'WHAT is history but a tale agreed ироп?' said (I think)
Bonaparte. There Sure UNO. facts. Tony Benn's CUIsC, count of the development of the Mobilising Committee Jor Labour would be less of a 'tale' like the actual history if he had a clearer grasp of the facts.
In his interview with Pat Kane and Hugh Richards (25 Sept) he says: 'All of a sudden, much to my surprise, there was the the deveoomen Committee... When the Militant tendency came in to the Mobilising Committee all of a sudden began to come alive.
account bears resemblance to the reality. sron ine jact inal ine Moolsing Committee did not die when Militant joined, it is the opposite of the truth.
The facts: Militant's involvethe first ment came after Committee was launched. ас- been formal tokenistic to the point _of being nominal involvement.
Democracy ple: Militant took 50 of the first and more broadsheet -of UrSUlACN 17000). broadsheet (which carried an article and very LPYS, completee Militant, took 200 copies Mobilising first, none of the second. Less than the ordered by Militant supporters in the provinces; none, know, of the second.
Apart The paper Militant has only had occasional lukewarm articles the Mobilising Militant has nol been prominently in organising the local Mobilising tion); It has bevolvement, In short, ror exam.
about one for each and just enough (l olal sale:
It took 75 of the second people). The Mobilising dominated nv tribution was occult first broadsheet were do and say.
Uj course the Mobilising embodiment Committee. involved short of resources. meetings (with perhaps one excepplaces it has not been involved at all, even to the extent of its people turning up.
Militant involved itself just enough to keep contact with the "Tribunite/Bennite Left' activity"
O LOo its sup- the soccEric Committee WOTA for that k unless Benn thinks Militant has an influence labour movement irrespective of what its members and publications Militant's formal support has added to the appeal of Committee as the socialist of •united left, which is something, I suppose. But it is not much. And Militant is not Strange also is Tony Benn's choice of the Socialist Campaign Labour Victory (and Women's Fightback, which it initiated) to illustrate his perception that there has been a 'great splinter and the Labour Party. The SCL V initiated Mobilising _Committee and, the the Campaign Labour Party Democracy, "carried' the major weight of its uniting and organising work, both at the centre of the campaign and inrougnoul ine country But comrade Benn or his advisors may just have noticed that the SCLV forms the revolutionary wing of the Mobilising committee...
JOHN O'MAHONY (SCLV Steering Committee)
Not take sides in tne wran.
the workers ano melr alfe BOTT regimes establist peasants overuren. DOTER countries. The demo.
cratic demand for tional self-determinatior part 1081 fight against Khomeini and the Baathists.
Minority !f US or other imperialist forces wivdde Hran MARYISTR would fight against them would only reinforce oresenu SOCIeT strengthen the hold of reactionary the masses. But the demand TO Ine right of self-determination for tional minorities would sul stanle LF HOLLEY, Bath Socialist Challenge seem pretty lame - thus demand ontlen of NATO' is not put forward If my interpretation of Protest and right, I think that should criticise its orientation waaie-cias.
OGr8OnAGS Instand seing the need to use in. dustiral and mass action to force governments abandon nuclear weapons.
LES HARTOP, Coventry