THE REAL FACE OF

LETTER AND As I am neither a 'Trotskyist' or a 'Marxist-Leninist' I only buy the 'WP' out of curiosity, and because, in this benighted neck-of-the-woods it is the on I can 'militant' 'leftwing' paper can lay my hands on. I am always glad to see your itinerate Comrades in my Tory Blimp, ex-officer dominated 'local' where, so I am told the only sales take place in the 'saloon' bar-and not amongst the Proles. But, once again, 1 as an anarcho-syndicalist, must take exception to the peculithankfully anonymous 'Book Review' 'WP' Aug 5 p. 4, of ' Anarchism and AnarchoSyndicalism' by the three godfathers of social fascism— Marx, Engels and Lenin.

Everybody knows that it was the authoritarian Marx who split the First International when he broke away from Bakunin and ran away to London to form a splinter group, which, following the path of parliamentary reformpaved the way for the dictatorships Lenin, Irotsky, Stalin. Khruschev, Castro, Mao et alia.

Your reviewer states that the Spanish anarchists "tail-ended the bourgeoisie' (I take this to be a euphemism) durng the Civil War (1936-1939) f I may be permitted to use "Cojonestor in fluent Spanish, another euphemism, 'spherical The two million anarchists (CNT-FAI) were the main re sistance to Franco and the Stalinists in the Barcelona (1937) Uprising and on the Aragon Front where they were virtually blockaded and starved of supplies by the And who were the greatest of them all? Durruti-shot in the back by the SIM? Federica Montseny-as gentle Garcia Oliver, whose oratory Durruti was wild. And stilled the pigeons in the Plaza Catalunya. We even allied ourselves with the POUM We hate the Tories. We sup port the workers in their struggle. We oppose the Industrial Relations Act. We despise this government We also reject and despise the alternative. What is the use of non-revolutionary st the only a tent the 1 th nd perfectl futile 'General return of yet another reformist Labour government? Look at Each combine chomes of their record. The 'IRA' Zurich.

The Labour Party is not a Socialist Party. There is only one Party this country, and that is the SPGB. (Which we also reject).

The Labour Party has broken more strikes and sent more troops into the docks than any other party in power.

They deserted the International working class and supported the first imperialist world war, while the TUC suspended its rules for the 'duration'. • They nearly dragged us into the second IWW over Munich.

They supported this war without reservations. • The Attlee post-war government introduced military and industrial conscrintion "peacetime'.

They nobled the Social Services, and introduced prescription, teeth, and spectacle charges. • They fathered the Industrial Relations Act Over 60 of their members members support the Common Market. Market. Top: Bakunin. Above: Marx.

What a shower to support! At least, with the Tories we have an honest adversary. We know who our enemies are. There are no divided loyalties or Sloppy sentiments about 'upsetting' the government, or 'rocking the boat'.

As Malatesta asked: 'Vote! What for?' Only those who are hoping to ride to power on the backs of the working class are asking for votes. (As always).

Just one more suggestion. Could your readers have less disputes and industrial fundamental issues like Women's Lib, the sexual revolution and the future of the family, instead?

Yours fraternally, Gavan McCarthy REPLIES It is entirely appropriate that McCarthy, a selfprofessed anarchist, should join with every revisionist and reformist in opposing the consistent campaign by the Socialist Labour League for the removal of the Tory government and its replacement by a Labour government pledged to a socialist programme.

We alone have fought along this line because we believe that under revolutionary leadership it is entirely possible for the working class to deal with the reformist traitors who have for so long dominated and misled its movement. And it is only by forcing the Labour leaders to take office that this campaign can be brought to a high point.

While McCarthy can declare his 'hatred' of both the Tories and the Labour leaders, he offers not a hint of an alternative programme to that for which we have fought. Indeed, to the extent that the Tories constitute an 'honest adversary' he is presumably in favour of them staying in office as against a Labour government!

Not only is this a line which will be treated with justified contempt by the millions of workers who have been locked in bitter struggle against the Heath government; it also indicates how in a period of CISS sectarian crisis left-sounding into their phrases, can turn very opposite. We must warn McCarthy and all those who share his position: it is always that 'honest' politicians should come forward to lead the nation in its hour of crisis.

And it is also no accident that in many countries, notably Italy, an important section of the fascist movement had started life on the extreme left. as anarchist opponents of Marxism.

The struggle between Marxism and anarchism has been a long and bitter one. It against Proudhon "The Poverty of Philosophy' (1847). The consistent line of anar. chism has always been based a hatred of revolutionary Because the ana rauthority ty politics in the working class.

bourgeois sees 'authority the main enemy, he consistently struggles to turn the working class away from the building of a revolutionary pato take power and establish which alone can enable its dictatorship over the de: feated capitalist class. ing) was undoubtedly Lor This was the fundamental Longford. difference between Marx and Bakunin during the period of the First International. While for insisted upon the need political struggle, raise the understanding of the Road on Thursday afternoon. working class, Bakunin fought bitterly to confine this struggle to purely economic level against the employer. demand Mand his opposition to the for the legal eight hour day and his support for the slogan of the eight hour day, be won against each separate em- kirk spirit'. bloyer Certainly Marx 'split' the International in order to drive out Bakunin and his petty-bourgeois trend and prepare for the Second Interbut to those ignorant Point national. But we must history of the International that whereas fought openly Marx Bakunin, against thrashing out the issues at each stage, it was this latter, the professed upholder SALVE 'democracy' and 'freedom' TODAY who fought in the most underhand, secret and authoritarian manner through his groupThe Alliance for Social Democracy.

Much more serious is McCarthy's slander in lumping Lenin and Trotsky with Khrushchev, Castro and Stalin Mao. Trotskyism represents the only trend which continues the work of Lenin against the degeneration of the Soviet Union and Stalinism.

His hatred of Marxism also forces our correspondent to distort the real lessons of the Spanish Revolution. While is true that large numbers of anarchists provided the forces for the struggle against Francot the it was the mis-leadership amongst other things, allowed Republican despite parliament in the continued existence of Catalonia, despite the fact that workers had occupied many of the large factories and established a workers' militia And when he says: 'We Poullied Treelves with aps reaches perhaps the lowest point of distortion. For deliberately fails FESTIVAL LORD A power behind last week's his festival's national sponsor. London Festival for Jesus 'Britain is in danger of (apart from Jesus himself, who being broken apart at all ipparently had difficulty Com levels', began one paragraph of the leaflet rather strangely. 'With violence, crime, venereal The 66-year-old anti- disease and divorce statistics pornography peer - once just constantly rising, it is high plain Francis Pakeham - was time we got down on our up front with the hallelujah- knees and asked God for ing dolly birds from the King's another miracle in our land.' Longford has been visiting Anyone who answered the regularly and corresponding call, made on leaflets handed with moors murderers Myra out by the organizers in Hindley (29) and lan Brady. advance, to 'watch the river He claimed earlier last week • at 4 p.m.' on Thursday that after three years of his would have seen Longford and visits and letters Miss Hindley his friends sailing up the is 'certainly now devout'. iver in a rather hysterica At this rate Longford should ttempt to recapture the 'Dun have cleared all Britain's prisons in only another 88,000 In view of some of the years. Then for VD and stranger claims made by the same leaflet, it is worth recording one of Longford's less pub- Below: Longford (right forelicized activities on behalf of APRI Fore THL FESTIVAL GARDE