SPGB Meetings (1967)

Party News from the October 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

Party News (1967)

Party News from the November 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

Swansea Debate

On September 13th, Swansea Branch held a successful debate with the Young Socialists.

Our comrade Ambridge represented the Socialist Party of Great Britain and Mr. Powell represented the Young Socialists. Swansea Branch members were present and also 20 Young Socialists. Plenty of questions were put and the audience appeared to be most interested. Literature sales were 6/-.

Black Power Debunked

Our comrade P. Lawrence spoke on Black Power at the meeting of the Camden Group in the Enterprise, Chalk Farm, on October 2. He pointed out that, when it came down to it, so-called Negroes had no problems that were not those of the working class generally. Certainly there was no specifically “Negro solution” to their problems. Black nationalism, like all nationalism, was a delusion and a snare and quite incompatible with socialist principles. A world of harmony and plenty could only be created by the actions of workers the world over, no matter what their language, colour, sex or ethnic group.

Half-a-dozen members of a Black Power group, the Universal Coloured Peoples Association, who had been invited to take part in the discussion, turned up. They were surprised to find that we as Socialists did not, as they no doubt expected, sympathise with their views but exposed them for the dangerous nonsense they were. They left after it was suggested that they were just another group of demagogues that wished to climb to power on the backs of discontented workers.

A Week of Meetings in London (1967)

Party News from the October 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Gt. Britain organised a demonstration for Socialism in Trafalgar Square on Sunday afternoon, September 3rd. Despite uncertain weather there was a large crowd throughout the 2½ hour meeting, listening to the socialist case and putting questions to the speakers.

Over £16 worth of socialist pamphlets and journals were bought by interested workers, including 480 copies of the Socialist Standard. (In addition 300 Socialist Standards were sold in Hyde Park on the same day.) Our introductory leaflets in different languages were also much in demand and helped us to explain the Socialist Party’s position to workers from France, Germany, Turkey, Vietnam and elsewhere.

A photograph of the meeting which appeared next day in The Times picked out very nicely one of our slogans calling for “Abolition of the Wages System”. Surely the first time that phrase has appeared in those august columns!

Monday September 4th

The newly formed Camden group held its first meeting—on “Israel, Vietnam, Biafra— Problems for the Left”—on Monday evening. Over forty people turned up to discuss these issues.

The group meets at ‘The Enterprise’, Chalk Farm Road—which is opposite the Round House. The room is comfortable and the atmosphere relaxed and informal. So if you want to discuss socialist ideas, or have other views which you would like to give an airing, why not come along to the next meeting?

Thursday 7th September

The Socialist Party held two teach-ins on Thursday evening. One was at Conway Hall, where representatives from Oxfam, the United Nations Association, the International Planned Parenthood Federation and the SPGB opened a discussion on “World Hunger—What is the solution?" Although most of those present were not members of the Socialist Party, the audience was keenly aware of the deficiencies in the ‘solutions’ to world hunger put forward by the various reformist organisations. The socialist analysis of food shortages came across as the only positive and constructive answer to this problem of capitalism.

The other teach-in, organised jointly by West London and Greenford branches, was also well-attended. There was a wide-ranging discussion on Socialism and socialist tactics, with various brands of trotskysists and other would-be socialists ‘arguing’ a case for entrism.

Sunday 10th September

The week ended with a five-hour meeting in Hyde Park. A string of party members spoke from a specially erected platform on the grass. There was some lively discussion and on more than one occasion a member of the audience was given the platform in order to explain his objections to Socialism, a socialist speaker then replying. Party literature was again selling briskly and—many workers from Germany and Austria were interested in the Wiener Freie Wort—the organ of our comrades in the League of Democratic Socialists.