The China Syndrome

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(top) controls at Three Island: above, Fonda This rejection of a proper historical analysis is really a rejection of historical materialism itself.

Those who think they have pushed history aside are all too apt, as we shall see, to find themselves throttled by its logic.

Once again, this same bluff lack of concern for how we have got where we are makes it difficult to connect with the real world.

Thus glibly told (Bulletin p.5) that: Stalinism nearly all the onung elements it did in the Exactly the opposite. Among such layers anti-Stalinism is inant."

But what it happens that youth turn in their anti-Stalinism towards the USFI? Or towards the forces around the various spleen ome groupings or possibly trom the diminishing band of Healvites explain Pabloism so these How you layers? You are surely going to satisfy them with the trite argument that the dege neTOn of Tinese bodies requires 'no further demonstration To say this is to leave the anti-Stalinist vouth in the hands of the Pabloites. tial advance e are told tans sections' or indeed by anyone 'claiming to be Trotskyist or Marxist-Leninist.

So the whole struggle against Pabloite liquida. tionism, however imperfect or ill-conceived is pushed aside The historic 'Open Letter' of 1953, which led to the plit of the Fourth International and the setting up of the International Committeefrom which the WP itself has emerted -1c not seriously considered.

The issues which led to this split are forgotten.

The result is that the WP comrades fall into precisely the same errors and misconceptions as those their predecessors that they so.

James P Cannon allies of the time like Gerry Im 1951-3 Pablo Healy: and Mike Banda, Tel down worship the accomplished "fact" of the Yugoslav Revolution.

Banda was an enthusiastic regime of Marshall Tito and convert The bureaucratic later worshipper the shrines Chi Minh. Colonel Gaddafi, Siddam Hussein, Ayatollah Khomein and more.

Mr. Banda has, however, some willing acolytes in the persons of Comrade revolution in Vietnam.

Truly, by failing to take account of the course of history, he is doomed to repeat all its crimes and shortcomings.

Amongst other subjects missed out by Comrade Bull is the fact that the Vietnamese Stalinists in 1945 fought to restore the rule of French colonialism, and that in order to do so they had to murder hundreds of members of the Vietnamese Trotskyist movement.

This was certainly a very 'conscious' act on the part of the Vietnamese Stalinists.

Comrade Bull also omits to mention that this same 'conscious leadership, following the crushing defeat of the French colonialists at Dien Bien Phu, took part in the Geneva accords of "1954, which split their country in two and allowed the American imperialists to enter the We in the WL have never wavered in our admiration for the struggle of the Vietnamese masses against United States imperialism; nor have we underestimated the historic significance of their victory in 1975.

At the same time we have seen these developments as inextricably linked to the victory in Russia in 1917.

They are not the result of any revolutionary policies from the Stalinist leadership of the Vietnamese CP, bu despite the betrayals of their Overthrow As Trotskyists we continue to call for their revolutionary overthrow through political revolution, and the independent mobilisation of the masses seperated from the bureaucratic regime which the Stalinists inevitably impose upon them (see centre pages).

Alongside the refusal to take up such questions goes the same Healyite little Englandism' on the question of the International.

Thus Comrade Bull tells us:

'If rummaging through the history of the post-war Fl had in fact provided the key to understanding the last Labour Government's crisis it could have helped.' To approach it from this point of view is to ignore the struggle for a genuinely international communist movement, a reconstructed Fourth International, as the only way in which the kind of leadership necessary for this epoch can be built.

Obviously our practice in the class struggle in Britain will be crucial in this, but it can in no way be seperate from a genuinely international The reconstruction of the Fourth International can only take place through an understanding of the weakness and inability to lead of the various faces in the world claiming to be Trotskyist.

This can only be done by a study of the splits and opportunist fusions of the past and an understanding of the political questions and method behind them.

If the comrades of the Workers Party do not take these questions seriously, then their practical intervention in the class struggle will become one-sided and incorrect.

Their own organisation will shrivel and degenerate, and they will simply be added to the long list of those they so easily condemn.

Of all the 'epic disasters' released by the film the most gripping.

• This is not just because the threat of a nuclear power plant disaster is more immediate than the prospect of being eaten by a shark or crushed in an earthquake.

The film's strength comes from its political content.

The struggle to prevent the disaster is seen clearly as a against the capitalist power corporation with its control of the media and the state.

In 'Jaws' and 'Earthquake' the nasty capitalists and bureaucrats were just a side-issue, in the China Syndrome they are central.

Notorious

Much of the film is based around the notorious Westinghouse scandal. Workers at a Westinghouse plant discovered that the company was deliberately falsifying records to cover up faults in nuclear fuel pellets, and breaches of safety procedures.

As a result workers were suffering a very high cancer incidence and there was a danger of faulty fuel causing disaster at nuclear plants.

Karen Silkwood, a woman shop steward, set off by car to deliver documents proving these allegations to union officials and anti-nuclear experts. On the way she was killed in a mysterious road accident in which the document disappeared.

• These events are mirrored in the China Syndrome but unfortunately at an individual level.

The element of struggle by the working class to control the nuclear process is completely removed. Indeed the workers in the plant appear as mere passive instruments of management.

But the forces making controi of nuclear power impossible are shown up vivdly.

The Chief Executive of the Corporation ignores his engineers' warnings that the plant is unsafe because of the prospect of huge losses if the plant is closed down.

• The media are pressured by the Corporation to suppress knowlege of a near melt-down at the plant.

The construction firm which built the plant have falsified X-ray photographs of welded joints to save time and increase profits.

Catastrophe

They then attempt to murder the plant engineer and his associates who are trying to make publie the danger of a catastrophe.

The suspense is heightened by the extraordinary similarity between the original accident at the plant in China Syndrome and the events at the Three Mile Island plant earlier this year.

In both a combination of human error and indicator failure led to the water cooling system to the reactor being cut off. core can overheat to such an extent that it will melt the foundations of the plant and release huge quantities of radioactivity.

At a technical level the film is well constructed. The scenes within the TV studios are full of sharp and amusing details.

The pervasive sexism of the media is brought out when the director attempts to restrict Jane Fonda's role to soft news, "tiger cubs birthday parties"'etc.

The film also brings out how careerism is used to keep the professional layers loyal to capitalist authority.

Both Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon hesitate before risking their careers by a confrontation with their bosses. Jack Lemmon's particularly fine portrayal of the plant engineer highlights the dilemma of technical workers in capitalist society.

Nuclear fuel store politically and not physically determined), and they are not the politically neutral and pollution-free resources which some anti-nuclearists would have us believe.

Middle Class The middle class forces who oppose having nuclear power plants in their neighbourhood have never shed a tear for the tens of thousands of miners killed in extracting coal, or the tens of millions of people held in subjection to ensure a supply of Middle East oil.

The struggle to control the nuclear industry must be the beginning of the struggle for a safe and pollution-free energy supply, whether nuclear or otherwise. And that struggle can only be waged by the organised working class with a socialist The China Syndrome pushes viewers towards these questions but leaves them without an answer. However it combines gripping entertainment with thought-provoking content. And while we should ask for more than that, we cannot expect it from commercial film companies.

Our science correspondent adds:

Although the film is based on a fictional screenplay, the events depicted bear a startling resemblance to events that have occurred in recent months in the USA.

Considerable care has been taken to ensure that the technical side of the film is both accurate and relatively detailed. I urge our readers to see this film as soon as possible.

The term "The China Syndrome" was coined to describe what could happen when the Uranium fuel of a Light Water nuclear reactor overheats as a result of failure in the reactor's cooling system.

In the film this occurs as a result of a combination of human error and instrument failure.

The combination of the heat produced by the chain reactions involved in nuclear fission and the heat given off by the radioactive waste products of the fission process may then result in the melting of the reactor coré.

In theory, this mass of molten material would melt through the bottom of the reactor, melt the rocks on which the reactor was constructed and continue on its way towards China.

Hence, the term. "The China Syndrome"

But in any real melt-down of a reactor core, as it is known, the molten mass would boil the water held in the soil and rocks of the reactor's foundation.

The steam generated would cause an explosion that could scatter radioactive materials over an enormous area.

When first released this film was strenuously attacked by the pro-nuclear lobby in America as depicting a preposterous series of events.

A few weeks after its release there occurred the disaster of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg in Pennsylvania.

This event silenced, at least for a while, the filin's technical critics.

There is a remarkable coincidence in the film where a scientist is asked to comment on what would happen should the reactor undergo a meltdown.

He replies by saying that the resulting disaster could affect an area the size of Pennsylvania! This echoes the real-life fears of many Harrisburg residents.

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DUSIRIAL

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industry in recent years, the China Syndrome is by far

Godfrey Webster re- views THE CHINA SYNDROME, starring Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon, which is now on general release.

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