Forward to Palestine Not Backlard to Settle Ent

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'Communists' Against Revolution deals with the most important aspects of the development of Stalinism on a world scale since It brings together in one volume the until now unobtainable 1964 essay by Tim Wohlforth The Theory of Structural Assimilation with a critical commentary by Adam This 166 page book is vital reading for those who wish to defend the method and principles of Trotskyism against the varied revisionist currents that have challenged the very essence of the Transitional Programme.

But in 2½ hours of repetitive and rambling footage, the only political insight provided by the film comes unprompted from this old man:

"The bourgeoisie are afraid. They want to stop the Palestinian revolution"

The old man, of course, is right. The Arab bourgeoisie recognises that a successful struggle by the Palestinian people to destroy the imperialist, racist state of Israel and establish a secular Palestinian state would involve and unleash a wave of revolutionary anti-capitalist struggles • throughout the While many of them may pay lip-service to the Palestinian cause, this fear of revolution in their own countries prevents the Arab bourgeoisie giving full backing to the Palestinian freedom fighters.

And while the Palestinian Liberation Organisation is at present the only organised force championing the national rights of the Palestinians, it is hampered at each point by its bourgeois leadership, dominated by Yasser Arafat, which appeals for support not directly to the oppressed working masses of the neighbouring states, but to their reactionary bourgeois rulers.

Arafat is now recognised by the bourgeois press as the 'military policeman' essential to ensuring smooth takeover of UN imperialist troops from the Zionist forces in South Lebanon.

The film avoids any examination of these political questions-which are SO central to understanding the need for a Trotskyist party to give independent leadership to the Palestinian struggle.

Nor does it deal with the positions of imperialism and Stalinism in the Middle East.

The Palestinian makes no assessment of the different political elements contending for leadership within the PLO itself, or the policies fought for by the existing leadership.

Nor do Trotskyism, Marxism or even socialism rate so much as a mention from start to finish. the full weight of Zionist and imperialist oppression.

They have been deserted by supposed "allies". They have seen relatives, friends, acquantainces maimed, beaten or killed in 30 years of Their cause demands the full active backing of the international labour movement.

But it also stands in dire need of principled leadership.

The film contains a number of moving scenes.

But with no political comment to make on the lessons of such experiences, the film as a whole can only remain at the level of romanticised nationalism.

Part-playing

Worse still, while the unfeigned emotion of the Palestinians is obvious, Redgrave seems to regard the film as yet another part to be played.

From our first glimpse of her-embarassingly playing the part of a near-tearful interviewer talking to doctor from Tel-al-Zaatar-to her final performance (posturing before a crowd of Palestinians and holding machine gun above her head) Redgrave hogs virtually every scene while at no point raising a political question or offering a shred of political explanation.

Shambles

And Battersby, whose ability as a film-director is beyond doubt, is SO consumed by the grovelling political line of the WRP that he turns out a ridiculously over-length, undisciplined shambles of a film with no coherent structure whatever.

It would indeed be interesting to know whether any footage was actually discarded in editing the film, since a whole series of embarrassing scenes (which had the audience squirming in their seats) were included in the finished version.

Whtther it be Vanessa desperately pretending to understand rapidly spoken Arabic: Arafat seemingly unable to terminate an 'interview" in which he was the only speaker and the cameras kept rolling; or a Palestinian guerrilla leader mockingly Palestinian militants lobby the Embassy last November urging his troops to "fire a few bullets in honour of the English"-all was grist to the Battersby mill, and loyally spliced into what became a 157 minute endurance test.

Strengths

Not that the film is without its strengths. Certain sequences show that Battersby has not been completely numbed by the WRP. A riveting opening sequence showing the map of Israel, dripping blood, leading into still pictures of the brutal dispossession of the Palestinians by Zionism in 1948 seems to promise a much better film than The Palestinian turns out to be.

A breathtaking prolonged pan around the utter devastation of the destroyed Tel al-Zaatar camp spells out the bitter hatred of the Lebanese Egyptian 1945.

Westoby.

Without being asked a question Arafat rambles on unchallenged, talking about his view of the Palestinian struggle. He suddenly points about "theory" general embarks on some "Without a strong platform of theory you can't carry on".

Marxism

At such a point a Trotskyist would immediately have probed behind Arafat's statement. What theory? Marxist theory? Is Arafat a scientific socialist?

What impact has the WRPled "International Committee" had on Arafat and the PLO leadership?

Here too was a golden opportunity to get Arafat to state publicly his position on the Arab bourgeoisie which has so consistently betrayed the Palestinian struggle.

But even when Arafat ran out of things to say, stopped and invited her to disagree or to ask a question, the most Redgrave could say was "Thank you very much"

Embarassed She sat silent while camera whirred on.

Arafat, clearly embarassed by such subservience from an 'interviewer' began to talk again. There are three key things, he said: "an idea, the people who believe in the WSL, 31, Dartmouth London NW5 1HR. capitulation to the PLO The WRP leaders have been aware for some time that members and supporters of their party in a number of areas have already had political discussions with the WSL, in which the WRP's abandonment of the Trotskyist programme has been the central issue discussed.

A succession of frenzied and slanderous articles against the WSL published in Newsline have signalled a bid by the WRP to wall their members off from political discussion on these questions.

Abandoned

But now the showing of The Palestinian at a series of WRP recruitment meetings will bring home to even more layers within the WRP the extent to which their leaders have abandoned in practice every principle of the Transitional Programme and reduced themselves to the rank of cheerleaders for Arafat.

The fight for the absolute principle of the political independence of the working class in Britain and internationally means a struggle against such methods and the fight to reconstruct the Fourth International on the basis of a practical reaffirmation of Trotsky's Transitional "Communists Two Essays on Post-war COm SAVE 50p ON YOUR COPY!

PRE-PUBLICATION CASH OFFER £1.25 plus 20p p&p. (For orders before June 3) June

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"How many times have we met a smug centrist, who reckons himself a "realist" merely because he sets out to swim without any ideological baggage whatever and is tossed by every vagrant current. He is unable to understand that principles are not dead ballast but a life line for a rev"The idea of 'parity of formations', that is, of tendencies, is inherently absurd and vicious. The tendencies are not equal in numbers; but what is most important is the different ideological and political value of the tendencies. There are right and wrong tendencies, progressive and reactionary ones. Adventurists, who hold nothing sacred, may well accomodate themselves with all the possible tendenPage Ý

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Published June 15