Films That Help U Galvanise Action

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ANYONE who has taken part in a strike, occupation or any action that has attracted the attention of the media, in particular television, will have experienced the frustration and anger of seeing their struggle distorted and misrepresented on their screens.

It is this kind of experience that demolishes those illusions that the media have so carefully created for themselves as neutral arbiters, "objective" always in their representation of the working class in action.

But even when tilm crews, fim editors, etc.. cover events with good intentions, the problem of professionals going into a "location" from the outside with little or no understanding and certainly no real involvement with the people they are supposed to be representing remains, with the inevitable consequences.

As always, it is imperative for an oppressed class.

sex or people to represent nd pass thems to ME 300: 30 192233 themselves.

There were attempts in Britain back in the 1930s to set up workers' film groups, such as the Film and Photo League and the Kino Group, but with a few exceptions, much of what is nostalgically ressurected from time to time is particularly unimaginative (endless rallies and marches), plain embarrassing (Tory ladies won over to sweet reason by left book clubs) or simply giving out the current Stalinist line at the time (demos in Trafalgar Square, calling for peace pre-'39. etc.), all in all recipes destined mostly for the dustbins of history.

Myth The British labour movement had to wait until the late '60s to get a film group more attuned and integrated into the realities of class Cinema Action was formed around a nucleus of and pinfessional film makers and militants in 1968, with the understanding of the need for films communicating class action (strikes, occupations, rent strikes) that would be part of those struggles, breaking with that bourgeois myth that documentation (news) is somehow "above" taking sides-a vitally useful myth for the capitalist class.

Their first film, !n Place of Strife, was made in 1969, and so Cinema Action were able to take a part in the mass mobilisations that took place against the Heath government: with films on the campaign against the Industrial Relations Act, the dockers' strike (title: Arise Ye Workers), the UC'S occupation, the miners' strike and many other smaller actions. with a film on the north of Ireland made in 1971.

These tilms were often made very rapidly. enabling them to be used as part of thost struggles-campaigning films communicating information. the lessons to be learnt, encouraging solidarity, and shown at branch meetings, public meetings, and workplaces, seldom reaching proper "big screens",_ and of course, never on TV.

Finance was always .a struggle in itself for Cinema Action-occasionally some unions (NUM, AUEW) contributed, but mostly these films came together on borrowed money and donations.

Changes After the Tory government's downfall and the debilitating effects of the Social Contrari, the group found it necessary to readjust to the new conditions and have spent the last tow years creating a small cinema in north london (to be opened nest spring) and finishing a new film on the lives of a woman, her family and community in the valleys of South Walks.

examining in historical by Dav Tu context the changes place in peoples' lives the pressures of the cap Reminder Some of these films will be very useful for SO meetings: in the film sense they go from good to excellent, politically they will be a good focus for discussions on the role of the reformist and Stalinist leaderships in these historic struggles.

And for those with short memories or suffering any symptoms of defeatism, these films will act as a forceful reminder that the working class, when mobilised. can defeat anti-union laws, get workers out of jail and bring hated governments down on their knees.

For a full list of their films write to: Cinema Action. 27 Winchester Road. London NW3. Tel: 01-586 2761. ing der list schemes contained, in however fantastic a form, revolutionary criticisms of existing society-of the alienation of labour, of the oppression of women-from which Marx learned.

The Manifesto surveys all the utopians and 'social quacks'. But from the general criticism it specifically exempts "that literature which, in every great modern revolution, has always given voice to the demands of the proletariat, such as the writings of Babeuf (leader of the Communist conspiracy of 1796, during the French Revolution) and others"

This "revolutionary literature that accompanied these first movements of the proletariat had necessarily a Hegel possible transform the dreams of the utopians into practice. And, instead of the fixation of the early communists on armed uprising, co, piratorial the class struggle means in capitalism is realise these possibilities.

The basic struggle over wages and conditions labour unites and organises the working class in ition to the capitalists. But the workers cannot hope to seize bits of factories for establishrivate property to themselves as a new privileged They can only raise themselves by fighting for common ownership and making their rule of struggle-solidarity the rule of society.

"the in no way conclusions are in based on ideas or principles that have been invented, discovered by this og that would-be universal reformer.

"They merely express, in general terms, actual TO RIOTS springing from an existing class struggle, from a historical movement going on under our very eyes Manifesto' the basis on which socialist theory could develop, clever scheme or a blueprint, but as an effort to learn from and interact with the living class

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Socialist Organiser, Thursday 11 February Tl ani 1982 PaRe