Socialist Press no. 17

'LEFTS' MUST OUST

BASQUE MILITANTS MUST NOT DIE

SOCIALIST

PRESS *

The Labour Party Conference is taking place under conditions of a Labour Government attacking the working class on all fronts. Having introduced harsh statutory wage controls, the collaboration they are receiving from the TUC allows them to argue that they have simply implemented the "freely adopted" wage policy of the Trade Union movement.

Alongside this they have market platform in the recent created mass unemployment as a referendum. deliberate act of class war against While Wilson presses the attack the working class. Again they other political forces emerge in the rest on the TUC who argue that tensions and confusion created by unemployment has been saused mass unemployment. The violent by "excessive" wage increases intervention of the National Front last year and on the basis of this at the pro-Prentice rally last week advance the "solution" of wage spelled out the dangers ahead if cuts to solve unemployment.

the reactionary policies of this It is to stop any intervention government are not fought.

or development at the conference which disrupts this relationship

CAPITALIST

with the trade union leaders on which this government: entirely

POLICIES

rests that the employers, the Tory press, the Wilson cabinet and the TUC bureaucracy line up Under these conditions the refusal of the 'lefts' in the Labour to ensure that no real opposition Party to take up any struggle to emerges. They know that if they can remove Wilson, Healey, Jenkins confine the conference to the Prentice and the rest can open the level of a debate, the savage door to a right wing Tory adminis- who are biding their time offensive of the Wilson govern- tration, ment against the working class while Wilson carries out policies will remain intact. which defend capitalism and As unemployment rises to ¡alienate Labour supporters The ground work is being 1,400,000 this week, inflation rages unabated, and as health, laid by the capitalist press for a vicious witch hunt, victimisations caucation, nousing and wellare and purges against any effective programmes are mutilated by Wilson's spending cuts, the city opposinon to wuson in uc Labour Party. millionaires and their servants in This would have precedents the Labour cabinet regard it as "extremism" to kick out a only in the expulsions of the reactionary Labour MP, and Keep Left Young Socialists in "moderation" to throw a million 1964 in preparation for the return of the first Wilson government and a half on the dole. The "moderate' Prentice, who and the consolidation of the bans defended the action of Jenkins which resulted in the jailing of the and the courts in leaving Des Warren to rot in jail, and who CP in preparation for the General supported the Tories in jailing the Strike. Pentonville Five in 1972, has the A successful witch hunt would allow the right wing impudence to slander Warren by associating him with "thugs" to continue to ignore all confer- At the same time Wilson and ence decisions as they did last year on the Shrewsbury 2 and in 1973 the rest of the right wing lined up with anti-trade union forces over Clay Cross and over the assembled by the pro-common Common Market policy. It would

SPAIN

GARMENDIR

SAUVONS-LES!

OTREGUI

AS DOLE QUEUES GROW

WILSON

ONE

NATION

Harold Wilson Labour election meeting create the best conditions for the Labour and TUC leaders to con- tinue to act jointly against the working class. A purge within the Labour Party is likely to be carried into the trade unions where the new level of betrayal and collaboration between the trade union leaders and the employers requires that any opposition is forcibly stamped out.

This stresses that the sharpest possible fight must be carried out at the conference for the removal of Wilson and the right wing. But such a fight must go alongside a fight for alternative programme.

At the conference Wilson will be protected by the lefts' behind a smokescreen of militant rhetoric.

Benn, architect of the Ryder plan, to restore British Leyland's profits at the expense of jobs, wages and conditions by means of 'workers The Fascist Franco regime in Spain last Friday announced its intention to murder deliberately by the most feudal barbaric method of slow strangulation (garrotting) five Basque militants of the FRAP (Anti-Fascist Pat- riotic Front). The five: Rueda, Blanco, Baena, Fernandez and Marco, join two others, Garmen- dia and Otaegui already under death sentence for the alleged killing of a policeman in Madrid last July The 'trial' of these militants was conducted with complete arrogant contempt for elementary rights. The "judges rejected out of hand not

FORTNIGHTLY PAPER OF THE

WORKERS SOCIALIST LEAGUE

No 17 * 17th September 1975 * 10p participation', has quietly accepted the energy minister post in order to remain in Wilson's job-slashing, wage-cutting cabinet. Michael Foot defends high un- employment using the most brazen arguments of employers. Both Foot and Benn have opted actively to support Wilson's betrayals.

With Eric Heffer and Judith Hart removed whilst declaring them- selves against Wilson's removal none of the lefts' are prepared to support this demand. The crisis of leadership in the Labour Party is not simply a question of reactionary, corrupt and spineless individuals, although many such individuals will decor- ate the floor and platform of the conference. It stems from the fact that the leadership both 'left' and right, is tied lock stock and barrel to the irregularities - the denial of access to lawyers by the defendants and the refusal to hear defence witnesses, but felt it completely unnecessary for any evidence to be brought forward concerning fingerprints or the actual existence of the murder weapon Thus, the convictions were based solely on statements which all the defendants stated were extracted under torture.

DEATH SENTENCES

The sentences have provoked dem- onstrations of sympathy throughout Europe including Spain itself in preservation and defence of capit- alism. The Labour Party was built by the working class 70 years ago to defend the unions within the framework of peaceful reform.

Now no reforms can be won, as the world economic crisis bears down with full force on British capitalism with its obsolete and uncompetitive equipment and its position in the world market shrinking month by month. The present Labour leaders, rejecting the overthrow of capitalism, are now the organisers instead of an attack on the working class.

This crisis of working class political leadership is the starting point of the Trotskyist Transitional Programme. While the lefts' bleat they are at every point able only to protest but never to carry out a consistent fight. They can never get beyond the they do not start from the prep aration of a revolutionary leader- ship in order to lead the working class in the overthrow of capitalism.

The struggle for nationalisation and socialism must be prepared by a fight in every part of the labour movement for workers control, to defeat sackings, wage cuts and public service cuts The question of leadership is sharply posed as the working class begins to struggle against the Labour government, lead at this stage by the action of the blast- furnacemen. The Workers Socialist League calls on every Labour Party member to demand the immediate removal of Wilson and the right wing. For the lefts' of the Parliamentary Labour Party to do anything less than fight for motions to this effect is to prepare the road for the Tories and expose their talk of "socialism" as a hollow sham At the same time we stress that the struggle against the right wing and the capitalist crisis cannot be carried through without the build- ing of a revolutionary Trotskyist leadership to unite and mobilise the working class on the basis of the Transitional Programme of the Fourth International.

been shot by police The Franco regime, now faced with a massive build up of working class resistance, aided by the Portuguese clear revolution, has made it quite through its treatment of the Basque militants that there can be no peace- ful return to democratic liberties in Spain without the enforced over- As throw of the Franco regime Franco's removal as head of state becomes more and more imminent and struggles by Spanish workers for elementary trade unions and democratic rights, alongside the Basque struggle for national libera- tion, come out into the open, the working class movement internation- ally must take up without reserva- tion the condemnation of the trials and demand the immediate rescind ing of the sentences and the releas of the

Page 2

PORTUGAL

AFM MOVES RIGHT

continuing strength The up a sixth. and confidence of the working shore up the of the rank still remains, class, especially soldiers and sailors, willing allies in and file powerful the most remains Portuguese of the motor forces This is still the Revolution. case despite the efforts of the military dictators of the Armed themselves France. Movement to balance Forces involved between the competing social communist classes. They lurch uncertainly from the short-lived fifth provisional govern- ments, ment since the overthrow of fascism unstable political combi- the nations necessary from them to set

CHINA STRIKE WAVE

press reports A series ui in recent weeks have made it men during July and clear that August the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party fac- Finally ed major unrest in a number drawn centres coupled of industrial miles struggles within with sharp sent into local party organisations.

order. an industrial town Hangchow, a million of over people on coast of central China, was reported press, with the of widespread to be they industrial stoppages, partly directed of factory the freezing azalist of workers' wages and the shortage were accompanied by goods. These intense political battles between reports in the party organ- isation. "Radicals" protected - with the aid of massive poster campaigns in the factories - against the restora-

LWU

tion of "moderate" figures removed and And Party positions during the from point cultural revolution. At one SeRI workers cut the main line

TOURIO

Shangai. linking Shanghai with Canton and

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Portugal's military dictators of. version the according to working class. Since Stalinist Prime Gonzalves, consolidate the In their efforts capitalist state that will find Armed the the military the leaders of the of Nine', Communist and Socialist parties.

been re-admitted the As these enorts conunue, body of the movement. counter-revolution ot

COIT

tinue to gather. There can be no doubt fascist militias are preparing in Spain, and possibly tration. They have •clear v the of the influence anti- and anti-trade union- apparently inspired rioting that has taken place.

secretary these develop- Encouraged by 10C41 of the discredited 'suitable administration' the last counter-coup attempt, ax- Mean while, General Spinola, is currently touring Europe to win support of his own hospitalised test me order" finally restore apparatus was the theme of "party unity" down by the Party congress.

ion, was and state were removed during the cultural revolution.

beginning of September factions within the Party openly. ences Peaceful Co-existence: Chou En Lai with Nixon launched 'moderate the The idea sought to suppress the trouble with but the militia- the urban militia, was also involved many recent campaigns, themselves occal in the political struggles; as did the standing army garrison of the area.

the local troops were with- and units of the First Army were brought in from Wuhan, 350 controlling 11,000 troops Were away. factories to restore the from the capitalist reports in must be treated increased amounts of course considerable caution, since

HILLIC

establish manipulation to are subject the anti-communist ends informa- press tycoons and the propaganda agencies of and scale of the But the coup imperialism. mullary Allende's indicates that a national, not just local, crisis was involved rep- Industrial stoppages welc Wuhan and Chungking, forced to leave orted from China, in central the key cities Chilean Mukden in the north. (the from mid-August troops were glye into the coal-mining area Suchow, north-east of struggles in such The industrial ITT corporation, the leading role in of Chile's Allende regime two years announced on 5th. September ago, that they were withdrawing their entire investments of ten dollars from lie county• surprising that Kissinger told a press conference two days later that he recent political thought ments in Portugal were toy.

DICTATORS

of the The dictators Forces Movement are trying to deal with this situation by re-imposing military discipline and other curbs on such 9th. September it On censorship. that the announced was council of the Armed Forces Move had decided ment reports of varying political opinion in the army. The purpose of this decree was not simply the disagreements within corps and the Armed Forces Move- itself. There ment increasing indication of growth weeks the the army rank and sention within have been of troops refusing to more cases go out to Angola, among sections of military who have been ordered to compel 'domino theory which all sections of them to do so. European capitalism are threatened On 1st. September hundred military police by the advances of the Portuguese through Lisbon shouting slogans as 'Soldiers are not cannon the overthrow of pro- Vasco fodder!', 'We will Minister bourgeoisie' guns against efforts have been made the the demonstration ot further hold more openly pro-capitalist sections September included other sections of the armed forces and indicated Forces Movement. The right wing leaders of the 'Group that this resistance is continuing.

Antunes and Alves, have

CENSORSHIP

the ruling into Efforts are being made to bring Efforts to impose press censor- the bourgeois PPD and other right- also met of wing parties, into the new adminis- ship position from press effort to In a clear well-known including the

EEC

situation, Diaro de Lisboa foreign ministers meeting at Venice, paper close to the Communist Party, and British the Republica which now reflects Callaghan, have political movements the views of offered to loan £80 million to a to the left of the Stalinists.

The largest and the American defiance of the various AFM bans monopolists of the multi-national Party cells throughout the country.

ITALY

Vice-Premier Teng Hsiao-Ping, who has been acting as head of the state apparatus since Chou En Lai was was over a year ago, to brought in the city. His purge of radicals in the local party used to underline laid Teng, who was bitterly criticised The fiction of 'non-inter- at the time of the cultural revolut- ference' by US imperialism in only restored to power the internal affairs of Europ two years ago. Since then he has brought back a number of senior countries took ean military officials who knock last week. As the Ital- along with him ian Communist Party renewed its efforts to force or cajole But in the Chinese press at the different Christian (Italy's main capitalist party) hierarchy appeared to be airing their differ- into some sort of joint agree- In People's Daily ment on a new coalition with (with a readership of over thirty millions) and the Party theoretical Communist journal Red Flag a campaign was ion or support, against "capitulationists" Ambassador in Rome attempt- (widely interpreted as referring to put his foot down. ed to leaders brought In an interview with the week- back since the cultural revolution).

Iy magazine Epoca Mr. John Volpe, "unity" of as ambassador since 1972, announced supreme principle within the Party like that 'President Ford, secretary challenged. But, state Kissinger and other officials the crit- icisms were not explicit but veiled have declared explicitly in the form of commentaries on occasions num bet OI works of classical Chinese literature.

participation of the The Stalinist character of the in the government and their taking leadership within or power in a member Chinese Communist Party was und erlined last week, though, with the visit of a major trade delegation Chile to Peking. It intends to arrange for the sale of greatly Chilean and copper to China, and 'normal' commercial relations between the two countrics.

China never broke off diplom- atic relations with Chile after the which overthrew 'Popular Unity' govern- ment in 1973. Not only that, but Allende's ambassador to Peking was the country, and Chinese embassy in Santiago capital) refused to political asylum to the left who were being hunted down by the military dictatorship - even though a number of western Sweden, offered SOCIALIST PRESS, Heiresis: Serie demonstration was seen on who played such Oporto on 10th September. whe: overthrow more than 1500 memock: of the armed scullull forces shouted 'Down with Fabic right-wing commander in chief, ard million for the spread calls went up It is not avoid another chile n action order such did the Not only demonstration itself defy the AFM develop did the wide decree, but also SO spread reports of it which followed in the press. Though the AFM council or September could announc 13th. of pro-Stalinis! the replacement Armed Carvacio as military commander oi the Northern region, they were un- reler to tne abie ever spread defiance of the new decree.

press All this emphasised that however

BBC

and the much ruling press report every reactionary trend in Portugal, the power all working class remains strong. The AFM meeting found it necessary to Spinola's mach fulminate against but they are not stro inations, to tone down enough to do anything to enforc officer their measures of press censorship been has recent

UNSTABLE

dis more and and even revolts It is into this unstable situation police that the sixth provisional gover will ment attempt once agall through the methods of bourgeoi several dictatorship to reconcile the com marched peting class forces. This effort wil such inevitably fail. The Spinolists an their friends are still waiting turn our the wings Social democratic leader Soare 12th. on is have asserted tha sale le Spinola could return to the countr "providing he obeys the law". Th Stalinists try still find allie all supporters among bourgeois state and they retain th Prim confidence new Minister Azevada. The workers, soldiers and sma course with op of Portugal will have farmers Itsell, break from such leaders as thes daily able will before they be which is the democratic righ guarantee which they have been tenacious defending, as well as the sociali revolution which alone can guara that have so tee the gains most open made. been

US PRESSURE GROW

NATO would be a basic contr diction. Warming to his theme, he add that "in view of the another historical, cultural and social lin which firmly unite Italy and il system installation government foreign to the weste Democrats democratic tradition. Volpe is only stating Mr. a little 'indiscretely only is universally accepted among senior officials of the Party participat Department. As in Portugal th US the eager to use possil are bolster pro-Americ avenue to capitalist regimes. The fact that Mr. Volpe's vie on the manoeuvres for a coali: with those of the coincide majority of Christian Democra politicians is also well known. i agents in they not Iree alc matter - the offensive of the that the class, both or alian working Communists front and in trade union the left in the to regional elections - force ther Stale need to the consider readmitting the through munist Party into government 1948 US imperialism the. Papacy openly united I campaign anti-Communist of the drove the cr our war government. Rut the reai Communist Party 10 of the Volpe's open intervention ag them was of the most minima cowardly sort. politely appealed They Signor Moro's Christian Der 'prevent cabine while the Socialis type partners leadership, protested coalition, "impermissible interference Manifesti centrist demanded that should request that the -:: he withdrawn.

SADAT SELLS OUT

WHAT IS THE WORKERS SOCIALIST LEAGUE ?

heinese sepiemot' i

CHILE

TWO YEARS OF

BRUTAL REPRESSION

On the second anniversary of the military coup in Chile Pinochet's General regime unemployed. announced a number of mea- sures 'easing' the dictatorship - all of them shallow frauds aimed at making international support for the junta easier The for foreign governments. A 'consultative' council of state elected and proposed not the coup of without powers on which three former presidents have been invited They include Eduardo Frei,

LO SELI

Christian Democratic president from claimed that Pinochet also political prisoners will in the future human rights. be tried before civilian, not military But the state of emergency courts. remains in forçe, meetings, strikes and demonstrations are banned.

tary One figure stands out, under- lining the international character equipped of the Chilean defeat. US sales of arms to Chile totalled $ 68 millions beatings, in the year up to September 1974, compared with $ 65 millions in the the from to vears 19721 In 1975 the military budge periods. twenty per cent higher than was the health and education budgets combined. Pinochet's bases itself ulta on the most brutal and systematic times this. repression of the working class and peasants, carried out with a..huge volume of weaponry supplied by American imperialsm and capitalist governments including alle What are the relatives. economic results of the junta? Most wages fixed by bitter price decree, prices are Wille Political prisoners under guard in Santiago football stadium allowed to race forward unchecked.

Official figures inflation dures 1974 at rer 390 the rate cent (that is, almost a quad- per rupling of the price level): the coup. World Bank estimated it at 600 per cent. ments For millions this has meant Pinochet extreme poverty, in many cases to example, the verge of starvation. Most forms of basic medical care are out of the reach of workers, with the price oi hands medical supplies and drugs (many unobtainable except on the black The Workers Socialist League was formed on December 22nd 1974 as part of the fight to carry forward the method and principles of Trotsky's Transitional Programme, the founding document of the Fourth Inter- national. The WSL now represents the continuity of the struggle for these ormeries m une workers movemeue The formation of the League followed the expulsion members from the Workers cratically by the WRP leadership in order to prevent discussion of their own abandonment of the Programme both in theory and in practice.

mass expulsions showed that there could be no hope of an independent organisation had to be founded to maintain the

WRP

fight for Trotskyism. Such a split came out of particular conditions. The rapid development of the economic crisis of capitalism and the forward movement of the world working class, which has now overthrown imperialism in Vietnam and Cambodia, began to produce the conditions to build revolutionary parties internationally. At such a point the importance of a fight for the method and principles of the Transitional Programme, against both sectarianism and opportunism is paramount in the preparation of revolutionary leadership.

of isolation from the mass movement, period as the only tendency with a programme and a history of struggle to lead the working class in the taking of power.

The defence of jobs through the fight for work sharing on full pay, run by trade union committees; the defence of living standards through the fight for all wage agreements to include a sliding scale to compensate for increases in the cost oi living as determined by the challenging of the committees; preparation establish books of industry, in, 19:3 market) shooting up fifty-fold in less than two years. And at least Chilean workers are one in seven

ARRESTS

political repression spearheaded by the political police the sort. DINA - continues unchecked since September 11th, 1973. A decree of May this year promising within persons the forty-eight hours, has remained a dead letter, and the junta was even forced to refuse a visit in July by United Nations commission on A recent report bv " Amnestv International' identified a number of houses, barracks and other mili- premises in Santiago and Valparaise which have been specially as centres Ior The methods generally used include forcing victims to stand for days on end, electric shocks to isolation genitals, and depri and food for long vation of sleep Small children are tortured in front of their parents' eyes.

The regime officially admits to holding over four thousand political prisoners; the true figure The 'Amnesty' report states that it has checked the names of over two thousand persons who have 'disappeared' since the coup, whom the regime refuses provide any information to Pinochet's dictatorship is the paid by the Chilean bourgeois their efforts are all of the the Palestinians. The treaty 13% about of by the Israelis in the field. ted oil the continuing working class for the Popular Front policies of Stalinism, which refused political conflicts to break with the military officers particularly they were preparing and the Palestinians. A number of Stalinist govern- continue to bolster - Rumania and China, for continuing only not Since the diplomatic relations but trade: even inflicted on them in when the blood on the dictatorship's the has forced number of desperately to capitalist governments to break off diplomatic relations. nationalisation under workers called for- in this situation.

lised to working class to take the power.

of over 200 for this method. carried out bureau- centred on a break from These correcting the struggles in this party. tionary Already After a hard Trotskyism now emerges of developing a truly programme. prices trade union of the employer and the on the capitalism. workers contro in the

PALESTINIAN

MASSES

The agreement signed on Their client state of and power. Israel has always been a reliable Ist September between Israel ally in extending their and Egypt has been hailed as and diverting the a step towards 'peace' in the Jewish an / Arab masses. Middle East. It is nothing of However, a number of circum- stances have made it essential for In fact it is a significant victory the US to win for United States imperialism which East broader than and has firmly established its role as from Israel policeman between the expan- governments of Jordan and Saudi The growth of the Arabia. sionist Lionist settler state and the Sadat defending the sell-out on television nationalists of Egypt. economic crisis, and the use of the 'Oil However much Sadat and Kissinger the by may blink and smile at TV cameras, has imperative made directed against Americans to expand their power Arab masses, over the bourgeois nationalists.

especially The Ist September agreement was a triumph Kissinger The placing these efforts. American "technical experts' where

DESERT

they the can supervise Israeli withdrawals returned to Egypt increasingly unlikely Israeli expansionism inhospitable allows desert area which was appropriated to prevent Sadat or ally forces taking active steps to win war, back any of the territory occupied containing just one almost exhaus- by the Zionist settlers. And the bloody fighting in the Lebanon that follow- signing and the news of Egypt repression

COAT TAILS

shows that this agreement will do nothing to resolve the social and in the area, the srael lis between The new situation must show clearly that the bourgeoisie is now so firmly tied to

PRESTIGE

the coat-tails of US imperialism incapable of inat it 1s back a single defeats inch major Indo-China, territory for the The US imperialists have sought anybody else. restore the of the war of 1973 were simply used shattered vestiges of their prestige as vargalning counters maragement: all these policies are now As they are fought for and workers are mobi win these demands, they begin to form a bridge between the present level of political consciousness of workers and the need for the Yet the WRP refused to take up a fight For this reason the most important developments in our work have WRP sectarianism and propagandism, important gains in trade union work and opening up completely new areas We are beginning to recruit and train from the new forces thrown into not only trade unionists, but also professional expose all those who attack and revise - not only also the 'rank and file' policies of the IS group who refuse to defend the IMG who liquidate the revolu Soviet Union as a workers' state, and the and liaisons as against Stalinism and reformism tendencies, it is clear that throughout the world the movement of the questions for those groups calling themselves Trotskyist, particularly sections of the International Coinmittee of the Do developera a truly indurational movement based on the Trotskyis international movement based on the For this reason the WSL is now engaged in a process of inter- nal discussion prior to a full founding conference, a vital part of which is to hammer out and adopt perspectives for the building of the Trotskyis Fourth International, and the development of revolutionary parties based Trotskyist programme in every country in the struggle to end obtain more of the • patronaga 01 the US. The rapid of move influence Ainerican capital into Egypt in recent months shows that it is the struggles of the American monopolists who hope to be the first to benefit.

News has recentiy hand to indicate that the first to support in the suffer from relation- these new simply ships will be the Egyptian working the reactionary class and those who try to fight for world their interests On 3rd August report Cairo daily appeared in the Al Akhbar giving details of the arrest of twenty alleged members 'International of the Communist League' said to be associated with the 'United Secretariat' of the Fourth International. . The arrested include Ussama Khalil, an employee of Cairo University, , a number of students including Ibrahim Azzam, and several workers who were not named Although this group have now appeared before a court, relatives have been allowed to visit

HOL

them in prison. There must be an immediate campaign in the labour movement for the release of these socialists, as well as for those others who still remian may In prison following the arrests of hundreds of students and trade unionists earlier this yee bloody fighting in Lebanon since the signing of the 1st Sepiember agreement also arises from protests against the capitulation to Zionism in the only Arab country where it is possible mount significant popular for the protest against it. Further conflict will inevitably arise as the bitterly disappointed Palestinians look new ways obtain their just for national rights. of marginal and limit the attempt at them other Egyptian that is One thing becoming ever is that they will clearer than have to build a movement to do simply winning this that fights thi Zionists themselves, but also all of occupied Palestinians or those in the Arab world who are prepared to compromise with verv advances imperialism. to

SOCIALIST PRESS

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BEHIND THE SMOKESCREEN

Pagi 4

WRP OPPOSES

MARXIST

blandly the For those who thought that it savs aSSeTES opposite of the words on the page!

the bottom of the ditch had He writes: een struck, 'Workers Press'. "His call to support the Stalinist of the Workers uly paper lobby does not include a single Party, has yet his Revolutionary demand could separate tendency from Ramelson's stunt".

gain revealed undreamed of and goes on: depths of distortion and slan- "Thornett has difficulty der against the Workers Social- his placing group total subser- Ill ist League. Although most of vience to both the Stalinists and the reformists". present members of the the Such statements by Gale tell WRP have probably never us nolning about inornell s poncies Known any other political but speak volumes on his inability method from their leadership, read even simple To vassass it has not always adopted such written by the WSL. positions. of the Until 1974, members

TROTSKY

Party and workers Revolutionar its predecessor the Socialist Labour League had for many years been able to subject to the most merci- article is to demonstrate that on the the various tendencies criticism question of the Labour Governemnt inside the movement pro- daiming themselves to be Marxist. Trotsky stands on the side of the To out this: task, the

WRP

the side oi the Wre ol wally main had no need to mis- represent the political positions put on the working class to forward by these groups. The speeches and publications OI resentatives of these organisations anti-working class government that provided the

WRP

all will ammunition they needed. is a coalition with the Tories inaall It is an indication both of the political strength and integrity of Workers Socialist League VIUs be continuing political degeneration of the WRP that, order to attack

WRP

the is forced to group, listort and misrepresent our prog and analysis to a degree believes that this policy is incorrect.

the workers a care ol Stalin first set about Of course we do not disagree about the totally reactionary nature of the iving to discredit Trotsky by slan- daring him and falsifying his polit- cal positions. standards of the working class. They

DİSHONEST

do this because they start, not from rupt capitalist system and introduce but from the need The latest example of thsi mis- to prop up capitalism at the expense representation can be found in an article in the August 27th issue of Workers Press. The article is written Jack Gale, for many years the Flipping boy'

WRP

General OI in words to the policies that Wilson Gerry Healy, haw le as representing centrist tend-

WRP.

nothing that would seriously chall- cies inside the Gale now enge his right to attack the working ms to be worming his way back io favour by his scurillous attacks Workers Socialist League this Labour government? The Work- hich appear from time to time in pages of Workers Press. His most members of the government latest offering must qualify him title "Most Dishonest the nave noung mn common labour movement at all. They really Political Writer in British Journal- No feat mean when one considers the (unworthy neseasels. contenders for that particular title.

Perhaps the most glaring dis- of any objective reader orion is that to be achieved? We demand ¡ale's article is the way in which he that those members of Parliament statement of critical eprints our the LCDTU lobby of pport for should

TUC

Conference (published WRP announced is before the the Labour right-wing. Instead, they were holding a lobby). The should immediately start a campaign Stalinist tement exposes the LCDTU and states of the AiLS

W'SL

will fight to expose these Gale ough its own slogans. the statement and then so. Lilo right wing and we want to demon-

TUC

strate this in practice to all those Cass ConSCo us working class who still believe that

LOBBY

obstructed from carrying out the Labour Party mantiesto. exposing their support for the right Wie call on all our members and supporters to support the lobby of the TUC called on September 2nd, and organised by the Liaison Comm-

SPONTANEOUS

inee for the Defence of Trade Unions, The lobby is demanding a rejection of wage restraint and a fight against employment. government to resign on the other We support this lobby even though the record of the LCDTU has always!

been to come to the defence of the trade union bureaucracy. positions which it is we consider it necessary to pose cleat that our alternative demands to the TUC Communist and expose those of the arts. for which the LCDTU is a front organisation. ment should be forced to resign, or what onvernment should renlace

METHOD

government to resign. Today, the WRP refuse to propose such action and the ofter no same alternative as to how Wilson can be forced call another election. to apparently 'revolutionary demand this becomes a form of words to cover their complete lack in the intervention

SCLIOUS

class. article, Jack Gale sets out to distort our policy on the Labour government. He accuses Alan Thornett, a leading member of the WSL, of arguing, at the time expulsion the WRP; ot his that the Labour government would be forced to the left by the pressure of the working class, and would by barefaced lies and distortion to show that the WL has a tradition of 'wrong positions on the Labour anse a basic difference with the WRP, surely such a position would have emerged as a part of the WL's position, and not be confined to an ever making such a statement, and quote in any of the documents of the split or any issue of our paper Thornett and leading WSL members did hold this incorrect position it would inevitably be reflected in the challenge anyone to produce a single our publications that supports Gale's accusation.

NOT SERIOUS

main role is to conceal at all costs the real political differences which the WRP Central Committee and in one opposition document (given a together with another one authorised Healy but suppressed. the discussion within the WRP on these then abruptly ended altogether by the bureaucratic expulsion of over prior to the party's First Annual Conference last December.

Cde Thornett's differences were

LADOUI

wrong positions of the abandonmerst pa the messed ot Trotsky's Transitional Programme, the "At the same time the party in its practice abandons the characteri- 1n agitation, propaganda and orga- and therefore abandons what is the This has in my view led the maximum programme on the basis that the revolutionary situation has SO programme does not apply. It leads that the working class has broken from reformism and Stalinism. The mechanical link between economics to the party's theoretical position over the recent period is in essence the abandonment of the Transitional Programme in which necessary in the process of thei masses Instead of this approach, we have sectarian predominating con- Trotsky ception condemned DV "revolutionary events inevit- that ably push the workers towards us This passive expectancy, under a cover of idealistic messianism, has nothing in common with Marxism".

What today is the WRP's ultim- atistic demand "make the Labow government resign" if not a refusal to help the masses of workers who 'lefts' find still support the fake bridge their present between demands and the socialist revolut- ion? Workers test their leaders in struggle, and it is in struggle to make their 'left' leaders fight that they will learn the need of new leadership and policies. We new support and seek to politically direct their demands on the 'lefts' because we see this as the only way of discrediting the 'lefts'.

our Party and in the unions must contronted with a brog from the present problems confront- and goes beyond containing within them the necessity for the working class to take the

ADAPTATIONS

see itself, and have not seen objectively year, to understand that, prior to Wigan Builders Action Committee Meeting addressed by WRP's Mike Banda: within the WRP, virtually none of the demands now bandied around the sliding scale of hours (now our slogan of work sharing on full pay) not at all. Indeed these slogans are still not understood or used correct- ly to this day by Gale since he confuses the two together, calling for an undefined "sliding scale of the books of the employer and an end to business secrets had never appeared in Workers Press prior to 1974, and the demand followed by the wrong slogan of manacement demand for a programme of public works. to ensure the defence of jobs in nationalised industries was never Election Manifesto epitomises the was directly out of his intervention that subsequent verbal changes have oniv undertook any paign on the Shrewsbury Two after party, in an attempt to create the appearance of a serious trade union Dase. Rut while cloaking themselves in SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday September 17th, 1975 Healy leadership has found it impos sible to cover the cloven hoof of the sectarian method which since the election of the Labour govern ment has dogged the wkr and created its continuing political crisis "force Labour to It emerges in the resign" slogan and in the inabilit!

of the WRP to penetrate the un- ions (so that nat one WRP policy went on the agenda at the T&GWU conterence, and not a single trade union other than Equity has seen any serious WRP intervention).

emerges their pat maximum slogan, attached to everything and addressed to "nationalise no-one, and land under industry, banks workers control without compen sation" - calling presumably on Labour government of 'corporatists' legislate what amounts to the social revolution! Because the

WSL

does not directs instead a continuous struggle programme and revolutionary able to hold an organisation, Gale emerges to accuse us of reformism.

He claims that because the Workers Socialist League does not support fore support keeping support keeping every Labour govern- ment is a capitalist government that given the choice between defending capitalism and taking the road to revolution, always chooses to defend capitalism. Therefore the Thornett

ACTION COM

campaign began after opposition in WRP capitalist government in power and defence of capitalism. In that sense all Labour governments are capital- time the Labour Party has historical ties with the working class through une ade tiates it from thoroughly capitalist parties such as the American Demo- was built by and through the trade union movement in order to defend in parliament the trades unions from the attacks of the bosses and their the task confronting revolutionaries is to devise the means to break the and in particular the who in the present economic crisis claim to oppose the attacks of the right wing in the Labour govern- established the SLL and the WRP For instance, in 1961, in a letter to the American SWP, the National Committee of the Socialist Labour League detailed some of the strug gles it had undertaken against revis- ionist tendencies within its own ranks, each resulting in splits. It States who proposed the ultra-left theori

SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday September 17th, 1975 G. Healy the no W within the

SLL)

suffered formed SUnC nevertheless. we have been during the past defence and the promotion for imple- closer relation- Socialism' and (Trotskyism Revisionism, V. pp. 50-52) expulsion the SLL-led Party. situation within the Party and a revolutionary We principles. do not want to ape the actions of the SLL - bu rather to draw attention to the sectarian revisions the

WRP

have now made on the nature of the Labour Party, and the method they once defended.

PRACTICE

The Workers Socialist League does not support a capitalist govern- It is our intention to fight ment. to break the working class from their reformist leadership and we only be done by say Inis can demonstrating in practice the role of the Labour government and those that cover up for them. But let answer the Tne following questions. If every Labour government is a capitalist govern- then ment and nolnig else, has the WRP and the SLL called on the working class to vote Labour back into power at every election since the war? Moreover, since in WRP have pursued the past une the same policy as ours, that demanding that the "lefts' fight Wilson and the right wing, dropped this have they suddenly of the abstract policy in favour demand to force the Labour govern- ment to resign? They could only justify this change policy if they could OI demonstrate that different somehow irom previous Labour governments.

But they themselves quote Trotsky the effect all that defend governments capitalism rather than take the revolutionary road. That includes Wilson's 1964 and 1966 governments as well as the present Wilson administration.

Why did the SLL not call for the removal of the last Labour government by the working class? It is no good the WRP listing terrible things that this une Labour government is doing, with the implicit (and on occasions the explicit) support of the Tories and then suggesting that this coalition in all but name makes this Labour government different from previous governments. In 1966, Wilson launched series of attacks on working the class, including the notorious the anti-union laws Place of Strife' proposed in and the vicious attack on the leaders of the 1966 seamens strike.

There can be no doubt that at the time he received the support of the Tories in all these actions which were aimed making the working class pay for economic crisis which was at that time beginning to emerge in a big way. It is not the

WSL

that 15 breaking from the "entire pro- analysis and strategy pialic. Trotskyism" as Gale falsely accuses us, but the WRP. do not simply repeat them often class will working That is why eventually catch on. it is not good enough for Gale to quote a passage in which Trotsky 'lefts' of his as incapable of carrying out socialist policies as the right wing led by MacDonald.

And it proves nothing for him to declare that it is not enough to expose the lefts, they must be actually removed.

He knows the WRP at this point can not remove ciner tell or rignu wing MPs and that his words are mere bluster. Of course the lefts have to be removed but this cannot be done by telling workers that Trotsky demonstrated 50 years ago that the 'lefts' are no better than the rights. Before the lefts can be removed they The be exposed. way to expose them is demand that they carry their words into actions fight to remove Wilson and the right wing, form a government and implement socialist policies.

It is through the struggle that the working class puts up to place these demands on the 'left' MPs that the possibility of winning large sections of the working class away trom reformism becomes a reality, for if it is demonstrated in practice that the Benns and Heffers of this world in tact no different from the Wilson and the Jenkins, then the question of an alternative leadership is immediately posed to the most class conscious layers of the working By seeking an idealist short Cass.

WRP

cut round this struggle the ensures it can remain only on the fringes of the Labour movement, and can never develop the revolutionary party necessary the coming period. Marx writes in Capital: "Moreover, all progress in capi- talistic agriculture is a progress in the art, only of robbing the labourer, but of robbing the soil; all progress in increasing the fertility the soil for a given time Is a progress towards ruining the lasting sources of that fertility.

The more a country starts its development on the foundation of modern industry, Like there nited States reas more rapid is this process destruction. Capitalist production, therefore, develops technology, and the combining together of various processes into a social whole, only sapping the original sources of all wealth - the soil and the labour."

(Vol. 1, p. 506) The technical level of produc- tion has advanced enormously since the period in which Marx wrote Capital, and the one-sided develop- ment of and technology suicide under capitalism now contains great dangers. The purpose of this article is to consider some of these and attempt to place them in perspective.

PERSPECTIVE

If the working class were to be badly beaten by the bourgeoisie and capitalism were to survive its present crisis, there would begin a new chapter of capitalist progress.

The consequences of this would be incalculable. 1923, Trotsky wrote: "While increasing the power of man over nature and while arming man with new technological methods natural science makes and means, man himself all the more powerful, all the and consequently

JUIC

in the arena of war destructive, nations between and classes the workers had agreed to accept the conclusion that their liberation would come through natural science - without class and undoubtedly, Inell the bourgeoisie a certain level at of development of natural science would have put to work those methods of psychological technique that would have strengthened the reflexes of subjugation in the exploited and those of domination in the exploiters." (Problems of Everyday Life, p. 204) During the Vietnam Was. American social research in an attempt to inspire 'loyalty' in the Vietnamese peasantry.

This distinctly unsuccessful, was but they keep trying and given time and money, the results under other conditions could be very different.

Nobody knows. In their struggle for survival.

the capitalist states may alternatively war. The US nucica. military are constantly striving to develop their nuclear weapons to the point where they could win a victory decisive Russia or over China.

LATEST ADVANCE

The latest advance is the 'strategic cruise missile', which is evidently accurate enough to destroy The enemy missues in their silos.

this, apparently, counter to develop mobile launching pads, but it is obvious that if the USA ever does obtain a large advantage, then the chance of nuclear war will increase greatly. Apart from this, the crisis may

USA

become so severe that the could turn her weapons against one of her so-called allies to eliminate them as competitors and redivide their share of the capitalist world market. Irreversible pollution of the oceans also threatens the existence of society. At present, unknown quantities of untreated wastes are being dumped in the oceans with an minimal of amount knowledge abo it tenaeionas.

international body of marine biologists assembled at 1971 Pacem the in Marious col ference concluded unanimously that marine life was in serious danger allation" Pare

WHO CONTROLS

SCIENCE ?

first experiments, they added ger.

And the plant life in the oceans is responsible 30% confer resistance to the world's production of oxygen.

biotics such as penicillin, but kinds of additions The solution to the problem is; of possib. are course, to ensure that only properly They evena added toad genes treated wastes are discharged.

bacteria! exist mic- there capable of destroying robes and degrading almost any material man-

BACTERIA

We understand kind can produce. but little of the biochemistry of At the present level of ino these processes, and, indeed, have only a vague knowledge of the properties of most ledge, the microbes involved. .. The fragments these 'hybrid' bacteria are tota of knowledge we have concerning unpredictable before they are mad the roles of methane bacteria, Realising the potential hazards detergent- and plastic-degrading this, who made ti nestedust bacteria make it clear how rewarding discovery wrote to leading scientif a sustained and basic investigation journals calling for a moratoriu microbiological disposal on certain types of experiment usi South Korean missiles supplied by US imperialism cesses could be; the problem is, who the new technique. will pay for it." question oi i (Postgate, Microbes and Man, control of scientific research policy decisions in this area are Who indeed, and, even assuming course, taken by the bourgeoisie the research is done, which capitalist major problem for the working cla nation is going to buv an expensive and students is simply to know wh new sewage system to protect the is going on. All capitalist stat while the others carry have their secret military labor oceans on dumping! tories, and the industrial laborator are accountable to no-one But even the so-called 'bastior

SCANTY DATA

of academic freedom', the univers i not gut want there example, The widespread use of fluoro- revealed that 13 British universiti carbons as aerosol propellants has had research contracts will one some scientists been pomnica lo Ds of the other chemical and ger as extremely dangerous. (I say warfare laboratories at Porto some scientists, because the available Down. data is so scanty that no definite Most of these contracts looke conclusion is possible.) quite innocent in themselves: "Tl that fluorocarbons eitect of drugs on neuro-muscul are depleting the ozone layer in the transmissions and contractile for atmosphere, which shields the earth of skeletal mammalian muscle from ultraviolet radiation.

If this (University of Bristol) sounds lik layer became seriously weakened of piece huma Importan! then the resultant increase in radia research until you find out th tion might cause an 'epidemic' the Chemical Defence Experiment.

But skin cancer. That is the risk. Establishment paid for it.

nobody knows. In 1973 it was discovered th Some states have passed anti- Southampton University was rui pollution laws; clearly, no capitalist ning courses on counter-insurgenc class wants to ruin its natural for members of the armed force resources and thereby handicap itselt the situation America, 1S in international competition.

But worse. even within any one country, there "busine: secrets" in science and the estasinsi abolition is tar irom a rational use ot resources because any measure which will hit ment of workers' control are ther hard a particular section of business fore jor euminaling l (e.g. the chemical industry) are dangers that have grown up.

going to be met with stiff opposition from that section On an international scale this

REVOLUTION

problem is magnified: there is more likely to be war over ocean pollution than co-operation in eliminating it.

But science and technology ai And finally: much more llmiy unael tne co: trol of the bourgeoisie than, f the appearance during experiments in viral genetics of a example, motor car production, s polio virus with the full virulence this could not be achieved apa: of, for example, Mahoney I, and of from the revolutionary overthro of capitalism by the working clas a serological character quite distinct In this struggle scientists, inte from any current human parasite might represent a very serious danger.

ectuals and students must pla!

To role. resolve the crisis Any escape into circulation that war not immediately dealt with could simply of the working class, but the culture of all mankind, demar. i grow into the almost unimagineable catastrophe of a 'virgin soil' epi- the building of revolutionary leade ship for this fight. demic of poliomyelitis involving all the populous regions of the world."

(F. Burnet the Lancet, A discussion article January 1st, 1966.) 1972 In

TUC TURNS ITS BACK ON JOBLESS YOUTH

Page 6 have not been party to the forma- tion of an opportunist trade union shed at the Trade Union Con- gress over the level of youth period, (although they plainly lack unemployment; yet the trade experience in the organisations of union leaders, by openly coll- aborating with the Labour gov- Youth's fighting spirit will only ernment and backing the state leadership which adopts the correct political approach to youth. Both the question of a political approach - how revolutionaries take a prog ramme of transitional demands to youth - is decisive in winning youth training facilities for youth cannot Lo cat 10 ullikl growing dole queues. Capitalism in Sane oulid great mass of working class youth unemployed worker is deprived not but unemployment, only of a job but of any possibility of material and social independence.

vallu l trade, only a succession of dead-end jobs. It letters youth's independent barring all access lon's speech on the question.

hiaher education. "what a condem • ne sale. nation of our society and ourselves if this level of unemployed school time lorces and social dependence on the family.

But by leaving the youth leaderless indeed condemned itself to every youth. Theii opinions are yet to be family, marriage, jobs, unionisation

BLACK YOUTH

today simultaneously prone to the influence of various "cults".

The central problem facing class youth is unemploy- working itself as a cult. ment. Hardest hit are black youth, These cults provide no long term of whom 30% are unemployed as solution to the subjective problems school leavers. Over 158,000 school of youth's development. Hence the leavers are unemployed, including succession of them. left last Easter who Yet the revisionist left groups base increase of 280% on last year's their interventions amongsl figures. The trend towards long by entirely capitulating to this cult term unemployment is also certain concept oy ayo, for many arèas, and the spectre of youth unemployment wowa DE even greater but for the raising of the school leaving age. A secure future for unemployed youth cannot be found by further the basis for its youth work in any reforms - by further "training", by manifestation of spontaneous activ- subsidies unemployment any ity by youth, such as skinheads, etc.

other scheme proposed by the gov- It placed its emphasis on mindless

TUC.

emment or the Youth have no future today because capitalism has future, through the issues: of its youth paper, Rebel, save cushing defeats of the working class. 'Talk about revolution • let's sec For this reason both right and ieft wings of the labour bureaucracy can offer no policy to inspire the YCL set about to struggles of workigg class youth. foster socialism as a cult for youth: Instead, while expressing their plat- "The whole point of YCL ideology itudes of "sympathy" they make is to build a new socialist society.

effort to exclude youth To portray a new society we need

CYCLY

representation in the unions: other young people's CoLue imagination" "Opportunist organisations by their very nature concentrate their chief 129th Congress Document] attentions on the top layer of the working class, and therefore ignore both the youth and woman worker".

Rather than struggle against the [Trotsky: Transitional Programme] spontaneity of youth, and win workers revolutionary he bureaucracy lear the Illass y vulg working class mobilisation of the politics the Stalinists and revision- 1sts try to latch on to the same •ourn wno coula represeut a powel ful lever in the struggles of the youth cult fostered by capitalism.

working class which they daily Their youth secuons head off. The youth in general, and fail to face youth, struggle to who have not experienced the de- up to the problems of working class moralising betrayals in the workers vouth. In a ilberal wav. thev water movement of the 1930s, and who down their own opportunist politics

I.S. PURGE

The International Social- their opportunist positions.

in the process of ists are

SPLITS

expelling 50 of their members, The present IS expulsions take including members in Cardiff, their płace therefore not only in Nottingham and London, one the list of similar moves by the IS Their offence is "fac- by one. leadership to suppress any funda- tional activity", , the refusal to mental opposition to its politics, but must also be seen in the con- dissolve their faction, the 'Left of the other splits,

TEXE

Alternative'. divisions which are purges and IS policy, reaffirmed at their beginning to tear apart the last conference, factions major groupings to the left of the portls to form only in the period immed- Communist Party. iately preceeding annual of these In the CrISIS groups conference, that no group and the sharpening objective cond- sufficiently develop itions, serious. cadres from them cour challenge the leadership's_ politics. have responded to the WSL's fight IS Political to return to the method and prog- deALe WElnEI place therefore on an annual, rather ramme kourth Irotskylsl than a consistent basis, International and have joined with so unal lt period of practical precedes each both the initial group of revolution- activity rather than being a part of the WRP last aries expelled from and further recruits from the year, In this the IS leadership seek to WRP itself, to conduct the struggle separation for revolutionary leadership in the preserve the necessaiy tween words and deeds to cover workers movement. for youth. There is a necessary conflict between the standards necessary for the revolutionary movement and the cultural back- of working class youth. A struggle for development is necessary to raise the youth's level of under- standing to enable the construction of revolutionary leadership. But this problem cannot be overcome by pretending there is no gap, and pandering to the political back ward- neos vi voult "There are not two politics, one for youth, the 'other for adults. Insofar as youth carry on politics - and that is their duty - their politics must be adult". [Trotsky, 1934-1935 Writings]

YOUNG SOCIALISTS

The central weakness of the WRP's Young Socialists, which it head and many ways stands shoulders above the youth cigai isations of these other groups, politics of the WRP the centrist leadership itself. The youth move- ment has only : fictiu. l indepen- dence, its campaigns are directed like those of the WRP not into the mass organisations of the working class - putting demands in the trade unions and fighting for support - but simply to an "building the abstract concept of YS". For this reason, despite the real history of principled struggle estab- lished by the YS in the struggle Labour Party against the cracy resulting in the mass expui- sions of 1964, and the continuing strength of the organisation in the following period, with campaigns winning broad support and respect movement the workers' WRP YS has been unable to bring forward a trained leadership cadre forces OI politically develop the attracted its periodic campaigns. Similarly with the Militant within the Labour Party a separation between the re- peated calls for. the maximum programme of socialism (national- ise the top 250 monopolies) and with their daily coexistence within the Labour reactionaries Party results in a one-sided develop- persuading them oi vouth.

NECHU

that policies which require revol- be through uuOt Call allallcu manoeuvres and resolutions in the reformist Labour Party. But youth will only be won if they to a revolutionary party can see its relevance to their own circumstances programme fight unemployment must youth start from the programme on un- employment argued for in Socialist Press number 16, but the form has adapted to be cater for the special problems of youth.

It is not enough to raise with you thil ha deman darge ork poarin A large proportion work. of youth are out them it is noi just the defence of but the existing jobs, creation That is why the trade rich vlivo. union bureaucracy's acceptance of' the employer's device of "natura wastage to cut the labour force is such a betrayal. 50 These groups all achieved theit most significant growth in the late 1960s and early 1970s as the first development of the the stages variety of social crisis threw including of groups, sections clear violent workers, into and conflict capitalism. with But the of development the theoretica founders and leaders of the political groups took place during the period of the long boom. One of the effects of this un- precedented era of capitalist ex- pansion was that severely restricted the possibility of building parties in the tass evoluoay metropolitan The countries. tiny forces of Trotskyism Britain, largely deprived of the possibility of actual leadership, were reduced to various forms of propagandistic activity. Under these material cond- itions various tendencies to throw overboard the method and prin- ciples of Marxism in the light of "new" supposed conditions were Unemployed youth Youth's right to a job has to be part of every struggle over re- of - the cimenncies mn altenalice of recruitment and the extension and release schemes paid training for by the employers but under control of trade unionists and the and young workers representatives This must be fought for along with the demand of work-sharing on full pa To fight for these demands in the trade unions, youth must have We call inelr own represcnlalives.

for youth commissions to be estab- lished in all branches of trade union organisations, and imposed on the trade union bureaucracy which must study the demands of youth and recruit and educate young wor- kers. Similarly delegates from young workers must be brought on io Trades Councils to play a leading role in organising the unemployed youth. The Tories recent call to employ youth on subsistence wages in "com- work" to patch up munity the crumbling social services must be for an answered by a campaign expansion of useful public works with work ers

UHLOC!

SM aHaeC SOCul employment at trade union rates Youth have a right to economic from independence the family. They must not be used as a cheap labour force. We demand the adult rate tor apprenticeships - the app lication of the principie of equa for equal work - but under pay workers control. Through develop- ing & struggle for control, this leads on to the fight for a sliding scale of wages pegged to an index of prices worked out by trade union comm- ittees. In the context of the mounting we would support unemployment, the raising of the school leaving but the costs must be carried acc. by the capitalists, not the working class. Raising of the school leaving must be linked to a fight against existing overcrowding and daa condinons in sonools, ana lnus

MEMBERS

Paul Foot, protected by purges strengthened. The development of the crisis has created the conditions for Trotskyists to build mass revolut parties in all the advanced ionary capitalist countries and the necessity . Yet that thev should do so bers of the IS, IMG and WRP are finding that their growth, far from increasing, is actually stagnating and in some cases even declining. At the time one-sided and Salte revisionist conceptions of Marxism they bring from the boom are inadequate to understand or correct- SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday September 17th, 1975 to a fight for a sliding scale of education expenditure. For working class families, hit by the loss this _oI a potential wage packet we demand that students be entitled to grants, tied, on a sliding scale, to a working class cost of living , index to be supervised by workers representat- ives -not a means test. These demands do not constitute a finished approach to the fight to organise the working them class youth and win They will be revolutionary politics developed by the WSL out of the experience of coming struggles. But -these demands now raIse fight must because begin . older both youth and allel They must be taken up workers. every trade unionist. actively by

RESOLUTION

As the resolution of the 1938 International makes anese demands cannot be separated from workers as a whole, both employed struggle to drag out of capitalism those reforms which aim at developing the class conscious- ness of working youth is closely worker control for public works is closely linked with the fight for the expropriation industries.. "It is within the framework of the transitional programme of the Fourth International that the present programme should be developed and applied. It is under the ensign of the proletariat fighting for power that the Fourth International will win the demands ot exploited youth" ly orientate in the changed situa- tion.

PROGRAMME

The IS Left Alternative's indict- ment of IS concerned principally its ina bility to develop a prog- capable of mobilising the working class in a struggle for Yet their power. suggested own despite some consid- s sall erable strengths, suffers from method inherited wedkanes from IS. That is, an inability to understand the significance of rev- olutionary tradition or to analvse the present historical terms. In Thus they write: "In a transitional period such as this the class can either go forward accept swingeing defeats. The or task öf developing and arguing fór politics becomes transitional • evel more urgent. There are no ready.

made answers. Those who reach for their 1938 Trotsky will find a crucial example of clarity in transit-

DON'T SAVEJOBS

SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday September 17th, 1975

CP ABANDONS TURKISH

WORKERS JOBS

800 workers, the Over Turkish, majority of them have been made redundant through the closure of a large London chain, restaurant Eating Houses. The workers, all members of the Interna- tional branch of the Transport & General Workers Union, were earning wages as a result of unionisation considerably higher than non-unionised catering workers. It therefore remains to be seen whether the alleged "bankruptcy" of London Eating Houses is deliberate attempt on the part of the employers to smash the devel- opment of elementary trade DU London Eating House workers demonstrate the largely unionism among who staff the immigrant workers catering trade. can be The only way this fought is to subject the employers' claims elected scrutiny union committees. The proven bank- ruptcy of the employer must lead demand of the nationalisa- to the tion

LEH

OI Government. If LEH is to be "sold" another employer then no reduction in employ- must be ment, and no refusal to re-employ trade union members. These demands could only be of fought trom

IOI

occupation of the larger restaurants organised the

T&GWU

to by of workers prevent victimisation under the immigration act.

OCCUPATIONS

At a mass meeting in Conway Hall last week the question occupation was by ralsea but was quickly squashed workers, by the Stalinists who form a party block Turkish section the of Stalinists the IT&GWU. These were prepared to use the tactic of forceful removal from the meeting of anyone who opposed their line of restricting the struggle demanding overdue back pay.

The talure complete Continued from Page 6 ional politics, not, a ready key to This position reflects the deter- mination of IS itself to wipe clean the slate of Trotskyist tradition, superficial reaction to the weakness in numbers of temporary the Trotskyist movement

METHOD

The method which lies behind this sees history not as a process present conditions but determining series of static vignettes. The as a Tert Alternative see onlv the aonar- differences between 1938 and 1975 and underestimate the import- of the essential continuity - the dominance of capital in the age of imperialism and the need of Trotskyist small vanguard to mobilise broad layers of workers in the struggle for power.

The demands put forward in the Programme were lay designed to bare to workers, jobs can only lead to demoralisa- tion immigrant workers who themselves: find in vulnerable positions under the reactionary Immigration Act. These sackings come at the sa me ame intended arrest and deportation the Immigration Act of Turkish worker, Sabri another Genk, and possibly others whose names are unknown. Under Immigration Act, the for immigrant work permits workers are renewable only with the consent of the employer. This makes the struggle for basic trade union rights by immigrant workers outset a conflict with the state, and also makes the position of unemployed immigrant workers extremely vulnerable. Therefore, the struggle for jobs,

END

UINEMLOYMENT

up the question of the defence of trade rights wages, and union can not be separated

ITOI

demand for the repeal of the work permits system and the Immigra- only Act itself which acts against the of the

MILCICSES

working class. The attempted deportation last year under this Act of the Italian militant Franco LaUC Caprino makes it quite clear that which Immigration The brought in in 1971 precisely for the purpose preserving labour as a low-wage, mulleaul strike-free labour force, needed by the now more 1ndul employers attempt to preserve profits in the economic crisis. Needless to say, this aspect of racial discrimination is completely proposals ignored Jenkins' published in the White Paper last "strengthen" anti- Thursday to legislation. All discrimination sections of trade unionists have an interest in the light to repeal the both to prevent Immigration Act, from forming the employers reserve of low wage docile labour and because of the attack on trade implicit in the work umonisin is only a particular permit system example of the attack on trade rights now being waged by union Government through the Labour the state control of wages.

qualities of capitalism, and the re- of the working class in the struggle for power, not mere- 1y those lactors wnich were accia ental to 1938. If there are demands which are no longer relevant, the against them must be argued Cast specifically. Most of the demands retain complete validity in 1975 and can be a powerful factor when fought for in the workers move- ment. To defend the Transitional Pro- gramme is not, however, to restrict movement simply user TOse demands put forward in 1938. The class have developed continuously in the post war period certainly necessary struggle for demands which apply the methodology of the Programme to take account of those develop-

SOCIES

SLIDING SCALE

Unemployment in Britain is still rising rapidly towards million the 1½ mark. The cutbacks in steel production and rail services, the closure of three GEC factories with five thousand redundancies, and the intention to close stations in the sixteen power the North of England are latest manifestations of this trend. At the same time, the retail price index to surge continues 25% The ahead 20% and electricity gas price the proposed increase of 20 to 30% in telephone and postal charges over the next three months further continued guarantees massive increases in the cost of living. Mean while, as real wages are falling, Wilson openly admits his "rough justice", as he calls it. According to the Economist indicators average caring lave report-back confer- The ence of the Greater London County Association of Trades "fact finding" Councils delegation to Belfast was held in London Saturday on 13th September. While Northern Ireland, three of the delegation, Mike McMorrow Knowles, Gerry and Rosemary Sales had been expelled from the delegation. They had protested that the GLCATC name and reputation was being used to organise without the knowledge of its constituent bodies what was in fact nothing less than a "conducted tour" calculated to reproduce the statement in of support the Communist Party.

DELEGATES EXPELLED

Before the expulsion they had met the executive of the Belfast Trades Council and had toured the Harland and Wolf shipyard where management representatives two loyalist stewards guided them round the shipyard where only two three hundred Catholics work workforce of Over 10,000. Also on the itinerary was a visit to the government training centre, and the NoIthern Ireland Civil Rights Association, which although it previously influenced Catholics, is now in its own many words "irrelevant". services and education takes account of the increased significance of such expenditure in the post-war period means to defend it, and provide a as part of workers' living standards, against inflation.

CONTINUITY

The inability to see the sig- nificance history end the retinlutionary trad- continuity both ition (even at its weakest) leads to a tallure of the Leit Alternative analyse the historical roots of Such an analysis, turning to the historical and theoretical lessons of the fight •tor party a bolsievik flowing through Lenin, through Trotsky's fight against Stalinist the founding of the" degeneration, Fourth International and the struggle for Trotskyist parties, essential thoroughgoing challenge is to be mounted to the PagE

WAGE CUTS

can only be achieved by reducin risen over the last three months at the number of , per machir only half the rate of increases in closing inefti through speed up, prices. ient plants and sackings.

The increase in unemployment Wage cuts and unemployme: at the same time as a fall in real are not alternatives - they are boi wages gives the lie to the campaign necessary to capitalism to resto: by waged the Labour and trade profita bility. union leadership to yer stade For this reason also, the schen that cuts reducing ward put out by Jones at the TU industrial costs will protect jobs.

conference attempt the pill of the f6 wage limit b calling for £500 million investmer to protect jobs is so much hogwas

FALL IN DEMAND

State finance investments slump conditions merely adds already excess capacity in industr It is obvious that à wage cut It does not restore the rate demand, also leads falll in profit; in fact it will drive it dos further collapse of production and profit furtner. more redundancies. That is not to only be restored by productivi that jobs will be produced by increases which must invol sa y an increase in wages: a completely redundancies. reformist position peddled by the Mantis o te de e Stalinists. public programme The point is that wage cuts are defend jobs poses immediately ti factor in only •one restoring necessity of developing a worke: profitability for capitalist industries.

economic plan and the ending The key factor is the increase in the capitalist system of producti the productivity of labour which for profit.

BELFAST 'CONDUCTED TOUR'

with ment corporation pow The tone of the report-back Benn's NEB, similar and conference was set by the Stalinist- enactment of a "fair employme GLCATC's dominated executive Northern Ireland; 3)

IOI

calling , the police against a picket of expansion the hous called in support of equal speaking programme. for the expelled three. rights Not one of these policies o Within the conference, the platform hope to be implemented, and accused all opponents to the CP any they go no way event line of "red-baiting", compounding solving the real problems of Ir one case with accusduon workers, because they acce "Trotskyism" And although completely the continued domi members of the Communist Party tion Ireland by on the floor, were in a minority They result imperialism. the Chairman ensured that they 1n Stalinists continually opposing ca dominated the speaking time for the withdrawal Briti In keeping with the views of troops and self-determination the people they visited, the official the Irish people. delegation's proposals consisted in The alternative programme p the implementation of the forward by the minority, Communist Party's reactionary receiving the support of most programme Northern Ireland.

TOT

the people they met outside of t That is, enactment of a "bill of official delegation recognises rights", (presumably enforced by national question as the cent British the Army) include issue. It calls for the immedia 1) civil rights - that is, an end to withdrawal of British troops fro internment, confining the troops to Ireland and its right to natio "phased barracks, and thei self-determination. drawal by 1980 (as suggested by the Trade union organisations in t Belfast Trades Council); 2) reduc- London area must invite minori tion unemployment by the speakers to their report-ba creation of an effective develop meetings.

AUEW ELECTION

Yet again the right wing "As I write this address the Lab AUEW are moving inside the statutory want e towards bringing the capitalist courts into the internal affairs "The majority of the TUC is backi them to the hilt by discussing ways ai of the union. the means usIns right wing Terry Duffy, the wage Impose substanna Cuts challenger policies open to state contr for the seat on the our Umon

COOK

National Executive held by Bob Nacional conrerence co •pose cue so Wright, is saying that if the decision Hugh Scanlon's cordel dois! of the National Executive to defer with the Now De sirs Test ol bac Labour governm uns year s election to next vear 1

DIRENULHANING

will seek not reversed he In my view he ha: injunction against the delay.

souldicad The right wing has been streng mace movement os defe talks and preparing to • aceno coe thened in their attack by the atti- ai torms ol ware control tude of Scanlon and Wright who colecave bargaining Snove vigourously pursued. made no challenge to the court's our rulings the case of the two over record over the disqualified National Committee ne ou ratina contrace decisio , because oi the Now they go further delegal members. and will continue on the attack had been invalidated through the norn capitalist courts until to use the procedures of the unior The right they are challenged. the Capitalist state to decide what sbo I rule books and to enfor This is one of the points made were defeated with by Ken Tyrrell, a candidate for the vacant National Organiser position.

strong election address he capitalism up to an alternative connects it antl programme. 'he Sarewsbury z are "In Recently we at Masse! accepting nomination for son have been accused of similar actio National that organiser I am conscious during occupation working class faces a period of very Court writs ser we olter samurge m cerente Ou wages against us ano working cordions ame unal for a general strike t force che deciave ractor win de cae reacersal:

LEYLAND: STEWARDS MOVEMENT

There are dangerous signs that the Ryder Report, having been accepted by the 'leaders of British Leyland workers, is being accepted without resist- ance in almost all the BLMC plants. If this is true, it has serious implications for the whole of the labour force.

Because of the contusion being introduced, many workers are accepting the argument - fraud- ulently put forward by management and trade union leaders alike - that acceptance of Ryder is the only way to stop Leyland going into liqui- dation and to save 160,000 jobs. The people who push this line do so with the full knowledge that it is the dec- lared intention of Ryder to reduce the BLMC labour force to a fraction of its present size; and this with 1¼ million already on the dole. Time is very short. While shop- floor workers and shop stewards are told nothing, the knife is being prepared behind closed doors. For six days in the plush Royal Suite in the Allesley Hotel in Coventry, 32 hand-picked convenors, enjoy- ing the sumptuous trappings of management hospitality, have wor- ked, together with 10 top company executives, to clear the way for the introduction of the Ryder Report proposals through the so-called worker participation' schemes, designed to suck shop stewards into doing the job of management.

MASSIVE PUBLICITY

The massive publicity suddenly being given to 'worker participation' Is an inacaon or tne imporlanice the employers attach to it as a means of separating the shop stew- ard from his traditional job of def- ending and improving the wages and conditions of his members by making him a part of management.

AUEW continued from page 7 working class awalnst tols t'pe or Retormist union leaders arque toat order to rear the intagonary soira ano brotect the anour government in order to cetend its wages against the lory govemment dav laws. "lo accent the socia contract on wage cutting only strengthened the Tories as mas shorn do the woomeo sve- election. labour was defeated ov working class abstentions brought about by disillusionment through the • National Conference have to have s not enough. 'programme to put torward in this swugge will use the threat of unemployment in the same way as cue government overy ume worKers nant co cerena cael vine scandara.

one enoover wu use ce burcal ol redundancies and bankruoccy to aereab them. 1 stana lot suostantial wage mcreases to re-estaousn ana umorove une standard o1 uve 1 conser car every ware snowa rise automancany vomt oy vol wine a cos or living mdex com quet oy electeo committees or wace von de workers wves the ony answer workers can nave to and can only be solved by ending that

WSL PUBLIC MEETING

LIVERPOOL

Wednesday 24th September 7.30 pm AUEW Hall, 48 Mount Pleasant St Liverpool 3 "Ireland" Under Ryder the steward finds himself on a committee, the terms of reference of which are "more efficient production", with the management delegation having the unchallengeable right to make the final decision. If anyone doubts what kind of decisions management will be making, they need only look at the current proposals put forward by Leyland's £50,000 per year top management to get rid of 30,000 jobs in the Cars Division.

There are wider implications to the Ryder proposals than simply forçing speed-up and redundancy into the individual Leyland plants.

Taking shape is a root and branch attack on the shop stewards move- ment, aimed at ending the indepen- dence and power achieved by the movement over the last 20 years.

The employers know that the shop stewards movement has been largely responsi die 1or lne Improvemenl In wages and conditions won in the past. This has convinced them that the strength of the stewards must be destroyed if the full effects of their plans are to be introduced.

The unpublished sections of the Ryder Report containing detailed plant by plant proposals for mann- ing cuts almost certainly include selective closures as patt of a ration- alsa non plan wach coula not be carried through whilst the shop stewards movement remains strong.

The damage already been done to shop floor strength can be seen in the way the Ryder Report has been This important decision 'accepted. was taken by a dubious meeting of convenors called together not by the Combine Committee as in the past, but by management in con- sultation with the national officials.

By management instigation, staff representatives were Inciudea, ail owing them for the first time to take part in trade union policy making. This decision fundamentally changed the principle of trade union decision making in the combine. It allowed Leyland to achieve a posi- To the threat of redundancy I advo cate a policy of work sharing, as decided must call for and support occupations.

Duikes under best concuus arc do bile answer. say that redundancies It the employers hen we must say open the books. it it then we must say open s shown that they an't provide u and a nationalisation without compensation we must demand once nationalisa ol nas taken Dace nat state contracts are bronceo to keeo une raciodes oren.

the loge of the Nationa conterence decision for the nationalisation ol BLMC must be rejection of the : plan and a fight for the prog should be fought for throughout This will give us the material will need a new we self fer ward for ve arenader best of that tim been an actor most years and fror time to time I have held Coding positions with one orgamsalon HIsU 1 all c delegate to cae rades countu al Nuneaton where I live and I attend all meetes caled ov our udon wunne my de as a snoo steward nave supported every loboy and dem' onstration calleo by toe luv aad ever.

chion caled ov the Aukw especial luring toe camoalen arainst cne inaus mal Relations court. At the same ume however t nave see critical of our union. hor instance. Jocany oeneve coat une nont to brocecl the coventri ool coom rate was let down by the area leadersno. "lois was a gang exampe ot why we need a Jeadershin that has the kind ol bros ramme lam proposing and above all the will to fight for that programme.

I ask you brothers to give me the Workers Socialist League National Committee Statement

THREATENED

tion where a large section of the meeting were foremen and super- intendants. As if this were not enough, the decision also meant that another large group at the meeting were the representatives of the industrial engineers - work study men employed by Leyland to speed up the tracks. At the : meeting itself both foremen and work study men spoke from the rostrum arguing the case. No one need ask what they said or how they voted, they make their posi- tion clear every day on the tracks - if an industrial engineer was opp- osed to speed up he would put himself out of a job.

COMBINE COMMITTEE

The effects of this new type of meeting on the BMC combine committee could be seen at its meeting on Saturday. 6th Septem- ber - the first time the committee had met since the Ryder proposals were announced. The chairman, Robinson, Austin conven- Derek or and a Stalinist, refused to accept a motion rejecting Ryder, ruling that the decision had already been taken. For 30 years the combine committee, developing as the com- bine grew, has been the traditional organisation which has confronted struggles as they have come up and in which a fight for leadership has taken place. Robinson's ruling meant that for the first time this committee, which has reflected the strength of the shop stewards movement throughout this period, was unable to play any role whatsoever in a major issue facing workers in the Corporation.

Now, with the shop floor movement under the heaviest attack since the introduction of Measured Dav work (which was also aimed at the shop stewards movement and has had an effect) 'worker participation' is being imposed from above by the trade umon cares without a nude vole al factory level. Instructions are being As we go to press, members of the Blast Furnacemen's union are going on strike all over the country - at Scunth+ orpe, Cleveland and East Moors, Cardiff. The strike is in support of 500 workers at Llanwern steel works who are refusing to work on a new furnace which will produce twice as much with half the labour.

and for which there is no agreement

PORTUGAL

MARCH

The Workers Socialist League is going on the demonstration called in solidarity with the Portuguese working class by the Portuguese solidarity committee in London on Saturday September 20th.

The WSL delegation will march behind the central demand that the Portuguese working class break from the Armed Forces Movement.

The demonstration will start from Charing X Embankment at 2.30pm.

WSL PUBLIC MEETING

LEEDS

Sunday 5th October 1.30 pm Leeds Trades Council Ciub Leeds 7 "Ryder and Unemployment that shop stewards' committees re fuse to participate in Ryder, main- tain their independence and prepare to lead their members in defence of their jobs and conditions when Ley- land workers hit back at the company against speed up and redundancy - as they undoubtedly will. Shop stew ards should not get involved in any way. Once a body of stewards elects sent out to form what amount to a representative on to the participa speed up and redundancy committees tion committee this gives it credibil- and anyone who raises a voice of ity and strength which will be used opposition is stamped on by the trade against the shop stewards movement union leaders. Those who advocate itself. participation in management will not allow any participation at all within the trade unions. In the Cowley

SACRIFICE JOBS

Assembly plant for example, an over- whelming majority of the T&GWU shop stewards voted to hold a shop stewards meeting to discuss the Ryder The trade union leaders advance Report. Because the officials thought the unprincipled position that wor- that the meeting might vote against kers should sacritice their 1obs and Ryder, they banned it. Each shop conditions to save the company.

steward was served with a written What they should be saying is that instruction (delivered by manage- their members have a right to a job ment) not to attend the meeting and if Leyland is unable to guaran- signed by the district official and tee that right then the books of the clearly implying that action would company should be opened and the be taken against any steward who case establisnea 1or tae tum nationai turned up. isation under workers' management Both the trade union leaders and and not state shareholding with the the management are desperate to big stick for the shop floor.

This get Ryder implemented. Trade union would create the conditions for a leaders do this because they accept nationalised car industry to demand the management line of making the that the Labour Government provide state contracts to keep the factories company viable, and they are prep- in production with work sharing on ared to make the working class pay for the crisis of the capitalist system full pay where plants were still wor over which they have no control.

king below capacity. Ryder is being supported from many Ryder stands in the way of all this directions. Those who argue that and worker participation is intended participation is a step forward for to destroy jobs and long-established car workers, or as Derek Robinson working conditions. We say that it pur ll al tne combine committer is a matter of principle for every meeting, "it is limited workers' con- shop steward to be separated from trol", should explain why Chrysler these committees in every way. The paid out a £100 lump sum bonus to position of Arthur Harper, for exam.

every worker: employed for the acc- ple, convenor of Tractors and Trans eptance of an identical scheme.

missions and a much-lauded ex-is The situation is urgent. If action is member who has sat right through not taken to stop them, the comm- the ad hoc committee meetings at ittees will soon be in operation. This the Allesley hotel, helping to organ- will mean that future attacks on jobs ise the whole thing, must be cond- and conditions will not come, as in emned. Shop stewards must fight the past, from management, but from for the independence of the trade these committees, with the stewards union movement and the shop stew- who are supposed to be leading the ards movement and for a leadership fight to protect workers sitting on which will use the strength of the them, alongside superintendants, working class, through the unions, who for the rest of the week are im- to defend the wages and living stan- posing discipline on their members.

dards of the working class against This is class collaboration with a the attacks of the employers and the Labour Government which is escarce. For all these reasons it is crucial acting on behalf of the employers.

BLAST FURNACEMEN STRIKE

nUPE In the latest issue of their union paper, issued just before the TUC Conference, NUPE the public employees union declare that they "could not support the government white paper' Yet speaking on the radio on Sunday September 14th, Alan Fisher, the general secretary of that union, said that unions Fred Knapp union official would withdraw their support for the f6 pay curb policy if the on payment. economy is not reflated by the The management is offering an Spring average £74 per week with approx- So he follows a whote stream imately f6 bonus and the union is of trade union leaders who accept claiming a further £7. the 'majority' vote of the bureau- At the heart of the dispute is crats at Blackpool and refuse to the government's decision to cut fight to defend their members Noes Radona see losure. against the attacks of the Labour and in that way create the necessity government for closures, redundancies and The Workers Socialist League speed up. calls on its members and supporters Having gone into action they in all unions to reject the 'majority threaten to upset the plans of the vote and fight to break the £6 Labour government and its servants state pay laws in both national in the TUC. So they are receiving claims and in supporting their all tne pressure or une capilals members who come into contlict press (they are claiming £120 per with this legislation week in Daily Telegraph stories) The diversion of fighting for ACAS steps in, the Iron and Steel the full f6 which the government Trades Confederation leadership says is not an entitlement but a asked them to go back, and Len maximum is a policy of accepting Murray steps in a wage cut. The only policy to Backing up these moves the fight for is a substantial wage British Steel Corporation says increase and a sliding scale of it will import steel to break the wages clause in every agreement.

strike.