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organ '$&** theANARCHIST BLACK

Vol. IV. No. 15 15p

Buback - before people's nisticetriumphed... POLICEMAN GUARDING BODIES OF SIAIN BUBACK (INSET), AND HIS CHAUFFEUR

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c Execution DocumentSf*.** T.v .̂ i V^W* W *»»«^ ^Q^ */,! * * -. .A11 -'"»*; • • t •" 'L- " " "

The following document, issuedby the "Ulrike Meinhof Commando, Red Army Fraction", was sent to us following the execution ofSiegfried Buback, the German Federal Prosecutor in charge of the Baader-Meinhof trials. This document has not been published else-where and mere possession of it in Germany is sufficient cause for arrest and imprisonment:

v*t" •-*•«**' PPOn 7th April 1977, the Ulrike MeinhofCommando executed Federal ProsecutorBuback.

Buback was directly responsible forthe murder of Holgar Meins. SiegfriedHausner and Ulrike Meinhof. In his roleas Chief Federal Prosecutor — the centralcontrolling and co-ordinating authoritybetween the Department of Justice and theWest German intelligence services, in closeco-operation with the CIA and the NATOSecurity Committee - he stage managedand directed the murders.

MolgarMeins was murdered, underBuback's direction, on 9/11/74, throughsystematic starvation and deliberatemanipulation of transportation timesViptwccn Wittli .-l! -,nt! Stammheim TheFederal attorney planned, through themurder ot a group ol pnsoners on collective hunger strike, following the trial ofAndreas (Baader), to bring about theirdestruction by ordering the prison authorit-ies to institute force feeding - to stem thetide of awakening public sympathy - thus

• £ "• X: • .»• i. iv 1(1 •

It was under Buback's direction thatSiegfried (Hausner) - who led the HolgarMeins Commando and who showed hisabilities, through the West German MEK-Union, in the blowing up of the GermanEmbassy in Stockholm - was murderedon 4/5/75. Hausner was exclusively atthe disposal of the Federal attorney andthe BKA, and it was the perilous transitto Stuttgart-Stammheim prison whichmade his death inevitable.

Also under Buback's direction Ulrike(Meinhof) was executed by the StatePolice on 9/5/76. Her death was presentedto the world as a suicide in order to demon-strate the senselessness of the politics forwhich Ulrike had struggled.

This murder was the climax in the Feder-al attorney's attempt to cretinise Ulrikethrough forced neurosurgical interferenceso that, demoralised, Stammheim lawcould be portrayed as justice triumphantwhile armed resistance could be denounced asa sickness.

Through international protest thisproject was hindered. The liming ofher murder was calculated precisely :occuring before the crucial legal initiative ofthe defence proposals concerning the actionsof the RAF (Red Army Fraction) againstthe US Headquarters in Frankfurt and Heidel-burg in 1972 carried out to demonstrate thecomplicity of the BRD(Bundesrepublik-Jeutschland) with US aggression in Vietnamcontrary to international law. Ulrike wasmurdered before she could speak out atthe witness hearing in the Dusseldorf trialagainst the Holgar Meins Commandoconcerning the most extreme forms oftorture practised on her over the previouseight months. Before her conviction -which critical international opinion, havingseen the show trial in Stammheim with itscynical presentation of imperialist power,would have stopped in its tracks, somethingwhich the Federal government was apprehen-sive about.

Ulrike's story, clearly, is the same as thatof many fighters in the history of the

cont. p. 9

BLACK FLAG Vol. !V. No. 15. 1977Published by Black Flag Group & pantedby Anarchy Collective. Subs. £3.25p oer12 Issues (home), Canada, Australia, N.Z.(air mail) £6.50 (U.S. $ 13.00).black Flag, Over the Water, Sanday,Orkney. KW17 2BL, U.K.*********************************

Our sincere apologies to all our readers forthe extended delay between issues. Thereason was a further two breakdowns ofour typesetting machine. Not only hasthis thrown the Flag out of gear, but itwill also mean a further delay in oat forth-coming title "Land and Liberty" and thethird issue of the Cienfuegos Press Anarch-ist Review due for publication in September.We are also going to face a massive bill forrepairs to our I.B.M. machine - far morethan the £500.00 originally estimated -so all contributions towards this fund willbe gratefully received. One comrade inparticular, Dave Morris, has come forwwith a contribution of £100.00 and a 1of a further £100.00 to meet the bill wlit comes in. Comrade Karl Cordell org;ised a whip-round at a meeting of the F<eration of London Anarchist Groups onApril 30 and came up with £7.40. Arethere any other comrades out there wili-ng to help either with a loan or a contrib-ution?.*............*

•'£: •%XjS&* ''*'&$ fgfi??^archive: CAMPO ABIERTO EDICIONES, wide on'he struggle against torture, the(Bolefm) Calk Concepcion Bahamunde No.10 Death Penalty, and prisons; it carries many

drid 28, Espana.The co.Tirades at Campo Abiertoblisliing a regular international journal

and press information service — all contrib-utions .gratefully received..*********************************

interesting articles, lists of prisoners towrite to, and things one can do to help —it is FREE to all. (Donations/stamps areappreciated for printing, postage andsupport work.) HAPTOC needs humanbeings knowing and supporting human

gs. „Haptoc family International Needs Your

3£2 W^^Sand Outlaw Torture Organ- OLD PHOTOGRAPHS / ILLUSTRATED

IMPORTANT1SIMO!

Would all comrades please note that theC.N.T. is now a legal organisation and nolonger operating in ciandestinity. Thismeans that all financial contributionstowards supporting the confederal paper"C.N.T." -- and the organisation — car<now be made direct by MAIL TRANSFERfrom your bank to the following bankaccount :PEDRO BARRIO GUAZO,c.c. 8472, Banco Hispaiioamericano,Oficina Urbma Lopei; de Hoyos 126,Madrid 2, Espana.Correspondence to the National Committeeof the C.N.T. should be directed to:Jose Elizalde, Apartado de Correos ) 50.105,Madrid, Espana.Exchange copies of all publications (2 copies,please) to the international Group concernedwith collating news from the anar.-hist move-ment around the world and building a CNT

ANARC

1 . What has Mickey Mouse to do withsocialism?2. What connection has anarchist PeterKropotkin with Soviet Militaiy Intelligence''3. Why is the term "chauvinist" inappro-priate, though trendily used, to describe asexually arrogant male?4. What was the Impossibilist Party orfraction?5. Which different political tendenciesin the last century were represented bythe Young lurks, Young England,Young Germany, Young Ireland andYoung Italy V6. Why is "Anarchy in the U.K." (thepunk rock song) impossible

ising Con-fii t t te (Haotoc) needs you andyour assistance to help expose the state'sbehaviour in jails, prisons and concentrat-ion camps around the world, and at thesame time work for the ending of the socialconditions which give rise to cnme, violence,prisons, police torces, armies and dicator-ships of all kinds.Please write to us:

IC.AT (International Crusade Againstbrture), P.O. Box 22523, Fazantenhof,

mermeet, Amsterdam, Holland. Dealscifically with cases of torture, behaviourdification. and the humans under sentencedeath . . . this strupgie wing needs to be

built up so thit it can become an emergencywing capable of acting very rapidly.2) ICAP (International Crusade AgainstPrisons), P.O. Box 27087, 1002-AB,Amsterdam, Holland. Deals with prisonconditions, life imprisonment cases, prisonslave labour. .. with an underlying strategyof ending the prison system altogether.3) HAPTOC REBEL (newsletter of the HAP-TOC Family International), P.O. Box 10638,

BOOKS. ETC...Would all comrades and readers plerse keeptheir eyes open for any old - and not soold • illustrated books and photographswhich could conceivably be of interest tocomrade Flavio Costantini in his work ofartistic documentation of the history of

.

e anarchist and labour movement. Ifyou come across something please send i?to ijs here in Orknev and we'll forv/ard it on.SYNDICALIST WORKERS FED-ERATION, c/o Grass Roots, I NewtonSt., Manchester, Ml 1HWZERO - A new anarchist monthly withnews of the CNT, Noel & Marie Murray,anarcho-feminisin, and much, much more.More info, offers of help and contributionslo BM Box 746, London WC1V 6XX.Subs: £3 for 3 issues payable to ZeroCollective.

Ss«^ **~^- HR.^ f.ANARCHY 2? - Irish issue, bound toincrease Anarchy's mail-bag. Back copies,tea and "excitingly irregular" subs (£.150/$3.75 or potatoes for 10 issues) from 29,

Amsterdam, Holland. Carres news worid Grosvenor Avenue, London N5.

PressWHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES *su>PA 1̂ f**\ '•A Premature Obituary

Werner Von Braun 1912-toon

^ Although Wernher Von Braun is still•Jive, though bed-ridden with a terminalcase of cancer, we feal that this is theappropriate time to wish him a speedydeath.

*The inventor of the V-2 rocket forHitler during World War 11 and author ofthe book "I Shoot for the Stars" (andhit London?). Von Braun is directly re-sponsible for the death of thousands ofBritons during the final days of the War.

After a falling out with Hitler (VonBraun wanted to tend a V-2 rocket overLondon every two minutes, while Hit-ler, humanitarian that he was, thoughtthat one every hour wai a fair ax-change), Von Braun decided to leek em-ployment with a more understandinggovernment (England wanted him hung)and is now head of the U.S. rocket re-search division. Still shooting for thestars.

Well Wernher, we can't say it was nicehaving you around, but we do have oneregret: that you will die at a plush hos-pital in the hands of trained physicians

..instead of at the hinds of the workersyou «o eagerly slaughtered)

Fifth Estate, Detroit

SPAIN is now in the process of being trans-formed from a dictatorship to a 'democracyBut what is a democracy nowadays? It is adictatorship which does not hit you on thehead. 'Democratic' politicians boast oftheir tolerance' and allow you to pick andchoose amongst them, as opposed to boast-ing of their 'strength' and choosing for you.Only 41 years ago the Spanish workersresisted dictatorship and in the processseized and ran the whole of industry forthemselves. They were crushed by polit-ical duplicity and armed force. Theyresisted armed forces for years andwere the victims of genocide. Now whentwo sets of politicians, one lot whichused the duplicity and the other lotwhich vised the armed force, come forwardand offer 'democracy' they look at itaskance, without hiding their enthusiasmfor change - which goes a lot farther thanthe politicians are prepared to offer.

They are demanding as a start tofalamnesty and free trade unionism. Thetwo demands are minimal when onecompares the compensation rightly thoughinadequately paid by the West GermanState to thc^iwTsh victims of Hitler tonothing by the Spanish fascist State in•Spain to its victims (and the number ofSpanish workers killed by the Falange,the Army, the prison authorities, lynchedor died as the result of prison since theCivil War, exceeds that of the GermanJews killed by Hitler). What else arethey getting out of the 'return to democ-racy' which the Government needs to sellthe Common Market? The collectivisedindustries have long since been back incapitalist hands; savings, homes and jobsin the anti-Franco zones were wiped outby a bank decree which made the Repub-lican money worthless; the unions - withdaily newspapers paid for by the sweatof the \vorkers, halls, cultural centres —were liquidated and their assets stolen(and the thieves still possess these assets);thousands went into exile, or into prison,or were killed. Who manufactured the'criminals' for whom amnesty is demanded(as'well as the political prisoners) but thosewho turned the workers' children out intothe street when they shot or imprisonedthe parents?

IN SPAIN* '̂ SL '

Total amnesty is a demand the Govern-ment is finding difficult to resist — hencethe unprecedented step of allowing someBasque prisoners out provided they 'eavethe country. Hence the solidarity withthe Basque country - evinced by thecomplete stoppage of work in Catalonia(though opposed by the Communist Partywhich is at one with the demand for 'quietelections'). The demands for no compulsorytrade union levy (to the fascist verticalsyndicates) and the right to choose theunion, is a demand made by the libertarians.A minimal demand in Spain, it is beyondwhat we have in Britain when socialists,communists, maoists and trotskyists alikeadvocate one trade union centre, 'unitary',monolithic and utterly unrepresentative.In Spain it was imposed as part of thefascist conquest: in Britain it has beenpresented as part of the 'great struggle' ofthe British^orkers. What is shown hereas the 'social contract', a product ofsocial democracy and the 'labour move-ment', is in Spain clearly seen as theaction of fascism in crushing the workingclass. They had to win a war to do it!However much the politicians may wishto do so, it is very difficult i

}our Party managed to do tor 1capitalist class in Britain - years of toomuch"knoaking on the head" hasstrained credulity.

The centre parties cannot gain credence;the Marxist-Leninist parties show them-selves in their true light for 'Vanguard'parties abound and all have the sameprogramme — let the working class lineup in reformist trade unions under theirleadership ("they only have of themselvesa trade union consciousness?" - didn'tBig Daddy say so?) while the 'intellectuals'form the vanguards which will lead themto consciousness. Unfortunately for thetheory however, the mass organisationsof the working class reject their reformistprogrammes, don't want their party lead-ership, and are on their way to the 'left'of them. (Alas, too, for the poor foreignjournalists trying to understand a situationwhere the extremists are anti-Moscow andthe 'moderates' support it) How can the'Vanguard' explain that the workers them-

selves cannot run the factories the waythey once did and which was only takenfrom them by armed force?

The Spanish Government is at the momentscared stiff. It is between the devil of theArmy and the right-wing terror gangs, armedby the military and encouraged by the police(often members of the police) which aredetermined to keep the working class downat all costs, even if it means going back tothe worst excesses of Francoism, and thedeep blue sea of a working class which isnot content with the contemptuous offerof a coat of whitewash.

But while politicians may be scared fortheir skins, the Army and the variousState military groupings (Guardia Civil,Guardia de Asalto) and armed police, andthe terror gangs have got the guns andthere will be no freedom without it hav-ing to be fought for bitterly. This timethere will not be a civil war — it shouldbe noted that if there were the socialistsand communists would be lining up withthe class enemy — but guerrilla war isinevitable. The creation of an anarcho-syndicalist labour movement, which is amajor demand of the workers and whichis growing rapidly, will not suffice despitethe yearnings of many of the older generat-ion and those influenced by leftism forpeaceful tranfition now - a quiet life atlast...

Even in the Republic there were attackson workers' organisation by the Governmentwhich created the Guardia de Asalto specific-ally for that purpose, and by the PopularFront Government too. What chance isthere that workers' organisation will beallowed to develop freely under this mod-ified fascism that wavers between monarchyand constitutionalism, that sees a democrat-ic solution in admitting the CommunistParty to the role of running a monolithicunion on the French line, in which thepolice can organise as murder gangs andpose as right wing extremists?

Massive support from outside Spain isneeded to help the struggle. It didn't getit last time and it has never got it. Withwhat result everyone knows to their cost.

Members of the Brigada Politico Social arresting a demonstrator in Spain

The London Evening News carried afeature on the "Swastika Revolution"linking the Sex Pistols ("Anarchy inthe I TO n n < l their fnn<; with the NationalFront. Full of the sinister quasi-politicalinsinuations that are ostensioij establish-ment liberal and in fact designed to boostthe NF among working class youth.

There was a reply from their manager:"\\4RCHYI would like to point out that the SexPistols are not into any political party,least of all the loathsome National Front,mentioned by John Blake in the SwastikaRevolution.

We and our fans, do not and will notco-operate or associate with the NationalFront.

Anarchy is not fascism but self-ruleand a belief in following ones own wayof life without recourse to dictatorship ornationalism. We hate this kind of armynonsense.M. McLaren, Manager Sex Pistols, OxfordStreet, W.I."

Their music may be as rotten as theysay it is but what they are saying soundsas melodic as Beethoven.

Hitting the note of rebellion maynowadays hit the jackpot in the musicscene — though we had to smile ruefullyat the Melody Maker's headline "There'smoney in Anarchy" (for what we've pickedup plus the proverbial ten cents you couldget a cup of coffee) — and the pressureon the kids ultimately to conform will begreat. But the punks are no punks ingetting anarchy over to some of thekids in the working class where it belongs.

,: . " ' -,'>: -' ; • '.">• \

MORE ON THE NATIONAL FRONT

A sidelight on the National Front and itsactivists is seen in Searchlight (no.22). Itrefers to the late Mark Dinely, whosecountry house was raided in November1970 - three years after the formereditor of Searchlight had exposed Dinely'sholding arms and using his extensive landfor mock military battles under the guiseof the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme.The local police in Dorset were notinterested in taking action against thesemen who were putting guns into the handsof boys and parading them in Nazi uniforms.

They were warned off by militaryintelligence, who removed some arms fromDinely. Then three years later, a large forceof police "removed huge stores of armsand all sorts of other equipment."

They were fined a few hundred pounds;compare this with the Stoke NewingtonFour — charged with possessing a minorquantity of arms a year later and in prisonever since. Compare the Press furore whenAnna and Hilary were finally released afew months before completing their

sentences. I omit Prescott, who looks asif he will be the "first in and last out" ofprison, because he was not even found guiltyof possessing arms, only of writing a fewletters.

Dinely's political heir, according toSearchlight, is one Ian Souter-Clarence,who also uses the cover of the Duke ofEdinburgh Award scheme, and tries foryouth grants to train his private army tofight for a fascist dictatorship.

But while Right Wing authoritariangroups are protected and cosseted bypolice partiality, Left Wing authoritariansand even more libertarians, are harassedfor the most minor offences relating toarms. Clearly this is preparation forcivil war. Dinely was not the only one.There are dozens of para-military fascistgroups openly training and using thecloak of respectibility. It is theseactivities and not those of their politicalwing, that needs to be confronted.The racialist propaganda is only toneutralise, and maybe win over somepunters from the working class. Themilitary training is to smash the wholeconcept of working class organisation.At the moment the capitalist class doesnot need a fascist movement. A liberalestablishment is much more to its liking.But something that can, in an emergency,take up arms and win can never be ignored,and may be useful to the capitalists,especially if they could not rely on thearmed forces, when challenged.

At the moment it is only a cover forcloset worship of Hitler and a handy basefor men who have other reasons thanpolitical for starting military Boy-Scoutmovements.

It won't stay that way.

MORE ABOUT JAKE. . .

Jake Prescott has had 180 days of 700days remission lost after the Hull Riotrestored, together with some privilegesand prison earnings he lost with the remis-sion. Jake is now in Albany prison. In aletter to his solicitor the Home Officesaid " . . . the decision not to allow youto call the witnesses you asked for on thecharge of assaulting a prison officer at00.30 on 1 September 1976 may haveprejudiced your defence."

Keith 'Blackie' Saxton, now in Lincolnprison (serving 12 years for conspiracyto rob and possession of firearms) has had120 of 720 days forfeited n

Both Jake and Keith had petitioned theHome Secretary to have the procedures ofBoard of Visitors set aside. Both are alsotaking legal action against the Home Officeto have adjudications quashed on thegrounds that they breached the rules ofnatural justice in not allowing prisoners

adequate time to prepare their defence.A total of 180 prisoners received punish-ments varying from 60-810 days lostremission for taking part in the protestsat Hull.

As things stand Jake, still having toserve an extra 18 months in prison, willbecome the first "Angry Brigade" defendentto co inside, hut the last to come out. Hodeserves the solidarity of ALL our readers.We urge you all to write to the HomeSecretary declaring your support for Jakeand the other prisoners who lost remissionat Hull.

OZYMANDIAS

In "The Monument' bv Robert Barltrop.the author recalls the appearance of'new andunattractive types in the Socialist Partyof Great Britain with the words "twentyyears later, an anarchist paper, stung byan attack in the Socialist Standard recalledthe SPGB having petty criminals andfraudsters and a couple who ran a call-girl agency in its ranks. Younger memberswere astonished and disbelieving; but ithad only been too true,"

The anarchist paper was your ownfriendlv Rlark Flag. We were 'stung'by the references to the comrades ontrial in the 'Stoke Newiiigiun ca^e.Barltrop, a veteran SPGBer, verifies thescandals (though he refrains fromidentifying one at least of the 'fraudsters'who ran some sort of charity for the blindwhile mentioning him in his capacity asa speaker and organiser). We were accusedat the time of the article of lies and'personal attacks' (their original remarkswere regarded by them as fair criticism).

• - -«"

SHOOT FIRST . . . .

Equal OpportunityThe Police Central Firearms Unit in Essexopened its facilities to women for thefirst time during April. Twelve police-women, picked from 48 volunteers,received training in shooting .38 Smith& Wesson revolvers from the standing,kneeling and prone positions under theexpert guidance of the unit's commanderInspector John Johnson. To be given apolice gun permit ("licence to kill")trainees have to fire 36 times at a targetup to 30 metres away and score 32 hits,including 18 in the 18in. x 12in. whitecentre.

Assistant Chief Constable Matt Comrieexplained in the Daily Express (29.4.77):

"... we are involved in a world whereexplosions and firearms are an everydayoccurence. It's the Baader-Meinhofsyndrome and we have got to cater forit if it happens in our country."

"We give our people the capacity to kill"Inspector Johnson chipped in, "There isnothing glamorous in this. It is deadlyserious." A sentiment echoed by oneof the eager volunteers, Chief InspectorLorna Brooks (the highest ranked womanin the force): "If it is a them-or-ussituation we are trained to do it."

ROON 'N' ABOOT cont.

WONDER IN ACADEME

Michael Agoursky in the Times LiterarySupplement ("Caleb Williams in Mojaisk")described how, when sent to a Russianprison camp, he found a small library of 600or 700 books among which happened tobe the Russian edition of William Godwin's"Caleb Williams." There were certainalmost invisible underlinings, made by aprisoner who had read the book previously.Agoursky wonders at "the strangenessof the paths which led a minor eighteenth-century English novelist to cast his spellover a nameless Russian prisoner, and toawaken such a fervent echo in his or herheart" that is seen in the passages under-lined.

These passages relate to injustice andoppression. It does not seem to haveoccured to Mr. Agoursky in writing hismoving article, that Godwin was not onlya minor eighteenth-century novelist butalso is considered by many to be the"father or anarchism" and this would beexactly the book which a lone Anarchistfighter would select from this unexpectedlibrary.

A WARNING

A part-timexbatfnald, a comrade, overheardsome£ustomers discussing the case ofUMke Meinhof. It might have beenbeer talking, but they were certainlyNational Front sympathisers, and one -who could have been a prison warder -said "She might well have been killed,mind you. I can quite see the time mightcome when we would be in the sameposition here. You can't have anarchistsin a prison and expect to maintaindiscipline unless you can make an example,whatever the pussyfooters might say."

Just in case any anarchist prisoners haveit in mind to commit "suicide" we mustwarn them we have a detailed descriptionof the gentleman in question, and theprison to which we suspect he is attached,which is the subject of a lodged affidavit.

SOUVENIRS OF LONG KESHNever come to the notice of Special Branch''Give them a chance to open a file on youtoday! Support a prisoner in this country.We have a fine collection of "Long Kesh"wallets for sale for only £4.00 each. Handmade and finished with Celtic designs - notwo the same.

No profit made on the sale. The moneygoes direct to the prisoners so that they canbuy clothes (no prison clothes are issuedin Long Kesh). Moreover, having to makewallets helps to fill the long empty yearsbehind the wire.

Send money/cheques/P.O.'s - WITHORDFR to Robert Milner. c'o Box A.

£4.00 per wallet + 30 p p +p(Alsov beautiful handbags - appx 9"

mnd with shoulder strap - £17.00 each)

HEADS YOU LOSE

In the fury of Royalists over England'srepublic, Oliver Cromwell's reputed headlias been bandied about for centuries -his body was dug up after the Restorationand the head severed in a ritual excecution(though some say the family tricked themand the ghouls got the wrong body). Somekinky monarchist parson is said to havethe head to this day.

A similar sort of thing happened to theguerrilla leader Pancho Villa, whose reput-ation lived on even after his ambush in 1923so much so that in 1926 reactionaries - notwith the State aplomb of those of Charles IPsday - broke into his grave and stole thehead.

Now that time has sanctified all, hisremains are being transferred (with thoseof four Presidents) to a monument to theRevolution of 1910 in Mexico City. Hiswidow placed the um inside the monumentaccompanied by President Echevarria whoappealed for the return of the missingskull.

They wanted to transfer the body ofEmiliano Zapata, the libertarian revolution-ary, who was also ambushed by reactionaries,of equal fame to Villa but far surpassinghim in moral stature. But his familyobjected to the transfer of his remainsfrom his native Morales.

The "honour" which is in reality adesecration and a disgrace of being recog-nised by the State, against whose tyrannyin whatever guise he battled so strongly,in order to give lustre to his enemies, hasbeen spared Zapata thanks to the vigorousprotests of his family.

ANARCHIST CAMPS

The libertarian "68 Club" of Manchester areorganising a summer camp at Uangollen(North Wales) on the Bank Holiday week-end (August 27, 28, 29).

There will also be an International Anarch-ist summer camp in Belgium from July 15 toAugust 15. For more information contact:Eric Sobrie, Zonnestraat 3, 9792 Wortegem-Petegem, Belgium.

Next year it is hoped to organise a (pack-age deal?) summer camp on the Costa Bravain Spain.

STOP PRESS:Comrade Pedro Ignacio Perez Beotogui,better known to British comrades as"Wilson" who was arrested, tortured andimprisoned in Spain on charges of havingbeen involved in the levitation of CarreroBlaco's car, has been flown out of Spaintogether with eight other ETA comradesto exile in Norway prior to the electionsin Spain. Our warmest fraternal greetingsgo to Pedro and the other comrades andwe hope it will not be too long beforethey can return to their homes.

*von Braun died in bed. 17 6/77.Wishfull t h i n k i n g sometimescomes true folks'.".

'

GleaningsI was shocked to hear from my old friendPaul Ostreicher, chairman of AmnestyInternational, that the Soviet authoritiesdon't want to let him into Russia. Not solong ago Paul visited various Germanprisons and met Baader-Meinhof peopleand other activists doing long sentences.He cam back to Britain and told the BBC"These people are very sick"- referringof course to their motivations for theirpolitical activities, not their alleged ill-treatment in the Federal Republic'sexcellent modem prisons. What Paul wassaying here, of course, was that rather thanbeing in prison the "sick" Germans shouldbe receiving medical treatment. This, ofcourse, is just what happens to those wellmeaning but misguided people in Russiawho offer thoughtless provocations to theauthorities; so it is hard to see why Paulshould be refused admission when he is soclearly sympathetic to the point of viewof a government which for once doesseem to be doing something a bit enlight-ened.

More heartening is the news that ourcomrades of the "Solidarity" group aremaintaining their excellent record asregards speaking" out on the subject ofpolitical trials. On at least three occasionsnow they have, at the end of the proceed-ings, boldly questioned the validity, froma revolutionary point of view, of the pol-itics of the accused and/or of the campaignswhich sought their release: I am thinkingof the respective trials of the Stoke New-ington Eight, Angela Davis, and now theMurray s.

Of course, those who are always overeager to dash to the defence of life, whileriding roughshod over the cause of Truth,will no doubt fling their usual hystericalaccusations at these comrades who stead-fastly have insisted on keeping their headswhile all about them have been losingtheirs; the accusers cannot be even dimlyaware that such a stand requires perhapsmore courage than facing the threatenedwrath of the State. Those who insistthat attacks on prisoners only increasetheir sufferings or the sufferings of thosewho follow them into the clutches of theState probably over-estimate the purelynegative effect of imprisonment. After all,look at the magnificent body of prisonwriting that has accumulated over thevenr<: an en t i tv to which n proim withthe magnificent publishing record of"Solidarity" will need no introduction,I'm sure.

Man " t i t ' ' Movement

M \l« M 1 OR CFORf.F 1NTFSunday, July 3. Assemble Tower Hill 2.00.for more information:Free George Ince Campaign,40 Thornfield HOIK..VRosefield Gardens. London E14

ersf ield Raid ^k'nuQ -'L £-*.' ̂gV'JIIilll DCOn 11 Ma\- Special Branch officers arrested Iris Mills and Ronan Bennet at the old Black Flag address ifi Huddersfieldon a warrant issued under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Iris was released following an intensive campaign on herbehalf after seven days, hut Ronan was served with an Exclusion Order and it was only due to prompt local and nation-al solidarity that this order was revoked and Ronan released from custody. Iris takes up the story:

house meanwhile, unending to stay for a

nnetReleased

On Wednesday 11th May at 7 a.m. ourhouse in Huddersfield was raided bySpecial Branch. They forced their wayin wi thout wnrrnnt"; and declared thatwe were being held under the "Preventiono! 1 errurism Act and that the housewould be searched for explosives, where-upon a fat brown dog dutifully sniffedat the >kjrliug boards but tuund nothing!

We were taken to the local police stationand there we had our photos taken as wellas our fingerprints. At first Ronan refusedto give his fingerprints but was told theywould break his arm if necessary. More-over, repeated requests to see a lawyerwere refused.

From the start of the interrogation itwas clear that we were being held becauseof our anarchist beliefs, and that Ronanwas specially picked on becausa he wasIrish. We were never accused of any"terrorist" acts either past/ present orfuture and there was never any suggestionof charges being made against us underthe Act. We weie continually askedi h . > i ] t , 1 1 ; - n r i i j i i i - - i i thouchts . Questions

were also asked regarding various groupsiiamciv tin.- 6.L.A., I . W . V * . and the A.VS.A.

few days, was also picked up and heldfor two days. He had phoned beforecoming and had been informed by some-one (the police) who answered the phonethat we were out but would be back later.However, his detention turned out to bea lucky break for us. After our friend wasreleased on the Sunday he immediatelycontacted the N.C.C.L. who in turncontacted a well-known local solicitor,Mr. Barrington Black, who secured myrelease almost immediately.

Unfortunately Ronan was recommendedfor deportation back to Northern Irelandas he was Irish and had incurred the wrathof the 'chief Special Branch Investigator,by refusing to answer questions and byrefusing to be intimidated. It seems his'crimes' amounted to being Irish, anarchistand rude to the police.

The only 'evidence' against us apparentlywas our l i te ra ture , one questioner wenton about the 'bloody anarchist/revolutionarybooks in almost hysterical agitation. Also1 discovered to my horror, when I gothome that they had set up a shootinggallery in our attic and had so placedvarious items, such as an air-pistol,

At times the questioning took on crossbow, old ex-army shoulder bafarcical aspects, for instance I was askedif I was an anarchist. Having answered'yes' I was told 'so you're a self confessedanarchist'! Ronan was told that he wasknown to have mixed with bombers,robbers and others of ill-repute whilst inprison!

At first we were held for two days, wewere questioned on the Wednesay butleft completely alone on Thursday. Thenon Friday we were told that because ofour unco-operative behaviour we wouldbe held for a further five days.

A friend of ours who called at the

pack and pots and pans to suggest apara-military camp.

All this time (seven days) we werehel \n the cells at the local Huddersfield

•: station. We had no contact withtutside world or with each other

(except for two brief meetings on theWednesday and the following Tuesday).The food was appalling (inedible at times)and totally inadequate. We were kept inthe cells without any exercise for twentyfour hours a day and the lights wereleft on continuously day and night.

On Tuesday evening Ronan was moved

to Armley prison in Leeds. There he washeld in solitary confinement, as a Category'A' prisoner, which meant that he waslocked up for twenty three (sometimestwenty four) hours each day. On thefollowing Monday he was transferred toBrixton prison in London in order tomeet a representative of the Home Office,to put his request for the Exclusion Orderto be revoked. This representative wasa Q.C., Mr. Ronald Waterhouse, who askedRonan a series of questions. Thesequestions differed little from those thatSpecial Branch had already asked i.e.Ronan's background in Northern Ireland -he stated that he had been a supporter(though not a member) of the OfficialSinn Fein and when in Long Kesh hadsupported the I.R.S.P. He was then askedquestions about his and my presentpolitical views. These he refused to answersaying that this was not relevant to the'Prevention of Terrorism Act' and on thispoint he was backed up by his lawyer,maintaining that people should not bepunished for their ideas alone.

It seems on afterthought that I wasonly held to prevent news on Ronan'sdetention from being leaked, which alsoexplains why our friend who came to visitwas held. Because the questioning wassurprisingly brief (about four hours atmost for each of us) it also seems thatthey had made up their minds as toRonan's deportation from the beginning.

On a more sinister aspect, one of theinterrogators at Huddersfield policestation, a Steve Thompson, denied thathe was a policeman or a member of SpecialBranch. When asked if he was a memberof some intelligence service he refusedto answer.

The so-called 'temporary' Preventionof Terrorism Act is another 'lawful'infringement by the State on the libertiesof its citizens. It is a means by whichthe police, for reasons which they don'thave to specify, can pick up anyone at alland hold them incommunicado for atleast seven days - longer if they wish.This was the most disturbing aspect ofour case — that we were held for so longwithout any of our friends realising •what had happened.

Its claim to 'prevent' terrorism isdubious to say the least, for instance itdidn't prevent the Balcombe Street Siege.About 2,500 people; have been picked upunder the Act and of these only 11 havebeen found guilty of any offences. Themost important point, from the policeangle, is that it enables them to holdanyone and go through their personaleffects and to build up a file ofintelligence information nationwide.

Iris Mills.

COU NCILLISM-AGAIN!The splinter groupuseles of the Council-Communist movei-lent are engaged in a wildflury of anti-syndicalist propaganda. Thesemostly student, professionals' and counter-culture groupings ranging from left-Bolsheviks (International CommunistCurrent) through Luxemburgists to Council-Anarchists - who have so long held thestage of ultra-left politics, are faced withthe re-emergent spectre of Anarcho-Syndicalism. The reorganisation of theCNT in Spain, outflanking their positions,has thrown their ranks into a panic. Inreaction a flood of articles recounting thevarious sins of syndicalism has hit theintellectual circuit. Much is but regurgitatedbites from Malatesta or Arshinov'sPlatform - profound in themselves, formake no mistake about it the workercouncilisl movement wrote some gloriouspages and will no doubt do so again; butnontheless. in the mouths of theseintellectuals, merely debased in the para-phrase - while some of the rest sinks to

r* ^ s • ffi t~^^r\ . * f^ ' ; - ; « - - ,

the level of gutter journalism, suchequating the syndicalism of the Cand IWW with the AFL-CIO and T(truly a new low slander that MI™"Miid

But most populathe various CNT sell-outs in the 1936 39period: 'anarchist' cabinet ministers andthe like. What is most intriguing aboutthese is the format: an almost universalreprinting of obscure little pamphlets fromthe 30s. On reflection, not so strange,really. Almost all the councillist groupstrace back their rather questionable lineageto one or another of a myriad of communistsplinter groups in the 20s and 30s. Each ofthese groups had to sooner or later turntheir mimeographed circulars to the burningissue of Spain. And our new-borncouncillists, who like to be taken for Johnthe Baptist crying in the wilderness, seeka prophetical and almost Biblical fulfillment

within the syndicalist movement, whichwere debated by tens of thousands ofworkers. The left-wing of the CNT madeno bones about their objections to the sell-outs by the self-appointed CNT bureaucrats.And they resisted in force: the May 1937Uprising, the FAI gun-squads hitting backat the Stalinist secret police & militarycommissars, the subsequent guerrillasdefvinp official r»nlu-v etc Tlio A I T(International Workers Association), head-quartered in France and to which the CNTaffiliated, strongly denounced the entry ofCNT 'ministers' into the Popular Front andeven more strongly attacked the entry ofthe CNT worker militias into the Republicanarmy, (see especially the articles by PierreBesnard, General Secretary of the AIT/ IWMIn Le Combat Syndicaliste, Paris). Alsothr articles "CounH"-Revohitinn in Spain"by the old pre-WWl CGTer R. Louzon inthe pages of La Revolution Proletaire. Paris.All of which was extensively re-printed inthe IWW press and widely circulated in NorthAmerica, along with on-the-spot accounts byWobblies fighting in the ranks of the CNTInternational Durruti Shock Battalion

Meanwhile the latter-day councillistscontinue their canard. Some are sn rottenthat, in attempts to prove that all workeirevolts are councillist in nature, they evenfraudulently list syndicalist revolts, likeBarcelona '37 and t he R;mJ Revo l t . SouthAfrica, 1922, as councillist . And thenthere's the case of Murray Bookchin, aYoung Communist in his Stalinist 30syouth who went anarchist, a factory workerwho went garret-intellectual until the 60scatapulted his books into the campuscircuit and an academic career. At ananarchist conference near Montreal in1^"^ Bookcliin Henonruvrl ilic IWW mdCNT and the whole of syndicalism as."counter-revolutionary." The CNT wasdead, never to rise again, the Spanishworkers had sold out and had T.V. antenason their barrio roofs", and the only hopefor Spain lay in the young middle-classstudents. (See Bookchin's Introductionto Dolgoffs Anarchist (.'ulU-crn-cs inSpain for corroboration). Bui last yearhe surfaced at a Augustin Souchy pro-CNTspeaking engagement in Boston, where lieidentified himself with the ('NT and lapped

*-.-.? nder that Moscow (especially Canadian Wobs), French up the shared glory. And now. catchingwould do well to emulate). syndicalists battalions and those trapped in wind from the reports of various I W W

r are the accounts of the International Brigades. (Rememberthat the IWW had reorganised in the early30s, was 25,000 strong with control ofthe Cleveland metal shops, Californiavanadium mines, and also strong amongport, maritime & lumber workers. Theweekly Industrial Worker and One BigUnion Monthly magazines were widelycirculated).

However, like the rest of the syndicalistmovement the IWW was too close to theaction in Spain to take a Holier Than Thouatt i tude. Hundreds of Wobblies werefighting and dying there and so the opencriticism remained public but was temperedby a strong commitment to the rank-and-fileof the CNT and their social revolution in

in linking themselves to these old denuncia- Spain., . r... Att1*' ••*! J

Defence Committee and anarchist comradesreturned from visits to CNT and FAI localsin Spain, that there is a dispute in the CNTwhether to emphasise the straight-syndicalisteconomic struggle or to highlight theanarchi revolt against the State structure.Bookchin weasels in, protraying it as asyndicalist versus anarchist split. He'sbeen told straight-off: 1. the CNT isworking class, 2. Anarcho-syndicalist,3. this is a dispute between workeranarcho-syndicalists, with youths andold-timers on both sides of the argument.Do not misrepresent it in ordei to bolsteryour anti-syndicalist, pro-councillistdiatribes.

Nonetheless, we can well expect Bookchin

tions. As if they were something uniqueunder the sun.

Yet tiie question arises: why the hellread this obscure crap? Why not go tothe source? Read the accounts from

For they were not Trotskyite intellectuals a warm welcome,screaming for an arms embargo on Spain.The IWW knew where the guns were needed:In the hands of the Syndicalist workers! Andthat remains our position.

and the others to do so. Let us yve them

Gary Jesvt.iiIWW Defense Local 2Toronto.

SPOT-THE-SPOOKMaigret? Sherlock Holmes? PopevcVWho is this mystery-man ( le f t , centmwho frequents Kings Cross rai lway buffet(just a zoom-lenze away from the TIMKOUT offices) and is pictured here admidstthe crowd in Red Lion Square? A fretcopy of our ANARCHO QUIZ BOOK w i l lgo to the lucky reader who gives us thecorrect answer.

INTERNATIONAL NEWSAUSTRALIA:Bill O'Meally Victim of the State.In 1952 Bill O'Meally, then aged 30, wassentenced to death for the murder of apoliceman. He was convicted despiteevidence that he could not have beenresponsible for the murder, evidence whichwas suppressed deliberately by the Austral-ian police and the state prosecutor, HenryWinneke, now Governor of Victoria.

In an attempt to prejudice the jury againstBill O'Meally, a previous, unrelated, convict-ion for assaulting a police officer (in self-defence) was dragged ou t . The inevitablehappened and Bill was found guilty. Af te rthe trial, while still under sentence of death,Bill made a fresh effort to clear his name,bringing up the evidence that had been sup-pressed during the tr ial . This suppressionof evidence was 'investigated' by the verysame members of the police force, includinglocal homicide detective Tremenon, who hadbeen responsible for it in the first ptlace!

Bill was saved from the gallows by a changein the state government, instead his sentencewas commuted to life imprisonment, withhis papers being marked "without remission-never to be released". For 14 out of thepast 25 years Bill has been confined in a'Pentridge' cage: 4 paces long and less than2 wide. It has a 4 metre-high wall around it,topped by wire mesh. No one could see inor out.

Since 1955 he has attempted to escapefrom prison on about 10 separate occasions,and after one escape attempt he was floggedso badly that it took him three months torecover. Several times he has been thevictim of unofficial beatings.

During 1976 he was allowed out of prisonfor one day, to visit some members of hisfamily, an event he wrote about for theAustralian daily paper The Age.

Bill, however, is back in prison, and couldwell stay there, literally for the rest of hislife unless something is done to secure his

release. Letters protesting about Bill'simprisonment can be sent to the AustralianPrime Minister, Fraser, at The Lodge,Canberra. Australia.Letters of solidarity can be sent to Bill atCastlemaine Jail, Castlemaine 3450, Victoria,Australia.[source Haptoc Family International)BULGARIA — Repression continues.Following the report of the "house" arrestbeing applied to anarchist militant KristoKolov which appeared in the last issue ofBlack Flag, we have just heard about the arrestof two more libertarians: Dimitar Nedoklanov,in Alfatar, and Georgui Bojilov, in the regionof Sillistra.

The Bulgarian communists are attemptingto completely destroy the Bulgarian anarch-ist movement dozens of anarcho-commur.- r

ists and anarcho-syndicalists of the BACFand Bulgarian CNT are in prisons and forcedlabour camps.

Prisons and psychiatric hospitals in Bulgariaare run on lines similar to those in the USSR,and people can be imprisoned for up to 10years without trial.I source: Industrial Defence Bulletin, Toronto |

JAPANIt is a long time since 1923. Far too longfor anybody to worry about the atrocitiesby the Japanese State against the workers,and the anarchists in particular. Not toolong, of course, for writers to rememberthat in two or three cases the anarchists hit

•k and singled out one or two particularlyious oppressors. But that was "terror-

ism", and individual terrorism at that . Thereason for it is glossed over.

After the Kanto earthquake the gendarm-erie were in full command of the country,and behaved as they liked, in particularagainst "enemies of the State". In the courseof it, Osugi and his wife Noe Ito, togetherwith their little nephew Solichi Tachibana(only six years old) were strangled by fourgendarmes on 16 September, 1923.

GCULAC 9ULGASE

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Bulgarian Prisons and Labour Camp;

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An Army surgeon, Lieut. Tanaka. conduct-ed a post-mortem examination and foundthat Osugi and Noe had "received a lot ofviolence as far as their ribs and tongue supp-orted bones were broken" and that theywere "subjected to outward suppression oftheir necks." They were then thrown downa well.

L i e u t . Tanaka died in China during thewar but. more than fifty years after theevent, his wife has made his post mortempapers public. (They are published in theJapanese Anarchist Paper Le Libertaire,December '76). This has ended the fictionthat they were "killed in the earthquake".It has cast a momentary shadow on "legal-ism". Had she made her exposure someyears earlier she too would have disappeared.

Is it conceivable British workers would beinterested in what happened a long time ago,in a far off country, to fellow humans witha way out ideology? They are not now,:i"il thev would not drive been then. Hadthe story come out at the time and beenpublished in the British press — a double

Englishman would liave told his wife hoveringaround the breakfast table with the coffeepot "that's the way to treat these anarch-ists...clever people these Japs"... and smiledwith satisfaction at his own small son, destin-ed eighteen years later to be a victim of thevery same officer class who felt they wereinvincible against the world after defeatingthe enemy at home.CANADATc.e Anarchist Party of Canada (GrouchoMarxist) has pushed this Oreo Cookie CreamPie into the face of Eldridge Cleaver becausehe is a turncoat fink and front man for whatis alleged to be a CIA-fronted religious group.

While most of Eldridge's onetime comradesin the Black Liberation Army have beenmurdered by the racist U.S. State or arecurrently rot t ing in prisons, he is free totravel with the likes of Waterbugger CharlesColson, shooting his mouth off for payabout the glories of American "democracy".

The "I Found It" campaign is endorsedby such people as William F. Buckley whohas admitted CIA affiliations in the past."I FOUND IT" has access to a multi-milliondollar budget for its international campaign.(What sort of profit are they finding?)

We used an Oreo Cookie Cream Pie be-cause Oreo Cookies are black on the out-side and white on the inside, just likeEldridge Cleaver and his participation inthe White Man's pseudo religious "I FoundIt" shell game. If Eldridge was able to findit, imagine who must have lost it.

So remember Eldridge, if you turn theother cheek — you're going to catch a piethat side too. Jesus isn't going to give uspie in the sky when we die, we're going togive Eldridge pie in the face now![Press release: Anarchist Party of Canada,Groucho Marxist]

££.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS. . . '

U.S.A. Know your enemy, no. 365,the terrorists..../%A<^> C^nJThe U.S. military is designing new anddeadly uses for the laser beam. The airforce has developed a laser device called theEye Popper which is mounted in aeroplanesand aimed at the eyes of ground crews. Thelaser beam causes the human eyes to explodecausing instantaneous blindness.[ source: Yipster Times]The Right to Self-defence.Inez Garcia, a thirty two year old farmworkerof Puerto Rican-Cuban descent, with onec h i l d , has been a r an t ed rt re tr inl n f t e r sprvinj:15 months in the California Inst i tute forWomen and has been released on bail. Shehad been charged with 2nd degree murder ofher rapist.

On March 19, 1974, Inez was raped byLuis Castillo (17) with the assistance of hisfriend, Miguel Jimenez (21) who held herdown (Jimenex weighs 300 Ibs) . Shortlyafter the rape the two men and a friend oftheirs threatened to kill Inez if she didn't .leave town, so she took her young son's.22 air rifle, walked into the street wTiereshe encountered Jimene7 and Castillo.Jimenez threw a knife at Inez and sheshot him. Castillo ran away. In all lessthan 15 minutes had elapsed since the rape.

Inez was arrested and charged with thefirst degree murder of Jimenez, the son oflocal land owners. During the trial, how-ever, the Judge restricted the defence tosuch an extent that the appellate courtinsisted on a re trial. The re trial will costbetween &0 - $70,000, but Inez needsmoral as well as financial support:Write to : Viva Inez, 2486 Grove Street,Berkeley, California 94704, USA.[ source: Second Wave]

FRANCE

More on the GARI Three:

Judge Pia, the examining magistrate inthe case of the three remaining GARIprisoners in France (Michel Camilleri,Mario Ines Torres, Jean Marc Rouillon),died in March. .,..-.:»•

Our three comrades have been inprison since September/December 1974without yet coming to trial. The CourtState of Security held their dossier from20 September 1974 until, on 12 March1976, deciding it was not competent tohandle the case and excusing themselvesby saying that the GARI prisoners wereat tempting to use the court as a tribune.Eight days after this, Judge Pia oncemore took charge of the case. But accord-ing to French law the three prisonersshould have been released as soon as theCourt of State Security relinquishedresponsibility for them. Even Le Monde(30.3.77) has to ask "how, professionally,do they excuse keeping them insideduring these eight days?"

So Pia took over the dossier and beganonce more from scratch. That was a yearago; now he has died, so now yet anotherjudge must be given the case and go back

WEST-GERMANY

Buback Execution Document(cont. from front page)of the continuing struggle - for therevolutionary movement she pei sonniesan ideological nvant-carde. whic'i Buback'sfalse allegation of suicide shows; herdeath used by the 1 cueul legislatureas propaganda, "the failed judgement"of armed politics - was intended tomorallv destroy the eroup. theirsfniucles. and all *rnce of their activities

The Federal attorney's strategy -whose office has carried out searches andpioceedings against the RAF since 1971 -runs aloug the lines ot the NA1O SecurityCommittee's policy on anti-subversionstrategy, i.e. the incrimination of revo-lutionary resistance, which meanstactical infiltrationary steps, thedemoralisation and isolation of the guerrillaand the elimination ol their leadership.

Within the framework of the BRS'simperialist counter-strategy against theguerrilla. Justice is an instrument of war— in the persecution of the illegallyactive guerrilla, and in the annihilationof the pnsoners-of-war.

Buback whom Schmidt has called"a vigorous fighter" for the State - hasthe same understanding of war as we do and

is a war with other expedients."What revolutionary war is — and this

is something that Buback will not touch— is the continuation, the solidarity, thelove, which guerrilla activity is.

We will prevent the murder of ourfighters in West German prisons, becausethe Federal attorney has no way out(since the prisoners will not cease tostruggle), other than liquidating them.

We will prevent the Federal attorney-ship and the state police organisation

France cont.to the beginning of the investigations. Atthe present pace of Fiench justice thismeans that out comrades must wait anotherthree years behind prison bars beforethey are put on trial, i.e. an effective jailsentence of 6 years without being tried orsentenced! Nothing has been provedagainst them, and with the French policeand judiciary taking three years ofinvestigations to produce no evidence atall it is obvious that , if and when the tr ialbegins, nothing will be.

The French State is holding Camilleri,Tories and Rouillon as political hostages.It knows that any trial would result intheir release, so such a trial is postponedindefinitely. We call upon all our readersto send letters of protest to the FrenchGovernment and their local diplomaticrepresentatives calling for their immediaterelease.

* '' A-STOP PRESS: All three comrades havenow been released on bail.

from revenging themselves on theimprisoned fighters for the activitiesof the guerrilla outside

We will prevent the Federal attorney-ship i ru in niaMiig use ot the loui ihcollective prison hunger-strike with theminimum of human rights, in order tomurder Andreas (Baader), Gudrun(Fnsslin) and Jan (Raspe). such as thepsychological war-directive since Ulrike'sdeath has openlv propogated.

The armetl resistance and the anti-imper-ialist front is organising in \testern Europe.

The war in the cities leads in the internat-ional struggle for freedom.

Ulrike Meinhof CommandoRed Armv Fraction.

SWEDISH COLLABORATION WITHWEST GERMAN AUTHORITIES.

More than thirty people were arrested in Stock-holm, Sweden, at the beginning of April in con-nectiori with what the Swedish authoritiesclaimed to be a plot to kidnap Anna Greta1,-eijon, a former Swedish Foreign Minister.Leijon was responsible for the deportationof members of the "Holger Meins Commando"including Siegfried Hausner - who died ofhis wounds as a result of being moved - in1975 after the attack on the West GermanEmbassy in Stockholm.

Amongst those arrested were three LatinAmerican refugees, including ArmandoCarrillo, a Mexican urban guerrilla freed froma 40 yeai jail sentence in Mexico who arrivedin Sweden in December 1975, a 23 year oldEnglishman working for the Swedish RefugeeCouncil (similar to Amnesty International),and two West Germans, Norbert Kroecher(26) and Manfred Adomeit, both of whomare alleged to belong to the 2nd June Move-ment.

Police in Stockholm say they found 30forged passports; a police uniform; a terr-orist "library1'; telephone monitoring equip-ment, and IS'/ilbs of dynamite together withfuses in an apartment rented by Kroechner.Both Kroechner and Adomeit have sincebeen deported to West Germany where, onApril 5, Federal Prosecutor Siegfried Bubackannounced they would be tried on chargesof belonging to "a criminal organisation" -far more serious than any charges they couldhave faced in Sweden.

The Mexican, Carrillo, about whom scarestories had been spread by the Swedish policeafter his arrival in the country. Although hewas allowed to enter Sweden after being heldfor a month he was never granted politicalasylum and has now been deported with hisChilean wife.

Buback, who had given a press conferenceafter the arrests (2/4/77) and talked about"...a small but determined gang ot terrorists

1 Caudillo of theTTie Woody dictatorship of Fidel Castro end

his clique, whatever the mask it may wear orthe objectives it may claim to have, IS THEREAL COUNTERREVOLUTION.-Argentine Libertarian Federation, July 1961.

THE CUBAN REVOLUTION: A CRIT-ICAL PERSPECTIVE, Black Rose Books,Montreal, 1976, £4.00.

THE PEOPLE ARE EATING BETTER,i i a v e free health cute, subsidised or freehousing, mass transit fares are only token-claims like these unite the apologists ofstate capitalist tyranny from China west-wards to Russia, ports in between, thensouhtward to Cuba. Written with wellfed righteous indignation, these decent"liberal" people breath condecension toall that question the lack of freedom inthe so called Communist States - "Fdo in is a bourgeois luxury!" the;echoing Lenin, wallowing in their caloriecounted guilt complexes. Then they goon to tell us about the increase in the ionsof pig iron produced or sugar cane cut underthe ever glorious current Five Year Plan,blithely ignoring the prison camps, therepression of all civil rights (in the nameof the Revolution! (. revelling in the mind-less uniformity of appearance, ideas andmass demonstrations. They like to tellus that the uniformity is proof of theon-going democratic impulses of theRevolution, rather than the force-fedresults of Statist repression...

Of course, these are the very sanwpeople that raise their dainty hands inhorror at fixed union elections, pornographystatutes and the displacement of left wingmini-parties from election ballots. Filledwith guilt about having three square meals;i day they cast their sneering pearls beforeus swine, in the self-fulfilling prophetic hopethat we will continue to be the same boorswe always have been. You know the type:they get a free trip behind the iron/bamboo/sugar cane curtain and tell us of the wondersof the regimented life in the workers' father-lands. 'Tffl|̂ r|q«'#ip^the regimentedworking stiff foots the bill without beingasked, courtesy of "his" State.

Serve the People! (who are, after all, toodumb to serve themselves); Cheap Bus Fareson the road to Socialism, don't need a car,cause the trains now run on time, thanks tothe Wisdom of the Selfless Conductor; theonly songs to be sung are tider.

Fidel Castro as a variation of the "tradition-al" Latin American lider maxima, a caudillosprinkled with Stalinist rhetoric - this is oneof the most interesting aspects in Sam Dol-goffs latest book, The Cuban Revolution:A Critical Perspective. Dolgoff gives exampleafter example of Latin American dictators —all of whom were looked down upon by our

fine feathered fellow travellers - who ensuredtheir mass support through the implementationof social reform policies. The only differencebetween them and Castro is in the rhetoricdepartment. The traditional caudillo waspropped up by Yankee Imperialism; Fidel, bythe Soviets.

Going back to the 1924 Ibauez dictatorshipin Chile, we see that social welfare policieswere pursued; the Junta that grabbed powerin Peru in 1968 instituted social reforms aswell (and he quotes Castro as saying that thePeruvian agrarian reform was much more'"radical" than what was done in Cuba afterthe Revolution).

The best example of a right wing caudillofollowing social welfare policies - is that ofJuan Peron in Argentina. Although theoriginal basis of Peron's power was themilitary, his real base of support lay in hisown (and Evita's) popularity with thedescamisados - the "shirtless ones." Thatand control of the labour movement.

In this regard, Dolgoff documents theactual links between Peron and Castro -the latter's proclamation of days of mourn-ing on the occasion of Peron's death; thatSuper-Revolitionary Che Guevara was ininformal contact with leading Peronists.The idea of Castro as caudillo is more thanjust a matter of interpretation; it was an

Unity recognised by Castro himself.Castro's accession to power, too, is notfar from the palace coup tradition as we

have been led to believe. There is no doubttha t lus 2(i July Movement fought hard andbravely against Batista but the 26th JulyMovement was not the only anti-Batistaforce operating in Cuba — there were groupsall over the country, all of whom wore downthe Batista regime to the point of collapse —groups both in the country and the city (therole of urban anti-Batista forces has beenconsistently downplayed — they did notsupport Castro). Among the many fascin-ating documents included in this book(many for the first time in English) is aseries of articles ("Revolution and Counter-Revolution") written by the veteran Cubananarchist, Abelardo Iglesias. One of thosearticles, "History of a Fraud: the 'March onHavana,' " describes exactly how Castrocame to actual power. We can do no betterthan quote Iglesias:

The romantic aura surrounding Castro'slegendary exploits must be dispelled. Themyth of his alleged "March on Havana"captured the imagination of his deludedsympathisers, must once and for all bedebunked. We who lived in Cuba, whowitnessed, and to a certain extent partic-ipated in the events, have too muchrespect for the truth to remain silent inthe face of such serious misconceptions.

The facts...are the following: Weeksbefore Batista fled Cuba, when the rebelforces advanced in Las Villas Provincewithout meeting serious resistance fromgovernment troops, Fidel Castro, almostimmobilised in Oriente province, contact-ed Colonel Rizo Rubido, military com-mander of the fortress at Santiago deCuba, and began negotiations with thisofficer of the Batista army for the surr-ender of the city, the capital of OrienteProvince... With the help of a Catholicpriest...Fidel Castro and General Cantilloreached full agreement and General Cant-illo surrendered Santiago de Cuba andthe whole province...to Castro. Theseevents were related by Castro himselfon television and reported in 1959 inthe magazine "Bohemia", which reprod-uced actual nhotographs of the notesexchanged between Fidel Castro andGeneral Cantillo.

Fulgencio Batista then summonedGeneral Cantillo to Havana and toldhim of his decision to abdicate andappoint him (General Cantillo) as Com-mander in Chief of the army to maintainorder and return the country to normalcy.General Cant i l lo accepted Batista's offerand immediately contacted Fidel Castro,informing him that he was ready to notonly surrender Oriente Province, but thewhole country. A few hours later, Bat-ista...left Havana for Santo-Domingo...This happened at dawn, January 1st, 1959.

With the flight of Batista, all the armedforces surrendered without firing a singleshot. General Cantillo transferred com-mand of his army to Colonel RamonBarquin who had just been released, afterbeing sentenced to imprisonment forconspiring against the Batista government.

Upon assuming command...ColonelBarquin told Fidel Castro that the armyand he personally was at his disposal andunder his orders and that,he (Barquin)would remain only as long as Castrowants me to or until he was replaced.

Fidel Castro immediately ordered his[ehel troops,to occupv all i n s t a l l a t i ons ,barracks and fortresses. In line withthese orders, Camillo Cienfuegos witha force of only 300 men, occupied CampMilitary City after 1 2,000 Batista troops,including aviation, artillery and tank units,surrendered without firing a shot..(Dolgoff, p. 9If.)

Power, then, was HANDED to Castro.Castro — in common with traditional Latin

American cuudillos — has made great stridesin the area of social welfare policies — thiscannot be denied. And through the Com-munist Party, he controls the labour move-ment. The biggest deviation of Castro from

the traditional caudilL) pattern is in his relat-ions with the Communists. The traditionallideres maximos took power claiming thattheir coups were the country's only altern-ative to communism; and repression of com-munists followed. But this does not takeinto account the history of the CubanCommunist Party (CPC) - a history ofcollaboration with brutal right-wing dictators.Founded by 10 people in 1925 during theMachado dictatorship, the CPC (then knownas the PSP - People's Socialist Party) beganits career of treachery to the working classas Machado's regime collapsed. It was duringthe reign of Machado that the Cuban Anarcho-Syndicalist movement was dealt near deathblows - it took Fidel to finish them off. InAugust 1933 a general strike started the downfall of Machado - spearheaded by theAnarcho-Syndicalist-influenced trolleyworkers union and the Communist-controlled bus workers union. In a desperatelast-minute attempt to preserve power,Machado negotiated with the Communists- if they would call off the general strike,he would recognise the Party and place itsbureaucrats at the head of some of the labourunions. This agreement was made betweenthe regime and the Central Committee ofthe Communist-controlled CNOC (NationalConfederation of Cuban Workers). The restof the story is told in the "Manifesto to theCuban Workers and People in General"written by the Federation of Anarchist

Theto the workers to go back to workbecause the employers granted theirdemands. But the workers (includingeven the Havana bus and transportationunion, controlled by the communists)refused. They decided to obey only theirown conscience and to continue resistanceunt i l the Machado regime is overthrownor forced to flee.Machado and his communist alliesretaliated. No labour union wasaalowed to meet. The Havana Federa-tion of Labour (FOH, founded by theanarcho-syndicalists), to which thelargest number of non-political labourunions were affiliated, could not meetbecause it did not have a signedauthorisation from the government.Only the communists, thanks to theirbetrayal, were allowed to meet. Armedwith revolvers while all others weretorbidden to hold or carry arms andconstitutional rights were suspended,the communists held meetings, rodein automobiles burning gasolinesupplied by the army because the fillingstations were closed by the strike . . .... in conclusion we want the workersand the people of Cuba to know that therent for the offices of the communistparty labour front the CNOC is paidby the Machado regime, that thefurniture was forcibly taken awayfrom the Havana Federation of Labooffices with the permission and activehelp of Machado's Secretary of War .

(Dolgoff, p. 48:

To gain a power foothold, the Commun-ists were ready to betray the popular rising.Twenty-one days after Machado fell, theBatista dictatorship began. Under Batista,only one "union" — "Labour Front" isthe bettor word - was recognised: the CTC(Cuban Confederation of Labour). In 1940.the PSP, then led by Francisco Calderio(alias Bias Roca) agreed to and did supportBatista's candidates in the elections. Thepay-off — and I am not using the wordsarcastically was to t u r n over the leader-ship and control of the State-sanctionedCTC to the Communists. Installed by thegangster regime as us head wa;> theCommunist I^azaro Pena. And as if thatact of be'rayal were not enough, Com-munists were given positions in the presid-ential cabinet — partners in crime! SamDolgoff notes:

... In exchange Ir these favours thecommunists guaranteed Batista labourpeace. In line with the CommunistParty's "Popular Front against Fascism"policy, the alliance of the CommunistParty with the Batista was officiallyconsumated when the Party joined the. . . government. Tue Communist Partyleaders Carlos Rafael Rodriguez and JuanMarinello (who now hold high posts inthe Castro government) became MinistersWithout Portfolio in Batista's Cabinet.To illustrate the intimate connectionsbetween the communists and Batista,we quote from a letter of Batista to BiasRoca, Secretary of the Communist Party:

June 13, 1944Dear Bias,

With respect to y««Jr> letter which*ourmutual friend,Dr.Carlos Rafael RodriguesMinister Without Portlolio, passed to me.I am happy to again express my firmunshakeable confidence in the loyalcooperation the People's SocialistParty ... its leaders and members haveeiven and continue to eive myself andrny government.. Believe me, as always,

Your very affectionate and cordialfriend,

(Dolgoff, p.53).The Communists collaborated with Batistain writing Cuba's ) 940 Constitution — a"democratic" constitution that coexistedwith Batista's dictatorship in the same waythat Stalin's "democratic" constitutioncoexisted with Stlainism. Bias Roca wrote:

Together, Batista and oursevles, withthe energetic mobilisation of the populaimasses, achieved the convocation of thefree and dovereign Constituent Assemblythe normalisation of the University, themanesty for political prisoners; measuresthat created a climate of guarantees andliberty in the country, that brought thelegalisation of activity, together withour Party, to all parties and revolutionarysectors, thus initiating the process ofnormal and peaceful development of allcivic activities.Thanks to our collaboration with .President Batista, we can affirm today

**/•.

without arrogance that the people ofCuba have the magnificent Constitution

Batista lost to Grau Martin in the early40s. In 1947, Grau turned against theCommunists; a drive to purge communistsfrom the CTC was instituted. But thecommunists were not just mere victims ofgovernment-organised red -baiting; areflection of their loss in popularity wasshown in their dismal performance innational elections. When Batista regainedpower in 1952, the Party zigged and /agged- at the same time! - a difficult feat, evenfor those most adroit of 7ip-7apgers. Officially,the Party opposed Batista - at the same timeleading Communists served in the government.

When Fidel Castro entered the stae»*with his ill-fated attack on the MoncadaBarracks in 1953, his act was roundlycondemned by the Communists:

\Vj repudiate the putschist methods,peculiar to bourgeois political factions,of the action ... which was an adventuristicattempt to take both military headquarters.The heroism displayed by the participants. . . is false and sterile, as it is guided bymistaken bourgeois conceptions, buteven more we repudiate the repressiondictated by the government...

The entire country knows whoorganised, inspired and directed theaction... and knows that the Communistshad nothing todftnrith it. ffltoUneof-the PSFand the mass movement has beento combat the Batista tyranny and tounmask the putschists and adventuristicactivities of the bourgeois opposition asbeing against the interests of the people ...It was not until after Batista's generals

handed power to Castro that the Communistsstarted to openly support Castro - anextremely embarassing poition for a"revolutionary" collaborator with a right-wing dictator. It was the influence of Sovietbloc aid and Rdel Castro's opportunismthat lead to the Castro-Communist fusion —prior to that time, he had talked in termsof "neither capitalism nor communism."On Dec. 2,1961, Castro delivered hisfamous "1 am a Marxist-Leninist and willremain one until the last days of my life"speech. Zeitlin and Scheer, in their Cuba :Tragedy In Our Hemisphere, maintain thathe never made the statement. Whether hemade the statement or not, I don't know;that he did is supported by what HerbertMat hews wrote about conversations inCuba after the speech:

... On my next trip to Cuba I complainedto him and everybody I met, not thatthe embrace of Marxism-Leninism wasnow open, but that his ... speech wasso badly constructed and confusing thathis enemies could pick sentences out ofi t . . . to give the impression that Fidelwas confessing he had been a Communistsince his college days. He agreed withme that, of course, he had not meantto imply th i s . . . My Cuban friendscommiserated with me over the way Fidelhad made his startling announcement,

*«*

not he undone.^In the final analysis, of course, whether

he made that particular statement is of l i t t leimportance: there can be no doubt todaythat he aligns himself wholly with theCommunists - not to mention that he isthe First Secretary of the CPC's CentralCommittee ...

Let us return to the theme of Communisibetrayal of the working class and collabora-tion with dictatorship. The CPC control ofthe CTC (Castro, incidental ly, turned leader-ship of the CTC over to one who had hadexperience under Batista: the CommunistLazaro Pena) is similar to the activities ofPortuguese Communists - sett ing up onestate-sanctioned union under Communistcontrol. In Spain, there are tendencieswithin the same direction: witness theCommunist participation in the closestthing Spain had to a state-sanctioned "union"- the so-called "Workers' Commissions."And the recent announcements by SantiagoCarillo that the Communists are willing torecognise the monarchy! Franco's boy JuanCarlos embracing the old Stalinist hack —or rather vice versa. Memories of UnlceJoe and Adolf! Communist betrayal isnothing new (only a caudillo welcomingit is) — remember the KPD collaborationwith the Nazis? May 1974 - a millionrailroad workers in India go on strike — theCommunist Party of India (CPI) opposingit. More than 60,000 workers wereimprisoned. When Indira Ghandi declaredher State of Emergency in June 1975, onlytwo political parties supported her: theCongress Party (her own) and - you guessedit - the CPI.

Let us return to our professional "liberal"apologists who see free medical care, tree/subsidised housing, cheap bus fares andfree education (but not education to think,to develop, to create, to be free; educationto do what the State requires) as trfe be-alland end-all of social existence. The Cubaneconomy (as with the other so-called"communist" states) is in reality StateCapitalism: wage slavery, managerialhierarchy, extraction of profits from theworkers' labour power, leaders and led,masters and slaves, "alienated" labour. Asin the other so-called Communist countries,workers' self-management of the means ofproduction does not exist; everything in thehands of the State, for the State, by the

State. How does it pay the State to provideso many "free" services? Since thecommunists have destroyed every attempt'n' the people to develop social institutions,practices, etc.. under their own control andat their own initiative, it cannot be that theState is simply being solicitous of itssubejcts' (victims') well-being. Then why?One, it goes towards assuring popular suppcvfor the regime; Two by providing all of thesi"free" services, wage costs are cut — hencemore profit — to be ploughed back in theeconomy, to be used for the financing ofcoercion, and enable the Party leaders tolive in the style to which they have becomeaccustomed. "Free" social services as afactor in reducing production costs (wages)was analysed particularly well in a documentwritten in 1964 by the two PolishCommunist dissidents — who both receivedjail terms for their efforts: "An Open Letterto the Party" by Jacek Kuron and KarolMod7elewski In regard to free medicalcare, they noted:

The workers receive medical care freeand can buy medicines at a discount,but these are necessary in order topreserve his labour power; they are theingredients of his subsistence minimum.If free medical care were abolished andrents increased, the workers' wages wouldhave to be raised in proportion to theincrease in his necessary expenses. Thesenon-returnable benefits and services area necessary part of the workers' subsis-tence minimum, a wage supplement asnecessary to the workers as the wagesthemselves, and therefore a constituentof production costs.Healthier wage slaves make for healthiei

production norms: in a developing economysuch as Cuba's, the need for more educatedwage-slaves is necessary - hence the educ-ational reforms. Social reform policies - nomatter how benelicial and/or well-meaning— are not signs of Revolution. They can beand have been granted just as easily underreactionaries — witness Bismarck's socialsecurity programmes, fhey serve ioincrease profits, insure mass support, andthus perpetuate the system (whatever thatsystem may be). In other words - give itto them, before they start taking it them-selves.

Theoretically, the end-product ofCastroism-Communism is supposed to be

< *the New Socialist Man people motivatedby higher ethical/moral imperatives. Thesocial welfare reforms are supposed to besupplying the pre-conditions for truefreedom. Freedom, however, cannot begiven: It must be taken. Dolgoff notes:

But all attempts to institute socialismhv decree. ;i« Rakun in foresaw over acentury ago, leads inevitably to theenslavement of the people by theauthoritarian State. They (sic) attemptto build communism failed because the"new socialist man" can be formed onlywithin the context of a new and freesociety, based not upon compulsion, butupon voluntary cooperation. The attemptfailed because it was not implementedby thorough going libertarian changesin the authoritarian structure of Cubansociety. Communisation and formingthe "new socialist man" actuallycamouflaged the militarisation of Cuba . . .

(Dolgoff p. 154)Authoritarian means result in Authoritarian

ends: and the "new socialfst man" hasbecome the voluntary slave. That"thorough going libertarian changes" werenot implemented was not due to lack oftrying, as this book demonstrates. TheCuban Anarcho-Syndicalists fought thegood fight. They tried to show and triedto implement these changes. The answerby the Moulders of New Socialist Man was

Repression. The results we see today:the Cuban economy in a shambles, lifeand labour militarised, children militarised.

This book must be read. I have onlytouched upon one small aspect of the book --there is so much more. I t represents the ,first full-length, comprehensive view ofthe Cuban Revolution from a revolutionaryperspective. It is an important book. |

Shelby Shapiro.Footnotes:1. Maurice Zeitlin & Robert Scheer, Cuba :

Tragedv in our Hemisphere (NY: GrovePress, Inc. 1963), p. 114.

2. Ibid., llSff.3. Ibid.,117f.4. Ibid., 21 If.5. Herbert L. Mathews, A \torldin

Revolution (NY: ('has. Scribner's Sons,1971), p. 319f.

6. Jacek Kuron & Karol Modzelewski, AnOpen Letter To The Party (London:International Socialism, n.d.)., p. 13.

Wounded comrades Sonnenberg & Becker being evacuated after Shootout.

who can strike at any time..." was sharplyreminded of his words five days later whena motorbike drew up alongside his limousineas it waited at traffic lights in Karlsruhe andthe passenger drew out a submachine gunand opened fire killing Buback, his driver andwounded the bodyguard. Responsibility forBuback's execution was later claimed by the"Ulrike Meinhof Commando" in a telephonecall to the DPA news agency in Bonn (seedocument on front page).

Buback, who issued the 354 page documentof charges against Baader, Enslin, Meins, andMeinhof when the trial opened in 1975, isthe second "Baader-Meinhof" judge to die.The West German Supreme Court President,Guenther von Drenckmann, was shot deadon 10 November 1974 by 2nd June Movementin retaliation for the murder of Holger Meins(killed by prison doctors after ending a hungerstrike).

The following day, 8 April, the West Germanpolice announced that they wanted to questionGunter Sonnenberg, Christian Klar and KnutVolkerts in connection with Buback's death.These three were first named as being wantedby the police last year after the arrest of Sieg-fried Haag, a former defence lawyer forBaader.

On 3 May Sonnenberg was spotted with agirl in a cafe in the German/Swiss frontiertown of Singen by an old lady who informedthe local police. Two policemen approachedthe couple demanding to see their identitypapers. They were told they were in thecouple's car and were led outside by the pol-

The West German authorities claim thatthis point Sonnenberg then produced a sub-;hine gun from his rucksack and shot the

policemen, hitt ing one in the chest and theother in the arm. Sonnenberg and the girlthen flagged down a passing car and droveoff in the direction of Stuttgart. With threepolice cars in pursuit they took a wrong turn-ing and drove down a dead-end street. Real-ising their mistake Sonnenberg and the girlabandoned the or and tried to run offthrough a nearby park. Police opened firewith machine-guns and revolvers - which theylater claimed they found in Sonnenberg's

car!- critically wounding Sonnenberg in thehead and wounding ius companion in theleg. The girl has since been identified asVera Becker.

Sonnenberg was taken to hospital and Beckeito the maximum security prison at Stanheimnear Stuttgart. She had been jailed in 1972for involvement in the bombing of a Britishboat club in West Berlin (claimed by theRAF) and was one of five people releasedin exchange for kidnapped CDU politicianPeter Lorenz in 1975 who were flown toSouth Yemen. Gunter Sonnenberg (22)is said by West German police to be their"number one fugitive" on their "mostwanted" list. He had previously beenarrested for demonstiating against prisonconditions in a courtroom.

Guenter Sonnenberg, above,and Verena Becker.

There is only the word of the policeto say tha t the submachine gun (said byballistics experts to be the weapon usedto execute Buback), pistols, revolvers,and forged identity papeis "found" inthe rucksacks of Sonnenberg and Beckerwere in the couple's possession. Why, ifthey had shot two policemen (and are

1

alleged to have shot Buback) did they run*away from armed police without takingthe guns with them. As it is, the weaponsheld in evidence against them were usedto wound THEM! Sonnenberg may welldie as a result of his wounds and Beckersits wounded in a prison cell: both shotdown, unarmed, by the defenders of lawand order. Who's conspiracy9

RED ARMY FRACTION TRIAL

On 28th April, after a trial lasting twoyears, the three remaining RAF defen-dants — Andreas Baader. Gudrun Ensslinand Jan Carl Raspe were all sentencedto iife imprisonment.

During the trial their defence washaiassed rind impeded conversationsbetween the lawyers and their clientswere bugged, some lawyers did not pleadwhile others were appointed for them.The accused were prevented fromattending most of the trial and preventedfrom expressing their politicalmotivations.

In protest against this state ofaffairs the RAF and other politicalprisoners in jails throughout West Germanystarted a hunger strike on 30 March. On30 April Gudrun Ensslin made thefollowing statement:

"In the past few days all efforts atbreaking the strike of more than 100

r force feeding failed. AfterI anaesthetists hadninister psychic

drugs and narcotics, the director ofStammheim prison communicated tous '... binding delcarations of theJustice Minister..' saying t h a t ' . . .in consideration of advice from medicalexperts, a re-grouping of politicalprisoners at Stammheim and in otherLand (regional states) of the Federalrepublic and enlarging of the places ofdetention will be effected immediately.'This decision came tti result of aFederal cabinet meeting. This is why,the principal demands of the strikershaving been met, they decided to end thestrike."

In a long letter to Chancellor HelmutSchmidt and the Federal government,released on the eve of the hunger strike.the prisoners attempt to explain thecontext of the trial within the widerframework of a combined US-WestEuropean counter-insurgency strategy.Their letter consists of a list of demandswhich set forth in detail the lengths theWest German state has been prepared togo in order to "contain" and "neutralise"anti-capitalist opposition. Summarised,the points are in three main categories.First, the strategy and aims of the USand Federal German governmentstogether with the EEC in planning policyagainst anti-capitalist political movements:the prisoners say that discussions resultingin policy commitments on counter-insurgency made by the Federal govern-ment involving US diplomats and poli-ticians, senior staff of the US Army,

the general secretariat of NATO ActionCommittee, the secret service of theFederal Republic, the Council of Ministersof the EEC and conferences of Ministersof the Interior of the EEC resulted in thedeclaration of the long-term aim of"immunising" (Brandt ) society againstanti-capitalist movements and permanentlyinstitutionalising opposition to USforeign policy in Western Europe. Theshort-term object was the neutral isat ionof those radical groups tha t had, sincethe banning of legal opposition to theVietnam war, taken up arms (viz. theRAF).

Secondly, the vigorous implemenationof this policy by the Federal government.Counter-insurgency units of the US Armyoperate in West Germany, personnel fromthe Federal republic's police and armywerr t rn ined in these nicf!"<il<; nf onorntionat the US Army's Special Warfare Schoolin Florida and, in conjunction with this,techniques of psychological warfareinvolving sophisticated manipulation ofthe mass media and release of informationmat was false were employed. •

Much of the evidence of th 's is containedin the third part of the l e t t e r t ha t dealswith the RAF trial. Here are some examplesfrom the West German press of falseinformation about the RAF which wasdesigned to alienate their sympathisersand terrify the public. The reports said . ..in June I97jiih¥t the RAFjyas to explodethree bombs in Stuttgart . . . in the summerof 1974 that they would carry out arocket attack on the packed World Cupstadium . . . that they would poison thewater supply of a large town . . . in thesummer of 1975 that they had stolen somepoison gas and planned to use it ... inApril 1975 that Holgar Meins himselfwould blow up the West German embassyin Stockholm . . . in March 1977 thatthey would attack a children's playgroundand take children as hostages . . .andcontinually from 1972 until now thatthere were "tensions" in the group.

There are more examples from thepress in the letter together withquotations from prominent Germanpoliticians suggesting various tactics andobjectives concerning the "terrorists."The well orchestrated press campaign andthe statement of the politicians were allin line with the directives established inthe report of the ISC (May 1975) forNATO countries for "desolidarising,isolating and eliminating" illegal groups.The State prosecutor Buback had said,"journalists should limit themselves tobeing intermediaries between the judiciaryand the police and the public." (6/5/75).

Thirdly, the prisoners explain theseactions and policies in the context oftheir 23 month trial. This involved thejudiciary acting as an adjunct of the stateboth in actively co-operating with the stateprosecutor, and in the implementation ofspecial emergency laws designed for thesafe conduct of the trial. The number oflawyers for the defence was limited to

three, collective defence was forbiddenand defence lawyers Croissant Groenwoldand Stroebele was excluded by the stateprosecutor under the emergency laws no.138 and 146 " . . . as the result of tacticalconsiderations" (Buback).

In a d d i t i o n in this the defence wasmade more difficult by the appointing oflawyers chosen by the state, the buggingof conversations between lawyers andtheir clients and the bugging of homes,offices and telephones of the former. Asa reuslt of information gathered in thisway, witnesses were pressured, defencewitnesses kept out of the trial and friendsand employees of the lawyers wereapproached by the Federal securityservices who wanted them to act as spies.Furthermore, lawyers Croissant andStroebele were arrested with the consciousaim of preventing a series of internationalpress conferences that they had organisedto inform public opinion of the respon-sibility of the trials in the Federal republicfor the deaths of Holgar Meins and SiegfriedHausner These tactics and policies wereco-ordinated by the state prosecutor's office,and aided and informed by regular monthlymeetings with the heads of three separateFederal security organisations.

In order to get them to change theirtestimonies the prisoners were subjectedto psychological torture and techniquesdesigned to lower their morale. Theywere isolated, subjected to sensorydeprivation and, during the hunger strike,told that the others had given up. UlrikeMeinhof was singled out for eight monthssolitary conf inement in a totally white,noiseless cell under the constant surveillancen t ' t he prison authorities and of specially

i located experts who devised the regime^iat all the prisoners were to be subjectedto. These were conceived and carried outas scientific research and the results werecommunicated to the Special Researchsection 14 of Hamburg-EppendorfUniversity. The isolation first of Ulrikeand then of G i i d r n n Fnsslin and Ulriketogether in the special cells was also partol j u . i . , . i i pioject devised b> academicsfrom the Hamburg University Clinic.Ulrike Meinhofs central position as apolitical organiser made her an obvioustarget and, the attempt to break her spirittotally having failed through her ownand her lawyer's resistance, brain surgerywas to have been employed. As it was,she died in prison. In order to preventthe publication of these facts emergencylaw no.231 was invoked, under whichthe trial could be conducted in the absenceof the defendants.

The letter calls on Schmidt's governmentto acknowledge the truth of these allegations(of which we print onlv a section) and torecognise that the deaths of Ulrike Meinhof.Siegfried Hausner, Holgar Meins and UlrichWessel were the results of these policies,formulated and endorsed in the highestspheres of government. The letter concludes:"The measures taken by the governmentagainst the groups constitute tactics in a

covert war which runs counter to the rightsof man. tactics which it is legitimate toresist, since they contravene theconstitution."

- Peoples'fUews Service -

ULRIKE- fltf" 3p^With expertise

they tried their bestThat you, Ulrilcewould death

an honest rebel.And so one morninglined up vfafljfji cellthey slipped you a noosetheir only hopethus finally their hangmanperformed his task

vNothing to saybut a lot to be donewe will avenge our dead,you too, Ulrike, you too.(Based on j poem by Erich Muehsamand dedicated to comrade Ulrike Meinhof

; :'"**'ft

PETER PAUL ZAHL32 prisoners in the JVA at Werl plannedto hold a hunger strike starting on May1st, in an attempt to force the closureof the psychiatric unit (dept. B.I.) there.Among those involved was Peter-PaulZahl.

On April 29th, two days before theplanned hunger strike Peter-Paul Zahland two other prisoners were moved tothe remand prison at Bochum. Therewas no opportunity to contact lawyers,relatives or friends, and all papers, booksand writing materials belonging to theprisoners were confiscated.

One of the prisoners involved wasManfred Becker, but the name of thethird prisoner is not yet known.

P.P. Zahl's new address is: -Peter-Paul Zahl, JVA, Krummede 3,463 Bochum. W. Germany.

GRASHOF, GRUNDMANN, JUENSCHKE -TRIAL VERDICTS

Ihe trial ol Manfred Grashof, KlausJuenschke, and Wolfgang Grundmannwhich has dragged on for 21 months(the longest trial in West Germany exceptthe recent RAF "hardcore" process,which lasted two years) came to an endon 2/6/77. Grashof and Juenschke eachreceived life sentences after being foundguilty of robbing a bank in Kaiserlauternin 1971 in which a policeman was killed,and membership of a criminal organisation.Grashof was also found guilty ofkilling a policeman shortly before hisarrest in 1972. Wolfgang Grundmannwas sentenced to 4 years for belongingto a criminal organisation and illegally••lossessine weapons. All three comradesboycotted the trial and were not in,court to hear the verdicts.

CNT:An interview with Luis Andres Edo andLuis Burro Molina, Barcelona, 10 January1977.Q. What is the situation in Barcelona at themoment?Edo: First of all it must be said that at themoment all the organic levels in the CNThave only a formal existence: the National •Committee is not functioning, the regionalcommittees are not functioning, the localfederations are not functioning, even theunions are not functioning. If this is thecase at all levels, in all regions, in allprovinces, it is not a problem of individualsnor of organisational form, but a problemof a phenomenon. Each organic figure,from the delegate in the assembly right upto the National Committee, does everythingpossible, but we are unable to overcomethis phenomenon. It will not be resovledthrough assemblies and plenums, althoughthese are necessary, but through a processof actuation a process which is beginningto develop at the moment. The regionalplenum of Catalonia took place in thiscontext. In fact it can be considered theonly plenum to have been held in Sp

Another factor is that the political situationis undergoing a rapid process of"democratisation", an unstoppableprocess which nobody is in a positionto affeect one way or the other

The problems and difficulties facingthe CNT at the moment are very similarin many aspects to those facing all partiesand organisations in this phase. The Catalanregional plenum, which took place onlyafter weekly meetings of about 250 delegatesover a period of two and a hafl months,was a very important event because fromit emerged, in very clear terms, the willing-ness of the militants, for the most partyoung people, to fight any attempt atmanipulation of their desire to manage theirown struggles. The government thtoks thatit will once again be able to manipulate theCNT but this plenum has shattered any hopesand illusions of this nature. In the plenumthere were hundreds of hours of discussion,hundreds of hours of work in commissions,and all this means that the organisation isreally functioning, even if it is not function-ing at an ̂ organised" level, because the newmilitants, all authentic libertarians, want tobuild an organisation which will not bedirected by any one individual, and there-fore the workings and the organisationalform will come into being through anatural and spontaneous process.

Burro: We can state that 29 February1976 was the date when the CNT beganto function organically and this, whateverreservations one may have about it,continued up until the plenum referredto by comrade Edo, a very protracted

plenum which is now beginning to bearfruit. However I would like to mentionwhat went on before the plenum. In myopinion, the reconstitution of the CNTwhich took place on 20th February wasconducted in a non-libertarian fashion byelements which had a free hand up untilthe plenum. What I want to say is that on29 February there already existed aprefabricated organisation, set up by a fewpeople who "collected" militants. Arelations committee was set up which thentransformed itself into a regional committee,when it was no such thing, which functionedunknown to and uncontrolled by themilitants. This is typical of an authoritarianorganisation but not a libertarian one,even less an anarcho-syndicalist one.During this time, therefoie, the CNT wasnot functioning horizontally, as it ought.The regional plenum dealt with this. Thegovernment was hoping that we wouldbecome a solely anti-communist organisationbut this manoeuvre did not succeed. Then,after 29 February there was even anattempt at infiltration from the Statecontrolled union through the introduction

:'jRt«JhttCNT of various agentt'^^tf^-.'.'manoeuvre failed as these people werediscovered and thrown out. One or twostayed, but they are in no position toachieve anything.

Now as I was saying, we are gatheringthe fruits of this plenum. What is happeningat the moment is that after two months ofmarathon discussions, the militants haverealised that the reason why things are notadvancing is because there is a collectiveinability due to which, apart from two orthree unions which are functioning perfectly,most of the unions are going through aprocess of transformation. Several CNTunions are "ghost" ones; they produceattractive bulletins but have few membersand little influence.

This Is a contradiction which hasdeveloped within the CNT itself, but onemust not forget that we are coming out offorty years of dictatorship and that 80% ofour militants are in their early twentiesand are therefore immature and not verywell prepared. What the plenum did wasto enable the young militants to gettogether.

Q: What you have said is somewhatdifferent to what 1 have heard from someMadrid comrades, Gomez Casas for instance,who state that the organisation is function-ing very well even if there are a few practicalproblems. This suggests to me that theprocess of reconstructing the CNT variesfrom city to city. What can you tell meabout this?

Edo: I respect the opinions of all comrades,including Gomez Casas who is an old friendof mine. However, I disagree with him on

this point. I have just returned from aNational Committee meeting in Madrid,at which Gomez Casas was also present,where the majority of delegates acceptedthe view which 1 have just put forward.The problem of the CNT not functioningproperly does exist, and it exists everywherein Spain although it varies from place toplace according to the influence of theCNT in different localities. Catalonia isthe region where things are going best atthe moment. Furthermore, these problemsare to be expected in reviving theorganisation after forty years.

Q: What is your current activity?

Edo: For aboutthree months theuniversities, the polytechnics, various groupsof workers and the people living in thepoorer areas have been asking the variouslabour organisations to present themselvesand this we have done with many groupsand we are continuing to do so. Therehave also beer, joint representations fromthe CC.OO., USO and UGT.

Q: Since you have mentioned theseorganisations, would you tell us whichunjmyaoe^stroqgeft jn; Barcelona and whatcontacts the CNT has with these otherunions?

Edo: The first answer is that no-one hasany real influence over the labour move-ment at present.

Many authoritarian organisations aret lying to enlist the workers, but they arenot having much success at the moment.It is impossible to say which is the strongestunion in numerical terms. Influence,however, is another matter and I would saythat the influence of the CNT has begunto develop for several reasons: on accountof its non-hierarchical structure; its refusalto merge itself with a "union front" whichis the PCE's (Spanish Communist Party)current attempt to gain control of thelabour movement and it must be said thatall the forces comprising the CC.OO. havenow had to resign themselves to the factof union plurality; also the CNT's refusalto enter into any kind of pact either withthe bosses or the government. A concreteexample of this "anti-pact" line is the"Roca de Gava" dispute. LaRocaisamanufacturer of machine tools whichhas four factories and employs about eightof nine thousand workers. The Gavafactory, near Barcelona, has been on strikefor about seventy days and the only unionto be involved in the struggle right fromthe beginning was the CNT (the UGT isalso now involving itself). During thisextremely hard conflict, with attackson delegates and three days behind thebarricades against the soldiers, all pre-existing schemes were smashed: therepresentatives of the state union wererejected shop-floor assemblies were

C.N.T. ; Problems & Hop^scont.formed and each department .^-i-ico itsown delegate. The CC.OO. and the USOsabotaged the struggle became it was tooradical. We do not know how this disputewill end h-it «••<•!» •- : • • •« .<• • ' in ' - " i n t itvindicates the authentically libertariancom so il lia> Uh.cn. 1 in. (. N i is J..MJpresent in other lac tones smaller thanLa Roca and its part icular wav of engagingin struggle is increasing its influence. Thegeneral strike of 12 November was, inCatalonia and particularly in Barcelona,promoted and sustained by the CNTasagainst the way that the CC.OO.. L'SOand UGT wanted to conduct it. Of theforty-five stoppages on that day. thirty-three were inspired by the CNT. Theinfluence of the CNT is growing more andmore, mainly because of us "anti-pact"stance, and it is in the hope of stoppingthis growth that the Spanish press doeverything they can to avoid giving theCNT a.ny publicity. On the other handthe Communist Party has for all practicalpurposes editorial control over 60% ofSpanish periodicals and thus it is easyf»>r th«-n either to avoid mentioning us orto give a false picture.

Burro: One can give other examples:when the general strike of 1 2 Novemberwas announced, the various syndicai groups(in Catalonia the unified syndicai organismof which the CC.OO.. USO and UGT formparts does exist) consulted with eacliother and the manifesto which theyapproved was the one which the CNT hadproposed. After the 12th. many workersasked the CNT to discuss its manifestowith them and it was from this momenton that a real influence developed in theworkplaces, an influence which polarisedthe struggle at La Roca and which gaveit its savage character. A relevant fact isthe latest demonstration in support of LaRoca held last week at Cornelia, nearBarcelona. On this occasion, in front ofeveryone who had come to demonstrateand in front of the police lines, theCC.OO and USO cancelled the demonstrationby megaphone (which had been lent tothem by the police) provoking a violentreaction on the part of the demonstrators.For its part the CNT held that no-one couldcancel the demonstration except the Rocaworkers themselves.

Q: In a Valencia paper I read about theproposed legalisation of the unions.What position is the CNT taking over this?

^ '̂Edo: During the national plenum inSeptember the CNT decided to acceptlegalisation only if there were no conditionsof any type attached. The text of the lawto which you referred (which is veryrecent) is acceptable as it stands but itstill has to be discussed by the Cortes andtherefore no-one knows whether it willbe approved or amended. However thetext of the previous law was absolutelyunacceptable because it limited the numberof unions in each sector of a city and alsobecause recognition implied a whole series

of other conditions which were unacceptableto us.

0 I n Valencia the CNT has i.itered a"workers alliance" with the UGT. How arerelations between the two organisationshere in Barcelona?

Edo: On must take into account the factthat the process of reconstructing the CNThas been developing at different speeds and ind i f f e r en t ways from region to region andcity to city. In Valencia this process wasinitiated more than two years ago and istherefore now in a more advanced phasethan in other Tainns where differentcircumstances apply.

Q: What is the situation regarding thespecifically anarchist movement inBarcelona and how are its relations withthe CNT?

Edo: In general the majority of the anar-• crusts support the CNT. I personally

believe, although then

Edo: In general the majority of the anar-chists support the reconstruction of theCNT. I personally believe, although thereare other comrades who do not agree, thatthe CNT must become more anarchistin content - not through any impositionof anarchist ideas but through a continuingdialectic, a continuing confrontationbetween its various tendencies, as it wasfor the CNT of 1936, because it isprecisely this characteristic wich is thestrength of the Confederation. Wilthis quality things like the collect!would not have happened and nothingnew would succeed today. Without thisconfrontation between the various anarchisttendencies, the CNT would have no

.fluence on the labour movement or'ternatively it would fall into reformist

trade unionism and the CNT, with itsstrategy, with its content and with itshistory is essentially opposed to reformisttrade unionism. Today there are newanarchists, who are not syndicalists, whoare active in the ANT and their presenceis vital to the life of the CNT.

Many anarchists understand the impor-tance of th is i n t e r n a l d ia lect ic and arcworking with us, others fo not understandit and they do not join the Confederation.It must be added that there is a solelysyndicalist current within the CNT; this Iconsider to be mistaken because it isprecisely the confrontation and thesynthesis between anarchism andsyndicalism that gave birth to the newanarcho-syndicalist mi l i tant .

Q: Are there any specifically anarchistgroups which are not in the CNT?

Edo: There is the Mujeres Libres (FreeWomen) group, which is a young autono-mous group of comrades who workextremely well. At the moment they aregiving practical support and solidarity tothe Roca workers. There is also the libertarianyouth (not yet formed into an organisation)which has enormous potential and which,although not in the CNT, supports its

struggles. Taken as a whole these anarchistor libertarian groups have a strength, bothin numerical terms and in potential forstruggle, that I would say is equal to thatof the CNT, but 1 believe that for a greaterdevelopment of the whole libertarian area,it is necessary for these groups to enterinto this process of confrontation whichI spoke of earlier.

Also there are local libertarian groupswhich for the most part do not belongto the CNT even though they often conducttheir activity in collaboration with it. Thespecifically anarchist movement, therefore,does exist but there is not a specificallyanarchist organisation. There have beenattempts in this direction and several groupshave given themselves an organisationalstructure but they have no influence as anorgnaisation. Among the anarchist militantsin the CNT there are two main streamsof opinion: the first holds that it isnecessary to organise the FAI immediatelyand that the FAI militants should workboth within and outside the CNTpropagandising their ideas, so as to preventthe CNT from sliding into trade-unionismor reformism; the other (to which 1 adhere)holds that at the moment it is not possible,rather it would be a grave historical error,to constitute the FAI through the decisionof a minority of groups or comrades.Therefore 1 believe that the anarchistmilitants must come to some agreementon general terms: on the problem ofstrategy, on the ideological problem andon the problem of relations between the

T?" '> J-J-Jltanarc the CNT. simany militants sustain the absoluteindependence and autonomy of the CNTfrom any organisation, even an anarchistone. Obviously all these problems mustbe discussed and from these discussions thebasis for the reconstitution of the organisationof anarchist groups will be born.

Q: Which are the strongest CNT unions inBarcelona?

Burro: I t depends on what you mean bystrongest - either the number of individualsor the quality of militancy. In numericalterms there are two unions which haveover two hundred militants each: theentertainments syndicate and the textilesyndicate. On the other hand, the mostmi l i t an t unions are the metal workers'union, the school union and the graphic-arts union.

0: And what about local work9

Burro: At the moment we are trying tocreate a federation of local committees.In fact there are groups in the various areasof the city which are not operating on ananarcho-syndicalist level, but on a specificallyanarchist level. Many anarchists are not inthe CNT, and they prefer to concentratetheir activity in the areas in which theylive where there are enormous possibilitiesfor the diffusion of anarchist ideas. Forexample, in the area where I live - SantaColoma de Gramanet — which is a dormitoryquarter, the anarchists are the primepolitical force, both in qualitative and

Peirats com.Forty years of Francoism have

obliterated the past and today it isnecessary to explain everything to Spaniards.Moreover, although Peirats's large historyi < available in Spa in , i ts orice and its greatnumber of pages make preferable a cheaperand clearer presentation, which is in facta summary of the larger work, a digest verywell done and also a true history of Spanishanarchism from 1868.

The presentation adds depth andperspective to all the events, and althoughsince 1962 there have been a lot of studieson many aspects of modern Spain andanarchism, this book remains accurate.For example, the three chapters on self-management which deal with industry, thepoverty and backwardness of the ruralareas and self-managed agricul ture.Ministerial collaboration and the quitecurious transformation of the F.A.I, intoa political party are presented withoutdemagogery. Every page is useful,crammed with material.

Compared with Richard's "Lessonsof the Spanish Revolution", the range isgreater in Peirats, who begins in 1868and ends with the sixties (a page onSeptember 1976). There is the samecritique of deviations; Peirats is not sosharp hut he produces mnrp evidence.Richards interprets more while Peirats

detects a greater division in the attitudesof the rank and file to the leaders. Bothbooks are good and deserve to be read andcompared.

What I appreciate specially is thedescription of the reconstitution of theC.N.T. in 1931 after nine ye«is under-ground, because it compares to the actualsituation today: dissention in someunion' (pp.63, 64), difficulties of goingon strike when the other unions are notready (pp.75, 76). The epilogue isadmirable for its lucidity and self-criticism: nothing was to be hoped fromthe exile and the last page is a salute tothe new generations who are the backboneof the Spanish movement, although animportant minority of the exiles haveachieved much or sacrificed themselves— like Sabate and Facerias - for thesake of Spanish anarchism.

I myself would have emphasised morethe period of 1919-1923, to show thatcapitalism was frightened by the Revolutionand that the coup of 1923 was the logicalconsequence of the repression managedby the Catalan bosses, just as in 1922Mussolini took over the state to avoid anew occupation of the factories. Themilitary importance of the C.N.T., doesnot appear, and we now have CiprianoMera's memoirs and Bolloten's chapterson the Iron Column (not Curtain as p.359)

which gives many examples. But the bookis very interesting and the translation(specially p.358) is more concise than theoriginal.

New fro

.

m Bratach Dubh :"Critique of Syndicalist Methods tradeunionism to anarcho-syndicalism" byAlfredo M. Bonanno with an introductionby Andy McGowan. Bratach DubhAnarchis t pamphlets no.? (48 paces. 30ptfrom: Cienfuegos Press Bookservice, Overthe Water, Sanday, Orkney, U.K.

Cienfuegos Bookservice Notes:

Would comrades please note that thePenguin edition of the B. Travennovel "Rebellion of the Hanged"is now out of print and they have noplans to reprint in ; the immediate future.

The Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review,No. 2, 1977, £1.00 (+20 p p+p) is stillavailable hurry now while stocks 'tost.Issue number 3 is scheduled for Septemberpublication and will be increased from 64to 84 pages ( A4). Make sure of yourcopy now by taking out a C.P. SustainingSubscription which will ensure you acopy of every title published by CienfuegosPress this year (£6.00).

CNT cont.

of co-ordination with other areas and it isfor this reason that we are trying to createa federation of local committees.

Edo: I would like to clarify what 1 toldyou about the CNT breaking with traditionaltrade-unionism. I would like to add thatthere is no organisation which is active bothin the workplaces and peoples homes, thatis to say in the local areas of the city. Weare giving the localities enormous import-ance and we believe that the CNT, if ittruly wishes to become a union composedof all the others, must incorporate bothtvnes of activity. A workers' organisa-tion must not limit itself to purely

- economic activity but must encompassthe whole life of the WQrk0&

Q: The CNT is organised through craftunions. Do you not think that this maylead to excessive specialisation and a typeof struggle which may contain the seedsof corporativism?

*• 'Burro: I personally believe that the CNTought not to have come into being on 29February and 1 believe this for one precisereason: its constitution dates back to 1910and many years have passed since thenand many things have happened. Multi-national companies have come into being,capitalism has developed completely newcharacteristics and therefore we ought tomake sure that the structure adopted bythe CNT is still valid today. And thereforeI believe that this is a very important and

teresting problem for militants to studyorder to see whether today this type of

ition is really revolutionary. I

personally have doubts about this as Ihave found out that many unions are onlycarrying out economic and reformistactivity, whilst it is my belief that theCNT must work on all aspects of everydaylife. We must establish another sncietvand therefore the CNT must be the organisa-tion which contains hi embryonic form thepremises of this new society. But sincethe CNT is structured through craftsyndicates it seems to me that it wouldbe somewhat difficult to get to this state.I belong to the health union and I can saythat this union is in a state of crisisbecause one section of the militantsbelive in being in the CNT in order todefend their economic and professionalinterests, others believe in staying in theCNT in order to construct a new society.These two tendencies have divided theunion into two parallel sections withdifferent objectives. The section 1 belongto believes that a health union, in anorganisation like the CNT which oughtto struggle for social change, is rathernonsensical. Even the name itself israther restrictive, whilst we think it wouldbe much more meaningful to build a"Public Health & Hygiene" union whichvould fight for the kind of preventative

edicine that you don't get from hospitals.In the meantime all our activity is solelyon the level of hospital work. Our activityought to be in the slum areas because it isthere tha t disease is born because of the

Luis Andres Edo is the Co-ordinatingSecretary of the Regional Committee in

After the war he worked in aBarcelona railwafiomcft. hff$47hewasarrested for taking food (it was a time offamine) from a railway wagon. He spenttwo months in prison and lost his job.When called up to serve his "fatherland"he deserted from the army and fled toFrance where he stayed from 1952 to .1966 working in the CNT in exile asSecretary of the Paris Local Federation.In 1966 he returned to Spain and wasarrested in Madrid on a charge of belongingto the CNT (illicit association) and forcarrying arms. Sentenced to nine years,he left prison in 1972 and returned toParis. He came back to Spain in the Springof 1974 and was again arrested, this timein Barcelona, on the same charge and wassentenced to five years. He came out ofprison in June 1976 following Juan Carlos'amnesty.

Luis Burro Molina belongs to the healthunion. He began his activity in 1968 as amilitant in an auton'Miioiis group workinginside the CC.OO. In May 1970 he was

-^arrested lor "illicit asujoauuii and spenta month in prison.JWeanwhHip In Barcelonaseveral anarcho-syndicalist groups werebeing formed and he joined one of these.He participated in the campaign of solidaritywith the M.I.L. prisoners and was againarrested for "illicit association" and forspreading illegal propaganda. He wassentenced to five years and left prison inJune 1976.

From Revista JnarchicavoLvtino. I, trammed by •Giles Todd.

BOOKSSelf-Management. Economic Liberationof Man, edited by Jaroslav Vanek, Penguin,London, 197 5,479pp., £2.00

If we compare this publication which iswritten from a capitalist point of view withthat of the Trotskyist Ernest Mandel,"Controle ouvrier, Conseil ouvriers, Auto-gestion", we find the same adoration forhierarchy and the same attitude to anarchistvision and experiments.

Vanek's study ignores almost wholly therevolutionary concept of the violent seizureof the means of production and his treat-ment although good in parts is generallysuperficial — even from a classical economicviewpoint. But more difficult to accent ishis personal vision of self-management"carried out through an efficient system ofdelegation of authority" (p.14):-- if revocat-ion and rotation are not emphasised thereautomatically follows the creation of aclass of leaders — and "the equalisation ofincome per worker (of equal skill, of course)among industrial branches" (p.35), so thatin Vanek's interpretation of self-manage-ment, an engineer at Fords will maybeearn the same amount as one in mining orin banking.

A last point on Vanek's lack of seriousnesshe says "the Czechoslovakian case was notgiven time to develop enough for us to beable to categorise it exactly now, but therecan be little doubt from the spirit of thereforms that it would have come somewher:under our category, that is, self-manage-ment" (pp. 25, 26). We agree with Vanek;and Spain 1936-1939? Is not it a longerand more profound example of the briefyear of experience granted from the topin Czechoslovakia? (See the French review"Autogestion" 1970, No. ll,p.6)

The article on marxism and self-managfr-ment fails to present the Soviet, Yugoslavand Chinese positions in their polemics onthe Yugoslavian case (for this see the goodstudy by the French anarchist group "Noiret Rouge" and the analysis of Spain, Yugo-slavia and Algeria: "Autogestion, Etat etRevolution").

On Yugoslavia, nobody points out thevariations of laws along the years and theneed of the State to control the excessivefreedom of collectives or to stimulate —with apparent privileges — the low output.

Big news: "Catholic church and workers'participation'*: I supposed the author wasto describe the gunning down of self-man-agement in Spain during the civil war. Notat all: on the contrary, not a word on thefrancoist repression of workers' rights, butan article on the falange-controlled case of"Mondragon: Spain's Oasis of Democracy",which is a city made famous - or infamous -by the assassinations of Basque ETA milit-ants.

G.D. Garson gives an interesting study on"Recent developments in workers' particip-ation in Europe", but what has it to dowith self-management? Another exampleof the editor's confused outlook. Garsonshows that co-management in Germany wasnot created by laws in 1951, but was "tiedto Allied efforts to restructure GermanIndustrial power" (p. 164). So in the sameperiod, 1948-1950, a mariifet system underTito and a capitalist system in Germanygave more phoney rights to workers in

considerable rise inanagement is copied

increasingly in Norway and Denmark.Two other examples of the absurd are

a study on the development of easternand western countries, which is uselessbecause all statistics on the East arefalsified, and a study by P. Blumberg onparticipation which concludes on prisons:"those ... (with) the idea of inmate self-government tend to believe it worthwhile...It creates a situation where staff andinmates are conceived as part of a co-oper-ative unit" (p. 337).

However, a clear study of Israel tells usthat "the average kibbutz has a populationof 400" with a total close to 100,000 in1970, that is 3.6% of Jewish population(of course, there are no Arab kibbutzim).Compared with Spain, it is on a very smallscale.

A clear observation by J.C. Bellas on theUnited States, which we apply to all cases:in a production co-operative "when ownersare interested in maximisation of workerincome at the expense of profit or companysurvival, survival as a co-operative is imposs-ible." "Under their current methods ofoperation, the key of longevity appears tobe in their ability to reach peak operatingefficiency while rejecting over expansion."(pg, 211.212).

1he book ends with a very technicalchapter on economics with mathematicsand graphs, but no mention of strikes,crises or revolutions, wars, or above all,workers' attitudes.Frank Mintz

Anarchists in the Spanish Revolution,Jose Peirats, Solidarity Books, Toronto,1977,400pp, illustrated, £2.35p.

Peirats is known as the author of "LaC.N.T. en la revolucion espanola" in threevolumes (1952; republished 1972), whichis essential reading on the social historyof modern Spain. In 1961, Peiratscontributed a series of articles to theItalian review "Volonta" which werecollected in the book "Breve storia delsindacalismo libertario espagnolo" in1962. These articles were used againfor a Spanish edition in Argentina in1964, with slight modifications, and thisedition — recently published in Spain - isnow available in English.

So Spanish and English readers havethe same text with which to becomeacquainted not only with the history andproblems of anarchist Spain, but alsowith the history and problems of modernSpain. Cont. on previous page

A SYMBOLIC RKPRKSENTAT-1ON OF:

Marxist Politicians Changing theParty LineorLeninists Demonstrating the Prin-ciple of a Workers' StateOfThe Labour Party Defending thePoundorMembers of the AnarchistWorkers Association ExpellingEach Other from the Platform.

" orThe Creation of a New Sectionof the Trotskyist Fourth Inter-nationalorA Fund-Raising Event for Black

ot...(Prizes for all good entries but,please, no references to FreedomPress editorial meetings or PhilipSansom demonstrating his wonder-ful oratorical abilities to youngadmirers.)

"•• "ifftftt-.l. - .-*•

LettersDear Unmade*,

This concerns the "In Memoriam" columncelebrating the heroic act of Herschel Gryns-zpan in assassinating the Nazi vom Rath in1938. It looks as if there was a typesetter'smistake as to the year of his birth. Gryns-zpan was born in 1921, not 1911 (ENCYC-LOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Vol. 7, p.954,Jerusalem: Kcter Publishing House, 1971).He was therefore only 17 years old whenhe shot votii Rath. It is not known when,and if, he died The elaborate show trialplanned for Grynszpan never came off;he seamed to have disappeared in 1942(see Rita Thalmann & Emmanuel Feiner-mann, CRYSTA NIGHT 9-10 NOVEMBER1938, London, Thames & Hudson, 1974).He was sighted - alive! - in Paris in 1957(sec Gerald Reitlinger, THE FINAL SOLUTION, New York, Thomas Yoselof, 1961 -2nd edition, p. 33; and Raoul Hilberg, THEDESTRUCTION OF THE EUROPEANJEWS, Chicago, Quadrangle Books, 1967,p. 655. Both Reitlinger and Hiiberggive the same source for this ccndiixion:Kurt Crossman, "Herschel Gruenspan !cbt!,"AUFBAU, New York, May 10, 1957).

It is interesting to note that Pans was alsothe city where another anti-Semitic tyrant,

mistaken. The strike was essentially aboutthe erosion of the 'differentials' of skilledpersons. Toolroom committee spokes-persons continually emphasised this fact.Far from raising the issue of workers' selfmanagement as your correspondent suggests,the workers were in effect demandingimprovements in the existing managerialstructure (greater efficiency, expertise,competence, etc.) to ensure that theirstatus and privileges as 'aristocrats' oflabour would be safeguarded within a viableand profitable company At no time to my/oiowledge was any attempt made by theworkers to develop the dispute along linesthat promoted self activity and self manage-ment The fundamental need in the Ley-land situation was to develop a unity ofworking people across craft lines andirrespective of skills, on an anarcho-syndic-alist basis. Unfortunately, recognition ofthis need was conspicuous by its absence.The pernicious influence e ~ differentialsfosters major divisions in the working classana facilitates the process of economicexploitation through the mechanism ofthe wages system.

While it is true that the toolroom workerswere antagonistic to their union leadership,it is a little fanciful to portray the strikersas an embryonic 'woikers council'. Tosearch for examples of genuine self activity

felt this was a good issue of Black Flag.Yours in solidarity,Barry Woodling

1) It is just not true that the strike (totally{Misrepresented in tin1 national press) wasabout differentials. It wan not even aboutpay. The press always seeks to distortevery strike attempt and to portray it infalse colours, ro as io denigrate the workers

precisely its it does with revolutionarymovements. However, even if tht strikewere about 'differentials' this is a slantedword invented by journalists (anxiousenough tc maintain their own specialstatus). People naturally want, at least,to keep up with the rise in prices. 4i:ait>srwhat, in j jpitalist society, is the worthoj a job measured? One should measureup, not measure down (and anyway onedoes ill. The "aristocrats"of labour

have their skills to sell, but the 'muscle'fas its miade to sell (and sometimes getsmoicjiir <t in the market? their labourpower is a!! they have to bargain v.'ithat present. Tliat 's pre'ty elementary./; workers' council isn 't something in thedistant future, it's something developedout of the wage struggle; or nothing at allAs the '.«.,< >iakers rejected the tradeunion leadership (for whatever reason)this was the birth of a workers' councilwith the tame significance as the shopis very praiseworthv. nni tc invent its

Petliura, was shot in 1926 - again for encc js an exerdsc in se|f deception. Instead stewards' movement that started i:i thereasons of vengeance. Justice was meted of rejecting leadership per se the strikers first world wir. what it will go on toout to Petliura by Sholem Schwartzbard.Schwartzbard was acquitted Tor his heroicact. (see "S.'ioleni Schwartbard: Memoirsof an Assassin" in Lucy S. Dawidowicz'sTHE GOLDEN TRADITION, New York,Holt. Rinehart & Winston, 1967).

In SolidarityShelby Shapiro

Dear Comrades,I quite enjoyed the latest issue of Black

Flag. A number of the articles were bothinformative and interesting, particularly"Unopened Pages of Working Class History",and "Remember Hull '76". There are justa couple uf points of disagreement howeverthat I would like to mention.

1) "Who Is to Run Industry?" in myopinion contains a number of assumptionsahoit the nature and content of the I,ev-land Too!makers' strike which are completely

expressed their concern at the failure of theunion bureaucracy to provide an effectiveleadership.

2) 'Roun 'n' Aboot" on 'Hikh Living'makes some comments -boat ;iving in towerblocks that cannot be allowed to go unchall-enged. Do people really enjoy living in highrise dwellings in the midst 'ii concrete jungles'"'A close examination of the 'social neuioses'of people subjected to such experiencewould cast serious doubt on this proposition.To house people ;n this mariner is both de-humanising and alienating. The consequencefor families, young children, the old andthe infirm of this style of living are toohorific to contemplate both in physical andpsychological tcims. High rise living is anenvironmental and social disaster andshould be viewed as such.

Notwithstanding these reservations, 1

remains to be seen,2 ' Snme pffiple tin eniov livinz insome tower blocks, (i do. I The press.••'?«• ftti (hrefmined to give municipalHousing J '--id name even when it doesn'tdeserve it. Nobody evtr said that May fairpenthouses were 'concrete jungles ' or"disasters', tews which are reserved forworker: living better than they did. Notall people are old. infirm or have voun#

families ;the whole point was that thespokesman felt it \\>as a revol-

discovery tfiat people shouldnave a choice of whether high rise flats,clean air (,r,o a view should suit them,

\

i'ete and Je.jn Miller are pleased to announcc-ilie arrival of the world's youngest anarchis;,Alexander James, born Leicester 27, 4, 77,

Answers to Quiz:

1. Walt Disney, born into a socialistfamily, learned the art of cartooning bycontributing to revolutionary papers beforehis talents attracted the eye of the filmpeople, leading him to fame, fortune andspiritual bankruptcy.2. Only that the Soviet Military IntelligenceGRU (Razvedupr) has its headquarters inKropotkin Square, Moscow - but It wasnamed after one of the family, In Tsaristtimes, not after the rebel.3. The term chauvinist for an enthusiasticpatriot came from Chauvin, a typicalNapoleonic veteran full of pride for theold days of military glory though cut to

pieces and, among other disabilities, likemany over bold old soldiers, was physicallyincapable any longer of male sexualarrogance.4. The theory that further reforms to thesystem are Impossible - that capitalismhas granted all the reforms it can and wehad reached more or less its limits; theonly advance was by revolution. TheImnosslhilists (an offshoot was the SPGB)tended to rationalise away the role of theState and thus the possibility of renewedoppression even if capitalism decayed.5. Though all subscribing to the perennialmyth that "youth" was going to make anew world free from the past etc., etc.,between a century and a century-and-a-

half ago - the Young Turks believed inthe regencrJtioi. 01 their country bymodernisation, Westernisation ar.cl capitalum;Young England was a dream of a unionbetween the Tory landowning aristocracyand the industrial workers (who werebeing oppressed by the capitalists, thenLiberals); Young Germany was a beliefin nationalist republicanism, but withsocialist tinges; Young Ireland was anattempt to relieve religious disabilities andintroduce landowning anJ democraticreforms - it did not go o far as republic-anism; Young I ta ly was anti-clerical,socialist and republican.6. If there was anarchy there would beno united kinfidom.

• to J. CarterMr. James Carter, President,White House1600 Pennsylvania AvenueWashington D.C. 20500.

Mr. President,Due to your recent stand on humanrights, I want to call your attention tothe wholesale violation of human rightshere at the United States Penitentiary,Marion, Illinois.

There is a prison within a prison herecalled the long-term control unit. It hasbecome known throughout the world asthe "notorious" H-Unit. Prisoners aresent here from all across the United Statesto undergo behavioral modificationtreatment. Any prisoners who refuseto accept the dehumanising prison system,and who speak out through the courts ofthe news media are likely candidates forthe long term control unit.

At the present time, there are 47prisoners confined here. 27 Blacks, 4Chicanes, 16 Whites. The place is dividedinto two units. One unit houses 11 Whites,3 Blacks and 1 Chicano. This is called theworking section. Here the men areallowed out of their cages four hours to

rk and four hours for television andr benefits. Section two houses 24

Blacks, 3 Chicanes and 5 Whites. Theyremain in their cages for 2354 hours daily.

The treatment programme in theunit consists of: physical beatings with"baseball bats, forced druggings, mentaltorture, restrictive diet. Prisoners areused as guinea pigs for untested controlmethods and mind-depressing drugs. Therehave been numerous suicides.

The prisoners are given the barestminimum of required calories to sustainhuman life. Prisoners complain of foodbeing laced with foreign matter, fromground glass to human faeces and urine.In a recent news report, the U.S. Bureauof Prisons admitted that prisoners wereon a restrictive diet, had been drugged,beaten, and that guards kept a containerof urine which they used to douse •prisoners with. They maintain that thisplace is necessary.

The Bureau of Prisons and WardenJames Riggsby contend that H-unit is

: • ' , . ' •' ' ' ' ' •'-. •' ' -•• ' -

used to house "the most dangerous menin America." Listed below is a profile ofthe "most dangerous men in America."

Ismail Muslim Ali (LaBeet) has beenin the control unti for 13 months. Reason?"Out of place." He was in an unassignedarea, talking to some of his friends. Meis a Muslim.

Andrew D. Kelly has been in the controlunit on indefinite status - 5 months so far.Reason? "Insolence to a white guard."

Randolph B. Peoples has been in thecontrol unit since October 1976. Reason?"Refusing to obey an order."

Eddie Griffin, chairman of the BlackCultural Society, has been in the controlunit for six months. Reason? Hereceived a letter from the Free Worldasking all prisoners to boycott 4th of Julyevents.

George Blue, a chairman of the NationalPrisoners Association, has been in the controlunit since May 21,1976. Reason?"Unauthorised use of mail." He put aletter to the warden in the wrong mailbox.

Donovan B.X. Gilliam has been incontrol units since June, 1974. Reason?"Verbally threatened an officer." He isa Muslim.

Milton Raines has been in the ccunit since January, 1977. Reason?"Suspicion of having a knife and a ;history of insolence to staff."

* Spencer Chuutjhas been in control•mits since October, 1976. Reason?

*, _. abazz (Gereau) has been in

the control unit since May, 1974. Reason?"A fist fight." He is a Muslim.

Lawrence Bey has been in the controlunit since April, 1976. Reason? 900 ,prisoners staged a peaceful work stoppage.He was the only one put into the controlunit. He is a Muslim.

Steve Wooden has been in the controlunit since October, 1976. Reason?"Assaulting another prisoner." Sincethen, another prisoner has confessed tothis deed. Wooden was found guiltybecause of his hostile attitude and his size!

James Watson has been in the controlunit sonce December, 1976. Reason?"Encouraging a boycott." He is a memberof the Black Cultural Society.

Mr. President, the above are the "mostdangerous black men in America." Theyhave committed "terrible" rule violationsto earn this label from the Warden andthe Bureau of Prisons Eight other Blacksare charged with some type of assault. 5are on a variet of lesser charges. 2 Chicanosand 2 Blacks are charged with murder. 1Chicano was charged with assault. Of the16 Whites, most were charged with escape:4 are charged with assault. No Whites werecharged with ''insolence", putting letters inthe wrong mailbox, being out of place, orrefusing to obey an order.

There is a strong implication of political,religious and racist motives by the Wardenand Bureau of Prisons behind these 12 menwho were labelled "dangerous." The Bureauof Prisons, in a very racist statement,claimed that Blacks were more violence-prone than Whites. Yet there is documentedproof that a large number of Whites weretried for murder and assault; none,however, were placed in the control unit.Instead, they were transferred to otherprisons.

Mr. President, on March 18, 1977,days after you addressed the U.N. onhuman rights, the Bureau of Prisons bannedall Communist newspapers, as well as "TheProgressive," one of the oldest magazinesin the U.S. Reason? "This publicationis being rejected by this institutionbecause it has a tendency to glorifyproblem inmates, homosexuals and prisonunions which have been a problem toinmates and staff in the security and goodorderly running of these institutions."This is reminiscent of the Nazi bookburning and cleansing of the libraries.All these papers, as well as "TheProgressive" had printed stories or editorialsabout the control unit at one time oranother.

In closing, 1 wish to say that I hopeyou will show the same concern for ourrights as you did for Vladimir Bukovskyand Andrei Sakharov. Thank you.

George Blue 27559-138P.O. Box 1000U.S. Concentration Camp,Marion, Illinois 62959.

Are you interested in European Languaxes, AirPhoto-Interpretation or Counter Intelligence inyour spare time? \Ve deal with these subjects,travel to Europe.. . and are paid for doing it,THE INTELLIGENCE AND SFCURITY GROUP(Volunteers) is part of the Territorial & Arm;Volunteer Reserve. We an- looking for youngmen between 18 and 30 who live or work in thefollowing areas:LONDON - 01-435 9660BIRMINGHAM - 021-444 2730EDINBURGH - 031-5569983Why not telephone for further information, with-out any obligation? And perhaps arrange anexploratory talk, still without obligation?

Military Intelligence?The advert on the left is not a joke. It appeared in the April/May issue of the Open Universitymagazine, Sesame, and was brought to the attention of Undercurrents, the radical alternativetechnology magazine. Believing it to be some sort of hoax an Undercurrents reporter phonedthe London number to be told that further details would be forwarded to the caller togetherwith an application form which was to be returned to the H.Q. of the T.A.V.R. Intelligenceand Security Group at 1 Fitzjohn's Avenue, Hampstead. Would any aspiring Kim Philbys'in the anarchist movement please keep us informed through the usual channels (i.e. the class-ified ad section of Black l-'lag). Also, please remember that the Orkney Islands don't accept

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