Poland Strike first-bury later: new US nuclear pla

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factories throughout the country.

Joset Klasa, a CP central committee spokesman. announced that strikes which "threaten the country's wellbeing" will be banned, if necessary by Government decree.

"There is a limit which justifies state intervention," he said.

More ominously he added, "The party is determined, for the first time since August, to use all the options at its disposal."

But faced with this apparently open declaration of war against the rights of the new unions, the leadership of Solidarity have shown no willingness to mobilise the strength of the Polish working class in detence of their organisations.

In a recent interview with Socialist Organiser Lech Walesa, leader of the independent Polish trade union Solidarity commenting on the success of the October 3 strike said 'We have no plans for any more strikes. We have serious economic problems and strikes cannot help the economy.

Thus, at precisely the point when decisive action to politically confront the bureaucracy is required , the limitations of the leadership thrown up by the spontaneous struggles in August begin to be most clearly exposed.

The papacy, conscious of the importance of their influence in holding back the workers, have refused to allow Polish primate Cardinal Wyszinsky to resignhe is 80!

On November 5, and for days after, countless thousands of workers all over Britain debated an extremely serious question, 'How real is the threat of nuclear war"?

They were provoked into this not only by the election of Ronald Reagan-although that might have been cause enoughbut also by Jonathan Dimblepage on Thursday.

The sombre mood of most workers wasn't helped by Frances Pym's cheerful comment on behalf of the Tories that it is "better to be dead than red"

Few on the shop floor appeared to agree, but what we need to know is what are the realities behind the imperialist war moves?

"Arena" wars

In The Bomb it became rapidly clear that Pentagon strategists have gone considerably beyond such ideas as the nuclear deterrent.

They now speak of the possibility of limited nuclear engagements-just wipe out one continent! (ours?)-and of "arena" wars, i.e. a nuclear war in Europe alone.

But, as one of the many experts on the programme pointed out, such thinking has to be based on one principlethat you strike first. And that became the central theme of Dimblebly's programme.

For the imperialist military chiefs what now counts is not the likelihood of millions of deaths, but rather the possibility of securing a strategic advantage in the Cold War by carrying out a nuclear strike in a single "theatre", leading to a shift in the global balance of power.

Blank cheques

It is in this context that Carter's decision to authorise earlier this year a new system of control of missiles, which specifically excludes any democratic or Presidential intervention, must be seen.

What Carter put his name to was in fact a blank cheque for the US military chiefs of staff to override the President and decide themselves when missiles are to be used.

That this power now rests in the hands of a Pentagon which openly contemplates the use of such weapons for even "limited" purposes-possibly to deter the USSR in the Middie East or in Europe-is indeed a chilling thought.

But what it poses most sharply is the response of imperialism to its own crisis.

Faced with a massive upsurge of struggles against imperialism on a world wide scale, in Iran, in Nicaragua, In El Salvador, in Zimbabwe, the US ruling class has clearly decided that in the end, to preserve itself, it must be prepared to carry out total war against the workers and peasants of the world.

For that to be done, a break must be made by imperialism from all liberal notions of preserving human lite.

That is the step which the Pentagon has taken.

When they talk of 'tolerable death ratios what they mean is that for imperialism any price will be paid to preserve the bankrupt capitalist system. And just to make sure that there are no hitches in their war moves, the entire nuclear strike procedure is now computerised using codes which none of the operators understand.

With Reagan in office, the tasks facing the US working class are truly massive. But one job they must urgently carry out is the calling to account of the Pentagon, the disarming of the military warmongers and the bringing under workers' control of all nuclear installations.

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by's programme "The Bomb' and the Daily Mirror's front-