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and anti-facism
Medway Towns,
1927-1940
By David Turner Published by the Kent Anti
Fascist Action Committee,
1993, £3
Reviewed by
Derek McMillan
Fascism
the
OR MARXISTS, HISTORY
is not simply a matter of
academic interest, nor is it simply a record of facts - although David Turner's book contains a wealth of these. We can apply the lessons of the past to the problems of the present.
Although the term 'fascist is never openly used by the British National Party (BNP), it is widely accepted by everyone, including BNP members who justify Hitler's extermination programme, that they are an embryonic fascist organisation.
The able the
CPGB
win
t La
to
bes
over
bour workers.
In the 1920s, David Turner's book relates, the National Fascisti, whose leadership used to meet in the basement of the Boy Scout headquarters, were a 'respectable' organisation used to steward Conservative Party meetings and with many links with the diehard right Tories. The Tories openly used the small
The Latin American Left From the fall of Allende
Perestroika
Edited by Barry Carr
and Steve Eliner
Published by the Latin
American Bureau, 1993,
£12-99
by Ximena
Book Reviews
Fascisti gangs to assist during the general strike.
However, the National Fascisti were amateurs compared with the British Union of Fascists. The book gives chapter and verse on how Mosley's blackshirt gangs
them
against racist attacks on the Jewish community in the area. The denunciations of the Labour leaders did not affect the rankand-file although they tended to modify the statements of those who had their career to think
had finance from big business and from the Italian fascists, as well as considerable support from the local press in Chatham.
A section of the capitalist class toyed with the idea of making an alliance with Hitler and backing Mosley's dreams of power. They rapidly disowned and later even imprisoned Mosley when it became clear that the fascist movement was arousing a mass working class opposition in which the Labour League of Youth and the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) played a leading role.
The Communist Party's errors are not glossed over. They swung from denouncing Labour workers as 'so-
cial fascists' to the opportunist policy of a Popular Front with the Liberals, 'progressive capitalists' and other sworn enemies of the working class.
Nevertheless, the lesson for Militant Labour is clear. The CPGB, despite their errors, were able to approach and win over the best Labour workers - especially the youth - because they were seen as the only organisation to 'stand up and be counted'
Fascist leader Mosley.
about.
This excellent book is avariable from the Kent Anti-Fascist Action Committee - the price is a bit steep but the money is going to an excellent cause!
HE LATIN AMERICAN Left
T From the fall of Allende
to Perestroika is the ambitious title of a new publication by the Latin American Bureau, who have produced a steady stream of good material on Latin America.
In a
of®
essays the book charts the uneven development of the labour movement and the left' in the Latin American continent during the turbulent decades of the 19705 and 1980s. Along with material on events in eight specifie coun tries, the book also includes general material on the deval-
Reviews
[page 33]
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opment of the trade union movement in the region and the guerilla struggle, as well as a specific article on the surge of the Partido de trabajadores Workers'
(the Party) in Brazil.
Throughout the various articles the key issues that face the Latin American labour movement are raised:
The effects of of the years military dictatorship on the organizations of the labour and trade union movement; the attitude of the various left groups to bourgeois democracy and its limited character today; the structural changes in the economy that have taken place in the 1980s, the product of the collapse of the bourgeoisie's attempt to develop a national based industry and market, the debt crisis and the wholesale adoption of neoliberal policies; the impact of the policies of de-industrialization, liberalization of labour markets, and the growth of a huge informal economy on the strength and level of organization of the working class; the ideological crisis of the left as a result of the defeat of the 'peaceful road to socialism' in Chile and, more fundamentally, the collapse of Stalinism in Eastern Europe and the ex-USSR; and also the limits, defeats and degeneration of the guerilla movements that developed in the late-1970s and early-1980s in a continent still under the influence of the Cuban revolution and the Sandinista victory of 1979.
The uneven character of developments in the region, with the massive eruption of the working class in the late-1970s and early-1980s in powerful general strikes against the dictatorships and austerity measures, and the setbacks suffered as a result of recession and neo-liberal policies, are also described.
Some of the articles also refer to debates on the programmes of some of the left parties and groups, around some of the key issues they faced in that period. The essays are brief, considering the subjects they are dealing 32 • Reviews Sandinista leader Ortega and Castro. with, and therefore most of them exclude background material.
This could make it difficult to follow for first time readers. Moreover, the book is written by academics, of which have clearly little direct links with the struggle of the working class, and therefore do not reflect the perspective of debates or the labour movement let alone 5HB.
Name Address_.
the various moods of the class at different stages of the struggle. Consequently, there is little indepth analysis and few conclusions, which makes the final result superficial.
This is the most disappointing aspect of a book that has such an appealing title for readers keen to follow events in the Latin American continent.
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[page 34]
Available from World Socialist Books This enthralling autobiography of a Trotskyist participant in the Chinese revolution, out of print for some time, has now been reprinted. Memoirs of a Chinese Revolutionary, originally passed from hand to hand in manuscript form in the Chinese underground, gives a fascinating insight into the Available post-free for £10.50 from World Socialist Books, 3-13 Hepscott Road, London E9 Wang Fan-hsi MEMOIRS OFA CHINESE REVOLUTIONARY struggle for socialism in China. 5HB. Cheques etc. payable to World Socialist Books. Phone credit card orders to 081 533 3311x211.