Re: Antifascism, Militant/ Re: Challenge to Cockshott

[wdrb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

On the big London Poll Tax riot:

my impression was that there were at least 100,000
there that day. I've been on dozens of big London
marches and in loads of big football crowds.
I don't think I'm exagerating the numbers.
The rioting started about 2pm outside
the entrance to Downing Street
with Whitehall and Trafalgar Square
packed with demonstrators.

The demonstrators were a cross section
of the working class. You cannot
devide them into a small number of middle
class anarchists and a mass of 'ordinary
workers' being 'led' by a militant
leadership. That is a ludicrous misrepresentation.
Much of the crowd was very working class.
All were angry and determined. The rioting
went on all afternoon with fighting
in Trafalgar Square and into the evening
with the West End in the hands of the rioters
until midnite and selective attacks and looting
of rich peoples shops and cars and clubs.

The whole crowd supported the rioting
and as with all riots peoples participation
varied from very brave hand to hand fighting with
the police to less brave or physical people
(like me) shouting and chanting. But theres
was no doubt in my mind where the feelings
of the crowd lay.

And the riot rocked Britain. Imagine
half a million people rioting around the
Whitehouse for 12 hours out of the control
of the police. Has that ever happened?

And (if my memory serves) Strangeways
prison in Manchester erupted that
night in the bitterest prison riot
in the UK this century.

Of course Thatcher was bought down by the whole
campaign, the hundres (perhaps thosands)
that went to jail, the riots and violent
protest in towns and cities throughout the country
and the millions who refused to pay.

But I can remember with absolute vividness
standing on top of a builders porta-cabin
in the afternoon in Whitehall watching a major
riot developing and knowing for certain that
Thatcher was finished.

As the good class struggler you are Jeff,
if you'd have been there you'd have a different
view of it than the one you have which seems to me
to be a story designed to emphasise the importance
of Militant at the expense of what happened.

Theres lots of very militant and very brave working
class people in britain, only a small proportion
have ever been in any trot vanguard party.
And anarchist ish militant culture and attitudes
are very strong in popular youth culture.

Punk was massive in the UK. Punks didn't join
Militant or the SWP. The people on the poll tax
riot were a whole mix of labour, trade unionists,
.....
to divide it into politically innocent workers
needing leadership, worthy Militant leaders,
middle class anarchist wankers might help
your world view but it doesn't bare
much relation to what was there.

Will Brown  Bristol  England


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