Film Review the Colour of Resistance Kenis

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Trotsky on S "THE Girl with Red Hair" (Dutch film - English subtitles) tells the story of Hannie Schaft who joined the Dutch resistance to German occupation in 1942 and was executed by the Germans in 1945.

The film is told in the form of a flashback. A former comrade-at-arms of Hannie's tries to get the leader of their resistance group - now disbanded following a trilateral agreement between the government in exile, the resistance The classic Marxist analy of Stalinism is Leon Trotsky's Revolution Betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and Where It Going?' Available via Socialist Organiser, 28 Middle Lane, London N8: £2.50 plus 50p postage. and the Nazis - to intervene with the authorities to have her released from prison. He brushes off the suggestion.

The story of Hannie Schaft's entry into the resistance, her exploits and her attempt to kill Nazis and collaborators for their crimes even after the trilateral agreement brought talinismunderground activity is told in a dour and unembellished way.

The 'exploits' Hannie and her lover, Hugo, undertake do not involve the missiou-impossible type of heroics o: many such films. The idea is simply to get up close to your target while he walks along the road or she steps into a car and shoot to kill.

In a sense that is director Ben Verblong's technique too. There are no sideways glances мень no information about the Dutch resistance in general and hardly any about the group Hannie Schaft was in; there are no broader observations - about the period, about the politics behind the resistance; there are no more than hints of other issues -how useful was this form of resistance, was Hannie right in saying that the Dutch authorities would not punish war ciminals, and so on?

The starkness of the film is emphasised by its colour... or lack of it. As if the entire film were shot through an orange filter, the images are a chiaroscuro of browns, greys, grey greens.. and her red hair. - Given the additional labour of reading subtitles, this makes the film sometimes quite difficult to watch. make... "(pp. 183-4).

The fact that a US policy advisor could contemplate a solution involving the FDR must alert those who harbour illusions in the current leadership of Salvador's revolutionary front.

When considering the struggle in Central America it is usually the case that the left regards the local ruling class (or "Oligarchy") as the direct agents of imperialism.

Such a view is part of the heritage that simplistic thirdworldism and Stalinism has bequeathed to Marxism. It substitutes simple formulae for dialectical analysis.

In El Salvador, US support for the Christian Democrats, espousal of land reform and "democracy" and occasional championing of human rights has clearly brought imperialism into conflict with the extreme right led by D'Aubuisson and his Arena party.

If Marxists persist in seeing THE figures behind the pressure to change Labour's policy on council house sales: owneroccupied dwellings have risen from 43% of the total in 1961 to 56% in 1981.

However, council housing has also risen as a proportion of the total, from 27% to 31%.

Privately-rented dwellings were 31% of the in 1971, and 13% in 1981.

THE figures for house-building tell another story. Up to 1978, the number of houses and flats completed for local authorities was around the same as the number for private owners. There were exceptions, like 1972 and 1973, when councils completed only just over half as many dwellings as private AVERAGE council rents (for England and Wales) have gone up from £6.48 per week in 1979-80 to £13.55 in 1982-3. That's an increase of over 100% in money terms -and about 65% in real terms, allowing for inflation.

IN 1981, there were 50,000 council dwellings in 'serious disrepair' in England. That's 3,000 more than in 1976.

But the number of owneroccupied dwellings in 'serious disrépair' had increase d from 371,000 to 539,000.

MEANWHILE, around 400,000 construction • workers are estimated to be unemployed. 25,000 jobs were lost in council direct labour organisations between 1979 and 1982.