The Battle for Chile

Scan page 8

'Top) Photographer records his own death, (above) still from film A REVIEW BY RICHARD BROOKS On the eve of 1973 congressional interviewer takes phone through two massive political rallies and asks two questions. Who is going to win? And what will happen then?

One rally is that of the right wing National Party. The demonstrators lean from cars covered in ¡placards and guarantee a two-thirds right wing majority which will enable them to impeach Allende, the "Marxist" President, and restore "order" in Chile.

The other rally is that of Popular Unity. It is a working-class tally with songs, beer, ice cream and ¡ Portraits of Allende.

Everyone here too, is certain of victory, full of gratitude for the limited benefits that Popular Frontism has brought them.

But here the question, "What wil happen then?" is answered with less certainty.

The atmosphere of both rallies is festive, confident but tense. Late the crucial election an his microon the night of the election the streets of Santiago are jammed with cars as, with a barrage of headlights and horns, the bourgeoisie celebrate what at first sight looks like a victory.

These scenes are the starting point of the three part documentary film "The Battle of Chile"

It was filmed in Chile between the April 1973 elections and the coup in September.

CONCENTRATION CAMP The main cameraman, Jorge Muller Silva was taken to a concentration camp in 1974 and the military junta has since then denied all knowledge of him.

One of his assistants, an Argentinian, actually films his own death.

is a piece of film which typifies the power of the documentary as a whole, a power stemming from the intensity of the political crisis itself and the courage of a film crew caught up in that crisis.

Demonstrations, military manoeuvres, interviews with houseimmediacy.

The film was edited and produced in Cuba and it seems likely that the technical quality of the film derives as much from this as from the qualities of the individual photographer.

The Cuban film industry, like its Russian counterpart, was born out of the revolution when the state poured finance into "the art form of the people and of the future"

But in Cuba, on the other hand, there was no sudden initial liberation of a highly educated class, less of a sudden explosion of cultural production as in the early years of the Russian Revolution, and less outright bureaucratic suppression afterwards.

The Cuban film industry was nurtured by the state for the purposes of the state.

CHANNELLED

Creative energy has been carefully channelled. It has been allowed to grow and experiment but only within clear guidelines determined by Castro's bureaucracy.

It is for these reasons that the Cuban film industry has broken new ground not in the area of fictional film making but in that of political documentary (particularly the work of Santiago Alvarez).

Here the director can serve the state loyally while using its resources for an impressive development of technique and style.

Both the strengths and the weaknesses of the Battle for Chile" arise from the Cuban link.

Since the coup, the ruling Castro bureaucracy, like stalinists throughout the world, has worked hard to conceal the reasons for the massacre at the end of Allende's "Chilean road to socialism"

Any other policy would undermine the authority of the world's Communist Parties whose similar policies threaten to bring new and similar disasters.

The *Battle for Chile" is a brilliant contribution to this cover up. Its material is linked together by an anaemic 'voice over' which draws out the meaning of the events.

For the author of the script the lessons to be drawn trom the material concern exclusively the activities of the bourgeoisie, not those of the leaders of the workers parties.

The first film, The Insurrection of the Bourgeoisie' , traces the various tactics used by the Chilean ruling class to undermine Allende's government after their failure to do so in the elections.

Like all Stalinists and Left Social Democrats, the scriptwriter waxes indignant at the ruling class's refusal to play by its own rules and its use of its ownership of the means of production and its control of the state machinery to subvert an elected government.

The film takes us through the armoury of the bourgeoisie: hoarding, fascist demonstrations, riots of right wing students, lock-outs, manipulation of wages struggles and finally the army.

SELF-DEFENCE

At each stage the film shows the determined struggle of workers to combat these moves: the setting up of neighbourhood food and price boards to light the black marker, and of industrial "belts" (forms of self-defence committees).

Behind all this is the pathetic picture of Allende, attempting to use the bourgeoisie's own instruments to fight off its attacks.

Thus, when the right wing passed a constitutional amendment to prevent the expropriation of factories Allende declared the amendment illegal and took the case to a "Constitutional Court".

When the bosses paralysed road transport, workers commandeered the lorries and began organising transport themselves, but Allende objected and assured the "patriotic" bosses that "this is not a Socialist government. It is a national revolutionary government"

ARMY PLANS

Finally. when the plans the Iy to take power were i ry Chilead child |S0: are 17 Ter-s 4 m into his government not only Christian Democrats but "democratic Army officers" , and preached moderation to avoid "provoking" undemocratic officers.

The film cannot help but show this contradiction: the courage and self-organisation of the working class and the abject cowardice of its ABSENCE What it, cannot show is demonstrated crucially as an absence: the absence of a force capable of resolving the contradiction, of breaking the working class from its traditional leadership and directing its strength towards the defeat of the bourgeoisie.

Within the film there is explicit criticism of Allende and the Popular Unity: in particular, the long and powerful speech of a worker who demands at a public meeting that Allende mobilise the working ciass to defend him instead of relying on bourgeois forces who never will.

"How long," he asks, "will you tell us to wait?" The criticism; however, always places itself within the terms of Popular Unity's argument.

It presents the situation as it Allende had indeed been the Butcher Pinochet.

champion of the working class, but had begun backsliding and making mistakes. Criticism is intended to help him change direction; it assumes that he can change direction.

The film cannot grasp or present the need for a party which sees Popular Unity as a burden on the class, the chain around its neck which must actually be cast off, before the working class can defend itself and advance its interestsbecause there was no party in Chile clearly fighting for this policy.

This absence, of course, cannot be presented as an image and therefore could not be shown on film; and it would be surprising if sound-track financed by the Cuban state were to suggest that total rejection of Communist Party policy was a precondition for the working class's seizure of power. (The precondition for this in Cuba being a political revolution!)

Since nothing in the film is able to grasp the absence that is demonstrated throughout by the events which it portrays, the film takes on the shape of a classical tragedy, reconstructing a series of inevitable events.

The • first film begins and the second film ends, with the destruction of the Moneda Palace: under a barrage of 20th century shells and bombs, the 19th century palace looks dignified and even heroicbut defenceless.

«The Battle for Chile" presents the Chilean working class in a similar way. odds on that the Telegraph is on the way to defend some that some disaster has overtaken the Labour Party.

When Ivan Rowan set out for Kirby in Ashfield it was of course the second kind of story they were after-a triumphant tour in the wake of one of the biggest electoral upsets in recent British political But the Sunday Telegraph taking as it does an unequivoca class position, revealed, in a way that would have been unacceptable to the Sunday. Times or the Guardian some of the real truths behind the Labour wipe-out.

After finding the headquarters with some difficulty Rowan interviewed the few people he found The miners get stuck into the Ashfield result. 'On the road from Hucknall there was only one window poster for the Labour man' "There were four lads in here I said you've got to turn out and vote. The Tories will, they've nought else to do. But the lads wouldn't budge.' "A young miner says: "Labour governments have given us nothing. We've had to strike to get anything.

get in with a reduced majority about 5,000 votes.' "But if it was just ordinary by-election apathy they would have done, wouldn't they?" asks Rowan. There was "a small silence"

"No it wasn't apathy. It was mutiny"

The Daily Mail, the Socialist Worker of the middle classes treats the 'ordinary • decent etc' middle class family with the reverance that Socialist Worker reserves for a factory worker who has discovered that the Social Contract is not a good thing.

In a special feature headed: "How the middle classes cope with falling standards" the Daily Mail told a story of such hardship and suffering that only the most hard hearted comrades could have failed to reach for their handkerchiefs.

"The wife of a senior British brain surgeon is doing bed and breakfast at £3 a day to help balance the family budget.

"The incomes-squeeze has also turned him into a do-it-yourself expert, rewiring and redecorating his rambling four bedroomed house.

"Anthony Booth, 42 year old father of two who spent 15 years training for his post as a consultant neurosurgeon at Walsgrave hospital, Coventry, said yesterday:

"MIS Susan Booth provides B and B at their £25,500 home in the village of Barford Warwickshire.."

It turns out that the Booths are no longer abte to leave their measly €25,500 home for annual holidays abroad. And this is because of the Social Contract.

You may have thought that was something to do with holding.back the wages of the working class. Not a bit of it. Its the middle class that has really suffered. Take Mr. Booth:

*I'm now earning £9,900 a year, although my income should be 110,009.

"People like us have given a year for Britain as we were asked to do by the government but we're beginning to wonder how much • longer the sacrifice will have to last!"

"A generation ago a brain surgeon in this country could have expected to sweep into his hospital car park in a Rolls, of a Jaguar, at least

Scan page 9

This is the second part of an article by Di Parkin on the leading role of the Trotskysts of the Socialist Labow League in the struggle against the abour government's anti-union Bill, "In Place of Strife" in 1969. The article was prompted as a reply to the attempts by the International Marxist Group to falsify the record on this struggle, claiming that "The ATUA [industrial wing of the SLL] and the SLL far from leading the massive opposition to "In Place of Strife" attempted to sabotage it" (Red Weekly, 17.3.77, p4.). This concluding part shows that precisely the Throughout the mobilisations against the TYLISONI governments White Paper in 1969, League (forerunner of Workers Revolutionary establish the best poss co-ordination of the pro called.

For this reason they Communist Party, who had even for thair nun roll far February 27.

Alan Thornett, then deputy senior steward at Morris Motors, Cowley, was quoted in the SLL's paper, the Newsletter, as saying that:

'We cannot afford fake campaigns. So far I haven't seen a single leaflet in Oxford for the call for a one-day stoppage on February 27 supported by the Communist Party. If this is being called without preparation then it is a dangerous fraud".

In this way the SLL was able to point to the CP's attempts to use the call for a stoppage on February 27 as a diversion - while, as the first part of this article showed, SLL members and supporters in Liverpool docks, Cowley and elsewhere fought for strike action on that day. In other words here was a genuine example of critical support, in which the SLL, unlike today's IMG, never sacrificed its political independence to the Stalinists.

COMMENT And on March 8, the Newsletter commented:

"The strike and demonstrations on February 27 were good as far as they went. But they were only a 'In riace of sirie the Socialist Labour the now degenerated Party) set out to ible preparation and test strikes that were sharply criticised the refused to mobilise fully one day strike action on The Newsletter TCEREEM tiap tonas boar IDALIY NO ANTI-UNIOI EDiTORIAL The DJAINT LABOR LEARNE IN ORDER to reve the declining Budget somputtlive yotor of the banarapt there din Aritish Case and cottarty have unhered inle the rest siniper comesickes iN, han s In n ev: had I FIGHT ANTI-UNOW LAWS SUNDAY, MAY 4 beginning. Not nearly enough work went into the preparations. These strikes were a containment of the The Political Committee of the Socialist Labour League believes that the next stage of the fight against the anti-union laws should be a one-day strike on May 1.

Book Review: WEEI!

April 1, 1000 1 ENDI play down STAIN THE POLICE anti-union les mol izero sont: Ramlesso DAlIKUT S worried Charletariry Rr r'eem on Eura dı illar pricie n viny 'PIUI V ROIO CENTRAL BANK Fi am del markn roand id. currency cral inb bre ccoln? u purgert of a nemi 9533 : iff lift Rail shopm SEN HANEA MENSE:

The May Day demonstration in Liverpool We will work to make this a success, and we are open now, as always, to any suggestions which may come from the CP or others in relation to the possibility of a more suitable date being selected for the demonstration"

From then the SLL campaigned fiercely for May 1-a campaign After sixty editions of the fortnightly 'Socialist Press' a opposite was in fact the case.

which the CP did not take up very late.

On April 15, the Newsletter reported that the CP had voted against a proposal that BLMC be brought out on strike in opposition to the White Paper on May 1.

NO STRIKE CALL The April 12 LCDTU Conference controlled by the Communist Party did not resolve or commit delegates to strike on May 1.

It merely said:

"Every May Day demonstration should include a call for action against the White Paper as a central theme".

As May Day is frequently celebrated on the Sunday nearest, this could well mean more protest again and certainly is not a strike call.

In a number of major factories, the CP only 'recommended' strike SLL National Secretary, Healy. action-for example at Longbridge -and at Crawley in Surrey, Stalinists refused to mobilise on the grounds that there was "no The CP refused also to attack Scanlon for his opposition to the May i strike. In other words they did not lead the call for the May 1 strike. The Morning Star merely latched on to "a rising tide" of strike calls, and reluctantly supported.

Despite lukewarm CP support there wass a mass response. 10,000 workers struck at Morris Motors, Cowley under SLL leadership. 40,000 struck on Merseyside and 10,000 joined the demonstration.

And in London 100,000 stopped work with a demonstration of 15,000. This was a real action to shift union leaders and government.

already expanded in terms of forces and areas of work. Twelve pages of Socialist Press each fortnight In June when 1,000 lobbied thi TUC in Croydon, the CP, who har not called for strike action that day "assisted" the struggle by physical ly attacking the ATUA van whicl was leading the continued shout demanding, a general strike agains the anti-union laws.

The IMG turn their backs of these facts.

And at the same time we see thi IMG grovel to the IS/SWP whicl has not a fraction of the industria strength, let alone the politica principle, embodied at that time i the SLL.

And in case anyone claims wi are uncritically supporting one day strikes, let us point out that ir 1969, the union leaders wert professing to be opposed to the anti-union laws.

The one-day strikes were aimed at forcing the TUC bureaucracy to lead action.

And at the same time the SLL incurred the hostility of the Stalin. ists by clearly putting forward the call for a development to all-out general strike action to stop the legislation.

A full assessment of the SLL in this period has yet to be made. The WSL of course has criticisms of the SLL's weakness on programme, its inadequate intervention into the Vietnam movement and its maximalism.

But it is nothing short of a slander for the IMG to claim the SLL sabotaged or opposed struggles they actually led in the workers movement against "In Place of Strife".

It is worth noting in conclusion the biting irony of the fact that the WRP today has found itself unable to hit back at these slanderous accusations.

This is because the Healy leadership well knows the stark contrast between the principled struggles led then by the SLL, with roots firmly sunk within the organised working class, and the degenerate petty-bourgeois sect of the WRP.

Just like their old enemies of the late 1960s, the WRP is unable to make an objective assessment oi that period, or drawing the strength from those struggles.

And so it falls to the Workers Socialist League, whose founding members were expelled over two years ago from the WRP for fighting against precisely this kind of political degeneration, to draw the lessons of history for the struggles of today.

to develop discussion on the content and style of the weekly

----- pull-quotes -----

SPARMON I FNDE SOMALISTA HRES5 GANG When Sunday Telegraph' sends a reporter looking for a Labour Party office then its

right wing absentee who is in danger of being kicked out or

They've given us nothing.' Another party worker says: 'I thought we'd

LAWS! WILSON MUST GO!