TUC moves to limit steel strike

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would be the defeat, removal Murray, and replacement of the Tory defence of jobs-a fight which The steel strike is bringing to life the worst nightmares of steel union and TUC leaders, of the employers and of the Tory As the workforce, held back from a national strike for over 50 years, for the first time flexes its considerable muscles and recognises its own strength, bureaucrats who have built their positions on a lifetime of class collaboration and capitulation find themselves struggling to keep control, and in some cases dragged along with the movement.

Strict national instructions against picketing private steel firms, stockholders and steel users are being daily flouted by militants in virtually every area.

Called out

So great is the pressure that ISTC leaders themselves have been forced to take steps towards calling out their members in the private sector. Not satisfied with the stand of their officials, militants in Sheffield last week staged a picket of the strike headquarters demanding that the clain be raised to 20%.

They could not have been the only ones. A few days later Bill Sirs himself was taking up the call for a 20% settlement.

Meanwhile, in Yorkshire, steel industry • electricians are proposing to picket power stations in the hopes of cutting power supplies to private steel producers, and pickets continue to extend their operations on a whole range of selected targets.

Redundancies

In Scotland the strike committee has confidently announced its intention of stopping all movement of steel. One company, Steel Stockholders, has already agreed to close down for a month, following intensive picketing.

As strikers dig in for a tough fight, the attention of union officials has shitted from securing a i swift sell-out on pay to frantic efforts to prevent the strike spilling over into a fight against BSC's planned 50,000 redundancies later in the year.

Focal point of this official sabotage has been the general strike called by the Welsh TUC for January 21, in which South Wales miners were due to spearhead a major struggle against the steel closures and related pit closures.

As this date has drawn closer, the pressure has increased for a postponement of an action which would offer a lead for workers all over the country in their struggles against Tory cuts and closures.

The NUM •National Executive struck the first blow, offering only "moral support" to the Welsh NUM in its actionthough there has been speculation that other NUM areas might come out in support.

Turned down

But this was followed up by the TUC, which turned down a correct appeal for support from the Welsh TUC.

Behind a veneer of vague waffle about "serious industrial consequences" if BSC did not withdraw its closure plans, the TUC went on to urge the Welsh postponed-at least until March least Such a delay would offer the steel union leaders a breathing space in which they will hope to of completing the sell-out on PHOTO: Laurie Sparham, IFL settle the pay dispute and obtain a return to work, with the closures issue still unresolved.

Under these conditions they would have a far better chance jobs, which they have never had any intention of defending.

explosion of struggles to general. DunTA. The very last thing that the union leaders wish to see is an strike proportions, in which the issue placed on 'the agenda Nor do they wish to find themselves committed to the A £3,000 Special Fund has been launched by the Workers Socialist League at a Special Conference held last weekend.

WSL Executive member could only be carried through Continued page 11 President Carter is eagerly seizing the opportunity presented by the Stalinist invasion of Afghanistan to rebuild nis snattered -911 L.electoral image and reinforce US military and diplomatic links with anti-Soviet regimes.

But in Britain, too, the Thatcher government has been quick to exploit the new situation as the basis for a sabrerattling tour of affected enuntries" hu Foreion Secretarv NUVININIS Lord: Carrington, boosting formerly flagging imperialist pacts.

Alongside the overt military measures-the US rearming of thề Zia dictatorship in Pakistan; the supply of US military hardware to the Chinese Stalinists; and the extended use of US bases in Turkey-go Carter's Cold War economic sanctions designed to cut food supplies and technological trade with the Soviet Union.

By giving the imperialists a custom-made pretext for such aggressive measures, and by conducting an invasion calculated to alienate the Muslim masses of the Middle East, the Kremlin bureaucracy has therefore opened up increased danger to the Soviet Union.

Sheffield steel workers turn away lorry Imperialism, Itselt I. an. acute economic and political crisis, is drawn irresistably towards the hopes of reconquering the vast potential markets and sources of surplus value in the deformed and degenerated workers' states.

Even prior to the Afghanistan invasion, Carter had embarked upon a massive arms build-up and laid plans for a huge tactical strike force for operations in the Persian Gulf and Middle East.

Now, under cover of opposing "Soviet imperialism" the imperialists will press ahead still faster with these moves.

They will be backed up of course in each country by the most chauvinist elements of the labour and trade union movement. In the US anti-communist dockers' leaders have already blacked Soviet shipping.

In Britain the Labour Party NEC has adopted a motion from Eric Heffer calling for a withdrawal of Soviet troops-a step which could only lead in present conditions to an immediate imperialist takeover in Afghanistan.

A motion for withdrawal has also been passed by the AUEW Executive. But such sentiments are not restricted to social democrats: leading Communist Party members on the NUM Executive, including Mick McGahey also backed a unanimous call for the withdrawal of troops-in line with the policy of the British CP.

The Workers Socialist League, as a Trotskyist party, defends on principle the nationalised property relations of the Soviet Union against imperialist Condemn invasion We oppose the imperialist war plans and all the hypocritical propaganda about the invasion from US imperialists who slaughtered ; millions in Vietnam and Cambodia.

While we condemn the act of invasion, we do not call now for the withdrawal of Soviet troops: this would simply provide an ideal opportunity for imperialism to consolidate new, aggressive forward positions on the very borders of the USSR.

The political overthrow of the Stalinist Kremlin bureaucracy and the struggle for the national rights of the peoples of Afghanistan and within the deformed and degenerated workers states is not a task for imperialist exploiters; it is a revolutionary task for the masses-for which we struggle to build a conscious Trotskyist Every possible avenue must be explored to ensure that this fund is raised and the work to which the money is allotted is able to