WRP 'Pub meetings

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The All Trades Union Alliance, industrial organisation of the Workers Revolutionary Party, has launched a series of public meetings throughout the country to promote the building of Community Councils, the doors of which will specifically be opened to reactionary ratepayers associations.

Yet, although a direct invitation is sent to the forces of reaction, revolutionary socialists need not apply for admittance.

When one of these public meetings was held recently in Glasgow, two supporters of Socialist Press who turned up at the door with tickets in hand were refused entry with the "explapation" that they were "provocateurs" and were asked, "would you allow police into your meetings?"

This refusal of admittance was fully supported by Michael Banda, National Secretary of the WRP.

We can be assured that with such slanderous allegations and undemocratic practices, the present campaign of the WRP will be crowned with the same "success". as their recent ventures into the politics of the

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Telling confirmation of ence.

Such a political development has brought profound problems not only for the extreme right wing "Gang of Three" and their reactionary supporters, but also for the established left' Labour MPs of the Tribune group, who have + been overtaken by the militant demands of rank and file Labour activists.

This was particularly highlighted in the contradictory position of Tony Benn.

Benn has emerged as the leading champion of the struggle for democratic reform of the Party. His conference speech last Wednesday arguing the case for NEC control over the Party's election manifesto was thorough and devastating onslaught on the record of successive Labour leaders-and drew massive, well deserved applause:

Abject But a still bigger ovation had taken place that morning, when Lambeth council leader Ted Knight had slammed the left'led NEC for its abject failure to lead or coordinate action to halt the Tory spending cuts, and demanded a campaign for industrial action to support a firm no cuts position"

Knight's effective call for a general strike to halt the offensive brought the constituency delegates to their feet in wild applause.

Yet that same evening at the Tribune rally Tony Benn came to the platform and unequivocally opposed general strike action to bring down the Tories.

The process of bringing about socialism requires a prolonged period of persuasion and propaganda, argued Benn: the fight for a parliamentary majority is indispensible.

In the meantime there should be efforts made to initiate open ended "discussion" and debate.

Benn's gradualist, parliamentary road-one shared by his cospeakers on the Tribune platform, and especially by tormer "left? Michael Foot-stands clearly at odds with the mounting anger and thirst for action among activists longing for a lead against the Thatcher novelt, of course, has shifted under the impact of the movement within the Labour Party and the working class.

His speech on the manitest ast aside the customary diplo matic niceties and revealed a welcome-if drastically belated -insight into the dictatorial rule exercised by Labour leaders over the Party.

His espousal of a "troops out" perspective and call for a united Ireland have a considerable impact in layers of the Labour Party until now unaware of the issues involved.

But Benn's political evolution must be seen in the context of a general shift to the left in the Party which meant that last week's conference sa W composite resolution advocating unilateral nuclear disarmament vaiting in the wings: Healey Insofar as against the rig for action ag they must be f yet at the san nesses of the exposed.

This is wl while welcon emergence of current within stresses once a for the buil principled le labour movem the illusion o road to socia struggles on mobilise the t the working cl the Tory gov create conditi Callaghan gan ship of the Lat carried on the nod; a call for withdrawal from the EEC carried by the two thirds majority needed to make it a manifesto commitment; Ted Knight's call for united action against the cuts carried overwhelmingly; and the endorsement of a succession of other left policies including steps to illegalise private education.

Even the trade union bureaucracy, who only weeks ago in the Brighton TUC Congress carried a succession of mealy-mouthed resolutions spelling out complete surrender to Thatcher, were forced by the evident left swing of the Labour conference into a more militant stance.

The task in the next period is to put to the test those like Knight and Benn who have emerged at the head of the left wing current.

they take a stand ¡ht wing and fight rainst the Tories, given full support: ne time the weakit stand must be Why Socialist Press ning the foreful a powerful left . the Labour Party gain the necessity ding of a new, adership in the lent which rejects f a parliamentary alism, and which all fronts to united strength of lass to bring down ernment and thus ions to oust the g from the leaderyour Party.

In the hot seat: Ted Knight Well, Shirley, where do we go from nere?

Would-be leader Peter Shore

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state terro British soldier in Aden The capitalist state is the instrument of the class rule of the bourgeoisie. Through the state, the bourgeoisie holds control of the means of production and guards its power and profits.

The most important instruments of state power are the police and army. The naked essence of the modern capitalist state is revealed in the militarypolice dictatorships set up by imperialism and its agents in a bid to impose stable capitalist control.

These dictatorships range from Chile and South Korea (installed after defeats of the working class, but now trembling under pressure of re-emerging struggle), to El Salvador, Bolivia and Turkey-where the working class faces the threat of defeat at the hands of a counterrevolution being mobilised under cover" of the official armed forces.

Depending on the balance of class forces and on economic conditions, the capitalist class in some countries and at certain periods, may seek stability through parliamentary forms of rule which rest on the collaboration of the leadership of the working class.

"Legal" violence

But even in these cases, in any serious challenge mounted by the working class to the interests of capital, the bourgeoisie is ready to use to the maximum the "legal" violence at its disposal-and it necessary, to launch semi-legal or illegal terror against the workers.

In Britain, the traditional home of bourgeois parliamentary democracy, terror squads (SPG) have been set up inside the official police and armybacking up attacks against workers in struggle and against militant working class youth, (especially black youth) and aiding the systematic military terror in the occupied northeast of Ireland.

In the face of a forward movement of the working class, big capital has also on occasion financed a fascist movement ready to be launched as a battering ram against the struggles and organisations of the working class.

Similar developments are taking place in all the imperialist democracies in response to the rising militancy of the working class.

In the economically backward capitalist countries, where there is no basis for parliamentary democracy and the weak local capitalist classes act simply as agents of the imperialist bourgeoisie, the working masses face a sharpening of the already vicious levels of repression as their courageous struggles gain in strength.

The imperialist bourgeoisie, hanging on to command of a world capitalist system that has long since become a brake on human development, has developed the weapons of violence against the world's masses to awesome levels.

As the historical experience of struggle has shown time and again, it is ready to use any form of violence when caught in severe crisis.

Yet the potentially titanic revolutionary strength of the international working class could sweep away this decaying ruling class and its murderous arsenal.

Only the crisis of revolutionary leadership that holds back the working class. has allowed imperialism to maintain itself.

The big bourgeoisie stands above the government, Parliament, courts and other official organs of state power. The real power in the capitalist state rests in the hands of finance capital, the dominant section the ruling class.

Organised in the giant banking and industrial monopolies based in the imperialist nations, finance capital directly controls the main productive forces in the world economy.

From these commanding heights, the imperialist bourgeoisie dominates the governments and other organs of power in the world's capitalist states.

Finance capital rose to global domination around the turn of the century, and this marked the development of capitalism into its highest stage, imperialism. ..The age of imperialism is the age of capitalist decay. Capitalism has out-lived its former progressive capacity to develop the productive forces on the basis of the labour of the working class.

Stranglehold

The control and organisation of production for the profits of a tiny minority Has Decollie a stranglehold on the productive The internationalisation and concentration of production, the levels of technology and skill of the workers provide the basis for satisfying the needs of the world's people and for opening up an era of tremendous material and cultural progress for humanity.

But while production is ruled by the anarchic struggle of imperialist capital for profits,' new advances in technology are not applied to raising the living standards of the masses.

Instead, they are harnessed to the drive for profit and to the military protection imperialist power.

Capitalism has created the economic conditions for the development of a new socialist world, and it has created a class which has the capacity to lead humanity towards socialism.

The working class is the only class whose interests are consistently opposed to capitalism, and whose interests are consistent with social progress.

The ruling capitalist class is totally incapable of solving the problems thrown up by its decaying system. Each temporary breathing-space, which is gained by capital only at the expense of the masses, in fact prepares the ground for the reemergence of deeper problems.

But the incurable crisis of the capitalist system will not by itself lead to the inevitable collapse of capitalism and emergence of socialism. • Without revoluționary action by the working class to tear state power and domination of the economy from big capital, the ruling class will plunge society into every-increasing poverty and suffering. The only end to this road is the barbaric ruin of civilisation.

As today's world crisis of profitability deepens, the bourgeoisie seeks to offload the full effects of the crisis on the workers, poor peasants and oppressed layers of the urban Throughout the world, the working cass faces the growth of capitalist backed violence directed at its struggles, its gains and its organisations.

The revolutionary workers face the crucial task of organising and mobilising the means of self defence of the class. This task is an immediate, burning matter of life and death for the workers in countries like El Salvador, where the class struggie has sharpened into bloody civil war.

Under every openly repressive capitalist regime- from Brazil to South Africa, India and Indonesia- workers in struggle face the constant and growing threat of legal and extra legal armed terror. petty bourgeoisie.

Guided only by the frantic drive for profit, the capitalist class is propelled to attack the gains of the working class and to accelerate the ruin of the small peasantry and petty bourgeoisie.

But in its offensive, imperialism faces on a world scale a working class which shows tremendous combativity and determination in mounting struggles against increasing oppression and exploitation.

Time and again in the forefront of mass struggles against imperialism and its agents, the working class disrupts capitalist control.

Heavy blows have been dealt to imperialism by mass struggles such as those in Iran and Nicaragua in 1979.

The sharpening of workers' struggle provokes a sharpening of the methods of counter-attack ruthlessly calculated and set in motion by capital.

The bourgeoisie is driven towards ever more desperate measures in a bid to secure 1980 The relative "peace" of the imperialist democracies is giving way to the increasing anti proletarian role and powers of the police and army, and the growth of fascist movements.

And in the degenerated and deformed workers' states, the parasitic Stalinist bureaucracies look to increased repression in the face of growing discontent of the workers (which has already exploded into a mighty movement of the class in Poland).

In different countries, the upsurge of struggle along with imperialist backed counter-attacks unfold in different forms and at different rhythms.

The development of the class struggle is, not steady and unbroken, but an explo sive process marked by ebbs stable capitalist control. "Stability" under capitalism means the ability of the ruling class to impose its will on the oppressed classes.

To this end, big capital will mobilise. the most extreme terror if necessary. It is restrained not by any moral or democratic sensitivities, but only by fear of provoking revolutionary levels of resistance.

The growing challenge to imperialist control by the international working class impels big capital to look beyond the established formal niceties of bourgeois democracy in order to perpetuate its rule in each country.

The existing regime, constructed upon the old balance of class forces, proves less and less able to contain struggle. The big bourgeoisie feels the urgency of new methods to discipline the militant proletariat.

This is combined with a reliance on the reformist and Stalinist leaders, and attempts to create conditions for these leaders to head off revolutionary struggles.

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the emergence of a mass anti-capitalist current with- in the British labour move- ment was offered by this year's Labour Party confer-