Wsl Join Our Fight!

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The Workers Socialist League is not a movement for the faint hearted. We do not offer any peaceful backwater of abstract discussion. and armchair The fight we carry through each day in the workers' movement has often been shown to have a major impact in inflicting setbacks on the labour But it does so only bęcause our members are prepared to fight tenaciously-sometimes against heavy odds-and in the teeth of bitter hostility from union officials, Labour fakers, Stalinists and all manner of "left-wing" opportunists.

But in arguing and fighting in practice for the building of a Trotskyist leadership capable of mobilising the working class for the struggle for state power and the establishment of a socialist society, we are carrying through that is essential for the working class.

Unless workers are shown the necessity to break from their present leaders, they go unarmed independent interests.

Forefront Understanding this, our movement has from the start, stood at the forefront of agitation to break Labour's wage controls, and for action to prevent the sale of jobs at Speke, in the steel industry, and elsewhere, by TUC bureaucrats in cahoots with management.

Time and again WSL members have deflated fiery speeches by left' windbags who talk of opposition to the social spending cuts but lift not a finger to mobilise strikes or occupations.

And our members have played a key role major cuts struggle.

We have championed every major unionisation fight, from Grunwick to Garners and Sandersons, highlighting and fighting each step of bureaucratic betrayal and sabotage.

And the Workers Socialist League has been at the forefront of the fight in British Leyland and throughout industry. to oppose the erosion of the independent shop stewards' movement through class collaboration in 'workers participation' bodies.

In each of these struggles and in our international work the WSL has fought to reveal and to explain the counter-revolutionary : role played by the Stalinists of the Communist Partieswhether these be 'Eurocommunist parties or those adhering to Moscow.

Our principled stand on these issues has also vividly exposed the opportunism and confusion of the various other left groups who claim to offer workers a revolutionary' alternative.

And the practical experience we have gained in the fight for the Trotskyist: Transitional Programme has convinced us of the* necessity to reconstruct the Fourth International as the World Party of Socialist Revolution, on the principles established at its foundation in 1938.

We call on Socialist Press readers and supporters to consider: the coming struggles, the problems they face, and the necessity of a principled lead in each day-to-day fight.

Why not join us? Our local branch would bel pleased to tell you more about our programme, policies and perspective. from his members Harroway -a member of the Communist Party-chatted away to the capitalist press in language that one worker correctly described as 'scab talk' and 'strikebreaking' Under the headline «Christmas is coming and we'll settle this weekend", Harroway's interview destroyed at one fell swoop the fraudulent claims of his Party and the Stalinist Morning Star to be at the head of the fight against Callaghan's wage controls.

First the Evening News prepared the ground with a little demoralising chatter.

"Christmas is coming, the boredom of home is blotting out the tedium of the production line (!) and their fighting spirit is speeding off in overdrive"

Then Harroway was brought in:

"I expect to see progress today. I would not be at all surprised if we had an all night session or met all run and get in front'"

The Evening News goes on to inadvertently state Harroway's real role:

•That is what, makes Sid Harroway possibly the country's foremost expert on strikes. He has been sorting them out (sic!) at Fords nonstop for 31 years as a shop steward."

Harroway's position, like that. of Peking Stalinist Reg Birch of the AUEW, who a week before this had described the strike as "a ghastly mess', , demonstrates that the danger to the winning of the Fords claim comes not from the rank and file, but within the leadership itself. • After the mass meetings the task of taking control out of the hands of the union bureaucrats and fighting for elected strike committees responsible to the rank and file, becomes more urgent than ever in the struggle to win the Ford claim in full.

PHOTO: Inhn Sturrock.

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