Pacifist and superficial

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best-selling Penguin collection of articles on disarmament -Protest PROTEST SURVIVE ENDIED-BY EPITOMPSON JOHN LISTER reviews the JOHN LISTER reviews best-selling Penguin collectio articles on disarmament -Pr and Survive. Edited by At every stage in this Penguin compilation of pacifist essays lies a contradiction-one that is summed up in the feebleness of the title: Protest and Survive.

The contradiction is that the book graphically and convincingly sketches the scale of the dangers posed to our very existence by the aggressive war moves of imperialism: yet its response to this is to look not towards the revolutionary overthrow of imperialism, but towards "protest" and pressure-in a vain effort to persuade the imperialist leopard to change its spots!

However well-intentioned they may be the book's panel of authors have therefore set themselves and their supporters the most impossible task of all.

Of the Thatcher, Carter and Reagan governments in 1980 we can only echo the views of Lenin in March 1917:

•To turn to this government with a proposal of concluding peace is equivalent to preaching morality to the keeper of a brothel."

Conservative

Lenin—in exile-laboured the point. He was arguing not only against professional pacifists but also against the duller-witted and most conservative of would-be revolutionaries, the "old Bolsheviks" who, led by Stalin, were at the time busily putting forward a false position in Russia itself.

"An appeal to the GuchkovMiliukov government that it quickly conclude an honourable, a democratic and a beneficent peace is identical with an appeal of a good old village priest to the landowners and the traders that they lead godly lives, love their neighbour as themselves, and turn their right cheek when the left is smitten."

And to make the point unmistakeable, Lenin declared in April 1917 that:

"There must be an exposure demand'-which can only sow • of this inadmissable illusions-that this government, a capitalist government, should Protest and Survive, like many of the leaders of the newly revived Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, serves to perpetuate this same inadmissable demand.

It calls for protest action to persuade the capitalist governments of Britain and the USA that they should "cease to be imperialistic"

But of course the Thatcher, Carter and Reagan leaderships are in no way equivalent to the unstable Guchkov-Miliukov Provisional Government that had: been swept to power following the February 1917 Revolution in Russia.

The US and British imperialists make no secret of their hard faced anti-communism, their reactionary politics at home and abroad, and their dedication to the preservation of private profit by any means available.

More inadmissable The demand that these governments should cease to be imperialistic is-if anythingeven more inadmissable now than the false position of the "old Bolsheviks" attacked by Lenin in 1917!

Indeed the doggedly pacifist positions of the authors fly openly in the face of the facts which they themselves place before us. Much of the hard evidence in the articles contained in Protest and Survive proves beyond doubt that it is the imperialists who are engaged in a deliberate escalation of the the 1 of itest the AND AND DARESMILE war, Milliittardsm »апк thie Soviet _State military advantage over the In particular Dan Smith in 'The European Nuclear Theatre' demolishes some of the mythology of the NATO propagandists' statistics, and stresses that from the very outset it has been the USA that has set the pace of the nuclear build up in Europe.

2-1 Superiority Working from Western out or reschear that WaL heads now in Europe only 3,500 are deployed by the • Warsaw Pact, against 7,500 under NATO (US) command. Of the new build-up involving Cruise and Pershing 2 missiles, he states:

"NATO was not forced into the decision by the warsaw Pact; it moved into it of its own volition ... At one time NATO was happy not to have this new capability. Now it wants it. The comparable Theatre Nuclear Weapons on the Warsaw Pact side are today much the same as they have been for many years, but rather more modern. But with NATO we are dealing not with more modern versions of the same weapons, but with a totally new capability, and that means NATO's decision bears a particular burden of responsiblity for the dangers we now face." (p.113).

Dan Smith avoids the more brazen attempts of some of the other authors to place an "equals" sign between what are generally termed the "two superpowers". But he, too, fails to recognise any distinction between the two main nations in confrontation.

Abstract Pacificism, an abstract approach characteristic of the most confused sections of the middle class, thus emerges as a major diversion in the present struggle against war.

On the one hand, the pacifist approach fails to distinguish between the nationalised property relations-the revolutionary gains of the internationa working class-that are defended by the nuclear weapons in the USSR, as against the private profiteering and exploitation that are defended by the growing nuclear arsenals of the NATO imperialists.

On the other hand, the pacifist approach heads its adherents completely away from any possibility of understanding the material basis of the present war drive.

War, as the famous saying trom Clausewitz points out, is simply the continuation of politics by other means. . The aggressive nuclear buildup by the NATO alliance is no arbitrary whim on the part of a handful of crazed Pentagon or Whitehall generals.

Its roots lie in the struggle by capitalists to restore and increase their profits.

To do this they need to increase the exploitation of the workers and peasants of the world. They cannot do so without encountering fierce resistance.

This is why the employers need to crush liberation struggles in the underdeveloped countries, which might otherwise topple dictatorial and military regimes and overthrow the domination of imperialist finance capital.

As they face up to this growing economic and political crisis, the imperialist leaders look with increasing anger and frustration at the huge areas of Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and Asia in which-along with Cuba -capitalist exploitation has been overturned.

Not only do such countries represent for the capitalists potentially vast untapped markets and pools of exploitable labour power, but they also represent a political challenge.

It is to the deformed and mutt degenerated workers' states that the leaderships of anti-imperialist struggles look for material and political support.

In general the imperialists have learned in decades of experience that the Stalinist ruling bureaucracies cynically betray such struggles.

But the imperialists know also that, in seeking to preserve a stable political balance of forces on a world scale, the Kremlin leaders are quite capable, on occasion, of providing crucial assistance which-as in the case of Cuban troops in the Angolan civil war-can help turn the tide against imperialism.

Reinforce The drive to reinforce imperialist control over the neocolonial countries is therefore integrally linked to a drive to militarily strengthen imperialism itself in relation to the wor itself in relation states.

Carter, Reagan and Thatcher long to restore the situation where imperialism enjoyed unquestioned nuclear superiority over the workers' states.

Were they to achieve such a position they would at once exploit it to force home renewed attacks on the masses of the world.

This explains the significant change of US strategy that has taken place this year.

Preparations are being made for "limited" nuclear conflict between NATO and the workers' states. For this reason the US imperialists have begun installing a new range of 'counterforce' weapons.

These weapons-including Thatcher's £5 billion Trident submarines, the new US European, sub-marine based and aircraft launched Cruise missiles and the giant new MX missile system in the USA-are designed to offer US generals the chance to launch a "first strike" aimed at wiping out the Soviet Union's The USA is not only way ahead in this lethal new technology, but also forcing the pace in installing and preparing the ground to use it. And the Thatcher government is eagerly backing each aggressive move.

Facts and figures

But while Protest and Survive offers us an impressive array of facts and figures that confirm this analysis; while it shreds the paper-thin pretexts used by the imperialists to excuse their war-plans; while it spelis out the grisly fate that avails us if these plans are not halted, it fails lamentably to offer the slightest perspective for action that might in reality prevent the danger of nuclear war.

This danger is rooted not in the existence of "two superpowers", , but in the continued existence of capitalism, a ruthless, expansionist system of exploitation.

The danger cannot be overcome by utopian pleas to Thatcher and Reagan to scrap their weapons programmes, not by the dangerous call on the Kremlin leadership to renounce the military measures that are necessary to defend : the deformed workers' states against imperialist attack.

The danger can only be oyercome through the mobilisation of the working class in Britain, in the USA and throughout the capitalist countries internationally in the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and the various governments which defend capitalist exploitation.

Blacking In Britain this means the fight in the labour movement for the blacking of all work on huclear weapons and missile sites, linked to the mobilisation the mass action to bring down Thatcher government and remove those Labourites committed to the defence of British imperialism.

It means fighting for a workers' government which alone can bring a forcible end to capitalist exploitation.

Protest and Survive, though well worth reading, takes us only as far as a partial glimpse of the problem: for a grasp of the solutions, a revolutionary party is needed.

Over one hundred thousand people on the October 26 antinukes demonstration showed they had reached at least the political level of EP Thompson and his co-thinkers: but if Thatcher is to be halted the task now is to win the best of these forces to an understanding of the need for class action to end the threat of war.

Read the book-and join us the fight for socialism!"

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INDUSTRIAL NEWIS CPSA leader Thomas (left) with NUPE leader Fisher Broad Left fell bv the changed to "aims to oroanise nerinhery outside the Rend 11. a Research Unit which Thatcher be a good thing because it has jettisoned is to be replaced would mean that they could A further example of the on the SCPS executive. those who stand for a principled all for the rank and file of the fight in action and those who CPSA being asked to join forces simply hope that the politics with those layers responsible for will somehow magically filter pushing through the cuts and through without a struggle came for victimising activists wherein the debate on immigration ever they feel they can get away a motion calling for a union straightforward common-sense inquiry into the role of CPSA motion calling for an approach members in the Home Office to the SWP's "Redder Tape" who actually implement the grouping for closer links on immigration laws, and further electoral and policy campaigns. dominated NEC organise black- clearer or more damaging case The Militant offered to sup- sectarian deafness. The SWP port it it the latter clause were have much to answer for in Last weekend's annual CPSA Broad Left conference in Leeds was always going to be a crucial test of the ability of the left within the union to draw out the On the key issues facing lessons of this year's elec- CPSA members, such as pay, the cuts and victimisations, the toral disaster and of the only coherent opposition to Brixton dole office dispute. Militant was provided by supIn the event, the two-day porters of the Socialist Caucus, meeting, attended by over 220 spearheaded by Steve Corbishactivists, was a trustrating mix- ley and Stuart McLennan-both ture ot naked electoral man- of whom failed to get on the oeuvring and frantic political NEC slate (Corbishley was on debate. the NEC last year and had The Militant group, with a consistently attacked the solid phalanx about 100 Militant, Communist Party and supporters, won virtually. every Tribunite majority for their significant vote and emerged record in power). decisively at the head of the Broad Left in CPSA, scarcely The pay debate revolved needing (but always getting) around two emergency motions, the support of the Communist formulated in the wake of Party faction. Thatcher's public sector 6% Militant's leading left-talker incomes policy announcement. Kevin Roddy is to be Broad • Predictably the windy, perLeft candidate for the union spective-free resolution from Militant was adopted and a presidency next year, and the whole Militant slate will form much tighter motion from the bulk of National Executive candidates. London wayside.

A : resolution from the Oxford Broad Left calling for a sliding scale of wages linked to inflation as assessed by elected committees of civil service trade unionists was passed-but as Ted Eames stressed in moving it, the important thing is to actually do something about it.

Socialist Press waits with interest to see if the CPSA's Special Pay Policy conference in January is bombarded with sliding-scale resolutions from branches with Broad Left leaderships.

Such a campaign is crucial now more than ever if the Pay with a positive alternative.

time-honoured division between blacking" . Pointing to the in viSua immediate plight of immigrants such as Anwar Ditta and all those hauled in during police raids on whole factories, Marie Campbell correctly refused to accept any such amendmentand the resolution was duly Another point of controversy was reached in the debate on resolutions calling for the CipA to merge with the management's union-the Society of Civil and Public Servants.

Ignoring the clear example of NALGO, Communist Party and Militant speakers blatantly argued that such a merger would aroned that cuch a merger wanld link up with the various 'lefts' They spared no thought at periphery outside the Broad Left, but the refusal of a series of Militant speakers to even acknowledge their existence let alone consider any joint discussions, was indefensible.

Ludicrous stunt

In electoral terms this means that the SWP will simply go ahead with their ludicrous stunt of putting up their victimised Brixton member Phil Corddell for the union presidency.

The coming period is going to be a crucial one for CPSA activists. The fight on pay will be make-or-break, the governmelt knows bal vmy too well. mont bania that anlar tan arall If the pay struggle is sold out then the way will be prepared for even more cuts, and the stepping up of the imposition of new technology.

Already management is growing more arrogant daily in on the spot over the coming period. Any political tendency with their numerical strength and base in CPSA has a very real potential for achieving major gains in the current situation. But if the Militant continue on their present course then the CPSA rank and file will learn important lessons about the bankruptcy of Militant's adaptation to reformism.

One reason for the ousting of last year's left' NEC was its failure to give any real lead on action against cuts and in support of members victimised for implementing union policy.

Preparation must begin now for the Special Pay Conference in January and for strike action to make whatevery policy results from that meeting stick.

MERSEYSIDE

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