[join or affiliate, write to Chris Richardson, Devonshire…]
Socialist Organiser1984 1984-01-26Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 12 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 12
join or affiliate, write to Chris Richardson, Devonshire Promenade, Lenton, NottingContact: Tony, 273 SO is sold at Grass Books, Newton St., dilly.
Rochdale.
Stocknori Coniact: 401 Fox n NG7 2DS. Thon: 061-4294 5691.
Roots PiccaSt. Edgley.
That is the rational, Marxist, way to use slogans, programmes, and the heritage of Marxism in general. 'Labour take the power' is the peculiar fetish of Graham Bash, Chris Knight and others who initiated Briefing. They have been known variously over the years as 'Socialist Charter' , 'the Chartist minority' , etc. The slogan has been their fetish since Chris Knight broke with Militant back in 1967.
While Trotsky's version was a weapon to sharpen consciousness, distinctions, and awareness, the 'Chartist' slogan conflates different goals, concerns, conceptions, and definitions. Instead of separating out ideas, it binds them together in a sticky political portmanteau. The slogan binds together people who are politically disparate on the basis of burying the difference in ambiguous words.
The slogan means different things to different people, and therefore nobody can know quite what it 'really' means.
To Chris Knight and his co-thinkers it means: Labour, smash the bourgeois state and set up a workers' " state! To the overwhelming majority of those who encounter it on page 1 of London Briefing or the national supplement, it will mean: Labour take office.
In the national Briefing, now, the slogan is raised outside of any consideration of immediate political realities or issues - six months after June 9!
Wirral.
Contact: Lol Duffy, 3 St.
James Court, Victoria Rd., New Brighton, Merseyside.
YORKSHIRE EAST Durham.
Contact: Andy, 64088. SO is sold at Community Co-op, New Elvet.
Halifax.
Contact: 52156. SO is sold at Mobden Bridge Books. Harrogate Contact: Dan, Huddersfield.
Contact: Alan Brooke, 59 Magdale, Honley, HD7 2LX Mall.
Contact: c/o 28 Middle Lane, London N8.
Leeds Contact: Garth, 623322. Sheffield.
Contact Rub, 589307 York.
Contact: 414118. to finc 69640.
Scan page 13
Mick Ackersley Sidney Lumet's 'Daniel' •Socialist-Organiser, 26 Page
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Campaign for Gay •fighting in the Labour movement for lesbian