Two thousand, three hundred people packed the hall (not 700 as lan Aitken wrote in the Guardian). Inese summaries give only a bare indication of the content of the speeches.
Necessary because no one else had done so. We поре to produce a pampet in me not two week which will give all the speeches in full.
Bob Rowthorne is an economics don in the editorial board of the Dwarf. He talked in a concentrated way packing in lots of ideas. The audience listened hard and quietly. He bagan by pointing out that all the Labour government's main actions had been an attempt to streamline capitalism or as they put it to rationalise it'. The Labour lett's tailure was their lack of any coherent analysis of what the government is doing. At every stage when there have been signs of a working class opposition in the form of strikes the Labour left has always said "Goodness me the government must meet in or that demand because if it doesn't industrial relations will get worse. I would have thought any socialist would want industrial relations to get WOS Unity and Respectability The two basic elements of the Labour Party are as they always have been: the idea that unity must be preserved at all costs and the desperate desire to be respectable and acceptable to all reasonable men. The Labour left should be encouraging and organising a revolutionary movement based on the class struggle but once it did that it could not be contained within the Labour Party.
Eric Heffer is now, a Labour M.P. He was once a revolutionary socialist. He started by saying 'my colleagues and I have been fighting shoulder to shoulder in Parliament on socialist matters. The and laughter) surprised Heffer out his chin and went on the attack common man cune n •.. Tm not making any for anything we have at the bench. I'm no I'm from the working opposed it measure". We have (cries of "Victory".
sale to come along and tell us how simple it all is. I am not suggesting that everything is wonderful as far as Parliament real hope in France was the working class but the workers were not prepared to go beyond demands (cries of "Rubbish). If it was rubbish Heffer countered then why did de Gaulle get a bigger majority in the election than before.
I've probably had more experience of the class struggle than 90% of the audience sitting in this hall (Both Heffer and Foot made references to the audiences political inexperience, a paternalist trick that is going to be less and less easy to pull as political consciousness grows). I've been in strike after strike. As long as the working class give their support to the Labour Party it is an abdication of revolutionary responsibility to go outside the Party.
I believe that I am a revolutionary socialist (uproar). If ever I thought socialism could not be achieved through the Labour Party I would say get out. Your job is to join us and strengthen the movement. Don't move into some sectarian position but join with us and the struggle for real socialism, Tariq Ali is the editor of this newspaper. He started fast but kept up the pace. He began by taking up Heffer's point on Parliament saying chat the revolutionary left had never said that parliament was completely irrelevant. It can be used as a base for socialist propaganda. He went on .. There are two different kinds of social democrat sitting on this platform tonight. Comrade Heffer is regarded by the revolutionary ICIT essentially as a renegade from the revolutionary movement who is helping to most corrupt form of social democracy we have seen in this country for a long time (applause). Comrade Foot belongs to a completely different tradition for which we have a great deal of respect: the old Victorian tradition of the radical reformer. As Lenin once said when you have to choose who is more dangerous: an honest priest or a dishonest priest the answer is an honest priest. We view Comrade Foot in the same light. He is far more dangerous than Comrade Heffer.
The whole history of social democracy is a history of betrayal of the werker's interests time anal again. The proponents OIne parliamentary road to socialism were Utopian Defeafists. To say that simply to bring more and more Left Labour M.P.'s into parliament would bring about socialism was ridiculous.
Franco For socialists in Western Europe the events in May last year are of crucial importance. After the French working class had been betrayed by French social democracy, that is to Communist Party, the French workers were The result of betrayals like this always leads to a swing to the right.
Democracy we are not opposed to democratic institutions but we want democracy where it really matters -in the factories. We want workers councils gencral assembues or workers. We dont want a етостасу run by management committees o the local Labour parties.
It was the social democrats that bureaucratised une class Struggle. You can't be in the middle of this struggle. You must be on one side or the other. We on the on the Black Dwarf are on the side of the workers. Targ emphasised the need to Lose wno beneve in class collaboration - the Labour left ..... We believe that the time is ripe hot for a revolution in this county, we have never said that, but to completely destroy and social democracy as far as the workers movements are concerned and to build a revolutionary party. All those of you who have come here who do not And he beats up beautiful birds.
Mr. Freedom "X' in colour, at Cinecenta 3.
William Klein's wild political satire. The U.S.A. is represented by the title character; he's a brutal, ridiculous astronaut/football player/ superman, looking like a cross between the American flag and a Cadillac. Extremely original visually and a scathing comment on America.
Debate:Report belong to any revolutionary group look at the groups that exist make up your mind and join them. Social Democracy is dead - let us bury it together.
Michael Foot began his speech carefully getting the feel of a difficult audience. He dismissed the idea of being either a Victorian or a Utopian defeatist. He mentioned Czechoslovakia, Greece, Vietnam and South Africa by saying that he had thought about them as strongly and as persistently as anyone else in the hall.
Presumably taking Tariq's description of Heffer as a 'renegade' Foot spent some time describing the value of using words Everything Tariq had said about workers control in industry he agreed with but socialists must ask themselves who is going to run the state?
Different factories will have different ideas which must be reconciled by some form of centra representative assembly and if you admit that you admit the need for elections and some form of party organisation. So anyone engaged in a programme of destroying social democracy must make it very clear that he's not also helping to destroy democratic institutions themselves. It would be stupid for socialists in Britain to Destroy help to destroy democratic institutions at the very moment that Socialists in Prague are fighting to get them back. (applause)
He then talked at length about the U.N. (groans) attacking Tariq's description "mealy mouthed' U Thant.
********* MR FREEDOM ********* IS A YANKEE, LOVES ********* CORNFLAKES, HATES ********* FROGS, HAS THE BIG ********* ONE, WILL KILL YOU!
********* At Cinecenta 1: Wonderwall 'X', in colour, Cinecenta 2: Les Biches 'X', in colour, Cinecenta 4: The Red Mantle X. in colour.
Performance times at all theatres: 10.00, 12.00, 2.00, 4.00, 6.00, 8.00, 10.00. (rriday and saturday extra midnignt pertormance)
Sunday at 2.00, 4.00, 6.00, 8.00, 10.00.
Cinecenta, Panton Street, Leicester Square. Power of the vote Of course, it would be quite wrong for an M.P. to say that he would never take a vote that would destroy the Labour government but it would lead to a general election in which the party would be shattered throughout the country. Furthermore it would mean handling the party over to the right wing and that would be treachery. We have got to rebuild and revitalise the Labour movement. To change its course, to make it into a party that does not recognise the reality of the class struggle. At this point Foot listed some personalities in the movement as examples of a lett wing trend, They included Jack Jones and Will Paynter. He finished with an appeal similar to Eric Heffers..... All those who wish to see Britain leading Socialism in the world - come into the Labour party and join us.
There followed contributions from the floot including a brilliant tirade from John Palmer. Significantly the only speaker to defend the Labour Left was Monty Johnston of the C.P.
cinecenta
The Black Dwarf 14th Fel