century, as the US government backed by its big busidrive Cuban people into subThis has failed: despite immense pressure from the US and global capitalism -the Cuban people have Jefended their gains. They • who unlike many in the region who had sold out their beliefs and their people, has remained a fighter for communism in a world of capitalist reaction.
It is important to understand that the Bacardi empire had left Cuba prior to the revolution. Ospina's book gives us a very good pany national roots. Bacardi would like us to believe that it is a product of Cuba -when in fact it is in all senses a multi-national. the Yankee domination of the Bacardi business, which is based in Bahamas, and uses its "Cuban roots" to hide the fact that it is tool oi Yankee imperialism. But insofar as it has a national base, it is newner budd tor the Bahamas, but the Untied States of America.
Ospina's book also sheds The Rich at Play: Fox hunting, Land ownership, and the 'Countryside Alliance. Published by Revolutions Per Minute, £4. (www.red-star-research.org.uk). Reviewed by John Lister AS THE SO-CALLED Countryside Alliance promises to mobilise hundreds of thousands in another march through the streets of London later this month, this booklet is a useful reminder of the politics and practices defended by this strange organisation.
"Neither green nor pleasant" is the summary headline for one chapter. which points to the eagerness with have been keen to latch onto what is essentially a rural backlash movement in defence of fox-hunting.
Populist
Just as fascist parties themselves make use of issues affecting the poor and working people in order to build more populist support - but also turn these kues in a reactionary way - so the Countryside Alliance has expressed concern about the loss of jobs, the break-up of rura communities and the affordability of rural housing.
But as The Rich at Play points out many of the toffs, big farmers, aristo. crats, bankers and estate agents who lead the Countryside Alliance have themselves made vast fortunes selling off or renting out high-priced land and housing to wealthy "townies". It offers a detailed "Who's Who" of the CAs inner core, showing that in the final analysis almost all of the key players within the Alliance are active around one issue: the defence of the right to hunt toxes with dogs Landowners The predominance of landowners in the organisation is also confirmed by the Alliance's hostilty to the Right to Roam, while insisting on the right of the hunt to roam freely in pursuit of the fox.
The pamphlet runs through some of the historical background to the issue of fox hunting and land ownership, with It points out that far from representing some ancestral "British" freedom, the central assumptions of fox hunting -that the private pleasure of the wealthy few takes precedence over the interests of the majority; and that landowners should be free to do whatever they ken on their own land - date back to Wiliam the Conqueror and the Norman invasion.
Wiliam, a passionate hunter, escabing the wearing of elaborate and expensive costume: he also broughe in draconian laws against poachers, including castration and blinding. By the mid twelfth century almost a quarter of England was royal forest, largely set But early hunters pursued edible deer rather than foxes. Fox hunting with does & a relatively recent innovation dating back no more than 200 years. Like deer hunting, it required vast areas of land, and has anays been expensive hobby, open only to the well. And while all proletarian blood sports (cock-fighting, bear-bating, dog fighting) have been made ilegal, the "aristocratic" forms of blood sports remain, including the wholesale slaughter of Pheasant strangler The booklet reminds us that the Queen has been pictured wringing the necks of pheasanis, of Prince Philip's eagerness for the hunt, and of Charles, Camilla and other Royals riding as the 'unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable.
But it also looks at the scandalous inequality of land ownership, which of course reinforces the oppression of the Wales 0.28% of the population owns 64% of the land. A grand total of 89.000 p people owm 88% of the land in Britain (40 milion acres). They receive vast subsidies, totalling (4 billon a year from the EU's Common Agricultural Policy. And though Tony Blair's half-hearted reform of the House of Lords has removed most of the hereditary peers from the House of Lords, nothing has been done to diminish their billions in land and property assets.
Gentry
The booklet - in a rather repetitive but bright style - reminds us that the Countryside Aliance is not the voice of he rural dispossessed, but a front for the leisure interests of the landed gentry and assorted business people.
But its politics are a bit of a jumble. and, falling short of offering any more detailed programme tó mobilise rural workers on an independent basis, it is a little bit disappointing in its conclusions. offering only a stripped down 3-point policy:
• A right to roam and repossession of • Stop foxhunting with hounds • The right to hunt the rich!