. any donations to the same address. -Octavio Albe rola (printing They are part of an international The task of turning public opinion editor of 'Quotidie_n de Paris’) com rade ship and solidarity, who, against these shameful mock trials -A riano Gransac-Sadori during Franco's reign published and all forms of judicial oppression (painter) illegal pamphlets, posters and must take priority if we are to -Lucio Urtubia (tile r) hooklets. The accused, according expose the all-pervasive rottermess - Anne Urtubia (lab assistant) to the French paper BAS TA, are and obscene the atricality of judicial - Jean Helen Weir (nurse) guilty of one thing only - of failing processes and all they claim to - Chantal Chastel to denounce their comrades to the Protectand Defend- military police . - Georges Riviere (compositor) I111 -Annie Plazen (press circulation Now, with the present trial, = 5L... \ now knows the addresses of well over 100 throughout the country. The Southgate Gazette of the lltln Direct tion 0!!? of December carried a story IN recent weeks, fur shops in Circus ha ve also been broken. headlined ‘Militant animal lovers various parts of London have had by the-A. L.F. in the past few threaten traders’. The article» their windows broken by A. L. F. weeks. mentioned that several A. L. F. activists. Other fur shops have Just after Christmas, several» members have been jailed in the had their locks stuck up with dogs were rescued by the A. L.F. recent gnst for breaking into _ superglue in order to hamper their from a vivisection laboratory in laboratories using animals in ex- despicable trade. Fur shops and North London. Some had undergone periments and rescuing animals butchers’ shops in Brighton have experiments and needed treatment from factory farms. also had their windows smashed from a sympathetic vet, but all A Chipperfieldsifircus spokes ~ by the A. L.F. have now been found good homes -man was quoted as saying that he The windows of several shops in in various parts of the country. did not expect shopkeepers who Enfield, Middx., that were dis- As you probably read in the displayed circus pos hers to ‘bow’ playing posters advertising national press, very early in the to this threat from the militant Chipperfields Circus have recent- morning of Sunday January 4th., animal lovers. ly been smashed by A. L. F. A. L.F. activists painted slogans _ "If I know the London Shop- activists. This was because the on the houses and cars of vivisect- -keeper he will tell them where to circus has performing animals -ors in~Oxi'Ord, Cambridge and go. They will not be dictated to by which are often trained by cruel London. Vivisectors in many other a long haired bunch of thugs. " methods to perform degrading parts of the country also had their Some shopkeepers have declared tricks, and kept confined in smal-1 cars and houses minted, but these- that they would take the posters cages for most of the time. Shop- incidenis were-not reported by the down rather than suffer the cost of keepers had been warned to take national media. Vivisectors paying for repairs to damaged shop down the posters a week before usually try to keep their home fronts. ~ ' e the attacks. Shops in Wandsworth addresses secret, but through Moral .3’ careful intelligence work A. L. F. displaying posters for’Da vid Smart's Lyenne FREEDOM 5 -nu, rda i

INCREDIBLE as it may seem (at sa the bomb exploded; the testimony The new threat to Valireda came least t0 those who are not entirely of a former army lieutenant who cynical) Pietro Valpreda, the Italian in the closing speech of the public claimed that during his military prosecutor,Domenico Porcelli, at anarchist, has been once more acc- service Valpreda had been a homb- used of responsibility for the ‘mas- the appeal proceedings at Caianzaro maker; the testimony of people in last December. While requesting sacre of Piazza Fontara' which took a Roman bar who claimed to have place llyears ago in Milan. He is a confirmation of the original sent- seen him there on the evening of‘ ences for 20 out of 26 people now threatened with a life sentence. the 13th or 14th December, just For those inthis country who may convicted in connection with the after the massacre, thus contradic- massacre, including Treda, Ventura not have heard of him, Valpreda was ting a defence alibi that he had a member of an arerchist group _ and the SID agent , Gianetti, Porcelli spent that time with relatives and also accused Valpreda of being called '22 March’ which, on testim- friends in Milan. ony which has never been anything ‘effectively responsible‘ for the These pieces of evidence had bombing, and asked that he be but dubious, was implicated in the been discredited while Valpreda was massacre. Fourteen people were given a life sentence. stillawaiting trial. It was iound The new threat to Valtreda is killed On that December day inl9~’59. that Rolandi's description of his also, of course, far more than The murder of the azrtrchist passenger bore no relation to Val- Giuseppe Pinelli,who was 'defenest- just that, as anarchists in Italy p.reda's appearance, that he had been have pointed out. At a press con- rated’ from the window of a Milan shown a picture of Valpreda while police station while being questioned ference held by the anarchist in the police station and put under 'Circolo Ponte de lla Ghisolfo', in connection with the massacre, some pressure to incriminate him. Luciano Lanza of 'A'-rivista an- has become well known through There were also discrepancies in archica, declared: ‘This press Dario Fo's well known play Death of an Anarchist. Valizmeda languish- conference has many analogies 1 with the one held here 11 years ago ed in irison for four years awaiting on 1'7 December '69. We stated that trial, but was released after the Valireda was innocent and Pinelli examining magistrates in Milan and hail been murdered, and that the Catanzaro {scene of the dial, when massacre was a massacre of the it at last began) agreed that there slate. You sand‘ we were raving; was insufficient evidence to send Ianag only after our camrnign of counter him to trial. By then the work of information did you realise that certain examining magistrates - Fl“ the anti.-anarchist manoeuvring was notably Alessa ndrini, who was rec- a massive invention with which to ently murdered oy the left-wing attack the revolutionary movement group Prima Linea - had unearthed and the left. Now procuratore evidence of the involveme nt in the ge nere le Porce lli"v'T5.nts to conceal massacre of a fascist group and, the responsibility of the slate beyond that, of the Italian state apparatus by putting the blame on security service, SID, which has Va lpreda once more. . . ' since been disbanded (but replaced In a statement to the Italian of course by another). Valpreda in his original trial in 1971 Anarchist Federation he invited, As evidence of fascist and state ‘all democrats, all workers, all involvement accumulated it became the" rest ol"Rolandi's statement __ those who have fought on the street more difficult to maintain the case concerning the length of time Val- or in the press during the last 11 against the '22 March’ anarchists. preda was supposed to have been in ye ars to reveal the truth about the The prosecution argued, however, the taxi and the colour of the bagin State Massacre to mobilise at once, that this group had been infiltrated which he was alleged to have carried and decisively, to prevent the final by members of a fascist cel1,and the bomb. blow to the remnants of liberty in that they became the (albeit unwitt- Valmeda also denied that he had this country: the liberty of Pietro ing) tools of fascist strategy. been a maker of explosives in the Valireda, the truth about ‘Piazza (According to this, successive mass- army and the written evidence of Foniana' are fundemenlal liberties; acres would so enrage people against this turned out to have been forged. beyond these this arrogant regime the left that the Christian-Democrat He also produced defence witnesses would no longer findany effective led regime,in power since the war, to confirm that he had spent the day obstacle to the crushing of a left would be irre parably discredited of the 12th December (day of the which, in its political and intellect- and a right-wing coup generally massacre) at his aunt's house,and - ual struggles on account of the acceptable.) remained in Milan on the days imm- State Massacre, has succeeded Concrete evidence against Val- ediately afterwards. not only in defeating the various , meda consists inthe main of the Other prosecution arguments authoritarian endeavotms and con- following points:- have also never been substantiated. spiracies but, above all, in defend- 1. The testimony of Cornelio And the fact that no new evidence - ing those areas of liberty firstly Bola ndi,a taxi driver who claimed has been produced makes the pres- from fascism and then from to have driven him to a place near ent situation all the more astonish- Christian Democracy. ' the Banca dell'Agricoltura where ing. GAIA QFREEDOM

main aim of the new document app- 0’/T/5 7//.1;évveo//wan/T3’ ears to make sure that as many of M7] T0avcoumae us are buried as well as dead /7% MK 6/T/25¢/S DIY Tombs when our rulers come out of their 731M540 MELMW FOLLOWING the fiasco of the deep shelters to continue to rule now withdrawn Protect and Sur- /M/Y MAP€0P5€ the society they have conspired to we/1‘Z’w~-w-/1' vive pamphlet, I have it on very j/0ppg5g(,F-64%‘!/5' good authority that the government decimate. N0 doubt somebody will is preparing what is thollght to be make a mofit on these plans /A/6A5e’u/£1‘//V? Apart from the 1mpOSblb1€ att- warm» - a more plausible successor to - /vactgmd 14/AK’ that inept and damning document . empt to achieve the impossible in There are going to be illustrated defence against nuclear attack, plans on how to build an A frame this will not contemplate such a - shelter in your back yard, that is desperate waste of life and res- ources and that is the development N/\-3I;L/ of course if you have a yard. If not tvnnusrsa \ however, perhaps it could go in of the amrchist theories of respon- sibility and self gover nment. your cellar, or sitting room. The ~i AA. I161‘'- tart THE ARTICLE 'Kilner Squat: The to be answered. It is true that the ity stunt‘ for the woman with five End‘ (FREEDOM 17/1/81) is so press (and supporters) were kids who had previously been sharing inaccurate, so gloatingly negative ‘regaled' with ‘political slogans‘ on two rooms with her sis’uer?For the and its emphasis so misplaced that the morning of the Sheriff's visit. alcoholics and other social outcasts? the significance of what were three They were also 'regaled‘ with facts For those who lost much needed pay months of hard (and successful) on the housing crisis. We thought (and some their jobs) for taking struggle is entirely lost. As er. this was more relevant than, say, time off work to keep the squat . active participant in that struggle giving a weather forecast or sing- rinming? I must reply to correct the obvious ing ‘Rule Britannia‘. His statenent Oh ye s, it was just a fucking errors in the article and make clear that ‘on one occasion almost every- spiffing wheeze, old man. A jolly the many positive aspects of the body in Kilner went for a drink in jape to pass the time of day. biggest piece of direct action in the pub‘ is a ‘slight’ exaggeration. The authors grasp of the present housing for years. Certainly some people went for a level of social misery, its causes drink, but at a time when evictions and consequence s, leaves much to The author gets even the basic never occur, in the evening. At all be desired. In order to make his details of the eviction wrong. Let highly selective version of events me correct them. The eviction times during that Week the gate was well staffed and many people appear substantial he deliberately began at 6.50 am. not 7.50 am. ignores the reasons behind and the The gate was ripped off by chains remained in the block throughout. To ensure that the gate was staffed nature of the three months struggle attached to the lorry, not bulldozed and concentrates his attention on down by the lorry. The re were permanently and that other necess- ary tasks were carried out some the final hectic week, just like a three arrests not two, one being Fleet Street hack. It is the job of for an offence for which the bloke people from behind the barricades went down (at specific times and the bourgeois media to reproduce arrested was already wanted.(Four under controlled conditions) to help bourgeois ‘reality’. He reproduces arrests if you COUI1t the press the bourgeois media with a spectacle photographer who was re leased out. It's called mutual aid. Had he attended the meetings that week he of his own making. And you all without charge after half an hour.) would have known all this. thought that satire was dead, didn‘t One of the arrests was under you folks? Section 10 of the Criminal Law Act The author then goes to great Elsewhere in the article (and 1977 (the criminal tresspass section) lengths to show that the squat was again with his lens voyeuristically This is significant as its use has some kind of game. He writes, concentrated on the final week) he yet to be regularly established. 'Kilner was definately a theatrical says, 'Kilner House then was never event above all else‘ and 'Kilner Other pertinent facts omitted are: primarily to provide accomodation the cops came in through the back House was a great publicity stunt for homeless people, but was in and that is all’. fence too, thus executing an attack existence to make political capital from both sides. The press were Was it a ‘theatrical event ' to out of the decision of the Tory GLC also forced out of the courtyard seize an entire block of .60 flats of to sell the flats. ‘ But at that time and beyond the police cordon so as public housing to prevent its sale to Kilner could not have been a viable not to witne ss anything the police private tenants at a time when the re form of accomodation as the ‘blue’ saw fit to do. It is not at all sur - is a huge housing shortage? A ‘the.- invasion was imminent. He himself prising that your corre spondants atrical event‘ for the 200 and more was no longer resident at that stage. version is so botched up as he was people who had a warm, comfortable And moaning about making ‘political busy sleeping elsewhere when the home at various times during those capital‘ out of the GLC‘s decision eviction took place. three months? For those who imm- to sell the flats is akin to George His thinly veiled ridicule in his ediately before coming to Kilner Tremlett‘s whining about us being brief description of the events had been sleeping in cardboard ‘political activists‘. (Tremlett is from the Sheriff's visit on the .5th boxes? For the battered wives that the Fuhrer of the GLC Housing to the eviction on the 9th needs also took refuge there? Was it a ‘public Policy Committee.) When the organising of the squat an attack on any government or message even further afield. Many is discussed in the article (wten it party which ‘forces through anti- people actuaily enjoyed living there, is discussed) it is claimed that it social housing policies. It is as yet especially the kids, and sound . was carried out by the London in its infancy and forthcoming events working relationships we re‘ e stab- Squatters Union (LSU). The author will test whether or not these aims lished which will prove useful in the knows that liilner was organised can be adhered to and whether or not future. And, of course, Kilner House by the inhabitants with help from a conditions will favour an extension is now almost certain to remain few outside supporters only one of of such organised squatting into public property. To call the squat whom was associated with the LS U. other areas.More, much more, a defeat is to view it through a Decisions we re made at general active commitment is needed. Ne lsonian eye-piece. . meetings which, considering the In the same paragraph in which The concluding sentiments of the circumstances, were the most he dismisses the campaign he is in article are, on the whole, short- practical and fair manner of running such a hurry to show that ‘workers’ sighted. The criteria given for a the squat. Tasks were voiuntee red (his contemptuous inverted commas) successful squat - to defeat the for or openly delegated and constant ‘couldn‘t give a fuck about squatters‘. establishment and retain posse sion report-backs made to meetings . that he falls over the facts which he — are admirable. But, in the case It is on this very point of organ- himself cites. He grudgingly acknow- of Kilner, impossible. In these terms isation that he could have made some ledges that unions and individual only by reversing the high court constructive criticism. But no, he workers supported the squat thereby judge ‘s ode scision or by fighting off prefers to mock and evades any guaranteeing two of the three basic 500 ‘cops’ armed with riot sheilds, discussion of the problems that necessities he lists in his conclusion- crowbars and sledgehammers arise when 150 disparate and desp- shelter and warmth, but he does so could we have succeeded. But we arate people with conflicting aims only to illustrate that these acts of were not a People's Court, nor a and different levels of political solidarity are somehow the except- People ‘s Militia (alas and alack) . awareness come together under ions that prove his rule. Such acts And in making this point he ove r- pressure in a politically sensitve should not be spat upon but should looks the many squats of longstanding mass squat. My main criticism is be latched onto, publicised and in London which have done precisely of the slow but sure evolution of an extended to show what can be ach- what he desires, defeat the estab- unofficial leadership, the most ieved when you try har'd'e_nough. It lishment and retain posse sion. For serious consequence of which was is a sickening truth that many example within a stone's throw of abad breakdown in communication individual squats have their services Kilner there are St. Agnes Place at the time of the first expected cut off (and not only squats -- mark and Villa Road, not to mention whole eviction(mid- November). This led the nature of the ‘Right To Fuel‘ swathes of Lambeth which have been to some unpleasant mornents from campaign), but this again points to squatted for years. which I hope everyone involved the need for squatters to not let themselves be isolated but to i ' Then he asks the naive question, learned something. This is perhaps ‘Why can't London be like Amster- the problem of organising re sist- awaken to their situation and to accept the responsibility of their dam or Berlin?‘. The answer is ‘sses to capital - how best to simple. Because it isn‘t Amster- demonstrate tothe uncommited that act of property by organ- ising themselves, propagating their dam or Berlin. It's London. It has if they want an end their oppression its own social history , its own they have to act and act for them- case and broadening the movement by establishing contacts in those specific location within the global selves. The imfortunate fact at domination of capital and its own Kilner was that there was so much are as whe re they are needed. The fragmented nature of squatting squatting movement, whose task it pressing work to do, so little time is to get on with the struggle here in which to do it, and not enough militates heavily against this, but this is the situation that presents and now. Of course where exper- people to do it that these problems iences can be exchanged internat- couldn't be adequately tackled. Even itself before us at this moment of capitalist decay and we can either ionally they will be. To this end a so, I think events have shown that visit to London by Dutch squatters the organisation at Kilner was, on ' tackle it or retreat before it. At Kilner we tackled it and were has been arranged through the good the whole, equal to the tasks which offices of the LS U, 21st February confronted us. largely successful. There were also other positive at the South Bank Polytechnic, The comments on the ‘Squat aspects of the squat which don't Elephant and Castle, London. After Against the Cuts‘ campaign (now get a mention in the article. Inex- Kilner we've got a lot to share with re-formed as ‘Squat Against Sales‘) perienced people came to Kilner them. should have been given more thought and passed on to other squats at Theory §n__d Practice, so as to situate the campaign in its least a shade more confident about proper context. As its title clearly how to handle attacks from the SHERLOCK HOLMELESS shows, the campaign does not cover authorities. Seven families and 44 Next LSU meeting: i all aspects of squatting but focuses single people are to be rehoused ..'7pm. Sun. 1stFeb , attention on a more easily contest- permanently by Lambeth Council. 48 William IV St. able area of the housing struggle Of the extensive media cove rage WC2 i the better to facilitate a more virtually all of it was positive organised and visible form of direct compared to the usual muck on _‘~ii_1' action. In terms of numbers it is squatters. After the eviction it was a sm all part of the squatting move- Our letters page has been the Police that were given abad scrapped for this issue, owing to ment. In terms of organisation, press, always a help.» There were consciousness and activity it at the perennial problems with our few arrests at the end. Kihier has typewriters. We apologise to our the moment the most able squatting inspired groups elsewhere to plot v group. It is not only convenient for correspondents} their letters = along the same lines and the Kilner should appear in the next issue. an attack on the Tories but also for Video project will help get the *— ?' 1}- ; ' _ ' Di=stribute_cl in Britain F . hhgdmq _ _ _ by A Distribution, _ _ 7 _ l4b‘WllI'l‘lC!lAIlI. man smut 182 Upper Street, Is- 3 - ' - FONDON El "mm OM47 9:-*9 1 H.118‘? 011, London N1 .

AUSTRALIA CANADA BE LGIUM Research and Resources Centre Open Road, Box 6135, Station G, Rev olutionair Anarchistie s Kollekt ief for- Libertarian Politics and Alt- Vancouver, B.C. (RAK) Oudburg 47, 9000, Gent. ernative Lifestyles, 7/355 North-- Black Cat Press, Post Office-Box FRANCE 0 ' more ~Avenu_e, Lyneham, A.C.T 11261, Edmonton, Alberta. i Federation anarchiste francaise, - 2602. USA 145 rue Amelot, 75011 Paris, A Black Ram, Post office Box 238, Malicious Hooligans(anti-nuclear), Telephone (33).1. 805 34 08. Darlinghurst, NSW, Z010- 1110 W 2nd Street, Tern Pe ' Ariz 0113-, (Groups throughout France . Disintegratorl Post Office Box 2.90, 85281. Union Anarchiste, 9 rue de 1'Ange,_ Bondi Junction, Sydney. Autonomia, Post Office Box 1751, 63000 Clermont Ferrand. I, Sydney Anarcho-Syndicalists, Jura San Francisco, California, 94101. ITALY ' Books Collective, 417 King Street, Libertarian Anarchist Cgffeehguse D Autogestione, Caselle postalel7l27, Newtown, NSW Z~4Z- meets last Sunday each Month at 1-20100 Milano. _ Libertarian Socialist Organization, Cafe Commons, 3l6l_Mission GruppoHem Day, Giovanni Trapani, Post office Box 268, Mount Gravatt, Street, San Francisco. Central, 4122, Queensland. Soil of Liberty, Box 7056, Powder- CP6130, Roma-Prati. Self Management Organization, horn Station, Minneapolis, 55407. UOS, c/o Marco Paganini, CP 1496. Post Office Box 332, North Quay, Columbia Anarchist League, post 50100, Firenze. - Queensland. QfflC6 BOX 380, Cglurnbja, Miss- HOLLAND i 1 La Trobe Libertarian Socialists, ourL 65201. A De Vri_;e, Postbus 6103, G1-oningen.'= c/o SRC, La Trobe University, Libertarian Book Club, Box 842, Anarchistiese Boekhandel Slager- Bundoora, Victoria, 3083. GPO New York, 10012. zicht (Anarchist Bookshop), Fo1k—' Monash Anarchist Society, c/ o SRAF/Free space Alternative U, ingestraat 10, Groningen. Monash University, Clayton, 339 Lafayette Street, New York DENMARK _ Victoria, 3168. City, 1,4312. Aarhus:Regnbuen Anarkist Bogcafe, Libertarian Workers for a Self Houston SRAF, South Post Oak Meijlgade 48, 8000 Aarhus. Managed Society, Post Office Box Station, Post Office Box 35253, Copenhagen:Anarkistisk Bogcafe, 20, Parkville ,Victoria, 3052. Houston, Texas, 77035. Rosenborggade 12, 1130 Kgbenhavn K Chummy Fleming Bookshop, 26 FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY. Rainbow Anarchists of the Free City Regent Arcade, 210 Toorak Road, Schwarzer Gock1er(B1ack Cockerel), of Christiania, c/o Allan Anarchos, South Yarra, Victoria. (Bookshop c/o A Muller, Postfach 4528, 7500 Tinghuset, Fristaden Christiania, of the Libertarian Workers.) 14317 Copenhagen. Freedom Collective, Post Office Karlsruhe. " NORW'AY Box 14, Mount Hawthorn, Western Graswurzel (Grass Roots) c/o W Anorg, Hoxtedtv. 31B, 1431 As. Australia, 6160. Hertle, Grozerschippsee 28, 21 Hamburg 90. (publish 'Folkebladt' quarterly.) _ Libertarian Resource Centre, Post Schwarzer Faden (Black Thread), SWEDEN Office Box 203, Fremantle, Western Australia. Obere Wiebermarktstr3, 741 Syndikalist Forum, Tenstiernas Reutlingen. Gata 51, 11631 Stockholm. Tasmania - c/o 34 Kennedy Street, Syndikalistiskt Forum (anarcho- Launceston, 7250. Libertad Verlag, 6br Schmuck, Postfach 153, 100*; Berlin 44, . syndicalist bOO1ANARCHY in Belgium Tayside Anarchists Public Meeting RuC1iOACflV6 -Anarchist Radio - to be held on Saturday and Sunday Thursday 5th February 7pm at the broadcasting in North London on 21st and 22nd February in Gent on Wellgate Conference Room, Dundee. Sunday February lst at 6pm on the theme ‘Strategy for the 80s‘. ‘Obedience Causes War‘. 93. OMHZ VHF FM. Subjects include the anti-nuclear movement, feminism, syndicalism and occupation of factories, the Sub. Rates NUMBER TWELVE squatting move - ment , the anti- A NA KCHISM militarist movement, youth and INLAND...... £8 unemployment, as well as films, OVERSEAS LA NCASTKIUM theatre, poetry, bookstalls and Surface mail Father Cunlafles shocking account ofAnarchist cheap food and drink. The events Canada ...... C$22.50 sexuality: We name the names - How to be a will take place at the Blandijnberg USAIQOIQIIOOIIIOOOIOIIUS$20I00 Airmail Shop Steward - The Distraction Factor - God- University Complex, Gent B:lgium. Alarmingly illustrated...... Austra1asia...... *...£10.50 Accommodation can also be arr- anged. For more information Europe...... £9.00 12p. (l8p. p&p) (blank P.O.’s only) contact Revolutionair Anarchisties Canada...... C$28.00 APPLICATION USA...... 3...... US$25.O0 Doreen Frampton SRN Kollektief (RAK) Oudburg 47, 24 Conway Ave. Clitheroe Lancafiire. 9000, Gent, Belgium. Prisoners Free, Anmchisl 30th January, 1981 Vol 42 N0. 2

a d th

GEORGE ORWELL died in 1950. he had become famous with ' the publication of Animal Farm in l9U5, and much more famous with the publication of Nineteen Eighty—Four in l9H9. But he was too ill to enjoy his fame,*and he died of tuberculosis at the age of U6. Since then, he has grown steadily more and more famous, and after becoming a classic in his own life he has how become a name known by virtually everyone who reads at all. Almost all his books have been continually reprinted, and most of his shorter writings have also been coh- veniently reprinted in the four—volume Collected Sssaysi Journalism and Letters. Of all modern writers, in fact, he is one of the easiest to get hold of; he is also one of the easiest to get to grips with, for all his work has a style and structure which are so spare and simple and a personality and purpose which are so peculiar and powerful that introduction and explanation are virtually unnecessary. In a way, then, there is no need to read about Orwell at all, only to read Orwell; but this hasn‘t stopped many people writing about him. . There have been many studies of his work, but few .1.- are more than useful and most are less than useless. Orwell himself asked that no biography should be written, and none appeared for more than twenty years. But again, there have been many studies of twice as full as his and they have used a few sources 1 his life, the most valuable material being personal he hasn't; but it will certainly become the standard reminiscences by some of the people who knew him, 1 biography. 3 nearly all the rest being valueless or worse. Apart from sheer ignorance and irrelevance, one major prob- ‘ The book was widely reviewed when it was published lem was always that Orwel1's widow, whom he married last November, and little would be gained by further just before his death and who controlled both his general comments at this time in this place; but it copyright and his papers, refused to allow either a will be.interesting and may be useful to consider one full account of his work with all the necessary particular aspect of Orwell's life and work which is quotations or a full account of his life with all the obscure but which the appearance of Crick's book makes. necessary information. This frustrating situation clearer than before -— his relationship with anarchism changed in 1972, when the first instalment of a two; and anarchists. In such a case -- and there are of volume study of Orwe1l's early life by Peter Stansky course several others, including Shelley, William and William Abrahams managed to be at the same time Norris, Oscar Wilde, Edward Carpenter, E. M. Forster, so detailed and so dreadful that Sonia Orwell at last Herbert Read, and so on -- there is no point in going, authorised a proper biography by Bernard Crick, pro- too far in either direction, in saying either that fessor of politics at Birkbeck College, London, and Orwell was essentially an anarchist all the time or a well-known democratic socialist and literary that he never had anything to do with anarchism. In journalist. Orve1l's case, the former mistake is made, for example, The result, which was published eight years later by Julian Symons, the writer who was associated with as George Orwell: A Life (Seeker & Warburg, £10), is anarchists during the Second World War and has remained by far the best book yet on Orwel1's whole career. sympathetic to anarchism ever since, and who'was a close Crick's most obvious advantage is that he is the friend of Orwell. In an article in the London Magazine first person to have complete freedom of quotation (September 1963), he first drew public attention to from the whole of Orwe1l's published and unpublished Orwe1l's own association with anarchists at the same writings and of access to the whole of the Orwell time, but he went on to argue that Orwell continued to Archive at University College, London, so his book support libertarian socialism for the rest of his life is based on a much wider range of material than ever and that this ideology "was expressed for him more before. A less obvious but just as serious advantage sympathetically in the personalities of unpractical is that he shares many personal and political char- Anarchists than in the slide—rule Socialists who made acteristics of Orwell, and is both genuinely well- up the bulk of the British Parliamentary Labour Party". informed about and generally well-disposed towards= George Woodcock, the writer who was associated with his subject. Crick's book doesn't entirely supersede the anarchists during and after the war and was also the Stansky—Abrahams ones -— The_Unknown Orwell a close friend of Orwell, describes this'view as being (1972) and Orwell: The Transformatibh (1979) F? "substantially correct" in his book The Crysgal gpirip since theirflcoveragembf Orwel1's*1ifé up to 1938 is (1967), which is the most satisfactory study of rwe11's N-—v\-.._ — ' _ --'

10,

wdrk yet written._ Woodcock statesi _ them. His experience in Spain convinced him that the two great enemies of socialism were Fascism and Commun- '8' Conservatism and socialism form the two poles of ism, and he considered anarchism for the first time as Orwell's political thought. What holds them a serious subject. together is the never wholly abandoned strain of anarchism....Anarchism remained a restless pre- when Orwell returned to Britain in July 1957, after sence in his mind right to the end. a first narrowly escaping death from a serious wound at the front and then narrowly escaping arrest in the In the light of Crick's book, it is now possible to purge of the non-Communist left in Barcelona, he became trace this presence from the beginning to the end. one of the very few people in this country who had with Orwell, it is always important to begin at the actually been to Spain and who would defend the beginning, since he himself drew so much of his in- Spanish revolutionaries, including the anarchists. He spiration and ideology from his own childhood -- or commented that "it is almost impossible to get anything at least from what he made of his own childhood. His printed in favour of Anarchism or Trotskyism" (Time & writings about early life at home or at school are Tide, 5 February I958), and he contributed more than often contradicted by the memories of his family or anyone else to the effort to change the situation. friends, but it is clear that the young Eric Blair Orwell had gone to Spain under the auspices of the was remembered by his contemporaries at Eton as a Independent Labour Party (as he had gone to the North leading member of an "antinomian" party, rejecting of England a few months earlier), and he had therefore all religious and political orthodoxy, and by hisl fought in a contingent of its Spanish allies, the colleagues in the Burma police as a discontented revolutionary Marxist POUM. ‘But he wrote privately tp member of the British establishment, repelled by his friend Jack Common: "If I had understood the social and national prejudices. Orwell himself, in situation a bit better I should probably have joined the political autobiography which fills the second the Anarchists" (Letter, October l957); and he wrote half of his first successful book, The Bpad to Wigan publicly in his book on Spain, homage to Catalonia Pier (I957), mentioned that by the time he left Eton in l92l he "was against all authority", and that by (1958): "As far as my purely personal preferences went I would have liked to join the Anarchists." At the time he left Burma in l928 he had "worked out an the same time he insisted that "most of the active anarchistic theory that all government is evil, that the punishment always does more harm than the crime, revolutionaries were Anarchists" (New English Wegkly, and that people can be trusted to behave decently if 29 July 1957), and that "the Anarchists were the main only you will let them"; immediately and typically revolutionary force" (Time & Tide, 5l July l957). His adding that "this of course was sentimental nonsense". personal commitment to socialism had almost become a Yet from a slightly different, increasingly personal, personal commitment to anarchism. Indeed Emma Goldman perspective this was his position when he first set did her best to recruit Orwell to the cause —— a point out to be a writer: which is not mentioned by Crick. She persuaded him to become one of the sponsors cf the International Anti- I had reduced everything to the simple theory that Fascist Solidarity committee which she organised in the oppressed are always right and the oppressors I958 as an anarchist front organisation, and this are always wrong: a mistaken theory, but the brought him into contact with anarchists outside Spain. natural result of being one of the oppressors Among his fellow sponsors were such libertarians as yourself. I felt that I had got to escape not Ethel Mannin, Rebecca west, John Cowper Powys, and also " merely from imperialism but from every form of Herbert Read, who had recently adopted anarchism as a man's dominion over man. I wanted to submerge result of events in Spain. In this milieu he also met myself, to get right down among the oppressed, tO Vernon Richards, who had been producing Spain & the be one of them and on their side against their World since 1956, and thus came into personal contact tyrants. ' - with the formal anarchist movement in Britain. False consciousness, perhaps, yet a form of conscious- But Orwell was still a pretty obscure writer. For ness which is better than unconsciousness and which is taking his revolutionary and libertarian line on Spain, capable of development. Hence on a personal level the and especially for emphasising the Communist treatment adventures as a tramp or down—and—out which are so of the rest of the Spanish left, he was boycotted by vividly described in some of his earliest and best his publisher, Victor Gollancz, and by one of his writings. A couple of years later, when he was begin- editors, Kingsley Martin of the New Statesman, both of ning to make his way into left-wing journalism in ‘ whom were part of what he called "the Communism racket" London, he was apparently describing himself as a His articles appeared only in little magazines, and "Tory anarchist" -— according to his friends Rayner Homage to Catalonia was one of his most unsuccessful Heppenstall, in Four Absentees (I960), and Richard books." The first edition of l5OO copies still hadn't Rees, in George Orwell: Fugitive From the Camp of sold out_when he died twelve years later, and despite Victory (I961) -1 though when he deshribed his polit- some controversy at the time it and other books like ical position in public he always seems to have been it were swamped in the flood of Liberal and Farxist identified with some kind of socialism. historiography which was only checked several decades The significant development in Orwell's politics later by honest writers like Pierre Broue and Emile came in his mid—thirties. The first event was his Témime, Burnett Bolloten and Noam Chomsky. Yet Orwell journey ta the North of England in 1956 to investigate had some value for the anarchists themselves. As poverty for his book The Road to Wigan Pier, in which Emma Goldman wrote to Rudolf Rocker, "For the first he first expressed his unrestrained and unequivocal time since the struggle began in l956 someone outside commitment to socialism. But this was a very special our ranks has come forward to paint the Spanish and peculiar kind of socialism, being neither Marxist anarchists as they really are" (Letter, 6 May 1958). nor Fabian, neither egalitarian nor bureaucratic. He For this alone, anarchists owe Orwell a debt of deep began with the assumption that the "underlying ideal gratitude. of socialism" is "justice and liberty", and that the "mark of a real socialist" is the wish "to see tyranny Despite his sympathetic attitude, however, it is overthrown". He repeated that "socialism means the significant that Orwell didn't join any specifically overthrow of tyranny", and from this he could reason- anarchist organisation. As Crick shows, when he came ably argue that "any decent person, however much of a back from Spain he joined the Independent Labour Party Tory or anarchist by temperament" must "work for the and the Peace Pledge Union, clearly believing that the establishment of socialism". This was Orwell's basic most urgent political priority was socialism and peace. political position for the rest of his life. The Indeed for more than a year his position was virtually problem from our point of view is that such a view is pacifist. This phase coincided with his first serious essential to anarchism but that anarchism is not attack of tuberculosis, being out of action from March essential to such a view. 1958 to March I959, first in a Kent sanatorium and The second event, however, was his journey to Spain then in French Morocco.' The most remarkable episode came at the beginning of I959, when he wrote to Herbert at the end of 1956 to investigate and indeed to inter- Read "about a matter which is much on my mind": vene in the Civil War. There he was involved not with . . n. - x . _ . half-heated anarchistic theories or so-called Tory I believe it is vitally necessary for those of uslih anarchism, not with the relative poverty of the Depres- who intend to oppose the coming war to start organ- sion, but with real live anarcho-syndicalists fighting ising for illegal anti-war activities. It is per- to establish a social revolution in the middle of a fectly obvious that any open and legal agitation bitter war, between the Nationalists and Fascists in will be impossible not only when war has started front of them and the Republicans and Communists behind but when it is imminent, and that if we do not Review

make ready now for the issue of pamphlets etc. we "I wish someone would print my anti-war pamphlet I shall be quite unable to do so when the decisive wrote earlier this year, but of course no one will" moment comes, At present there is considerable (Letter, 12 October 1958). And he later said in his freedom of the press and no restriction on the essay "My Country Right or Left" that in his oppos- purchase of printing presses, stocks of paper etc., ition to war he "even made speeches and wrote pamph- but I don't believe for an instant that this state~ lets against it" (Folios of New Writing, Autumn l9HO). of affairs is going to continue. If we don't make No such pamphlet hasfiyet been traced, though it was preparations we may find ourselves silenced and rumoured to have been circulated in duplicated form. absolutely helpless when either war or the pre-war But in his essay "Not Counting Niggers" he did argue fascising processes begin.... against supporting the Western democracies in a war It seems to me that the commonsense thing to do against Fascism because imperialism and capitalism would be to accumulate the things we should need weren't worth defending, and he advocated "a real for the production of pamphlets, stickybacks etc., mass party whose first pledges are to refuse war and lay them by in some unobtrusive place and not use to right imperial injustice" (The Adelphi, July 1959). them until it became necessary. For this we But all this was completely superseded by the next should need organisation and, in particular, significant development in Orwell's politics, which money, probably three or four hundred pounds, but came overnight at the time of the Nazi-Soviet Pact in this should not be impossible with the help of August 1959, according to the account in "My Country the people one could probably rope in by degrees Right or Left". He said that he had a dream that war (Letter, U January 1959). had began, from which he learnt "first, that I should Read must have replied discouragingly, since a couple be simply relieved when the long-dreaded war started, of months later Orwell wrote on the subject again: secondly, that I was patriotic at heart, would not sabotage or act against my own side, would support I quite agree that it's in a way absurd to start the war, would fight in it if possible". It was just preparing for an underground campaign unless you as well that Read hadn't been persuaded to support know who is going to campaign and what for, but Orwell's anti-war campaign! Instead, the anarchists the point is that if you don't make some prepar- and pacifists (and some revolutionary Marxists) did ations beforehand you will be helpless when you resist the war without his help, and indeed with his want to start, as you are sure to sooner or later. bitter opposition. ' 8 I cannot believe that the time when one can buy a printing press with no questions asked will last After 1959, Orwell never again defended anarchism for ever.... - and often attacked it. During the Second World War he had no hesitation in describing anarchists (and pacifists) as "objectively pro—Fascist", a usage which had infuriated him when it was applied by the Communists against anarchists (and Trotskyists) in Spain. He indulged in particularly extreme abuse in the occasional "London Letter" which he contrib- uted to Partisan Review, the semi-Trotskyist American magazineii Tnsrwsrst example appeared in the issue of March/April l9fl2. As well as including both anarch- ists and pacifists in what he called "left-wing defeatism", he gave an account of the semi-anarchist British magazine How which suggested that it was a pacifist—Fascist front and even stated that "Julian Symons writes in a vaguely Fascist strain". Vehement i replies followed in the issue of September/October i 19A2 from George Woodcock, the editor of flgw, and Alex Comfort. Orwell characteristically became friends with them and with Symons, but he had another angry encounter with Comfort in Tribune in June 19H5, the two exchanging satirical Byronic stanzas in the course of which Orwell accused Comfort of wanting to "kiss the Nazi's bum"! He continued to attack anarchism more generally too. In a review of a book by Lionel Fielden advocating

Iiiiifififéici Indian independence, he included a reference to what he called "Parlour Anarchism -- a plea for the simple life, based on dividends". In his booklet on Thg Orwell explained that he expected both the Conservative- English People (written in 19AM but not published dominated National Government and any Labour Government until 1957i. he menticned that “English people in elected in the near future to prepare for war with Nazi large numbers will not accept any creed whose domin- Germany, that there would be a "fascising process ant notes are hatred and illegality" -- among which leading to an authoritarian regime" supported by both he included anarchism as well as Communism, Fascism right and left, and that the only opposition would and Catholicism. In a later "London Letter" to come from the real Fascists and from "dissident lefts Partisan Review he included anarchists among those _ like ourselves" who must organise "some body of people responsible for the fact that, "particularly on the who are both anti-war and anti-fascist". Left, political thought is a sort of masturbation I doubt whether there is much hope of saving fantasy in which the world of facts hardly matters". England from fascism of one kind or another, but In a review of Herbert Read's collection of essays, clearly one must put up a fight, and it seems A Coat of Many Colours, he argued that Read's vers- silly to be silenced when one might be making a ihn of anarchism "avoids the enormous question: how row merely because one had failed to take a few are freedom and organisation to be reconciled", and precautions beforehand. If we laid in printing that "unless there is some unpredictable change in presses etc. in some discreet place we could human nature, liberty and efficiency must pull in op- then cautiously go to work to get together a posite directions" (Poetry Quarterly, Winter 1945)- distributing agency, and we could then feel, "well, if trouble comes we are ready." On the After the war he produced two major essays in which other hand, if it doesn't come I should be so he made serious criticisms of anarchism. In "Politics pleased that I would not grudge a_1itt1e wasted versus Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's Trav-‘ effort (Letter, 5 March 1959).. _ els" (Polemic, September/October l9A6), he says that* Jdhathan Swift was "a kind of anarchist" —- a "Tory He suggested approaching independent intellectuals anarchist", in fact, as Orwell had once described him- like Bertrand Russell and Roland Penrose. But Read self -- "despising authority while disbelieving in must have remained discouraging, for nothing came of liberty"; and he adds that the fourth book of Gull- Orwell's plan. He supported Revolti, which followed iver's Travels "is a picture of an anarchistic soci- Spain & the world when the Civil War ended, and her ety, not governed by law in the ordinary sense, but also seems tb have written anti-war material. At the by the dictates of 'Reason", which are voluntarily time of Munich he wrote to Jack Common, remarking: accepted by everyone"; He comments that "this ill- Review . 12‘*' . . _ '7.‘ _ i .--_¢-.,_

ustrates very well the totalitarian tendency which (who had published Homage to Catalonia), and since is explicit in the anarchist or pacifist vision of Richards was not imprisoned until several months society" (explicit? does he mean implicit?); and he later, it seems more likely that Richards is right. continues: » Woodcock refers only to the hostile reaction of Marie In a society in which there is no law, and in Louise Berneri, who died in 1959. The surviving theory no compulsion, the only arbiter of behav-- members of the Freedom Press at that time agree that iour is public opinion. But public opinion, the book was certainly not offered to them and that because of the tremendous urge to conformity in if it had been it would certainly not have been re- gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any jected. There is also a story that the book was system of law. When human beings are governed nearly published by Paul Potts, the poet who had a by "Thou shalt not", the individual can practise private publishing company, and it does at least seem a certain amount of eccentricity; when they are that Orwell seriously considered producing it at his supposedly governed by "love" or "reason", he is own expense; but in the event it was published by under continuous pressure to make him behave and Seeker & Warburg in l9Q5, and made him famous. think in exactly the same way as everyone else. There is another similar story, which also seems to Again, in "Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool" (Polemic, originate with George Woodcock. Crick takes it from ' March l9A7), which is less about Tolstoy's view of a letter Orwell sent to Dwight Macdonald, the American Shakespeare than about Orwell's view of Tolstoy, he journalist, in 19b6, as follows: took the same line about Tolstoy's religious combin~ When Queen Elizabeth, whose literary adviser was ation of anarchism and pacifism: Osbert Sitwell, sent the Royal Messenger to Seeker Tolstoy renounced wealth, fame and privilege; he & Warburg for a copy in November, he found them abjured violence in all its forms and was ready - utterly sold out and had to go with horse, car- to suffer for doing so; but it is not easy to riage, top hat and all, to the anarchist Freedom believe that he abjured the principle of coercion, Bookshop, in Red Lion Square, where George Wood- or at least the desire to coerce others....The cock gave him a copy. t distinction that really matters is not between Again, the surviving members of the Freedom Press at violence and non-violence, but between having and that time remember rather that it was a publisher's not having the appetite for power. messenger who came to collect the book. But it's a Orwell insisted that "there are people who are con- good story, even if it's only a story —— though the vinced of the wickedness both of armies and of police Freedom Bookshop was of course in Bed Lion Street, forces, but who are nevertheless much more intolerant not Red Lion Square. and inquisitorial in outlook than the normal person What certainly isn't only a story is Orwell's later who believes that it is necessary to use violence in support for the anarchists. Khan the Freedom Press certain circumstances", and he added that "creeds like was raided and four editors of War,Commentary prosec- pacifism and anarchism, which seem on the surface to uted for attempting to "undermineithe affections of imply a complete renunciation of power, rather encour- members of His Majesty's Forces", at the end of 19AM age this habit of mind". and the beginning of IQQE, he not only wrote articles It is hard to know whether Orwell really believed and signed letters in protest, tut he became vice- this sort of thing, forgetting how he himself made a chairman of the Freedom Defence Committee, which was living and a reputation out of defying public opinion established because the Xational Council for Civil over and over again, and ignoring the crucial dis- Liberties was then a Communist front. The FDC was tinction between holding authoritarian views in theory run by George Woodcock, who has recorded that Orwell, and having the power to put them into practice. After then becoming increasingly ill, contributed time, all, the most intolerant and totalitarian ideology or money, and a typewriter as well as his name. He temperament has no effect until someone is able not later became involved in more ambitious attempts to only to give orders but to get them obeyed. In his establish a League for the Iignity and Rights of Man own greatest books, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty- with Arthur Koestler and Bertrand Russell, which Four, the worst thing about the tyranny he desdribed came to nothing, though some of its ideas were taken is not its moral conformity but its physical power, up by the Congress of Cultural Freedom and Amnesty and of course the same was true of Nazi Germany and International. Communist Russia. Orwell cannot be taken as one of the most serious enemies of anarchism. - P ,The point of course is that Orwell genuinely believed in the freedom of the press —— and of speech and ass- Indeed, the curious if characteristic thing about embly —— not only for people he agreed with but for Orwell is that he was one of the best friends of people he disagreed with. This extended not only to anarchists even when he was attacking anarchism. At anarchists and pacifists but also to Fascists and the very time he was calling them "objectively pro- Communists. But he never wrote for Fascist or Com- Fascist", in the worst days of the Second World War, munist papers, as he wrcte for Woodcock's Now and for he was going out of his way to help them. While he FREEDOM, the successor to War Commentary after the war was working as a talks producer in the Indian Section It is not surprising that when the Freedom Defence of the BBC, from l9Al to 19A}, and then as literary Committee was dissolved in l§s9, Orwell let the Freedom editor of Tribune, from 19A} to l9A5, he did his best Press keep the old typewriter (sometimes rumoured to to encourage a wide variety of opinions, including be the one on which FREEDOM is still typed). anarchists as well as pacifists, and anarchists were among his closest friends. Crick comments of this One last event linked Orwell and the anarchists. period that "he did not accept anarchism in principle, When he was very ill with tuberculosis in l9A9, the but had, as a socialist who distrusted any kind of year after the publication of Nineteen Eighty—Four, state power, a speculative and personal sympathy with and the year before his death, he had his adopted son anarchists" -— like Crick himself, one may add. It . brought to stay near his sanatorium in the Cotswolds. was at the end of the war, when Orwell and his first Crick records that the boy was kept "in the care of wife adopted a child, that the famous series of Lilian Woolf, a 75-year-old veteran of the British photographs began, taken by Vernon Richards, who was anarchist movement who lived at the nearby anarchist still active in the group producing War Commentary, and craft colony, whitelands" (Lilian spelt her name the successor of Spain & the World and Revoltl. Wolfe, and the colony is called Whiteway, but never mind). How nice to know that at the end of his life Indeed there is a story that this group, the Freedom Orwell was helped by an anarchist and pacifist -- Press, could actually have published Animal Farm in a perfect irony to close the case of Orwell and the 19AM. Crick repeats the version told by George Wood- anarchists. For us, of course, what matters is not cock, that when the book had been rejected by Victor what Orwell said about this or that kind of anarchism Gollancz, Jonathan Cape, Faber & Faber, and possibly or did about these or those anarchists, but what he other publishers, he offered it through Woodcock to meant when he took as his fundamental political pos- the Freedom Press, but that it was rejected because ition the form of socialism based on the overthrow of the press included "many belligerent pacifists". tyranny and the establishment of justice and liberty, Crick mentions that*Vernon Richards "is adamant that and what he said in fictional or satirical writings it was never submitted", but comments that "he was in about the implications of such a position. At most, prison at the relevant time and might not have been he was an anarchist fellow-traveller, but he was one told". Since this is meant to have happened in July of the best. ‘ - l9UH, before the book was accepted by Seeker & Warburg N W Review b artyrst itism

Ca 'talism and jegolution in Iran Bizhan Jazani Tudeh ('Masses' - the Communist Party). After its high spot, t'I'I"E_ansla'—tea by the Iran §'mn’1ittee), 151pp cloth £12.95 as a partner with the National Front in the alliance which ppr. £4.50 ousted the Shah in 11953, this had been systematically disman- (Zed Press. 57, Caledonianyyl-lyoady, _I_-ondon N1 9 DN) tled by the regime. It was reduced to a skeleton, mostly in gt exile. The name was linked with as impressive a record of THIS book contains the translated writings of Jazani, which opportunism, vacillation, sectarianism and slavish adulation helped to form the ideology of the ‘Fedayin’, now the major of Moscow as you could. find anywhere. No wonder people secular socialist opposition in Iran. It is also interesting in weren't interested. its attempt to adapt Marxism to a particular set of circum- In this unpromising atmosphere a small Marxist group, stances, to use it as a tool rather than as a straitjacket. It including Jazani, was for med. It was almost immediately doesn't really work, the language in itself is offputting enough, smashed, apparently denounced by the head of the Tehran but it is a fair try. branch of Tudeh, who happened to be a SAVAK (secret police) Jazani was born in Tehran in 1937. In 1953 the Shah was agent. Three members survived to work in Tehran, whilst overthrown and forced into exile. Within a few days he was two others spent some time training with the Palestinian back with a flood of CIA money to help reestablish himself. resistance. After their return the group, now up to 22 mem- The opposition was systematically destroyed and the young bers, launched an attack on a police post at Siahkal, in the Jazani got his first in-ison sentence. He spent the rest of his mountains north of Tehran. This attack (8 February 1971) life in and out of jail. After 1967 he was detained permanent- is taken as the start of the guerilla campaign. Although a ly. The writings in this book were rroduced in his cell. military failure, it symbolised the end of over seven years of Eventually it was announced that Jazani, and others. had been passivity. The remnants of this group then joined with killed ‘while attempting to escape’. another to form the ‘Organisation of Iranian Peoples Fedai'i The 50's and 60's were a bad time for a militant in Iran. Guerillas' (OIPFG, 'Sazman -i Cherikha ‘ye Fedayin —i Khalar) The opposition movement was almost non-existent. particular- Unlike the other underground group, the Mojahedin (‘Fight- ly after another failed uprising in 1953. Left wing ideas had ers of the Holy War‘), the Fedayin were, from the beginning, the extra disadvantage of being discredited by association with Marxist-Leninists. The Mojahedin have never been able to decide exactly what they are. The Shah used to call them ‘Islamic Marxists’, a label which they resented. Their . appeals were largely rhetorical. In 1975 they suddenly announced that half the membership had been expelled and that henceforth they were Marxist-Leninists. This startling change was quietly forgotten during the Revolution and, unsur- prisingly, Islam again became prominent. In the Revolution Qspiiialiefn ii’ they, and the Fedayin, changed from small underground groum to mass organisations. The leader of the Mojahedin, Rajavi, stood for president. He only got a handful of votes, but there D<§|>'¢]T§§‘u|l|Andll Reolutipn. ll again so did everybody else. There weren't,many left after _1‘ Bani-Sadr had his 106% of the poll, or whatever final figure was decided. The Mojahedin now propose a vague socialism, In Iran with an immense wish that our old friend the paragon of. -- 1* n||siiines\ : Islamic purity, Khomeini, will realise their worth and sweep aside all the self—seekers who clutter up the government and Blzhan Ja;an| insist on persecuting the Mojahedin. In fact, they are social- ist enough to recognise Khomeini for what he is, but in the ultra -Islamic Iran of today, they won't openly criticise him personally. ' The Fedayin were always much clearer. The title of anoth- er of Jazani's pamphlets (not included here) sums it up, 'Ar med Struggle_kthe Road_to the Mohilis__ation of__the-Masses’

1-»-—~.---_1-a_._ §mall'van'guard groups would take up military action. In the ----—-.__x .1§'L course of these, and also armed with a scientific Marxist- Ms ii‘ Leninist method, they would be forged into an effective revol- ution. The masses would follow, or, in the words of Ahmad- zadeh, another of the Fedayin's theorists, ‘The politico- h‘€= .- -~_ military nucleus itself can, by initiating guerilla warfare and in the process of its development create the Party, the people's T. true vanguard politico-military organisation and the people's ' Jim ‘M mi‘ army.’ The influences of Guevara and Debray are obvious. ¢\\ During the Revolution it must all have seemed vindicated." However, in practice, it suffered from the problems pointed out by Debray himself in his later writings, not least a com- pletely unrealistic view of the effects on those ‘masses’ of ‘A military actions by small underground groups in the absence of any political movement. = What cannot be denied is their sincerity. 'Fedai'i' means ‘devoted to death’ (it is of course picked up from the Pales- tinians) and the list of martyrs is frightening. The writings of both the Fedayin and the Mojahedin place great stress on heroism, self-sacrifice and purity._ Shi'a Islam itself makes a big thing of martyrdom ('Shahid'). It was the escalating mourning periods after each death during the Revolution that helped to bhild up the massive demonstrations, up to two R. 14

million in Tehran alone, at one. The significance of these in ary Forces‘. This, as might be expected is a paeon to ‘wo- the Revolution was exaggerated due to their obvious appeal as lelarian culture‘, defined as ‘a feeling of symjnthy and com- spectacle. The Shah's regime was crippled by industrial radeship towards one another, sympathy and generosity i!.n1‘es.t and strikes. However, the demonstrations, _anq_,_the towards other workers, unity and solidarity; a progressive concept of martyrdom did help to hold together popular cons-' , attitude and readiness for self sacrifice, haired of reactionary ciousness. The tone of the writing from the guerillas was regimes and capitalists in general, and vigilance, mecision, also religious. As an example, from the Mojahedin, who audacity and perseverance. ' Inte llectuals are dismissed, tended to go over the top rather more, but the tendency is the this from a writer. The tribes and the nomads get some same, "I‘he blood of this young martyr has enriched the red coverage this time. The petty bourgeoisie are analysed and of the blazing star on the struggle against imperialism, " found wanting. Careful distinction is drawn between the ‘sub- feeding the wrath and zeal of the people rising in revolt. ' protelariat‘, (temporary labourers etc.) and 'lumpen prole- However, the book in question avoids these excesses. It is tariat‘ (thieves, beggars, petty smugglers, in-ostitutes and not so much a rallying call, Jazani provided that in ‘Armed 1outs', practising ‘slovenliness, ignorance, superstition, Struggle‘, as an analysis of social conditions. The problem parasitism, vulgarity and violence, sexual perversion and is that it was written for the committed and so assumes sym- sloth‘). Jazani did recognise that it was the policies of -the pathy with an ‘objective, scientific Marxist-Leninist aralysis. ‘ regime that compel ‘a considerable number of people‘ . . . to Will these people never learn. Oh, the sight in Tehran, of the live a gnrapsitic existence and become an anti-progressive old familiar range of Lenin's pamphlets, in yet another trans- element. ' - lation. (And it must be said, at the end of the row of tables, Its easy to derive harmless fun from this type of writing. a streetseller from Tehran Libertarian Group, with our This does not diminish its interest as an analysis of we- pamphlets and copies of ‘Nafarman‘, ‘No Authority'.) I have revolutionary Iran. The features of that, both the society in front of me a slack of notes, around which to base a step by and the analysis, have helped to produce the present position. step criticism of Jazani‘s ideas. However, this would need a I can't recommend the book wholeheartedly. Unless you pamphlet, not an article masquerading as a review. In the have a special interest, its a little too obscure. (There are meantime, we have analysis of the ‘History of Contemporary now a number of general books on Iran. Perhaps the best, Iran‘, ‘Land Reform in Modern Iran',‘Dependent Capitalism‘, and forinmisly also the cheapest, is Fred I-Ialliday‘s Trap, and ‘The Revolutionary Forces‘, plus a foreword, (eulogy, Dictatorship and Development (Penguin) entirely dispensible), and a postscript drawn from Fedayin So, after all, what are the Fedayin doing now. They pamphlets, updating the analysis. emerged as a mass movement, well armed, by courtesy of The ‘History’ is fair enough, if you can tolerate the language. the Shah's armouries. I'm not sure of their actual numbers. There is discussion of the rivalry between Britain and Russia Members in Tehran have told me that the signed up member- and the rise of the ‘comprador bourgeoisie‘, as opposed to ship is only about 5, 000, but with over 1 million supporters feudalism. This latter is a theme that will recur throughout (They also said that the Mojahedin has about the same.) You the book. A large part of the chapter is a knowledgeable and can lake these figures as you like. There was sporadic accurate demolition of Tudeh. This section, and many of the harrassment. In a mess of political maneuvers, the line was others, would require some knowledge of the historic events toned down and there was talk of a coalition with Tudeh, who to be readable. The next chapter, land reform, makes the were busy hardening their slogans in an attempt to recover point that the whole thing was something of a con trick. The some support. The Fedayin were the only major poltical Americans, as opposed to the British, were more perceptive group to openly support and fight with the minorities, though and realised the value of token reform, for its ‘preventive there was some suspicion of young, urban, Persian militants. effects’. When the royal court shifted its support away from By last autumn, the group had effectively gone underground the feudalists, the thing was out and dried. Tudeh, of course, again. ‘ spent its time dithering. All this has been changed by the war. Some quotes will The core of the book is the analysis of"Dependant Capitalism‘, help show their present attitudes. (These are from 'KAR‘, which takes up over a third of the text. This is worth a read, (‘LABOUR’) the journal of OIPFG (Majority). There's been a if for nothing but the characterisation, for example of the split over attitudes to the war, Shah as ‘the ultimate bureaucrat‘ or merely as ‘the most out- ‘The anarchist assessment alleging the defeat of the Iranian rageous kleptomaniac. ' Pre-revolutionary Iran was an Revoiution since the uprising, is inconsistent with and contra- example of slatism gone marl. The economy was entirely dicted by all objective realities and evide nce. On the conlrary, dominated by oil revenues, which were channelled through all of the evidence testifies that since the uprising the process slate agencies, which meant controlled by the Shah. And, of the Iranian Revolution has deepened in the direction of its of course, every enterprise had to have a member of the fundamental goal, that is to end the domination of Imperialism royal family on the board. This is, of course, a simple in Iran. ' word for a social system like this, with the slate organising "We now witness that (various groups), the OIPFG v everything, an all-powerful leader, a mystical ideology (in (Minority) etc .. .. . issue orders to fire against the Iraqi this case, harking on 2, 500 years of Persian ‘empire‘) and regime and call it "the Defence of the Fatherland" and persecution of ethnic minorities. It is fascism. In this "combat against aggression" ‘ case it is confused by the foreign domination. Hence the ‘The communists do not believe Iin the export of the revol- term ‘dependant capitalism‘, similar to 'neocolonialism'. ution. ' (and this from Trotskyists.) Being a good Leninist, Jazani hinges his analysison the ‘In its telegram of 26 Sept. to Ayatollah Khomeini , our identification of the ‘contradictions’ in the society. This Organisation slated clearly that in present circumstances, to involves the careful pinning down <1 the difference between defend the country's independence has no meaning but to the ‘principal contradiction‘ (that between the people and the defend the Islamic Republic of Iran.‘ (So, where is the regime in the form of the Shah's autocracy) and the ‘funda- quarrelwith OIPFG (Minority). ) ' mental contradiction‘ (between the people and-the regime plus ‘The OIPFG (Majority) in defence of the gains of the the comprador bourgeoisie plus imperialism). You get the Revolution, strictly instructs all its supporters to observe general idea. And in all this there is only one mention of the the following directives . . . . 1) Present yourself at the ethnic minorities who make up half the pop-ufition. And try National Mobilisaiion Organisation as soon as possible. ‘ fliis for a conclusion, Khomeini even instructed the army to give weapons to ‘To sum up: because of the necessity of anti-imperialist these people, who only a few weeks ago were godless, anti- struggle, because of the progressive nature offgnrt of the Islamic Marxists.‘ And off they troop to the south to get bourgeoisie, and since it is imperative to go through a period themselves killed . And they even find that their volunteer of transition before socialism, the irincipil contradictionof. units are forced to remove their red armbands, so that the our society (namely the contradiction upon which the present Pasdaran (Ishmic militia) get the glory. And in the meantime chss system is based) is that between the people as a whole they squabble with each other over their reasons: are they and their enemies. ‘ - fighting in ‘Defence of the Fatherland‘ or ‘in defence of the Sometimes I feel sorry for Marxists. gains of the Revolution. . ' The hst chapter is a discussion of the possible ‘Revolution- DAVID PEERS Review ancer or ulture

HEAVEN forfend that I should raise an eyebrow in the matter at the international Marlborough Gallery off Bond Street and of tarnish gold when that base metal is molded into art as ever we drank of the wine while surrounded by what I would beautiful. IWIHV an eaI‘1Y iazz pianist earned his daily crust hold is no more than third rate work writ large. Let one be by playing in a brothel. Giovanna Piranesi s Carceri d In- honest in this matter and slate that the national press have venzionne were magnificent etchings of halls of horror for applauded John Wonnacott's work but like a postage stamp it the artist is, always was and always will be a social prosti- is a type or style of work that improves the more it is reduced tute and who acts as middleman between the labouring peasant in reproduction. In face to face confrontation one has to in the field and the artist's belly is a moral question that each artist must answer and act upon. Those who accepted Hitler or Stalin's spiced pig slop for their sycophantic servi- tude to a brute State will in the end find their apologists in future teaching establishments while those who refused to create their art under an authoritarian regime will die with the bile of bitter satisfaction on their lips. I honour, in my own small way, those who defied the State and I share the \_,_/ _

anger of those muted by a self created personal morality but ‘x with the Town and his frau in the final analysis we can only stand in judgement on the final created work, And so in- vitations at the ready we fall in behind London s lush minority up and into the National Portrait Gallery for ‘The New Look in British Art‘ with refreshments. Chosen from over 300 entries these 45 paintings picked out by ‘eminent iudges' ranging from Sir Hugh Cassou without whom no committee for throwing up or tearing down the London skyline is safe to Carel Weight were there with the artists while we waited glass in hand to see who would collect the E 7, 000 judgement clanger of the year. The exhibition is a product of Imperial Tobacco who slapped the money on the table and left it to the State culture committees to get the circus‘ moving and to give it that touch of high drama. The Rt. Hon. Norman St. John- Demure, 1932-33 (Collection, The Museum of lvbdern Art, New York) Stevas, MP, God's Holy Fool was there in his official capacity as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Minister for the Arts to hand out the pretties, There is a moral ignore the competent draftsmanship which belongs to the world problem here, not my morality but theirs, that when a society of illustration and accept the great areas of slap dash paintingt and a government condemn the use of tobacco as causing The Marlborough is a gallery that deals in millions of money cancer then it must surely follow that no State building or but of late there must be a dearth of good painters for this Minister of the Crown should be involved with any event fin- gallery that once showed the best of the European young now anced by a commercial organisation that profits from the appears to be filling its stable with the third rate or the re-- I sale of tobacco that voices on every side tell me is respons- mains of the living dead, This was a gallery that could dis- ible for spreading cancer among the populace and how can this play the best of the work of the Communist Renato Guttuso the same gover nmcnt that barred any participation in the Olympic Italian polemical social realist, and I would advise Wonnacott Games for moral reasom and refused to hand out its political to study Guttuso's great paintings, and now fills its walls with honours to those men and women who defied them by taking work that-"appears to be the studio leavings of the painteri‘s part in the games send little Norman their tame Minister of workshop, So much good work in their past so much bad work the Arts to this Imperial Tobacco funfest. I am no prig or on display but Wonnacott moved among the wire drinkers on puritan and I am not shocked only amused. The work on the Private View night confident that he had earned the applause display is extremely good and for the record little Nor man but I still see third rate painting. Work on amassive scale handed Margaret Fore man the E4, 000, an ename lled silver has always scared the critics and the specmtor for there is medallion and a commission worth £3, 000 for her portrait always that inner voice that warns men and women against of Sir Bichard Squthern and in all sincerity I wish Margaret protesting at the authority of any great mass be it human, well butfor me the choices were Reading by Kris Ellam who material or just plain elemenml. We are a society that in her small painting has produced a painter 's painting in tolerates great authority in office, huge empty office blocks, that foreground and background create a unified whole, where- high rise working class flats wherein no lift will work and in there is no acade mic gloss but a molding with the brush of massive works of art from huge coloured daubs to miles of flowers and figure so that one is conscious of each part yet coastline literally draped in polytheneisheeting on the simgie nothing usurps its righfiul place in Kris Ellam's scheme, minded premise that it must have a value if anyone or any * Richard Stone's confident academic portrait of Mr. Isidore group went to the trouble of creating it. At the Whitechapel Kerman and Anthony Summers’ Sariah leach but my thfee Art Gallery was the Triptychs of Max Beckmann as but-one choices were also rans but I am right for I chose the best. stop on its internation Stations of the Cross pilgrimage. paintings and the committee chose the best pictiu-es. A Again as with Wonnacott and the commemorative stamps it is subtle difference my masters, Back and forth across a type of work that gains in reproduction and reduction. London's dirty miles with William Packer of the Financial Beckmann ioined God in 1950 and l do not type lightly for it is Times to hand in our paintings to Ange-la Flowers for her claimed that when asked for the meaning within his large exhibition of 'Nudes' for the New Year. Five of us in the paintings he would point up to the heavens murmering ‘You ‘ll empty gallery off the Tottenham Court Road with four gallery have to ask the one up there.’ The Nazis came into powerin walls covered with nudes both great and small male and Germany in 1933 and he left Germany in 193 '7, A one time female and we drank of the wine and Iadmired William professor at Stdelschule and a leading figure of the .Neue Packer ‘s small watercolours. But big or small the Town, Sachlichkeit movement, it drew its name from the 1925 nay the world, has much rubbish to tout for it was view night Mannheim exhibition, it was mrt of the fashionable chic Review

international anti war movements. German artists such as so many expatriates hanging onto and riding to glory on the Grosz and Dix aimed their brushes at society and the State but shirt tail of a great revolutionary storm spent bullets fired Beckmann chose to move into an interpretation of the world of by conscripts for a cause. But the only ones who can be dreams and myths. He did good work such as his The Night faulted are the art Establishment, private or public, coffee 191s-1919 now in the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein in W"'&"T'esa en W table publication or learned thesis or my who refuse to accept but it was in the fashionable polemical style of the German the difference between a bad painting and a ‘smashing’ pic- twenties and unlike Grosz Beckmann appeared to have a limit- ture. There are so many good exhibitions in the pipelines ed field of social vision. At the Whitechapel were displayed for the coming year with a major exhibition at the Royal Beckmann's huge triptychs and as so often happens with an Academy of young artists, Jasper Johns and Rauschenberg at artist who creates an audience by an appeal to the mob, the Tate and Giacometti at the Serpentine for there was talent cultured or nay, when that emotional situation no longer exists and there is new talent waiting to be seen by the Town and his we are simply left with crude worthless paintings and mean- turkey stuffed frau (mann ed.) There is until-February to see ingful slogans dying on the wind. Almost all the lads with the amusing toy town work of Sam Smith and H.C. Westermann fashionable talent were able to walk upon water to America as and it amuses and cannot be faulted for they make no great flie Nazi horror became the order of the night and almost claims on our judgements while in Kasmin's Bond St. gallery, withmt exception they became no more than high priced third Isee you Kas hiding in the backroom, is a non saleable ex- rate gallery fodder. If it is felt that I wrong Beckmann then hibition of ‘Favourite Postcards’ and it includes Tobias I would argue that there is hardly a public or private gallery, Rodgers magnificent collection of Spanish Civil War postcards with wealth and‘ limited wall space, that would take any of but not for sale comrades not for sale. these large works if they were offered them. Crude and superficial in their subject matter they are like the work of ARTHUR MOYSE A

A Miscellany Edward Bellamy: Looking Backward. (2000-1881) (256pp. ppr.) £1.50 (31p.)' 1 an nuns "The Diggers" (1648): Light Shining in Buckinghamshire. (8pp. ppr.)_ £?.'50 (10p} *Nhat Hong' The Anarchist Beast: The Anti-A narchist §§_I>__o1gs_ FROLI ,1qaeen_o1g11_1§,ooxsHoP Crusade in Periodical Literature (1884-1906) (68pp. ppr) 1 so. 50 ('?.1p) Titles marked * published in the U.S. A. P°SiBg(-1 iS HS James Hinton: The First Shop Stewards’. Movement 1910- indicated in-brackets. Remittance with order is 1920 {3'5?.pp. cloth) £15. O0 (75p) appreciated. _ Gregory P. Maximoff: The Guillotine at Work: Vol.1. The Leninist Counter-Revolution. (33Tpp. ppr) _ North American purchasers please convert £1 at $2.40 (US) J 2 5. 95 ('?5p) and g2. 85 (Canada), - Robert Houston: Brisbee '17. A Documentary Fiction. (287pp New Titles cloth) £5. 95 (75p) Alan Fitfir: Anarchism: A Theoretical Analysis A Novel based upon the Wobblies' Strike in the Copper town (18'7pp. cloth) £12. 00 (‘?5p) of Brisbee, Arizona, in 1.9"! '7. Bernard Crick: George Orwell: A Life . (4"3pp. -cloth) - - £10.00 (£1.21) From Freedom Press ' *Morty Sklar and Jim Mulac (Eds.)Editor's Choice: l7e*rnT5n'Richards: The Impossibility of Social Democracy. Literature and Graphics from the U.S. Small Press. 1905- (14'3pp. ppr) £1.00 (31p}. 1971 (501 pp. pm") £3.95 (75p) A‘ critique oi the Labour Party -in Opposition (1951 -1954) Forreign L.anguage,'Iitles__ - and- implicitly- in government. Full trade terms can be Louise Mic*hel.*Me‘moire’§. (335pl)- PDT) £3. 00 (36p)~ given on this Title. _ 7 Paule Lejeune. Lotise Michel l'indompta‘:>le. (32799. ppr.) £2. 50 (35p) _Bargain Basement Daniel Guerin. Ni Dieu ni Maitre: Anthologie de - E?-FiH1rd'ayans: Pierre -Joseph Proudhon. His Revolutionary l'anarchis me. (4 vols. Not available separately) (757pp. Life, Mind and Works. (304pp. cloth) £2.95 ('75p) ppr) The set = 28.00 (vsp) Reducedfrom £10. 00 Originally published in 1979.

0 . London, E-7. J.R. £4.00; Gwynedd. M. B. £4.00; Saffron Walden; B.W.' £7. 00; N. Y. , USA. N. M. £2. 50; Wolverham- rvlvns pton. J. L. £1.50; J.K.W. £0.50-; Llanbradach. R.W.A. £22.00; London, NW3. D.R. £14. O0; Miami, USA, Proceeds DE FICTI‘ FUND from Anarchist Picnic held on 8/1/81 per A.-B. £20. 75; Miama, USA. A.B. £20. 75; Ilford. I. P. £1.00. Do_nati_ons_§eceived: Januarylsté-14th incl. 1981. Many Thanks I 1? £122. '72

Abingdon. M. B. £10. 00; London. l\!Vl/'6. B.S. £1. 00; D . Poole. ~P.M. £2. 00; Leicester. P.M.' £5.-00;Wirksworth. .PRF£!L@ RUN? H.W. L.C. £2.00; Cambridge.’ J.-P.-H. £4. 00; London W’-'. M.-M. £1.00; London N4." R.C.M.C.- £1.00; Sheffield. P. L. Do_nations_R<-:;c_eivedi January_1_s*t-l_4th incl. 198}, £2. 00; Hitc-hin. L.'A. £2. 00; Madrid. C. B. £3. 00; Wolver- hampton. J. L. £4.-50; J.K.W. £1.50; London N1-. S.B. Abingdon. M. B. £10.00; Leicester. P.M. £5.00; £2.00; Swansea. J.D. £5.00; Helsinki. A.E.-£0.69;Guy Wirksworth. H.W. L.C. £1.00; Rugby. sD.G. £2.00; London Fawkes Fund. Clitheroe, ‘ancs -per P.G. £0.88; Mich. USA. W". M.M. £1.00; London. N4.-R.C'.M.C. £1.00; Hitchin. ' D.F.S. £0.30; Oxford; S.H. £2.00; Vancouver. J.D. £9.00; I_.,A. £2.00;Woiverhampton. J. L. £6.00; Tunbridge Wells. Tunbridge Wells. B. L. £-2. 00; London SW7 D.~“L. £5.-00; - B. L. £2.00; Liverpool. P.-J. L. £1. 00; London, SW7. D. L. Wolverhampton. J. L. £1.50; J.K.W. £0.50; Bristol. C.C. £5. 00;Wolverhampton-. J. L. £2-. 0'1; Holland. R. I-lo 551. 00‘; £2.00; Saffron Walden. M.E. £1.00; Holland. R. U. £1.00; London. E 81E.l\/5. £1. 00; Ilford. I. P. £1. 00; Ontario, Dundee. R.M. £0.11;"Hague, Holland; D.V.A. £1.00; Canada. F.A. £6.00-; London, SW3. P.T. £2.00; Perthshire. C.K. £4.-00; Gwynedd: H.D. £1.30; LondonEl=l Wolverhampton. J. L. £2. 00. " L.R. £0.50;Exmouth. A1. B.-H. £1.00; Ontario, Canada; F.A IOTA 1: I LE1-92 £7.00; Ottawa, Canada B. IV‘. £5.00; Lamlash. P.G. £3.00; Many Thanks 1