Letter: Wao and Rie Masses

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Dear Editor, like to raise what.!

consider to be a weakness in the otherwise excellent articles on Mao and the Chinese revolution.

You argue in the first article that the Chinese bureaucracy "look to the mobilisation of the masses stively, within limits set by themAnd in the second article you reter to the bureaucracy as "continually wracked with internal crises only rarely brought out into the mass movement."

I would suggest that this outlook reverses the true state of affairs.

Even without a coherent political leadership, the readiness of the Chinese masses to struggle against any return towards private privilege property has severely limited the any consolidation of options open to the bureaucracy.

• Mao's temporary alliance with the Red Guards in 1966 was a necessary concession on his part to Over 100 people attended a meeting called by Coventry IWA-GB to diseuss the formation of an anti-racist committee in the city.

Speakers from the platform stressed the class nature of racism and the way it is used by the ruling class to divide workers from eachother.

FOUR POINTS The meeting agreed four a basis for the committee.

1. To campaign against fascist and neo-fascist organisations (such as the National Front, National Party and British Movement) and their allies in financial, business and government circles. To combat racist and all other propaganda that creates false divisions amongst workers.

2. To help build and support all necessary forms of self-defence organisations in any community threatened by racists or fascists.

3. To organise black and white, men and mama she we seech were we Imaintain the bureaucracy in power, Similarly the uprisings in Peking and Wuhan last year made certain polítical options out of the The mobilisation of the Chinese masses is just as much a part of the world struggle agaisnt capitalism as the movements among workers in Eastern Europe.

The fierce debate between rival factions in the Chinese bureaucracy is a reflection of the difficulty of controlling the Chinese masses rather than a cause of their mobilisation.

Their failure to prevent this mobilisation can be seen in the series of mass struggles that have occurred from the Hundred Flowers movement in 1956 to the violent demonstrations following Chou-En-lai's death.

The same attitudes are reflected in the analysis of the period 19451949. To view Mao's victory as due military organisation seems similar to the American commencomm better housing, education, and social services.

4. To oppose all racist legisof all racist immigration laws. lation and to fight for the repeal There seemed to be general agreement that the initial focus of the committee would be around the Noyember 21st Anti-Racialist Demonstration called by the The Workers Socialist League has continually stressed the need for new leadership in the working class, built around a programme of action on wages, unemployment and the cuts.

This is the only was to defeat racists and fascists. The vague formulation in point 3 provides no basis for the building of such a USEFUL ROLE in the working class, anti-ra Nevertheless, if they are rooteá List and anti-fascist committees can plav a lator of the 1960s who blamed the French defeat in Indochina or incorrect military tactics.

While it is true that Mao stood to one side and watched the mas struggle of 1945-46 be defeated it was surely the refusal of the masses to accept Kuo Min Tang government or fight for it in 1947.

49 that made Mao's victory inevitable.

It can be predicted with certainty that the developing response of the working class to the international crisis of capitalism will find a response in the Chinese working class, where the seed of an independent class outlook became apparent as long ago as 1964 and has not disappeared since.

If mass movements could be switched on and off by the bureaucracy as the articles suggest the outlook for the future of would be bleak indeed.

Yours fraternally, G. W., Birmingham. physical confrontation fascists.

Speaking from the floor at the Coventry meeting a member of the Workers Socialist League argued that one of the first acts of the committee should be the calling of a public meeting to discuss the formation of workers defence squads.

The Student Movement Conference on Ireland is to be held at the University of Kent at Canterbury on Saturday November 16th.

Although the Conference is called on the platform of a 'Campaign Against Repression in Northern Ireland' , it in fact puts forward no formulated programme or demands.

While the position of the Workers Socialist League is unambiguously for the withdrawal of all troops from Ireland and self-deterBritain's role in Ireland could

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mination for the Irish people, this Conference in raising discussion on