Wolverhampton - the wrong road

Scan page 12

for the Workers Socialist Leagut, 31, Dartmouth Park Hill, London NW5 1HR. (TU), London. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office. SOCIALIST PRESS is taking a break for one week. Socialist Press will therefore not appear on Wednesday 26 July.

The next edition of Socialist Press will appear on Wednesday 2 August.

Published by Folrose Ltd Printed by Anvil Printers The struggle against the growth of fascism in Wolverhampton took a step backwards on Sunday when the Anti Fascist Committee rejected the policy of forming workers defence groups.

Instead the committee has decided to hold a meeting around the pacifist and propagandist policies of the Anti Nazi League.

The situation in Wolverhampton could not more clearly show the need for workers defence.

It is now unsafe for blacks to walk alone in the city centre at night.

Two months ago two fascists launched a shotgun attack from a car against group of black youth.

But the Anti Fascist Committee is a classic class alliance of reformist black and white workers with an amalgam of vicars, community relations workers, Communist Party Stalinists, shop keepers and do-gooders.

Its response to the attack was first to call an inquiry to which the police were invited. Then it proposed joint patrols with police.

Next it suggested a call system where requests for assistance would be passed on to the police.

Home Secretary Finally it called for the Home Secretary to come and meet immigrant leaders.

In all these developments the so-called revolutionaries" of the International Marxist Group and the Socialist Workers have played a most shameful role.

Never once have they stood out for the independent organisation of the working class to combat the fascists.

Petition

In many cases they themselves have been the source of these pathetic proposals.

(This has been paralleled in East London where IMG members are touting petition drawn up by the Tower Hamlets Movement Against Racism and Fascism which calls for more police patrols in the area to protect the black community!)

The most aggressive response of these revisionist groups has been their opposition to those who put forward a policy of defence based on the trade union movement and who condemn the notion of alliances with the police.

It is not that the basis for a policy of workers self defence does not exist.

Black youth earlier this year organised their own defence group in the city centre wien was, ur course, af'annona met with a chorus of condemnation from the local press, police and priests.

It is absolutely essential for socialists to take up an immediate fight in the labour movement for these: moves towards defence to be brought under the umbrella of working class organisations.

It is this fight which the WS will be taking up in the coming months. Reconstruction of the Fourth International), Salas is charged with publishing 'attacks and calumnies' against over which the offence OVCI military courts have jurisdiction, as Socialist Press has reported in similar cases.

Calls for the "reform" of the army, the expulsion of fascists from the police, or for the setting up of a 'national' Basque • police force cannot lead, to the smashing of the Francoist state.

The workers and other militants of Euskadi must join with all Spanish workers in a united offensive around demands which can lead to the overthrow of the heirs . of Franco, the destruction of the repressive machinery of the capitalist state and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which alone can guarantee the Basque people their national rights.

----- pull-quotes -----

NEXT- EDITION