THE BULLETIN OF LONDON CLASS WAR
APRIL 2004
LONDON CLASS WAR, PO BOX 467, LONDON E8 3QX
www.londonclasswar.org
 classwaruk@hotmail.com

**CAPS WILKO'S PICKET**
This Saturday, April 24
Wilkinson's, The Broadway, Stratford - nearest tube/br: Stratford
12.30 - 2pm

ISSUE 86 OUT NOW!
Get your copy now from the London address!

MAYDAY!
Mayday this year is famously not in London! We're going to Barnsley - for the Yorkshire Miners' Gala, and Dublin, for the anti-EU festivities. Although it's disappointing that the annual anarchist street fun and games won't be taking place in London this year, replaced by a picnic and anarchist cricket - as well as the annual TUC march - the dwindling attendance left it struggling last year. With the G8 to look forward to next year, we hope that people going to Dublin will forge new links and make new friendships which will help to make the showcase anarchist event of 2005 a resounding success.
Although the Miners' Gala is likely to prove a more relaxing day out than the exercise people will get in Dublin, it's the 20th anniversary of the Miners' Strike this year. If you can't go to Dublin and fancy a weekend in Yorkshire - or even a day-trip - why not spend your Mayday with us in Locke Park, Barnsley?
Of course, for people staying in London, there's always the chance of an unlawful arrest at the most heavily policed picnic London's ever seen!
Whatever you're doing, have a good one on Mayday!

NEW ANTIFASCIST GROUP LAUNCHED
Antifa, a new anti-fascist group, was launched recently. From the Antifa launch statement:
Antifa is a collective of militant anti-fascists committed to opposing the rise of the far-right in Britain and abroad. We believe in the 'no platform' philosophy and the tradition of fighting fascism and racism stretching back to Cable Street, Red Lion Square, Lewisham and Waterloo. We are a network of various organisations and individuals who see anti-fascism as part of the class struggle. After decades of underperforming, the far-right now poses a significant threat politically. This initiative aims to bring together those who wish to act rather than talk. We aim to oppose the far-right's electoral politics and - where possible - do so by means of direct action. As well as street activities, we aim to promote militant anti-fascism in the football and music areas.
The Antifa website - www.antifa.org.uk - will serve as an information and activity site where we will post up intelligence on far-right activities - and we invite other anti-fascists to join us in our activities.
Some of the groups supporting the Antifa initiative are the Anarchist Federation, the Class War Federation, No Platform and the Solidarity Federation.
Although we come from the anarchist tradition, we are open to work with any group or individual serious about militant anti-fascism. We will NOT, though, work with any state affiliated groups.
If you are interested in getting involved, please contact Antifa via email -  info@antifa.org.uk - or via post - c/o 84b Whitechapel High St, London E1 7QX.

LUCY PARSONS HARRASSED BY POLICE - FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE!
Word reaches us from Chicago of a storm brewing over the naming of a park after Lucy Parsons, who coined the phrase "Behold your future executioners".
Lucy Parsons died 62 years ago, but the controversy over her life rages on over a plot of land at 4712 W. Belmont Ave.
That's the site of a proposed small park the Chicago Park District wants to name after Parsons, a Chicago labor organizer who for a time called herself an anarchist.
But Mark Donahue, president of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, strongly opposes that idea. No doubt the execution of Parsons' husband, Albert, in the Haymarket Riot that left eight police officers dead caught his attention.
But historians say Albert Parsons wasn't guilty and neither he nor his wife were at the riot.
Mayor Richard Daley backs naming the park after Parsons, an African-American with Native American and Mexican blood who continued to be a force in the labor movement until her death in 1942.
Nevertheless, Charles Paidock, a local labor representative, is miffed at the tiff.
"I've represented a lot of people over the years, but never anyone for an alleged incident 100 years ago," he said, speaking on behalf of Parsons at a Park District meeting last week.
And Bob Matter, who also spoke on behalf of Parsons, noted the woman was harassed by Chicago police in her lifetime.
"She was continually shut down by the Chicago Police Department her whole life when she tried to speak," he said. "Now, the Chicago police are trying to shut the memory of her down.

**REVIEWS**
"Violent London: 2,000 Years of Riots, Rebels and Revolts", Clive Bloom.
Pan Books, £9.99

This book has been out in hardback for quite a while. The reason we've not reviewed it before is that we were unable to find a member prepared to part with a score for a crock. Looking at the quotes on the back, one can see that Violent London is the product of some manner of liberal lefty: "Bloom's viewpoint is nicely balanced, critical of government and especially of the police but not unreasonably so, and not too passionately keen that the rebels should win every time" (Times Literary Supplement). That on its own is not enough to condemn this book as a great disappointment: the contents do that well enough without assistance.
What first struck me as peculiar about Violent London is that its author is Professor of English and American Studies at Middlesex University. His previous works include titles such as Gothic Horror: A Reader's Guide from Poe to King and Beyond and Bestsellers: Popular Fiction Since 1900. Why has he strayed so far from his subject? I always feel wary of people who are well-known for writing one sort of book, but then venture into a field they know little of. Sometimes the results are wonderful: but more often they turn out like Violent London, an interesting enough book about a fascinating subject, but a book which leaves one with the impression that the author has greatly struggled.
There are significant omissions too. Although there are a few pages on Cable Street, there is little about anti-fascism since the war. Though the ANL (Mk I) gets a few mentions, there is nothing about AFA, the 43 Group, Welling or Waterloo - or the ANL Mk II. It's perhaps one thing to be unaware of the 42 Group (though unlikely: it's not many years since the 43 Group book came out) - but to have missed events like Waterloo in '92 or Welling the following year beggars belief. Equally, there is nothing about Irish protests, like the Bloody Sunday march when hundreds of fascists were arrested.
More strangely, in the preface Bloom refers to "the story unfolding" in "Smithfield, Clerkenwell Green, Hyde Park, Trafalgar Square and the streets and alleys of Whitechapel, Brixton, Dalston or Broadwater Farm". Dalston, despite the fighting there when Mosley came to speak in the early '60s, receives no further mention in the book.
In his acknowledgements, Bloom nicely thanks Class War for permission to quote from our website. MA'M extended the same generosity. However, Bloom's mentions of Class War are both complimentary - "The three main groups that have emerged as the coordinating backbone of the anarchist movement are the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), Class War and Reclaim the Streets (RTS)." (which on rereading it sounds very much like a backhanded compliment) - to rather savage and insulting attacks: "[Class War's] general credo was little more than a poorly restated (and unacknowledged) nineteenth-century Bakuninist socialism lacking the sophistication of mainstream Marxism but retaining the excitement of anarchist spontaneous revolution". Eh? He also puts the boot into us (and the ALF) by highlighting former members' previous association with fascism. The 'Keep It Spikey' leaflet gets a quick mention: but Bloom really doesn't have a clue what he's talking about when it comes to Class War or MA'M.
Violent London should be a really good book; and it is an interesting read. However, when he gets on to talking about events I know well I am left disappointed. It's worth borrowing from a library or shoplifting - or maybe getting secondhand. But it isn't worth a tenner. 2/5


"Stakeknife: Britain's Secret Agents in Ireland", Martin Ingram & Greg Harkin
O'Brien Press, £8.99
Stakeknife is a very interesting, readable book by a former member of the Army's Force Research Unit and a journalist for the People. I'm not sure precisely why I feel uneasy about the book - it makes a damning case against Alfredo Scappaticci and provides interesting evidence about the activities of touts in the Six Counties which seem to hold together. Perhaps the cause of my unease is a distrust of anything emanating from members (former or otherwise) of intelligence services, and my antipathy to journalists. Be that as it may, it's surprising that (in England, at least) the Stakeknife story has essentially vanished from sight. The crown forces' use of touts - and their criminal activities - make fascinating reading, and I feel that Stakeknife is a valuable addition to a library about Ireland, sitting perhaps beside Fred Hoyle's War Without Honour. 4/5


"John Zerzan and the Primitive Confusion", Boomerang #10
CHRONOS Publications, £2.50 (inc. p&p from CHRONOS Publications, BM CHRONOS, London WC1N 3XX)
This short pamphlet (29 pages) is a valuable examination of John Zerzan's method in Zerzan's book Future Primitive. From the looks of it, Zerzan's method was more than a little flawed, being nothing more than fitting flesh on the bones of his assumed conclusion. Zerzan, it's asserted, ignores evidence he's well aware of, when it does not fit the conclusions he determined before writing Future Primitive. Recent primitivist articles in Freedom make this reprint of John Zerzan and the Primitivist Confusion one of those rare publications which can genuinely be described as timely. 4/5


REMEMBERING THE PAST - ANNIVERSARIES FOR APRIL

1: 1549 -- Diggers occupy St. George's Hill, near Cobham, Surrey, seizing land to hold in common & to plant.
2: 1851 -- Joseph Lane (1851-1920), British anarchist, born.
3: 1969 -- US: 7,000 Illinois National Guardsmen mobilized to quell a wave of shooting, stoning & looting that broke out in black neighborhoods of Chicago in response to police brutality.
4: The Clash by the Clash released.
5: 1531 -- Richard Roose boiled to death for trying to poison an archbishop.
6: 1878 -- Germany: Erich Muhsam, poet & anarchist militant, lives, Berlin. Killed by the Nazis during the night of July 9 / 10, 1934 (Orianenburg Concentration Camp).
7: 1926 -- Italy: The first of several attempts to assassinate Benito Mussolini is made (by an Englishwoman, Violet Gibson; Mussolini is slightly injured).
8: 1966 - US: Last poll tax outlawed by Federal courts.
9: 1927 -- US: Massachusetts: Death sentences for Nicolas Sacco & Bartolomeo Vanzetti are upheld.
10: 1981 -- Ireland: Imprisoned IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands elected to British Parliament during the 6th week of his hunger strike.
11: 1938 -- US: Richard Whitney, five-term president of the New York Stock Exchange, is sentenced to 5 to 10 years in prison for grand larceny.
12: 1918 -- Russia: Moscow headquarters of the anarchists surrounded & attacked by Bolshevik troops.
13: 1570: Guy Fawkes born.
14: 1968 -- West Germany: 4,000 anti-Vietnam War student protesters battle police in West Berlin.
15: 1902 -- Russia: In a general uprising, with riot, arson & peasant plunder of estates, Sipyengin, the Russian head of the secret police, is assassinated.
16: 1922 -- US: First sermon preached from an airplane. Ranks up there with dropping cows from an airplane but not so exciting.
17: 1959 -- US: 22 arrested in Times Square for refusing to take part in civil defense drill, New York City.
18: 1968 -- US: Army concedes that nerve gas sprayed from planes, burned in pits, & released from 155mm shells at its Dugway Proving Ground is responsible for the death of at least 6,400 Utah sheep.
19: 1993 -- US: Whacko Federal agents attack whacko Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, whacking or incinerating over 80 women, men, & children.
20: 1969 -- US: The LA Free Festival in Venice, California ends in violence before it begins with lots hurt & 117 arrested. Trouble starts when police chase a youth through the crowd on the beach. When they cuff him, the crowd starts chanting "Pig, pig, pig!" A riot ensues & none of the bands scheduled to play appear.
21: 1913 -- France: Andre Soudy, member of the anarchist Bonnot Gang, is executed.
22: 1873 -- France: Luigi Lucheni lives. An adherent of "propaganda by the deed," he killed the Empress Elisabeth of Austria.
23: 1918 -- Ireland: General Strike ends conscription of Irishmen into British army during WWI.
24: 1972 -- A 15-year-old plants a home-made bomb at police HQ, Sleaford, Lancs.
25: 1993 -- US: Over one million march in Washington, D.C., for gay, lesbian, bisexual, & transgender rights.
26: 1968 -- Germany: Photomontage pioneer and anti-fascist artist John Heartfield dies, East Berlin, East Germany.
27: 1937 -- US: Social Security system makes its first benefit payment.
28: 1912 -- France: Jules Bonnot, French illegalist gang leader, killed in police shootout.
29: 1916 - Ireland: The Easter Rising ends as Patrick Pearse and the Volunteers surrender to British in Dublin.
30: 1883 -- Jaroslav Ha_ek born (1883-1923), Prague. Czech novelist, anarchist, author of comic novel "The Good Soldier Svejk".
--COMPILED BY THE CLASS WAR HISTORIAN


**DIARY DATES**
Saturday 24 April: Campaign Against Prison Slavery picket of Wilkinson's, The Broadway, Stratford. 12.30-2pm. Stratford tube/BR.
Saturday 1 May: Yorkshire Miners' Gala, Lock Park, Barnsley.
Saturday 1 May: Lots of stuff in Dublin
Saturday 1 May: Picnic in Hyde Park
Sunday 8 May: London Class War meeting. Contact your local member for details!
Saturday 15 May: Wolfe Tone Society James Connolly/Bobby Sands Commemoration. March in central London. No details at time of writing, phone 020 8442 8778 or visit www.wolfetone.org for information.
Tuesday May 18, STWC (!!) picket against George Bush Sr., 4.30-6.30pm, Landmark Hotel, 222 Marylebone Road, London NW1. Nearest tube Marylebone, Bakerloo Line. Although a trot do, should be some fun and games that night.