The long, long list of censored programmes

FEARS of a possible world economic crisis of the type begun by the 1929 Wall Street crash are once again being expressed.

Capitalism's supporters, who for many years assumed that governments now had at their disposal instruments to forestall and prevent such a disaster are no longer speaking with such confidence.

In the face of continued uncontrollable inflation in all the major capitalist countries they are saying: it must end sometime and what then?

Some self-styled Marxists have in the past also permitted themselves the assumption that a world crisis of the dimension of that of the 1930s is no longer possible.

To do this, of course, is to assume that capitalist governments have learned, with the help of Lord Keynes, to control the anarchy of the market or that the laws of capitalism no longer operate as they once did.

In other words it represents a rejection or revision of Marxism.

Is, then, a major slump inevitable? Can it be predicted with certainty? At one time or another since the end of the Second World War such claims have been made in the name of Marxism.

However, no such slump has occurred. Is it, then, a simply a case of a premature prediction or of some other mistake?

BREAKDOWN

What Marxist political economy shows is that the working out of capitalism's laws of motion pushes the system towards a breakdown.

There is, then, a definite tendency towards a crisis of over-production. For this actually to occur on the scale of the 1930s requires that all the conditions driving towards a slump should come together in a particular way.

Marxism cannot predict with certainty that a world slump will occur at a particular time or even that one will actually take place. It does say, however, that there are powerful tendencies operating in this direction.

These tendencies operate despite the conscious efforts of capitalist governments to control the economy and keep it on an upward course. The Keynesian remedies, based upon government spending and the financing of credit by the central banks, have only been able to operate through continuous inflation.

For years now governments, especially that of the US, have struggled to bring infiation under control but they have completely failed.

The great fear now is that the Nixon administration will find itself obliged to take the strong measures which Johnson spoke about but failed to apply. Already interest rates have risen to an absurd level, but still the inflation goes on.

In other words, the American economy, from which stems the world rise in prices, could become, as in 1929, the storm centre of a new economic blizzard.

Discussing some of these possibilities in 'Le Monde' (September 30), a financial journalist points out that the first break may very well come outside the USA.

SHOCK

As he says, the sign for the 1929 Wall Street crash was actually given by the failure of a bank in Austria.

The different parts of the world economy are so closely linked together that a shock in any part of it will rapidly be transmitted, and perhaps more powerfully, to the rest.

It is the uncontrollable chain reaction, when all the tendencies towards overproduction begin to predominate, which can set the stage for a world depression.

'Le Monde', in a long article written in an urgent tone, calls attention to the heavy indebtedness of the big capitalist firms in countries like Italy, Belgium and Germany.

Strong measures to deal with inflation in any one of these countries could easily result in a chain of business failures running from one country to another.

The first sign of such a break would not be unemployment, as the Keynesians assume- that would, of course, rapidly follow.

In fact, it is impossible for governments to forestall this type of financial seize-up because they do not have the information necessary. In trying to deal with inflation and balance of payments problems they may inadvertently turn the screw too much and start the crash!

The European banking and financial situation is now in a precarious position because of low reserves and the draining of capital to the US. Governments are meeting their needs by a continuous increase in paper money based term floating debt.

One or two countries like Germany or Switzerland may have for the moment a solidlooking currency - but they too are caught up in the same process.

The vuild-up of credit, the involved international financial transactions now going on through the medium of Eurodollars, the over-indebtedness of business and the lack of gold or foreign exchange reserves, puts the whole system at the mercy of some sudden breakdown in one bank or big firm, with the exposure of one financial scandal.

As 'Le Monde' says:

'Who can be sure that there will not one day be in London, in Frankfurt, in Geneva or in that paradise of the Eurodollar, Nassau, a bank failure which will bring down the whole edifice, by • a chance shock wave effect?' This is not to say, of course, that the slump is inevitable or can be predicted with certainty. What it is possible to say with confidence is that the conditions for it are being prepared, that government action of the Keynesian type will be helpless to prevent it and that whatever arrangements the International Monetary Fund may make they will not be able to deal with the basic problems.

IMPLICATIONS

Capitalism has certainly changed in the past decade or SO.

In some ways it has changed faster than many people realize.

These changes have been particularly important on the financial side; the implications of the Euro-dollar market, for example, are only slowly being recognized. Instead of making capitalism more stable, more subject to control, they move in the opposite direction.

They underline its anarchistic character. They show how the reckless search for more profit leads to a network of transactions which poises the whole system more precariously than before and increases its risks of collapse.

That is why the supporters of capitalism themselves, if they pause to think, are stricken with anxiety about the future.

That is why the strength of the working class as manifested throughout western Europe is also so important.

It shows that the future will be decided as a struggle of classes and not as the working out of inevitable economic processes. TELEVISION REVIEW THE USE to which the magnificent human developments of radio and television are put depends entirely on the social system in which they are employed 'Technique and science develop not in a vacuum, but in human society, which consists of classes. The ruling class, the possessing class, controls technique and through it controls nature... In a society in which the ruling class is militaristic, technique is in the service of militarism.' Trotsky's speech in March 1926 to the inaugural meeting of the First All-Union Congress of the Society of Friends of Radio stands as strongly now as it did then in the infancy of wireless communicaToday pictures can be sent round the world via satellites with only few seconds delay Live pictures come from the moon and from the manned cabins of rockets in dark inter-planetary space.

Ships cross the oceans guided by signals which have travelled 24,000 miles out into space and then back again; the weather is studied from orbiting photographic laboratories. The advance in tech. nique in a few short years is staggering.

But all this, and more be sides, is in the service of the ruling class; all this is in the service of their global networks of missiles carrying enough explosive force to vipe out all life on the plane nany times over; all this in the service of world capitalism in its desperate and destructive attempts to prolong its senility.

In recent years, perhaps the most celebrated act of tele vision censorship was the kins public to see Peter Wat- BBC's decision not to allow film "The War Game'.

After much outcry it was finally released into selected cinemas where responsible' middle-class people could see All over the world fellow film-makers awarded it prizes and the even from da d very large sum money.

But it was never shown on British television.

It was, after all, an attempt to give a picture of the effects of a very small atomic bomb on human life.

It did it realistically and unromantically.

It could not be shown in case it 'upset' people.

Many other films and pro grammes have also been banned.

locked vaults; others were destroyed. natory treatment of indigran alleging discrimi workers by the Metropolitan Police was mutilated after ressure from the authorities Another about women criminals was treated similarly.

Plays have been delayed for months and years, radio programmes about police brutality completely stopped. The list is very long and in the coming period must get longer.

Meanwhile, of course, screens are kept filled four radio channels never to spread the gospel.

LAST WEEK both television set-ups did a job on Gandhi.

To celebrate the centenary of his birth BBC and Granada put out programmes on the same night.

Both idealized and romanticised him; neither offered any serious analysis of his politics or any suitable appraisal of his life.

Hated, persecuted and imprisoned during many of his years he also unconsciously served British imperialism well.

His creed of non-violence was plaintively lamented in one programme and cynically dismissed in the other.

With his hand-spinning and notions of a primitive economics (he was always anti-Marxist) he also lived a part of his life in the huge house of one of India's biggest industrialists.

His narrow nationalism was disastrous for the Indian peasantry and working class and his romantic asceticism was all grist to capitalism.

Passed off as the saviour of India by some, he opened the door to the continued exploitation of Indians.

The reformist social-democracy which sprang naturally from his politics also held back the growth of the Indian socialist revolution.

But, of course, we are meant to take him to our hearts and to follow along similarly idealist paths. Thus the programmes and their approach.

LAST WEEK too Associated Television (ATV) continued its new series , 'The DustbinCondescending and patronızıng programmes about the 'comic' working class are nothing new, but this series looks like setting new records.

In the same week that dustmen in Islington and elsewhere were fighting serious battles for decent wages and against productivity deals, the gap grew wider between reality and what the ruling class think will best entertain and confuse us.

TELEVISION coverage of the Labour Party conference also did little to reveal the real forces at work there.

One evening a group of delegates in Brighton met some workers from commercial television to discuss the crisis in the industry. French young socialists (A.J.S.)

send greetings to THE National Bureau of the Alliance des Jeunes pour le Socialisme greets the launching of the Trotskyist daily paper Workers' Press published in London by the Socialist Labour League, the British Trotskyist organization.

The role played by the Young Socialists in the struggle to publish the daily Workers' Press provides the AJS with a wealth of experience.

Day after day, the AJS followed this struggle, because there is no such thing as two parallel, distinct struggles but one and the same struggle for the building of the tool indispensable for the victory of the proletariat—the revolutionary party.

The appearance of the daily Workers' Press is a tremendous step forward on the difficult way to build the revolutionary party and the International, in a situation where the working class has again taken the initiative in the class struggle, and engages itself in huge struggles against the bourgeoisie on a world scale.

In this situation, the launching of the daily Press constitutes a conquest for revolutionaries country.

For the appearance of the first issue of the daily Workers' Press a delegation of the National Bureau of the According to one report ('The Times' ; October 1), the broad proposals discussed, without any firm resolution, were that MPs should be lobbied 'to take notice' of the situation and that the Independent Television Authority should be asked to exercise greater control over programme companies and programmes.

A forlorn evening all round and one more sign that the Free Communications Group, a reformist group with middleMahatma Gandhi class politics which was behind the meeting, is well matched with its sympathizers in the Labour Party.

ON THE same day the Director-General of the BBC, Mr. Charles Curran, let it be known that despite the increase in all licence fees to be levied from April 1971, the Corporation will still be in serious financial trouble.

Radio alone will have an accumulated deficit of around £7 million by then and there seems no chance of solvency after that unless viewers make a massive and unlikely turn to expensive colour sets.

Later in the week (October 2) the Chairman of the BBC, Lord Hill, announced that educational broadcasting will also be severely affected in the near future unless the government can find a lot more money.

in every The crisis in the industry is very deep indeed and no amount of reformist tinkering is going to put it right.

THIS WEEK too has seen another move in the desperate attempt to use all means in the effort to con the working class.

On Sunday at 12.30 p.m., a new series was begun on BBC Called Representing the Union' it's billed as 'a trade unionist's guide to productivity bargaining and management techniques The producer insists that it's intended to help shop stewards negotiate a productivity bargain, to help them know whether or not they are getting a fair deal for their members'.

The very notion of "fair" productivity deals is difficult to imagine in this system and it's no accident that Mr Vic Feather was quoted as saying that the series was of 'great importance' • ('Financial Times' September 23.)

Produced in close consultation with the TUC it deals with 'problems of effective communications, costing techniques, job evaluation, workmeasurement and payment by results' Mr Feather also said that there have been many inquiries about the series, not only from some shop stewards, but also from manufacturing industry, 'mainly bigger companies' Other inquiries had also come from the Post Office, railways and hospitals.

One more attempt to sell productivity deals, this time in the disguise of fair-minded educational television.

OUR mentors will go on trying to decide what we should know, what we shall see, what we may hear.

'Public 'corporations like the BBC and statutory bodies like the Independent Television Authority, either through action or inaction, will attempt to hold back consciousness.

They will peddle the acceptable values and present the news as they see fit.

But whilst the great possibilities for freeing men inherent in broadcasting remain hidden, whilst the news goes on putting the American imperialist case in Vietnam, the federal Nigerian government's line on Biafra and the employers' interests in all class struggles, we should never forget the revolutionary future for which we are all building.

Speaking in 1926 about the AJS came to London our English comrades Revolutionary Youth.

The struggle of the Young Socialists and the struggle of the AJS are linked indissolubly for the destruction of the bourgeois state and capitalism, for the victory of the working class and its youth, and the establishment of socialism.

Together, the Young Socialists and the AJS will fight for the organization of an International Conference of Revolutionary Youth, for the proclamation of a Revolutionary Youth International, as heir of the heroic tradition of fight of the Socialist Youth International of Karl Liebknecht and the Communist Youth International of Lenin and Trotsky.

In this year which marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Lenin and the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Leon Trotsky we will win together this new victory.

By Frank Cartwright need to extend communications in the Soviet Union, Trotsky's words have immense power today:

'It is necessary that on that day when the workers of Europe take possession of the radio stations, when the proletariat of France take over the Eiffel Tower and announce from its summit in all the languages of Europe that they are the masters of France, that on that day and hour not only the workers of our cities and industries, but also the peasants of our remotest villages, may be able to reply to the call of the European workers: "Do you hear us?" — "We hear you brothers, and we will help you!" Siberia will help with fats, grain and raw materials, the Kuban and the Don with grain and meat, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan will contribute their cotton. This will show that our radio - communications have brought nearer the transformation of Europe into single economic organization. The development of radio-telegraphic network is, among so many other things, a preparation for the moment when the people of Europe and Asia shall be united in a Soviet Union of Socialist Peoples."

That day is coming. The heroic part played by workers in Czech television and radio last year testifies to the strength of the resurgence of revolutionary socialism through out Europe.

Similarly in Paris, in May-June, 1968, many broadcasters and technicians took a principled stand against the Gaullist government and on the side of the working class.

Many of these people in both countries have lost their livelihoods as a result.

The recent resignations at London Weekend Television involved big sacrifices ton.

It's only the beginning though; these are the first rumblings of a mighty flood tide.

Television and radio workers are important in the coming struggles.

No one will be exempt.

The fight is the same in their industry as in any other; we must take on the obligations that history thrusts upon us.

Programmes to note Oct. 7 - BBC 9.10 p.m., 'Where Do We Go From Here?'; a film about gypsies in Britain.

Oct. 8 BBCI, 11.15 p.m., Conservative Party Conference.

ITV, 9.45 a.m. mid-day, Conservative Party conference. Oct. 9-BBC 1, 11.05 p.m., Conservative Party Conference.

ITV, 9.30 a.m. and mid-day, Conservative Party conference.

Oct. 10- BBCI, 11.20 p.m., Conservative Party Conference.

BBC 2, 9.10 p.m., 'La Guerre est Fini' (The War is Over');

a feature film directed by Alain Resnais with Yves Montand, Ingrid Thulin and Genevieve Bujold. ITV, 9.30 a.m. and midday, 3 p.m.

Conservative Party conference.

Charles Berg of the AJS.

on September 26 and 27 to bring the fighting greetings of the French Charles Berg, National Secretary For the National Bureau of the AJS.

PAGE FOUR October