Spot the Manager in New Bl Quality

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A new and obscene propaganda campaign has been launched in the hopes of forcing , additional unpaid effort out of the Leyland workforce.

Spearheading the campaign, hand-in-hand with Leyland Cars managing director Derek Whittaker, is Derek Robinson, convenor at the giant Longbridge factory (and a member of the Communist Party!)

COLLABORATION Indeed tne whole scheme rests on the complete collaboration of the trade unionists who have thrown in their lot with management by entering Leyland's 'workers participation committees' The campaign, christened "Quality 77" , is being directed by a sub-committee of the Cars Council, the supreme participation body in the Ryder Ieorganisation of Leyland. And the next step is setting up plant level sub-committees to publicise the campaign on the shop floor.

FIRST It is the first major project so lar undertaken by the "participation" machinery, and, true to form, stems țrom the thinking of management.

But this has not dampened the enthusiasm of the so-called "amninires rentacantatiroc" nn tha of them eagerly gave statements endorsing the scheme to a management "Special Report" broadsheet.

The ideas and sentiments emerge as identical with those expressed by management - showing a clear eagerness to force other carworkers out of a job by cornering a bigger share of the anarchic. world market for Leyland.

Conspicuously it does not even seem to have occurred to the so-called "representatives" of Leyland workers to query the cause of inferior quality cars.

There is not a word about the constant pressure for speed-up; about the elimination of component inspection, inadequate manning levels, or the increased exploitation in the component industry MAJOR All or these have been shown to be major factors in the finished car by the investigations of the special Open the Books Committee set up by Leyland's Cowley Assembly Plant Joint Shop Stewards Committee after management allegations of "shoddy work".

Instead the whole brunt of the drive for "quality" is to descend on the backs of individual shop floor workers, as David Simpson (production director of Leyland's body and pressings operations) showed when he said:

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Revolutionary German soldiers in 1919 - the placards denounce Social Democrats Ebert and Scheidemann \ 1914, world war drove a live wedge into the Second mational, splitting it he defencists (or 'social chauv") were the large majority, in a wave of fervent patriotgiving support to their own' • class in the war, abandoned ocialist principles on which the mational had been built. be worldwide struggle of the ing class was suddenly subordId to the needs of national selfice and solidarity. • the left of the social chauvintood the socialist internationalwho were an anti-war grouping, many of whom subscribed • all to pacifism, regarding as a precondition to any lutionary struggle. arther still to the left were the group of socialists who jed that the Second Interinal was now defunct and i not be resurrected. : CIVIL WAR heir call was to turn the rialist war into civil war in i country leading to intermal proletarian revolution. o this end they called for the ion of a new, Third Intermal, to continue the original tions of the first two. The : prominent member of this P was Lenin, who declared The Second International is • overcome by opportunism.... Third International falls the of organising the proletarian * for a revolutionary onslaught it the capitalist governments, ini war against the bourgeoisie I countries, for the capture of fal power, for the triumph of Lenin, Collected Works, 4th DO pp40-41). i series of international socialist erences held in Zimmerwald, #erland provided a forum for • and his lolowers to influence i sosite sicles in different thes rejected it is an3 rented FINAL OF In the summer of 1915 Lenin and Zinovier wrote their pamphlet 'Socialism and War' in which they pledged support for an International "purged of opportunism and chauvinism," but pointed out that Germany, home of the oldest and strongest labour movements, was of decisive importance.

GERMANS

Zinoviev and Lenin were prepared to remain in the Second International as its extreme opposition until the Germans were ready to form a new International.

The Zimmerwald anti-war movement contained two divergent political trends, reflected on one side by the International Socialist Committee (ISC) representing the internationalist-pacifist majority, and on the other its non-official counterpart on the left; a bureau consisting of Lenin, Zinoviev and Radek.

The Second Zimmerwald Conference in 1916 represented a movement to the left in words but the conference was unwilling to cut its ties with the Second International. This led Lenin to realise that Zimmerwald contained a virulent right-wing which was deserting the cause of internationalism, and despite some evidence of a split maturing in the socialist ranks of many countries, this convinced him that the Zimmerwald grouping was worthless and was now useful only to gather information.

APRIL THESES

In 1917 the February revolution served to underline this. In the tenth of his April Theses, Lenin put forward the call for "rebuilding the International [by] taking the iniative in creating a revolutionary International, an International against social-chauvinists and against the 'Centre'."

The completely changed situation in which the Bolsheviks found themselves during the period between October 1917 and February 1918 helped determine their views about establishing a The defeat of the German Empire in 1918 drew Lenin's close attention to the situation in Germany which appeared to be on the verge of revolution.

It became apparent that the creation of the new International an immediate necessity. 'Europe's greatest misfortune and danger is that it has no revolutionnin, Ci, Vol 28 pp 55,160.

The Second International, now a degenerate collection of political bankrupts, reformists and traitors centred around Karl Kautsky, had called for a conference to convene in Switzerland in January 1919.

This provided the impetus for Lenin to press ahead for the foundation of the Comintern.

The First Congress, originally to be held in Berlin, was switched to following the murder of Rosa LUACHI Дли vamlared and Karl Tiat LAvUknecht, and op ed on March 2nd of that year.

The essence of the programme was that the platform of the International would be drawn partly from the theory and practice of Bolshevism and partly from the programme of the German spartacist League. *Was Will der Spartakusbund?' ('What does the Spartacus League Want?").

Basically, to be invited to the Congress the parties and groupings would have to: 1) separate themselves from the social patriots; 2) rally to the socialist revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat, and 3) adopt the principle of power in the hands of the Soviets and not restrict themselves to bourgeois parliamentarism.

Thirty-nine parties, groups and trends were invited to the congress; the invitation stated that the "must establish a common fighting organ for the purpose of maintaining permanent coordination and systematic leadership of the movement, a centre of the communist international, subordinating the interests of the movement in each country to the common interest of the international revolution".

('Invitation to First Congress, Section 14". in First Five Years of SOCIALIST PRESS At the Congress, the Allied blockade prevented some delegates from attending; however 51 arrived, representing 33 countries.

STALIN ABSENT

The Russian Communist Party was represented by Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Bukharin and Chicherin.

Although Stalin's name was included, he took no part in the meetings _ in fact there is no record of any involvement by him in the first four Congresses.

Stalinist historians rarely refer to the early history of the Comintern because to do so would draw attention to the important contributions of the Bolshevik leaders later eliminated by Stalin and his agents.

The First and Second Congresses of the International addressed manifestos to the international working class. These addresses were written; by Trotsky, and were adopted unanimously by the Congress. In the first of these, Trotsky emphasised that:

"Our task is to......purge. the movement of the corroding admixture of opportunism and social-patriotism, to unify the efforts of all genuinely revolutionary parties the world proletariat and thereby facilitate and hasten the victory of the Communist revolution throughout the world."

...advanced workers have from the very first steps of the organised socialist movement striven to unify it on an international scale.

..we Communists, united in the Third International, consider ourselves the direct continuators of the heroic endeavours and martyrdom of a long line of revolutionary generations from Babeuf to Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg."

("First Five Years" Vol 1 p43 and 53).

STRUGGLES

Between the end of this First Congress in March 1919 and the start of the Second in July 1920, many important struggles were being waged throughout the world. A wave of strikes was sweeping across Europe: in March the Wednesday 25th August 1976 Some of the formed, (to be overthrown in August).

In the Russian Civil War there were a series of setbacks and gains, the Red Army regaining Kiev from Poland but suffering defeat at Warsaw in August 1920.

The Weimar Republic was established in Germany. However, te International was making signiticant gains at this time with the organisation of sections of the world revolutionary movement in many countries.

The manifesto presented to the Second Congress emphasised once again the crucial need for unity of the world working class against its common enemy, the bourgeoisie. Trotsky pointed out that:

46 ....the proletariat is being thwarted in its international revolutionary actions not so much by the half-destroyed barbed-wire entanglements that remain set up between the countries, as it is by the egotism, conservatism, stupidity and treachery of the old party and trade union organisations which have climbed upon its back during the preceding epoch."

("First Five Years" Vol This is a damning indictment of the Social Democratic parties in such countries as France, Germany, Poland and Britain, who were adhering to the chauvinist policies of the decaying rubbish heap that was the Second International.

"To the disintegration and chaos of the capitalist world, whose death agony threatens to destroy all human culture, the Communist International counterposes the united struggle of the world proletariat for the abolition of private ownership of the means of production and for the reconstruction of national and world economy 21 POINTS The Second Congress of the Comintern also decided on more detailed conditions of entry setting down 21 points to be adhered to covering such things as propaganda, the rejection of all forms of reformism and centrism, rejection of social patriotism and socialpacifism, intervention in trades unions, the essential structure of the Party, and other points amounting to a comprehensive list expanding Lenin's original suggestions in great detail.

The period between the end of the Second and beginning of the Third Congress was one which witnessed the decisive victory of the Red Army in Russia; and the beginnings of the New Economic Policy, following the Kronstadt revolt in March 1921.

In Italy, the betrayal by the reformist SP leadership of the working class led to a large scale defeat in Autumn of 1920.

This was followed by a similar defeat in Germany of the "March action" in 1921. The capitalist world appeared to be entering a period of stabilisation; this change of course signalled the need for different tactics to be adopted by the International.

Trotsky recognised in his speech to the Third Congress of the Comintern. that • the post-war situation was due to massive borrowing and the circulation of

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reen "defencists" and blutionary defeatists"