06.03.1997

No more Coronation Street

Party notes

On International Working Women’s Day, this paper sends revolutionary greetings to working class and progressive women everywhere.

The fight for women’s liberation is a central democratic question in contemporary society, a key element of the struggle for working class political hegemony. It is a sad measure of the degeneration of proletarian politics that today this pivotal question is monopolised almost exclusively by the feminists - to the extent that it is mentioned at all.

The left’s lack of seriousness on the issue finds reflection in the low numbers of women actively involved in revolutionary politics, particularly in leading positions. This impoverishes us tremendously. Women fighters won to the cause tend to make better revolutionaries than men, in my opinion. They are more patient, mature and responsible workers in the movement. They are less prone to flatulent heroics, but are ‘hard’ nevertheless. Their prime concern is apt to be the work, not the status or the privileges that attend it.

As an organisation, we must also be self-critical. We emerged out of ‘official communism’ demographically and culturally a very male environment. In the early days of The Leninist, forerunner of the Weekly Worker, we therefore resolved that every issue must carry at least one article on women, as well as one on Ireland. Our formal recognition of the importance of the question was not matched in practice however, as a flick through our early back issues will underline.

Despite that there are aspects of our work that are worth being proud of. A formally correct Marxist position on the women’s question is one thing, but the issue loses its abstraction when you start to recruit more women and the practical task of developing them into leading positions is posed. This organisation has practised positive discrimination with its female comrades. This has nothing to do with tokenism or the career ladder ‘discrimination’ of the world of bourgeois women.

No, it is simply a recognition of the fact that women as an oppressed group start from a disadvantage in comparison with men, including men in the Party. Our object is not abstract ‘fairness’, but the struggle to develop the fighting capacity of the Party as a whole. Therefore, if needed, special measures can be employed.

Our prompt promotion of talented women to leadership positions has caused real tensions in our ranks. Some have put their bruised male egos before the fight to develop the Party; they have been happy to have our organisation fight with one hand tied behind it, as long as their petty pride was not injured. The Party made its views clear to these people and some quickly left.

The key to women’s liberation does not lie in ‘special measures’ or programmes of positive discrimination, of course. The most inspiring harbinger of the future - of a mass working class women’s movement ranged against the state, not against men - was in the miners’ Great Strike of 1984-85. There are so many wonderful anecdotes about this heroic struggle, but reading through some back issues of The Leninist, I was reminded of one in particular.

After the close of a solidarity conference in Kent, most of the men had wandered off to the bar. I was interviewing three leading activists of the Kent Area’s Women Against Pit Closures Movement, and about 20 miners’ wives, girlfriends and daughters gathered around to listen. When it was over, I turned off my tape, said ‘thanks very much’ and made as if to leave.

“Hold it,” one said. “I want a word with you.” Cautiously I sat back down again and for the next l5 minutes or so was quizzed on the Labour Party, the Soviet Union, Ireland. Why did we call for a general strike “with or without the TUC”? Did we really think a revolution was possible? What exactly was a revolution and when did we expect it?

It eventually broke up when a number of the men trundled back to fetch their wives. The kids were playing up in the bar and needed stewarding.

The good humoured, but in-depth grilling I received underlined the political change that had taken place in these women during the course of the struggle, a development that the women’s interview had already highlighted. In response to my fairly inane question about a change in the women’s attitudes, Margaret Densham told me: “We don’t watch ‘Crossroads’ now. We watch ‘World in Action’, ‘Panorama’, you name it. We’ve forgotten all about ‘Coronation Street’ now” (The Leninist February 1985).

A great quote. It uses mundane, everyday words, but is all about history, struggle and human liberation itself.

Mark Fischer
national organiser