women. It is to date the only agents all over the country.
The existence or Spare Rib is, in itself, a challenge to the way momen and women's issues are constantly belittled and distorted in the regular media.
In a recent survey we learned that 96 per cent of our readers are MOeR aNO OVUT TAE CEUIC AIC One Ol OuT strengths is our acoessibilit we are not an exclusise club or sect. Readers write to us front the most isolated parts of the countE — peonie in or out oi ihe without a history of political movement, UTEL InOVnCE Their different experiences of life are fed back to us in readers' meetings, through leiters manuscripes. Often the magazipe is a woman's first concact with wonco's Sheration. Brideine Lic gap hetween the development of theory within the movement and veryday sexism is ane of Span th's most important functions Every issue of 45 pages conSparc Rib is a monthly women's liberation magazine, Isunched in June 1972 and produced by a collective of ten non-commercial independent women's magazine available from newstains featunes on bealch, sexual ity, cultiral events. and work plus regular news coverage of what women are doitg together 1o change their situatioa Dotn here and abrond, We try at all tirhes to avpid sensationalist or dogmate reporng which bourages camplacency and pas sivity and prevencs people thinkLIL LOE LECISTYO spare Kio is not ony coa canise vih ele e wi or what it is like to grow up as wornan in this society and how it ITCTIS PUESCOSE UI DULDOYH ror roo lone weve had t conform limiced male-identified ideas of lorbe, and in bed. Now we ar exploring alternatives hased whal we nepa and want. apure Rib priocides a way of sharing these acrempes to create a bes Future; and the regular tictioo, poetry, and arts section sboms the growth of a serong feminist *Rib culture.
Frommonth to month wetry to keep in lauch with our readers and encourage them to bute ideas and news of what they are invoised in. lo tais cao mc hold n ulaten drae trim to which TT DIEVIE OSEC IE COrITU SInCE WG HEn based in London and don't have money to travel it is easy commercially CeL me COIOET COSUNDISEu help combar this we have regionI pages (the next will be on SOCICOO TBCAS CR on happening in different areas of HIC CHL This month is our fifth hirthday and in hobour accasion we have praduced 16 ciuta pose tar amcic proom! che benelits (!) of the Equa] SPARE RIB COLLECTIVE mocher taiks travel from 2CL UnHL 1S information the other unique. future. Op sianthenemmionleadine Manchester', is a On sexual palitics a lesbian Pauhter, and oo the cultural side me've articles about Feminista's exlubition, •Portrait the Artisr as Housewife', Women in Punk, nod an interview witt Erica Jong. The cover celebrate the international feminist alterbative to the clenched fist -samnhol in increasing use most recently in Tialy. Posters, stickers and badges of this symbol are availahle froi Spare Rib Extras. 27 Clerkenwell Close, London Sa, having read all this woo want to knew what Spure Rib bas so offer youl The fact is that the you find in Spane Rib just isn't available in any magazine, Spare Rrb is Support us and you support your history and yuur er column inch. Deadine: 3p rday belore publicalion.
ANCHESTER. Meeting *Speake ude Bert Elianl HAL OCE TEHEN CON Studente Union, чи. а Вигу ві.
9529 BEMEFIT BOR fon, Dertmeuth Par #so redp for oia manta)
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ALISE CHALLENSE 16 July 1377 D8 politics.
problems which contribution to that analysis.
mident political capacity of the king class — a capacity whic sce as being rooted in th in the capitalist de of production on a work class as an international revoltonary force, partly because it capicals. which is in itself a global system of production. The working class the material basis for an alternative ordering of production relations. It is is co-operative and collective forn that gives it the possibility of cichung a loally bow iotal of society in which oppression and *Now ties independent petital capacity of the working class has INDREW WIARD (Report Last Sunday, 10 July 1977 - 60 years after the Russian Revolution - the Communist Party [CP] debated the International Marxist Group [IMG] on the subject of Trotskyism. The two edited extracts we Blackbum [IMG] and Monty Johnstone [CP] convey only a partial flavour of what tumed out to be a useful and lively discussion. A complete transcript of the debate will be published at a later date by the organisers of the event, the Communist University of WE IN THE IMG regard ourselves as Marxists and Leninists, though not in any dogmatic sense. We nonetheless place Trotskyism firmly within that tradition which is one of revolutionary working class A lot of what we say is not original to us or to Trotskyism and we have no particular desire to be original in that sense. There are special political developed especially after ascendancy of Stalin in the Soviet Union, which did require an original analysis. Trotsky and the Fourth International, in our opinion, have made a decisive been expressed very dramatically throughout history over the last marco and guy curs and u has been the basis of the devel opment of Marxist politics. Is capacity to create a new order of society during special periods of cupient- has tended SECIS The mass Russia herwoco 1905 clearly belped to provide a very special stamp both to revalutionary Marxism and to Trorsky ism and its conception of the working class. That glimpse of 1905 which was reproduced with histaric results in the October from Europe in the intervenin eriod of nearly three quarters c continually reborn in periods capitalist crisis. The class has intervened either potentially or actually as the decisive HULIV CLACKSUR the main speeches of Robin political force in society. It has lone so in whole movements o resistance to fascism; it has don o espectid, we would argue, i the marked capil Burie marked since Ma 1 to eaten general strike THERED 1 one Catano rate i Fern gal. One saw the political he great movement which Heath in 1974. We should the ember that ejected from power because the was this important extra-parli: mentary mobilisation, a strike action by the miners.
torical die da worker councils and soviets whi forms for transcending thi sion that exists you that as Troeskyists we stanc on chis tradition of revolutionary Marxism and proletarian politics erupt whose most hiatoric product wa be October Revolution of 191 and 1917 tbat are to be found in the Britisi Road to Socialism (New Draft) which reicet this model as beim applicable co Britzin. I'm refer ring to the sentences on the lines numbered 1090 where it says "Britain's rond to socialism departed wint be Sovier Road. of brarrection and civil be creation of new org sower the Saviers], aH working subsequent developmen of the autocrutic rule. arvention and the developmen. of The counter-revofution...
Vic would reject this co ception put colence as bein leading. 1e els were the emerson That the Soviets semchow con after insurrection. historically false, preceded the insurrection and the Livu war. Lacy-were newner l dire Pansi the Bal controlled by it. The Bolsheviks vere in a small mibority in the chosen be the Bolshevik Parry n: all instrument of percy intervenamong the Mary were the ration one were the spontaneous mass eruption dur ng the crisis of Tsarism There shich sentence working class is much more able › directly develop its own polit likely that bourgeoss parliansentary regime will take exactly the same forc But the essential question for Europe 1969, in the worker divicapitalis . The Savier par I DO CARS alist regime.
Scam degenerate imperiali in Forward in thi utterly mplies that the So and the insurrection The Soviets of the specific were they The Soviets were nor creation of a theory idea in this I 15 nor so instate. In that the collapse of a itical institutions planned bocause of revolationary Marxists Is thi will new institutions, new organ OE Dowe arise representing thr masses in a qualitatively new way Lighly arise, and no, they will not hi compatible with the bourgeois regime. There will he a rem fore berween shem. That If th basis ol Troiskyist politics Where, then, does the origin ality of Trotskyison lie? I think i lies in grappling with the problem of political articulation and representation of class interests both and a capit Treesky was well aware of the problers related i he development of Soviets. H of course bad a direct personal experience of how soviet powe and how the independent political capacity of the working class can, as it were, into a conservative form. Most Trotsky bad to make come out o his nenerratine ioseches inta thi phenomena and also out of his abservation of workers organi. sation and representation Ince bourgeois regimes. One thing that is very sbocking to Stalinists is that it admits bourgeois possibility of both good and bad In regards, for example, the sation... USSR as a workers state despite the fact thar it has none of the ideal characteristics of a workers sense it of polFormation The Soviet on a a social on a planned sconomy and it is the state form under which it exists, The character because it has to rest ar only has a class and it, in fact through a bureaucratised Commu mist Party, does rest on a class -• laser of the working i thou that walkie whate to Povern and cule society. le dominares in a terroristic fashion the class which it represents, bo it recans a focal of politica representation.
Trotskyise was a critical retlection in agonising political circumstances of this particular form of political represencacion It led to a new understanding of the relationship berween part nd soviets. To Trotsky's writin we see the first statement within classical Marxism of the necessits for pluralism within the politica ractice of the working class.
his advance enable climinate a particularly Tatal revolutionary working dais politics — the temptation of Jacobinism, one-party oe non-party soviets and ceptions of die transition to Li the advanced countries i will need a comples combination of cactics to achieve a socialist revolution, partis CHRISTIC order itself has found a mobanism for absorbing and ntegrating working class organi We are in lavour of th Formation of workers govern ments on the terral so courgeon democrace, but the key question remains to delincale the charac revolutionaries we insist that the whole orientation of such a government should he to stimu Tare soviet-type bodies. It doesn't mean creating armed workers Some of the 200 sc councils as soon as possible. TI would be the sheerest advent jum. It does mean creating wor councils as soon as possi and rooting them in the masse It DORIS recognisi eriod of Western Communis: Parties ha no basic undersranding of 1) pril Tear They are afies nerve capitalist eder in Europ weaker than ever HEREICSSO REC DOE BENAYS DE old, Tamiliar kind. We try HALE SIR CHER HIS SHITSC to do that in a way which is t most appropriate in relation tion. To that end we should lo forward the creation o united Marxist nary that ca really take on the Labour Par in the process driving it to t left or stinsmarine a vigourd eft within it. There is a burr ced for a framework of ur action for all Marxists to the 1 of the Labour Party to the iMO at the moment are exploring the possibility clast-struggle candidates to sta against Labour and to presen socintist alternative masses • This is something wh doesn't exist in this couniry this lime. In that sense o conceptions should have a of interest to militants the CHUB, because you're in situation that is not so differ to that of our French or Span national. You're a small cac organisation on the large mess party. I think that y should therefore seriously s the stralogy and tacticad Troikvisis have debated over last decades because the directly relevant both ta situation of sour own party a to the condicions of class strug advanced capiral country.
trong audience socialist Photo: ANDREW WIARD (Report)
of this mentally believe, stare of monopoly capitalism. What we are concerned with -and quote is a profound change in the balance of forces in in the state apparatus, for social revolution and the transition to socialism'. However stare power is critical. What is needed is the winning of power from the old ruling class by the working class and its allies, and the democratisation of the state apparatus.
On no subject in Bricain is there such political hypocrisy as on state is a prodea of monopoly capitalism. We outline our perspectives — through struggle, noe operation, but on the basis of of making the furthest possible inroads into the state apparatus. This includes the democratisntion of its most sensitive parts, namely the bodies of armed men, the main armed forces and so on.
We envisage that in the course process, the old ruling class will strike back to the bes of is ability, we warn on the dangers of military coups. At the same time, we do not adopt a fatalistic approach to this be NANCIUE internationalist perspective in that we see the revolution taking place in this country in the framework of the advance of the revolution in other coun tries througbout the world.
That will hring about.
strengthening the marking class forces Change in the international bal ance of forces so that as much as the capitalist class would like to SOCIALIST CHALLENGE 14 July 1977 of much more difficult The Tronskyists take theit perspective aver from Trotsky -and aller al what we were menti to be debating was Trotsky and a strategy for revolutionaries think we should see what are the hasic ideas of Troesky that the Trotskyist organisations bose themselves on. I would argur that Troesky who played a very great role as the SOCORN major leader of the revolution - although he londe a ComPute to cos ca years bi the Communist Internarional: had an only pne major stage during the Third Perlod betweer 1928-34 correct polic the Communist Inter his basic political positions the 1930s and as ramme of the Fourth later bational the ramme which has been produced ULT HEA by the organisations of the FI this suffers INCINESN approach. Its mistakes lie, firstly in making an assumption of a fundamental urge to revolution masses which it in assumed, if it doean't succeed, can only be because these masses are held hack betrayed by counter revolutionary Stalinists or beetal Democrats This is a fundamental failure to stood far, far better - samuely the consomsness of the masse under capitalism. Anybody who has attempted in this coutry te do serious political work → among some limited vanguard but among wider sections of the working class - knows this for You need only to look at the politicat situation in
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batle print below London [CUL]. Robin Blackburn (IMG)
death be was decisivel
*That glimpse of 1905 which was reproduced with historic results in the October revolution has not departed from Europe....•