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Title: The Poll Tax
Author: Anarchist Federation
Date: October 1988
Language: en
Topics: United Kingdom,Scotland,Wales,England,Ireland,Margaret Thatcher,Thatcherism,Britain,Poll Tax,trade unions,taxes,strike,protest,sabotage,the Labour Party,Labor Union,austerity,community,community self-defense,community organizing,class struggle,class war,mutual aid,praxis
Source: Retrieved on 2021-05-14 from http://af-north.org/afed-archive/ace/the_poll_tax_and_how_to_fight_it_acf_oct_1988.html
Notes: “The Poll Tax and How to Fight It was the first of two pamphlets we wrote on the Poll Tax, published around October 1988. It encouraged the rise of mass revolt against the Community Charge as it was happening in Scotland, and as it was poised to be fought and beaten a year later in England and Wales as well.” This document was transcribed with the help of an OCR. There may be errors. All typos from the original document were intentionally left uncorrected.

Anarchist Federation

The Poll Tax

POLL TAX: What will it mean?

The Poll Tax is, in essence, a tax on being alive

THE GOVERNMENT’S PLAN to replace the current system of domestic rates

with a new flat-rate Poll Tax is bad news for working class people

throughout Britain.

The Community Charge, or poll tax, will start to take over from the

rates system in 1989 in Scotland, and in 1990 in England and Wales, and

the poor will immediately feel the effect of the changes.

Under the current system, a ‘rate’ is levied on every building in a

local authority’s area, based on the value of the property. People

living in a four bedroom house on the outskirts of town pay a bigger

rates bill than someone living in an inner city flat or bedsit.

But the new poll tax, which is a flat rate tax on people not on

property, will change all that. Everyone over 18 will have to pay

exactly the same amount: whether they’re a bank manager, a chartered

accountant, a checkout operator, or an office clerk. A factory boss will

have to pay the same poll tax as the people who work on his production

lines. Even the unemployed will have to pay.

[]

Only residents of old people’s homes, severely handicapped people and

long term hospital patients are exempt from paying.

All this means that while the rich enjoy big cuts in their rates bills,

the poor face massive increases. Many poll tax rates will be twice or

three times what people pay at present, some will be even more.

So the poll tax will be good news for those who live in the leafy

suburbs, where 2-car families have already been enjoying the fruits of

the recent slashing of high income tax rates. But, in the inner cities,

in working class estates throughout Britain, it will come as yet another

savage attack on the falling living standards of ordinary people.

Families already struggling to make ends meet, will be further pushed

into poverty and debt by the poll tax, and bailiffs will be knocking at

the front doors of non-payers.

While the poll tax will hit all working class people, some groups will

be particularly hard hit:

Working class women will lose out in a number of ways. Because the poll

tax is levied equally, irrespective of income, women workers — who make

up a large percentage of the low-paid — will be severely affected. Of

course, much of the work that women do — for example, housework, looking

after children, or caring for relatives — earns them no income, yet

they’ll still have to find the money to pay. This will force many

already over-burdened women into taking up ‘homeworking’, or finding

other badly paid, exploitative work.

Couples who are married, or who are living together, will be jointly

liable for eachother’s poll tax. If one partner doesn’t pay, the other

can be taken to court — even if the partner who owes the money has

walked out on them. This can leave women bearing the financial cost of a

relationship ended by their partner.

Registering for the poll tax will bring an extra worry to women who have

left home out of fear of domestic violence. Women’s Refuges will be

forced to make public to poll tax officials a full list of their

residents — destroying their anonimity and so putting women’s safety at

risk.

Black and Asian families living in inner city areas, where rates are

currently low, but where poll tax levels promise to be high, will also

lose out badly. Black and Asian people are also likely to be amongst the

lowest paid of workers, and so will be doubly hit. Traditional Asian

extended families, where four or more adults may live in one household,

will see their bills soar through the roof.

[]

The unemployed, most of whom recently lost out through the slashing of

benefit levels in April 88, face further attacks under the poll tax.

People receiving Income Support and/or Housing Benefit will have 80% of

their poll tax bill paid, leaving them to find the remaining 20% out of

their Giro. They may get a partial rebate towards that 20%, but it will

be based on the national average poll tax. If you live in an area with a

higher than average level, tough!, you’ll have to find the extra cash

yourself. Those on the Employment Training Scheme, full-time students

and student nurses all come under this rule.

Housing organisations, such as Shelter, are warning that the

introduction of the poll tax will lead to an explosion in the numbers of

young homeless people. Parents in many poor families may be unable to

find the money to pay the poll tax bills for children over 18 still

living at home — and many young people may be forced to leave home

because of this.

But while we’ll all be struggling to find the extra money, big business

will be booming.

A standard Business Poll Tax Rate will be set by central government for

the whole country, and you can bet they’ll set it as low as they think

they can get away with. As part of the Tories’ commitment to the

“enterprise culture”, they want to free company directors of

‘troublesome’ high rates levels that are currently eating into their

profits.

With the rich paying far less to local councils than before, the burden

for paying for local services is shifted even more onto the backs of the

poor. Either we have to fork out for poll tax bills beyond our means, so

that the council will still provide libraries, street cleaning, home

helps, cheap bus passes, dial-a-rides, or any of the dozens of other

services working class people use and need. Or, we pressure the council

into lowering the poll tax rate to something we can afford — and see all

those services axed or ‘privatised’ (which means we have to pay for them

anyway). Either way, we lose out.

[]

And so too will council employees. Under the poll tax, they’ll face wage

cuts, jobs losses, speed-ups and ‘privitisation’ threats as local

councils slash their budgets and shut down services to save money.

New armies of bureaucrats, snoopers and bailiffs will be formed to

police and enforce the poll tax. First, registration officers will knock

at your door and demand to know who is living there. Later, snoopers

will be employed to make sure that everyone who is supposed to be paying

up is doing so. In law, the government can get your ‘personal details’

from any existing files on you (except police, medical and social work

files) without your knowledge or consent.

They’ve already announced that they want all 600,000 full-time students

to carry a ‘poll tax ID card’. A compulsory identity card (to prove

you’re paying the poll tax) for all citizens, can’t be far behind in

their thinking. Without the card, you wouldn’t be able to get help from

social services, get your rubbish collected, etc.

Worst of all, if we can’t find the money to pay the massive new bills,

we’ll be fined. For a first offence of not paying (for three months) the

fine is £50; for the second offence the fine is £200. If you don’t pay

the fines, bailiffs will be sent to your homes to seize property. If you

live in England or Wales, you can be sent to prison for not paying the

poll tax — but this doesn’t apply in Scotland.

The poll tax is a massive attack on our class. It will take money from

the poor and give it to the rich. It will make the poor pay more for

fewer services. It will throw council workers onto the dole. It will

create thousands more bureaucrats to ensure that we tow the line, and

threaten us with fines and jail if we don’t.

The poll tax must be stopped, it must be smashed outright. And it can be

if we organise together in the right way. People in Scotland are already

beginning to take effective community action, and the rest of us can

learn lessons from them. First of all we need to look at how not to

fight the poll tax and that means loooking at what the Labour Party and

the leaders of the trade unions are saying.

How not to fight the poll tax

WORKING CLASS PEOPLE WHO come together to build an effective fight

against the poll tax won’t just find themselves up against the Tories,

the bailiffs, the snoopers and the courts.

They’ll find themselves attacked and blocked at every turn by the

leaders of the Labour Party and the trade union movement too. Neil

Kinnock and Norman Willis (head of the TUC) may have joined together to

‘condemn’ the poll tax and pledge ‘action’ against it, but underneath

this pubic facade of ‘opposition’ their real position is all too clear.

They want to contain our anger about the poll tax. Most of all they want

to divert us away from taking the veryaction that could wreck the poll

tax. They’re scared rigid by the thought of working class people taking

collective action for themselves outside the control of party

bureaucrats and union officials. And they’ll try and stamp out any

attempts by us to do it — over the poll tax or any other issue.

[]

The reality of the Labour Party’s opposition to the poll tax is already

clear in Scotland. Labour controlled regional councils in Lothian,

Strathclyde and elsewhere are already implementing the poll tax. Lothian

council has so far spent £2.85 million on installing computers to store

poll tax information, and have already begun to compile the

‘registration’ lists.

But the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party has realised

that their collaboration with the poll tax will attract the anger of the

thousands of poor people faced with massively increased bills.

So, they’re planning to try to disguise what they’re doing. They’re

planning to tell all Labour controlled local authorities to house their

poll tax officials in seperate buildings, away from normal council

offices, and use “special headed notepaper” for poll tax bills, to try

to give the impression that it’s not really them that’s implementing

things. This way, we’re not supposed to notice that it’s a Labour

council that’s sending the bailiffs into working class estates, or that

it’s a Labour council that’s jailing people that are just too poor to

pay.

They must think we’re pretty stupid. We can recognise an enemy when

we’re being attacked by it.

And while all this is being planned, the Labour Party’s campaign

‘against’ the poll tax continues.

In a fanfare of publicity, the Labour Party, TUC and Scottish TUC

launched the “Stop It” campaign. Its aim is to collect thousands of

names on a “People’s Petition against the Poll Tax” which it will then

present to the government. The hope is that Thatcher — on seeing the

Petition — will immediately drop the poll tax, and apologise to

Parliament for ever having come up with such a stupid idea in the first

place...

To back this up, the Labour Party are even thinking about boycotting the

Queen’s speech at the start of the autumn Parliamentary session.

What planet are these people living on? The Thatcher administration

won’t drop the poll tax because we ask her to nicely. Pathetic antics in

Parliament will be useless. The government has already told civil

servants to pass on the “People’s Petition” to local authorities to

check that those who’ve signed are registered to pay. The only purpose

the petition serves, is to help the poll tax administrators!

[]

The key to stopping the poll tax lies in real action taken by working

class people in the streets and estates where they live, backed up the

action of council workers, inside each local authority.

But most of the Labour Party’s anti-poll tax campaign, consists of

denouncing those calling for just that sort of action. Kinnock has

repeatedly slammed any suggestion that people should refuse to pay the

poll tax, or that council workers should refuse to implement it. And

he’s dead against people making any attempts to stay off the poll tax

In Scotland, where resistance to the poll tax is already underway, trade

union officials and Labour Party leaders have been forced to go further.

They’ve been forced to call some ‘action’ — not because they wanted to,

but because the huge groundswell of opposition to the poll tax that

exists was threatening to bypass them all together.

So, in an attempt to try and soak up some of that anger, and regain

control for themselves, they called a nationwide ‘public stoppage’ on

September 13 of fifteen minutes. Christie Campbell, leader of the

Scottish TUC — who is dead against a ‘won’t pay’ campaign — was hoping

that promoting the token quarter—of-an-hour stoppage, would help damp

down that anger, and also give the impression that the Labour and trade

union bureaucracies are the spearhead of the fight against the tax.

Of course, mass action is the key to defeating the poll tax, but such

token measures as a fifteen minute stoppage — in effect a “tea-break

against the poll tax” — will only serve to wear down people’s

enthusiasm, and spread despondancy, when they, inevitably, has no

effect. No wonder Campbell is so keen on it!

On the day hundreds of Scottish mineworkers, bus drivers, shipworkers,

nurses and others did join the stoppage, and large rallies were held in

major towns. But this impressive display of anger was wasted, as the

action was brought to a swift end after 15 minutes. Christie Campbell,

breathing a huge sigh of relief that the worst was now over, hurriedly

ushered everybody back to work. Some workers refused Campbell’s orders

and, to his dismay, stayed on strike for the rest of the day!

Campbell and Co’s attitude would be laughable, if it wasn’t so serious.

Of course, there’s not the slighest doubt that Campbell and his cronies

will refuse to support council employees, or any other workers, who down

tools and refuse to support or implement the poll tax once it’s become

law.

Outside all this deception and political manoeuvering, the real fight

against the poll tax is gaining momentum. Groups commited to resisting

‘registration’ and building for a non-payment campaign have already

formed in towns and cities all over Scotland. Groups are starting to

spring up all over England and Wales too. Rank and file council workers

are coming together to discuss ways of wrecking the legislation from the

inside, despite their union leaders. And, most importantly they’re

looking at ways to forge links between the fight in the workplace and

the struggle being waged in the community.

The seeds of an effective campaign are already being sown. The potential

exists for a massive autonomous working class movement of defiance and

active resistance, starting in Scotland and spreading nationwide.

We mustn’t let anything sabotage that fight.

[]

How to smash the poll tax

THE KEY TO SMASHING the poll tax lies in a collective campaign of

non-payment. The slogan “Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay” must become a reality in

working class areas all over Britain.

Is such a campaign realistic? A recent MORI opinion poll showed that 42%

of people in Scotland said they would support a campaign of non-payment,

and that figure is bound to rise still further as the April ‘89 deadline

approaches. Work to prepare the ground for such a campaign is already

well underway. At the time of writing, there are 23 local anti-poll tax

groups in Edinburgh and 31 in Glasgow. Many are linked through city-wide

federations, that draw the neighbourhood groups together. Others groups

are springing up all over Scotland. A movement of working class people

commited to non-payment is emerging.

As that movement spreads throughout Britain, we should make one thing

abundantly clear. Non-payment of the poll tax may be an illegal act, but

we make no apologies for breaking the law. The law is not a set of

impartial rules that we all agreed to play by. The law is the framework

drawn up by the ruling class and enforced by its agents (the police and

the courts) by which we are exploited.

Anything that can challenge the ability of the ruling class to ride

roughshod over us, is — by definition — going to be illegal. Whether

it’s picketting by sacked P&O seafarers at Dover, or refusing to pay the

poll tax, the fact remains the same. If it’s effective, if it threatens

the power of the ruling class, it will be against their law.

And, in the case of the poll tax, non-payment is also going to be the

only practical way by which the legislation can be defeated.

Non-payment will become the third phase in the fight against the poll

tax. The first two important elements are non-registration and

non-implementation.

OPPOSING REGISTRATION

Before the government can levy the poll tax, it must first compile lists

of who is liable to pay. This offers us the first opportinity to delay

and obstruct the workings of the tax. Every household will receive a

poll tax questionnaire, which will be use to calculate the bills for all

adults living at that address. The questionnaire will either arrive in

the post, or will be brought round by a poll tax registration officer,

who’ll come canvassing door-to-door in your area.

In Scotland, poll tax registration officers have already started work —

yet the level of opposition they are meeting in inner city areas has

already forced many of them to resign. Local councils are finding it

hard to refill the vacancies. You can hardly blame them for packing it

in. They’ve had doors slammed in their faces, dogs set on them and forms

thrown back at them. Some of have been chased off the streets by groups

of angry residents. In Pollokshields, Glasgow, poll tax officials have

needed police protection to carry out their work.

Harrassing officials may be a very effective short-term tactic.

Eventually, though, every household will receive a questionnaire. There

are still numerous things that can be done to delay things — we may even

be able to string it out for months.

[]

First, you can send the forms back unopened, marked ‘not known at this

address’. Or, wait a fortnight, then write back and ask for a new form

to replace the one that’s mysteriously ‘gone missing’. You can then send

it back only half completed. When they return it to you, to fill the

rest of it in, answer another couple of questions, then send it back

again.

If only a few isolated individuals take this sort of action, if will

have little effect. But if hundreds and thousands of people —

co-ordinated through anti-poll tax groups — keep on sending forms back

and forth, the bureaucratic chaos it would cause a local council could

slow their poll tax machinery to a crawl, if only temporarily. Like all

action taken against the poll tax, this kind of action is most effective

if taken collectively.

Again, this is just what’s been happening in Scotland already. The

residents of one street in Ruchazie, Glasgow, recently dumped all their

still blank forms back at their local registration office. Their action

was echoed by Tenants’ Associations in Dunterlie. To mark the beginning

of this round of action, anti-poll tax groups held a collective burning

of poll tax propaganda outside the Scottish office in Edinburgh, while

solidarity demonstrations were held in London.

[]

Malcolm Rifkind, the Scottish Secretary, is deeply worried by the

non-registration campaign being waged in Scotland — and so he should be!

As the deadline set for completing registration in Scotland — October

‘88 — approaches thousands of people are still refusing to register.

Early estimates suggest that a minimum of 100,000 Scots have joined the

boycott. In Glasgow alone, 43,000 forms had not been returned when the

initial deadline passed. In some areas, 90% of homes have joined the

refusal campaign .

If hundreds and thousands of addresses have still to be processed when

the October deadline passes, it will throw the whole poll tax timetable

off schedule.

Predictably enough, Labour councils are starting to fine people who

refuse to register. Labour controlled Lothian Council has begun sending

out ‘penalty letters’, fining the first of the 8000 people in the area

who’ve refused to give information.

Important though this part of the struggle is, it can only delay the

completion of registration. The government — through access to dozens of

private file (see first section) — will eventually have a full list of

“responsible persons” liable to pay. Non-registration is only Round One.

STOPPING IMPLEMENTATION

Council workers are in a unique position to help the fight against the

poll tax: they are going to be the ones faced with putting it into

practice. And, because the poll tax will mean massive cutbacks in local

council services, they’ll also be the ones faced with wage cuts,

redundancies, end threats of ‘privitisation’ of services. In addition,

many council workers are also very low paid, and will be as badly hit by

the poll tax as the rest of the poor.

It’s hardly surprising, then, that many council employees are angry, and

committed to taking action against the poll tax.

Leaders of the main local government workers union NALGO however are

dead against any such action. NALGO say they will only support a ‘public

opinion’ campaign, and are claiming that action taken by council workers

would ‘wreck much of the work already being done in Scotland’ by

Kinnock, Cambell & Co.

It’s clear then that any anti-poll tax fight inside local councils is up

to rank and file council workers. They must come together to build their

own struggle — outside the control of their unions — in solidarity with

the resistance growing in communities outside.

[]

Council workers anger could be focused in many ways: refusing to compile

registers; refusing to issue poll tax demands; refusing to put services

out to tender; spreading information about poll tax snoopers; offering

advice to anti-poll tax groups in the area about ways to frustrate the

council’s machinery; and, of course, all out strike action.

It’s clear that, just as in the struggles against rate-capping waged

only a few years ago, Labour councils will be second to none in

attacking any such moves by council workers. That’s why it’s so

important that — just as with non-payment — any action is taken

collectively, together.

Such action could have a major impact on the introduction of the poll

tax. But the crucial battleground on which the fight against the poll

tax will be won or lost, is going to be outside the workplace: the

collective community campaign of non-payment.

REFUSING TO PAY

In some areas of Edinburgh up to 75% of homes are displaying ‘We won’t

pay the poll tax’ posters in their windows. That level of anger puts

paid to the defeatist myth that there’s ‘no mood for a fight’, or that

people won’t be prepared to break the law. That kind of community

solidarity has been built through the work of local anti-poll tax groups

who’ve been able to bring people in a locality together.

Such groups have often started from small beginnings. A few individuals

have come together to leaflet their area, or canvass door-to-door, to

gauge the level of support for anti-poll tax action. They’ve then held

public meetings in local halls, community centres, or pubs to discuss

the implications of the tax locally, and ways to beat it. They’ve then

launched ‘non-payment pledges’ and encouraged whole streets to sign, and

distributed posters, information sheets and newsletters.

Anti-poll tax groups in nearby areas have sought eachother out and built

federations and networks that have spread thoughout cities.

The most encouraging thing about this action, is that it is being built

outside of the control of political parties or self-appointed ‘community

leaders’.

The only major political party in Scotland in favour of a won’t pay

campaign is the Scottish National Party. They’re planning to get a few

of their leaders prosecuted for non-payment as ‘martyrs’ to the cause.

It’s also possible that in the Autumn, a small group of Labour MPs and

councillors will come out in support of a non-payment campaign. They’ll

doubtless try to claim all the credit and get all the publicity “on

behalf of” those large groups of working class people who’ve already

committed themselves to non-payment, despite the attacks of the Labour

Party.

[]

But we don’t want our campaign focused on a handful of publicity-seeking

party builders. We don’t want, or need, the “support” of professional

politicians who are only interested in our campaign of resistance, if it

will help them in their own pathetic power struggles within the Labour

Party.

It is the collective unity of our communities that is our strength.

Anti-poll tax groups in Scotland are now preparing to make the

non-payment campaign bite. They’re pledged to stand together and protect

eachother. That means being prepared to repel registration officers and

resist the bailiffs. It means ensuring that the non-payment campaign

stays solid. It means stoppping officials pressurizing isolated

individuals into paying. And it means making the authorities realise

that any attempt to pick on one family or one street to ‘make an example

of’ will be treated as an attack on everyone.

Those of us in England and Wales must do all we can to support, and

learn from, the struggle being waged in Scotland, as we prepare to build

the struggle in our own areas.

The poll tax can be beaten. But it can only be defeated by militant

autonomous action by working class people outside the control of all

unions, parties or leaders. The poll tax? Can’t pay, won’t pay!

Why is the poll tax happening?

TO UNDERSTAND WHY the poll tax is being introduced, we need to put it in

its political context.

[]

The poll tax isn’t an isolated, ‘one-off’. It the latest in a relentless

series of attacks on our class that the Tories have launched in the last

nine years. Among the most recent examples are massive tax concessions

to the rich; the slashing of benefit levels; the run-down of the NHS;

anti-worker legislation; Section 28 of the Local Government Bill, to

name but a few. And on the horizon, along with the poll tax, loom yet

more attacks: the ‘work-for-dole’ Employment Training Scheme; the new

Immigration Bill; appalling new housing legislation. The list goes on

and on.

The details of these attacks may differ, but their effect is the same in

every case: working class people suffer, and the rich and the powerful

benefit.

Thatcher says the main reason for the poll tax is to increase

‘accountability’ in local government. ‘Electors’, she says, ‘should be

made aware of the cost of providing local services before they cast

their vote’. What she means by this is that ther rich (who pay more

rates than the poor) should be freed of the ‘burden’ of bearing the cost

of providing local services used largely by the poor.

Because the poll tax shifts that burden onto our backs, what this will

mean in practice is that working class people will be forced to demand

cuts in council services — services many can ill do without — simply so

they’ll be able to afford to pay their poll tax bill.

The bitter irony. of course, is that the Tories are forcing the poor to

inflict attacks upon themselves…

So, it’s essential that we fight the poll tax as an attack on our class.

But as a class the struggle we are waging isn’t to retain the old rates

system, any more than it is to protect the bureaucrats who run our local

authorities.

Our opposition to the poll tax has nothing to do with it being ‘unjust’

or ‘unfair’, because we realise that the capitalist system has no

interest in being fair or just to our class.

Capitalism is organised to exploit and oppress our class, and for as

long as it exists, we will be forced to fight off repeated attacks upon

us as capitalism tries to shift the burden of economic crisises onto our

backs.

The fight against the poll tax gives us an opportunity to build towards

a real and lasting sense of community in the streets, the flats, and the

estates where we live. Our collective struggle can help make us less

isolated and detatched from one another in our seperate homes. It could

help forge a sense of togetherness, mutual aid and solidarity, and see

the emergence of real community organisations.

The emergence of that sense of real community would strengthen our

ability to take on the whole stinking system, that spawned the poll tax

in the first place.

The fight against the poll tax is one part of the struggle we must wage

against the whole system of exploitation that exists to oppress us.

Our eventual goal must be to do away with that system, and create a

society in which we are able to exercise real control over our lives.

A society without factory bosses or political parasites, where we will

be able to organise ourlives for the mutual benefit of all, not a small

class of employers and property owners.

The poll tax must be seen as one battle in an ongoing class war

Anarchist Communist Federation Where We Stand

1. Capitalism and other social systems in which wealth and power are the

property of a ruling class/elite, must be destroyed.

2. Reformist and statist solutions will necessarily fail and therefore

revolution is the only possible means of achieving anarchist-communism.

How far such a revolution will be peaceful depends upon the degree to

which the ruling class clings onto power through violence and state

repression.

3. Genuine liberation can only come about through the self-activity of

the great mass of the population. We regard parliament, representative

democracy and political vanguardism as being obstacles to a self-managed

society. Institutions and organisations which attempt to mediate in the

fight against domination cannot succeed. Trade unionism as it is

presently constituted, plays an important part in maintaining class

exploitation, insofar as it regulates and justifies it through

collective bargaining and bureaucratic structures. Nevertheless it is

important to work within the trade union movement in order to build up a

rank and file workers’ movement which encourages workers’ control of

struggle and cuts across sectional boundaries.

4. Workers and other oppressed sections of society will, in times of

revolutionary upheaval, create their own democratic institutions,

whether they be based on the workplace or the community. To this end we

encourage the creation of organs of struggle based on the rank and file,

independent of the political parties.

5. Pure spontaneity is unlikely to be sufficient to overthrow entrenched

class domination. Anarchists must indicate the libertarian alternative

to class societies, participate as anarchists in struggle and organise

on a federative basis to assist in the revolutionary process

6. Capitalism is international and needs to be fought internationally.

We therefore try to maintain contact with as many anarchist-communists

as possible in overseas countries as the preliminary stage to the

creation of an anarchist international.

7. We do not simply seek the abolition of class differences, for

inequality and exploitation are also expressed in terms of race, age,

sexuality and gender. Personal relationships are now often based on

domination and submission. We seek not only an economic revolution but a

social and cultural revolution as well, involving a thorough-going

change in attitudes and organisation of everyday lives to free us in our

social and personal interactions.

8. We reject sectarianism and work for a united, revolutionary anarchist

movement.

If you want to find out more about the Anarchist Communist Federation,

then write to:

The National Secretary, PO Box 125, Coventry CV3 5QT.

Back Cover

IN CITIES ACROSS SCOTLAND council officials are having doors slammed in

their faces. They’re being chased off the streets by angry groups of

local residents. Piles of official forms are being dumped in dustbins

and set ablaze. Nurses, shipworkers, miners, and other workers are

taking strike action. Council employees are threatening to defy their

employers.

All these actions, and many others, are the latest stages in a campaign

that’s setting out to wreck the single most unpopular piece of

legislation this government has so far tried to introduce: the poll tax.

The pamphlet ams to show just how hard the poll tax will hit ordinary

people throughout Britain. It shows how much more they’ll end up paying;

what the repurcussions will be on local council services; and how much

more the Big Brother state will encroach on all our lives through the

poll tax.

It goes on to demolish the myth that the leaders of the Labour Party or

the trade unions are capable of leading a fight back against the poll

tax — or that they could ever be made to act in our interest on any

other issue. It exposes, how in practice, their concern is to keep the

lid on our anger, working hand in hand with the ruling class to keep us

in our place.

It concludes by outlining the kind of action that can crush the poll

tax: collective action by working class people outside the control of

all bureaucrats, leaders and political parties. Drawing on the

experience of what is already happening in Scotland, it shows how that

action must be built around collective refusal to pay the poll tax,

backed by solidarity action by council, and other, workers.

The poll tax is a massive attack on working class people, but if we act

together, we can scupper the Tory ‘flagship’.

REPRINTED BY THAMES VALLEY

CLASS STRUGGLE GROUP

If you are interested in organising against the poll tax or would like

more information please contact: Anti Poll Tax, Folder 4, 17 Chatham

St., Reading, Berks..

Anarchist Communist Editions

No 2