the family is a reactionary institution. Trotsky explained this character of the family in the Revolution Betrayed, the forty million families in the Soviet describes 'nests medievalism, slavery hysteria, daily humiliation of children.' System Of course this does not mean that the family Call be simply abolished, or that Marxists propose it is replaced by some system of regimented living which forbids love, or which imposes 'wives held in common', as the 19th century bourgeois opponents of Marxism claimed. On the contrary. a materialist understanding of development of the tamily precisely reveals it can only 'wither away' on the basis of a far higher development of the produclive loices. Only when all inequality of women is eliminated will it be possible for human beings to enter into genuinely free relationships, precise form that these relationships will take can be surmised but cannot be predicted in advance. All we can say is that, when a generation of men and women have grown up who nave never known women's subordination and oppression then, in Engels words, will care precious little what anybody today thinks they ought to do; they will make their own practice and their corresponding public opinion about each individual — and that will be the end of it.' But the issue of the family system as it exists today is of fundamental importance, not to predicting the future of human relationships, but to understanding what must be done to eliminate the oppression of women.
Again it is Engels who has most succinctly put forward the necessary steps that must be taken to achieve this goal. These are threefold. Firstly all legal and formal inequality towards women must be eliminated and their equality of rights guaranteed legally, secondly all women must have the right and possibility of a paid job on the basis men, domestic labour must be transformed from a private service into a public industry.
On the first of these steps, it is obvious that many legal and democratic rights of women can be and have been won today. But even at the level of this purely formal, legal equality, there is not a capitalist state in the world that has eliminated all legal discrimination against women, let alone positively guaranteed their equal rights. In Britain married women still do not have the same rights in taxation or social security benefits. Few capitalist governments recognise rape within marriage. Restrictions on access to abortion, contraception and divorce continue to exist.
However even where laws have been the Equal Pay Act or Discrimination Act in Britain for examthat these laws nave the themselves dealt with the fundamental causes of the ineaualities of women On the contrary the introduction of such laws has merely demonstrated the truth of Engels judgement that: "The peculiar character of the supremacy of Novel modern family, the creating real social equality between them and the way to do it, will only be seen in the full light of day when both possess compiele equality. rights.' Or, as Lenin explained: "No matter how much democracy there is 'they under capitalism, the woman remains a "domestic slave", a slave locked up in the bedroom, nursery, kitchen'. Steps The economic independence of women can only be achieved through the full entry of women into paid employment. Again major steps in this direction can be, and have been achieved already. In Britain, the majority of women of working age do a paid job, and this has underpinned capacity to take advantage of some of the legal rights they have won. For example the rising divorce rate in Britain, where 7 out of 10 divorces are sought by women, is not correlated to the divorce laws such, economic independence which allows them to make the choice lo ena a violent or unsatisfactory marriage However women are integrated into paid employment in a social position determined by their within the family. This operates from two points of view. The workforce is carefully sex segregated and the jobs that women are confined to have a lower status, command lower wages, and are generally less secure and consequently less well organised. Women in their majority are 'peripheral' sectors of the economy. Secondly women work a 'double shift, their responsibilities in the home means they frequently are forced to choose part-time rather than full-time work, twilight shift work, or early morning cleaning and so on.
the Sex wite necessity of So finally we are their JUIC the reproduction of labour power.
There are clearly Take an industry'.
Struggle working as a solution female sex.
of. women two decades of subordination Ill cuba, Code embodies • continea to ine difference either be confined to the home.
The fight for an extension of equal rights legislation to include positive more discammmadon programmics lo cusure that women have the right of access to all jobs and all training is obviously an important element in seeking to change this. But as with all other formal 'equal rights, such laws, or agreements with employers, do not deal with the root of the problem, which remains women's unpaid domestic labour in the home.
faced with the issue which is the fundamental material Hillcase content of the family under capitalism, women's unpaid domestic labour, and production achieve at home, Holy two collceivable ways to eliminate the unpaid domestic labour of women. One is to maintain the character of 'housework' as private service, but to involve all members of the household equally in it • essentially getting the adult men to equal responsibility for the work. The other is for the majority of the work currently done in the home to provision. be taken out of the realm of private service and make it once more a 'public Of these two approaches only the latter has any possibility whatsoever of for the whole While individual women will, quite rightly, struggle in their own accommodation: homes for their husbands, lovers and sons to fully share in the domestic work, and while we totally support women in that struggle, as a general solution it is doomed to failure. The last heightened COnsciousness on the position of women in society and the unfairness of the division of labour in the home has resulted in no significant increase in the participation of men in domestic labour! fetters.' where an extensive Family in law the principle that men should do their share at home, it has not made any significant material • although it uncreasing the confidence of women that they do not have to feel their duty is to Moral incentives are notoriously in- was substituted. effective in increasing the productivity of workers, or persuading them to do work than they capitalist society moral incentives have increased productivity in war time for 3 or 4 vears at a time but in general tne only way to increase output is through material incentives, differentials and bonuses. The post-capitalist societies like Cuba, or the Soviet Union have had to come to exactly the same conclu- Such sions, and reintroduce differentials and incentives in order to develop skills and productivity. There reason why what moral incentives cannot achieve at work, they will be able to nor is there any evidence anywhere that they can or will Burden The only way to deal with the inequality of the burden of work on women in the home is through the ex tension of the process that has begun with the development of public education, health, social security and welfare Such a programme was set out by the Bolsheviks after 1917, although it was rapidly abandoned under Stalin. Trotsky summarised the goals of October 1917 like this: The revolution made a heroic effort to destroy the so-called 'family hearth'. The place of the family as a shut in petty enterprise was to be occupied, according to the plans, by a finished system of social care and houses, creches, kindergartens, schools, social dining rooms, social laundries, first aid stations, hospitals, sanatoria, athletic organisations, moving picture theatres that etc. The complete absorption of the housekeeping functions of the family by institutions of the socialist society, uniting all generations in solidarity and mutual aid, was to bring to woman. a real liberation from the 1000 year old this is only possible through the transfer of the means of production into common ownership.
This is the only approach which, if implemented, could create the material conditions for the liberation of the female sex. Stalinism, in the Soviet Union, ensured that this goal was abandoned, and instead the goal of a new and higher form of 'socialist' family In this 'new' family divisions beween men and women l the working class are non-existent or the same side in the struggle against capitalism and for such a socialist society. Both have an interest in its realisation.
Division However, the fact that the working class is divided along lines of sex, and that this division has a real material content, does mean that class-based organisations - like trade unions, or even socialist parties — must therefore take into account the specific interests of women, through specific women's sections, demands and so on.
Secondly, there must be a self-organisation of women in organisa tions and movements specifically formed to fight for the liberation of women.
movements of women for their liberation have two chief tasks. Firstly, and most obviously, to engage in the struggle for women's rights and liberation, because other organisations cannot be expectea to spontaneously place these questions at the top of their agenda. Such women's organisations will have to initiate, lead and mobilise around each issue of women's oppression as it comes up whether any other sections of society can be won to mobilise alongside them or not Thirdly, because the liberation of women in the final analysis is impossi ble outside a socialist reorganisation of society, it is fundamental that the organisations of the working class also place the questions of women's rights and liberation at the top of theis priorities. In the same way as the work ing class in South Africa has to be the vanguard of the fight against apar theid, or the working class in Chile ha to be the vanguard of the fight for For the working class in Russia had to be the champion of the rights of oppressed nationalities, so the working class in every country of the world has to become the vanguard of the fight for women's liberation. Withir struggle waged by the • working class as a whole working class womer will of course play the leading role All this is necessary for the struggle of women to be successful, and for the struggle of the working class to be suc cessful. The entire oppressed and ex ploited people, including the majority — women — will not unite in a struggle for socialism for abstract reasons, but because they can see that only the vic tory of the working class means the opening up of the possibility of all op pression discrimination. The slogan 'no women's liberation without socialism, no socialism without women's liberation' is a perfectly ac curate summary of that programme.
students were joined by MAN reports.
ful focus two particularly at the highest has Doo Hwan.
as bIcoldent, The was elections.
tions, But *Down with dictatorship!' The Was put town of with extreme The riot against students, FOR three solid weeks, thousands upon thousands of South Koreans have mobilised against one of the most bloody dictatorships in the world. The mobilisations began on 10 June when, according to figures released by the South Korean police, 90,000 students across the country took action. In the weeks that followed, the workers, professionals, housewives, street vendors, taxi drivers and others in mass demonstrations for democracy. JON SILBERWith eyes of the of Seoul where next clearly the In that they matter the South Koreans. This was low-wage rights. The famous The imUS that "South with support, the parallel missiles at South Korean Chun repression clearly wasn't working. George Shultz was despatched to the region for talks.
Reunification Democratic along Kangju.
millan If the capitalist opposition party was not to be completely by-passed by the mass movement serious People's Democratic Movement gains educated doubts removement control that pianin for eight-point plan democratic reforms'. propress censorship, guaranice human inMoreover, the precise content of certain of the reforms are not agreed. needed moanice wo butt cal regiere doesea doesn't acknowledge their political •status. It regards people arrested for chanting North Korean slogans as 'common criminals.
But the mass moblisa. tions have established an important democratic opening. Moreover, it seems unlikely that it will be shut the short term by the military. Chun was himself brought lo power by military coup and Roh Taw woo was a leading two-stat general.
publish uncensored But viccalluus character Gulf war. Kuwait is a major ally of Iraq. Washington is simultaneously using the in the Gulf has been called an effective Rasfanjani, the speaker of the Iranian Cuba proCuban revolution. has taken place. Socialist Action 10 July 1987 THE Reagan administration has decided to put Kuwaiti oil tankers under the US flag. The move constitutes a major escalation of aggression against Iran on the side of Iraq in the 'inadvertent' bombing of USS Stark, in which 37 seamen lost their lives as the pretext for a doubling of US naval presence in the Gulf, to a total of nine warships. Britain has also added to The combination of US flagging of Kuwaiti and the escalation of US military might 'declaration of war' against Iran by Hashemi parliament. Iran has called for an end to the 'tanker war'. But Iraq has continued to attack tankers leaving Iranian ports, forcing Tehran retaliation. Last week, three tankers were targets of missile attacks. Ships carrying US flags have the automatic right to US military protection.
Meanwhile, mystery surrounds the bombing of USS Stark. The pilot of the aircraft seems to have vanished. A special investigative team sent to Iraq was unable to interview him. Despite many questions being left unanswered, the team TWO CIA agents have been captured by the Cuban state security forces. On 8 June, millions of Cubans watched on TV as the two told their story of how they were recruited by the CIA, what work they did for the agency, and how they were captured. This is just the latest episode in a long legacy of CIA attacks on the Meanwhile an intense process of political discussion, public debate and action is taking place within Cuba. Fidel Castro has made a number of major speeches concerning the course of the Cuban revolution. A major process of renewal of the Communist Party and its leadership to include more workers, women and those with experience of fighting as part of Cuba's voluntary international brigades in Africa This process of 'rectification' as it is called aims to ensure a deepening political consciousness and mobilisation of the working class as the leading force of the revolution.