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Thatcher even takes axe to ‘the loo’

LONDON — A British government survey, published
on September 13, has provided further evidence of the
effect of the prolonged economic crisis on the lives of
ordinary people in that country. The survey of average
households probed the tendencies of family spending on
food buying. d

Britons have traditionally been heavy beef eaters.

Beef has shown the sharpest decline in purchase withthe -

average consumption of beef per person per week 7.58
ounces in 1981 as compared to 9.41 ounces in 1981 as
compared to 9.41 ounches in 1980 (which was itself a
drop compared to the past.)

Lamb, another important meat on the British dinner
table, has fallen in consumption from 5.20 ounces per
person per week in 1980 to 4.20 ounces in 1981. In the
case of both beef and lamb, the price rises have been
steep in the recent period.

A slight shift to eating poultry comes nowhere near
making up for the decline in these major meat items. The
survey points to some increase in the purchase of saus-

ages, as if this were a substitute, but the average British

sausage has its chief claim to fame in its scarcity of any
recognizable substance that could be classified as meat.
Lack nutrients in meat
Britain’s Ministry of Agriculture has insisted that Brit-
ish people are getting enough food nutrients, ‘‘except for

‘energy and for iron’’ which is a considerable deficiency.

These are nutrients affected by meat intake.

The buying of less and cheaper food is a direct result of
the unemployment, inflation and a fall in living standards
that are affecting millions of British families today. Eat-
ing in the home is but one aspect of the trend: eating out,
in restaurants, has suffered an even more drastic decline.

British restaurant-owners made a fatal mistake as in-
flation climbed. They jacked up prices proportionately
higher than anywhere else in Europe in expectation that
life would simply go on ‘‘at a higher level.’ Customers,
however, have dropped away in droves, unable to afford
the meals. In London, the phenomenon has been linked
with the closing of theaters: people find it impossible to
journey into central.London for the formerly customary
night out, of theater and dinner, which has caused thea-
ter attendance to fall away to the point of catastrophe for
theater owners.

Rallying for jobs in Liverpool: mass unemployment has
cut into the population’s nutritional standards.

Transportation costs within London have been seri-
ously damaging to social life. Bus and subway fares are
not fixed and are dependent on distance travelled. Today
it can cost as much as,$4.50 to travel by subway one way
across London. This has sharply curtailed visits .to
friends by many Londoners.

Acouple of weeks ago my wife and I had an invitation
to have dinner with a friend on the opposite side of the
city. For bus, suburban train and the bringing of a bottle
of wine, it cost about $16. In Britain today, it seems, one
cannot afford to have too many friends who live at a
distance.

The London Zoo is one of the best zoos in the world.
Unfortunately, it threatens to become extinct, along
with its animals. The reason is that the people who love it
cannot afford to enjoy it, that is, to pay the entrance fee.

From Britain

William Pomeroy

Little more than a decade ago that was the equivalent of
about 50 cents. It now costs $7 to get into the zoo. Fora
family to take the children to the zoo can run to $30
(which doesn’t include the snack bar for the kids, or a
few high-priced peanuts for the monkeys and the ele-
phants.)

As for the animals, the zoo management says it is
reaching the point where it cannot afford to feed them,
what with the dropping off of attendance due to the rise
in entrance fees. In the meantime, where does an un-

} employed working class family take the kids for a day

out? It doesn’t:

And then there is the depressing fate of the loo. The
‘‘loo”’ is what the ordinary Briton calls the toilet, public
or private. One of the proud features of this society, in
comparison with other major cities in Europe or else-
where, has been the relative abundance of that amenity.
““Spending a penny”’ to use the loo was-once one of the
simple, inexpensive pleasures of British life. Then it
became two pence, and in some places five pence.

The cost of providing attendants and cleaning in the
public loos is borne by local councils. With the economic
crisis as an excuse, the Thatcher Tory government has
demanded that local councils follow its national policy of
cutting public spending on social services. Along with
housing, schools, hospitals, libraries, seniors’s homes,
welfare centers and ‘‘meals on wheels”’ for the house-
bound, the axe has fallen on the public loo.

There was a famous saying by a British government
minister when World War I made its devastating arrival
upon Europe: “‘ The lights are going out all over Europe,
and who knows when they will be coming on again.”
Well, the loos are closing all over Britain, and when it
will be possible to ‘spend a penny”’ in them again, no
one knows.

Last week we took a brief look at the
nazi invasion of Poland on September 1,
1939 and the subsequent occupation of
that country by fascist Germany. That .
event launched World War Two. We
showed also that .the way for Hitler’s
rape of Poland was opened by the reluc-
tance of the imperialist rulers of the
Western,democracies to join with the

Birth of people’s democracy in Poland

Alfred Dewhurst

| Marxism-Leninism Today

World War Two, Poland broke away
from imperialism and the system of
capitalism. The people’s government
carried out a number of important dem-
ocratic reforms including: extensive
democratic rights and liberties, agrarian
reform in which the peasants were given
land and landlord rights were abolished,
confiscation of the property of the

Soviet Union in an alliance to come to
the defence of Poland, as did the refusal
of the capitalist-landlord regime of
post-war Poland to allow Soviet troops to
cross Polish territory to make contact
with the nazi invaders.

* * *

For five long years the Polish people

suffered incredible misery, atrocity,
murder, national indignity and slavery
inflicted upon the whole nation by their
’ nazi overlords. They were not liberated
from the nazi horror until the summer of
1944, when Soviet troops in hot pursuit
of the armies of fascist Germany entered
Polish territory. Units of the Polish Army
and national liberation forces fought side
by side with the Red Army for the libera-
tion of Poland.
On the liberated Polish territory the
people, led by their Workers’ (Com-
munist) Party, set up a people’s. govern-

ment called the Polish Committee. for.

National Liberation. This marked: the
birth of Peoples’ Deniocracy in Poland.

_ It was a new and higher form of democ-

racy based on an alliance of all patriotic
and democratic forces opposed to fas-
cism and to the collaborators with Ger-

‘armies of fascist

man fascism during the nazi occuation.
: * * *

The national liberation movement in
Poland, as in all the nazi-occupied coun-

‘tries in Eutope, grew stronger under the

impact of Soviet Army victories over the
Germany. The national
liberation movements were headed by
the communist parties of the given coun-
tries. In those countries occupied by fas-
cist Germany, the Communists consti-
tuted the chief patriotic force waging
heroic struggle against the fascist invad-
ers. It was they who roused the masses of
people to fight against the fascist invad-

ers, against the fascist tyranny, for the"

national independence of their countries,
and for the freedom of the people.
Thousands of Communists in the oc-
cupied countries were shot by the fascist
invaders, many other thousands died in
the concentration camps.

’ The Communist Parties of the-

capitalist countries in the anti-Hitler co-
alition whole-heartedly and actively
supported the war effort of their coun-

tries, and helped to consolidate the anti--

fascist alliance, with the aim of bringing
about the speedy and utter defeat of nazi

Germany and her allies. The Communist
Parties of the fascist bloc countries fol-
lowed a course of struggle for the military
defeat of the bloc and for the overthrow
of their fascist governments.

» * * *

We note these facts of history in order
to underline the principle lesson they
hold for our times, namely, that despite
temporary setbacks human _ history
moves forward and: not backward.
Would, that the leaders of Solidarity ap-
preciated this truth; that the way forward
to rectify the political and economic er-
rors made by the Polish United Workers’
Party and the Polish Government lies,
not by going backward to some sort ofa
‘‘free enterprise system’’, but by going
forward in building a mature socialist
society and a strong communist party.

Backward to a ‘“‘free enterprise sys-

tem’’ means a return to Capitalism,

capitalist monopolies and an imperialism
— the breeder of fascism, wars of .ag-
gression, fiational oppression and ruth-
less exploitation of its “‘own’’ working
people.

¢ * * *#

Related directly to the outcome of

German-owned monopolies in Poland as
well as the property of those who had
collaborated with the fascist army.

The power of the bourgeois elements
was overcome in bittér class struggle.
The working class and its democratic al-
lies won the political power and estab-
lished it in the form of a People’s Dem-
ocratic Republic. Industry, the banks
and transport were nationalized. The

- Polish economy began to develop along

the socialist path.
‘* ie *

Today, Poland’s advance along the
socialist path is threatened. It is
threatened by an unprincipled alliance of
internal anti-socialist and anarchistic
forces gisguised as ‘‘liberals’’, and ex-
ternal forces of imperialism and
monopoly capitalism disguised as
“champions of democracy,”” the “‘right
to strike,’ ‘‘freedom of speech’ and
‘‘free elections’’. ;

Such. ‘‘champions’”’ the working class
and all working people can well do with-
out, as Canadian workers well know.
They should take no part in such self-
deceit.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCT. 23, 1981 —Page 5

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