In the nineties, millions of women and men have taken part in mobilisations against the evils of capitalism and the bureaucratic dictatorships.
This reflects the fact that humanity face widening dangers. Ecological, military, social and economic devastation faces millions of people.
Many more people recognise the barbaric nature of capitalism. In a situation where the inability of the social democratic an communist parties to provide socialist solutions is becoming clearer, the task of creating new leaderships remains ahead.
Socialist Outlook is written and sold by socialists committed to this struggle. We are the British supporters of the world-wide marxist orpanisation, the Fourth International. We stand for the revolutionary transformation of society and a pluralist, socialist democracy world wide.
The overall goal which we pursue is the emancipation of al human beings from every form of exploitation, oppression, alienation and violence. Socialism must be under the control of ordinary people, democratic, pluralist, multi-party, feminist ecologist, anti-militarist and internationalist. It must abolish wage slavery and national oppression.
The working class is the backbone of unity among all the exploited and oppressed. fight against capitalism and for a clear programme of action in order to gradually acquire the experience and consciousness needed to defeat capitalism at the decisive moment of crisis.
The movements of women, lesbians and gay men and black people to fight their particular forms of oppression make an essential contribution to the struggle for a different society. They are organised around the principle "None so fit to break the chains as those who wear them".
The whole working class needs to fully commit itself to these strug. gles. Furthermore we fight for a strategic alliance between workers and these Organisations which respects their legitimate autonomy.
By simultaneously building revolutionary organisations in each country and a revolutionary International we aim to guide and encompass the global interests of the workers and oppressed. By building a united struggle against exploitation and oppression we aim to ensure the survival of the human race. The working class and its allies must uncompromisingly AS THE HOME of scandal, the London Borough of Hackney keeps hitting the headlines, so it might still be worth commenting on Lizzie Bloom's article in your De-. cember issue.
There are several factual errors in the article. For example, Michael Barber is not a Minister, he's a high-profile civil servant, and he was never "Director" of Education in Hackney, he was Chair of the Hackney Council Education Committee for a while before 1990 (when Hackney took over the education service from the old ILEA).
More importantly, there are two judgments in the article which appear to reflect the local NUT analysis of the government': intervention in Hackney education, but which I believe are incorrect and disorienting.
Firstly, if one reads what Ministers actually said when they an-. nounced the original Ofsted inspection of Hackney Education in June 1997, it is unambiguous that their target was the management of the local authority, and not (directly) teachers or schools. My view is that they took advantage of Hackney's lamentable reputation to show that they were "tough on education", and to gain an electoral advantage at the May 1998 London local elections.
I don't know why they appointed the right-wing Tory businessman Richard Painter to chair their hit squad, but the best guess I have heard is that they hoped he November 1997, he wrote their report without discussing it with his advisers, and - perhaps as a result - in local government legal terms it was indefensible.
As a result, the dominant Chief Officers in Hackney were easily able to dety the hit squad recommendations about the structure of Hackney's education department, and Labour ministers backed down, but it is simply untrue to say that central government "supported" the Chief Officers' "Transforming Hackney" project.
I mention these points not only because it is vital for revolutionary socialists to get their facts right, but also because it is important for us to grasp the detailed mechanisms by which bourgeois society works.
To get those wrong would have serious adverse effects for our poSend us your letters on any topic, to PO Bx 1109, London N4 2UU. Letters over 400 words may have to be edited for length. litical activities. In the case of Hackney NUT, for example, misunderstanding the Inspection/Hit squad exercise as a direct attack on schools and teachers helped produce the fiasco of a "mass picket" of the Council on 26 November 1997 which only five or so people attended.
Tony Whelan Hackney