100,000 Demonstrate Against H-Bomb

When the last Aldermaston marcher strode into Trafalgar Square, the mammoth assembly totalled 100,000.

On Friday, 7,000 marchers began to trek past the electrically wired, heavily guarded atomic research centre. By 2 o'clock on Monday afternoon, after three and a half days' marching through Berkshire countryside, in rain-swept Reading, along suburban Hounslow and through working-class Hammersmith, 30,000 were marching.

From the Albert Memorial the demonstration swelled with every step it took. In Whitehall, shadowed by the lofty white buildings of the establishment, the crowds lined the pavements six deep to greet the demonstration.

The Square was a seething mass of people and a veritable sea of banners and posters.

Glinting in the brilliant afternoon sun was the bright red baner of ASSET (technicians' union), the red, blue and gold baner of the Bradford Trades Council, and the blue and white of NATSOPA (printers' union). Numerous trade union branches from the Amalgamated Engineering Union, the Painters' Society and shop stewards' committees were also there.

A large green, white and red banner from the young socialists' paper, 'Keep Left' read: 'Throw out the Tory H-Bomb Government'. Behind it marched Young Socialist Groups from, Hendon North and South, Wembley North, Hornchurch, Harrow East, Shoreditch and Finsbury and Westminster.

No work on rocket bases—No work on H-Bombs

Applause greeted the Socialist Labour League contingent as it marched down Whitehall shouting: 'No work on Rocket Bases—No Work on H-Bombs'.

Then came the international groups—Algeria, France, Eire, Switzerland, the USA, Australia and many others, including the Israeli students and the Arab students' union.

This year there were more Labour Parties and trade unions than ever before. But above all Aldermaston was a youthful demonstration. Thousands of young people marched as a striking condemnation of the cynical sneers of the senile old men who lament that youth today is delinquent and cares for nothing.

Here were thousands of young people, apprentices and students, industrial and professional workers and even school attenders marching against a system that can only offer annihilation.

Youth and the future

This tremendous gathering embraced all the great potentialities, hopes, aspirations and zeal of a youth that wants to shape and decide its own future. Their presence on the march was a demonstration, that they want to construct a different world than the one bequeathed to them by capitalism.

Their preparedness to read the diverse literature that was being sold during the demonstration, illustrates that amongst youth there is the feeling that simply to march is not enough.

Here was the most positive side of Aldermaston. But here also was the paradox of Aldermaston. For these young people when they arrived at the Square were fed on a diet of stale clichés and over-baked platitudes from the speakers on the plinth.

John Horner, secretary of the Fire Brigades' Union, could only call on the summit conference. Briginshaw, secretary of NATSOPA, urged the movement to turn its attention towards a successful summit. None explained how at those summits at Potsdam, Yalta, and Tehran imperialism and the Soviet bureaucracy had made their deals which had bred the conditions which made the Aldermaston march necessary.

Horner spoke wistfully of a 'new popular front' whilst Spain (a tragic example of how the Popular Front leads to defeat) groans under a Franco negotiating with Germany for nuclear bases. Only one speaker, Michael Foot, brought out the revolutionary significance of Aldermaston when he linked it to the Chartists. Otherwise all was prayer and pleas.

Leave it to the statesmen . . .

No one spoke to the youth about socialism. No one tried to show them how war, insecurity, colonialism and racialism are the natural products of a diseased capitalist system.

All the speakers could suggest was to 'leave it to the statesmen'. The enthusiasm began to drain from the crowd. People began to remember their tired feet, and started to drift away.

Another march was over. Another demonstration had finished. Canon Collins blessed the banner: 'Aldermaston to the summit via Geneva.'

In the chancellories the imperialist statesmen breathed a sigh of relief, they are not unduly frightened of prayer.

Despite the tired old men and their pathetic shibboleths and frayed formulas the Bomb still remains. Imperialism still continues its nuclear toboggan ride. Across humanity's future lies the grim shadow of nuclear destruction.

With all its enormous potential the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament still has not overcome its main problem. Unless it is able to direct the youth's desire to fight nuclear war, against imperialism, the movement will remain one of pious protest.