arrested Inacio Palma in Madrid. Their prisoner must be among the most remarkable of recent European revolutionaries. A courageous fighter against fascism in Portugal since 1947, it is worth recalling some of the operations led by Palma as he stands in greater danger of judicial murder now than at any previous time. Apart from his sabotage of government planes in 1947, and his aerial leafletting of anti-Salazar materials over Lisbon in 1962. it is the last three years that are most exemplary.
On 17 May 1967 a commando group of the Ligue D'Union et Action Revolutionaire, under the direction of Inacio Palma, conducted the largest bank hold-up in Portuguese history. It took place at the State Bank in the town of Figueira-Da-Foz, lines of communication with the rest of the country having been sabotaged earlier. The raiders escaped on a tourist flight.
Only a few months later, a LUAR group penetrated the general HQ of the army and stole a supply of arms.
In the meantime, Palma, on his way to Paris in August 1967, was arrested by Interpol at the request of the Portuguese government, who Please send me the BLACK DWARF for the next 6/12 months I enclose po/cheque for £1/£2.
Name Address The BLACK DWARF, 7 Carlisle Street, London WIA 4PZ Telephone: 01-734 4827 Foreign subs: Asia/Africa/N. & S. America/ Australia: ₺5 per to the return.
Nor is Palma the only political detainee in Spain about to be returned to a possible death sentence in Lisbon. Army deserter Eduardo Cruzeiro, who refused to fight with the repressive forces in Guinea-Bissau, is also about to be sent back. His stand against the draft that gets little publicity was mentioned in the Black Dwarf, only a short time ago.
The Portuguese students have called on us to demonstrate solidarity with Palma and Cruzeiro. The demonstration, to start at Hyde Park Corner at 2.30 p.m. on 30 November will march to the Spanish Embassy. There is now a real possibility that pressure brought to bear now could save the lives of these comrades. And more than the fact that the sentiments of most revolutionaries will be with our Portuguese comrades, the demonstration reveals a real political issue for the movement in Britain. It has always been true that the acid test of a socialist movement is its ability to develop an internationalist perspective, recognising the nature of our obligations to give whatever positive aid possible to those who do stand in the front line against fascism. We need only recall the actions mounted by the West German SDS against the Shah of Persia, against Wilson on his political ghost, Marcello Caetano.
the overthrow of the Kremlin bureaucracy. Do and makes its position quite clear. For us in the movement, whether we are I:L.P., I.S., I.M.G., tence, or is susceptible to reform from below? imperialism, is to ensure, and to tell them in licity, and sympathy, they seek? Those who, like the International S stalists, I feel obliged to comment on the feature dealing to go on speaking to, and debating with, whosoDWARF Dear Black Dwarf, Your recent Dwarf diary puts a number of questions to the International Socialists regarding their participation in the Vietnam Solidarity movement and their attitude to leaderships of liberation struggles (in particular, to the North Vietnamese and NLF leaderships). Like most readers of your paper, I was not present at the Ho Chi Minh memorial meeting which formed the basis for your remarks. Chris Harman's assessment of Ho as a revolutionary leader has been published in Socialist Worker, and I cannot believe that his verbal contribution to the meeting would differ markedly from this. The published obituary does not seem to me to be an unbalanced appreciation. or to contain reflections that would be improper or inappropriate for a revolutionary Socialist at such a juncture.
Your journal's attack is twofold. On the one hand, it is implied that any critical appraisal of a leadership, or a movement, is tactless at a particular moment at a time when they are on the verge of inflicting a defeat on US imperialism and the world capitalist system"; indeed, such criticism is "objectively aiding the enemies of the Vietnamese people". It follows that such criticism would be in order when the liberatory movement, far from being on the verge of suc- namese people. cess, is receiving hard knocks from the imperiain drawing such a distinction. More to the point place" for such remarks. Any memorial tribute must, of course, sum up the totality of a life and the loss or void created by a death. It would be wrong, however, for the aesthetic and moral demands of such a tribute to exclude the rational tasks of analytical appraisal which are incumbent upon Socialists. The bourgeois press meets the tasks of furnishing such an appraisal, in the case of the death of leading cadres of its own class, on the whole quite well. The proletarian and revolutionary cause will assist in its own disarmament if it cannot keep its head, as vou not believe that a ruling bureaucrav govyou believe that it will reform itself out of exisWhy is it scandalous to assert "the Vietnamese action, that THEY DO NOT STAND ALONE. workers will have to overthrow Ho's successors", the words you quote from Chris Harman with such shocked hostility?
Black Dwarf is responsible to no organisation. How decisions on its political line are ougne, Adrian Mitchell, Sheila Rowbotham, taken, in the editorial group of varying beliefs John Weal. which controls it, 1 have no idea. You have, in Dear Comrade Editor, une event, chosen a very casy way oar. one of uncritical adulation, of silence before the facts.
attempt to combine anti-imperialist struggle with objective analysis, have a harder path, one in which we may fail either through an excess of sectarianism or. an accommodation to the moment. Yet this path, though harder, is the only one. The easy way will fail, and your journal Fraternally, Peter Sedgwick, on behalf of International Socialism. 7 October 1969.
BLACK DWARF REPLY Peter Sedgwick's letter raises an important issue. I hope we have not come to that stage yet. How do we support the most decisive revolutiosame time fight to ensure that the ultimate resowithin Vietnam, as well as a defeat for imperialism.
Black Dwarf's answer is straightforward -revolutionary action in solidarity with the VietSedgwick asks us rhetorically whether or not lists and is in a bad way. You cannot be serious we "believe that a ruling bureaucracy soverns the Democratic Republic of Vietnam" is the suggestion that this meeting was not the ture of the state in Vietnam is a matter for scientific analysis, not belief. What we would ask Peter Sedgwick is whether he will deny that the leaders of the D.R. V. are leading the people of the world in the costly struggle against imperiansm.
Black Dwarf insists that this real and immediate struggle comes first. We emphatically do not, however, reject "critical appraisal of the Vietnamese leadership, nor have we ever done so. We do not argue that criticism is out of place, but we insist that it must be revolutionary West the decisive way in which we can assist the or anything else, are just not doing, comrades. erns the Democratic Republic of Vietnam? Do workers, peasants, and intellectuals of Vietnam Fraternally, Tariq Ali, Anthony Barnett, Vinay Chand, Clive Hoyland, David Kendall, Marie-Therese LigAs one who broke his first police cordon in over completely. the "Hands off Cuba" demonstrations of 1962, with the film Che in the 1 October Black Dwarf. This - unsigned - feature contains a reference to "those who maintain that Cuba is a 'petitbourgeois' country". (The actual term is not a Fascists, Stalinists, or alleged Socialists. familiar one, but the reference is clearly to those of us who apply the "state capitalism" analysis to Cuba, as to China and Russia). We are exhorted to "shit on them, but first shit or Twentieth Century Fox". I hope the editors do not regard this as editorial policy; if they do, they will of course refuse to print this letter, but nary struggle in the world today, and at the it includes Che's speech of 6 January 1961, when he said "Trujillo is now our friend". Or lution of that struggle is a victory for socialism his speech at Punta del Este on 8 August 1961 when he said: "We cannot stop exporting our example, as the United States wants, because an example is something spiritual that pierces all borders. What we do guarantee is not to export revolution, we guarantee that not one rifle will leave Cuba, that not one weapon will go to another country."
Probably not. The film doubtless presents a crude stereotype, not a serious analysis of a complex political career. The trouble is that most of the Left, when dealing with Che and Cuba, are little more analytic.
Why has the Cuban leadership changed its international strategy several times? To what extent can Cuba be politically independent of the Soviet Union while economically dependent on it? What are the causes and consequences Cuba's continuing failure to industrialise? What grass-roots organs of popular democracy and control exist in Cuba? Do the Cuban trade unions nave anyung approderng we maepen The Black Dwarf 26th November 1969 Page 10 So how do we combat this? By punching to achieve communism and to trounce US them up, and thereby gaining them just the pubNo, the growth of racialist propaganda among the working class can only be combatted by reasoned argument and a presentation of the Goodwin, Peter Gowan, Fred Halliday, John facts, while at the same time being always ready to defend ourselves if we are physically attacked.
Unlike many bigoted comrades, I have taken the trouble to talk to rank and file Fascists, and I have sometimes succeeded in winning them Finally, there is a point of principle. I intend ever I choose. As a libertarian Socialist. I refuse to be scared off by the threats and violence of any authoritarians, be they Zionist extremists, Bill Turner, INDEPENDENT LABOUR PARTY, 197 King's Cross Road, London W.C.1.
Dear Sirs, had the recent good fortune to obtain copy of Black Dwarf dated 28 March 1969 i which you shamefully claim to publish, for the T have not seen the film Che. I don't know if first time in English, Lenin's message of 27 April 1917 to the Bavarian Soviet Republic. The full text of this message is on page 325 of Vo ime 29 ot Lenin's Collected Works. and w published in English in 1965.
We in the Young Communist League will not permit such unsubstantiated claims to pass without comment. If the editorial staff of your paper calling itself Marxist-Leninist, would do well to become more familiar with the works of Lenin. The Soviet Union has performed a great service to the working-class movement of the world by publishing all the works of Lenin, and, with the aid of other Socialist countries, she will consummate that service in the near future by publishing the entire writings of Marx and Engels.
"Honesty in politics is the result of strength; hypocrisy is the result of weakness." Lenin's Political Notes, March 1911. (Collected Works, Volume 17, page 166.)
For London Y.C.L., John Lee, Education Organiser 100a Rochester Row, London S.W.1
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Biafra. We are being called on to support those comrades who stood against Salazar and against