The Eyes Have It!

sparky lightbourne · The Eyes Have It!

The Eyes Have It.

Murry flung the stack of yellowing unsold papers to one side. No, it wasn’t there either, damn it. He wiped his dripping brow and sighed. The hottest day of the year and here he was searching the office top and bottom for a pamphlet on the Soviet invasion of Poland that was published in 1974.
Murry decided to make himself a nice cup of tea, and then have a biscuit and a sit down, that’s when he solved most problems, it was while enjoying a cuppa and a garibaldi (suitably revolutionary biscuits) in 1982 that he developed the theory that Robin Hood had in fact been a proto – Maoist. He sat down in front of the PC with his mug of tea and sank deep into idle thought.

Only for a few moments, then the door banged open bringing with it a fresh breeze and two bustling young comrades, Rashik Ahmed, the enthusiastic leader of the league’s student wing, and his girlfriend Jill Pertwee a member of the political committee.

“Hey chairman, how’s it going?” Asked Rash with his trademark cheeky grin. Jill just smiled a silent hello.

“Not that well comrade, I keep getting distracted in this damn heat, how I’m supposed to write two thousand words on Trotskyism in Poland before Friday I don’t know.” Murry answered with a shake of his head.

Rash and Jill were used to the cantankerous nature of the older man.

“Anyway mate, we’re here to pick up the latest issue of ‘Cream of the Young Worker’, ready for the demo on Saturday.”
Murry waved his hand vaguely at the corner behind the open door.

“Over there, and don’t forget to take extra copies of the pamphlet on a two state solution for the Moldovan crisis as well.”

“Of course not comrade.”

Rashik and his girlfriend grabbed the bundles of papers and pamphlets and made their good byes.

Murry briefly reflected on the two younger comrades, Jill was definitely a serious activist who would probably end becoming a middle ranking teacher’s union leader while remaining a senior activist in the league. Rash on the other hand for all his charisma and charm would undoubtedly become bored of playing the revolutionary and would end up becoming a consult at a top hospital and spending wads of cash on drugs and partying. Murry had seen plenty of his type come and go.

A few desultory hours are spent pretending to try and write the Poland article, while fielding a few phone calls from various branch organisers confirming details for Saturday’s demo. The phone rings, now this one is a surprise.

“Revolutionary League Central Office, who’s calling?”

“Murry, is that you? Hello proff, it’s Steve.”

Murry is slightly taken aback, but recovers in time.

“Steve Bamberry? National Organiser of the Democratic Workers’ Party?”

“Of course who else old friend?”

Who else indeed? Steve Bamberry had been Murry’s most gifted protégé a potential future leader of the RL, before they fell out over the question of Lenin’s death and who was to blame. Steve led the renegade faction which became the DWP the largest and most sectarian and unpopular of all the country’s myriad Trotskyist groupings, claiming over 11,000 members, twenty two times the size of the RL.

“What can I do for you Steve? Do you want a membership form?”

This was a standard joke between them on the rare occasions they spoke to each other.

“It’s more what I can do for you comrade, I think we should meet up for a quiet chat during the demo, how about the Red Lion on South Audely Street, one o’clock.”
Murry pondered the invitation, this was highly unusual and in the small world of left politics it probably meant only one thing, he had a merger proposal. Among revolutionary socialist groups the one idea discussed more than potential splits among their rivals, was potential mergers with those rivals.

“OK Steve, it would be good to have a proper chat after so long, I’ll see you there. The anarchists should be attacking the US embassy about then so I doubt we’ll be disturbed.”

“It’s a date, mate.” And with that he rang off.

Murry spent the next few hours in long telephone conversations with his most trusted lieutenants those who had been with him since the beginning of the league in 1968. The consensus was that he should indeed meet with Bamberry, though he wouldn’t be able to speak for the organisation, they would need a full political committee meeting for that.

It’s midday Saturday and 40,000 people have gathered in central London to protest the UK and US involvement in the Bulgaro-Moldovan war, as well as the assorted Trotskyist, Stalinist, anarchist, and pacifist groups, there are trade union branches, Labour party groups and of course Bulgarian and Moldovan ex – pat societies, and a fair few 'normal' people as well.

After inspecting the RL contingent, making sure they are in a prominent place near the front of the march, with plenty of branded placards to hand to random passers by, along with the flags for both the regular League and its youth wing and a long banner decorated with pictures of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, and Connolly. Murry makes his way slowly with the aid of a stick and two burly trade unionists who function as his body guards at times like this, to the Red Lion.

Sitting at the outside table, mercifully in the shade, Murry slowly nurses a sparkling water with ice and a slice, the two attendants are sat with pints at the next table looking discreet, when Steve turns up, a tall self assured university lecturer, with a broad grin and plenty of sex appeal, he was the best recruiter the league ever had, especially of impressionable young men and women. He is flanked by six serious faced teenagers clutching copies of the ‘Democratic Worker’ and wearing the distinctive clench fist badges of the DWP.

Greetings dealt with the two leaders sit facing each other across the table, the six youths are sat at yet another table, with glasses of tap water in front of them.

“Let’s get straight to business shall we?” Asks Steve. “We’ve both got platform speeches to make at the end after all.”

“Please, yes the sooner the better.”

A long pause.

“Right then. I want, we want…” Steve corrected himself.
“We the DWP central committee want the RL to join us, we want you, your members your office, everything to be subsumed into the Revolutionary Socialist Front, and to prepare for revolution now.”

Murry reeled he had heard whispers about the RSF, everyone on the left had, that it was sucking up resources, and members and weaponry but most people dismissed it as the rantings of fantasists. No one would have thought a group as large as the DWP would be behind it.
Steve studied Murry’s greying face with detached amusement.
In the distance the sound of sirens, of shouts and screams and half bricks being thrown, the anarchists at the embassy no doubt. The smash of glass and rush of flames, a Molotov went off in the distance.

“You’re a lunatic and a fantasist Steve, I don’t know what’s happened to you, and I don’t want to know, I’ve heard enough.”

“No you haven’t you’ll stay right there comrade.”

Steve looked straight into Murry’s eyes, his green irises seemed to glow and it felt like he was boring into the old man’s soul. Murry couldn’t move, he wanted to but his legs were not following his orders, half his brain wasn’t.

“You see comrade, the revolution is beginning, and it’s a revolution of the mind, my mind. I can make anyone I can look at do as I say. That’s not anarchists you can hear, that’s the RSF led by experienced and utterly loyal cadres of the DWP. As we speak more of our fighters, helped by inside agents are seizing control of the BBC.”
Steve grinned.

“Just imagine what I can do if I get on TV, all the channels at the same time!”

Murry felt a confusing maelstrom of emotions, a revolution something he had always dreamed about was happening, but he felt sick as he realised it would lead to a dictatorship led by a mad man, a mad man able to make anyone follow his bidding.

Isambard

Is there a porn version cos that Rashik Ahmed sounds a bit of all right!

sparky lightbourne

i got stiff just writing about him

Isambard

Thanks for sharing that!

sparky lightbourne

i based him on you, but made him asian and straight to hide the truth

Isambard

Well he's so brimming with homo-eroticism my cup almost runneth over.
Trainee doctor eh? As in "stick your tongue out and say ahhhhh"

I kind of imagined his girlfriend ending up working on the Grauniad and being Tolly Poynbee's goafer or summat.

sparky lightbourne