Grunwick - the K the Final Blow

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CIA carries out, was deported from Britain by Callaghan's government and is now being hounded out of every capitalist state in Europe because he insists on his right to free speech.

In the USA itself, the Wilmington 10 along with hundreds and thousands of black activists and victims of racially biased courts languish in the jails that witnessed the brutal murder of George Jackson. of savage military regimes throughout Latin America.

The anti-communist 'human rights' campaign around the Russian showtrials result from the pressure of certain sections of capitalists impatient with the policy of collaboration with the Stalinist bureaucracy in the USSR known as 'detente"

Recognising that the struggles of workers and peasants internationallycalled for a retraction.

But while the imperialists are struggling to control the working class, the trials are an indication that within the Soviet Union itself the Stalinist bureaucracy feels that the workers' movement is threatening its power and privileges.

Dangers

The dangers in this situation are very real.

It is important to see exploiters.

Isolation

But defending the Soviet Union against imperialism does not mean we defend the actions of the Stalinist bureaucracy which emerged in the harsh period of isolation that followed the Civil War and the death of Lenin.

This bureaucracy usurped political control from the working class in Russia, and ensured in the post-war period that the working class was held back from the seizure of power even in those states where capitalist property relations were overturned.

Counter-revolutionary While this bureaucracy's power rests on its administration of the nationalised economy of a workers' state, its actions internationally are thoroughly counterrevolutionary, aiming simply at preserving "peaceful coexistence' with imperialism.

We call for a political revolution to overthrow this bureaucracy and for the building of workers councils to reinstitute Soviet democracy.

The show trials of After 690 days of bureaucratic sabotage by TUC officials, the valiant struggle of the Grunwick strikers for union recognition was given the death blow last week by leaders of their union APEX.

Socialist Press stressed from the earliest days of the strike that the crucial point was trade union action to force the APEX leaders to demand that the TUC black all services to Grunwick, including postal services, regardless of court injunctions.

It was obvious straight away that such policies would be rejected by the right wing. But they were headed off also by the 'left' talkers such as Jack Dromey who claimed to be leading the Grunwick struggle.

As a result, even at the height of the mass picketing and the influence of the Strike Committee there were no calls for mass mobilisations against the TUC bureaucrats to force them to implement blacking.

And when the strikers hunger strike on the steps of the TUC was broken up by fines and suspensions imposed by APEX leaders, there was no campaign by the strike committee against this action.

Meanwhile, safe from attack, APEX and TGWU bureaucrats handed over the whole of the initiative to ACAS, whose task of defusing and demoralising struggles •was successfully carried through.

Eight weeks ago a conference on Grunwick did no more than talk of the strike in the past tense.

No proposals for winning the action were allowed to be put. Dromey announced he would walk out of this dispute with his "head held high"

While the Grunwick battle has turned out to be a defeat, the lessons it has to offer on the role of both right wing and "left' talking bureaucracy in the unions must be taken seriously.

Jack Dromey has already begun to play his distinctive role, helping to head off independent struggle in the Garners Steak House strike.

Now we hear he is moving in on the East London dockers* action committee, set up to fight the closure of the Royal group of docks.

The lessons of Grunwick must be learned by these workers if they are not to face a similar fate.

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More Janata jockeying • innhavino Hands off Wage 2 The factional str iggles within the parties o F the Indian bourgeoisie have followed some sharp turns over recent weeks.

Sackings, threats of resignation and reconciliations have followed one another ata confusing pace.

But this latest episode of the power struggle within the ruling Janata coalition repeats the pattern of earlier, smaller crises.

The forces have not changed, but now they are exerting themselves with far greater pressure on Prime Minister Desai and his quarrelsome cabinet.

The only pressure that has ever held the five parties together in the Janata is their determination to keep Indira Gandhi out of power.

The huge revival of support for the former dictator is a powerful deterrent to those elements seeking a split in the coalition.

But the arguments that have broken out over economic policy and the prosecution of Gandhi must not be seen as principled disagreements.

The Janata leaders are at once alarmed by the general loss of support for the whole coalition, and are seeking individually to strengthen their own positions.

Conflict over which opportunist tactic to adopt is therefore inevitable.

Home Minister Singh's aim has been to build up his own base amongst the peasantry by arguing for the development of village crafts as against large scale industry, and to follow up this outflanking of Gandhi on a populist tack by a show trial of his opponent for the crimes of the 'Emergency'. • While the Janata is locked in internal strife, Gandhi has her own problems. The miserable failure of the coalition to bring any relief to the poverty and misery of the Indian masses, enables her to campaign for mass support on a radical populist platform, decked out with an attractive range of 'socialist' promises..

Janata leader Desai There can be no doubt that Gandhi-like Singh himself-is looking for the time when popular discontent can be channelled into violent demonstrations to bring down the But in the major state of Maharashtra (centred round Bombay) the coalition between Gandhi's Congress (I) party and the old Congress (R) appears to be breaking up.

This split in itself is only part of the realignments of the professional bourgeois politicians that are certain to lead to the cracking of the Janata.

This situation threatens massive dangers to the Indian masses. Without the building of revolutionary party, the workers and peasants face an immediate future where repressive 'democracy" will give birth to the growth of fascism and the menace of military dictatorship.

The fight to destroy these threats has been delayed too long.

The tasks which lie before the proletariat of India are clear; if they are not tackled, brutal repression and savage attacks will be the methods by which the bourgeoisie secures its class dictatorship. Yemen Last month's coup d'etat in South Yemen, which brought to powe power the most pro-Soviet section of the National Liberation Front led by Ali Nasser, appears to be encountering fierce political and even military attack from imperialism and its agents.

At the beginning of last week the new South Yemen government in Aden announced from Northsthat aircraft 1101 Yemen had bombed the South and troops had captured a number of villages; other sources claimed that Saudi Arabian forces were massing on the South Yemeni border.

The Aden government Ali Nasser these events it is clear from well attested statements that Saudi Arabia and its reactionary friends in North Yemen will have no scruples in trying to destroy the South Yemeni government and install an imperialist puppet in its place.

Fifteen members of the Arab League (meeting in the absence of Libya, Iraq. and the other members of the "rejection front") decided to "freeze" all relations with South Yemen and cut all economic and diplomatic ties with what the North Yemeni delegate called "the band of lawless Marxists in