Militant gangster

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Hired thugs menace strikers during the 1934 Teamsters strike in Minneapolis 'Blood Feud' is a semi-fictional account of the destruction of Jimmy Hoffa, long-time leader of the Teamsters Union in America. Hoffa disappeared six or seven years ago and is assumed to have been killed by gangsterdom - perhaps some of the gangsters he'd worked closely with for decades.

two main suspects — Gerard's who use their bodies as a own pathetic, down-and-out means to achieve what they The first destruction of Hoffa was achieved not by gangsters but by the lawenforcement agencies of the Not By lan Swindale Jean-Jacques Beinix delighted the cinema world in 1982 with his debut film 'Diva. Using a pulp novel storyline, he created a film full of style strikingly photographed and using some dazzling sets.

Now he is back with his second film, 'The Moon in the Gutter' • And the success of 'Diva' has given him access to a couple of big name stars — Gerard Depardieu and Nastassia Kinski.

Depardieu plays Gerard, a stevedore, whose sister kills herself after being raped. Gerard hunts the low-life dockland haunts in search of his sister's attacker. There are This new pamphlet tells American state. They hounded, pursued, probed and investigated Hoffa for many years, charging corruption, brother and a rich guy from want. the other side of the tracks, The who snends his niohts drink- film is ing in the dockland bars. The rich guy's sister. Lorretta (played by Nastassia Kinski) misuse of union funds, world connections.

Finally in the '60s, they jailed him. He was released in 1972 as part of a deal between the powerful Teamsters union and President Richard Nixon, though he never regained control of the union. The union's part of the bargain was to problem with Beinix's that come acnects of 1A1111 1O LICEL U1 this sexism tend to be glorified in the way the photography is shot — for example, the camera panning slowly in huge close up on a wide screen along the dead body of Gerard's sister and later, in a fantasy scene, along the naked body of Kinski with her throat slit. It all left rather a nasty taste in my mouth.

And whereas 'Diva' built not only on style Dal also on humour, excitement and suspense (although some of that was a little contrived), all but the style is lacking in 'Moon in the Gutter'.

There is no doubt, however, that Beinix is one of the most promising new directors to emerge for some time and I don't doubt that his films will continue to be awaited with interest by film-goers.

If vou haven't seen either of his films yet. my advice is to catch up on 'Diva' the next time it's round your way (it really is a joy to watch) and then wait and see if Beinix does better with his next film. throw its weight behind re-electing Nixon. They kept their bargain.

Officially, the 'hero' of Blood Feud is not Hoffa but Robert Kennedy. The bringing down of Hoffa is reckoned as one of this obnoxious family's great triumphs.

Ambitious Attorney 'Bobby' Kennedy — he had for a while worked full time as lawyer for witch-hunter Joe McCarthy in the early '50s -pursued Hoffa in the mid-'50s as a career-building exercise. As Attorney-General in his brother's administration after 1961, he used the powers of that office in full to pursue his vendetta against Hoffa. Farrell Dobbs A powertul scene in part one of Blood Feud showed Hoffa addressing a union meeting. Why. he asks, speaking about himself by name "do they want to get Hoffa?' He answers that they want to put some "weak-livered sell-out merchant" in his place, someone who won't fight for the union members. In another scene he says passionately that he wouldn't be a George Meany (AFL/CIO secretary), he wouldn't turn his back on the union members' interests.

This sort of thing tallies with 'what I've read about Hoffa. He was a conniving gangster, but — uniquely — a militant gangster, willing to use the union's substantial muscle recklessly to improve wages and conditions. He had, it seems, kept the loyalty of the rank and file of the Teamsters union.

Gangsters who control unions, of course, repress rank and file dissidents with physical violence up to murder. But Hoffa seems genuinely to have had real support too.

Jimmy Hoffa's was one face of the tragedy of the mass American labour movement which mushroomed into existence in the '30s, relying on semi-revolutionary tactics like the sit-in strike, to win the right to exist in the motor plants and in big industry generally. But within a decade it had been tamed.

George Meany fc th hi of id Ford's River Rouge plant, 1937 Hoffa began his trade union fe as a militant in the great rotskyist-led battles fifty ears ago to organise the long istance drivers in Minneaplis. Many years later he was till publicly acknowledging nat he learned trade union udacity from the Trotskyist arrell Dobbs (who died last lovember).

While Dobbs became the •ade union secretary and then le national secretary of the WP, Hoffa made his career s a corrupt union bureauat. The state felled him and nally his enemies probably uried him in cement here.

Hoffa the gangster never orget thelessons he learned in '30s. and he may even ave held on to a twisted sort crude, half-buried class lentity.

Watching Hoffa appeal to le union rank and file against le state strangely reminded e of the now rare breed of ilitant Stalinist, of their relaonship to the rank and file Sociali Labour Party Get SOCIALIST door by post!

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Address and the rank and file's re tionship to them. Not strangely, come to think of Though the motives of Stalinists would, of course, different, and they'd th they served the good The American left has br divided on. the attitude adopt when the state tries purge gangsters from unions. Dobbs and his pa took a 'defend the unir from the state, rely on the ri and file to kick out gangsters' position.

Others argued that it wa choice between the la bound "gangsters' of state and the greedy, lawl gangsters who terrorised 1 rank and file at every lev The latter were far worse, i ing intensive intimidation every level of the union. T state gangsters worked, me or less, within bourgeo democratic law.

In any event, the US unio are still gangster-ridden.

Join the Socialist Labour Wom "JOBLESS KEY TO Teb By Harry Kent's Stean appeal to months;

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