Socialist Press no. 58

HEATHROW, PORT TALBOT

SUPPORTING STRIKES

SOCIALIST

PRESS

this move stands in stark contrast to the determination of the right wing union leaders to impose a Stage 3 of the Social Contract-as shown by the NUT Conference acceptance of Stage 3, and the attack on free collective bargaining by railway- men's leader Sidney Weighell, who described it as "a grab-as- grab-can scramble". But if the right wing is making As we go to press (Monday) preparations, tney nave tneur alles the Heathrow stewards are about on the "left'. The Communist fraudulent to peace discuss d Leyland stewards initiative involving arbitration put conference on the Social Contract forward by management. April 3 was turned into an If they decide to reject this endorsement of Stage 2 of wage deal, their first step must be to control, an essential prerequisite call out the dayshift engineers, for a Stage 3. And it attacked pay are still working normally.

WHO

strikes now taking place.

If the stewards climb down and Such ideas are dismissed with accept arbitration it will represent contempt by the working class a blow for the employers and the trade union bureaucracy. Following on the example of the British Leyland toolmakers'

HOSTILE

recent four week pay strike, 500 The hostility of the bureau- at the British Steel cracy to the strikers Corporation's Port Talbot works Is under- standable. They know that if the struck on 23 March in defiance of Port Talbot electricians and the their union leaders, and closed Heathrow engineers win it would down the plant. They are demand- demolish Stage and make a ing a new pay deal for working on Stage 3 impossible. a new and more complex plant.

This is why supporting action 2,500 of the And Heathrow Airport, for these strikes is so urgent. It is airport's time for all those who have talked maintenance engineers are work- of support, such as the group of ing to rule and refusing to work Glasgow conveners, night shift translate in support of their this into action. claim for increased shift allow- It is time for Roy Fraser, ances. Leyland toolmakers' leader, who The response of British Air- correctly stated after a toolroom ways management, following on stewards' meeting last week that the example of British Leyland's at Heathrow the right to strike is ultimatum to cue colmakers, was said and to sack 1,200 of the engineers in Stake, supporting action would be considered, trans- an attempt to split the dispute.

lated this talk into action.

And all those sections of the

BACK TO WORK

AUEW

began organising And the response to this situ- strike support for the toolmakers the

AUEW

leaders, when they were threatened with atOl headed by Maoist Reg Birch, also sack should The nOU prepare followed the example of the tool- similar defend the Heathrow makers' dispute-thev simply men against

VILLE

instructed their members back to Isa Lon. work any attempt by British AnO Steel Corporation to import extra This because 1S these strikes, in some ways more clearly break the Port steel supples to than the toolmakers, represent a Talbot strike met by

TO USI

challenge not only to Stage 2 of blacking the docks-where pay controls but also to the auth- dock themselves have LCWards agreed a 20% claim after August- ority of the official union leader- ship who have set themselves the and blacking on road transport.

task of the policing Social Contract.

APRIL 20

And for this reason the union bureaucracy rapidly moved This kind of support is vital in beyond calls for a return to work the fight to break Stage 2. The with gang up management one day token surike on April 2u organise attempts to wholesale called by the Communist Party- scabbing. led LCDTU the Leyland stewards is of value only in so far

BLACKLEGGING

as it mobilises behind these strikes This involved calling in the (see back page). bureaucratic layer of represen- The weight of responsibility on tatives" on the National Joint the shoulders ot stewards who Council for Civil Air Transport. lead struggles the period 17 of the unions 1 t or heavv represented (the sole On the one hand the working exception being the AUEW) agreed jointly class is searching for a new leader- with management to allow super- ship, seeing the betrayals of the visory staff and managers to carry TU leaders and union officials. Wherever a lead is given there is a out checks normally done by the maintenance men. huge response. This would allow the other hand any somne on European

STONES

British airways General Mobutu's CIA- backed military dictatorship in the vast African state of Zaire appears to be collapsing under the onslaught of a tiny guerilla army reportedly numbering less than 2,000.

The invading of exiles army from the province of Shaba (formerly Katanga) crossed the border from Angola a month ago.

The war looks as if it will become a spark which may ignite huge convulsions not only in Africa but also world wide. Mobutu's government, militar- ile Biacked by the Weited States, Belgium former colonial master) and France, has been one of the mainstays of imperialism in Africa since the crushing of the anti-imperialist regime of Patrice Lumumba in

FORTNIGHTLY PAPER OF THE

WORKERS SOCIALIST LEAGUE

No 58 * 13 April 1977 * 10p

ARE NEEDED

em air BP

ZARE: CIA'S REGIME

TOTTERS

second most populous state of black Africa, the size of Zaire gives it a crucial strategic role shares a border with other states, and it contains half of the precious Copperbelt which straddles the border with Zambia and supplies 70% Zaire's foreign earnings. Zaire was the imperialists' headquarters in the war of liberation in Angola.

ADVANCE

The invading forces have made a staggeringly fast advance and are already threatening to capture one ot the main Copperbelt towns (Kolwesi) from which they could quickly advance to the even more important city of Lumumbashi (formerly Elizabethville).

The Zairian army is reportedly collapsing before them, di dicoragnicatin air BF Many desertions have been reported and the army commander has been replaced. According to one report, he was killed in the fighting Mobutu's government has been Cont' Back Page Col. 3.

CONTENTS

Review of British Road to Socialism .P6 French Revolution P7 *Rank and File TUC con- ference report. .. PS Argentina one year after the coup ... P3 TGWU preview of conference agenda

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

AFRICA- DIPLOMATS SAFARI

CP PROPS TORIES IN FRANCE & ITALY

TURKEY: EARLY ELECTION CALLED

Page 2 In the last three years Southern Africa has become one of the centres of the world revolutionary struggle.

Any such situation which contains revolutionary poten- tial poses a threat both to imperialism and Stalinism.

This is because it threatens to shatter the Stalinists' counter-revol- utionary agreement to divide the world between the capitalist ruling class and the Peking and Moscow bureaucracies. But, at the same time, it offers an opportunity for each of them to redraw the lines of demarcation to their own advantage.

FLAGGING FORTUNES

This is why Southern Africa has become one of the hotbeds of inter- national 'great power' diplomacy.

So it is not surprising that one of the first missions or britams Doy Foreign Secretary David Owen was set off in the footsteps of the United States UN Representative Andrew Young try to lo lopan the flagging fortunes of the imper- ialistsin Africa. Betore he lett Owen was forced to concede an (inevitably fruitless) inquiry into the sanctions-breaking activities Shell and British government-owned BP in Rhodesia.

On several occasions he will find himself the still crossing warm tracks of his infinitely successful Stalinist picdecessolt President Podgorny of the Soviet Premier Union Castro. In both Italy and France the crisis of the bourgeoisie has deepened in the last two weeks. In both countries the bourgeois- ie faces the problem of governing through parlamentary means without being able to command a majority of the electorate.

neither has the In tUlley situation yet led to an open govern- ment criss because of the postıon taken by the Stalinists and TerOrmISS. In Italy, they have permitted the Christian Democrats (Tories) to rule by abstaining in parlament; in France, where the government still has a parliamentary majority, they refrain from which any action would precipitate a general election the Gaullists and Giscardians which would be bound to lose. But in both countries this flagrant class collaboration by the workers' parties is meeting with Teal elestion on June l. general election on June This decision in Parliament followed an agreement between the two main bour- geois parties-the Justice Party of Prime Minister Demirel, and the Republican People's Party former Minister Prime Ecevit. The right-wing parties which form ruling the National Front split over the vote-with the National Salvation Party trying biock the legislation for the election. Erer since the general strike last Octaber forced defeat Ingislation to set up special courts the Demirel gorerment has faced deepening la AS a result The two of them have spent the last month on separate monster diplomatic tours and have between them taken in nine countries Libya, South (Algeria, Yemen, Ethiopia, Somalia, Tanzania, Zambia, Angola and Mozambique) before reuniting to compare notes 11 Moscow. They have also spoken to the leaders of the South African African Nationat Congress, the Zimbabwean Patriotic Front, and West South Africa People's Organisation.

TRIUMPH

The tours were little short of a triumph. Castro and Podgorny got rea-carpet treatment in places unti recently long regarded as imperialist domains. Marchais, French CP leader.

increasing resistance from the work- ing class. Workers can see that all they 'gain' from the powertul position has come to rely more and more on fascist the torces _block struggles ot Class. Ine working But the calition split publicly the over negotiations Cyprus and the Aegean Sea, and the split was widened by the US imposing an economic and military embargo to Iorce the urkish

OVERICRL

make concessions on Cyprus.

At . tne same time the retusa ot the IMF to give credit to the egime made it impossible even buy supplies. At present ICaTT ol Soviet Union aiding Demirel regime by supplying oil on credit. Corruption has been exposed in the top echelons of the military and government. Prime Minister Demirel, defence minister Melen and chief the of staff genera Savcar hare all been named br the And even better, they were able to offer concrete economic, tech- nical and military not only to range of left-talking bureaucratic regimes but also to the Southern African liberation move- ments. Podgorny had more money to offer, but Castro was more demon- Allende and Castro strative about the role of the growing Stalinist presence in Africa.

On his way to Moscow he said: "There are Cubans in Africa and Asia who make their modest revolutionary contribution the We do not do that for surugge . . . reasons of national prestige nor to play a role in international life. We do it because we are international- ists". The role of the Cuban forces in Angola seems to lend credence to of their political parties is falling wages, growing unemployment and orsening social servicès.

In Italy this situation has provoked the recent bitter demon- strations by students and young unemployed workers against the leaders of the Communist Party trade union federation, the CGIL.

Sharp divisions have arisen in the leadership of the CP about how to deal with this. The majority have decided against a 'left' turn into outright opposition, which would precipi- tate a general election and perhaps uncontrollable an government CiSiS. Instead they have decided to try to get a clearer reward for their collaboration. Party General Secretary Enrico Berlinguer would like the CP to be admitted broad political coalition with the bourgeois parties.

but this bene ior now imposs.

ible, he demands a "political agree- special committee set up to probe Lockheed bribes. But the election underlines the crucial question confronting Turkish workers and Vadbdlllo- what must their attitude be towards Ecevit's party? While the reactionary leadership of the biggest trade union confed- the Confederation eration, Turkish Workers Unions maintains its stand of being "above political parties" the second biggest con- federation has declared support for Ecevit's RPP. This position is shared by The Turkish Communist Party. Their leadership claims that "socialism will be built in two stages; the first stage is to build a progressive, anti- tascist, democratic regime" they concluded at their Tregal that SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 13 March, 1977

IN BRIEF

this claim. But, despite this, the

PAKISTAN

claim is a fraudulent one.

Premier Bhutto is having Castro notadany omitted from his success forcing the fraudulent internationalist results of the recent election down credentials any word about his own the throats of the people.

continent, Latin America.

The opposition Pakistan Nation-

INCORPORATION

al Alliance has boycotted the Assembly. And in any case Bhutto This is because since his total has imprisoned its major leaders incorporation into Soviet foreign and most of its MPs. A one-day policy in the late 1960s Cuba has general strike called by the PNA got systematically withdrawn all sup- massive support and numerous huge anti-imperialist

POTI

demonstrations have continued movements Latin suclallsI calling on Bhutto to resign and call instead supporting AmerICa, new elections. The demonstrations dictatorships in Peru reactionary have been ruthlessly suppressed by lining up behind the police. the counter-revolutionary Com- Bhutto's method of ruling is munist Parties. now through ruthless dictatorship.

And now includes in his he Over 100 demonstrators have been 'revolutionary internationalism' killed since the elections six weeks such openly counter-revolutionary ago and 30,000 arrested. governments as that of Gaddaffi in

SPAIN

Libya the military Derg Ethiopia. The Spanish Communist Party This has finally been legalised.

'LEFT FACE'

follows weeks of constitutional cat mouse, the Supreme Court When Cuba supported gerilla finally ayins was not movements in Latin America it was capable of decidine and throwing opposed by the Soviet Union. the problem back to Prime Minister.

Now when Cuba sends troops to Suarez. Angola it acts as the sanctioned His decision is no surprise since "left' face of a world policy CP leader Carrillo is one of the few Stalinism whose direction very Deng Prime Minise ter te clearly comes from Moscow and Prime Minister whose overall objective is to fore- six weeks elections due within stall revolution. (though the date has still not been announced).

IRELAND

British Leyland has taken out a High Court injunction to try to of its Irish picketing Pre er ne factory where 250 workers are on unofficial strike in support of a pay Leyland claim. refused has implement the nationally negoti- ated wage deal on the grounds that it cannot afford to pay the increase ment' with the Christian Demo- crats to replace the present Their attitude the new 'arrangement on programme'.

moving increasing- AVYaCl far the Christian Democrats ly from the traditional position of 'have said thev wil have none of 'Yes, but to one of 'No, this. Meanwhile, Italy's IMF loan unss . . remains unratified and the climate of becomes uncertainty

HOTE

BEST FRIENDS

intense. In France, their shattering defeat Its best friends remain the in the local elections, has brought Stalinist and reformist bureau- ruling class parties close to despair.

cracies who fear precipitating any- President Giscard has appointed thing which might smack of a social new "non-political" cabinet, crisis. which in practice means he has But the pressure of the working dropped only three members of the class against the hated Barre plan last including hated Interior for control C onE. wage and public Minister Poniatowski. spending cuts has become Among the is intense that the main trade union replacements veteran Gaullist Alain Peyrefitte federations have been forced to Minister Gulle's of announce plans for new strike. waste Education during the crisis of actions against it, though they these to token continue to limit Chirac's new-look Gaullists have strikes. come to see their involvement with But in Paris the bourgeoisie is the crumbling Giscard regime as a sleeping no sounder than it is in political liability. Rome. they too should back the RPP.

attempt to ally with Ecevit and has Such support is simply a contin- been forced stand indepen- IO uation of the Popular Front alliance dently. with bourgeois which The

TSLP

and the Turkish parties Stalinism throughout Socialist Party both failed chatacterises to Europe today qualify the laws for the under But while the Stalinists mobilise election-leaving the ILi as In€ workers party at the polls.

workers on demands of bourgeois only democracy, the bourgeoisie The independence of pontical mobilising fascists to destroy working class from the bour- une In the last four months alone 50 geoisie is the central issue in this election. workers have been killed, hundreds wounded and factories controlled For this reason there must be by terror as fascists forced workers no vote for the bourgeois RPP, but a demand that the TLP break all to join the facsist union confed- links with the RPP and put forward eration. Ecevit's party offers no alternative to this. socialist aimed at programme The uniting the struggles of workers and reformist parties-ine Turkish Labour Party and Turkish peasants. Socialist Party-follow And one of the key demands in labouz similar lines to the CP programme must be for in seelng Ecevit's party as the main progres- united defence workers squads

SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 13 March, 1977 It is now just over a year since General Videla's military dictatorship seized power from the corrupt and reaction- of. Peron's ary government widow, Isabel. The coup of last March 24 was undertaken on behalf of the capital- ists-both those of Argentina itself and those of the imperialist powers which operate there. Peron's government was anti-capitalist or anti-imperial- ist-just the reverse. The coup needed because was the Peronist leaders nad necome the eyes of increasingly exposed in Argentinian workers ruthless agents of capital. They could no longer success- fully perform their role as police- men against the rising militancy of the workers.

"INTERVENED"

same time those Yet at the workers had still not succeeded in replacing the old Peronist leaders of the powerful trade unions with a This is the main reason why the the could Workers II0l military from seizing power.

Alter the coup all except seven of the trade unions were "inter- vened"_that is pletely by the military. either Their leaders WETe escaped to arrested else OI comfortable exile, where some have with the Corporatu military junta in the International Labour Organisation. But the Junta has found that getting rid of the national leader- making trade and S11p illegal does not amount to getting rid of the fighting strength of the labour movement. The intense repression has not stopped major struggles breaking out. Where outright strikes have appeared to be too dangerous, to other have resorted forms of struggle such as the sabo- tage of production and go-slows.

"SETTLEMENT"

The of major areas struggle the have been motor industry (with major disputes last summer in General Motors, Fords, Renault and Fiat), the docks (which were para- vsed last autumn bv a strikel and the electric power industry which crisis for six months. electricity 1 ne for higher wages been struggling and against the regime's plans for and specu-up the catastrophically week indebted public sector. A month ago the regime claimed to have reached "settlement" with the power workers. The with which the union, military was forced against its will, negotiate, agreed to so me increase the working week (though not the new shift system the wanted) long regime continued Guel demands.

"SADNESS"

Despite this sudden retreat of Ine imeworker carrying on with a form of go-slow and sabotage which they call "working with sadness" or "work- ing with anger". Workers' also have

PINESIS

forced the regime to postpone its Argentina: the dictators and their friends railway plans sack 15,000 to workers. Even when they are not success- ful, the recent examples of resis- tance show an extraordinary will on Ine part of tne Argentinian working class to fight the unta and its policies. The actions have taken place in environment of murderous repression.

RUTHLESS

Both the licenced death squads, the unofficial arm of state repres- which justified "healthy and normal reaction" by Foreign Minister police official and army have systematically imprisoned, and murdered the

RUILD CU

militants of trade unions and workers' political parties.

They have waged a continuous runless war against tne two uroan the Peronist Mon- guerilia groups, Peoples toneros and the Castroite Revolutionary Army (ERP).

Repression has also extended to community and the liberal Catholic opponents of the regime's methods. Amnesty by concludes that the International number of political prisoners now custody without Known to be in charges is around 6,000. addition it estimates that up to 5,000 have "disappeared" into the hands of the Junta. Thousands of others have been chargea with or convicted or lrade "offences". and political

NO COMFORT

Yet despite this, the workers fight. though

CANO

the regime keeps claiming complete victory over the guerillas, they too have continued to stage spectacular, pontically including a near successful attempt to assassinate Videla in rebruary There is no political comfort in all this for Videla's junta. And, as a result, the tactical divisions in it are, There camps. consists of generals who want to try to get more civilian politicians (esp- ecially of the right wing Radical Party ana ine social Democrats, into government and even The perhaps do a deal with some of the union leaders. The other is made up of those who want to rev exclusive v military rule.

| INTERNATIONAL NEWS

policies of the The economic regime are also intensitying the ruling class. tensions

THE OU

rapid, Savage wage control and though somewhat reduced inflation has, according to the government's own figures, cut real wages to less than a half of their level in 1975.

benefitted This has the exporting capitalists, especially in agriculture, but it is destroying the the smaller manufac market for turers. And the wage cuts and growing everyday provoke unemployment more resistance among the working The situation is one where active the world labour solidarity movement would help. Argentinian workers to put a rapid end to the dictatorship.

COSMETIC

But the scandalous fact is that the pulsung canterests on American imperialism, President Jimmy Carter has taken more action against the regime than all A workers' demonstration through Buenos Aires.

the reformist and Stalinist leaders of the labour put

HITCHCH

together! Of course, Carter's recent reduc- tion of military aid to Argentina • from $/47 million to $y15 million is a purely cosmetic move designed support "human rights" tactic of American will do little harm to Videla dismiss the move But he has not even needed to react to actions from labour move- ment leaders because nothing has The torrent of harmless words which has come from the reform- "Socialist so-called International" not enough to drown a fly let alone overthrow a

RED-CARPET

No reformist leader has proposed any action in solidarity with Argentinian workers.

Last Callaghan's Labour government gave a red-carpet wel- come to the dictatorship's Finance Minister Martinez Hoz de and helped him to borrow from British Udnks. From world Stalinism, however, there have not even been any words against the dictatorship.

The Argentinian Communist fage 3 General Videla a deal with the junta Since the Junta came to power Party did soon after it seized power: the CP the Soviet Union has become one trading offered critical support if the junta Argentina's partners, purchasing large amounts would allow it to continue to exist.

Tha, as has presenting to support of wheat and beef. Carter's cut in aid, the Videla, as representing gressive" dictatorship is now reported to wing of the military, even have sent a delegation to the Soviet though its own militants have Union looking for new supplies of suffered increasing repression; some of them have been murdered by arms. There is no reason to think that others regime will deny this the Soviet Union imprisoned. supplies vice-president of the Cr request since it already youth movement recently said: arms to other anti-working military dictatorships such as that ine attacks on une governiell carried out by the ultras are attacks of Peru. The labour movement in Britain on the people. In spite of its hetero- geneous views, the military govern- must contribute to the building of a one point: the world-wide campaign to replace the ment agrees on hypocritical words of the reformists and democratic policies sensible that it carries out". with real actions. include a total This obscene treachery These must Stalinism world followed by economic embargo against Chilean CP leader Luis Corvalan Argentina, and forcing the Stalinists (recently swapped by the USSR for their obscene support for end Vladimir Bukovsky) has Videla's dictatorship No arms for the Junta! from Argentla for international For a boycott of all economic recent appeals solidarity against dictatorships relations with Argentina.

Latin America. Release all political prisoners!

Restore trade union and politcal government And the Soviet which welcomed Videla's coup, is rights! now actively trying to block any Down with the military dictator- ship! consideration of Argentina by the United Committee Nations on Human Rights.

WORKERS

SOCIALIST LEAGUE

The Workers Socialist League is a Trotskyist organisation fighting to build a revolutionary leadership in the working class to lead the mounting opposition to the betrayals of both 'left' and right wing Labour and trade union leaders and the Communist Party, as they attempt to enforce wage control, sackings, speed-up and public service cuts. As workers take up the struggle against these policies they are forced by the sheer weight of forces opposing them to confront political questions. Only with an understanding of the role of the labour bureaucracy and a programme to unite the broadest sections of workers in struggle can a way forward be found.

The Workers Socialist League is the only movement that sets out to do this, fighting consistently in the working class for transitional demands, which go beyond simply trade union militancy to raise the political questions to workers and prepare the forms of organis- ation and the knowledge necessary for the struggle for socialism.

As a result we have been at the forefront of struggles against the cuts, against wage control, for unionisation, and against redundancy.

We have done more than any other tendency to fight the introduction of 'workers' participation' in industry. And we have strongly supp.

orted the Campaign for Democracy in the Labour Movement, which has set out to show the link between the reactionary policies of the Social Contract and bureaucratic dictatorship in both the unions and the Labour Party. But our practical struggle for the continuity of the principles and method of Trotsky's Transitional Programme is in no way a task con- fined to Britain. It requires an attention and involvement in the struggles of the working class internationally, and the fight to recon- struct the Trotskyist Fourth International.

So there has been a consistent drive within the WSL to deepen and enrich the movement's understanding of the history and the present crisis of the Fourth International as an essential part of our initiative towards its reconstruction.

We urge all readers who agree on the need for revolutionary lead ership and the demands we put forward to find out more about the WSL and join our fight in the Labour movement.

TORIES HELP BROAD

Page 4 Through their ever-closer alliance with the Federation of Conservative Students the Broad Left succeeded in main- their bureaucratic taining control of NUS at the Black- pool Easter Conference. The Communist Party-domin- ated electoral machine used Tory support to help them defeat all opposition calling for a militant campaign on grants and cuts.

And they went on to carry an unprincipled and defeatist formula the present campaign against tuition fee increases. The only significant setback to the narrow the bureaucracy was failure of their joint move the Tories to rescind the Union's position of no platform for fascists.

For second consecutive conference this craven capitulation to the right wing was defeated by students sit in over fees rise Srudents Birmingham at Polytechnic voted to occupy administration of the Art the and Design block on Tuesday 23 March part of their as "Freeze the Fees Campaign".

The students' basic demands are that-on a national level-the DES circular 1/77 (which students) overseas be and-on a local level - tinat the LEA's college and autorities refuse to implement the proposals of the circular.

The students state that: -Circular 1/77 is detrimental not only on the grounds of its political philosophy and its racialist content, but also on grounds of academic standards and values" They resolved stay are 1n Dicipation until they get a positive from the authorities that assurance there will be no fee increases, no and no

KOLECUONS

reductions in available places for

WIDEST SUPPORT

The aim of the Occupation Committee the has been Filest possible student support for largel! propaganda the actual occupation. However. by restricting them- selras to the issue of circular 1/77 in order to get the widest possible partrum oi studen: support. they are divorcing themselves from the miss of Forking class opposition to the suble expenditure cuts.

LEFT AGAINST LEFT

the revolt of large sections of Broad Left supporters-despite the CP's last-ditch to bring their membership behind the Broad Left policy. Nevertheless the Broad Left - supported by second choice votes transferred from the Tories-were able to win the majority of Executive positions the new including the election of Stalinist Sue Slipman as President.

TWO GROUPS

Opposition to the Broad Left at Conference came from two groups natives-the SWP's NOISS and the IMG-orchestrated Socialist Students Alliance (SSA). Both stood a slate of candidates in the elections and both had the support of around 110 of the 760 delegates. The policies they put forward Newly elected Stalinist NUS leaders: Sue Slipman (President) Penny Cooper (Treasurer) applauded by ex-President Charles Clarke.

voicing Apart from merely opposition to the cuts they should be demanding sliding public expenditure to maintain all jobs and services and a sliding scale of would grants-demands which link them to the other struggles of the working class. Their occupations be must linked to a systematic campaign for This is the working class support. only way struggle wien the against these cuts can be won.

DAS. SU

NO NO TO Students dom the School o* Oregulad Arkar 503k: 7.:

LIA LIT

however were barely distinguish- forward able-the

SSA

put beyond positions which went NOISS's calls for 'more militancy etc.

NEW FACTOR

The intervention of the SSA was a new factor at conference. Consis- ting of a newly formed combin- ation of 'credible' left bureaucrats, professional centrists and genuinely confused students look- ing for an alternative, the 'catch all the militants' platform of the group is designed to substitute for. the building of a genuine revolutionary alternative.

SSA

pushed careerist ex- National Treasurer Hugh Lanning as its Presidential candidate.

Even the Broad Left were able to expose his opportunist manoeu- vrings in breaking

LWU

from NOISS in order to further his own electoral ambitions. Yet the

IMG

argued that Lanning was a 'credible' candidate. Indeed he was-to those whose perspectives are limited to winning ejections.

AMAZING CONTORTIONS

The IMG/SSA have already been forced into amazing contortions in explain "political OrLeT LNe basis of the alliance. A quote from one of their leaflets reters to their: .. programme of left unity reflecting the central lines of divide between the far left, the Broad Left and the right wing in this Union ...!!] How's that for a catch-all! -Not a programme based on the objec- tive requirements of students and but

WORKES

"unite" already existing political starting point forces-the of all bureaucratic electoral machines. As compared with the SSA the politics of NOISS are at least more open and clear. Whilst the demands put forward are every bit as they partial limited minimum _ to ana demands as are those of the SSA they not as hampered by are political careerist elements whose lie only partially within concerns the field of student problems.

CRITICAL SUPPORT

Whilst their politics are every bit as obstructive, NOISS continues marginally more present serious alternative to the Broad Left. the WSL gave For this reason the critical support to NOISS slate in the elections.

in NUS A principled alternative can only be built in the fight for a programme of transitional demands to mobillise students alongside leadership 1n

WOIKEIS

against both the right wing struggle and Stalinism.

SSA

NOISS

have and ine there are rejected this fight. But

WEARE

SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 13 March, 1977 He described Hickman as mentally ill man and went on:

TOP

"I took this view because the evidence showed that what he did was wholly out of keeping with normal his known his behaviour and his military record".

unmannerly wnie it would be to suggest that Judge Griffith-Jones

CLASS

Major's was influenced by the impeccable bourgeois credentials in his astonishingly lenient two year would suspended sentence, advise any reader who sees a bank employee clubbed with a shotgun to check on what school the assail- ant went to, and what his military

JUDGE

record is, before rushing to assist!

blatant case has exposed sharply the real nature of the law Compare the Major's treatment with that meted out to Shrewsbury pickets Des Warren and Ricky laminson "had a go" The man who

"CONSPIRACY"

Major and helped capture Neither of these men Thomas Montague Hickman Eton. Neither served in the Guards.

was asked on television what "character" ПІТ ПОТ ЛАТІЗ АНОТАТЕТИН his reaction was to the suspen- to act "out of" As a result they were given ded sentence passed on the savage sentences of 3 years and 2 Major. He said he was years respectively for 'conspiracy'- "disgusted". on the basis that they organised a Considering that he had had a mass picket in which it was alleged shotgun his damage was done and scabs "intim- sawn OIl stomach with the threat of being apart, understand No shotguns were used. Nobody Dio Wn can his feelings. was beaten unte The feelings of the bank evidence was brought that either who was continuously himself did any damage. Nobody was interested in their past beaten over the head with the same shotgun by the Major, and who was record of behaviour. They were threatened with what he was told simply sentenced and jailed.

was bomb, would also Now we hear that Labour MP interesting. Walter Johnson has put forward a policy to deal with those he terms

HABIT

as "soccer hooligans" Johnson to be cans or tnem special tough-discipline sent to a Hickman had also successfully army unit, to avoid overcrowding in robbed bank of €17,500 two jails. years earlier. It is clearly something Of his proposal reveals course of habit. But Judge Mervyn only his hostility to the frustrations Griffith-Jones, rebuffing any ider building up in working class youth Hickman was given special betrayed by the Callaghan govern- treatment because he had, like the ment. gone to Eton and Judge, was an But if he really wants to empty ex-Guards officer, assured the press the jails why does he not advocate convicted criminal that every "I should have acted precisely sentenced first of all to a spell and the same way and what- Eton and service in the Guards? the defendant might be. He ever That way nobody would ever go would have got the same treat- to jail! ment"

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LEYLAND CONFERENCE

ENDORSES PHASE 2

"RANK AND FILE TUC"-LITTLE BETTER THAN THE REAL THING

Their hardly Implacable opposition to absence WaS the of of workers who surprising SuCC any group the conference had been bitterly take strike action against Stage opposed the four Il of the Social Contract-that week strike-a strike which shook was the message spelled out the Social Contract, the trade union leaders and the government to the and time again by the time foundations. of the so-called organisers "Rank and file TUC" held in

JOINT LETTER

Town Hall last Birmingham the conference Robinson and Sunday April 3. secretary (fellow CP member Peter Nicholas) went further than verbal The conference had been called opposition to the toolmakers. They the Communist Party-led Ley- by with British land Joint Shop Stewards Commit- Leyland management, sent to all tee, and was a part of the campaign workers support- developed by the Communist Party BL Cars Division ing the sacking of the toolmakers!

TUC for within the lor a vote collective bargaining return to tree "The has decided to after Stage II of the Social Contract company runs out on July 31. open all its plants for production on Monday 21 March. [This was The clear effect of such the day the toolmakers were to be campaign is to divert the working sacked | It that all is imoerative class away from action now against employees report for normal work Stage II under conditions where the and do their utmost achieve and toremost requirement ol targets".

ITSI

the Government and TUC to get other words In Robinson and Stage Ill is the successtul comple- Nicholas signed a letter calling for tion of Stage II. full-scale scabbing! CP The conference chairman, member Derek Robinson, made this

BREAKING POINT

clear in his opening address.

"We don't want any breakaway If the toolmakers had attended, movements", he told the confer- (and they would have been right to clear contradictions ence, and he later went on to attack do would have sharpened the confer- the Leyland toolmakers who said were "conspicuous by their ence to breaking point. absence here today". The hypocrisy of people who who wrote the budget? Who the wrote budget? Perhaps it was Denis Healey's hand-but it was guided from elsewhere. was the IMF's Budget. First, it The overall changes in taxes and the cash deficit expected government (the so-called ment") from had been dictated written himself.

IMF

headquarters in Washington In particular it fits in with the last December. Liberals' reactionary policy of shift- Second, it was the CBI's Budget.

ing from direct to indirect taxation, CBI spokesmen naturally lamented though they hypocritically baulked that there were not more hand-outs at the way this was done.

to the starving semi-destitute top Fourth, to a lesser extent it was and middle managers. the TUC's Budget. The bureaucrats claim not to like having their arms

"RIGHT DIRECTION"

twisted by the provisional tax cuts Murray "a but Len found it a satis- But they right direction*s welcomed it factory basis for discussing Phase 3.

step in the and had not gone too were pleased It

MORE MODEST

far in stimulating the economy Third it was the Liberal Party s The TUC's pathetic Budget. John Pardoe, the Liberals' proposals of justified tax was about the extent said economi "cuts" the sort of budget he would have proved can sign such a statement and then as the leaders of a fight against

DUSC

the Social Contract is breathtaking.

The need in the conference was for this hypocrisy of the platiorm confronted and the cynical De CP manoeuvres ,designed to divert the working class, exposed.

Report PHOTO: John Sturrock Wyn Bevan Unfortunately, this was not The platform survived by done. combination of a refusal of the left wingers who got to the micro- phone to challenge them on these issues, to exclude from the discussion any delegate known likely attack their record. The polar opposite to the plat- Healey even more modest than those of the IMF but they were thinking along more or less the same lines.

ine one Ining une budget wa workers' In not Budget. was a return for a negligible uncondition- will further increase the cost of living.

And through his conditional tax cuts Healey says to workers: I will give you a tax cut as long as you agree to take away an even larger through amount lost wages of another

COLICI

PHOTO: John Sturrock. form, and representing workers now in active struggle Wyn Bevan, against Stage was convener of the electricians at the Steel Corporation massive British plant at Port Talbot. These workers were already in their second week of strike action on a pay claim and have shut the plant down. Bevan's speech • reflected the mood of the whole working class.

He admitted that odds they ine face are formidable. The strikers "isolated and disowned had been by our own union". The ree The the they are ent against and the Social Contrace government TUC, the

DETERMINATION

But Bevan expressed the deter- mination of his members. "We will out because our cause is just, stay and we intend to win". was Bevan's the received in stony silence by of the conference which section backed the Communist Party.

But its impact was felt through- CP speakers conference. out Int stepped up their attacks on "break- and from the other away groups" demands were shouted from side resol- the floor for an emergency ution in support of the Port Talbot men. platform was adamant. Murray

TUC

While the well-trained bureaucrats show sign of to jump through the which Healey, the IMF, the hoop have

CBI

Liberal Party land the manufactured, workers are already showing through the growing resis- tance to Phase 2 that they com- pletely reject the anti-working class economic strategies of this govern- ment, Budget and all. would accept no other motion of its "Declaration"- to amenament so much for democracy in this "rank and file TUC" The main blame for letting the CP off the hook must be pinned firmly on the International Marxist members were Group Three IMG the allowed speak during and none challenged the morning, record of the platform even once: This was not so much the fauh of the speakers themselves but of by

IMG

the created

COI LSIULI

policy. Red Weekly and

IMG

leaders regarded the conference as a "limited step in the right direction" which simply had to be built and extended. The nearest thing to a challeng to the Stalinists was made by Johr Deason of the SWP. He defended the toolmakers and attacked British Scanlon for supporting Leyland's threat to sack them.

STRONG SUPPORT

His contribution received stron support from a section of the con ference and an embarrasing rebuk form Robinson, who said that th organisers had agreed for Deason to speak his contribution "'abused the privilege" The only other 'left' speaker wa White, the WRP's Tom wh provided simply a more militan version of the Soult stoppage - calling for an all out stoppage August for a 23% wage increase!

In the afternoon session Eddi McGarry mounted the rostrum McGarry has been a supporter o the Social Contract from the outse and was a key speaker in support o the 1975 TGWU confer Jones at which brought wag control. McGarry began by attacking th toolmakers and went on to call fo free collective bargaining in Augus Replying to the hostile reception h received, he declared he was "her to do penance" for his past action Wright He followed by Stalini was •Kevin Halpin, of th charinal. the Liaison Committe CP's front, for the Defence of Trade Unions.

Halpin stepped up the attack o "sectional strikes", and said it w stop Stage 'too late to "unity" instead for the called the working class. Final speaker in the Conferen Bob Wrigh W25 willel masquerading this time as a "Broa Left". He made an election speec the ballot for forthcoming Presidency of the AUEW th Wright stoutly defended nationalist policy reactionary import controls, and called for th to *chan Labour direction government "declaration" eventual The moved by the platform was consi erably worse than the original dra Leyland Combi agreed the Stewards Conference.

IMPORT CONTROLS

The demand for import contro had been inserted and the origin one d call for a token strike was watered down to of Parliament" and a "d "lobby of action", stri ensure that to action on that day would minimised The vote at the end was ov whelmingly for the "declaration Delegates supporting Workers Socialist League voti this, along with the IC

IMG

supporters were sp between votes in favour and abste despite the fact that tion, conference had shown clearly th the fight against wage control not just a fight against the reform bureaucracy but against the CP.

•It is the Stalinists who provi the crucial left cover and organis diversions behind which the rig wing can do their work.

Page 6 "The broad democratic iance not only needs to be association of class forces he working class, parts of the pitalist class [!], the inter- ediate strata) but of other aportant forces in society".

These and many other abstract which make the new aft programme of the Communist irty of Great Britain, pad to Socialism Draft. may seem rd to visualise in practice.

examples Clea roughout the world of the impact such policies. In Italy, a conscious policy of ammunist parliamentary absten- ons preserves the reactionary wage tting Christian Democrat (Tory) vernment of Andreotti in orice- hile the Italian CP itself seeks an fiance with the Socialist with irty, but the Ins, lian capitalist party.

DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE"

In Chile, the 'Popular Unity' implemented the late licy Allende esident attempted to aw the army into its broad alliance', appointing ft-wing' generals to the govern- ent-with the resur Demg sious 1973 coup and continued litary dictatorship in Chile.

Communist Spain, Party Carrillo ader Santiago has mounced that he is not only no minst 'liberal' fascist prime inister Suarez, but is "pro-Suarez' "democrat- ving the process of tion" of the fascist state in the inds of Franco's heirs, and restric- ig working class action to protest zel. And in Britain the CP proudly platform positions to local their protest while slandering racialism, wage outside of the Phase creases elements "divisive 11TS acked by the press", and Tory British Leyland manage- porting threats 3,000 ent's to sack riking toolmakers (See article on e CP and wage controls, page 5).

At the same time CP Executive ember Derek Robinson, "union- joint chairman of the highest tish Leyland participation body, Cars Council, has by taking this cemented an alliance with one Britain's largest monopolies the interests of Leyland's anst floor workforce, and under- ten to assist management in the of speed-up and

WELLION

ionalisation. This is the reality behind the bad democratic alliance'.

The nationalist and essentially content of the whole of Brirish Road to Socialism both same political ite Stallig This is the revision of Stalinist by bureau- and in particular their nation- theory of Socialism in One «I •

ISOLATED

This iheory of Stalin's arose in sparti: conditions confronting Est zorkers' state in the early capitalist world. of the effects 00 qà technology and industry necessary to build social- conservative sections of 1sm. Rússian society became increasingly anv turther attemot and develop international support centrate on rebuilding the Russian economy, one country"). The most widespread base of support for these views was among the peasantry and the bureaucracy that emerged in the post-revolution- ary crisis, led by Stalin.

DESTROYED

in a canitalist world hostie to socialism, the best conditions for such reconstruction view of the bureaucrae Imperialist coexistence" with the irrespective of the ioact Dowers. of such a policy on the workers' To achieve this the Third Inter- national had completely destroyed as the international K S organiser of proletarian revolution and the Communist Parties trans- formed counter-revolutionary

ITTO

agencies of the Soviet bureaucracy whose job was to mediate the class Allende By the time Stalin wrote the tirst drait of The British Road to Socialism (published in 1952) Com- Parties Greece, Italy France and Indo-China had already betrayed post-war struggles of the Stalin , as their contribution working Class, to the establishment of "peaceful coexistence"? international on an scale. In the 25 years since The British Road Socialism to first was published, every hint of Marxism been from the JEaN programme of the ČPGB Lenin's concept of the vanguard party; the united front; dictatorship of the proletariat; the of social democracy and the TOle of the class nature state all either completely or dis- missing torted to such an extent that they into their opposite. The Marxist conception of the revolutionary party an instru- the ment for recruitment and training of cadres able to provide leadership for the working class the struggle for powel rejected, Instead the CP offers a reformist schema for the evolution from Santiago, Chile, just before the 1973 coup.

capitalism socialism in which to the role of the Communist Party that of a left "pressure group' the Labour Party, and in particular, the Labour Party 'lefts'.

The Stalinist schema

TUMS

basically as follows: the sheer size and potential of the British working class, ombined the new balance of world forces in which the ability of the imperialists to roll back revolutionary movements greatly hampered, means that now socialism can be achieved in Britain without violent revolution and civil warl

FIRST STEP

The forces exist, they say, which Britain road can put on socialism and what is needed is to unite them in a "broad democratic alliance". Since the winning of political by this broad democratic power alliance will be : a process, the first step according to the CP must be the election a JeTT which will begin to government tackle the economic crisis.

of succession progressively more left wing Labour governments SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 13 March, 1977

STALIN'S

ROAD TO

SOCIALISI

will, the ruling class would never give up its Stalinists hope таке Britain to the point where, with the power and privileges without a fight democratisation of the State (the and that the control of the state Civil Service, the judiciary and the including the apparatus, armed police and armed forces), the power forces, by the ruling class meant that civil war would be an almost inevitable of the

COLISCU UCELE

revolutionary overthrow of capital- is. In reply to this the CP argue that it would be possible tó "demo- cratise" the state apparatus in order This is prevent such violence. LU dangerous nonsense. "Marxist "President The Chilean Allende, supported by the Com- Party, munist argued to the last that the army was democratic and respected the "will of the people" will of any individual the class. But of course the army acted in the interests of the ruling class and overthrew the Allende regime, regardless of his illusions.

Berlinguer of be the capitalist can For hundred years now once and for all, and challenged Marxists have understood that the Parliament {not Soviets!] turned capitalist state in an instrument for into the real sovereign body of the the rule of the capitalist class and land. but must be cannot be reformed And all this will supposedly be smashed and replaced by a workers left Labour achieved by ments combined with the "demo- cratic mass struggles" of the people. The role Communist the Party this schema 1S basically as a pressure group on the will MPs left presumably form the basis for these PHOTO: John Sturrock, Report.

Labour governments.

ANTITHESIS

Left reformists will, they say, gradually be replaced by Marxists as class, in breaking from the working support reformism, its Labour leaders who are further and further to the lett. Under these conditions, accord- ing to the draft, Labour-Communist unity can be built which will enable the government to move forward to socialism. the As draft programme sets Robinson about developing this schema it becomes absolutely clear that in This lesson was written in the every respect is the complete blood of the who workers antithesis of Marxism established the Paris Commune and Firstly there is no attempt to go was confirmed in a positive way by beyond an assertion of the possib- the Russian Revolution. ility of a peaceful transition to It is a lesson which the Stalinists socialism. chose to forget in their attempts to evidence is offered in sup- No establish "peaceful coexistence" port of this argument although on a with the major imperialist powers world scale there are numerous and the result can be counted in the examples in the 1970s alone of the determination of the imperialists to delet every revolutonary upsurge by force of arms.

VAST MAJORITY

Angola and Chile, Indo-China, to mention only three, all represent attempts by the bour- desperate their geoisie preserve the peaceful while relatively revolutions which overthrew Greek dictatorship and Portuguese fascism did not in fact successfully capitalist rule and have Cranches therefore not been confronted with mass repression and civil war by the ruling class. Stalinists argue, the But, working class is the vast majority of the population and the ruling class a small minority. This numerical strength of the working class in Britain relative to the ruling class has always existed.

did lead Lenin Bull

TOL

Trotsky to the conclusion that the cocialist revolution in Britain would be a peaceful affair. They recognise: tra: the Sac and Ribben

reformism. by waiting trom the party which The mobilised other such a basis None usions

VILLALS.

within the ernative demand they lives of millions of workers.

Under While the "peaceful road to socialism" of revision deal, the Marxism by the Stalinists there are carry other major revisions the draft their followers. equipped Tacke te the working class. Parallel to this, malease argue the Stalinists, will be a left- and the draft programme studiously avoids the spineless role in practice tion between the "'reformists' argues thai the failure of the lefts the fact that the majority of the But the fact of the matter is that left labour MP has been prepared to stand up and fight Callaghan government. cotton tween" Steel in which the Liberal Party is given greater rights to consultation Labour Party NEC, service cut backs, the 'lefts' have while refusing to take a stand on alternative policies in an attempt to And the Communist Party, instead of ruthlessly exposing the cowardly bleatings of these 'lefts', up for them, attempting to create the illusion that these same 'lefts" actually the basis of an are alliance between Labour and the CP which could lead to socialism Marxists understand that socia.

ism cannot come like this through a reformist party, but only through

VLULCOLO

Stalinists' In us vi CP members the reactionary DI pat the time of the Stalin-Hitler pact.

working from the And this cannot be done simply for forces to emerge reformist party while it draws on the support of the working class, serves the interests of capitalism.

working class has to be of the independently classes, under the leadership oi a revolutionary party. Only on can alliances be made with other classes -clearly recognis- ing the leading role of the working class in socialist revolution.

process can begin of this unless afight begins to break the ill- workers have in Lne relor- mists and in particular the 'left' ref-

BREAK

This is why we Put wallanus on Labour Party and the PLP for a break with the coalition deal with the Liberals and for alt- socialist policies. And to stress the sharpness of this call, we begin this fight by voting in Parliament against the bo- icies of the Callaghan/Steel leader- ship, thus ending the deal.

conditions where the mass of workers reject the coalition of the lefts' to failure out these demands will serve discredit them the eves of But of course the CP is poorly demand the "lefts' adopt a socialist programme, since the CP itself is tied to exactly the same combination of calls for the of import policy

CON-

trols and stimulus to private indus- ites, the CP not only restricts itself isolate the elected reformist demands, but even pulls back from a fight for removed the them.. So while claiming to oppose argue that sectional disputes against Phase 2. like that of the toolmakers a superficially attractive one which death of the Assembly. many Assembly postpone the day of reckoning.

motion proposed by

"SECTIONAL"

Order July on failed constitution possible unity is 75%

TEG UISELE

obviously needed or ine overtntow Attempts with republicans possible level - in the case of wage behind the TUC's bureaucratically- the working class is the class is involved at any given true, revolution will be on the imm- struggles now means that the work- ing class is "united" - in having its control must begin today by supp-

OWIN

Instead of this, every one of the "initiatives" taken by the CP over wage controls has been consciously restricted to empty, stage-managed preserving the opportunist coexistence with the trade union bureaucracy, and "pressuring" them to the left not set out in this collapsed, and this nave article to wade through every hastened the final dissolution of the of the Brit- ect of the "new" draft Party of Order into its component ish road to Socialism. parts. From August Much of it simply a rehash of the 1952 bly was again And for this reason also we have this allowed not gone into detailed quotes from draw up his Marx and Lenin refuting its many without any disturbance whatever.

blatant revisions of Marxism.

his ministers his decision to restore any class COnSCIOus will move now into universal suffrage; they opposition to taeu leadersnip not Thoringy through lengthy theoretical debates the but on the strength of hostility to power. practice the opening stana. in of the CP in today's class stuggle.

Assembly on November 4, a Bill to A glimpse of Derek Robinson's restore universal suffrage was intro- strikebreaking role as a left' face duced. On November Leyland management is worth was rejected by 355 votes to 348 a thousand quotations in exposing With this act, the bankruptcy of the CP's British proved Road to Socialism. body, but the usurping parliament of a single class.

FRENCH

Napoleon III This article continues our series on the revolutionary history of France. The first two parts dealt Thermidor reaction (1794). The third part outlined the social forces which combined to produce the revolutionary upheaval of 1848. This article shows how the defeat of the 1848 struggles led to a new kind of dictatorship in 1851.

The next article will deal with the Paris Commune of 1871.

1851: THE NEW

BONAPARTISM

As Bonaparte began to fin- vote to present himself as 'defender of the people?, who would safe- alise preparations for the mil guard them against "demagogues on itary coup which was to place one side and monarchical hallucin- complete control of ato ven ber 25, 1851). other". (Speech of ations France, he carried out a series

BREACH

This speech, made to members of the industrial bourgeoisie, met with cries of bravo and other parliamentary government and stormy confirmtions the replaced it by the government merely confirmed the bourgeoisie between parliament and the This toying without. with the government The coup d'etat soon follower was done simply to hasten the In the early hours of December 2 Bonaparte's lumpen-proletarian followers December 10" dragged the teaders made feverish efforts to of the Assembly unceremoniously A from their beds. the Party of Sections of the 19' the occupied the main squares of Paris, to attain the and placards were put up proclaim- ing the dissolution of the National cast. vales to effect Assembly and the Council of State, an allance and democrats the restoration of universal suffrage failure merely and the imposition of a state of siege in the Seine department. Thus ended the February revolution, the 10 to Novem- Legislative Assembly and the Party 4 1851, the Legislative Assem- of order. The Second Republic was in recess, and once supplanted by the now Bonaparte Empire. revoltion had gen way bourgeois plans for the coup of capital. On October 10, he announced to

PLEBISCITE

on October resigned and on October 26, Shortly afterwards the question Ministry came to of the restoration of the empire was put to a plebiscite. session of the in favour. On the first anniversary of the Bonaparte

LULD

Paris as Napoleon III; his empire 13, this Bill was to last twice as long as that of his uncle. By then the revolutions the Assembly of 1848 were well and truly dead.

itself not a representative The Chartist movement suffered a serious setback in early 1848, while in Cologne a number of Bonaparte eagerly seized on this Communists tried

REVOLUTION

with the 1789 Revolution and the period after the sentenced to imprisonment in a show-trial. The Communist League which had split in September 1850 оп the question of revolutionary pros- pects, was formally wound up Ahe close o the first pil ase of means This date marks November alised international working class activity the world had seen was analysis of the French of 1848 is contained and this revolution breach essentially in two works-the Class in France and the magni- Struggles within Brumaire re. Here me develops, bourgeoisie ficent Louis Bonaparte. by means of concrete analysis, his materialist conception of history, and shows how the class struggle in "Society France gave rise to that peculiar political formation, Bonapartism, wherein the bourgeoisie entrust political than itself wer to a power ofher military

STALEMATE

For Marx, the Second Empire was only possible because peculiar stalemate the in the bourgeoisie struggle when found itself unable to rule in its own name just when the proletariat were too weak to overthrow them.

this situation, when neither class could hold the historical ring, Bon said arose and, pretending.

stand classes, dominated French society.

This analysis of Bonapartism was later developed by Trotsky, partic- his analyses of Hitler's in of the degener- rise to power, and ation of the Soviet Union Needless to say, Bontsky always insisted that the Bonapartism capitalism in decay was very differ- 'ent from that of pre-monopoly that both were and qualitatively different from the bureaucratic usupration of political power in a workers' state.

NEW FORMS

The 1850s and 1860s were a period of unprecedented capitalist expansion; the political energies of the working class lay dormant for some time but revived to form the First International in 1864.

The class antagonisms which Bonaparte tried to suppress re- surfaced in new, more violent forms and proved to be the undoing of his Second Just as Bonaparte came to power with the farcical coup of 1851, sc bourgeois he was to fall in the farcical capit- ulation to Bismark in 1870.

1851 had followed the tragedy of 1848; a similar tragedy was to follow But this September 1870. time the working class were to hold power before being defeated, and 250,000 voted the world were to workers' state-the Paris Commune of 1871. 1871 is thus the direct continu- ation of the struggles of June 1848.

had By James Short. and

DEVOLUTION

Page 8

LETTER

Dear comrade editor, My Press respect for Socialist took a sharp nosedive when 1 read John Lister's article on Scotland.

(January 19). Comrade Lister's confusion, and ultra-left posturing, stem from one central misconception, ie. that the political situation in Scotland is the same as in Newcastle, Liverpool or the West Country. These areas share similar econ- omic problems with Scotland, but Scotland is not a city or a region of England-it a nation, complex nation which shares many common features with England, but which also displays important differences.

LARGEST PARTY

Right now there is a difference in the way in which many Scottish people, (ie sections of the working class and the petit-bourgeoisie) have responded to the crisis of British capitalism; the Scottish National Party has carved out at least a third of the votes at recent elections, and become the largest political nas party in Scotland. In response to this the Labour

WE REPLY:

Comrade Purdie's letter combines two useful correctives to original Socialist tress article with what we would regard as a wrong method of approach to the question of working class leadership in Scotland First of all, comrade Purdie is right to say that we should have stated clearly that Scotland is not simply an area of England, but is a nation. This does not mean in our view, however, that the problems which have prompted the flow of support towards the Scottish National Party are "national" problems in any- thing like the Marxist sense.

Rather they are problems which workers and middle class Scottish people face in common with their counterparts in England, and which flow from crisis of British

TEAR

capitalism as a whole.

DEMAGOGUES

It is the reactionary demagogues

SNP,

of assisted their ance "left" counterparts in the Scottish objectively Labour Party and helped by the trail of carnage left by the Callaghan and Wilson governments who have been able to build from problems the "Scottish musion inal tnere .Is a answer". Secondly, comrade right to take issue with our article's statement that the Scottish people should have the right to secede only system had after Soviet been aliced is is certainiy wrong Its incorrectness flows from an extension one main themes of the original article-the defence or tne pollica moepen- dence of the working class Scotland from the nationalist petty bourgeoisie. In pushing the argument too far the articke ended with what comrade Purdie aptly describes as Were We Right? The publication of this letter and reply has been However we feel that the delayed for shortage of space.

issue of devolution is an important one, and that letters expressing serious differences should be properly dealt "No Scottish Road to The article referred to, with. Socialism" appeared in the January 19 issue of 'Socialist Press'. government has proposed a Scottish land does not suffer from imperial- the overwhelming majority of the However, that does not finish should be the Movement, story;

COLT

although sections want a far greater attitude of Marxists, if, despite our degree of legislative power than is best efforts, the vast majority of presently proposed at Westminister.

the Scottish people (and In the past the majority of the Scotland that means the majority of workers as well), were Scottish people have believed their to demand separation? interests were best served within the existing London-centred insti- Lenin has a very given us said of the tutions or bourgeois democracy but сотстете they have always separation of Norway from Sweden nevertheless considered Scotland to be a nation, that the Norwegian workers ought their to oppose separation, and preach (even irritation at philistines like comrade Lister, who closer unity with the Swedish work- thought nation ing class, but that: as lust another region of England did not *Swedish Social Democrats shake their faith in the Union).

woud nave betraved the cause of Because if they of this national Socialism and democracy consciousness, in the course of the had not fought with all their might and early they to... demand, not only equality of came to beheve that their interests . but also the nations mn general . . . were not best served by the existing right of nations to self-determin- structures. Comrade Lister and ation, Norway's right to secede" would prefer them to select capital- (The Right Nations to Self- as the main source of their determination). problems, the Comrade Lister on other but tnal does not alter the facts of what happened.

hand says that only in a situation Comrade Lister is right in saying where it set up 1s possible to that Marxists should oppose separ- would Scotland and ation in the current situation, Scot- Wales have the right secede. an "ultra-left posture" However we feel that this error set against the wholesale must be concessions to nationalism made by the IG and al those on the leit to take opinion polls, benders

LONERI

and the current mood of Scottish workers as point. startug

"NATIONAL FEELING"

The concluding paragraph drew the line between the free choice of and today's Scottish the people conditions: "Until such time as the workers themselves are free to express their [of devol- opinions on the matter the dominant ution | without influence of the bourgeois media and capitalist exploitation, we can only call on Scottish and Welsh workers alre to reect the traudu- lent moves of the Labour govern- ment towards "Devolution", and to the struggle for join common the revolutionary leadership in labour movement. were right to state that imperialist Nobody can dispute that the domination factor petty-bourgeois tub-thumping demagogues of the SNP want us to Scotland. The economic oppression Scotland national of is believe workers in Scotland want devolution as part of the growth of but the impact of the question crisis of British capitalism.

"national feeling". It is for this reason we said that But it is up to us as Marxists not the issues at stake in Scotland (jobs, simply to latch on to what workers wages, cuts, etc) are not fundamen- may or may not feel, but critically And tally different from examine those sentiments.

THOSE

depressed areas in England.

where wrong positions are held, we And just as we would rigorously and oppose them that grouping them. oppose any attempted to tell workers in Corn-

NO SOLUTION

wall or Newcastle that setting up a regional government in those areas It is indisputable that devolution would ease the problems they face will solve absolutely of the none such ideas as a diversion, problems now Scottish laced by Drone "revolutionary' think that give the Any credibility to the seeks slightest concept LOOTEROn avoid this harsh reality can only of devolution or the Bill itself is absolutely wrong. stoke up massive oroblems for itseli in the coming period. Indeed, contrary to comrade Comrade said Purdie concedes Purdie's claim, we have never Leaderships north and south: "English " reformist Foot.:..

Lenin, again, has anticipated comrade Lister: "The old polemic conducted by the Polish Social Democrats against the sell determination or natons I based entirely on the argument that it is "impracticable" under capital- ism. As long ago as 1903 we Iskra supporters laughed at this argument In general political democracy is merely one of the possible forms of superstructure above capitalism the facts show that both capitalism and imperialism develop framework within the any political form and subordinate them all. It is therefore a basic the theoretical speak 0I "impracticability" of one of the forms and one of the demands of democracy." on Self-determin-

TACIANOT

ation Summed Up).

DEMOCRATIC DEMAND

The demand for Scottish Assembly, with a genuine degree of legislative demo- autonomy, cratic demand quite distinct from the demand foI separation. It is a demand with an impres- pedigree; sive Lenin, in the very article quoted by Comrade Lister, The 3rd International, formed to fight the betrayals of the 2nd International.

that devolution is "impracticable" under capitalism. His second quota- tion is a long way wide of the mark.

What we said was that the Labour leaders had brought forward the Devolution Bill as part of their attempts to preserve capit- alism and to help divert the legiti- hostility of Scottish workers mate to their own economic policies. Purdie offers Comrade no evidence for his assertion that the IMG's line does not separate the political struggles in Scotland from those of the British working class as a whole.

NO CHALLENGE

He does not challenge any of our assessment of the IMG's adventure in the Scottish Party,

SLA DOTT

the of question accuracy quotations from Red Weekly which substantiated our position.

SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 13 March, 1977 said: "Far from precluding local self- with for government, regions having special economic and social conditions a alsuner nationa composition of the population and democratic centralism

TOTTE.

necessarily demands both."

(Critical Remarks on the National Question). And in State and Revolution he quotes Engels as saying that a feder- al republic: would be a step forward in Britain where the two islands are peopled four nations and spite of a single parliament three different of legislation systems already exist side by side".

NOT OPPOSED

means of This demand is a extending democracy and prevent- ing the from national question obstructing working class unity.

Lister's Comrade most bizarre line of the argument is that the

IMG

political is to "separate the struggles in Scotland from those of working class as whole. The IMG has not opposed the the strong organic links between Scottish and the Welsh and English workers, and to date these have not Instead he merely informs us, again without any real evidence that the growth of support for the SNP is not "in the same order of things as the "Tory vote by former Labour voters in Workington' ' There could be two reasons for such a statement. Either the SNP is being credited as not such a reactionary party-not bourgeois-as the Tory Party. and that therefore adopting some of its line of argument in order to win away Its supporters is permis sable. We hope that this is not com- rade Purdie's position comrade Purdie is referring to the scale of the problem: Work- ington was only one seat, in Scotland the Labour Party faces annihilation in the next election.

We do not think either view is valid In particular the loss of the Stechford by-election-with Tories

MILITANT DAYDREAMS

AS STEEL SETTLES IN

SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 13 March, 1977 "Business usual' signs as have apparently gone up in the editorial office of the Militant group. The coalition deal between the Healey-Callaghan Labour leadership and the failed second string busi- the Party is now several weeks old ...and "Scottish' Stalinist McGahey And dust settles the Militant group leadership obviously been threatened. But that does not feel that they revert to their fact

SNP

Tine threatens to engulf the strongholds customar stand of aiming abstract demands the world in at general of the Labour lally math avoiding industrial cities of Scotland, and to any conflict with rightwing or 'left' bureaucrats.

eliminate that Party future British government.

WRONG STATEMENT

To state that this is in the same order of things as the 'Tory vote by Only in the edition immediately former Labour voters after the Lib-Lab coalition deal did Workington' is, to say least, the Militant rouse itself from myopic. usual lethargy headline the The disaffection reflected in the demand

"NO DISGUISED COAL-

SNP vote can be met by a degree of

ITION".

legislative autonomy for Scotland, The article began with a wrong and an Assembly could provide a statement: focus of for socialist struggle "The attempted overthrow of policies geared to the particular the Labour government Mrs problems of the Scottish warking Thatcher and her sorry crew of class; without such an extension of "extremists" has failed".

Tory and democracy Of is only partially Donceon course this especially if the right wing Tories true. The Tories did not obtain a 'left-wing" general election. But on Wednesday

SLABOUT

the Scottish scuttle it, workers March 23 the Labour government will be swept into the maw of the fell.

SNP.

It is only in this context that of the and a division working class, would become a real danger, is comrade Lister, and not the IMG, who wants to increase that danger. PHOTO: Chris Davies, Reporl Yours fraternally, Bob Purdie. knocking down a 12,000 majority - shows that nowhere is the Labour Party safe. And we do not think its lost support can be won back by oppor tunist adaptations along the lines of the IMG's Scottish policy.

It was replaced by a coalition

SAME METHOD

Labour deal between the and Liberal Finally should leaderships which note that we though comrade Purdie is not in the independence of the Labour Party is subordinated to the Liberals.

IMG both he and they display the of same characteristic method approach. They start with hard "facts"- opinion by-elections, the polls, mood of the working class-and leave aside the source of these phenomena in the political leader- ship of the working class.

When the mass of workers in 1914 were won over to support their own' bourgeoisie World •War I Lenin did not start from their moods, illusions and prejudices.

began his attack and fixed his attack on the social patriotic £17 million is to be cut leaders of the Second International -their chauvinism and class collab- from the government's NHS oration, abandonment of every dental budget of £200 million socialist principle. by making people pay We think any view of Scotland increased dental charges.

which does not take into account of question the The British Dental Association "These leadership in the British labour has said that charges for movement as a whole as the central dental treatment could mean the issue must be empirical and must end of NHS dentistry for many adult patients" end up on the wrong road.

So the IMG end up supporting These

CULS

NUIC

devolution but even unacceptable when government posing workers' shown that already bourgeois Assembly for Scotland.

less than 38% of adults in this country attend their dentist in any way they tacitly foster all

SETTR

worst illusions that there year. somehow "Scottish road Socialism".

MANY PAY

Copies of Socialist Press 51, Many already have pay "No privately for treatment, usually for containing the article Road to Socialism" Scottish relief of which they can pain, are entitied through be obtained, price 10p plus 6½p the

NHS.

to p&p from: Unlike medicine, it is predomin- 31, Dartmouth Park Hill antly people who working class London NWS 1HR have to pay privately for dental treatment as dentists are under no While Callaghan and Steel both had their reasons for not openly declaring this a coalition- -Callaghan wanted avoid the to splitting Labour Party, and Steel did not want to be too closely tied to the election jinx carried by the Labour all but Party-it name.

LAME

Militant only half concedes this; telling readers it is "half way to an open coalition" But the writer continues throughout the article to refer to "the government" Labour and never anywhere calls for the pact to be broken. As a result he blithely informs us that: 'Only socialist policies can save the Labour government". But he never tells us now socialist can be adopted policie without a break from the Liberals And he concludes with one of the lamest remarks that could be made on the issue: capitülation to the Liberals shows way forward for the Labour movement"! While we can easily see the gross maacquacles or tils ime, al least we can concede that the Militant saw the issue as important. But a mere one week later they Callaghan with Tribunite Sedgemoor had apparently almost torgotten the whole business. The front page article on Healey's budget gave only one fleeting reference to the coalition deal. And it included no

HEALEY SINKS

TEETH INTO NHS

obligation to treat a patient and often will only do so if the patient agrees to pay as a private patient.

The new with their charges, complex new regulations and system of exemptions will confuse peo pit even more.

CYNICISM

There already abundant evidence from the government's Community agencies, Tne Health Councils, that people are being overcharged as private they thought they patients when were receiving NHS treatment.

The cynicism of this government to the welfare of all sections of the working class is further shown by the effect such charges on pensioners, who already pay a dis- proportionate share of the dental charges. Overall 1975-6 patients provided 17% of the total cost of services through the payment of OAP's charges. Services to

COSI

£11.8 million but they paid f3.4 demand Liberal in its pibus a gram mee a break from of reformist and utopian demands.

HOTO. Labour Weekly Steel Only in their editorial column did Militant speak out on the Lib- Lab deal, making the correct for recall Labour emergency "discuss the conuerence pact"-but omitting to tell readers what policy this conference should adopt! There was certainly no hint of a call on 'left' Labour leaders to take any action to break the coalition.

By April 4, the Militant group was drawing back even further from a fight. At a news conference announ cing the final agenda for the Labour Young Socialists conference Party at Blackpool, well-known Militant supporters reiterated over and over "Labour again their support for the government" and their reluctance to see it brought down.

DAYDREAMING

And in the April 8 edition of Militant the editorial line reverts to the age-old daydreaming that always decorates the group's abject opportunism. "The introduction of an Bill Enabling nationalise the to monopolies with minimum the .HI proven need-backed up by a mass campaign involving ine wnole the labour would movement . . transform position of the IMe Labour government". So it might! But who is going to million charges-28% of ine cost. The charges introduced on April 1, 1977 will hit OAPs even harder as most of them wear dentures.

set of upper and lower dentures will now cost £20-a rise of 66%-while a metal denture teeth, will up to three cost £15-a rise of 77%! of a These charges part are package in which people over 21 (excluding pregnant women and women with children less than one old) will have to the year pay full cost of each item of treatment to a maximum of £5. But if crowns or dentures are provided, they will be charged up to a maximum of £30. The working class who have historically benefitted least from the dental services, will now be prohibited even maintaining their limited gains in the face of these astronomical price rises.

Page 9 draft and introduce this "Enabling Bill"? Militant is silent.

Do the Militant leaders retain illusions in left' cabinet minister Wedgewood Benn, now a aevoler hireling of the Callaghan-Steel gang show?

LIMP

Or do they cherish hopes that the limp and wretched Eric Heffer will at long last turn up trumps and Parliament one morning arrive at pocket? call bill in nis Heffer's attitude to the coalition was "as long as we haven't given too much away, maybe this is a temporary expedient". More likely the Militant than leaders have not begun to consider who is supposed to carry out the policy they proclaim as the answer.

Because for them central point is simply to equip themselves with phrases, while Marxists look for a road to practical intervention.

And of phrases vital for a grouping like Militant, determined our Party doggedly onl within the Labour whatever principles have to be swallowed in the process. Benn This is why as the LPYS confer- supporters will be airing all kinds of "left" sounding demands and phrases-but calling the "left' MPs to vote against the coalition in Parliament, not calling on the "left' ministers to resign from the coalition cábinet and not challenging their grovelling capit- ulation to Callaghan. Militant has a conveniently memory in relation to short the coalition deal, ther sO, more surprisingly, has the International Marxist Group. After two articles in the March 31 Red Weekly had clearly called for a break from deal, the the April 6 edition does not even manage to find room to mention the coalition! As a result, the IMG regale us with articles on wages, on the LPYS and Stechford all comtence discussed without a single call for the breaking of the Lib-Lab deal!

PECULIAR

We can only speculate as to whether this peculiar silence is the prelude to another of those spectac- ular about faces in policy which so characterise the IMG. IMG's minded product aimless, abstract approach to the real political problems confronting the working class. reader might be excused for thinking that they feel at Stechford have their 490 votes resolved the problem. One thing is certain. The Liberal Labour coalition will not improve with age. It remains the cardinal issue of principle confronting Labour Party members and trade unionists in the next period. And their attitude towards it will test out left groups as well.

INDUSTRIAL NEWS

TGWU BLOCK ON HOTELS BLACK

Page 10

EPSOM

JOBS

FIGHT

Thirty-two sacked ancillary Workers at the Manor Hospital Epsom were reinstated on March 31, after a two. week picket of five hospitals in the area. workers, members of the The TGWU, had been in dispute since January against the introduction of mew duty rotas which made the care of children married the couples the hospital working virtually impossible. went on strike in The workers he middle of March after weeks of.

high-handed inaction by the Mid- Surrey Health Authority, which, hafter the strike, one week dismissed them. But the workers faced more problems than their bosses.

Though they got from fellow

TGWU

members to their picket, the local of COHSE and NALGO reported to have opposed the While the strike made official by the TGWU Jack Jones local their and threw weight into preventing the spread of picketing to other hospitals in the area. The officials were responding to which the he vle witch hunt to trikers subjected -trom were Health Minister David Ennals, the and the capitalist press, Especially the Daily Mail.

The was Sidlutious given additional chauvinistic an which the press one oy tae rack. Hid not neglect to mention, that of the strikers were Spanish.

many The strike of ASTMS tech- hicians at Birmingham Univer- sity ended last week. The technicians voted to return after a recommendation from their that they COnTELLEC ccept one extra day's holiday and at a mediation urther discussions neeting in six weeks time.

of the far short for week demand an extra despite the claims of the

ASTMS

to contrary, It Is cen by most of the technicians as i deleat.

UNDERMINED

It was surprising that the settle- pent came shortly

TIME

of Vice Chancellors decision the nationally to withdraw support From Birmingham. undermined This had the position of the university admin- stration. by ASTMS Concerted action would Painst other universities wittour doubt brought NEVe afficient pressure crack the mingnam administration. months of struggle effective support had frei he morale of some of the ries

HOSPITALS SIT-IN CALL

While workers at two more small London hospitals now threatened with closure have taken the decision to occupy, Monday 18 April is likely to be the date of the first real test of labour movement sup- port for the first ever hospital occupation. Workers at the Elizabeth Garrett Hospital, Euston Road, Anderson London, have been told by manage- ment that patients will be moved out on that date. The EGA shop stewards have called for a mass picket and suppor- official the ing action by health service trade unions on the day of the proposed move.

The latest situation the EGA reported

NUPE

shop by was Arthur Churchly, steward of the Committee of meeting the London Stewards Health Service, (CLASH) April. Delegates at the CLASH meeting the the work-in started at Hounslow hospital 21 March.

WORK IN

West London At the hospital, also threatened with

THIS ICIN

closure, a mass meeting had voted lo stall a work-m althougn las nad not yet begun. Since the EGA occupation began on 15 November 1976 the closure The strike breaking which has become a regular feature of the Transport and General Workers Union's activity over the past few months is not confined to action against other unions. The strikes for union recog- nition in the catering industry at

ASTMS STRIKE SOLD OUT

This was not caused by hardship (the strikers were on full pay from the union) but by the lack of any perspective for winning the dispute.

the computer section that they would Jenkins return to work convinced the negotiating committee that speedy settlement was essential.

The resuit is a setback for organ throughout the university.

date has twice been postponed. A ÈGA confrontation with workers and their supporters has thus been avoided far by so management. But there is no room for compla- cency. The occupation and 24-hour picket has remained a token protest existence, no

SILA

attempt being made by the EGA workers to take control of the day running of the hospital. to day The day that management moves to take and

VUL

. Palicite ment will therefore be the first real test of the occupation itself and particularly of the support of the doctors and nurses, most of whom do not belong to a union.

Despite its weaknesses the EGA has become a symbol of the fight against the cuts. Defeat would be against the whole move-

DIOW

ment. On the other hand, while the hospital remains open it provides an important example to workers in other small hospitals facing closure.

If the EGA is to survive many 24-hour picket is immediately strengthened and that the possible support mobilised for the mass picket on 18

HOTH

The be management must prevented from moving out patients and equipment. At the same time. no opportunity should be lost to of the trade expose union bureaucrats who have refused to call for official supporting strike action. Oxford and Sheffield hotels and in Birmingham were said last week by Jack be receiving Jones to "constant attention at a high level" in the union. The continued of sabotage with eftective action which the strikers have had to contend con- firms tins completely. As Jones and the senior bureau- crats who surround him well know, This is shown clearly by the vicious action the administration sacking a young library assistant whose ASTS propule had brought librare proposals support workers out on a one day strike on

NALGO

took the to a case tribunal which found "no evidence of victimisation" of spite evidence from immediate superiors that the accusations of poor work were a complete lie. The even auminstralon attempted to prevent the evidence from being given by refusing staff permission to attend the tribunal.

SETBACK

of the leading member ASTMS branch committee has also been removed from her and

JOD

put on lower grade work. The setback in Birmingham is a stark warning of the impact that bureaucratic control and complete isolation can have on even the most determined workforce. The blame must be lodged fairly and squarely on the 'left' ASTMS leadership. •Wednesday 13 March, 1977

SOCIALIST PRESS,

WARWICKSHIRE

PLAN TO 'SAVE

JOBS'

temporary basis to replace someone off sick is now being sacked despite the fact that the sick person has now been retired. Thus what was once permanent post is now temporary and unless there is resistance, will Warwickshire County very soon be a non-existant post.

Council has proposed

FURTHER CUTS

measures which it claims will save jobs in the supervisors' Kitchen workers at Manor Park of the schoolmeals section should refuse to. cover the work service. done by the woman who has been From September the supervisors sacked. are to be employed on temporary This example is just the thin end contracts on a termly basis.

of the wedge. In September when Schoolmeals kitchen workers are school meals prices rise there will already the victims of this sort of be a further cut in staff. The only agreement. way to prevent this is all out strike action. Nuneaton Trades Council Exec-

'NATURAL WASTAGE'

utive has the Sold to the workers as a way of attempting to co-ordinate the anti- defending jobs, the agreement has cuts campaigns of the public sector been used to employ 'natural wastage' The first step of this cuts com- as a weapon against the existing number of posts.

mittee must be the establishment of School, a Joint Shop Stewards Committee Nuneaton, a woman employed on a for the public sector unions.

BUILDERS WIN

IN SANDWELL

workers their but 2,000 Sand- The strike by concern was expressed that some members of the well Council ( direct labour councillors and council administration were trying building workers ended after get round the ban lump TO 14 days in total victory.

labour. Wage cuts were withdrawn, lump They were advising self employ.

labour ed building workers was removed from the site register as unacceptable the companies at a cost of £250 each.

and parts referred bonus scheme Building workers' leaders have were threatened a further strike if any arbitration. The last meeting of Warley East ot the lumpers reappear on the site building

GMC

congratulated on this basis. the it is entirely their refusal to organ- the strikers continues among the rank and file. ise effective national action which Progress is being made to extend has prevented the strikes irom being won long ago. union membership within Trust Houses Forte and The union's "blacking' of Trust there is agree- ment from GMWU Shop Stewards Houses Forte, the largest employer strike concerned is a sham. And when the sympathy 10I London hotels. Committee Grosvenor Strike Council Sheffield contacted their Regional Trades plans for a country-wide demon- Secretary to find out why it was not being done they were told it stration in support. marathon other was none of their business!

will Trust Houses unionisation struggle at Grunwicks, wonder It is Forte have the confidence to hold the ultimate responsibility for these the nerve to offer the actions rests with the leadership of out, and Randolph Hotel workers in Oxford, the unions involved. If they had a fraction of the on strike for four months, their determination of the workers them- terms for a settlement-no reinstatement and four weeks pay.

selves, victory would be formality. But sharp contrast the 1n bureaucracy's betrayals, support for Donations to: House House, Heartshead, Grosvenor Strike Committee, Transport Sheffield. Randolph Strike Committee, c/o 41, Bridge St., Osney Oxford.

Linton Lodge Strike Committee, c/o 127, Botley Road, Oxford.

House, Committee, Broad St., Out Strike c/o Transport Night Birmingham.

OTAL

We Apologize for inconvenience to

NOW

PETROL

THE ON THE

SOUTHSIDE

GARAGE

Directional Arrows Corley Service Station on M6-the sole examplé of serious blacking by TGWU bureaucrats.

JONES PUSHING FOR

SOCIALIST PRESS, Mainestay 13 March, 197; Jack Jones, TGWU General Secretary Battle lines on a third stage every member in the TGWU."

have now of wage control been drawn with the public- ation of the agenda for the condemning the Executive Council

- TGWU

Delegate for committing the TGWU to Stage Conference to be held in July.

11 or the vocal contact agals loc decisions of the 1975 BDC The position of Jack Jones and the TUC leadership is spelled out in section 1 (b) of the agenda, which the motion on future Pay Policy submitted by the General Executive contains Committee: "That this Conference considers response to the bureaucratic accep- that the tance of Stage Il by the Executive.

trade union movement collectively has made a constructive another criticise the GEC's acceptance fight contribution against to Ine wage control without consultation inflation and recognising the sacri- fice and all shown workers during the economic crisis that of the supports the last two vears. that orderly return co lective bargaining voluntaTy should begin to take place this year.

Only one motion on unemploy- Conference believes that in order ment gives any lead on programme.

to avoid a wages free-for-all which This is from the 5/293 branch: would be injurious "That this to Conference declares intention members community and its to protect jobs and which could destroy or jeopardise our long-term objectives, in a return collective bargaining voluntary the following should

HELLOS

receive priority: (a) the recognition and payment of differentials satisfactory reward ability, effort, skill and responsibilty and the correction of other anomalies and inequities; (b) a continued and developing emphasis on improvements in basic rates and other special measures in order to assist workers on low pay and implement Trades Union Congress (c) measures to ensure that the flat-rate supplements paid under the Social Contract incorpor- ated on a phased basis into basic rates for the purpose of calculating overtime, payments by results, shift (d) an expansion of sound mutually agreed incentive and pay- ment by result schemes and genuine productivity agreements: (e) measures to offset unemploy.

ment including, shorter working hours and/or earlier retirement."

IMPOSSIBLE

reduce and Of course an "orderly return" to demands books of the any free collective bargaining employer who declares redundancy impossible. Wage restraint either be opened to a com- closure exists or it does not. This motion is mittee or Union members at the simply establish an to workplace; that the available work stare s ot controls. whatever is shared between the labour force exact terms of that policy may be.

and the full weekly wage is main- Dranch tained; that employer any But about 100 support this line. and

HELENON

branches have called in one way or Government provide public another for a return to free collec- works to maintain production and tive bargaining. that this Union will And in the same section ot the members who occupy their plant in (Future Pay Policy) there agenda defence of jobs. motions are five which point the way forward beyond simply an end to wage control- A motion in a later section ot for defence of the Economic Policy calling living agenda on calls for "a giant standards against inflation.

public works, roads, housing etc".

SLIDING SCALE

Surprisingv the dealing These motions call for a sliding with Equal Pay and Equal Oppor- for Women contains only wages, and provide the these are basis for a fight for an alternative five Most of motions. programme. existing legislation and the role of tribunals, and cali for a Also in this section is a motion from the 4/159 branch. vigorous campaign by the union on "That this Conference demands job opportunities. the immediate resignation oI Ine General Secretary, Deputy General

DEMOCRACY

Secretary and all Members of the General Executive Council because There are 13

MOLOTS

of their neglect Industrial of and faulure to Democracy. maintain and from the Executive Council improve existing the Committee supports Bullock

INDUSTRIAL NEWS

VOTE

inquiry and nine other motions support this to some degree.

the 1/1946 branch correctly condemns worker participation in Leyland where it points out: Export Packing Services branch in Banbury (a factory threatened with 'That this Conference deplores within the participation committees and withdraws any support for the continuation of these committees."

Six motions in Section 2 (a) call we find a later section on International Trade Conference agenda section on women's rights.

Union Links includes six motions calling for the strengthening of ties with other sections of the trade movement throughout the world

STRIKE ACTION

Seventeen Section motions in 2 (b) attack government policy on the cuts in Social Service spending.

call for support for strike action and one, the 5/293 branch penditure scale of seblic survier erosion by inflation" Section 4 (a) of the agenda deals with the general objectives of the Social Contract rather than specific aspects such as pay policy.

"continued between the industrial and political wings of the labour movement" from the 1/1383 motions was in February) demands opposed to the formation of a Coalition Goyernment or Govern- ment of National U'nity" On Ireland 20: oze of the ten

PHASE 3

motions calls for the recognition of the right of self-determination for the Irish people. Most of the motions support the Irish Congress of Trades Unions campaign for 'A Better Life For All' and support for peace organ- isations. motion, from the 1/1881 One branch in London calls for the "withdrawal our [!] troops from Northern Ireland"..

SUPPORT

There are four motions on South Africa. One from the 5/293 branch calls for a total black to be imposed on all trade with South Africa, support for the national liberation struggles of African workers and their right to independent trade union organisation. Almost at the end of the agenda motions from the come two more 1/6 and 10/75 branches which reflect the problems of democracy corruption within the trade and

HOOT IF

Yardley equal pay strike by TGWU members-only five motions in union movement. They call for the ending of QUANGO jobs-government com- mittees with fat fees which are handed out to trade union officials.

But the best commentary on the state acmodel TGWU is motion 538, third from calling upon the decisions of the conference to be upheld: "That this Conference 1977

BDC

that the policies upheld and pursued to the benefit 01 the members of the Transport and General Workers' Union.

Under rule, the conference is the while highest body of the the Executive Council is in theory by conference decisions! There is no doubt, however, that size of the IGWU, with 1.8 the million members, the scope of the agenda and the timing conference two weeks before the of Stage 2 of wage controls expiry makes it a conference of enormous working importance the class. It is essential that a developed and coordinated fight on policies to defend the takes

WOLLHIE

place at the conference, and possible delegates are

WILCICYCL

mandated to vote for a principled line on the central issues raised.

Page 11

PRINT

PLAN

THROWN

OUT

The redundancy proposals officials designed by union and employers to usher in new Fleet technology Street newspapers have been resoun- dingly thrown out. Members of the National Union of Journalists did not even have a chance to complete their ballot on the package (entitled Programmes This was because while the NUJ progress it was PILl NATSOPA and SOGAT- had voted the package, killing had refused from the outset to take part in the collaborationist union- management talks which led up to the drafting of the proposals.

from the fact that in the NGÀ only voted down the package. print union bureaucrats. They had strongly recommended acceptance of the proposals, compulsory redundancies were the clearly do not agree with this.

militancy that underlies the recent who dared to stand their ground and defy his instruc- tion to return to work while their dispute still pay unre- remelted solved. The fight on jobs and wages on Fleet Street is now combined com- fight pletely with the for leadership and for democracy within the print unions.

PICKET

John Deason, National Organiser of the Right to Work Campaign faces serious out of the charges arising police attack on the Right to Work March at Hendon last year. There will be a national picket of the Old Bailey, in London Wednesday on May at 9.30 am.

APOLOGY

In our report of the CDLM conference in our last issue we captioned a picture of wrongly Roland Sherritt Stewart McClelian. Our apologies to both comrades.

MORE DETAILS

I would like more infor- mation about the Workers Socialist League. Name. Address Post to #SL. Park Hill,

Page 12.

RED CARPET

FOR THATCHER

Last Wednesday Reg Birch Maoist member of the AUEW Executive, went to Heathrow to instruct maintainance men to end their pay strike and got howled at by a hostile mass meeting. same day Tory On the very leader Margaret Thatcher, univer- the sally reviled throughout workers was greeted full state with at banquet in Peking's Great Hall of the People. There is no coincidence in this grotesque combination of events.

Rather they reflect the complete of the Stalinist corruption

DOLE

bureaucratic clique which holds China political power in and of who ape their reactionary policies internationally.

VICIOUS

The Chinese bureaucrats have gone so far along the nationalist road of attempting to build "soc- ialism in a single that country preter to ally with the most vicious and sickening agencies of imperialism than to demand assistance from the Soviet Vice Premier Hsien-nien described her as "our new friend" Union and the other bureau- and expressed cratically agreement with controlled workers' many of her "firm views"!

states. And world capitalist leaders Indeed they now see precisely would have been these workers' states their Wednesday delighted by his main enemy. So Thatcher's chief alleged Russian speech attacking tuenna lor une rekig trip her "aggression' in Laire much-publicised hostility to But while the Chinese bureau- the Soviet Union-which of course inseparable is bitter cracy from her beek contes deans the Soviet Union a world hatred of the working class scale, their followers are obviously internationally. along parallel forced paths in every country:

GORGING

And in Britain the minuscule, While this leading political faction-ridden Maoist movement representative of British imperial- is no exception. ism sat gorging sea This is why Birch like any nerselt on quails eggs and fish bellies, slues. bureaucrat seeks to preserve his

MONTHLY FUND

OUR MONTHLY FUND suffered a setback in March with the final total falling short of €500 at £476.85. Since we commited ourselves to the additional cost of producing a special edition of Socialist Press this short- fall needs to be made up this month.

We have received in the first ten days of April the total of £224.10 so there is still a long way to go.

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SOCIALIST

PRESS *

PAPER OF THE WORKERS SOCIALIST LEAGUE

EUROPE

BRITAIN

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REST OF THE WORLD

6 іися. .21.50 12 inves .£3.00 24 trues ..$6.00 I would like to take out a subscription to Socialist Press. I would like. .. issues, I enclose £ .

NAME.

ADDRESS.

Thatcher tucks in to sea slugs position by balancing between the strength of the union membership on the one hand and the require- ments capital on the other. And when the chips are down, like any bureaucrat, he takes the side of canital. Anu M Is spare time he studies Mao Tse-tung and whims foreign policy. Presumably: "Chairman Birch" working how is now out finances of the British Maoists could be stretched provide Thatcher with a welcoming fish chip supper on her return from Peking. AGM "illegal"

THE RULING OF

A HIGH

Court judge that the AGM of the Newham North East Labour Party was not properly constituted and was "illegal" shows the deepening involvement of the courts in the labour movement. The injunction stop the to meeting was obtained by right- wing supporters of Reg Prentice.

be a campaign in must the the Labour Party of those people who expusion bring High Court judges into the running of the Labour Party, and subordinate it to Britain's who second capitalist party. ZAIRE... Continued from front page.

making a panic striken seárch for and international rrance Belgium have sent extra military reliably and so, supplies has General Amin of reported, Uganda. 1,500 March troops On arrived from Mcrocco where they experience fighting the have had Polisario liberation movement in the ex-Spanish colony of Sahara and Egypt is also sending help.

Mobutt has denied tumours that he is on the point of resign- ing and going into exile.

"I will always live in Zaire" he told a press comerence But in that case it is something mystery why he maintains of a luxury mansions in Switzerland, Belgium and France.

NOT WELCOME

me where the local peasants peasants home where the have apparently given full support to the And what was invaders. supposed to be a mass rally last week, organised by the one legal "political Party" the Popular Movement, Revolutionary attrac- ted mere 20,000 strikingly April 20- all pay strikes As we go to press it seems likely that thousands of workers will take strike action on April 20 as part of the "Day of Action' called by

TUC

the Rank and File convened last week by the Leyland stewards. Every one of those workers will be striking for an end to wage controls and in doing so express- ing their willingness to struggle for immediate wate mercases against speed-up and against the cuts in public spending.

RESISTANCE

The more massive the show of resistance, the more weight can brought bear force conveners and union officials to lead all-out strike action now to break the existing stage or wae controls, give maximum and to support to those sections-such as the airport maintenance workers and the Port labot electricians- who have already taken up this fight. For this reason we call for the mobilisation of strike maximum action on April 20th. completely the opposite of the position of those Leyland stewards-dominated by the Communist Party-who have for the called vaguely "Day of Action', watering down a atter call for a one-day strike.

AFTER JULY

For those 'leaders' the 'Day of with its call for 'free Action' STRIKES NEEDED .... Cont'd from front page.

section that fights faces the

TUC,

of the

LIGNITE

LOSSULE

government, employers the and And it, as happened with pless, toolmakers, the stewards the collapse, workers are all bel leaderless. Militancy not enough. Leaders today need to be based on a political understanding of the nature of the period, the role of the leaders, and the union coalition politics of the Callaghan- Steel government. Workers need a clear defence of living standards-centring on the fight guerillas have not been made by The clear press reports standard description of them "Katangese gendarmes" who fled from Katanga after Tshombe's ill fated right wing secession attempt in the 1960s and who have since fought as soldiers of fortune for the Portuguese, the FNLA and the MPLA appears to be largely false.

TOO YOUNG

Many of them are too young to have had such a history though their leader "General" Mbumba is of the Katanga ex-member police. They are fighting under the banner of the National Front for the Liberation of the Congo (the previous name of Zaire). The spokesmen of this move- ment in Europe say its programme Congolese build a new "to society to put an end to the neo- internation a capitalism.

agent of colonialist regime, Both the Angolan and Cuban have denied Mobutu's claim that the guerillas directly supported by them. are SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 13 April, 1977 out to support collective bargaining after July is a conscious move divert workers awav trom al-out strice action in support of those already fighting Phase 2.

NOT THE START

For them the one-day strike is not the start of any mobilisation, but simply the highest boit of a campaign to pressurise the TUC leaders to reject a Phase 3.

This is why those conveners who played the leading role in scabbing on the Leyland tool- makers strike have their mames to the April 20 Day of Action'-intending to appear as if they are actively fighting wage control in order to placate their members the shop floor. Workers must reject this sham fight. The strikes on April 20th must go forward to: *Strikes of Port support Talbot and airport workers.

*Break Phase 2 now. *Full catching up increases to compensate for lost wages through the Social Contract.

sliding scale of wages in agreement to compensate every automatically for increases in the cost of living as assessed by trade union committees.

SUPPORT PORT TALBOT

ELECTRICIANS!

Donations and messages to: Wyn Bevan, 43, Hebron Road, Clydach, Swansea. for substantial rises linked to a sliding scale of wages to provide increases dulullaell inflation. question of this way the what kind of leadership is neces- sary to win these struggles brings to the fore the central political question facing the working class today-a thorough break from the class collaboration of the trade and Labour bureaucracy, the and construction of a new prepared to political leadership mobilise the real strength of the class in defence of its interests. This has the war become a focus for international imperialist and Stalinist rivalries which have been growing so fast Central and Southern Africa (see page 2). The fall of Zaire to a govern- favourable to Angola and Soviet Union would be a the gigantic blow not only for imper- ialism but also for the Chinese Stalinist bureaucracy surprise, therefore, to made rial spout it setti from material support not only Washington, Brussels and Paris but also from Peking. This is entirely in keeping with the readiness of the Chinese bureaucracy to line un behind the forces (such as Margaret Thatcher) campaign against Soviet Union. The Soviet bureaucracy itself has yet to make an open move but stands ready to take advantage of an opportunity growing influence in Africa and to help any leadership which replaces Mobutu to crush any genuinely revolutionary socialist forces which the massive