Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is the touchstone on which the real understanding and recognition of Marxism is to be tested.—V.I.Lenin
I.L.W.P. BULLETIN
Weekly  newspaper of the International Leninist Workers Party (P&P Bulletin Publications, PO Box 50, London SW17 9NL)((GPO Regd.)
No 491 Wednesday April 19,1989                                                                                                  10p

Commercial law hooliganism easily crushes football fans

It was no real contest at Hillsborough. The pretence (that law-and-order has something to do with ordinary people's welfare) effortlessly conned the naïve faith of the spectators.

The search for individuals to blame is pointless. It misses the real target by a mile. Individual policemen or ground officials or football bureaucrats are much like anyone else in the twilight of this always viciously exploitative but once dynamic and socially cohesive capitalist system, --- leaderless, paralysed, and looking out for themselves. 

The gormlessness so noticeable and widespread in the Sheffield tragedy is inseparable from the contradictions of 'market forces' themselves, and nothing at all to do with the chance effects of personal inadequacies of those involved. 

Behind the appearance of individual mistakes lurks the unchangeable reality of relentless commercial pressures, deepening cultural anarchy, and above all the fraud that in a capitalist state, the police force exists to help the public.

Any help to a person hurt by violence, crime, or natural disaster is incidental to the real purpose of the law's armed bodies of men which, from the Gestapo MI5 downwards is to preserve the propertied status quo, the existing bourgeois order.

The police's crowd control is exemplary when it comes to keeping leftwing newspaper sellers or leafletting out of street market places. "Move along or I'll nick you. There's a danger of causing an obstruction", etc, etc. The same with a march or demonstration, or a picket line. Unfailingly the police move in at once, fully confident of "how to disperse the obstruction danger" etc, even when tens of thousands of miners, or whatever have to be pushed around, and even when it is the police's pushing around which is the obstruction itself, totally unnecessary, and forcibly resisted. The law never loses its nerve or drops the initiative. You either stay where you're told to, or go where you're pushed, or you get run off the streets.

At the Hillsborough semi-final game, a real problem of genuine crowd control difficulties was already apparent to many bystander-witnesses more than an hour before the kick-off. The dangers of serious crushing around the turnstiles just before the start of a big match are in any case legendary. The alleged whole point of nearly one thousand police earning overtime pay in Sheffield on Saturday was solely to ensure that 20,000 or so of the more youthful football supporters crowding the terraces behind the goals, particularly the Liverpool fans who had been allotted the Leppings Lane end, could do so in a safe and orderly manner without threat of any obstruction or disturbance to anybody. 

But in spite of all the advance predictions of extra large and excited crowds at the prospects of such a semi-final as Liverpool v Forest, and despite early warnings on Saturday that there was a particularly large and lively attendance, — there was effectively no crowd control at all.

And what minimal police intervention there was (to inject some order into the frustrations of the milling masses who couldn't get into the ground quickly enough to watch the start of the match) - was hopelessly out of touch and misguided, opening a floodgate to add to the sea of crushed humanity inside.

It is nonsensical to assume that this was the result of some oversight or inattentiveness by the police. It was the result of the entire philosophy of the police force in the British capitalist state (and under imperialism generally) having no interest whatever in seeing that football crowds get good supervision and a fair deal. The law's concern occasionally stretches to mass football hooliganism (regarding this as good training for dealing with political riots, including perfecting infiltration techniques for penetrating revolutionary cells and Soviets in the future).

But when it is merely a job of marshalling large crowds of orderly spectators to see that they come to no harm or that they can get into the ground in time and see what they've come for in the best way possible, - the philosophy of policing under capitalism couldn't care less.

The police were nominally in charge at Hillsborough on Saturday because 'that is the way it ought to be' and that is how they like to be seen.

But the crassly stupid decisions from the fans' point of view of giving the far less numerous Forest supporters the far larger Kop end to start with; of failing to take any action to regulate the visible huge building up of a crush at the Leppings Lane end; of showing no concern whatever that the 3.00 kick-off was bound to start with thousands still stranded outside the overloaded turnstiles; of taking no interest in the chaotic distribution of spectators at the Leppings Lane end visible to the whole ground, (- of too many too tightly and dangerously packed behind the goal but plenty of room still at either end of that terrace); of giving no leadership whatever in making announcements to the crowd or giving instructions to the Leppings Lane crush even after it was obvious that a major disaster was occurring; etc, etc, etc; – all these matters show conclusively that police philosophy has no idea even of what ordinary peoples' concerns are, let alone any serious interest in looking after them.

The police is a political force dedicated solely to preventing the overthrow of the capitalist order, - nothing else.

Their cynical detachment from football supporters' cares or needs was emphasised by their farcical attempt to 'justify' some of the insaner and less sensitive decisions such as explaining the police allocation of the smaller Leppings Lane terrace to the far vaster Liverpool supporters club, a prime cause of the tragedy, as making sense "because Leppings Lane is closer to the M62 from Liverpool"!! 

After a weeks-long buildup, vast ticket expense, and then an 80-mile journey lasting four hours over packed motorways and minor roads, it is seriously suggested by a senior police officer that an extra turning or two, and an extra hundred yards or two is going to make such a difference to football fans that Liverpool supporters (average attendance 40,000) would prefer to try squeezing into the Leppings Lane end (capacity 10,000)rather than go down to the Kop end (capacity 22,000) which was allocated to the Nottingham fans (average attendance 19,000). The officer either doesn't believe one word of what he himself is saying; or else he is a complete clinical moron.

The explanation about not delaying the start of the game (to give time for all the long-distance fans to get inside the ground) was equally implausible, indicating contempt for the whole concern and the people involved. "It was too late to postpone the kick-off because that could have caused disorder inside". What a monstrous fiction.! Ten minutes later, the game was not only being delayed but totally abandoned,- after it had got under way, the worst possible provocation, - cause surely for a total riot by this police judgement. But it caused not a murmur, despite the stupidity of no public police announcement.(There was only one tannoy notice at all, apparently, - and that was the insane request for the fans to clear the pitch so that the game could re-start!!!)

And if a few hundred spectators had gone for a lunch-time drink before the big match (a very normal thing to do), then that is all the more reason for police crowd control from start to finish - not an excuse for totally abandoning control:

'Long before the pressure of the crowd became critical outside the Hillsborough ground, residents of the surrounding streets were becoming concerned at the huge number of supporters and at the apparent lack of control being exercised by the police.

Ms Pat Naylor, a shop assistant, said: 'Yesterday lunch-time we thought there was going to be trouble. There were just so many people.'

FANS at Saturday's game at Hillsborough were in obvious distress 45 minutes before kick-off, a Welsh schoolmaster said last night.

Mr Paul Nolan said: "I got to the ground at 1.30 and it was already full up. By 2.15 the area behind the goal was absolutely packed. As early as 2.20 you could see people trying to climb out.

"Everyone was wondering why the police weren't opening the safety gates to let them out. They were penned in. It was impossible for them to get out any other way."

He said the situation was out of hand inside and outside the ground. At 2.50 a man had come into the seating area saying: There are thousands outside the ground. It's murder out there. We have all got tickets and the gates have been opened to let us all in.'

"We thought the club would delay kick-off to 3.15 or 3.30 to give people a chance to calm down and let the police sort things out, but they didn't."

Mr Joseph Johnson, front Liverpool, said he watched his brother Daniel swept from his side by a sudden surge of fans down the terraces.

He said: "Before the crush we were stood in the middle of the terrace. I said to Daniel 'it's filling up too much, we'd better get out of here.' I grabbed the arm of somebody leaning over the stand above, and he saved my life. But I never saw Daniel alive again. He didn't stand a chance."

Dr Glyn Phillips, from East Kilbride, near Glasgow, said: 'There's no doubt that this crowd was too big for this ground. Liverpool just filled the end they were given. The police allowed the fans to fill the middle terracing section to the point that they were crammed in like sardines and yet the two outside portions of the terracing were left virtually empty. 

'I stood and watched police allowing this to happen. It got to a point where they just lost control completely and lads were pushed against the fence right down, by the pitch. There were so many people. in that part of the ground that nobody could even move to get out.'

'It's my opinion that opening those gates caused the tragedy,' said the gateman.

One fan later accused the police of opening the wrong gate to relieve the crush. Kevin Chappell, from Stockport, said: 'It is right that there was still plenty of room at our end when the gate was: opened, but the space was to the left and' right on the open terracing.

'Instead of opening the side gates, the police opened the gate in the middle where there was no room at all. We were seeing people dying on the pitch and they were still coming.'

As the crush develops, the Liverpool supporters attempt to climb the fence to safety but are sent back by police trying to prevent a pitch invasion.
 
Mr Hicks said that he might sue the police and Sheffield Wednesday over the Leppings Lane disaster, either alone or with other families. He said that he shouted a warning to a senior police officer that people were being crushed, but had been ignored. From another officer "I didn't get a very polite answer. The officer was dismissive."

Mr Stephen Hendry, aged 19, said: "Everywhere fans were screaming in pain as they were crushed against each other and the barriers. Fans were screaming at one policeman on the pitch to open the gate at the front of the terrace. He just shouted 'move back you dick-heads."

One man who survived the deadly turmoil, 26-year-old Peter McGuinness from Prescot, said he was with a crowd who were allowed to scramble in when gates were opened 15 minutes before the game commenced. He said last night: 'Those in charge of the game just couldn't handle the situation.'

Dr John Ashton, Professor of Medicine at Liverpool University, said policemen on the scene did what they could, but he added: "There was a total lack of leadership and a total lack of any overall plan at the Leppings Lane end. There was nobody in charge and it was just total chaos. I had to assume'' control of the casualty situation myself and basically divide the people into three groups depending on whether they were dead or not or whether they should have priority to go to hospital when the ambulances, arrived."

The inquiry will also hear complaints about the decision to put the Liverpool supporters at the smaller Leppings Lane end, which meant a ticket allocation 4,000 less than that given to Nottingham Forest, although Liverpool's average home gate is twice as big as Forest's. Mr Kelly said that this had been ordered by the police, because it made traffic arrangements more convenient, with Leppings Lane closer to the M62.

Mr Rogan Taylor, the Liverpudlian chairman of the Football Supporters Association, said: "We didn't like the look of the way things were organised. People were allowed to approach turnstiles freely, and when that happens at matches like this, where demand for tickets far exceeds supply, you're going to get crushing."

Inspector Walton said: 'It is choking. Obviously there are going to have to be a lot of questions asked. It is such a major travesty it is going to take a lot of sorting out.'

Hillsborough's flow of admissions is controlled by computers which told Mr Graham Mackrell, the Sheffield Wednesday secretary, that even as the disaster happened the crowd occupying the terraces at the Leppings Gate was still below capacity. So why were so many people crammed into one small space when there was room elsewhere?

Afterwards an inspection of that end of the ground in the company of Mr Richard Faulkner, deputy chairman of the Football Trust, suggested that had the police been able to avoid the crush outside the perimeter gate the late arrivals could easily have been accommodated on the terracing on either side-of the disaster area.

Mr John Williams, a Football Trust research lecturer at the Leicester University Department of Sociology who has co-authored several books on the behaviour of soccer fans, could not understand why there had been so few police controlling the inflow at the Liverpool end. 

"Why weren't barriers set up at the end of the street so that the police could make a check on who had tickets?" Mr Williams asked. "There was a crush at the turnstiles at 2.30 and I could see ticket-less fans sitting on the walls looking for a way in. It was already becoming a problem then."

Mr Williams had a stand seat which gave him a full view of the disaster. "We could see people being crushed against the barriers at the front of the terracing but others were still pressing in at the back. Then both police and spectators started to rip out the fencing in order to get supporters out of that section."

Logic suggests that Liverpool should not have been allocated that end of Hillsborough at all but should have been allowed to fill the huge expanse of terracing at the Penistone Road end. 

Every turnstile entry at Hillsborough is registered on a central computer, so that if a terrace reaches its capacity the turnstiles can be closed automatically.

What this system cannot do is regulate the number of fans entering each pen. 

Visual checks are maintained, mainly by closed-circuit television cameras inside and outside the! ground, so stewards and police can direct fans from the turnstiles to an appropriate pen.

Normally the flow from turnstiles to terracing is a steady trickle. On Saturday, the fans entering through the open gate headed for the two nearest pen entrances, the fullest.

This situation could have been caused only by an uncontrolled build-up of spectators in the outside approaches.

The same number of Liverpool fans entered the same terrace quite normally before last season's semi-final, and according to witnesses, the approach roads on that occasion were strictly controlled so large queues did not build up at the turnstiles. Non-ticketholders were not allowed to approach the ground. If that was not the case on Saturday, then it was the single most serious lapse.

Given that procedure, one of the main questions to be asked of the police about the Hillsborough disaster must be what channels of communication they had between officers inside and outside the ground.

Another question for the inquiry will be the possibility that the deaths might have been avoided if the police had asked the referee to postpone the kick-off, allowing those pressing to enter the ground to do so in an orderly way.

ARSENAL, whose Highbury ground has the biggest capacity in the Football League, believe one of the biggest crowd-control problems is the late arrival of most fans before kick-off.

"If we had a large crowd outside here, the police would immediately be in contact with the central hub inside Highbury, where I'm available all the time. "We wouldn't open gates: it's easier to delay the kick-off, but everyone has to come through the regular turnstiles. It's the only way to retain control.

"Another point is that if you do not delay the kick-off, greater excitement is generated outside because people queuing here the 'oohs and aahs' from the crowd inside."

This policy was put into practice when Arsenal entertained Liverpool in their Littlewoods Cup third round, first replay on November 9. Kick-off was put back from 7.45 pm to 8 pm to accommodate huge queues outside Highbury. Fans' reaction was positive and generally good-humoured.

Everyone always knew there would be a shortage of space for supporters. As soon as the venue for the semi-final match between Nottingham and Liverpool was announced, the Merseyside club protested about the Hillsborough ticket allocation: they were furious that they had fewer tickets than the Forest men.

Amid the chaos there were, bound to be absurdities, asking spectators to clear the pitch, for example, when it was obvious that there was nowhere for them to go. 

The lack of information over the public-address system was deplorable. It was fully 50 minutes before Kenny Dalglish's voice was heard over the loudspeakers: "Obviously everyone knows that there have been one or two problems. Please co-operate..."

There will, of course, be a public inquiry. It will, on present indications, pass harsh judgement on the performance of the police, condemning the decision to give Liverpool fans the smaller ticket allocation, condemning the lack of barriers far away from the turnstiles, condemning the confusion on the ground and the paucity of co-ordination on high. But that is only the beginning.

Mr Kelly said that the police expectation of having to deal with hooliganism, not public safety, appeared to have been another factor in the magnitude of the disaster. "They thought they were dealing with a security problem, and it was comparatively late in the day when they realised they had a major safety problem and not a security problem. I don't know whether their minds had been conditioned over the years to thinking that way."       

Commercial values come off no better than the law in this sick farce, and the chauvinistic backwardness associated with some football-supporting in England reflects the primitiveness of the physical conditions of empire-era stadiums as well as the narrow-mindedness of imperialist-corrupted thinking in part of the masses.

It is the football establishment's arrogant class attitude of treating the fans (and not so long back the players too) as cannon fodder which is the heart of the problem,- rather than the associated but incidental matters of ancient poorly-equipped football grounds in rundown badly-sited city centres, etc, or the academic diversion about watching football standing up or sitting down.

Within capitalism generally, changing attitudes based on technological and social upheavals finally can no longer live with the prevailing domineering relations (in production, property, etc) and the paralysis to all development caused by this conflict finally forces resolution of the contradictions by revolution, so that needed progress can be resumed.

Thus it is only incidentally the bad factory conditions, the sub-standard housing, schools, transport, hospitals, recreation facilities, social services, etc, which breed revolt. The final real problem is the intolerability of ruling class attitudes. It is the whole relationship between ruling class and ruled which people ultimately will not put up with any longer, regardless of what economic, political, or social reforms are introduced or, more likely, merely promised.

It is no different in football. It is the entire, stuffy, arrogant, conservative, out-of-date attitude of the Football Association and the Football League which is the growing problem, - not the specific appalling conditions, ignorant treatment, or rotten rip-offs themselves which are intolerable. Glib promises can always be made to remedy individual wrongs. And many more glib promises are bound to be made as a result of yet another 'full and frank inquiry' after the Hillsborough scandal.

But finally it is the fact of yet another ruling class inquiry itself which touches the heart of the difficulties facing soccer (- and British imperialism's crisis generally), — however "full and frank" the inquiry pretends to be this time, and however many cheap promises it makes

And this reflects, and best expresses, the fact that it is simply everything which is now wrong with football in Britain, - and wrong with everything else in this dying and outdated imperialist system.

While wishing to avoid any over-indulgence in futuristic programme-writing, - imposing pet schemes on the social and cultural demands of the proletarian dictatorship epoch internationally which clearly have yet to evolve, - the ultimate seems close to being reached in entertainment-by-proxy, for example, under capitalism. Going to Sheffield to die in the name of all Liverpool for a bunch of mercenary players few of whom have any connection with the city at all and would have even less if it were not for the money they are making, a team selected by a self-perpetuating profiteering hierarchy of very dubious quality and record (certainly true of all 92 league clubs apart from Liverpool, and true of the Liverpool club for most of its 100 years existence apart from its last remarkable two decades), in a hired stadium run by faceless commercial bureaucrats who care not at all for the essence of mass sporting passion and popular participation, — must be close to the last word in contradictory futility.

Under a planned socialist economy, superb community stadiums could flourish everywhere allowing far greater mass sporting participation, including any amount of genuine local patriotism of cheering on genuine local teams of highly motivated true amateurs but trained to the most enlightened levels of skill in the most advantageous circumstances imaginable, etc, - real sport as opposed to the hopeless commerce of the West (which the socialist camp leaders have decided it is necessary to imitate with semi-professionalism for national prestige purposes as part of the answer to the West's Cold War.) 

And the stadiums and the competitions, and everything associated with sport and recreation could be run enthusiastically to the far greater benefit of everyone by the people themselves, with every community creating its own level of recreational excellence in all sports as locally decided. The barminess of cheering on hired cynical mercenaries in appalling rip-off conditions would be just an obscene memory of the degenerate capitalist past.

At no huge expense, any number of simple designs could allow vast stadiums to be built holding 200,000 totally drunk fans in complete safety, (- especially with the free open-entry stadiums which communism will build.) 

To prevent surges in the vastest of crowds of excited spectators, unrushable approach avenues of any size and capacity are easily built of fixed overlap half-barriers which never allow more than 9 or 10 bodies to push in any one direction at any point. The same design would be equally effective inside the turnstile tunnels (if turnstiles are still needed) and on the terraces themselves. 

Seats on terraces have a comparable effect, but they greatly reduce capacity and are simply not popular for many sports and many types of spectator. Capitalist sport could build such stadiums now without any difficulty but the bourgeoisie's class mentality will remain paralysed.

And these dimly perceptible possible rudimentary elements of future communist society are maybe not so far distant as is imagined. The depths of British bourgeois paralysis never cease to astonish. The out-of-date muddle of British soccer management is a prize example with conservative bureaucratism constantly causing ever greater frustration to the sporting passions of the nation. The British establishment is not unique in its decadence, but some of the most grotesque contradictions of the rapidly declining imperialist epoch are clearly accumulating in Britain.

The Hillsborough events are a long way from political revolution, but the class conflicts and social passions roused are not to be taken too lightly either. Up the Reds.  

Adam Carr

Without Bolshevism, a tax reform fight is up the poll

Millions of the proletariat may well be infuriated at the Tory imposition of a head-count charge on poor large families and on others least well-equipped to bear the transfer (from previously high-rated landowners) of the cost of running the local arms of the British capitalist state. 

And millions more 'liberal-minded' intellectuals and trade-union opportunists may be even more incensed at the 'injustice' of it all, and swearing to fight the poll-tax community charge to the death.

But before anything touched by the middle-class labour movement can become a serious challenge to the imperialist system's slump decay towards fascism and World War III, some colossal upheavals have first to be argued out and take place.

For as long as all (who are associated with or attached to the Labour Party's fight for 'success') put the other kind of poll measurement before everything else, - (the
opinion contests, and then the ballot boxes themselves), - serious struggle against this Tory tax coup is just a posturing gimmick.

The moment that the ruling class media monopolies decide to hound and pillory any actual revolt against the new law-of-the-land for revenue raising, and Kinnock's popularity standing is alleged to begin tumbling again, - then the great labour movement 'stand' against the poll tax will be quickly scuttled.

In theory, that shouldn't necessarily stop a genuine mass struggle developing on this issue; but in practice any such campaign within the present form and dimensions envisaged for it is bound to be hopelessly compromised if the major TUC and Labour Party participants decide to pull out.

This is obvious when the key questions, - at present being begged by the current moves, - are asked; and even more when people start wondering why these questions are not being put.

For instance, would an 'all-out fight against poll tax' in fact deal with the real problems facing the proletariat under decaying British imperialism (as losing-out in the trade-war brings fascism and war inexorably closer in the incurable slump conditions)? It is obvious that the poll tax is utterly irrelevant to the accumulated difficulties for the most exploited layers of the working class of generations of bad housing, soul-destroying jobs, and hopeless educational environment,- in the home and in many communities, - leaving them prey as ever to the worst poverty, the least opportunities, and the worst setbacks that the "current economic situation" has in store for any local area or the country as a whole.

The notion of the poll tax being 'a new scale of disaster and unfairness beyond all previous experience' is a piece of Labourite nonsense which is still trying to cling to the utterly corrupt underlying illusion that the alleged 'welfare state' of the supposedly 'great 1945 Labour Government' was somehow a 'complete transformation of the capitalist system - never to be the same again' etc. Total balderdash, - and a vicious deception on the working class in order to treacherously betray the real struggle against the capitalist system, - never begun by any Labour Party or any reformist government anywhere in history.

Imposing poll tax instead of rates is just another nasty salami slice off working class postwar conditions (in favour of the property-owning labour aristocracy and petty-bourgeoisie) which were conceded by the capitalist system as part of imperialism's worldwide retreat forced on it by the enormous revolutionary advances and implications of the Soviet Union's crushing of German imperialism in World War II, - all of which gains were in fact thrown away or eroded by the Labour Party itself in starting the Cold War,- rather than 'gained by the 1945 Labour Government'.

These vicious cuts against social services and economic justice have been a regular feature since Labour governments first put the police-state boot into the trade-union struggle postwar, or imposed the first health-service charges, or imposed a spiralling counter-revolutionary NATO nuclear arms bill on the working class to provoke its hatred against the USSR, or failed to abolish the landed aristocracy and the House of Lords & Monarchy, or to close down the secret police, biased courts and class-dominated military hierarchy and media, etc., or re-sanitised Western colonial tutelage of the 3rd World, in which Labour Governments postwar have far more bloody imperialist repression on their hands than even Tory governments do.

Certainly, the 'fight has to start somewhere'; - so let it begin by asking every labour-movement-oriented meeting whether this 'revolt' against poll tax is in fact going to be a serious challenge to the whole dying imperialist-competitive system of the rotten 'free world', - and in particular a challenge to the corrupt and opportunist role within capitalism's post-1945 Cold War of the parliamentary Labour Party and its sordid local-council equivalents?

The whole reformist attitude of the Labour Party and TUC have been the essential props helping the ruling class to restore the anarchic capitalist system to its full monstrousness, - relentlessly since World War II ended in humiliation for imperialism over half the planet; and the poll tax is now just one tiny sample of what has been unleashed by Labour's refusal to get rid of the capitalist system at all, in reality. What was the point of any claimed 'famous reform', etc, when capitalist media monopoly control is now free to take the money-dominated 'parliamentary system' back all the way to whatever Victorian values and conditions which will be 'good' for the working class soul and for the life of the country according to the next Tory money-grabbing or power-clinching propaganda gimmick?

If the salami tactics eventually reintroduce full-scale workhouse conditions for the poor or jobless, for example, - what difference does it make that there was 'once' free and equal health benefits for all and an almost living wage for the unemployed?                  

The only thing that matters is the balance of class forces now, and what must be argued and done in order to get a real class struggle going again.

The very last thing that wants to be done is to drive the proletariat back into the arms of the Labour Party ever again, which is the sole perspective of the poll tax campaign as so far envisaged.

The next historic development stage for the working class, - on its way to finally building socialism and ending the role of class divisions for all time in civilisation's progresses its definitive break from reformist illusions once and for all. That is the real content of what must be being worked for right now,- nothing else. If such a fight is developed that the poll tax is swept away into the bargain, - well and good. But the struggle is not about individual welfare benefits or specific reforms any more (nor was the real struggle ever about such matters except superficially). The struggle is now solely about whether the working class is going to suffer being pushed all the way down back again with Labour in the slump to the subservient political position reformism timidly put up with in the 1950s; or whether the proletariat is to make a revolutionary leap for all time out of the clutches of Labourite class-collaboration and into the pathway of transforming itself into the ruling class, and transforming the world at last into one free of the wretched warmongering backwardness of exploitation, class divisions, and national chauvinism inseparable from the 'free market economy',- i.e. profiteering self-serving anarchy in human affairs.

Certainly, this fight too 'has to start somewhere', and by all means let it start at meetings called in honour of the anti-poll tax campaign. But let the issues of the worldwide crisis of the capitalist system and the Cold War be the openly-debated background to this latest particular Tory nastiness.

How irrelevant Labour's mumbled incoherence about local income tax, reformed rates system, or whatever, is to the real crisis affecting the capitalist world is clear from the waves that hopeless Scottish Nationalist petty-bourgeois illusions were able to make in the Govan by-election and subsequently. The SNP felt obliged also to say much more than just its short-term, electoral propaganda, - and ended up inventing the insane 'independent Scotland within the imperialist EEC' gimmick in a pathetic attempt to cope with people's massive expectations out of the upheavals of capitalism's monstrous crisis.

The scale of this dramatic proposal may not be inappropriate,- but its class-political direction is, of course, laughably inept. It is the capitalist system which is the problem, – and in particular the monopoly-imperialist uneven development and cut-throat trade-war aspects of the market which have exacerbated fading British bourgeois difficulties in the industrial and financial rat-race,- in turn causing friction between Scottish interests and London's interests. And there is no modern development more symbolic of the corruption and potential disasters of inter—imperialist monopoly-capitalist conflict than the Common Market. Scotland, - and all the people in Britain, - need to get out of the imperialist rat-race, not deeper into the crooked anarchy.

All of which demonstrates what a hollow posture is the SNP petty-bourgeoisie's 'revolutionary' stance,- cunningly exploiting nationalist chauvinism to take advantage of a widespread insurrectionary mood but only in order to divert it safely away from a real revolt against capitalism, and into a jingoistic dead-end.

The anti-poll-tax campaign in England and Wales is throwing up just as much demagogic display. The only sensible question to ask, - and the quickest and best way to pierce the smokescreen, - is to demand that the hot-air merchants connect their 'militancy' to a revolutionary perspective covering the deeper reality of the capitalist system's insoluble international economic crisis. A refusal to admit any connection will either show up the reformist-opportunist frauds working the campaign, or else those ignorant of the real revolutionary linkage of imperialism's worldwide problems,- which lack of understanding, however 'sincere', could prove just as disastrous.

The last thing the proletariat needs is more ill-informed leadership. Either the working class transforms itself with a scientific understanding of its historical revolutionary task to rid the world of the literally lethal capitalist class and nationalist divisions threatening to wreck the planet, - or else it will just become jingoistic cannon-fodder once again, - learning and gaining nothing from the fascist-slump-slaughter to come.

Hammer every Tory sharp practice in sight, and raise the maximum amount of revolt possible. But do so only via a full background explanation of the real international-warmongering setting to the British bourgeoisie's profiteering crisis, - inexorably degenerating towards fascist-slump chauvinism. And even more importantly do so only with en even fuller analysis of the Labour Party and TUC's essential role in propping up British imperialism past, present, and future, through their incurable reformist class-collaborating illusions and opportunist treachery.

Fight the poll tax, - but only in order to build Leninism. Spread the ILWP Bulletin. Joe Harper
World Revolutionary Socialist Review
(edited from Prensa Latina, Tass, Granma, Soviet News,  African Communist, Barricada, Czechoslovak Life, etc)

The CIA's war against Cuba

Eduardo Leal Estrada, an official at the Cuban EMTELCUBA Telecommunications Enterprise; recruited by the CIA under the codename José Luis Tamayo. In 1986, on the order of the late CIA director William Casey, he was awarded a medal for good work for the CIA and a further 10,000 dollars were deposited in his US bank account.  And then, one year later, came a shock, at least for the CIA: Estrada revealed — along with 26 other Cubans on the CIA payroll — that all along he had been working for Cuban State Security.

And with this came the next in the whole series of embarrassing exposes of illegal CIA operations against sovereign nations which have come one after the other ever since ex-CIA agent Philip Agee blew the gaff on the dirty work of his former employers in the mid-1970's.

First presented on Cuban television, foreign readers can now read about this latest fiasco for the CIA in the book "The CIA's War against Cuba" published by Cuba's National Information Service.

The book constitutes a detailed exposure of the full scale of CIA "covert action" against socialist Cuba, containing irrefutable evidence of industrial and military espionage, economic sabotage and ideological subversion. The testimonies of some of the 27 State Security agents contained in the book serve also to confirm previous suspicions of CIA involvement in bacteriological warfare against Cuba as well as providing further proof that the CIA has yet to give up its old dream of assassinating Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Of particular relevance is the chapter dealing with ideological subversion and the propaganda tactics employed by the CIA backed Radio Martí. Its concerted campaign to distort and misuse the process of rectification in Cuba, closely connected with attempts on the part of agents posing as diplomats to set up anti-socialist opposition groups as a vehicle for subversion, also has a familiar ring for readers in other socialist countries.

Indeed, direct parallels can be found in the case of Czechoslovakia where the process of restructuring and democratisation has become the constant target of similar propaganda churned out by Western radio stations whose links with the CIA remain a secret only to the gullible

"The CIA's War against Cuba" is far from being the first in-depth exposure of CIA practices. And as long as US ruling circles consider these practices — which are in total breach of international law and accepted norms of behaviour in the modern world—as acceptable instruments for asserting US foreign policy, it will certainly not be the last.

World Revolutionary Socialist Review 
(edited from Prensa Latina, Tass, Granma, Soviet News,  African Communist, Barricada, Czechoslovak Life, etc)

Moscow's "no conflicts" revisionist illusion made nonsense of by Lebanon's capitalist-crisis civil-war reality

TIMES are hard for the Lebanese Republic. Since September 23, 1988, it has been without a President. Two governments are contesting power: the lawful cabinet of Selim Hoss, whom the Constitution requires to act as head of state so long as this post remains vacant, and the fascist-supported military transitional government, which proclaimed itself "lawful" ten minutes before the expiry of President Amine Gemayel's term of office.

The long civil war may have blurred the nature of the events and the aims of the opposing forces. Now they are crystal clear. The Phalangists, relying on support within the army, tried to usurp power by a military coup. Having failed to get the newly-formed cabinet recognised across the state, they have entrenched themselves In "their" zone, and are now conducting separatist work from there. At the same time, the lawful government controls 80% of national territory.

Lebanon's political crisis has not simply deteriorated. It has reached a qualitatively new phase in which the bourgeois regime is losing its state institutions.

Apart from the Christian enclave, a project has been revived to make the country a theocratic racist state, both alien to and threatening the Arab milieu. Reaction has been seeking these aims since the civil war broke out in 1975. Should the project fail on a national scale, they would cut off a chunk of territory, create their own state, and then expand at other areas' expense. The architects of this scheme are obviously imitating Israeli expansionists who are trying to enlarge their state by annexing Arab lands.

The military Christian government in our country is intrinsically racist because of the demographic and religious pattern of Lebanese society, and due to the Phalangists' rejection of Lebanon Arab identity and their claim to belong to a special, unique and privileged nationality.  At present the separatists are engaged in consolidating absolute power over their "mini-state", destroying every distinctive trait of independent Lebanon, including any political, cultural and religious pluralism or democratic freedoms, and suppressing dissidence by force. Muslims are being deported from the enclave and a regime is being set up akin to the fascist order that once existed in Germany, Italy and Spain.

While talking about protecting Christianity in Lebanon and throughout the Arab East, the separatists have more in mind than simply imposing their project on numbers of Lebanese. They have engineered a "Christian question" in order to foment religious strife in Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, the Sudan and on the soil of the Arab people of Palestine, where millions of Christian Arabs live in harmony with Muslim Arabs as members of the same civic entity.

To understand the latest developments in Lebanon, it is necessary to review the period before the civil war, in particular the impact of regional and international factors.

Lebanon developed rapidly along capitalist lines in the 1960s and early 1970s. Local financial capital increased and made Lebanon a large banking centre. This led to rapid growth in various economic sectors, including industry. Capitalist production relations took root in the countryside. Traditional branches (trade, transport, including transit, services, tourism etc.) were modernised, and the financiers proceeded to amass and centralise capital in their hands.
The structure of society has fundamentally changed in the last 20 years, as the middle and petty bourgeoisie have diminished in numbers and role, population migration has intensified, and villagers have drifted en masse to the industrial centres.

But capitalism's rapid development and the major shifts in the social and class mix of society have not been accompanied by appropriate changes in the country's political system.  Although some reforms were effected in the early 1960s, under President Fuad Chehab, they were limited. The establishment was still functioning on the same confessional basis as during the French mandate, which regulated the composition of Parliament and the allocation of government posts among the 17 largest religious communities. The Christians held obvious privileges under this system.

Thus, society progressed while archaic state structures remained unchanged. This created  a striking contradiction between dynamic growth and the obsolete constitutional, political, and legal institutions that held it back. Moreover, the conflict intensified between big capital, fully involved as it was in the world capitalist economy and all its antagonisms, and the rest of the population—urban and rural wage and salary earners. Precipitated by the world capitalist crisis and regional events, it not only deteriorated further, but also developed into an acute national crisis affecting every sphere—political, economic, social and cultural.

At its 2nd Congress (1968), our party had put forward the idea of democratic reform as the only possible alternative for pulling the country out of the crisis in the interests of the majority. It formulated a programme to establish a national democratic regime, noting that it did not call for a socialist revolution—the ultimate aim of the party—but precisely for democratic reform. This communist programme was well received among urban and rural workers and influential groups of the bourgeoisie, and adopted by many respected political forces which during the civil war became a part of the Lebanese patriotic movement.

The prewar period was marked by an unprecedented growth in the struggle for a better life. As the trade unions became involved, so they began to reunite after a long split. The people won considerable social gains, and political and civil liberties became firmly established. Lebanon was now an important information and cultural centre and an oasis for thousands of political emigrés representing most liberation movements in the region.

The financial oligarchy knew that it could not stop the movement which had united under the banner of democratic reform. It also sensed another danger as the masses streaming into the army of hired labour shed the influence of their communal leaders, who had defended the oligarchy's interests. A class awareness began to replace the one nurtured by communal and confessional ties. The masses had joined in the political struggle.

In this situation the bourgeoisie unsuccessfully at tempted to repress them. They then resorted to the feudal reaction to peasant revolts—a civil war. This course was favoured by the circumstances in Lebanon, and in the region as a whole. The ruling clique deliberately used religious and communal strife to kindle a bloody internecine war and to drive out the "aliens". This added to the intensity of the war. distorted its true class nature in the eyes of the world and obscured the actual role of the financial oligarchy and fascist forces who bear responsibility for this slaughter.

The war deprived the working people of their hard-won gains. Even though the still-united trade unions organised major action in defence of labour's interests, the financial oligarchy, which controlled the state and the bureaucratic apparatus, were able to raise inflation to monstrous proportions by using the war as an excuse. The Lebanese pound's rate of exchange fell by over 100 points1, and working people's purchasing power in 4 years shrunk to almost a tenth of what it had been2; at present the minimum wage is $30-33 per month. The social insurance funds have been embezzled, and a marked drop in securities' value through inflation has ruined the holders of treasury bonds.

At the same time Lebanese exports have increased and, despite the ravages of war, industrial and agricultural production has reached the prewar level. The central bank has succeeded in raising hard currency reserves to $1.5 billion, while retaining its part of the national gold reserve of 9 million ounces of gold. Runaway inflation is thus due primarily to the will of the financial oligarchy, bent on taking back all the concessions wrested from it through years of struggle by the working-class, all the labouring masses and the democratic forces.

Tens of thousands of skilled workers, engineers, doctors, teachers and other specialists have left Lebanon. The outflow has been particularly strong from Phalangist-controlled areas: the trampling of civil and personal freedoms there is yet another cause of emigration. The municipal economy, infrastructure, health service, and education have been neglected and fallen into decay.

The oligarchy has employed every means at its disposal, including the demographic structure of Lebanese society, to foment inter-communal strife and religious hatred, fanaticism. It aided and abetted the Israeli invasion and the landing of US-NATO forces in 1982 in order to save its regime. The Zionist occupation, and the military presence of the  USA and NATO,  helped to install a President defending the oligarchy's interests and  armed with its programme. However, the struggle by patriotic and democratic forces,   especially the Lebanese Patriotic Resistance Front (founded and fielded by the Communists) forced the invaders to withdraw, retaining only a narrow strip of land along the border.  The US-NATO forces were also made to leave.

The last two years of Amine Gemayel's presidency, which expired at midnight on September 22, 1988, were marked by resolute actions of the masses demanding an end to the civil war and the implementation of democratic reform. In the zone controlled by fascist militias, moderate liberals and democrats were increasingly vocal in supporting Lebanese unity and the primacy of law, and condemning the diktat of the reactionary paramilitaries. The influence of secular democratic parties, above all the PCL, and of the trade unions grew. Strikes and demonstrations swept the country.

An obvious change occurred in the power balance-by no means in favour of the financial oligarchy and other bourgeois sections. It became clear that, due to popular pressure, the Chamber of Deputies, although not reflecting the real political spectrum of contemporary Lebanese society3, would have to reckon with the new situation and elect a President who could end the period marked by Israeli occupation and the military-political diktat of the USA and NATO.

Faced by these conditions, top bourgeois leaders sought Washington's help in agreeing with Syria on an acceptable candidate for the presidential post, having assumed that it would manage to impose on the Syrians—and through them on the Lebanese patriotic and democratic forces—a candidate who would guarantee a continuity of the political line. Having failed, the reactionaries paralysed the work of the Chamber of Deputies, preventing parliamentarians from meeting or leaving the Christian zone. With no hope of a president being elected who would defend their interests, they launched a coup by taking advantage of the fact that the army commander and some of his officers were keen to take power at all costs. This amounted to an act of high treason.

These events were not unexpected for our party. Its 5th Congress (1987), after precisely and realistically analysing the national and regional situation, had forecast that, after President Gemayel's term of office had expired, the Lebanese bourgeoisie would fail to reach agreement on a successor and a qualitatively new phase in the civil war would follow.

The armed coup and the establishment of a military cabinet testify to the breakdown of the confessional system and the dismal failure of the policy of the Lebanese bourgeoisie.

The agony of the regime, we believe, eliminates a whole stage in the campaign for the aims of the national democratic revolution and a national democratic system (these tasks have been raised by our party programme and congress decisions). The present complex situation demands precise and well-considered actions: the previous regime is falling to pieces, while a new one has not yet emerged. The downfall of the old system does not mean that it will automatically be replaced with another, progressive one—it is only an indispensable condition for this. Relying upon fascist forces and the continuing Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, and hindering in every way a return to normalcy in the liberated areas, the bourgeoisie may interfere with the birth of an alternative system, and prolong the state of anarchy and regression. Such an outcome would mean a dual perspective: 1) a victory for the separatists and the introduction of military-fascist rule in the country; and 2) the anticipation of such events in the region or the world, which would help modify the power balance in favour of the bourgeoisie, thus enabling them to try and restore their collapsed regime.

It should be emphasised that the Lebanese conflict is closely linked with the crisis being experienced by the region as a whole. Since the outbreak of the civil war our country has been an arena of intense struggle between regional forces, and this struggle exerts a considerable influence on Mideast developments.

The imperialists have always allotted Lebanon the major role in their plans to impose on the Arabs a capitulationist solution to the Middle Eastern problem, and the situation in Lebanon is a clear reflection of the controversy between the advocates and opponents of a Camp David-style settlement. It is the aim of the imperialist schemes to convert our country into a second [after Egypt] element of the US-Israeli plan of regional control and to guarantee "secure frontiers" for Israel by a ring of friendly, communal-type "mini-states".

Imperialism and the Zionist circles have been labouring to split Lebanon and to extend the same disunity to other neighbouring states. They are trying to use this slaughter-house to bleed white the forces opposed to capitulationist solutions—the Lebanese patriotic forces, Syria, our republic's principal ally and window into the Arab world, and the Palestinian revolution. In parallel, they aim to strike at the heroic uprising of the Arab people of Palestine and the resistance it engenders to the Zionist occupation, and an American-style solution to the crisis.

All this places extremely important tasks before the Lebanese democratic forces, especially the Communists.  Above all, it is necessary to ensure that military-fascist rule is opposed throughout the nation and that the Lebanese factor plays the main part in this, thereby giving the patriots an opportunity to derive maximum benefit from the support of their friends and allies, rebuff any hostile intervention by Israel or Arab reaction, and prevent Lebanon from becoming an arena for various Arab states to settle their accounts. Reaching these goals is tied in with the strengthening of the Lebanese patriotic resistance, and the consolidation of its positions on each inch of our native soil.

The second task is to end the discord and conflicts between the forces which are resisting the reactionary groups and trying to restore national unity. It is also essential to do away with the confessional-communalist fragmentation in liberated areas, so that rather than their affiliation to a specific commune or religion, people's patriotic and democratic convictions become paramount. Through effective administration and the interaction of the various forces these areas will convincingly demonstrate how a united and democratic Lebanon could be.

On September 23, 1988, immediately after the military-fascist coup, the PCL called for a front for unity and liberation within which the popular masses and patriotic and democratic forces could fight to restore Lebanon's integrity, Arab identity and the democratic advance of the country.

The recent Extraordinary Plenum of the CC PCL has declared that the situation requires all-out opposition to the military coup, without any compromise or half-measures. Nothing less than the complete defeat of the separatists—this is how the question stands. At the same time this appears impossible without abolishing the confessional system and affirming Lebanon as part of the Arab world, just as it is impossible to overcome the social and economic crisis without abandoning the "free economy" policy.

Resistance to separatism, noted the Plenum, should be comprehensive, and founded on a national democratic programme that rejects confessionalism. The state of affairs in liberated areas will be the best criterion of its viability. This programme looks to all, including those in the Christian zone. It concerns, first and foremost, the satisfaction of the working people's vital needs. To meet the requirements of the struggle itself, all the  patriotic and democratic forces should be mobilised, and combat readiness declared in the face of probable attempts by the military government's supporters to "explode" the situation with weapons, backed by Israel, Iraq, and imperialist and reactionary circles.

The Plenum has stressed the great importance of forming an alliance of national progressive parties and organisations united around a programme for radical democratic reform. Simultaneously it drew attention to the political activity of those who support the lawful government of Selim Hoss and express the positions of influential groups of the national bourgeoisie, who have reasons of their own for opposing the division of Lebanon, its subjection to Zionist influence, and the military-fascist regime.

Patriotic resistance should bear a mass character. It Is essential to set up popular committees in the villages, at industrial and agricultural enterprises, and in educational institutions, and cultural and public organisations.

The CC PCL has again appealed for a Lebanese Movement for Unity and Liberation, emphasising that a repudiation of the fascist confessional project is an inalienable part of the struggle to free Lebanon completely from the Israeli occupation, and the most important of the party's tasks.

Lebanese patriots are confident that our friends, and all those who have helped defend the country against the Israeli invasion and the conspiracies of imperialism, Zionism and reaction, and who cherish freedom, democracy and human rights, will continue to support the patriotic and democratic forces of Lebanon as they work to restore unity and guarantee its sovereignty and its progressive road of development.

1. In 1982 $1was equivalent to about 3.5 pounds; from the end of 1984 the exchange rate began to plummet. Now the going rate for $1is approximately 500 Lebanese pounds.—Ed.
2 At the present time the prices for goods in Lebanon are determined in terms of their value in US dollars.—Ed. 
3. Sixteen years have passed since the last elections to the Chamber of Deputies. Because of the civil war and the impossibility of holding fresh elections, the parliamentarians' powers have been extended four times.—Ed.
4.  Three of the cabinet's six members have since resigned.—Ed.

World Revolutionary Socialist Review 
(edited from Prensa Latina, Tass, Granma, Soviet News, African Communist, Barricada, Czechoslovak Life, etc)

Western subversion beaten

THE MOST important thing about the month that has now elapsed since the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan is the fact that the Afghan army has shown convincingly that it is capable of upholding the country's sovereignty and the mainstays of the chosen policy of development,  said Soviet Ambassador to Afghanistan Yuli Vorontsov.

Speaking in a Tass interview last week, Ambassador Vorontsov pointed out that "predictions of those foreign leaders and other 'experts' who claimed that the Kabul regime would collapse 'like a house of cards' as soon as the last Soviet soldier left Afghanistan have been disproved".

He pointed out that many of the 130 pressmen who had been dispatched to the Afghan capital simply to depict in colourful terms "the fall of Kabul" were now packing their bags.

Ambassador Vorontsov noted that the opposition was going over to resolute political and military actions, attempting to import its 'transitional government' into the country.

The growing Pakistani military intervention, he added, could not be seen as other than an act of direct aggression. The situation now was "tantamount to the beginning of a Pakistani-Afghan war".

He recalled that the Mojaheddin's numerous 'fixed dates' for the fall of various Afghan cities had all passed without the Mojaheddin being able to fulfil any of the wild claims of 'liberating Khandahar' or 'riding on a white horse into Herat'.

Certainly, the Ambassador, said, the rebels had become more active, firing missiles into residential areas and airports, even bringing down civilian planes with their Stinger missiles. But a month after the Soviet pull-out, all major towns were still held by the government.

"Withdrawal of Soviet troops has deprived the rebel leaders of the slogan 'jihad' (holy war against the faithless), which had united opposition to some extent."

The Ambassador made the point that the more active the 'irreconcilables' were, the more obvious the price any 'victories' cost that population. He recalled the fate of Kunduz, a town briefly captured by Mojaheddin rebels. They had looted the town, ransacking hospitals and schools — there had even been a gun battle amongst them over the town bank.

Military circles in Islamabad were continuing to play a major role in the conflict, despite positive changes in Pakistan; since the death of President Zia,  Ambassador Vorontsov emphasised.

Although the extremist wing of the 'Alliance of Seven' was receiving substantial support in Pakistan, there was an obvious rift between them and the Iran-based 'Alliance of Eight', not to mention the former King Zahir Shah.

The Ambassador went on to urge the UN not to remain on the sidelines in the battle to stop the bloodshed.

Meanwhile, Pravda last week urged Pakistan and the USA to respect the Geneva accords.

"They conduct themselves as if they are opening up a front against Afghanistan, as if there had been no talks in Geneva or pledges made," the Soviet daily stressed.

The Geneva talks had not just given an impetus to the peace process in other regional conflicts, but were "a kind of code of honour determining the conduct of signatory states".

The newspaper recalled that the signature of the US Secretary of State was on those accords.

It was perfectly clear, said Pravda, that the so-called interim government was not representative and had no constructive programme which would suit all the forces of the Afghan political spectrum. In fact it was being torn asunder by contradictions.

"Violations of the Geneva agreements," the newspaper concluded, "poison the political climate and cast aspersions on prospects for a settlement of other regional conflicts, and — what is perhaps no less serious — they undermine a major element of any accords: the credit of trust.

• Two US military advisers were killed in Khandahar Province during an army operation to capture a rebel munitions depot on March 13, Bakhtar news agency has reported. And Pakistani military advisers have been reported killed in engagements around Jalalabad.

Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov, said last week that one rebel taken prisoner had admitted that the attack on Jalalabad was a joint Pakistani-Mojaheddin operation being run by Brigadier Jan Djwa, an officer in Pakistan's military intelligence.

Mr Gerasimov also reiterated Soviet concern over the dangerous consequences of the transfer of US Stinger missiles to the Afghan rebels.

He noted that misgivings were now also being expressed in the United States, over the possibility that terrorist organisations in the Middle or Far East could get hold of Stingers for use against US facilities.