[Kremlin class collaboration held back Vietnam victory A…]

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Kremlin class collaboration held back Vietnam victory A pock-marked, poisoned, defoliated rubble-strewn wildnerness is all l that remains of much s of Vietnam three years after the might of American imperialism was defeated by the 20 year struggle of the worker and peasant masses.

The figures for numbers of bombs dropped, some of the untold atrocities carefully kept out of the capitalist press, the hardships undergone by the liberation forces and by the civilian population of South Vietnam, were all brought together last Tuesday by John Pilger in a powerful ITV programme that exposed the full barbarity of imperialism under seige.

Estimates of Vietnamese killed in the struggle vary from two to three million. US army deaths amounted to a mere 56,000.

Pilger's report, showing the use of napalm against civilians, looking at some of the lethal anti-personnel bombs dropped indiscriminately by the Americans, and detailing their conscious use of poisons to kill all plant life and deform unborn babies gave an idea of why the casualties should be so uneven.

But it did not seriously begin to probe the other side of the question: why was it that the NLF liberation fighters were left unprotected against continual bombing raids, helicopter gunships and jet fighters?

How was it that the US imperialists were given unquestioned control of the skies against an enemy supposedly backed to the hilt by the Stalinist Moscow bureaucracy?

The answer obviously holds implications for liberation struggles in many other countries.

The Stalinist strategy of 'peaceful coexistence' with imperialism meant that the heroic Vietnamese struggle was deliberately starved of arms so that it could be used for nearly 20 years as little more than a pawn in their international diplomatic manoeuvres with the US.

In just the same way today the Stalinists are acting to hold back the Zimbabwe war of liberation, which, given proper arms and equipment, could have been won by now.

But with the revolutionary determination : of the Vietnamese masses unbroken, even these continued betrayals proved inadequate to preserve either US rule or the absurd and totally corrupt puppet regime installed in the South after the US withdrawal.

The internal problems of US capitalism-in which mounting economic crisis both at home and internationally combined with a growing anti-war movement and with increasing instab. ility within the Nixon regime itself-strengthened the hand of the Vietnamese freedom fighters.

But, as the Thieu puppet regime and its mercenary army began to crumble in front of continued guerrilla assaults, the Stalinist leadership in Hanoi sent in regular army forces to spearhead the final assault on Saigon and to assume control of the South.

Pilger's report referred only fleetingly, to the apparent dis. appearance of the NLF, the "Viet Cong', whose heroic and self-sacrificing 20-year strugglemuch of it often conducted in an astounding 2,000 mile network of tunnels and underground stores-made the final victory possible.

He did point out however that the only flag now flying in the south was the Hanoi flag.

The Stalinism of the Giap regime is demonstrated much more starkly in this than in the quite understandable retribution it has sought from the one-time paid killers of Thieu's puppet army, whom Pilger sympathetically pictured undergoing 'correction' in labour camps.

Main fear

For the Stalinist bureaucracy -whether it be that of Communist Parties with state power in Moscow, Poking or Hanoi, or whether it be that of the CPs in main fear is the i dependee, main tear is the independent revolutionary mobilisation of the working class.

Such mobilisation would shatter the delicate balance of class forces on which their political power and material bureaucratic privilege rest, and raise the prospect in the workers states of a political revolution which would oust them altogether.

The NLF as a popular movement based on the masses of Remember Vietnam?' Tuesday, October 3.

South Vietnam has therefore been all but completely superseded by the military-bureaucratic machinery wheeled in from Hanoi.

And the gains of the Vietnamese victory are now increasingly prostituted by the diplomatic manoeuvres of the Stalinist Hanoi bureaucracy now energetically seeking its own 'peaceful coexistence' with the reactionary capitalist regimes of S.E. Asia at the expense of anti-imperialist forces currently fighting there.

Meanwhile, as part of the still greater treachery of the Moscow Stalinists the newly unified Vietnam now faces the horrors of starvation as it attempts to reconstruct its economy while denied serious economic or technological assistance from the bureaucrats that previously denied it arms.

The Vietnamese revolution was certainly not, as Pilger suggests, fought out for nothing'. But there is still a fight to be carried out-against Stalinism, and for the construction of a conscious Trotskyist leadership in Vietnam and throughout the deformed workers states of Europe, Cuba and Asia.

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Fisher (centre) heading up a previous ill-fated campaign I he reason for the low turn- empty spaces or victoria park, out at these events-attracting workers simply do not believe only the most militant and that he has the political ability determined trade unionists-is or the intention of doing anydirectly linked to the treacher- thing about low pay.

ship over the past three years. tions of those ghouls of the Two years ago, workers left-Fisher, Dromey and struck for one day and turned Latham, as having nothing whatout in tens of thousands to a soever to do with their fight for march against the cuts organ- better pay and working condiWage 10 The campaign against low pay is now gaining momentum amongst local authority and • health workers in the London area.

The campaign, launched by the NUPE leadership and patronised by other unions (notably the TGWU and GMWU with members in the public sector) has as its cantral demands are a £60 a week minimum basic wage and a 35 hour week.

Several union branches in the London area have passed resolutions in support of the claim.

These moves are obviously one part of the huge reaction that is growing in the working class against a further round of wage restraint.

Public sector workers have been particularly hard hit by the vicious attacks on living standards and social services launched by the Wilson and Callaghan administrations over the past three years.

They are amongst the most exploited section of the labour force, many health workers and council workers earning a basic wage in the region of £37-€40 a week-one reason for opposing the 5% limit that would give them an increase of less than f2.

Also, cuts in public expenditure, combined with willing collaboration from union officials, have forced a drastic drop in manning levels, which has meant the introduction of speed-up and rationalisation on a scale far greater than in most sections of private industry.

It is this decline in living standards and work conditions that has made militant sections of council and health workers resolve to take strike action against the proposed 5% limit, following the lead given by Ford workers.

Not inspiration Despite the impression given by Fisher and the NUPE executive, the 'Low Pay Campaign' itself is an embellishment to this surge of militancy in the working class, affecting only the specific form of the struggle against Phase 4, rather than being its initial inspiration.

This is borne out by several observations.

At a NUPE London Division delegate conference held in July partly to launch the campaign, the whole of the meeting was NEWS spent attacking the NUPE executive members presentover their handling of the Bethnal Green Hospital occupation and a dispute at the West London Hospital-leaving only five minutes at the end to discuss low pay!

At a march and rally a fortnight ago, ending in Victora Park, East London, only forty to fifty workers turned up to hear those well-known workina class heroes Alan Fisher, Jack Dromey and Arthur Latham speak of the virtues of the campaign.

Finally, at a 'street rally' in Camden and İslington last Saturday, about 10 local workers watched NUPE regional officer Mike Taylor warn passing shoppers-who seemed fairly unimpressed-that there may be strike action this winter over pay.

ous record of the NUPE leader. ised by NUPE.

But with no official lead in the fight to stop the cuts through strike action, despite a whole series of similar 'protest' events, the cuts are intensifying rather than lessening.

More recently, during last year's pay negotiations, Fisher made the most eloquent verbal attacks on wage restraint in supporting NUPE's 30% claimonly to turn around and ensure that the various sections of NUPE settled one by one within the 10% limit.

There was no attempt by the leadership to bring together the claims and combine with the striking firemen a united attack that could have broken Phase 3.

So now, when Fisher repeats the same speeches, waving his arms, croaking and haranguing his way through the Labour Party Conference and the Amandas Maul.

They see the noisy proclamations: and this is at a time when there is a growing, massive determination to smash through any form of Government wage restraint.

However, if public sector workers are to win their struggle for decent wages, it will only be through turning the 'Low Pay Campaign' into an all-out attack on Phase 4 alongside the striking Ford workers, Despite the inadequacies of the demands, revolutionaries and militants in the public sector must force the leadership to turn their vague threats into specific proposals for strike action.

Unconditional

Although all wage claims that breach the 5% limit should be supported unconditionally, it is now important that resolutions continue to be passed supporting the £60 claim, as it is through united action that the various sections of the public sector s have most chance of success.

But unless these resolutions are linked to a demand that the leadership sets a date for indefinite strike action in the claim is not met, then there is a big danger that the bureaucracy will once more sabotage a struggle which they have no real interest in winning.

A resolution along these lines has been passed overwhelmingiy by Camden General Branch of NUPE (containing over 2,000 local authority workers) demanding that the National Executive of NUPE call for all-out indefinite strike action from November 4th (the final negotiating date in this section) if the demand is not met in full.

Similar resolutions should be passed in all the various sections of NUPE, TGWU and GMWU.

There is no doubt that public sector workers are prepared to follow the lead given by the Ford strikers in the fight against wage restraint-and this is despite rather than because of their own leadership and its dismal record of betrayals.

But if the struggle is to be won, then this same leadership should not be by-passed or ignored, but forced to lead an all out strike with the full backing and resources of the unions.

In this way the Low Pay Campaign must be turned into the spearhead of the fight to break Phase 4.

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ARMS not horpital! FIGHT THE CUTS

CAUSE CASUALTIES Al HIGHT HE nol