the streets of London on 9 January in a massive protest against clause 29 of the Local Government bill, which is now going through parliament.
The stated goal of the lory right wingers who added the clause is to prePeter Purton, vent Labour councils from 'promoting homosexuality' in any way.
Leaving aside the fact that no counci anvwhere promotes any • sexuality, he lories aim to negate th progressive lesbian and gay rights policies of councils like Haringey Ealing, Brent, Lambeth and The Tory right has for a long time seethed with rage at the efforts of lesbian and gav rights campaigners and their supporters the labour movement to bring about genuine equal opportunities in council employment and services.
But the final straw has been the ettorts of a handful of councils to combat antı-gay prejudice schools by daring to reveal homosexuality schoolchildren does exist and that there isn't anything wrong will beng Isolal Or gay.
The effects of the legislation will go much, DEFENC LESBIANS DEFEND much further than banning local counci tunding of lesbian and gay organisations, serious although that will The bill bigor's charter, giving ine grect light to every queerbasher to wage a war against ICSbians and gay men. Тогу Mrs in partlament iciuse lo condemn the firebombing • ol01 doc! Capital Gay, so we know whai to actually COCL legislated 132ł! anything 'promoting homosexuality is both immoral and illegal.
Socialist Action SOME years are so associated with specific events that merely naming them conjures up a definite conlent. 1929 is the year of the great crash. 1939 the outbreak of World War II. 1914 the commencement of World War I. 1933 the year Hitler came to power.
associated with revolution and struggle. 1968 is Every serious paper, even the most right wing, started this year with a summary of 1968 - • most, of course, to attack its events. Why is 1968 such a crucial year in modern history?
One aspect is simply the sheer scale of the individua events. The let oftensive in Vietnam in January largest general SITIKE France in May 1968, and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 were all, individually, events on an historic scale. To have all three of them in the same year was extraordinary. But most significant of all, and certainly the feature which has left the deepest imprint, was the way 1968 brought them together in a way that gave a new shape to world politics.
To understand that necessary to go back to the world as it developed from World War II to 1968 - and then see the lasting imprint that year left in creating a new structure of world politics.
The first feature which existed in 1968 was the capitalist economic boom. From 1940 in the United States, and from 1947 in Europe, capitalism underwent one of the greatest periods of expansion in its history. Almost uninterrupted economic growth took place in • Western Europe and the US. In Asia a new capitalist power, Japan, developed with a rate of growth never seen before in any capitalst stale. capitalsin aiso penetrated mOIC deeply efore into a series of semi-colonial countries preparing a capitalist development in the 1970s in the Pacific rim of Asia and, to a lesser degree, in Latin America.
Boom In 1968 the major problems which confronted capitalism all appeared to be 'on its periphery. Capitalism failed to destroy the USSR in World War II. In 1942-45 it lost the main states in Eastern Europe to the Soviet army 'and, in Yugoslavia, to popular revolution. Capitalism was North Korea at the end of World War li. In 1943-49 capitalism thrown in China. In 1945-54 French imperialism was defeated in North VietSUET 1959 the Cuban overthrew Batista. colonial empires were largely abandoned, or the ruling powers driven out, in the 1950s and 1960s. Permanent instability marked the colonial throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
In contrast, inside the imperialist COLLECT themselves, economic boom 'bought off' the working class and secured social peace. The number of unemployed in Britain at the end of 1967 stood at under 600,000and that was considered a high figure. The main discussions which took place In le Laboli prosperity and the the working class. Anthony the main right wing social democratic theorist of the 1950s and 1960s, stated openly that capitalism had solved its problems of crisis, of unemployment, and of generating wealth and that the job of socialists was simply to secure a more just distribution of the wealth capitalism produced. The most popular revolutionary theory in that time was that of 'the countryside of the world surrounding the cities' of Mao Tse-tung and Lin Piao - the idea that revolution would proceed in the third world while the bearlands Eviatism emained datieh SCE Westera Europe iza James E DE peasant farming population had been 22 Jan 1988 DCI 1968.
cent in 1946 to 7 per cent in 1971.
Second millions indissolubly 1968; the history change it is than ever spectacular the 1970s.
Third capitalism penetrate out undergo had proletarianisation.
lar overturned was OveL tries in revolution The old European politics. The the black struggle and movement United States, the huge rise of the colonial revolution. Vietnam 1960s seemed to assumed endless 'disappearance of Crosland, colonial world in turmoil.
the world at first time since scored real successes in this.
Nation forces, of stable TATE sucked into industry and wage labour. In France the proportion of the population employed in agriculture fell from cent in 1940 to lo per cent l In Italy the fall was from 42 per cent in 1951 to 16 per cent in 1971. In West Germany the fall was from 27 per of women had moved from doing only unpaid work in the home into waged capitalist work. In Britain, for example, the proportion of women in the workforce increased from 31 per cent in 1951 to 35 per cent in 1968.
- and rose to 40 per cent by the end of had begun of its traditional industria. base into the service sector of the economy - the huge expansion of the public sector was the most striking expression of this but large parts of the private service sector also began to process of Fourth, accompanying this, a pro cess of proletarianisation of white colbegan. Today's LISC militancy among teachers, civil servants and other layers had its origins in the social changes of the 1950s and 1960s.
From every social point of view the working class in the imperialist coun1900 was strollger lilan before in history. Yet this huge working class seemed totally passive and its huge weight scarcely played an active role in advanced social struggle in the imperialist countries in 1950s and 1960s, the rise of the two was itself linked to the Imperialism in the 1950s and early be confronting gradual collapse from the periphery with peace and tranquility reigning in the imperialist centres and with the Confronted with this situation US imperialism, concerned by the rising instability in the colonial world, decided on a massive and conscious counter revolution. It launched from the earls 1960s, under first Kennedy and then Johnson, a tremendous military build and determined counter-ottensive against the colonial revolution. For the World War II the US In 1960 the intervention of United backed by the United States, ensured the overthrow of the left wing government of Lumumba in what Zare In 196t the United States Ta z which had succeeded French rule, was overthrown by a right wing coup. In the 'six day war' of 1967 Israel attacked and defeated the wing nationalist governments of Syria and Egypt. The same year the US, backed Bolivia killed Che Guevara. It was the greatest period of success imperialism had enjoyed against the colonial revolution since World War II.
But in one country, Vietnam, imperialism's DOSILIOL continued deteriorate. By the beginning of 1964 it was clear that the Vietnamese National Liberation Front (NLF) was on the verge of overthrowing the American backed government of the South. United States, flushed with its other victories, decided to intervene to prevent an NLF victory and to teach a lesson to every progressive force in the world. The scene was set for an event that changed world history - the Vietnam war.
The military power which the United States deployed in Vietnam was awesome - it was the greatest US military effort in history apart from the world wars. At the peak of the Korean war the United States deploye 407,000 troops. At its peak United States forces in Vietnam were 600,000. By 1966 the United States was already dropping bombs at three times the rate of the Korean war. By more bombs had been dropped on Vietnam than in all previous wars in history put together. The United States resorted to chemical warfare on a scale which has still left large parts of the country devastated.
Throughout 1967 the United States claimed to be winning the war. General Westmoreland, the US commander in Vietnam, submitted an end of year eport on 1 January 1968 stating th var gains in 1967 would be 'increase manyfold in 1968' some evidence for this. The US cleaned There the 'kill ratio' had increased to 10 to 1 in their favour. It claimed it was capturing NLF equipment at twice the rate it was being replaced. In the second half of 1967 NLF attacks in Vietnam declined and US confidence increased And then in one devastating blow, on 30 January 1968, the entire world semation changed. Radio inashout the world turned on that unite bar beay fighting taking Da= I TeLS entasy in Saigon. An ost Veram DECE STA forces in The was the scene of heavy lighting. the largest city in the north of South Vietnam, fell to the NLF.
situation in Vietnam changed. As Beverly Deepe, the Chris. tian Science Monitor's correspondent in Saigon, wrote the NLF had inflicted: 1971 sha political-psychological setback unprecedented American supported South Vietnames regime. political damage is of such an order of magnitude that it has changed the complexion and character of...the war in the South!
NLF's military decisive. It was the political situation in Vietnam. Th New York Time, about the war have finally been made unmistakably clear to everyone in the United States, from President Johnson on down. Swept away in last week's hurricane of fire were the rising piles of glowing reports of progress in pacific retraining 0 namese army, and destruction of the enemy's political and military forces York Times listeners James Reston noted in the same paper •Something has happened here in the last few days logic and event - a year that c In the space of 24 hours the entire of magnitude for the had The initial assessment of the ficial It was not simply the scale of the operation that was what it revealed about probably the South Vietassociate editor some conflict berweer namese, who were supposed to be ge ting weaker, like the Vietcong, gather • force large enough to challenge the U marines at the demilitarised zone??
Capitalist politicians rapidly bega to read the tea leaves. Robert Kenned who until Tet had pledged support t war, and president Johnson in th presidential election, , announce February that the Tet offensi 'finally shattered the mask of o with which obscured our true circumstances.. part or person of South Vietnam is sa from their (the NLF's) attacks: neith district capitals nor American bas neither the peasant in his paddy fie nor the commanding general of or own great forces..
'We must, first of all, rid ourselv of the illusion that the events of the f two weeks represent some sort of vi tory (as claimed 1 by Johnson). That not be able to hold the Vies. Tha not be able to hold the cities.
true But demonstrated despite all our reports progress, of government strength enemy weakness, that half a mill American soldiers with 700,000 Vic namese allies, with total command
logic of the battlefield. It stated: We think the American people should be getting ready to accept, already, the prospect that the whole Vietnam effort may be doomed; it may be falling apart beneath our feet. actual military situation may be making academic the arguments for intervention in the first place..
*Should such be the upshot, that the US abandons the effort not because it "should" bul because its burposes have become irrelevant in the light of events on the battlefield and of Vietnamese politics, let no one blink at the fact that it will be a disaster. It will be a stunning blow to the US and the West!
In March a relatively scHalul, George McGovern, against US Johnson, on a demagogic anti-Vietnam war position, in the New Hampshire Democratic primary almost defeated Johnson 1964 had won one of the largest landslides in US history. On 31 March 1968 Johnson the end to the bombing of North Vietnam and his withdrawal from the 1968 presidential lave By knew the US had lost the war in Vietnam. That summer the United States was rent by the greatest wave of black uprisings in its history.
Tet was a turning point in world history - with ramifications which affected every part of the world. anged history if they haven't continued The tugese colonies philosophical dependence, came to power in The the most hardline Stalinist obscure Eastern Europe, It was the spring. who in the USSR today.
announced Gorbachev now the world In of the economy panied nicasule was political expression.
But bElt led, within the third world it commenced a period of rise of the colonial revolution for point. decade. In the years that followed Tet US imperialism was defeated in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, the PorMozambique, Angola and Guinea-Bissau achieved in.
Hailie Selassie was overthrown in Ethiopia, the Shah's regime was destroyed in Iran, the racist regime of Smith fell in 'Rhodesia', the FSLN Nicaragua, and a huge new upsurge of struggle started in second great crisis of 1968 post started within Eastern Europe at almost the same time as Tet. In January 1968 the ruler In Novotnv Czechoslovakia, was replaced by a new general secretary Dubcek. ¡after beginning of the Prague Dubcek's reforms were essentially an antecedent of those of Gorbachev in In an interview January this year, his first since 1968, Dubcek wholeheartedly welcomed the the Soviet Czechoslovakia a market 'the was accomwith a political liberalisation which did not question the centres of bureaucrauc power. Ine most radical lifting censorship and certain real freedom of at this time the changes. in Czechoslovakia were too much for a USSR near the height of its immobility under Brezhnev. In August 1968 the Warsaw Dacl aruc Czechoslovakia and snuffed out the dream of 'self-reform' of Stalinism.
But once more, as with Tet, things did not 'return to normal' after the Prague spring. The Hungarian revolution of 1956 had been a vast outburst which had been followed by a return to immobility in Eastern Europe. But the Prague spring' was followed not by a return to normal but by increasing in stability in Eastern Europe In Czechoslovakia itself currents of opposition continued to exist - most notably in the rise of the Charter 77 movement. Onlv two vears later mas demonstrations against price rises Poland began the political process that La decade later, to the rise Solidarnosc. Twenty years later many of same LUCOSCO augurated by Dubcek Czechoslovakia, now renamed Glasnost and Perestroika, are being followed in the USSR under bachev. In Eastern Europe, as much as the third was a turning The third great event of 1968 was linked to Vietnam by a multitude of ties. This was the general strike of May-June 1968 in France.
The process collapse capitalism 'from the edges' had by the early 1960s begun to make inroads into the imperialist themse ves Since the rise of the civil rights move.
the United States In mid-1950s the black population of the US had been the most advanced outof the struggle inside the imperialist countries. A strengthening of position of women within workforce had already taken place although the real explosion of the liberation movement 1968. the mid-1960s, widespread dissent been among students.
Vietnam helped bring developments together both directly and indirectly. Politically Vietnam produced a huge crisis which particularly affected student youth. The ideological cement of the Cold War had been that West' was defending democracy nd freedom against th 'totalitarian' cook da vend doe wer self-evidently waging a brutal rapacious war. Demonstrations, and student actions, against the Vietnam war swept the United States and Western Europe.
But Vietnam was also an enormous capitalism. economic CISIS United States was unable to finance the war by taxing its own population. On the contrary Johnson, in order to maininvaded tain support for the war, had to carry through a series of reforms under the title of the 'Greai Society.
Unable to finance the war entirely at the expense of its own working class, US capitalism began to look for others to take the burden. It sought to transfer a large part of the burden of the war to its West European allies.
The mechanism Throughout the United States balance deteriorated. The US paid for imports it could not export goods to cover bi pumping out billions of dollars for imports from Japan and Western Europe In Western Europe the net result was of growing economic instability. Demand for exports to the United States led to rapid growth in the At the endless flow of dollars into Westerr Europe produced inflation.
Gorfacing full employment and rapid expansion of production but at the same time with its real wages under pressure from inflation. combination.
Period It came first in France. France, under de Gaulle, had been taken through a forced march of withdrawal from its colonial empire. In order to maintain a political consensus for this de Gaulle had adopted a theme of demagogic Autocratic political structures imposed the by the Fifth Republic, rapid industrial growth and rapid expansion working class, a rapidly expanding and Canne under financed education sector, came together with generalised opposition to rising the Vietnam war.
Student actions which had started these around Vietnam had 1968, turned into a serious crisis of the entire French education system. Student riots, which great 'night of the barricades' of 10 May 1969 in Paris, ignited a general strike and factory almost a month France was paralysed was in the largest general strike in history.
The long working class in the imperialist coun tries had been decisively broken.
Once more, as in the third world and Eastern Europe, there was no 'return to The normal' in Western Europe after 1968.
Socialist Action . the offensive major domestic then, simple. war Vietnam war the of payments were relative.
1970s, movement West European same time the The West most working class found itself This was an explosive turning point.
There generated was also logical the explosion industrialisation had anti-Americanism Kampuchea overthrown facts:
sequences in by culminated occupations. For the unleashed. period of stability of the nghtly 22 Jan 1988 For seven years the working class in Western Europe was uninterruptedly on - the May-June French general strike was followed by a massive strike wave in Italy in the autumn of 1969, the bringing down of the Heath government by the miners in Britain in 1974; a rising wave of struggle against Franco's dictatorship in Spain dramatically of all, the downfall of the Portugese dictatorship and the revolutionary wave of struggles which swept that country in 1974-75.
It is true that, after 1975, the West European working class was forced on to the defensive. Successive defeats and setbacks were suffered in Britain, Portugal, Italy, Spain and France. But these In no country was socia peace restored in the way that it had existed in the 1950s and 1960s. In the late starting with the anti-missiles then the crisis, a decisive new factor developed the movement into political action of the West German working class, the powerful Western Europe which alone had not really moved in the immediate post-1968 events. 1968 in Western Europe, as in the third world and Eastern Europe was an irreversible doubt that 1968 misunderstandings.
Many Marxists mistook what was the beginning of the break up of stability in the main centres of imperialism with the imminent onset of revolution. The crisis of Stalinism turned out to be far longer and more tortuous than many imagined terrible suffering on Indochina before it withdrew and the murderous aberration of the Pol Pot regime : developed in before too But these, finally are the byways of history. 1968 inaugurated three decisive crushing defeat of US perialism in the third world whose conConne to the present, a crisis of Stalinism which has not been halted since 1968, and the definitive break up of prosperity and social peai n the imperialist centres. Even if d developments which followed it had a different timescale, and took a more winding course than anyone had fore seen, history since 1968 only confirmed fundamental trend which Both the bourgeoisie and the working class have every right to celera 1968. It is truly the founding year modern political history:
symbol throughout the world
Socialist Action . 22 Jan 1988 nian resistance. FOR nearly two months the area referred to in Britain as Gaza and the West Bank has been swept by a Palestinian aprising against Zionist occupation. Less reported by the press, but equally significant, that uprising has spread into the territory of the Israeli state itself. The result has been the gravest crisis for Zionism since its invasion of Lebanon in 1982 — and one with deeper implications even than the crisis of that time. The Palestinian uprising has produced political crisis in Israel, solidarity in the Arab world, and the necessity of Britain and the United States seeking to :cover over their unstinting support for the Zionist state. The international prestige of Zionism probably stands at an all time low and more people in Britain are beginning to question its true nature. To understand the events appearing daily on our television screens, RASHID ASHRAF and PAM COLES look at the roots of the Zionist state of Israel. CHRIS JAMES looks at the new wave of Palesti-
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Groan in Ghana in Februars 1966. Is Algeria the governmen of bes Bela