Back Issues

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• Red Rag

Established 1979
Free! Fortnightly! Fun!

These are the back issues of Red Rag. They'll be posted here every (usually) two weeks on or around the anniversary of their original publication. We're currently reissuing 1983; the latest issue is dated February 20th (scan / txt); the next one is due out on March 6th.

Red Rag, or Reading's only newspaper, had a noble tradition of misspelling, mixed metaphors, wrong facts, confused political judgements and a print run by now of over 1000. It printed pretty well everything it got sent ("unless the Collective judged it racist, sexist, right wing, or supportive of oppressive religions"). It aimed to provide a decent alternative coverage of local news and issues from a radical non-aligned position; to promote subversive and creative initiatives; to provide a forum for unorthodox views; to allow some sort of co-existence between a huge variety of interests. And it was free.

In this issue (scan / txt): women from Greenham appear in court charged with breach of the peace; the SWP turn up to sell their newspaper and are met with derision as they support neither Non-violent Direct Action nor the women-only camp. CND plans a 40,000 strong human chain at Easter, linking USAF Greenham, AWRE Aldermaston, and ROF Burghfield; a Peace Camp opens at Upper Heyford in nearby Oxfordshire; the pregnancy testing service at the Women's Centre needs more volunteers; we analyse the six parties which contested last year's elections in El Salvador; and the Anarchists consider the benefits of a nuclear holocaust.