IN THE debate on Afghanistan your letters page has been littered with quotes from Trotsky and attempts to find an historical analogy, ranging from the Red Army occupation of Georgia in 1921 to the invasion of Finland in 1939.
Some comrades reading Trotsky's writings on Finland have wrongly concluded that the central issue in relation to Afghanistan is the defence of the Soviet Union. Most of the quotes from Trotsky are presented by those who oppose calling for the withdrawal of the Red Army.
Gus Fagan (13 March) makes a valiant attempt to counter this line by producing an 'historical example' of his own:
International called for the withdrawal of Soviet Troops from Eastern Europe after 1945 despite the fact that the Red Army actions against the capitalists and the landlords temporarily coincided with the interests of the workers'. Apart from the fact that the Fourth International might have been mistaken, Gus simply joins in with the wrong method of argument, which relies on a search for an 'historical example'.
Revolutionary socialists have a different starting point — a concrete analysis or me worla ponucal situation. The Soviet invasion of Finland took place on the eve of world war; the Soviet occupation of Europe in its aftermath — both very different world political situations.
As any comrade can see, we are not in the middle of revolutionary upheavals provoked by the ravages of world war; neither are we on the eve of World War III. The immediate aim of Carter's war-drive is not an assault on the Soviet Union in order to provoke world war. Rather, it is an attempt to mobilise disturbed that SC (6 March) did not even appear to know about International Women's Day. It didn't exactly make the paper easy to sell on the women's march, you know. In fact, it didn't make me feel very much like even trying to sell And while I'm on the subject of SC's attitude to women, I didn't like the treatment of Brenda Parry's anti-strike 'march' in the same issue. Her group of misguided women was described as being 'like a shopping expedition'. When was a group of men, strike-breakers or not, ever described as being like a shopping expedition? This sort of cheap jibe is simply not acceptable in a socialist newspaper.
We need to understand why it is that many women, isolated in the STERN RIGHTEOUS!
Rights' contingent.
the organisation of such a and showed one way of fighting labour movement.
the way the SERTUC Women's built we should discuss such for women's liberation.
SARAH ROELOFS. London W10 Unfair on the Region TUC's 'Fight For Women's Given that NAC members who were collecting and leafletting were subjected to sexist abuse, I feel that contingent was extremely important sexism and taking feminism into the If we have disagreements with Rights contingent was organised and criticisms openly. The fact remains that the initiation of the contingent was a step forward — however small reformists. particular debate also allows the organised left to set those comrades up as 'straw' anti-Leninists in order to knock them down with reiterations of the correctness of Lenin's theories about the revolutionary party - which is not the issue Hilary raises.
Hilary Wainwright in particular has consistently argued for the ideas raised in Beyond the Fragments to be debated in a revolutionary context. She also confirmed this approach at the "Debate' when she clearly, and almost exclusively attacked - as did Tariq and Paul Foot — the policies of the MARIE McADAM, Harrow PAT MASTERS, London N5 • LIKE SNATCHING OLD HANDBACS! this regime was the assassination attempt on Dr Rahmatullah Hossein-Bor, a prominent political leader of the people of Baluchistan.
As a student at Bradford University, Dr Hossein-Bor was a consistent activist in exposing the Shah's regime. He pursued his revolutionary activities after returning home in 1977 and was subsequently harassed and persecuted by the Shah's secret police SAVAK. After the downfall of the Shah, he continued his ceaseless struggle to win the democratic demands of the people of Baluchistan.
On 7 March, the local 'Islamic Revolutionary Guards' tried to assassinate him by riddling his body with six bullets. But fortunately, he survived and is now in hospital in Tehran.