Publication Fund
Socialist Press1976 1976-02-25Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 8 →
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14 months after our formation the Workers Socialist League has reached a crucial stage of its development.
With historically unprecedented attacks being launched against the working class by the Labour Government through the public spending cuts and with the 'lefts' of the LP and TUC making meaningless At the same time, with the crisis of leadership raised to new heights, the Workers Press goes out of production and Healy's International Committee of the Fourth International begins to break up on a world scale.
The WSL, in our view has developed the political strength, and established a record in the workers movement, which opens the possibility of considerable expansion in this situation, both in Britain and To facilitate this we are launching immediately a programme of publications, beginning in a few weeks time with our first book - The Battle For Trotskyism. But in the short history of our movement we have not yet accumulated all the resources we need to do this.
We are therefore appealing urgently to our members, readers and supporters to raise a £500 publication fund by May Day. This would give us the initial cash required to begin publication of a series of theoretical books and demonstration organised by the Midlands area TUC on February 21st Eric Heffer said:
"The cuts, if they are allowed to go through, will be absolutely disastrous for the people of this country".
We agree with him. But we ask him and other "left' MPs and union leaders - what will they do to prevent the cuts being allowed to go through?
Wil the union leaderships withdraw union sponsorship from any Labour MP who does not vote against the cuts - or is that too "last ditch' for Sid Weighell, who a few months ago meekly withdrew the same threat?
Will they organise demonstrations and strike action to oppose the cuts?
Will the left' MPs vote against the cuts in the House of Commons, or will they, like Joan Lestor who resigned from the government in protest, merely call for a 'discussion' of the cuts in the rejected.
But also Wilson, Healey and all those in the leadership who support their policies must be removed from their leading positions and expelled from the party - on the same grounds that MacDonald and Snowden were expelled 45 years ago.
We support also the call made from the Greater London Confed, backed by many other labour movement bodies for a National Assembly against unemployment.
But a recalled Labour Party conference or an assembly will be useless if they are restricted to the debates and discussions which the Labour 'lefts' and CP leaders want.
They must adopt a plan of action in support of a programme of demands capable of answering the problems of the working class in the face of the world capitalist * Recall the Conference!
Expel the with no loss of pay! * For a sliding scale of wages and sliding scale of public expenditure!
A programme of public to end unemployment.
We call on trade union committees and branches, shop stewards committees, constituency Labour Parties and General Management Committees to demand a recall Labour Party Conference and to fight for the conference to discuss and adopt this programme.
LEAGUE
PUBLIC MEETING speeches whilst accepting the cuts. internationally. pamphlets.
TROOPS ... contd from page 1 personal envoy of President Kaunda, Mr. Chona.
And last week, as these details emerged, Tory MP's in London began demanding British troops to be sent to Rhodesia, Zaire and Zambia, to counter 'Soviet imperialism' and the problem of Cuban troops in Mozambique.
Thus, at the end of last week, he contours of the conspiracy became clear. Ford and Kissinger are unable - especially in view of the suppurating internal crisis of the administration, and bribery revelations putting the skids under capitalist politicians from Amsterdam to Tokyo - to intervene directly to "stabilise' southern Africa..
But they must at all costs try to guarantee the survival of South Africa and Rhodesia as the direct bulwarks of imperialist rule on the sub-continent. British imperialism retains a "legal' claim on Rhodesia, so what more suitable than for the Labour Government to act as Kissinger's agent, and all in the name of applying 'pressures' for the 'democratic rights' of Africans?
The British labour and trade union movement has a direct internationalist responsibility in the situation in southern Africa. Trade union bodies must demand that the government cease their secret negotiations to intervene in in Smith's support, and recognise the full rights of the African nationalist " organisations of Zimbabwe to govern their own country.
Trades unionists and socialists must recognise that what is being prepared by British imperialism in southern Africa is a savage war of repression against the black majority, along the lines of the brutal policing" operations of the Malayan "emergency" and the suppression of the Kenyan nationalists in the 1950s, but this time on an even larger scale, and directed against liberation forces in half a continent.
The events unrolling in Africa underline the reality of the permanent revolution. The struggles which leapt forward with the collapse of Portuguese imperialism, and the defeat of the limited to purely "democratic' demands.
Behind the nationalist programme of the MPLA in Angola, or of both the factions of the African National Congress on the borders of Rhodesia are masses of African peasants and workers on the move.
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* Force left MPs to oppose cuts! * No redundancies; work sharing
US in Angola can no longer be held within individual states, or