Revolution

I looked the over-gelled haired fiend straight in his feral, glittering eyes and said, "Let's do this." The bullet zipped into his head. Not so difficult really, put him out of his misery. The tanks rolled by me. Shit! It was really happening! Revolution in our time! I reloaded the rifle and crouched behind a Ronald McDonald plastic figure in the street. There were a few dusty suited men in the distance trying to take shelter in a Car Phone Warehouse showroom; they were taking pot shots at anything outside. There was a whistling in the air.

The tank blasted into the building. The noise shuddered through my body and I felt as if I wasn't in my own skin, I sweated and shook a little. Keep calm, this is real, this is the best thing that can happen, go with it. I swigged from my small brandy bottle. Now's the time! 'Fuck it' I shouted and gritted my teeth and leaning on Ronald, I opened fire again! 'Mother fuckers!'

How does this bloody thing work! That's it ... one ... two ... Hello! Date: September 15.Year 1921. This is a recording to try and give some sort of understanding to future generations, or even my kids if I ever have any, into how the present state of affairs came about, and also how we go about the states affairs! It will be a personnel account, not just a Stalinist record of things, as this was a personal revolution as well as a social one. And why am I doing this you may ask? Well, who's to say how long things will last, as we speak, I feel we are speaking to each other even though I don't know who you are or even if you even exist, even, sorry, waffling on.

As I sit here now, in London there are reactionary forces at work trying to bring down everything. I'd always wanted to live in London; you know do all the things that the beautiful people did, go to all the best clubs, bars, and restaurants; to be in with the 'in crowd.' Without connections, they said it wasn't possible, now here I am elected as council member for my area. Elected by the people and accountable to the people! And now I can go to those places, with no money! We are all the 'in crowd.' Cus that old lot, those movers and shakers, those Sloanys and fakers, well. We shot um! Ha ha! Sorry, not really funny to talk about death like that, but we did shoot um, we had to. It was us or them. And we were on the side of right! Right? Right!

I know, I know, every bloody political persuasion says that but wait a while and I'll explain to you why we were, sorry are right! And those, well tossers, really are wrong! It's not just a matter of opinion! It's a fact. A logical, scientific fact and if you can't see that, if you can't understand the difference in what we are doing, and if you think there is a better way for society to be run, well of course I'm willing to listen, but I'm also willing to bet that what you come up with is exploitative in some way; is tantamount to someone being shat on by someone somewhere.

That's why we had to kill some people, ok a lot of people, but they wanted things to carry on as they were, people living in shit, millions of people dying in poverty and in the name of democracy and human nature. Those people were benefiting from the misery of other people and they didn't want things to change, so they had to die. I mean we asked them nicely, we asked them in the name of humanity, we asked them to be with us and built a better world for all, but ... well they didn't want to, basically. They took up arms to defend the murder of millions of people in the name of money. So they had to die, sad but necessary.

Oh god! I've just played that back and I sound like a right nutcase! A bit of a Stalinist or fascist myself! I'm not going to edit it though, I think it's better if I just go with the flow you know, just say what I feel and hopefully from the story and my feelings you can make up your own mind. You can decide if I'm right or wrong. That's what it's all about really! The whole thing is about us telling the truth. Being truthful and proving logically that we are right. No, that's not right; it's about us showing you through deeds, deeds! Jesus! It's like I'm quoting the bible or something! It's basically giving it to you straight. No holds barred! Warts and all! Secrets and lies! Pie and mash! Anarchy and chips! Papa's got a brand new bag! I think I need a drink ...

Ok I'm back. Brandy and lager or lager and brandy rather. In that order: half a fosters lager with a straight brandy. I got into that in Manchester when I was working for the council. Spending me evenings off pub-crawling in Cheetham hill, Oh happy days. Now where was I ...

Well I'd better get to the story or I'm in danger of just spouting ideological bullshit. Anyway, I was a shop steward on those building sites at that time, I was trying to organise the guys to stop any work for dole schemes the government were trying to introduce. The guys I represented were a good bunch, salt of the fucking earth working class geezers. From the local 'shag anything that moved', to the miserable sceptic, but all in all good bloke.

Trouble was to get um interested in politics. Of course, they were interested in stuff when it affected them, well when it affected their pockets. So I got disillusioned with the working class. You know I had all these illusions. I had visions like a poster from the Russian revolution, you know, the great burdened beast rising up to shake off the shackles of oppression, but the guys just wanted enough cash for a night out with the misses, a good second hand motor and a few quid to bring hope; from all 5 runners coming in.

But actually when I needed some backing for the union meetings, where I could push through some radical policies I got it. Well they basically let me do what I wanted as long as got their holiday pay sorted or got any more money from the union or council they were happy ...

But in 1984, things changed, came to a head so to speak. The miners went on strike. Basically they wanted to shut the pits, now you may think that was a good thing. And cus you're spoilt now, what with all the environment problems more or less sorted out now, and so you think automatically, 'yeah right on' a good thing, nasty environment damaging coal and all that shit and yeah I agree, but it was us who introduced all the environmentally sound energy, wind farms and all that to try to undo all the shit capitalism has pumped onto our planet.

But the reason they wanted to shut um down was not cus of any worries about the impact of the pits it was cus they were uneconomical. What did that mean? For who? What that meant was they didn't make enough money! And also, the bloody miners needed a bloody nose; cus if they hit them first then they could go after the rest of the working classes without any worries. Shit!

Maybe I should explain that a bit better cus maybe you haven't got a clue what I'm talking about. You see, you know the Stalinist states had one good idea, all the history of the working class that was forced into people's heads would save me the bleeding trouble of explaining all this shit but that's the price you pay for a proper revolution ...

Anyway, the miners were the vanguard of the workers! Fucking vanguard, I'm still using all that jargon used by all those weird Trotskyite splinter groups. Sorry can't help it. Basically the miners were the dog's bollocks when it came to fighting against the man!

Now I sound like a 60's bleeding beat poet. Speaking plainly, they were very radical, and organised and experienced, and worst of all well fucking paid. So anyway the government decided to shut all the pits down and also to smash the miners unions in one go, therefore paving the way for attacks on any other organised workers, therefore smashing the unions, lowering wages or moving any factories to other countries where it was more profitable. It's easy really, to understand I mean, capitalism. They wanna make loads of cash which means we exploit people and pay um only a small amount to live on, just enough, just a little taster, you know cus some fuckers gotta buy the shit we make, that kind of stuff. I won't go on about it, cus it's obvious, well it's obvious now for you guys. I mean you've got it easy now; it's all so fucking clear and ... Sorry I sound like a right old wanker. Oh! You don't know you're born, kids today. That's why we fought these wars for you know! For your generation.

Sorry had to stop the tape there.

Strange actually listening to myself then. I sound like my granddad's crowd after the Second World War, they always sounded like that. Going on about how tough they had it. Shit, now I'm doing the same, sorry. But we did really, capitalism was really really crap. Here's a few examples, you might find them crazy but I swear they are true ...

People had to pay for their health and if you didn't have any money, you didn't get a doctor, no really! Weird or what?

People starved! Yeah I know, hard to believe! People had nowhere to live, people had no jobs. I could go on, but you may get the wrong impression and think I'm making this shit up. Some kind of futuristic novel, you know some kind of crazy society in the future. But no, really, this was how things used to be. That's the crazy kind of world we lived in ...

Anyway, I must try to keep this thing as clear as possible. Sorry for digressing, waffling on; it's not easy to put this thing into some kind of clear logical order but I'll try, so here we go ...