Socialist Action1984Socialist Action No. 58, 18 May 1984Frightening
Socialist Action No. 58, 18 May 1984 · pp. 9-10 of the scan · 132 words
The scan: 058-may-18-1984-SA-UK.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive, opens at this page)
Uncorrected machine reading. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from a scan of a newspaper page, and the page was cut into articles by machine, at the headlines found by their type size. Nothing has been corrected: expect misread words, text from a neighbouring article, and titles that are the machine reading of the headline, some of them only fragments. Quote from the scan, not from this page.
How this article was cut and titled: headline found by type size in the OCR geometry (split_tabloid.py); 4-4 of 7; machine-segmented newspaper page; uncorrected Vision OCR.
page 9 of the scan
Thirdly, historical experience should caution the left against extravagant claims that capitalist crisis brings about socialist solutions. didn't in the 1930s. And the left must oppose the frightening logic Socialist Action's editorial (4 May) which claimed that "hatcherism. Dy very brutality accelerates devlopment of 'a socialist force ... inside the working class' (my emphasis). As in the 1930s the crisis is deep but it is reckless to present demands far in advance of the masses. The vital issue is to move the working class and its allies from where they are now.
These related points have been made by Eric Hobsbawm in reply to the discussion on Labours 'lost millions' (Marxism Today 1904). Il Is unfortunate that benn's professed desire 'to open up
page 10 of the scan
Socialist Action 18 May 1984