Up The Revolution!

As its election day here and everybody’s thoughts and blogs have turned to politics I thought I would follow up Watski’s blog and our syncronisitous mentioning of Robert Tressells book ‘The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist.’ (Go on read it). We also made reference to The Socialist Worker which is, for our foreign readers, a political newspaper that follows (for the purist) a strictly Trotskyist line, you know the one, the revolutions not over till the fat bourgeois sing!

Yes the Socialist Sun, as it is well known as, preaches revolution and I for one would recommend it (as I do to my OU students) if only to balance out the right wing rubbish that one can read in the Daily Mail, Express and other so called ‘news’ papers. It’s a refreshing sort of read and is a sight more interesting than Radio Moscow was when I used to listen to it in the 1970’s with its endless lists of which tractor factory had doubled its output and how the capitalist running dogs of imperialism (hello America!) were creating mayhem in the glorious Soviet republic of North Vietnam. I think I used to fall asleep I mean it can’t all have been lists of successful factories and attacks on the Americans, can it?

Anyway the crux of this blog and the story I am going to tell is about the Poll Tax Riot of March 31st 1990 which turned into one of the biggest riots ever seen in central London. Now at the time I was not only a member of the Labour party but I was also an elected member of Plymouth City Council. Being an elected member meant that you could not be in arrears with your Poll Tax according to Section 106 of the Local Government Act which was passed by the Thatcher Govt to put a stop to our ‘Loony Left activities. So obviously being a regular reader of the Socialist Sun and a fully paid up member of the ‘loony left’ I was in arrears and was summarily charged by the Police, along with 11 other of my colleagues and one Tory councillor for being in breach of section 106 . Yes the Tory who had grassed us to the Police never thought they would get one of their own. Anyway to cut a long story short 10 of us were acquitted including the Tory and the case went on to the High Court.

This then outlines my commitment and opposition to the Poll Tax and as a councillor, I also supported people in Plymouth who were having their doors burst open by the bailiffs seizing goods from these poor people’s homes to pay their Tax (Thatcher was a wicked witch).

Now my cousin, who I believe is also soon to become a Dr. Rob, was at that time very active in the Socialist Workers Party in one of the peoples republics of London, he had an official position in the local party and I believe his girlfriend of the time was the treasurer of the party. He was always encouraging me to leave the labour party and go with the SWP. Anyway come the big day of the rally in London to protest against the injustice of the Poll Tax.

We drove up, picking up some friends on the way who were members of the Communist Party of GB and we were all looking forward to a nice stroll around the City of London. We were all veteran protestors, and had been in London on many many marches, CND, Anti Aparthied and so on. We joined the march on the embankment as usual and the tens of thousands of people started to wend their way towards Trafalgar Square.

It was a nice day as I remember it; the march was full of ordinary people making their protest heard, mums and dads with kids, pushchairs, not just the usual politically motivated protesters.

Then we got to Whitehall and soon were in the vicinity of 10 Downing St. By this time Downing St had been blocked off by the high security fence you see now.. When I was a child on holiday in London, we had walked down Downing St and done what many people had done before, had their picture taken outside of No 10. No so in the late Seventies, Thatcher had put up the barricades. As we got near to Downing St the march stalled and some people attempted to sit down and stop the march outside the barricades. Soon the Police started to turn up with loud hailers to get people moving, I started to see figures with black balaclavas on run through the crowds and as I turned to look down the road I could see mounted police starting their way towards us.

I suggested to our friends that we should start moving on up towards Trafalgar Sq, as we did we had two stop two elderly American Tourists from proceeding down towards Downing St and turned them back towards Trafalgar Sq. As we moved up Whitehall, we could see the Mounted Police and behind them the Territorials, the Riot Police, with their long truncheons, helmets and shields starting to force people up the road towards Trafalgar Sq.

Seeing this My wife, myself and friends dived down a lane off Whitehall but it was a dead end. But there were loads of families down there with prams and such, by this time things had started to turn ugly in the streets, so we all dived under two large telecom lorries that had been parked there.

Soon the territorials came down the lane and made us get out from under the lorries and to move back into Whitehall, they forced us to move, women children, mothers with pushchairs by beating us with their shields, we didn’t want to go out. When we got to the lane end looking out into Whitehall with Trafalgar sq to our right it was like World War Three. Police and demonstrators were fighting, bottles, trash, metal barriers, all sorts we’re flying through the air. There were bodies on the ground, some guy was being beaten by two or three coppers in front of us, it was terrifying.

The territorials told us to go and move into Trafalgar Sq to the right, but to do that was death, so we ran across the street, to be stopped by more Police, who asked us where we were going, we told them we were told to come this way, in this way we were able to escape the mayhem of Trafalgar Sq and walk back the way we came down Whitehall. We passed one woman who looked to me like she was dead. We were the only four people walking away from the Sq, down Whitehall.

Later I spoke to my cousin, the Socialist Worker and asked him if he was at the riot, as I expected that the SWP would be in the thick of it. He said No, he and his mates spent the afternoon in the pub! His girlfriend the SWP treasurer, an afternoon at the pictures.

I tell you, come the glorious day of the revolution; the SWP will not be in the Vanguard of the Proletariat, why not? Because they will be in the bloody pub just talking about the revolution!

No comrades, Revolution is made on the streets by the people for the people!

Viva la Revolution! As some bearded guy on a tee shirt once said.