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OCTOBER 2376 VOLUME 37 No 21 TWELVE PENCE UnitedFarmworkersn3 ~ Italyn4 - FascistEconomics£9
Aiuse LN/£5 e. 1.! GOING TO SCHOOL is no fun. of Education and Science or DES as he's carries on mercilessly. They control Specially when you're the lowest of the sometimes known. (DES is the tip of the money that comes from DES and low: a school-student. From 5 to 16 the education system pyramid). He central Government. and decide how you've got no say in the matter: you does things like set up Special Working and what to spend it on. have to go - a prison sentence for ll Parties with the Home Office to invest- The actual school itself is the next years. To those outside, it's hard to igate the current dramatic increase of step down and is governed theoretically describe the reality of being an inmate. deliberate fires at schools, and general- by a Board of Governors (BOG) who are Like prisoners we have no control over ly sees that Government policy on educ- ususally composed of just a handful of our own lives. Every weekday, day in - ation is carried out by the next lower people; local politicians, and predomin- day out, for weeks, months and years order: Local Education Authorities. antly wealthy upright and responsible on end, it's a slog. The same old rout- Local Education Authorities (LEAs) citizens who appoint the Headmaster ine over and over and over again. What and give an indication as to how they we do, what we say, where we go, how " have control over what happens (broadly speaking) in and to - all the schools in would like to see the school run and what we dress, when we eat. when to move, is taught. They are rarely if ever act- when to stay still, when to talk, when to their area. Thus ILEA, the Inner Lon- don Education Authority, has said to all ually seen at school and prefer to keep stay silent is decided by others. Democ- at a distance from its usually harsh racy Never heard of it - what's that ? the primary schools in its area "no caning", whereas in other areas where reality. It's no joke. It's time our oppression, Next, the Headmaster; the figure head r our only too real oppression was recog- I..EAs have made no such rule, caning nised. There is no way words can acc- urately describe our emotions; power- lessness, helplessness, anger, resent- MUI’ : TORCHLIGHT MARC v ment, hate, bitterness, rage, loathing, fear, boredom, monotony . .. all are only clues. Our pain is bestowed upon us by what is laughingly called an "education syst- em" whose workings are shrouded beh- vi ind verbiage and mysticism, but is rea- lly crystal clear. Its structure forms the classic pyramid. It is, however, a pyramid within an even larger pyramid. At the very top of this larger pyramid is the Puppet Master; the banks, the multinational corporations, and the men in the City who walk around in dark suits with E signs in their eyes. These are the Capitalists; the men who hold and pull the strings that directly or indirect- _g_ .. ly control the movements of all under- neath. : - ._- L --"T" 5': '_ — '5’ _-.-' -"J-. 1: , " '.__"-:.§"
-é; _. Take one step down and you get to ' - ~§-'_- the State; whether the Government of - _z_ the day be Lab. Lib, Con or Nat. Front, On Friday October 8th, about 150 The next activity planned for London is immaterial. Governments are intent people marched through London on a is a 24 hour picket of the Irish Emba- on one thing - keeping Capitalism in torchlight demonstration in solidarity ssy on October 21st. power. There is NO government which with Noel and Marie Murray. Abroad activities also took place in is ANTI-capitalist. Lesser. it, curb it, Those marching included several Sweden, France and Japan on the 8th. I‘6St1‘lCt it, Change it - _Ve5_ maybe_ of Noel's relatives, comrades from The German Murray Defence Group But for fucksake don't let Them (ie us) Glasgow, Leicester and Warwick plus have sent a petition calling for the abolish it! To keep Capitalism in groups and individuals from London. immediate release of Noel & Marie power many "arms" of the State exist A piper played at the head of the march to the President of the Supreme Court. to protect it, and ensure its continuance. from Speakers‘ Corner to Kilburn, Over 15, 000 names were collected, These include the Armed Forces, "Law',’ where a street meeting was held. Sev- including notables such as Jean Paul Police, Prisons, Organized Religion, eral speakers stressed the need for Sartre and Heinrich Boll. In Italy de- and also of course the "Education Syst- more support to make the Defence monstrations have been taking place em. " campaign effective. On Saturday 9th in various parts of the country , and So one rung down, and you have the pickets took place in Leicester and a ‘day of solidarity‘ has been called State'.s "education" arm; the Department Birmingham as well as London. for on the 23rd of October.D FREEDOM . of the school - universally known as er education/ruling classdom . V011 hive is nil. Where what you learn 'lhe Dictator, Fifhrer, Hitler, The Beak, is gmred onlyto theeconomic needs of Head Teeth, Scarface, Baldy etc. etc - As perhaps you can see, I don't like . r mlitalislll. and personal interest can an authoritarian, patronising, publicity- school, I don't like what it's doing to me E0 to the wall. Alright, so it's not so seeking, image-conscious man (very and my mates. And now as if the seeth- different f1‘0m that already, but this is occasionally, woman) too busy compet- ing mass of millions at the bottom of taking things to extremes, this is a ing for attention with other Heads, that that pyramid didn't even exist, there’ consolidation and exaggeration and the little, if any administration of the school are plans afoot to do even more to us. logical extension of all schools eventu- is done by him. The realisation that it's us,who're sup‘- ally being State run- Can the National porting the weight, and that there are l Union of School ‘ta-dents and others who some of us dedicated to upset the bal- &dVOC3.lI6, quite rightly, flue "_ . _ phasing ance a little, cannot have dawned on the out of all grammar schools, public <4’ author of a confidential report sent from schools, direct grant, and secondary DES to the Prime Minister. The re- S modern schools. . . " have imagined that port* is: . their policy of working towards "a co- "A plan to introduce a basic national curricu- educational comprehensive system of lum for Britain's secondary schools." , . education. . . " (i. e. state schools) Instead, it is done by his junior; a might lead also to the inclusion in these Deputy Head who is usually responsible schools of a centrally decided "national for making out the years timetable of y i’ -,4.’ curriculum" for all school students ? lessons, making sure that the Heads of (U Nightmares I rules and regulations are obeyed, sign- The whole tone of the report, as far ing reports and generally being press- as I can gather, is heavily influenced by urised by the Head to see that things ‘ ‘me’ the Rhodes Boyson/Black Paper/ are kept as He wants to see them. His William Tyndale Knockers Brigade with main ambition is to do less work and Fuckmesideways was my immediate re- become a Head himself. action. Maybe I'm naive, but in my wildest dreams I never dreamt of mea- Next, Heads of Departments, i.e. sures so drastic, so sweeping, so pot- 0!" Head of Maths, Head of English etc. , entially devastating as these. and with whose job it is to see that "standards ,1 absolutely NO consideration for ES; ."" are maintained", that there are high those who it would affect most and with passes in CE, O and A Levels. Press- such force. If Callaghan suddenly de- ured by the Head and Deputy to see that cided that Britain was really an agri- mention of schools becoming "too easy Teachers under him conform/fall into cultural country, and that workers on going and demanding too little work" line/do not relate to pupils as people. all major industries should go over to and warnings Right near the bottom of this pile are crop production and animal husbandry, ". ..that less able teachers are not able to the Teachers who are told to "control" and this would then be backed up by cope with modem teaching methods and that the class, keep it in "order", see that laws of various kind; would it not per- there may be a need to correct the balance they are "respected as elders and bett- haps be underestimating the reaction to and rel-um to more formal methods. " ers" by those above them at school, and say that there would probably be a wide The argument about returning to tradi- often pressured at home by their wives/ spread feeling of discontent ? There tional methods of teaching and "correct- husbands to conform, be up-graded, would be a bloody revolution I ing the balance" is grossly unfair, par- earn more, gain higher status, and ticularly in regard to secondary "crawl up the ladder. " But because we aren't really people schools. There can be barely a handful to these men, they can be so confident Then there is us. We are the "pupils.}' of schools whose teaching methods may about plans of this nature that they be said to be "progressive". There their charges, the names on a register, don't really have to worry about such may be more "liberal" schools about the blobs on a duplicated sheet. We things as ‘opinions’. After all, we'd than there were, but certainly they are are the people who are never asked, the be too young for such things. Too no great new radical departure. Their people who just receive orders, instruct- young to understand. Not mature en- methods of teaching are certainly not ions, work. We are the people who are ough to make decisions. Such arrog- one million miles away from "more shifted about like grains of sand on a ance. How much more angry it makes formal methods". busy beach. We are the trampled upon. me. How much more it confirms be - Apart from the tone, the main theme We call the pyramid as a whole "capit- liefs and theories. How much more of the report seems to be to relegate alist society. " dedicated it makes me to resist am the position of school-students still And why are we here‘? Why has Capit- fight capitalism, the state, the present further (is it possible '? '!)- To make us alism, the Puppet Master at the top education system, and ageism -—just subservient to the National Interest. seen it necessary to set up this involv- one of its more despicable traits. This A Healthy Economy before a healthy ed pyramid School exists to serve 63-page report is people. The report complains about Society, in order to carry on, needs a ", . .a severe indictment Of the failure of sec- school-students who choose subjects work force. Tomorrow we are that ondary schools to produce enough scientists they may have an inkling of interest in, work force. From as early an age as and engineers . . . " rather than subjects that would later be possible we are trained to fit into the and the memorandum calls for of benefit to the economy, i. e. com- world of work. We are indoctrinated plaints of "unbalanced or not particu- with the work ethic. In addition to sub- ". . .drastic measures to change the attitude of larly profitable curricula" choices; ject teaching, school is an enforcer of children entering schools. . . " pupils opting in numbers "insufficient _a hidden curriculum. What w e are School students have little power, and for the count:ry's needs for scientific ostensibly here for is Maths, English, the general trend for opting to do art and technological subjects" ; and subjects rather than science subjects History, Geography, etc. What we are ". . .schools may have over-ernph FREEDOM3 ematics and science". Maths and to have been successful with an increas- trol of fertiliser firms and supermarkets. Science are already studied at school, ing number of people becoming aware The name of their game is profit. And however. It's just that not enough of of the Murray case. look at what they are doing to the food in the process. Do you know, they are us want to do them. Realistically, The solidarity group believes that how do the authors think they are going doing research to create square, thick- S more pressure must be put on the trade skinned tomatoes which will keep better to reverse this process ? Persuasion ? unions in this country, and asks for There is a man about, who after hav- and pack easier. Never mind what they people to help them with posters, leaf- taste like!" ing spent some time ‘inside’, said, p - lets and newsheets. Comrades would What if that doesn't work Let's not also be welcome to participate in the They make these vast profits because kid ourselves; these giopomls mean Belfast campaign. The group can be they are able to use unorganised, badly force, even if they do hide behind the contact ed through: William McDermott, paid, migratory labour. They are wor- respectability of Law. 223 Spamount Street, Belfast 151] ked long hours and are paid for what is picked. Men, women and children pick- In re'ecti1 ms andfishtins the implem- ing grapes, peaches, lettuces, strawb- entation of this 11-oposal it would be SRAF erries for both the American and Euro- easy to end up defending the status quo pean markets. Little has changed since Arguments like ‘It would be one step The first general Social-Revolutionary John Steinbeck wrote the Grapes of Wra- towards Soviet type state-capitalism Anarchist Federation (SRAF) meeting th in 1939. Families live in labour cam- where the role of education is complete in recent years was held in September ps without proper sanitary arrangements, ly geared to the needs of the ‘economy at the University of Illinois. Held to they still have to exist on below the min- and the state. . .at least here, although "plan the tactics and strategy of achiev- imum poverty limit officially recognised minimal, there is a degree of freedom ing a free society“ the meeting was by the government and they are still ' are in the end counter -productive, attended by '75 people from various parts subject to the violence from the forces because not only are we against the of Canada and the USA. Sam Dolgoff, of law and order, the owners and the ideas put forward in the report, but as author of The Anarchist Collectives ‘scabs’. But they also suffer from the I have tried to indicate at the beginning gave a seminar on Bakunin. He weicom- technology of the present age in that 4 of this article, we are dead against ed the SRAF meeting as a "great achieve out of 5 have contracted some form of things as they ye NOW. We need to ment" but warned against it being "side- pesticide poisoning. The 800,000 child- fight the syste now as well as fighting tracked by any kind of esoteric cults or ren who also work have to suffer these any plans which would make our situa- any kind of crap! " A meeting was call- nineteenth century conditions alongside tion worse in future. ed for late July or August next year in their parents. "It's the goodwill of the inmates that Milwaukeel] In the sixties a five -year struggle to keeps the prison together. Withdraw organise the Californian farmworkers that support and the place collapses. " and to sign contracts with the owners We want Revolution began. The union, the United Farmwor- We want the Smashing of the State Blood On The kers Union, was led by Ceasar Chavey We want an End to "Communism" and after a long series of strikes and a We want a Society without Authority Grapes hug campaign of boycotts they succee- We want a Society without Oppression ded in 1970. But when these 3 year con- We want the End of Elites 8: Hierarch- tracts ended the owners refused to re- We want Freedom i<-IS new them or even negotiate with the UFW. ‘lie want Cooperation 8: Solidarity Instead they signed up with the Teamsters We want Self-Management 8: Autono- Union who have over Zmillion members mous Struggles mainly employed in road haulage. This V79 want an Ecologically Sound Envir- notorious gangster outfit was used to onment break the UFW. The strikes once again We want an End to Chauvinism, brought arrests ( over 3000 ), violence Racism & Ageism The ( 300 seriously injured ) and 2 deaths. We want the Power to Decide our own Destiny United Farmworkers With the teamsters and other ‘scabs’ We want Control over our own Lives picking the grapes, the UFW have called “Te want Revolution Struggle for a boycott in this country of Californ- ian grapes. “Its the red grapes, the AND WE VTANT IT NOW I U In this country the size of farms are ones with blood on them". These grapes ‘All quotes and reference to the Report ore increasing at an alarming rate. But this will be on sale soon in this country. ' token from The Guardian 13.10.76. process has reached the stage in Kern They will be in your grocers stores and County in California, where one farm is especially in the supermarkets. One of larger than the whole state of Rhode these, Safeways, have direct financial Island. As Alan Albon has often pointed links with agri-business, and so pickets Belfast Meetings out in these columns, we no longer farm will be mounted outside these and other the land, it has become agri -business. supermarkets who stock these grapes.- The Anarchist Workers‘ Solidarity For instance, where there were 136,000 Group in Belfast report that meetings farms in California in 1930, now there With a very successful boycott in the to highlight the plight of Noel and Marie are about 73,000. United Dtates, the owners are relying Murray have been organised by the on the European market. So it is impor- Murray Defence Committee in many These facts were given by Jane Fonda tant that the boycott is a success here. before the showing of the United Farm Success is important to gain protection parts of Belfast. According to the erouF the meetings have had the su rt of Workers film, ‘Fighting for our lives‘ at against the giant financial interests and People's Democracy, the Regplgt;-public- the Other Cinema in London. The farms the reactionary laws which curtail pick- an Party, the Irish Republican Socialist no longer belong to individuals but to eting and organisation. A victory could Party and the Provisional wing of Sinn the ‘corporations’. It is the household mean that these farmworkers and their Fein, and many others including several names of American industry and comm- families will at last receive a living , - Catholic priests. They also mention erce who now own, and control, and su- wage and a decent place to live. Basic- that the Communist Party and Official pply so much of the food for the Ameri- ally it is a reformist struggle with a re- Sinn Fein and the Socialist Workers can people. Corporations like Lockheed, formist set of demands, but when people Movement (T9) as well as the Northern Dow Chemical and the Bank of America have to suffer the conditions that exist Ireland Civil Rights Association have - the same corporations who were so in agri-business they need all the supp- not supported the meetings. much involved with the war in Vietnam ort they can get. Boycott the grapes now bring, as Jane Fonda explained, us and the Safeway supermarkets! - our Christmas dinner. The six meetings held in Belfast, The UFW can be contacted at! some of them in conjunction with the "And these big agri -businesses are 110A Brooke Road, London N. 16 relatives‘ action committee, were said vertically integrated. They've got con- Tel: 01 - 806 56'7'7EI a P. T. 4 FREEDOM I $uff91'lT1g- 3°, faced with a labour org- anisation which proposes nothing concr- ete and only advocates token action, it Who Needs Austerity ? may well have been that the industrial action in the Piemonte really was a failure. ' For the moment it seems that the confederated unions and the ‘historic compromise‘ have won the day. The Communists, as we all snow, are very near to power (in fact, they are already collaborating in the running of the gov- ernment) and the wildcat action which took place threatened to ruin their bur- eaucratic and economic hold on power. Their actions and words (both the conf- ederated unions and the PCI) are typical of what we have come to expect, and will still have to put up with in the futu- re. Reformist action is, in Italy, dre- ssed up in exciting words and token action. The workers are managed and cajoled to take part in exciting-sounding action against the austerity package ‘Q - whi ch is not meant to achieve anything. 9S~191ili9Nn~1°Nn9~19l9BW Berlinguerdeviationistinmood Social democracy is also called ‘Comm- unism' and fie militants who have swea- ted their guts out to help the PCI and the Italian And British Workers Face Tough unions achieve their present position have not yet come no see that they have State Measures been fighting for the coming to power of their ‘new bosses‘ and not for the bette- ring of their lives. "The sacrifices ?Yesterday they for- the PCI and the confederated unions ced us to give up our meat, today they virtually lost control of the Italian lab- The present ‘piss-taking‘ of the wor- force us to stop using our cars, tomor- our movement and this time they have kers by these ‘new bosses‘ can only last row thev‘ll probably force us to give up ensured that they are in a co-ordinating for a certain period of time. The coll- television or the glass of wine which we and controlling position over the actions aboration of the PCI and unions in the knock back in the evening to forget work. taken. solving of the capitalist crisis can only And then?What am I to give my wife and put off for a temporary period an even The confederated unions, therefore, greater crisis. The list of ‘postponed kids to eat?I‘hey say that the sacrifices not wishing to lose control of the situ- are necessary and that we all have to problems’ is great and these will incr- ation ( and the government also does easingly lead the exploited masses to suffer in order to create new jobs. not want them to lose control ) have That's all very well but where are these realise where their real interests lie. been proposing token strikes and various The difference between North and South jobs ?Unemployment, instead of getting other proposals. The haggling that has less is on the increase". in Italy is increasing and not decreasing been going on between the CGIL (com- (and has been doing so for as long as the Hewspaper headlines in Britain and munist-socialist dominated ), CISL state has been claiming to be trying to Italy have a similar ring nowadays and (Catholic domination) and UIL (Republ- eliminate, or at least lessen, this dis- if it wasn't for the obvious language ican-socialist) has resulted in the types parity. The number of unemployed (as difference, the Times or the Guardian of action being decided upon not only in Britain) is still in creasing. The - could almost print the same stories guaranteed to cause the least trouble to number of degree holders, diploma hol- that appear in Corriere della Sera or the government and capital but also en- ders and other trained people without La Stampa. The common denominator sured that the workers participation in jobs is already high and getting still is the economic crisis and the whole of the struggle was on a low level. The higher. The indices we can use to illu- the media is geared towards telling ev- time for action if it was to be serious strate this point are manifold and the erybody that sacrifices are necessary and successful was when the austerity more of these we look at the more we today so as to ensure that the sun of programme was announced. Instead wonder how long the present ‘conning’ economic prosperity shines tomorrow the three unions spent the week haggling can continue. (or the day after at least). The quote over what type of action to take. One at the beginning of the article is what part wanted a general strike, another In Britain there seems to be no need regionally -based action and yet another a worker at the Pirelli factory in Milan for token action even because the self- wanted only partial industrial action. said when asked by a journalist what he styled leaders of the labour movement thought of the proposed programme of (the Labour Party) are actually the gov- austerity. This worker is angry and, In the Piemonte region(around Turin) the confederated unions called for indu- ernment and any action taken against most importantly, not taken in by the banker -Jim Callaghan and his pals is government's propaganda. strial action last Wednesday. The res- ult was doubtful insofar as the unions construed as action against the labour WILDCAT STRIKES claimed a great success with a '70-80 movement itself. Hence, the ‘social In fact, many workers in the cities percent participation by workers whilst con-trick‘ is easily implemented with of Milan and Turin have taken part in the FIAT management (whom the action the TUC playing the role of chief mode- wildcat strikes over the past week in mainly affected) claimed that particip- rator of any demands that certain sect- protest against the austerity programme. ation by workers in the industrial action ions of the workforce may have had at Their actions, have not only intensely was as low as 30 percent. However, it any time. The recent case of the sea- worried the ‘official’ government but is hard to imagine how much enthusiasm men illustrates this very well. The a worker can have for token industrial difference in Italy is that the Communist also the big three confederated unions, Party is not ‘officially’ in power yet and not to mention the participating ‘shadow’ action . As the quote at the beginning government, the Italian Communist Pa- of this article shows, workers are angry so feigned opposition to what they choose to identify as ‘the government‘ serves rty (PCI). The confederated unions and do not accept that they should be the (CGIL, CISL, UIL) in fact have been ones to make sacrifices. In any case their purposes admirably. In the future when the PCI do ‘officially’ become part forced to take token action against th"e they see no evidence to support the mad government mostly against their leaders claim that if they suffer jobs will auto- of the government, stances similar to wishes. They have obviously not for- matically appear and realise full well that of the Labour Party in this country; gotten the ‘hot autumn‘ of 1969 in which that suffering will lead to even more will no doubt be taken. FREEDOM 5 Secondly, the Communists‘ major azzo S. Giacomo supports has become The oppressed and exploited in Italy a commonplace; its a commonplace that will tolerate the sacrifices that they claim to the governmental throne is that they control the working classes of Italy everybody talks about the maneouvres are called upon to take for as long as put into action by several leaders of the their faith remains in the ability of the and they can only show that by keeping the masses quiet and calm. 500, 000 peo- PCI to split the Disoccupati Organizzati PCI and unions to represent their inte- (priviledges given to the leaders of the rests. As the situation gets worse this ple and more, without prospects and very movement to split them from the base, faith will probably start to crack and, angry are not very conducive to a calm political scene. the enlisting of local thugs to intimidate hopefully, workers, unemployed and the rebels, the opening of new local ‘se- oppressed of all types will start to see It is not surprising, therefore, to ctions‘ based on "phantom" party memb- that the taking of direct action is the read in Umanita Nova ( anarchist weekly ership lists to engulf the most combative only way to achieve their demands. of the Federazione Anarchica Italiana ) part of the unemployed, clientelism ope- The ‘hot autumn‘ of 1969 was not crushed that cammorist tactics are being adop- rating in the handing out of jobs, etc. . .) for ever and the events of the last week ted by the Valenzi junta against the Dis- but nobody has the courage to publicly show that the sparks have already been occupati Organizzati. denounce ( at the very least ) the scand- rekindled. Let us wish the "bosses, A alous behaviour of the local PCI“. - both ‘old’ and ‘new’, a very warm winter "In plain words, the PCI has turned to u indeedfl FI'3.llC€SCO the local mafia, has turned to clientel- ‘The Disoccupati Organizzati developed spontaneously as an expression of anger, but the anger of people who had developed a revolutionary conscience. Unfortuna- tely they have so far accepted the arse- NAPLES, licking from the Communists, Socialists, Republicans, and the Proletarian Demo- Communists And Camorra Unite To crats, thinking that political parties with parliamentary ambitions could actually Defeat Unemployed g give a damn about their plight. The sad truth is that political parties need the One of the most surprising political ism of the most blatant variety and has spontaneous developments such as the developments of the past few years in gone as far as to even threaten those Disoccupati Organizzati to help them in Italy has been that of the growth of the representatives of the unemployed W110 their quest for power. When the intere- Disoccupati Organizzati ( the Organized do not wish to follow the line laid down sts of the people clash with the goal of Unemployed ) in the Naples area. Naples, by the PCI. " govemmental power it is clear that the for a long time under the domination of "I-‘or the neopolitans the fact that the parties ( and especially the PCI ) are the Christian Democrats who ruled thro- PCI has betrayed the expestahons of '11“-1' very quick to try and control the situa- ugh simple clientelism and through the Disoccupati Organizzati in the name of tion in their favour, but failing that, the camorra ( the underworld organisation the compromise with the neopolitan use of the local mafia is also a ready prevalent in this area ),in 1972 gave bourgeoisie which the ‘red junta’ of Pal- expedientlj S. Lucia just over 30 percent of its vote to the neo-fascist MSI. In 1975, the regional and municipal LATIN AMERICAN INFLATIQN elections resulted in the halving of the MSI vote and a changeover of power from the Christian Democrats to the Commu - Dictatorships Make It ‘Acceptable nists and other left-wing or ‘democratic’ parties. For a long time the local Chr- V‘e are always led to believe in Britain a crawling peg, and is not too oppressive istian Democrat ‘boss’ had been trying that order and discipline are conducive with its price controls". I The way that to put obstacles into the path of the new to economic prosperity, low inflation the military juntas go out of their way Communist mayor of Naples, Valenzi. and so on. If only everyone works hard, to enlist the help of the world's monet- Of course, these criminal attempts aga- asks for very small rewards and trusts ary giants is further revealed in looking inst the efforts of the Communists to the running of the country to the people's at what happened in Chile and Argentina. solve the terrible mess that is Naples representatives (either elected or self- “Under the Allende Government in ( both economically and socially ) could imposed) all will be well. This kind of Chile, official prices were kept at levels lead one to have a great deal of sympa- utopian rubbish can be quickly demoli - far too low to be realistic;shops became thy for Valenzi and the local Communists shed if we look at areas of the world in bare and buyers had to depend largely The growth in this time of the Disoc- which the capitalists ( of all varieties 1 on the black market ( which according cupati Organizzati has changed this par- the technobureaucrats and so on, have to widespread belief, got its supplies ticular situation. Quite simply, the ma.- a free hand in the carrying out of their via corrupt party officials ). After Dr. ss of unemployed around Naples h'ad had policies and reap in envious profits ( in Salvador Allende‘s fall, most controls enough. They decided to come together foreign currency of course ) all with the were swept away. The shops doubled and demonstrate their feelings. Several help of no-nonsense military dictators. their prices, but brought out stocks demonstrations were held initially in Chile, Argentina, and Brazil, we all from under the counter". know have tremendous economic diffic- 1975 one of which attracted well over Senora Maria Estela Peron also made ‘500, 0-00 participants ( that's equivalent ulties and their rates of inflation run at undreamt-of levels. the mistake of favouring price controls to 5 Wembley cup-final crowds ) and of to ‘monetary correction‘ ( the system course blocked the whole city. Other In 1975, for instance, the price level which works so well in Chile and Brazil actions were also taken such as the blo- in Brazil rose by about 30 percent after according to the businessmen ). "The cking of the central railway station and much higher rates; in Argentina the rate controls increased in number and absu- so on. soared over 300 percent and Chile's rdity until they could not be effectively Unfortunately, the Disoccupati Organ- was falling from its 1974 peak of over enforced. The black market swelled to izzati have now become an emba1assme- 600 percent. Businessmen ( of all vari- a size that justified its being renamed llli I01‘ the ruling l‘leO[)0lllZan Communists, eties ) have had to adapt to living with the ‘parallel economy‘. The junta which Firstly, their activities in Naples threa- inflation but they have done so at the ex- seized power in March 1976 has set ten the Communists long sought after pense of the people who have had to be about razing the control fabric". ‘historic compromise‘ with the Christian kept in check by some of the most ruth- less military dictatorships ever seen. We are also led to believe that every- Democrats ( who of course in the space one ultimately suffers from severe in- of a few years have been magically tran- “In Chile and Brazil" the Financial flation. However, the ‘monetary corr- sformed from the murdering swines res- Ti_mes tells us "the Government has ection‘ practised by the Latin American ponsible for Piazza Fontana into good entrusted financial policy to sound eco- dictatorships ensures that only the people anti-fascists - but then again, for the nomists, and enforces their rules with of thatcountry suffer whilst business Communists even army generals have vigour". About Brazil we are further‘ and the multinationals are helped to get now become democratic and anti -fascist). told that it “gears foreign exchange to round the difficulties created. y FREEDOM “ ‘Monetary correction’ covers many and those of the managers of the multi- types of adjustment mainly based on a nationals for instance. The various el- general index. Chile and Brazil make . ites now live through a very precarious use of the full range . Their national relationship. If the people can find the obligations are indexed. So are private ability and the formidable courage req- contracts - for instance, rents and arr- uired to make their feelings find some angements for delayed payment. Bank kind of expression this precarious bala cl- loans and deposits are often indexed if nce could be upset and a small part of their term stretches beyond six months. the work will have been done towards a Tax debts ( both to and of government ) libertarian revolution N: S. are indexed: so are the personal allow- ances. ( Chile defines the latter in terms of a ‘tax unit‘ whose size/in pesos jumps PURSUIT or tr-re When a great earthquake hit China re- each month ). The crawling peg and . cently, it was noteworthy ttat the news inflation accounting can be regarded as was hushed up to the extent that it has further examples of monetary correction". UNSPEAl(ABLE never been known how many Chinese were In the May 1976 issue of the Italian THE FOX HUNTING seas°n is open, with killed in the ’quake. Now something of a magazine Rivista Anarchica an Argenti- hunters closely pursued by bands at defenders political earthquake has hit China, and nian comrade describes Hie events sur- of animals. Animal Liberation News service the Western tress is far more active in roundingthe military overthrow of Estela reporls actions in different parts of the land speculating about the casualties. It is Peron. t by different groups of brave people -- be- not only that the press is notoriously cal- cause it is brave to measure yourself physic- lous about othercountries‘ disasters, For 48 hours the radio and television ally against mounted ex-majors and well - bearing with fortitude the misfortunes of carried martial music and folk music nourished Farmers. The Hunt Saboteurs As- others, but speculating about the political and ‘communiques‘ dictated by the lead- sociation has inten-upted foxhunts in Hamp- . future of other countries is as fascinating ers of the military junta. It was brought shire, Hertfordshire, Oxfvrdshire and hare a journalistic exercise as crosswords or to the attention of the population that, coursing in Nortolk. Their method is to jig-saw puzzles. confronted with the evident decomposition blow hunting horns to distract the hounds, All the elements of a good newspaper of the regime which threatened the integ- usually with successes in esccped Foxes. rity of the State, the Armed Forces had story are present—sex, violence, the They report little violence from hunters. stage, political skull-duggery —indeed the taken power with the intention of favour- The Enfield Chace hunt in Herts called in the ing the reconstruction of the count:ry so secrecy with which the whole story is police, who irrpeded proceedings by re- surrounded is a story in itself. Madame as to achieve an ‘authentic democratic peatedly evicting the sdaoteurs from land Republic‘. ,Mao( Chiang Ching), the femme fatale: ex- where they were blowing their hams, and actress, , one-time revolutionary supp- Sentences ranging from 10 years to here one sdaoteur was arrested but later re- orter of Mao, joining him on the field of the death penalty were announced for any leased without being charged with breach of battle and becoming his mistress; the person or group taking up arms against the peace, There is no report that the strange death of Lin Piao, killed in an the Armed Forces or the police. Tanks huntswoman who tried to ride down a protest- air crash when fleeing to the Soviet Union in great numbers also appeared on the er and caused him to injure a leg was thought after the failure of his plot; the reported principal roads. However, nothing ha- to be likely to cause a breach of the peace. deaths of three unnamed radicals: you ppened. The armed forces were expec- A resident at this place told the saboteurs name it, China has it-there is even a ting some form of popular resistance that the hunt had put young foxes, previously Taiwan inspired story that Hua Kuo-Feng which failed to materialise. captured, into local woods the night before is the "lost" son of Mao. to ensure there was something to chcse. The However, in the economic system Hunt Saboteurs directed their most aggressive The Chinese, in common with all total- which the Armed Forces have to ensure action at a Wilt-shire vicar, turning up at his itarian regimes, has only itself to blame is kept going, only those who have eco- church 65-strong with banners bearing slog- for the wild rumours that take the place nomic and bureaucratic power can bene- ans of which examples are ‘Do unto otters as of information. At the height of the Russ- fit and the inevitable price of inflation you would have them do unto you‘ and ‘Gory ian Communist struggle for power an Am- has to be paid for the transformation of Hallelujah‘, the wretched vicar being way- erican paper carried the heading, accord- the economy into havens of privilege laid on leaving the church by a St. Francis ing to John Dos Passos: "LEN/N SHOT BY and undisturbed command. For privile- prepared to hear his confession. TROTSKY IN DRUNKEN BRAWL" Behind all this ge to exist, however, there has to be speculation is, and was, an amount of a mass of un privileged people whose Having hada Few years to recover from the wishful thinking, but in the Chinese situ- consent cannot be guaranteed by social custom of Kathy Farr, Harrod‘s fur department ation even this is tempered with a certain democratic ‘social conning‘. The only was visited by about 20 members of Animal caution. means of guaranteeing their consent is Activists, who talked and argued with statf According to the China-watchers, the by the use of military might. and customers about the cruelty involved in "moderates" (whatever that means) are in Several types of people can be seen obtaining Furs. There were scutfles as control, The West, and this has been em- to benefit from administering this type Han'ods bouncers tried to remove the demon- phasised in some of the Press, needs of system. Most obviously, the massive strators, and as this proved difficult Harrods China's custom, and China's presumed economic entities of ITT, IBM, Volks- diplomatically ushered customers out and self-sufficiency and "siege economy" wagen, Ford, Coca Cola, etc. . .with closed the department, and demonstrators under Mao is thought to be capable of be- all their hangers on ( from mere bure- left. They had been agreeably surprised by ing changed (to the profit of the West) un- aucrats to technocrats ) are the first some support from customers, some of whom der the new regme. ones to benefit from an economic clim- applauded the demonstrators. What the expression "moderate" means ate undisturbed by workers‘ demands. is difficult to assess, but devotees of the Then the army hierarchy also enjoy a The Animal Liberation Front has openly cyclic theorv of revolutionary history will great amount of personal privileges acknowledged expressing their anger at discern already Hua Kuo-Feng as the Stal- in the form of large residences, very vivisection by causing damage at two estab- in to Mao's Lenin. (The ‘Guardian’ incid- high real incomes and so on. That is lishments: A Tuck 8. Sons Ltd. Laboratory entally mvstified all by describing the their reward for carrying out the murder Animal Breeding Centre near Rayleigh, Essex, three dead radicals as “Conservatives"). of those who wish to resist on behalf of where they painted with slogans and slashed He could be the Trotsky, or the Khrusch- the bosses. Then there are the so-call- the tyres of a van which they claim was used ev-you pays your penny (or 10 p. )-and ed ‘sound economists'who, whilst not to transport rats and mice to vivisection labo- takes your pick. producing anything draft out and admin- ratories; and OLAC at Redhill Farm, Kings . ister the important ‘monetary correction‘ Norton (Bimingham) where anti-vivisection Even Communist revolutions and part- policies. slogans were sprayed on the walls of an of- ies have their own particular pattern. fla- vour and history. Cuba, Russia, Vietnam Quite how this situation will develop Fice, a phone damaged, and papers and docu- ments taken. A. L.F. also struck a blow at and Yugoslavia have only in common the depends on how the various power elites "Communist" label on the tin. China had behave in relation to each other. After the consciences of icthyo-vegetarians by damaging several pounds‘ worth of angling to rope in poor maverick Albania to forti- all, contradictions exist between the in- fy her brand image but the 5'7 varieties > terests of nationalistic military officers equipment in Woolworths in St. Albans. -i FREEDOM 7 Seem 3 11""1i3l?1‘3 '59 the Possible V31'13t" Cleanlrness and Godlmess , Wl'llCl1 trred to put ions. l A N n N things into perspective. l\low regulations are M -I-.. _-5.; M e the hard wan a imposed in the name of cleanliness, but in ao Te FE Cam up ' the interests of the large vested bodies. Weeds self-educated peasant, he survived the po- and pests and bacteria are destroyed with gay litical tan-moil of the Comintern to lead in abandon by such chemicals as dioxin which, a civil war, a guerilla war, and a war of This Little Piggy prior to the Italian disaster and the revelations liberation. He survived an alliance with from Vietnam on the toxic nature of this chem- THE NEAREST MOST PEOPLE get to a pig is the Kuomintang and the Long March to ical, was assured by the manufacturers to be wrapped up in a plastic container in a super- bring China out as a triumphant ally in the perfectly safe. anti -Fascist war. He survived a snub from market. How it gets there, the way it is prod- Moscow in the Sixties—at what price is not uced never enters enters people's heads except One of the lesser known hazards of the yet known. He came to some modus vivendi when it fails to appear on the shelves or when drought is that residues of chemicals remain with America which ditched Taiwan (For- the price rises catastrophically. There was a unbroken down and not washed away, so that mosa) and allowed China into the United, time when nearly every countryman kept a pig cereal crops cannot yet be planted. They get Nations. If we are to believe the papers, which consumed all the waste food and incid- washed to some degree into the water supply. he survived several plots against his per- entally manured his garden. Even parts of the establishment are worried son—-including his wife's nagging—to die The place where the pig was kept was called about the problems of plutonium. They may be honourably in bed. a sty or hovel, which description often applied overruled by blind vested interests which, of His virtues were the military ones and to the house of the owner. Hovr ever, both par- course, include the trade unions who, with as a Marxist-Leninist he led his people on ties lived in the kind of comfort that varied ' the notable exception of the Australian build- the paths of regimentation and conformity. with the resources, attitudes and capabilities ing workers, are remarkably obtuse when it It is true that China has probably eradic- of the people. comes to these matters. ated poverty, famine (with a little help) and illiteracy, but given the wide powers But there now seems to be a blanket uniform- We live in times of technocratic authoritar- that Mao had, any reactionary could have ity in housing and rearing, which is costly and ian disorder and chaos, in which a myriad of planned to the same end. It is well for full of hazards. There was on a farming prog- powerful govemmental supported interests in- China that Mao's intentions as a whole ramme, a talk by a veterinary surgeon on the flict upon people a host of hazards which bec- were benign and only a minority suffered matemity arrangements for pigs. He described ome more and more dangerous. This is because from the lack of freedom. But since Mao's these concrete palaces as quite unsuitable for of the nature of education and communication immediate aim was never freedom but the purpose. They in effect add to the great- in a privileged society, which tends to induce communism he merely echoed Marx, En- est hazard to young pigs, which is enteritis. people to leave decisions to the experts. gels and Lenin, "‘Don‘t you want to abol- However, there is little one can do about this as one man under existing methods looks The answer is participation and understand- ish state power ‘ ‘Yes. we want to, but ing, which will produce order and anarchy out not at the gresent time. We cannot afford after so many animals. The pig can only prot- ect itself by dying or not doing so well. of chaos and governmental authority. to abolish state power just now (1949). ‘ ALAN ALBON ‘Why not ' ‘B-eca'.:se imperialism still ex- The same sort of uniformity is, of course, ists. Because, internallv. reactionaries imposed on human beings. The same object- still exist and classes still exist. ions can be raised about the maternity arrange- Comrades! On the positive side Mao would not (in :1-rents for human beings where the some intest- 1940) keep prisoners—except war -crimin- inal hazards apertain. But here there is at als or shoot them! But, on reflection, for least an organisation (Natural Child Birth Help the Munays a mobile guerilla force, prisoners would Trust) run by women for women and men to merely be an encumbrance. He went to understand these natural processes, which great pains, and this is merely a military were being organised for the convenience of virtue. not to antagonize the peasantry- the professronalsO . (I drgressedI here because for his troops had to live off the country. the veterinary surgeon was Sl'l'8SSl|1g that comp- letely antrseptrc condrtrons can separate the Througitout his life he had a talent for I O I, young from the natural rmpurrtres that are p compromise and survival. He workedwith ed on by the mother). Chiang Kai-§:e1s. as long as it was necess- ary or possible. S Some years ago Reginald Reynolds, associat- He was not above claiming the entire ed with the libertarian pacifist movement, semi -proletariat (whoever they are) and wrote a humourous but pointed book called the petty bourgeoisie as "closest friends rr ‘ii -' i '_‘ '-' ' R "- but advocated caution against their right- wing tendencies. The "middle peasants“ Dt-3lllS H63l€y’S Rubicfln were necessary allies too, but, he says, “. . .the poor peasants must wore; on the middle peasants and win them over". He summed the whole thing up pragn: aticallv / in 1950 when he said, "Whoever sideswiL": imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat- I capitalism is a counter -revolutionary. ‘IN-(. Whoever sides with the revolutionary peo- r pi ple in words only but acts otherwise is a 1 L revolutionarv in speech. Whoever sides *7 Qxki with the revolutionary people in deed as - — well as word is a revolutionary in the full A reader of FREEDOM in Gartree pri- sense." son collected the massive sum of £62 for Mao is gone. Now the myths begin. If l the Defence Committee. s Prison regulat- as is possible. we see another bloody st- E ions did not allow this sum to be sent out ruggle for power we shall see another re- in a lump sum, so the donors undertook volutiona devouring itself. If there is, as to send their amounts separately. At the is likely, some subtle shift of policy in demonstration on 8th October the Defence the direction of enforced collectivization Committee's treasurer was able to ann- " and repression, the revolution will des- ounce that £32 had by then been received. troy itself. If the Chinese people see, in als exchange of masters, possibilities of - ;;,,_.,,,,,,\ M¢,.,5,;___ DE FE NCE COMMITTEE ADDRE SSE S: . cO“:]"m‘;‘:" fT‘;°d<’_m-taP°SS1b11l_:F'@S 1" the r Ireland: 155 Church Road, Celbridge, er fulfineilr 3'1‘ "15_ 1:18. ‘ff lch Mao nev- ‘HOW DARE YOU GO OVER MY HEAD County Kildare, Eire. e , ere rs ope ror Ch1na.cr PRIME MINISTER .7 " London: Box 2, Rising -Free, ' Jack Robinson. 138 Drummond Street, N.W. 1. FREEDOM I FREEDOM: CONTAC1'-O Ws="—-"-‘WkStation I 34a Store-~ Y 'sW9)’, CambridSc9e Itel.= 52896) . NEXT DESPATCHING date for FREEDOM is 22° - tr SUPPLEMENT: No 2|: VOLUME 37. 9 Anarchist _ I Rewew October 23 76 Luciano Lanza on Techno-Bureaucratic Aspects Of Fascist Economics Translated by Barry Smerin. Part One. and so on. All this.is certainly true and important, but the fact remains that fascism in its ‘mature’ form - in its intentions and in many of its ach- ievements - was essentially an anticapitalistic movement expressing the interests of a new class - the middle class that was rising to a ruling position. (I) The current fascist "revival",(2) much more modest than we are led to believe, tends to work against serenity of judgement. However, today's meagre crew of young thugs and living fossils of the former regime do not have the same significance as the movement of the twenties, of which the present movement has conserved only the delinquency and the finan- cial support of a few capitalists who would like to halt or at least slow .3 banksness,tuseand down economic and social developments. We should not be led astray: I the belated followers of a regime now dead and gone need not worry us, ‘ while ‘official’ antifascism serves too often as an alibi for the true succ- essors of fascism - .'democratic technocracy' . My purpose in this essay is simply to open a debate on the interpretation of fascism, as a step towards a fuller understanding of the history and I development of the techno-bureaucratic class. (3) f_ - -\ A The Programme q To speak of the ideological programme of fascism and nazism may seem ‘ of little importance, since the main feature of their political strategy bf.ball8l1:(f not immediately in question, nobody can speak for the future: since the In conclusion, the alliance between big capital and tecnnobureauciacy -"°il°" is ihe $0le 0W"el'i e0¢l'\ person may hope that the distribution of changed with time. The balance of power, favourable to capital at the the 'fief‘ among the ‘vassals' may one day be modified.‘(6) beginning of the twenties, gradually shifted, and by the thirties, after the crash of I929, the fascist regime was in a position to impose ii-self wii-h Otto Strasser went even further than his brother in proposing that all equal if not greater force on its ‘historic ally‘. _ ‘national comrades‘ should be joint owners of the German economy. For this purpose it would be sufficient for the state, as sole owner of the nat- ional wealth. ‘P °‘l“T‘”‘ '0 ofloh cntrepeneur his own enterprise in 'fief‘, Fascism 8. the middleclasses against a tax payable in five or ten years. The enterprise would be inde- If the upper classes were an ‘extemal‘ ally of fascism, seeking 1-O exploii feasible. Possession, administration and profits would be divided in three, the alliance mainly for the purposes of restauration, the middle classes and one part each assigned to the entrepeneur, the personnel and the state. were undoubtedly the movement's sociological pillar. Large sections of the Property rights would be restricted: should the possessor die without a male white—collar middle class made up the intermediate and upper echelons of heir judged fit to succeed him, the 'fief‘ would retum to the people as a the party. The party itself was founded and organized on midde—class whole.(7) initiative, and it was only afterwards that the upper classes gave financial These extracts give an idea of the ideological concepts of fascism. I and political support. The anticapitalist and nationalist ingredient in the am bound to point out, however, that other passages could be quoted as Progrunma dei Fasci di Combattimento expressed by and large the ideology proof of quite different and often opposite intentions. The statement in of those social classes which, squeezed between capitalists and working the Progrunme of the Fascist Party that ‘ . . . The state shall be reduced masses, saw their future increasingly called into question. to its essential political and judicial functions‘ (8) is sufficient illustration But fascism ccmnot be viewed simply as the revenge of a misguided mid- The fact is that fascist ideology was initially a mixture of fairly contradic- die - C1055 salariat " it was a much more complex phenomenon. In Italy tory elements. Statist and corporativist ideas became more accentuated and above all in Gemiany, the economic expansion initiated by the new in the thirties, but they were expressed only in fragmentary form right up regime brought into existence, within the enterprises, new senior and to the second world war. Not until the ‘Repubblica Sociale‘ of Salo in middle management to whom the entrepeneur delegated numerous decision- I943 (i.e. when the regime was on its deathbed), did they assume the making functions. This development follows from the nature of large urid- shqae of a ‘constitution'., i.e. a conscious ideological complex. Up to ertakings: as the size of an undertaking increases, the Process of product- th at point, therefore, our analysis bears not so much one statements of ion and distribution becomes more cocplex and the entrepeneur can no principle as on actual trends and practical achievements. It is from the longer direct the whole enterprise efficierrtly by himself. This is a well- latter, as we shall see, -rather than from its programmes, that the true known phenomenon which has been studied and analysed in all its variations nature of fascism can be deduced. Fascism was seen by the middle classes as a means of political and social self—assertion. The assertion of the party was seen as the assertion of its Fascism 8. Big Capital component elements, just as the increased power of the undertaking was The original fascist programme, as we have seen, contained anticapital- seen as an increase in the power of the new managers. Within the middle istic, nationalist and socialist elements. Such ideological premisses, class itself, a distinction should be made between those who, as it were, very often of a rhetorical nature, are usually taken as an attempt to win embodied the regime and those who simply supported or totally submitted over the working and. peasant masses. The fascists did indeed make consi- to it. It is therefore worth looking at the changing relations between the derisle changes to their programme once in power, but this needs to be social classes over the period I921-I936. (I3) looked at in depth in order to achieve a proper understanding of the reas- The middle-class salariat, i.e. middle-class bureaucracy, (I30) grew ons which led them to abandon the programme of I919. One of the reasons in numbers over the period in question from 650,000 to 990,(XD, while was the support which the young movement sought and obtained from num- middle-class self-employed (craftsmen, shopkeepers, etc.) dropped from erous sectors of big capital and the wealthy landowners. The conquest of 9,650,000 to 9,250,013 and the upper classes from 350,lII) to 320,000. power was undoubtedly the fruit of a compromise with the traditional In percentage terms, which perhqis makes things clearer, the changes ruling class. While the support of the upper classes was decisive, it is were as follows: middle-cl technobureaucracy, from 3.2 percent to 5 necessary to analyse the opposing motives which militated in favour of the percent; middle-cl self-en-ployed, from 47.3 percent to 47.l percent; compromise. On the one hand, the capitalists saw in Mussolini and his upper classes, from l.7percent to l.6 percent; working class from 45 per- party a force capable of stopping the ‘red revolution‘ they feared; they cent to 43.6 percent. entrusted him with the task of strengthening and revitalizing the capitalist system, certainly not with its subveision.(9) On the other hand, the fasc- Thus the middle-class technobureaucracy alone expanded, while all ist movement saw itself not as an adjutant of the liberal regime and of the other classes regressed to a greater or lesser extent. The quantitative class which personified it, but as an altemative to that class, with quite increase alone does not fully account for the social dominance of the mid- another strategy than support of capitalism. dle class technobureaucracy, but it is particularly significant in conjunc- tion with an analysis of the influence exerted by that class on the econo - It is true that policy from I922 to I925 was marked by measures in favour mic and political structures of the country. The fact that the development of capitalists and landowners, (I0) but, in the final analysis, such measu- of the middle-class salariat was directly linked to the expansion of state res must be seen as the ‘pay-off‘ for the financial and political support bureaucracy and industrial technocracy is of prime importance. Many obtained in the preceding years. The same period saw the beginnings of senior administrative posts were filled by the middle class, i.e. by persons state intervention in the economy in favour of large concerns facing coll- with no capital whose sole possession was a new kind of properly: techni- apse. Ansaldo and the Banco di Roma were the first to benefit from the cal, administrative and scientific know-how. The large industrial comb- new economic policy. In its first interventions the state did no more than ines, the cartels, the planning offices and the corporations were in the subsidize, but this was, nevertheless, symptomatic of a new trend. hands of new administrators who were capitalists by neither origin nor Fascism also passed measures favourable to the industrialists in the tax- position. ' ation sector. The reduction of the rate of the tax on movable assets (ll) was undoubtedly a concession to the industry, but it is significant that, at Economic structureof Italy&Germany the same time, control of that tax was strengthened and rationalized to when Mussolini came to power in I922 Italy was in the process of rec- such an extent that the yield increased considerably in very few years. overing, albeit slowly, from the post-war crisis. The country was still es- The same considerations apply to nazism. sentially agricultural, (I4) but it did possess some heavy industry which In Germany, .too, the big capitalists gave the nazis financial support, the First World War had done much to expand and which had been thrown thinking to use them against the workers and hoping to bridle them through into severe depression by the scbsequent lack of orders. The structure of parliamentary tactics once they had perfonned their alloted task. But agriculture was largely determined by the nature of the terrain. The north, here again, once the initial hesitations were overcome, the movement especially the Po flatlands, was mostly given over to intensive farming developed its programme of state control with increasing precision, and (cereals and animal husbandry on large and medium-sized holdings using the capitalists realized too late that fascism was not serving their class hired labour). In central Italy small family holdings engaged in mixed interests. ‘ farming were the rule. The south and the isalnds were dominated by large agricultural estates (grain and pasture). As for the structure of industry, If the entente between big industry and fascism is to be properly under- the 1927 census gives us the relevant information. I15) stood in a historical context free of preconceived ideas, one must be clear about the fact that ‘the essential thing is not so much to establish the Industrial production was heavily concentrated in tho floI'il‘lr Where 49 degree of fascism's.dependence on certain fprces and interests as to under- per cent. of all undertakings, with 64.1 per cent. of all employs‘-N-15¢ Wefe stand the extent of and reasons for its independence of them. Only thus to be found. Clothing was the most widespread sector I26-I Per °e"'i- °ll is it possible to appreciate the reasons for the errors committed by the all undertakings), followed by transport and communications (14.8 per traditional ruling class, the newness of fascism and its success both at the cent.), food (11.2 per cent.) and engineering (11 per cent.). The Chief level of the masses and on the political level proper.‘ (I2) industries by numbers employed were textiles (16 per cent. of all industr- Review .. 11 ial workers), transport and communications (13 per C6"?-it ¢I0i'I"i"9 I12-3 delegate an ever increasing part of his own functions (and thus of his per cent.) and engineering (12 per cent.). The textile i"d°5i"Y °I5° i°°k power) to experts who run the undertaking collectively, i.e_. to techno’- first place in regard to energy consumption (8.9 per cent. of total con- bureaucrats. Furthermore, an increase in the size of an undertaking often sumption), followed by transport and communications (8 per cent.), iron A coincides with its transformation into a ioint-stock company, which in and steel (8 per cent.), food and associated industries (7.3 per cent.). turn is frequently followed by a fragmentation of the share capital such ' that the individual shareholder is no longer in a position to determine In regard to employed in each undertaking, the census shows choices and decisions within the company: that is, he loses his power that 45.6 per cent. of all firms employed one person only, 43.4 per cent. while remaining a ioint owner. (21) employed five or less, and about 1.3 per cent. employed more than fifty. Moreover, 53.7 per cent. of all employees (i.e. 2,151, 973 persons) By decree of 23rd June 1927 the regime granted appreciable tax bene- worked in undertakings that employed not more than fifty persons. This fits for mergers and thereby began a process which in a few years saw the all means that in the early years of the fascist regime — the situation rise of consolidation of large industrial combines. (22) The concentration changed somewhat in the following years — Italian industry consisted pre- of industry proceeded not only through mergers but also through the form- dominantly of craft industry and small to medium-size firms. Large and ation of cartels and trusts. (23) For example, one of the first laws prom- very large concerns, with 46.3 per cent. of all persons employed, repre- ulgated by the nazi regime (15th July 1933) entitled the state to combine sented, from the point of view of nurrbers employed, scarcely half of all undertakings in a given sector of production in a compulsory cartel and Italian industrial activity. Unlike Italy, the Germany of the thirties was favoured the formation of trusts. At the end of 1932, 4060 of the 9624 basically an industrialized country. Agriculture accounted for a little existing German joint-stock companies were involved in trusts. And these more than 20 per cent. of all goods produced, while industry provided were the larger companies, as can be seen from the fact that, out of a the other 80 per cent. The pattem of change in the social structure att- total authorized capital of 22,300 million marks for all ioint-stock com- ests to the growing industrialization of Germany, (16) and the predomin- panies, the combined authorized capital of companies involved in trusts ance of industrial employees over other categories confirms this picture. amounted to some 18,800 million marks. Three years later, at the end The tdale reproduced below (17) shows, interestingly, that while all of 1935, this development had continued to the point where 48 per cent. other sectors of activity experienced a more or less marked decline from of all ioint-stock companies (as against 42 per cent. in 1932), with 90 1925 to 1933, the services sector grew significantly. per cent. of the combined capital (as against 84 per cent. in 1932) were involved in trusts. (24) In substance, the fascist and nazi governments This is particularly relevant because expansion inthe tertiary sector is placed themselves at the head of a movement for the formation of indust- generally directly related to the growth of trusts, cartels, banks, and rial combines, whose dependence on the authorities became even more state intervention, i.e. activities in which the bureaucratic-adminstrot- ive aspects of production are particularly important. Economic Self-Sufficiency Any examination of the nazi-fascist economic system must deal with the question of economic self—sufticiency, which was one of its basic features. Despite the fact that steps towards self-sufficiency were not among the first measures taken by the regimes in question, the philosophy of "self-reliance" permeated the whole dynamics of the economy. In self-sufficiency the fascist leaders saw a way of avoiding the necessary consequences of trade relations with other countries and of leaving them- selves free to reorganize national production on the basis of a planned economy. (18) The shift towards self-sufficiency was also determined by obiective considerations such as the unfavourable rate of exchange with more in- dustrialized countries (in the case of Italy) and the attempt to achieve a considerdale measure of economic independence (in the case of Germany) eanqwo_|_ In 1934 the ltalian balance of trade showed a deficit of 2,500 mill-ion lire. To restrict the outflow of gold, the govemment first introduced spe- cial licences for ir-ports of foreign goods and then, from lst August 1935, took over the monopoly of foreign irrports of cotton, copper, tin, iron, nickel, coal, wool, fuel and other raw materials. A parallel develop- ment took place in Germarry, whose trade deficit reached 285 million marks in 1934. March of year saw the establishment of govemment departments to regulate irrports of main products. In September, Schacht, the Minister of Trade, decided to increase the number of departments to 185114 twenty five, thus placing all maior goods under state control. (19) The steps towards self-sufficiency token by the ltalian regime did not pronounced with the introduction of compulsory state authorization for restore the balance of trade, which continued in chronic deficit, whereas new businesses (25) and the authoritarian suppression of numerous small Germany (which possessed a more solid productive apparatus) managed to undertakings. (26) move into surplus with the help of a shrewd durrping policy. _SeIf-suffici- In Italy, strict state control _was further strengthened in April 1936, ency can thus be seen to be a new mechanism for regulating the movement when it was extended from compulsory trusts to the voluntary production of goods, and one that was in more than merely tactical opposition to the and sales consortia which in some sectors accounted for 75 per cent. of free market of the liberal era. The "new order" was the result of the de- national production. cline of the free market and its replacement by "distribution for national self-sufficiency", i.e. a distribution of goods decided from above in acc- ordance with strict planning criteria. (20) The introduction of a policy of Salvage Operations economic self-sufficiency had ample repercussions in the social field. By An examination of state intervention in the economy shows quite clear- undermining one of the basic tenets of capitalism, i.e. the free movement ly that the fascist technobureaucracy aimed at transcending the capital- of goods, it caused an upheaval in the existing social order and laid the ist system. The changes in direction in fascist economic policy were due foundations forjds replacement by an order more in line with the new re- more to contingent economic and political difficulties than to a lack of lationships of production. overall strategy. At first, fascism traded on the weakness of the capital- ists and pursued a policy of rescuing companies in trouble. For many ec- Concentration of industry onomists, especially the marxists, this proves that fascism was essentially a capitalist regime — indeed, a product of "monopoly capitalism in its The concentration of industry favoured and encouraged by the fascist imperialist phase" — and they consequently consider the corporations as technobureaucracy is extremely significant, since it is symptomatic of anticapitalistic intervention in the economy. The foregoing assertion is nothing bu instruments of big capital .. (27) In reality this was far from the case, which l shall attempt to demonstrate by facts rather than abstr- based on the fact that the size of an undertaking is itself almost always a act formulae. ‘ ' succinct indication of the power relations within it. Parallel to an incr- ease in the size of an undertaking goes an increase in the knowledge re- The world crisis of 1929 gave fascism an opportunity to operate more quired to manage the entire production process. As already pointed out, freely than in previous years. In view of the difficulties with which the the single entrepreneur finds himself at a disadvantage and is forced to capitalists were now faced, the regime was able to disregard their reprb esentations. Moreover, the world of industry, which had not taken so ication. Ailing concems that cane under the control of the administrat- kindly to bureaucratic interference before the crash, now saw it as the ive organizations continued to pay dividends to the capitalists, but the lesser evil, since it brought the benefits of state protection and financial latter lost an important part of their power over the enterprise. Slowly support. October 1931 saw" the foundation of Sofindit (Societa per il Fin- but surely the centre of decision making within the enterprise shifted. anziamento dell'lndustria Italiana), with a capital of 500 million lire Fascism, which still had to contend with the capitalists, preferred this. almost wholly subscribed by the state, for the purpose of subsidizing It- shrewder policy to outright nationalization. In this way, while providing alim industry in trouble. In November of the same year the lstituto Mob- the upper classes with substantial economic aid, (31) it deprived them of iliare Italiana (IMI) was set up with a capital of 500 million lire wholly part of their prerogatives. In addition, the depressed condition of private subscribed from public funds. (28) IMI issued state bonds to the value of industry and the requirements of a policy of economic self-sufficiency led 5,500 million lire repayable in ten years and used the money for medium the govemment to intervene in production directly, through the creation and long-term subsidies to private industry. Finally, the Istituto per la of state-owned undertakings. Among the most important of these were: Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI), which was founded in 1933, soon assumed AMMI (Azienda Minerali Metallici Italiana), founded in 1936; ACAI considerable proportions and quickly became the chief instrument of state (Azienda Carboni Ital iana), founded in 1935; AGIP, which had been set intervention, (29) remaining the largest Italian state organization tothis‘ up in 1926 and in 1936 merged with ACAI and Montecatini to form AN IC day. It was through IRI that the largest combines and principal ltalian (hydrogenation corrbine). The government also set up various national or- banks were saved from the effects of the depression. By the outbreak of ganizations for the regulation of entire sectors of production, such as the war, IRI controlled over 80 per cent. of shipbuilding, over 50 per cent. Ente Nazionale per la cellulosa e la carto (cellulose and paper industry), of the iron and steel industry and 29 per cent. of the electrical industry. the Ente Nazionale della moda (dress-making industry) and the Ente Naz- ionale metano (methane industry). State intervention in favour of ailing industry was less extensive in Gemrany during the nazi period, if only because the worse effects of the In Germany state intervention assumed slightly different forms and rel- depression had been partly overcome by 1933. Moreover, the was more ied on slightly different methods. The nazi regime aimed above all at solid than in Italy. The nazi regime exercised quite extensive control setting up public trusts to run whole sectors of the economy. One of the over the economy through the trusts and cartels, and salvage operations most important of these was VIAG (Vereinigte Industrieunternehmungen were carried out through the principal banks, where state capital pred- AG), a giant holding company formed during the First World War and ominated. Rather than coming to the aid of undertakings in trouble, the further developed by the nazis. VIAG participation included electrical nazi state substituted itself for private initiative in areas which the latter companies with a capital of 110 million marks, aluminium plants (36 mill- did not intend to exploit. (30) A case in point was the creation of the ion marks), engineering and metallurgical concerns (45 million marks) and HermannGoering Reichswerke fur Erzbergbau und Eisenhutten with public nitrate and calcium undertakings (20 million rncn-Ia). In all, this enorm- funds and capital provided by big industry — a typical example of a ous trust employed some 70,(IIJ persons. Another exarple already refer- "mixed company" . red to was the Hermann Goering Werke, founded in July 1937 with acap- ital of 5 million marks that was soon upped to 400 million, which operat- Direct Intervention ed chiefly in the iron-mining and metallurgical industries. The importance of state enterprise in Germany can also be gauged from From the initial stage of sporadic uncoordinated l'e$CUBQpg|'fl'fiQn5,,__. the the volume of public stock issues as compared to private. State capital fascist technobureaucracy moved on to more systematic intervention. The accounted for up to 91 per cent. of all stock issued. Thus, shares and fulcrum of the new industrial system were the administrative organizations bonds issued by private companies had only a very modest share of the like IRI, which we have already mentioned. The use of such organizat- capital market. (32) U Luciano Lanza. ’ am 1 —-—-———- ions was an innovatory feature of fascist state intervention which permit- This article was first published,in ltalian, in INTERROGATIONS 5, ted the economy to be brought under state control without formal modif- December I975,and will be concluded in the next Anarchist Review.- FOOTNOTES= (1) This idea has been put forward very recently by De Felice, whose or- (13a) cr. AA.\/V. Arrarchismo '70, Cesena1973, pp.76-77. iginality of interpretation makes him something of an exception among (14, Suffice it to say that in 1921, out of an actrve populatron of 20,420, students of fascism (R. De Felice, lntervista sul fascisrno, Bari 1975, p. III), a good 13 million were employed in agriculture (farmers, tenant 33). ' ' farmers, fann labourers, etc.) (2) In this connection see A. Bertolo, Pericolo fascista e imam (15) Cf. V. Travaglini, La Elitica industriale, in Economia Fascista, storico, in lnterrogatrons, No.3. h Florence 1935, pp. 202-3. (3) The debate on the con'ect interpretation of fascism has in fact already (16) Urban and rural Epulationspercentages) got under way, though in a rather disiointed fashion, within the ltalian 1 939 1933 1925 anarchist movement. For example, the Gruppi Anarchici Federati have introduced the technobureaucratic interpretation into their ideological Rural population 30.1 32 .8 35 .4 baggage. See also E. Cipriano, I droni con il fez , in A Rivista Anar Urban population 69.9 67.2 64.6 chica , Second Annual Series, no.5, June 1972. Taken from C. Bettelheim, L'Economia della Gem-rania nazista, Milan (4) G,A. Chiurco, Storia della Rivoluzione fascista, Florence, 1929, 1973, p.39. - (17) Breakdown of Epulation by occuEtion (percentages) VOLT] ppo n Ocgupqtion 1939 1933 1925 (5) G.Strasser, Kampf um Deutschland. This and subsequent quotations - agriculture and forestry 13 20-3 22-3 _ are taken from D. Guerin, Fascismo e gran ca itale (English title = - industry and crafts 41 39, 42-2 Fascism and Big Business), Milan I956. Gregor Strasser, like his brother - nude and fmmpo,-r 15.8 16 16.7 OH'o, was one of the chief theoreticians of national socialism. He was - public and private services 10.1 \r expelled from the party by Hitler after the conquest of power. - domestic labour I 2-1 r\>\| (6) G. Strasser, ibid. - ,,,|.,,, rs 13.6 I°'°?‘ --rs-co (7) O. Strasser, Aufbau des Deutschen Sozialismus, quoted in D. Guerin, Taken from C. Bettelheim, ibid., p.39. op. cit. (18) It 'rs interestrng‘ to note what Otto Strasser wrote 'rn Aufbau des (8) G.A.Chiurco, op. cit., Vol, Ill, p.640. Deutschen Sozialismus, op. cit: "Self-sufficiency is the means for achiev- ing Q new Fgrm OF economy I'bl' l’i6d 1'0 SUPPIY Ofld demand, ii‘! W'l‘IiCl"l (9) R. De Felice, op. cit. p.38. prices and quantities produced are decided by the state and internal cur- (10) The most important measures were: abolition of compulsory share rency is not linked to gold, so that the emphasis is on lcbour as opposed registration, transfer of the telephone system;to private enterprise, renew- 1 to capital, and state-controlled exports can compete in favour-dale con- al of the concessiars to the electrical companies, abolition of the state ditions with goods exported by capitalist countries, on which a profit ls monopoly in life assurance and the transfer of a large share of the business required." to private companies, and the suspension of the agrarian reform law. (19) cr. D.Guerin, °p.¢r+., pp.237 tr. (11) The tax on movable assets applied to company profits. (20) It should be stressed that the economic self-sufficiency system diff- (12) R. De Felice, op. cit., p.50. ered clearly from the protectionism of the beginning of the ¢el1l"-"'7: b°l'I" in soope and because protectionism did not change the essentral nature A (13) The figures which follow are taken Fiom P.Sylos Labini, Saggio sulle of the liberal economy, even if certain aspects were subiect to regulation classi sociali, Bari 1974, p.155. ' continued‘ on page16 Review ~ THEORY OF THE E BOSSES' Luoiono Lanza, the author of the preceding article is a member of G,A.F. (Gruppi Anarchici Federati), one of the three national anarchist federations in holy, In it-5 assembly held on the 20th and 21st March 1976, G.A.F. approved a new rogrammatic document, set out in 30 points. We publish here some extracts from the programme (recently published in its entirety by the Centro Documentazione Anarchica of Turin) in the hope that they will “clarify some of the theoretical assumptions mode in Lanza's article, and will throw light on what is becoming a major trend in European anarchist thought.N.S. 8- D.L.M. in the self-styled socialist states, the technobureaucrats man- Hierarchical Society age political and economic power monopoltstlcally and exerc- The state is the fundamental political institution of all mod- ise their form of exploitation, not so much individually as col- ern hierarchical societies. Consequently, anarchists have di- lectlvely through a "class ownership" of the means of product- rected their attacks particularly against the state, and contin- ion. They appropriate a privileged quota of goods and services ue to do so: once again, not only against the "bourgeois state" not directly like the capitalists, but indirectly through the state (the political structure of capitalist society) but against every which takes in this "class" quota and then redistributes it state, [resent past or future, in sosfar as it is an organizat- among its functionaries differentially according to their posit- ion of power, that is, of domination The anarchist critique of ion in the social pyramid, that is according to the hierarchical the state takes on new strength today in the face of the monst- importance of the function they fulfil. rous totalitarian invasion of the state and its transformation In the late -capitalist western world, the new bosses present into an "arena" of economic rather than political power. less distinctive features and their specific mode of exploitation is entwined with that of capitalist exploitation. They have their TheThree Classes historical and functional origins in the salaried middle classes at the service of the capitalist bourgeoisie. The development We are living through a historical phase of transition from of corporations, commercial and financial trusts, multination- the capitalist system to a new system of exploitation. This is a1 enterprises and the progressive extension of the state's role the key to the interpretation of the complex socro-economic in the economic and social fields have generated and are still framework and of international politics, whose convulsions generating the conditions for the increased importance and are the result not only of divergent imperialist interests, but power of the technical and administrative apex of enterprises also of opposed late-capitalist, post-capitalist and intermedi- and state institutions. ate social systems, with differing variants for every category Bureaucrats (state managers) and technocrats (the managers Following a three class model it rs possible to single out the of private undertakings) constitute two aspects of the new class, two m-incipal social factors in the transformation (the old and which can be differentiated still further by taking into account the new bosses), both at the international level and at the level the hybrid figure of the manager of a public enterprise. The of particular national structures, where capitalism has not al- technobureaucrats appropriate their class privileges, that is ready been buried (i. e. in the "State socialist" countries, and the fruit of their exploitation, through very high payments (sa- in parts of the Third World). It is also possible to identify the laries, bonuses, services, emoluments for their social resp- class which is dominated and exploited which, as always in his onsibilities). These payments, in the case of managers of pri- torical phases of transition, intensifies its class struggle, be- vate enterprises can be seen economically as hidden business cause the metamorphosis renders the psyihological and ideol- profits (that is capitalist surplus-value). The privileged pay- ogical instruments of subjugation less workable, and because ments of state managers (or high-ranking civil servants), on the class rising to power mobilises the rebellious energies of the other hand, are typically technobureaucratic. The payments of the exploited as a vehicle for its ambitions. of the managers of public enterprises or enterprises with state The exploited class, or rather the ensemble of exploited participation can be seen partly as profit (in so far as capital- classes (manual workers in general, inclufing wage-earners ist market-based procedures are still reflected in these enter- in agriculture, industry and the services, self-employed work- prises), and partly as real privileged rights over wealth prod- ers whose "self-employment" amounts to "self-management" uced not at the level of the firm but of the nation. of their own exploitation, and the rural and urban sub-pr01el:- ariat—the unemployed, the under-employed, the "marginaliz- Multinationals ed", etc. . .) objectively are exploited, independently of the In the big corporations the power of the technobureaucrats mechanism by which the relation of exploitation (which is not finds its managerial expression. Not only does the increasing necessarily the typical or dominant relation) is brought about, fragmentation of share-owned property render the decision- and independently of any subjective perception of the exploita- making power of the capitalist share-holders insignificant but tion itself. above all the enormous complexity of the managerial problems The "old bosses" are the capitalist bourgeoisie, whose pri- and related responsibilities transfers control of the economic vilege is based on the miva eans of tro- mechanisms to the managers, and also proportionately red- duction, and whose prevalent (but not only) method of exploit- uces the power of the major shareholders, apart from those ation is the typical relationship of production which extorts who are both capitalists and managers, thus taking on the char- surplus-value from wage -earning workers “in a market of lab- acteristics and prerogatives of the old and the new bosses. In our power and products. historic phases of transition, this often happens. The "new bosses", who are the dominant class in the self- The independence of the technobureaucrats is even more ac- styled socialist count:-ies, and who share power with the bour- centuated in the multinational companies. The power of the geoisie in the late -capitalist countries (in a dynamic balance shareholders over "their" enterprise operating at the intern- which is constantly shifting in their favour) are the technobur- ational level is practically non-existent: the entire production/ eaucrats. distribution process has such a complex structure that only the managerial staff is capable of controlling and co-ordinating it. TheNewBosses The multinationals, moreover, by their structure, produce a hierarchical division of work between geographical regions co- The new ruling class, the technobureaucracy, is defined by rresponding to the vertical division of work inside the firm: those activities in the sphere of intellectual labour which cor- the high level jobs with decision-making power are centralized respond to managerial functions in the hierarchical division in the metropolises of the developed countries (with a certain of social labour. The "new bosses" fulfil these functions and_ number of sub-capitals in the zones of medium development) derive the relevant privileges and powers not by virtue of pri- whilst -‘the activities with the lowest technological content are vate property rights over the means of production, but by vir- carried out in the underdeveloped countries. This is a new , tue of a kind of intellectual ownership of the means of graduat- type of international exploitation whose protagonists are no ion-that is, by possession of the knowledge necessary for the longer merely the advanced states against the underdeveloped management of large political and economic agglomerates. In ones, but also the multinational enterprises which are taking the fullest present day expression of their domination, that is on the role and functions of new colonialists.D Review . CHARLES WILFRED MOWBRAY, an English anarchist- Wallsall Affair, in which a group of anarchists were charged communist, arrived in the United States in the summer of with a dynamite conspiracy directed against thertsar of Russia, 1894. self-educated tailor from the London slums who had When The Commonweal, the organ of the Socialist league and served in the army as a youth, Mowbray was a big, athletic- 3 D6991‘ with which Mowbray had been closely associated, looking man in his middle thirties, with black hair, blazing published an article entitled "Are These Men Fit to Live " - o eyes and a tempestuous eloquence that had stirred many an (I:18al1lng the Home Secretary and police officials who had con- audience in Britain, where he had been a friend of William cted the investigation and the Judge who had sentenced the Morris and an active member of the Socialist League since four defendants to ten years in prison in spite of the fact that its formation a decade before. On September 20, 1885 he had the instigator of the plot had been a police spy - Mowbray was been roughed up and arrested for "obstructing a public thor- arrested and charged with inciting to murder. On April 19th, Oughfare" at Dod Street and Burdett Road, Limehouse, a site while Mowbray was in custody, his wife, the daughter of a long used for open-air meetings before the London police be- French Communard, died of consumption at the age of 31, gan-to interfere. In court the next morning Mowbray, "who and William Morris put up £500 bail so that he could attend had really done the most", as William Morris confided to his the funeral. Soon afterwards he was tried and acquitted, " Wife, was set free, though a disturbance broke out in which though David J. Nicoll, an associate on The Commonweal, Morris himself was nearly ordered detained by the presiding received an eighteenth-month term of m r magistrate. On November ll, 1992 Mowbray was again addressing a Haymarket anniversary meeting in London with Kropotkin, Paul Avrich Malatesta, Yanovsky and Louise Michel. The following sum- mer he was excluded from the Zurich Congress of the Second International, along with Gustav Landauer and other anarchist delegates, who proceeded to hold a "counter -congress of Charles Mowbray: their own. " A year later, the Socialist League having disband- ed and The Commonweal ceased publication, Mowbray landed British Anarchists In America in America on a speaking tour. During the summer and fall of 1894, Mowbray lectured on anarchism in New York, Paterson, and other eastern cities Part 2 A with large immigrant and working-class populations. In the spirit of Bakunin and Most, he called for revolutionary action This incident marked the beginning of a long free -speech by all the disinherited elements of society, dismissing trade fight, involving unemployment demonstrations and Haymarket unionism of "the old sick benefit sort" as a failure. "We must protests among other issues, in which Mowbray, a militant denounce the brutal indifference of the employed to the suffer- agitator of the Johann Most stamp, was a central figure. On ings of the unemployed - the criminals, the tramps, the cas- June 14, 1886 Mowbray was again arrested at a free-speech ual labourers, the victims, in short, of the brutal system of rally in Trafalgar Square and fined twenty shillings and costs. Undaunted, he organized a series of well-attended unemploy- class monopoly we are all suffering under. " In Paterson, ment meetings at Norwich, where he had become secretary of according to a French anarchist paper in Pennsylvania, Mow- the local Socialist League branch. "Socialism is going like bray's audience was held in thrall for an hour and a half by "the charm of his passionate and sincere voice, piling argum- wildfire" he reported to William Morris in October 1886. ent upon argument. " On January 14, 1887, however, Mowbray and a young assoc- On November ll, 1894 the seventh anniversary of the Hay- iate named Frederick Henderson were arrested following a market executions, Mowbray addressed memorial meetings meeting in the Norwich market place where, the authorities at the Thalia Theatre and Clarendon Hall in New York, foll- alleged, a bank and several shops were damaged by the crowd. owed by similar meetings in Hoboken, Paterson and Newark. Convicted for inciting to riot and "disturbing the public peace" Mowbray was sentenced to nine months and Henderson to four He then spoke in Pittsburgh and Baltimore before coming to months in prison. But their efforts had not been for nothing. Philadelphia in late December to address the Freiheit and William Morris, who followed the trial closely, noted in his Freie Wacht groups and the Ladies‘ Liberal League. So far, diary that "there is a good deal of stir amongst the labourers his tour had been "successful beyond my wildest hopes, " he about there; the place is wretchedly poor. " The Socialist wrote, but on December 28th he received a setback. For League organized a mass meeting in the Norwich market place when "the jolly comrade with the great head and greater heart" as Voltairine de Cleyre describes him, finished his lecture to to protest against the sentence, and a committee was appoint- the Ladies‘ Liberal League and was taking down names of per- ed "to see after Mowbray's wife and children while he is in. " sons who wished to form an anarchist group, he was arrested When Mowbray came out, he resumed his agitation for the by detectives and charged with inciting to riot and sedition Socialist League, taking part in annual Paris Commune and against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Haymarket commemorations, side by side with Peter Kropot- Voltairine de Cleyre, who had welcomed Mowbray on behalf kin, Errico Malatesta, Louise Michel and Saul Yanovsky, who of the Ladies’ Liberal League, immediately organized a had come to London from New York to edit Der Arbeter Fray- defence committee. Thanks to her efforts, Mowbray was nd, the Yiddish anarchist paper in Whitechapel. In November quickly released and was able to proceed to Boston where, in W88 Mowbray returned to Nowich to chair a Haymarket meet- early 1895, he settled down to iractice his trade. Though an ing at which Lucy Parsons, on a lecture tour of the British admirer of Johann Most, Mowbray was also on friendly terms Isles, spoke on "The Labor Movement s in America", followed with Josef Peukert, Most's chief rival in the German anarch- by the singing of her husband's favourite song, "Annie Laurie" ist movement, whom he had met at Peukert's Autonomic Club and of William Morris's "No Master. " in London. Peukert was now living in Chicago, and with his An irrepressible firebrand, Mowbray had emerged from helpMowbray brought his family over from England in April prison "more extreme than ever. " He was convinced of the 1895. n need to use dynamite and propaganda by the deed to destroy It was not long before Mowbray resumed his agitational the capitalist system. "I feel confident that a few determined work, addressing German, Bohemian and American groups men - and when I say determined, I mean men who are prep- throughout the northeast. In the summer of 1895 he embarked ared to do or die in the attempt - could paralyse the forces of on an extended speaking tour which took him as far west as our masters, providing that they were acquainted with the St. Louis and Chicago. The Chicago polifie, ITOWBVBT, with power which nineteenth century civilization has placed within memories of Haymarket still fresh, decided there would be r" our reach, " he wrote in November 1890. The following year, no "anarchy nonsense" preached in their city. Accordingly, before a Haymarket gathering in London, he declared: "We have heard much of the doctrine of brotherhood and love ton- they interrupted a speech in which Mowbray favoured "battling ight, but the doctrine of hate and vengeance is just as necess- on Bunker Hill under the red flag, not the Stars and Stripe-5, ' ary and right. " but the glorious red flag of triumph. " A riot nearly occurred, and only the bandmaster prevented disaster by striking up the The extremity of Mowbray's prpnouncements led some to "Marseillasie", which was "taken up by every man on the conclude - without any evidence - that he was an agent provoc- grounds until there was one great chorus. " ateur, or at least a dupe of the police. Five months later, in For the most part, however, Mowbray concentrated his April 1892 he again got into trouble during the so -called continued on page16 A Lowry was of that sad tribe, the superior working class of but never part of the town proletariat. He was the clerk and Wheel On The Heroes the rent collector always moving on the fringe of a people alien to his own narrow way of life. Never the pub, or the Arthur Moyse on factory outing, the strike or the political punch-up he observ- ed and then he falsified to suit his own conception of what that world should be and that world and the world that the Bond L.S.Lowry Street dealers happily flogged by the yard and is now exhibited CARLYLE'S volumed premise that history is no more than in its entirety within the Royal Academy is no more than the a roll call of heroes is no more than part truth. Russia with world of the 1920, 1930 black and white comics. or without Stalin would have lumbered on its ordained path, if Hitler or Mussolini had been voted out of their respective par- In the early 1920s Lowry saw Manchester as it was, a grey, ties, then of the very nature of the hour these two right-wing dirty red world of smoking stacks full of his tiny matchstick incompetents would have been replaced by other figure heads people but from 1930 on he fantasised that world into a world who would have marched along the same inglorious path. of whiteness, neatness and funny funny working class lifted Only Churchill had the courage, the wit and the imagination to straight out of the backstreet children's comics. And this is grasp the nettle, to redirect the course of history to his own what the Town and his Tory frau bought. In this context one beliefs and one may deplore or applaud according to one's should examine the work of Jack Butler Yeats the brother of politics but what one must not deny is that them comes that the Irish poet. Almost on permament display within some moment in the flow of human events when a single man by his Bond Street gallery is a canvas of Yeats‘ lovable Irish peasan- choice of captains, by his choice of policy can divert the cour- ts jogging along in a jaunting car all technicolour postcard se of history. heaven, or his drawings of the queer folk God rest them, yet ' Yeats paid his rent over the years by drawing for Comic Cuts, In Persian philosophy there is the theory of the peacock's Jester, Butterfly, Fciimy Wonder and Puck and never have I tail in that while man has a free will all choices are ordained ever seen one of these comic drawings on display within a like unto the pattern of the peacock's tail but the choice still fashionable London gallery. There is a social dividing line has to be made, and like it or nay that choiceis usually made in art that will not accept the working class functional while it by the one with the most powerful personality. The Anzio is still virile and Lowry crossed that line only by offering a beachhead and Rome were lost because of the textbook bound false working class past and presenting it in an accepted work- general, guerrilla movements have united behind a single flam ing class image of the street comic elevated to high art thro- boyant man of action, and deny it if we dare but the history of ugh the medium of oil paint and canvas. Lowry did for the protest and of militant action has been associated with the workers what Grandmaihloses did for the American rural name of one man or one woman. Yet this neither proves nor farming community; they simplified, gutted and removed any disiroves Carlyle's claim for without the hour and without the. sense of guilt that the owners of the paintings might have need the hero is like a gelded bull no more than meat on the about how they managed to accumulate the gelt to buy these hoof. n pretty daubs. L. S. Lowry whined about London and the Lond- on dealers but he had little cause for his small talent found a My generation has had more than its fair share of heroes, ready market and a happy audience and of his work one enjoys we have viewed too many posters, applauded boo many speech- them and rejects them. And it is to the Tate gallery to stand es, rubber -necked too many revolutionary leaders at the head and admire the work of the sporting artist George Stubbs. of the demonstrations and each one served his piu'pose to his Solid virtue as an artist had old George but with an unhealthy own and the mob's satisfaction before moving into the pages of tendency to cut up his subject matter to etch the inards, but the Penguin Books Political Section. But behind the flag, the a fine artist for all that and with three for the price of one banners and the marching front bench is the human material there*are the drawings of Malevich and Joan and Julie Gon- of other men's conception of history. Theyfill the streets, zalez. It is now curiously dated work but in the happy 1930 they fill the yellowed photographs as tiny unidentifiable figures heyday had the philistines spitting blood into the dealers’ tills. fleeing or falling before the police charge for they are history made manifest and in school, factory, field, battlefield or rev- But the Town, his gormless frau and I stand and giggle as oluiion they will pay with their lives for the theories of pedants we talk of Tom Keating forging trivia to flog to the Bond Street in exile and muscle men in command. dealers. And from forgery and fantasy one must move to the supernatural and wonder if in the matter of art one should The visual srfist has airways been concerned with the great harken to the words of the Bishop of Wakefield in the matter of heroic absolutes and popes, kings and embattled armies have Jens Thorsen and the Dane's desire to film a randy Christ. always been worth the cost of an extra dollop of scarlet paint The Bishop is rightly willing for Jens to try his luck in Ward- on the palette, but the writer has found his true and worthy our Street and I have a sad feeling that Thor sen's film of subject matter in ainlysing mean sensuous man ever the vict- jumping Jesus will be made and fill the cinemas for months, im of God and the politicians ever believing that he has no con- but to put Jens and the Bishop on surer footing, and the Bish- trol over human destiny and little over his own. Between the op had a genuine exorcism killing in his diocese, I know a Great Wars three books were written that hammered out this barman who claims to be a Dyophysite and his mob maintain accepted belief and they became handbooks for a great grey that two natures coexisted within Christ, the divine and the mass of western working people when the militant middle class human, and with the backing of an historical but little known were standing high in the saddle and with guns cocked. In order to put an imprimatin- on the script this film could be 1932 from Germany came Hans Fallada's Little man what now, lifted out of the gutters of Soho and into Mayfair's Curzon, for heraldingthe destruction of the German working @588; from if our unfortunate blue tinted duchesses can be made to sit America in 1934 Farrell's Studs Lonigan with his portrait of through the full boredom of The Message with Mohammed and the destruction of the American slum proletariat and from English subtitles then we have a right to view a Danish Jesus. America H1193‘? Steinbeck's Of mice and men with his portrait of rootless, landless American agrarian workers unable and unwilling to survive within a society and an economy over In a society poised on the edge of boredom Lowry and Jens which they had no control, for in those years of the thirties 'I‘horsen, Tom Keating's crude forgeries, Tadeusz Kantor's men lived out their lives without hope and the literature of sad little art game of embalming everything in sight and all the day told them that they were right. In 1970 men and wom- on show within the Whitechapel gallery would appear to give en believe that they have a control over their own lives, from the edge to Carlyle's dream of heroes, but a ruling class ob- China to the Pacific seaboard of America, and rightly and sessed with trivia can only operate when the servants and the wrongly they believe that they can as isolated individuals inf- serfs take over the running of the castle. But new masters luence their own mass future, and the writer is no longer con- are not the aiswer be it slaves in purple, or clerks in office cerned with the lonely lost individual within the mass of the for Carlyle, Fallada, Farrell and Steinbeck could only offer peasant/working class and it is for him once more the broad a modicum of truth so we must, as anarchists, of our arrog- canvas and middle class neurosis and only Lowry the Manch- ance offer what we hold to be the fundamental and eternal ester primitive painter managed to pander to a dream, nay truth that we can only survive as free men in a world of free fantasy, Of a W0rl FOOTNOTES Cont1nued= (2I) The phenomenon is no more than mentioned here, since only ortho- do ' dthh h'hkI'hbIF (24) Cf; C.Bettelheim, op.cit., p.77. ~: ’ power" '“°"""‘within“°“’large-scale°"” °undertakings.° °"9°‘.“’ '°On'"°this°.Ppoint"Ye ‘Msee Berle° ° °“°eand Means,° (25) In Italy by decree-law of 3.11.27 and law of 18.11.29. 1.~§\- is The Modem Co ration and Private Pro e (I932 8. subsequent editions) (26) In Germany by law of 7.3.39. L 4”“ J. K.Galhroith, The New Industrial State ( I967 8. subsequent editions), (27) cf. P. Grifonef qpiwnsmo d, stub e imperiqlismo Fascism’ Milan R. Morris, The Economic Thggy Qf ‘Managerial "Capitalism (I964), G. C Ruffolo, La grande im resa nella societa modema, Turin I97I, B.Rizzi, I975, p.47. ll-colletivismo hurocratico, lmola I967, B.Rizzi, II socialismo dallo re- (28) IMI "survived" the fascist regime and is still today one of the organ- ligione alla scienza, Vol.|, Potere e proprieta, Milan I946, and in the izations on which a large part of state intervention in the ltalian economy anarchist camp, AA.VV., Anarchismo '70, Unlanalisi nuova per la strat- is based. egia di sempre, Cesena I973. (29) For a brief history of IRI see Bertolo-Lanza, L'lRl.: nazionalizzazione (22) Mergers reached their peak in I929 and I930 after which the process aII'italicina, in Interrogations, No.I, pp.80—84. tailed off, mainly through natural exhaustion. The following table shows CT92AATeThane084325902 the trend over the period I927-32: (30) The result is iden tical even if the methods are different: the takeover year number of number of combined capital of ailing sectors of the economy and the formation of "mixed undertakings mergers companies of companies in- have the same social effects. involved volved (in lire) (3I) This, moreover, was the way in which Ital ian state industry subsequ- _Ii I927 8 I7 4I2 millions ently developed, with a resultant substantial change in the ltalian econ- I928 I05 266 5,I87 omy, especially from I960 onwards. I929 I28 3I6 4,571 (32) Amount of stock issued ii-—TDaneRoadMai-gaeKen I930 I07 258 4, 83I year public stock private stock total 22 I93I 89 227 4,944 I928 863 I,633 2,496 I932 58 I23 3,47I I_932 5II I60 67I Taken from V. Travaglini, op.cit., pp.I92 8. 2II. I933 I,029 93 I, I22 I934 334 I47 48I (23) A cartel is a group of undertakings which agree on the fixing of I935 I,643 I59 I,802 mutually acceptable prices for their products, as well as on production I936 2,67I 438 3, I09 and investment uotas . The essence of the cartel is the constitution of ci I937 3,150 59I 3,74I system of formal agreements for the pursual of a unified policy in a spec- I938 7,744 9'89 8,733 ific sector of the economy. A trust is a coalition of undertakings united by joint participation. Taken from C.Bettelheim, op.cit.,p.240. _' tion of his Work E I.0O (llp) *Martin A. Miller: Eatkin: A New Bio- . Barry Duncan: lnvergordon '3I. How the srephy £ l0.50 I47P) Men of the Royal Navy Struck and Won Peter Kropotkin Ethics, Origin and Devel- AUnderground&PressSyndernaveEuropecae/ E I.00 (llp) opment E I.95 (47p) FREEDOM BOOKSHOP: Angel AIIey,84b H. N, Brailsford: The Levellers in the Eng- Victor Serge: Con uered City E 3.95 (32p) -l-16-0 Whitechapel High Street. 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