1970s
Vietnam: The collapse of the armed forces
A US military officer reports on the increasing incidence of insubordination, desertion and rebellion in the US army over the course of the Vietnam War. While we obviously don't agree with the officer's political perspective, the article contains lots of useful information on the GI resistance movement during the Vietnam War.
Introduction
The morale, discipline and battleworthiness of the U.S. Armed Forces are, with a few salient exceptions, lower and worse than at anytime in this century and possibly in the history of the United States.
Hull prisoners revolt, 1976 - The Red Menace
Paul Hill of the Guildford 4's account of the 1976 riot at Hull prison.
The years the Guildford Four spent in jail were not simply wasted time in which they sat and waited in the hope of eventual release. Every day in prison they faced a struggle to maintain their humanity against a system that denies it. Here we reproduce an account by Paul Hill [of the Guildford 4] of one moment in this struggle - the Hull prison riot of 1976.
South London stress - Practical History
Leaflet distributed at a Reclaim The Streets party in South London in June 1998, to place the event in context, and explain the radical history of the South London area.
Reclaim the Streets,
Today Reclaim the Streets are planning to turn part of South London into a free festival zone for the day. Most non-residential streets in South London are dominated by bumper to bumper traffic with nothing much to do except shop. RTS parties are about creating our own space where we can dance, play, eat and drink - all without any money changing hands.
1970-1972: The Lordstown struggle and the real crisis in production - Ken Weller
Fascinating pamphlet by Solidarity on the informal workers struggle against the frenetic pace of work at a General Motors plant, and the later co-optation of the struggle by the auto workers union.
This pamphlet is an attempt to document some important tendencies developing in the motor car industry but which are relevant to modern production as a whole. We feel these trends have important political consequences for revolutionary socialists.
Long lost wildcat strikes in the UK, 1960s - 1990s
Interesting article with snippets of analysis and often personal anecdotes about a number of unofficial strikes in the UK since the 1960s.
An introduction…
1962-1973: Worker and student struggles in Italy
A history of the wave of strikes and occupations that gripped Italian factories and universities during the 1960s. Coming to a head with the Hot Autumn of 1969, independent forms of struggle used by workers represented a significant attempt to break from restrictive trade unions.
Rising from a period of centre-left coalition that had been marked by a constant failure to bring promised reforms to Italian society, the struggles of the 1960s acted as a pressure gauge for many sections of the Italian working class, one which was to reach its climax during the mass strikes of 1968-1970.
Italy 1977-8: Living with an earthquake - Red Notes
A superb pamphlet from a time when a very high level of class struggle dominated Italian society. Despite their differences - the state, church, fascists, Communist Party and unions were all united in opposition to the the radical social movement. In text and PDF format.
Link to PDF of pamphlet.
Published by Red Notes, London, UK, late 1970s
Text version from www.classagainstclass.com, lightly edited by libcom.org
1970: US national postal strike
A short account of the illegal nationwide postal strikes that spread across America in 1970. After two weeks, during which time the army was called out to break the strike, workers eventually won increases in pay and the right to negotiate on contracts with bosses.
Beginning on the morning of March 18, the strike had been precipitated by months of stalling by union leaders and government officials. With no rights to collective bargaining, and having not seen wages increase between 1967 and 1969, anger amongst postal workers had been simmering for years.
The Good and Bad Old Days - The Whinger
The following notes look at various developments in employment, unemployment, and industrial struggles, mainly in the UK, through the period of the sixties, and up to the mid-seventies.
These notes are not revolutionary, they don't even claim to be radical,... I_just nicked them and adapted them from an old seventies cyclopedia I found in a charity shop!. But they do tell a story, and they illustrate a big process of change at a critical turning point.
From; The Whinger - Irregular journal of hysterical madterialism; No. 6, Oct 2007.
Two Local Chapters in the Spectacle of Decomposition - Chris Shutes
Situationist-influenced reflections and critique on; the Jonestown cult massacre, conspiracy theory, black leftist ideology, San Francisco in the late 1970s, disco, the Harvey Milk murder and gay culture etc...
Published by Chris Shutes in Berkeley, CA, USA; May 1979.
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"Everything is said about the spectacle except what it always & fundamentally is: the colonization of the point of view of the individual by the point of view of the collectivity." Daniel Denevert
