Iran Could Sink Dollar

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Massive anti-imperialist demonstration in Tehran The November Fund closed at £655.13, nearly £100 below our target of £750. This was certainly a blow at a time when we face constantly rising costs in every aspect of the production and distribution of Socialist Press. It is something that we cannot afford to let happen indefinitely.

With the Christmas period now upon us it is more important than ever that any early start is made to collecting the December Fund. If possible we would like to see the fund completed before Christmas. So let's see if we can make this the month that we go over the top on the Fund target rubished by "olrose uta for the workers Socialist beague, 31 Dartmouth Park Hill, Londor Printed by Anvil Printers Ltd., London, Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office.

Whatever the outcome of the occupation of the US embassy in Tehran, the world's financial markets will never be quite the same again.

The international banking system has received a shock from which it is still numbed.

It is not yet clear whether, as it comes round and realises what has happened, the reaction will be panic or something less dramatic.

• Major decline In any case it seems certain to lead to a major decline in the role of the Us dollar, an increase in the world role of other currencies, some major upheavals in the Eurocurrency markets (money deposits of currencies outside their country of origin), and a profound change in the conditions of international lending in the capitalist world.

That is a minimum. What no banker or finance minister is saying, but all are privately feeling, is that it could bring about something much worse-a financial panic and bankruptcies on the scale at least of the 1930s.

How did this precarious situation arrive?

In the first place the Iranian government, as part of the campaign to have the Shah extradicted, threatened to withdraw what it claimed was $12 billion official deposits held in United States banks.

That would. have been the biggest short term movement of funds ever seen and would have led to a staggering collapse in the value of the already sinking dollar.

Unprecedented

For that very reason the Iranians were unlikely to do it since they would have decimated their own wealth in the process and the pressure against it from other oil-producing dollar-holding states would have been enormous.

But Carter decided not to risk calling what was probably a bluff and took the almost unprecedented move of freezing for the first time!

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31 Dartmouth Park Hill, London NW5 all. Iran's deposits in American banks both inside the USA and abroad. (Iran is now making a legal challenge in London to the freezing of assets in foreign branches of American banks).

This move was if anything more threatening to the financial system than Khomeini's original threat. This move, almost unprecedented in peacetime, meant that officially Margaret Thatcher, we against a rapacious crowd of assorted foreigners in Dublin.

She has spared nothing in her efforts to reduce "our" excessive contributions to the EEC budget, which, as the press tirelessly reminds us, funnelled directly into the welllined pockets of anachronistic European peasant farmers.

On the surface this may seem stirring stuff, particularly for the millions of British voters who registered their bitter Socialist Press Monthly Fund held accounts in United States banks could no longer be regarded as freely disposable by their owners but could be used only at the discretion of the US Under pressure This is a staggering che especially when the dollar is largest reserve currency. hostility to the EEC and all it stands for by mass abstentions in this year's European But, wait a moment! Isn't this the same Tory leadership that has campaigned avidly for EEC membership since the time of Heath?

Aren't these the same Tories who have just • abolished exchange controls to enable bankers and industrialists to shift their capital into more profitable European markets?

Isn't Thatcher's government embarked on costly new commitments to the reactionary NATO alliance against the working class of both East and Western Europe?

And the same Margaret Thatcher who talks so passionately of "our" 'national interest' heads a government whose tax cuts for the rich, unemployment, cuts and inflation for the poor have revealed more starkly than ever the fact that there is not one 'nation' but two-the 'nation' of ihe capitalists, in conflict with the oppressed working class.

While the capitalists own the property and wealth, the British working class, in common with its brothers and sisters throughout capitalist Europe, owns nothing but its ability to work.

It is an internationai class, which has no country, and no common interests with the employers.

This is why, for European workers, the task is to reject all forms of jingoistic claptrap, destroy the capitalist EEC and make way for a Socialist United States of Europe.

Lee u It will almost certainly prompt other countries, especially those which expect even the slightest future political conflict with the USA, to want to withdraw their funds and put them into some other currency.

There are already signs that the dollar is under pressure for this reason.

The only reason it. is Cont'd p.2, col. 5 100 YEARS SINCE BIR FIVE YEARS SINCE WS New Ambassadors Hotel Upper Woburn Place London WC1 Speakers from WSL Committee, pli is fil Tickets £1.00 .50 at door. ma

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are told, has been tirelessly fighting "for Britain"