Leyland Conference Endorses Phase 2

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"RANK AND FILE TUC"-LITTLE BETTER THAN THE REAL THING wno wrote the Implacable opposition to any group of workers who take strike action against Stage Il of the Social Contract-that was the message spelled out "Rank and file TUC" held in Birmingham Town Hall last Sunday April 3.

The conference had been called by the Communist Party-led Leyland Joint Shop Stewards Committee, and was a part of the campaign developed by the Communist Party for a vote within the TUC for a return to free collective bargaining after Stage II of the Social Contract runs out on July 31.

The clear effect of such a campaign is to divert the working class away from action now against Stage II under conditions where the first and foremost requirement of the Government and TUC to get Stage III is the successful completion of Stage II.

The conference chairman, CP member Derek Robinson, made this clear in his opening address.

"We don't want any breakaway movements" , he told the conference, and he later went on to attack the Leyland toolmakers who he said were "conspicuous by their absence here today"

Who wrote the budget? Perhaps it was Denis Healey's hand-but it was guided from elsewhere.

First, it was the IMF's Budget. The overall changes in taxes and the expected government cash deficit (the so-called "borrowing requirement") had been dictated from IMF headquarters in Washington last December.

Second, it was the CBI's Budget. CBI spokesmen naturally lamented that there were not more hand-outs to the starving semi-destitute top and middle managers.

"RIGHT DIRECTION"

step in the rigelt miredtionas and were pleased it had not gone I0O far in stimulating the economy.

Third, it was the Liberal Party's Budget. John Pardoe, the Liberals' economic spokesman, said it was the sort of budget he would have The about "cuts"

Ffl fff Their absence was hardly surprising since the organisers of the conference had been bitterly opposed to the toolmakers four week strike-a strike which shook the Social Contract, the trade union leaders and the government to the foundations.

JOINT LETTER

Robinson and the conference secretary (fellow CP member Peter Nicholas) went further than verbal opposition to the toolmakers. They signed a joint letter with British Leyland management, sent to all BL Cars Division workers supporting the sacking of the toolmakers!

The letter says:

"The company has decided to open all its plants for production on Monday 21 March. [This was the day the toolmakers were to be sacked| It is imperative that all employees report for normal work and do their utmost to achieve targets"

In other words Robinson and Nicholas signed a letter calling for fuli-scale scabbing!

BREAKING POINT

If the toolmakers had attended, (and they would have been right to do so), the clear contradictions would have sharpened the conference to breaking point.

The hypocrisy of people budget?

written himself.

In particular it fits in with the Liberals' reactionary policy of shifting from direct to indirect taxation, though they hypocritically baulked at the way this was done.

Fourth, to a lesser extent it was the TUC's Budget. The bureaucrats claim not to like having their arms twisted by the provisional tax cuts but Len Murray found it a satisfactory basis for discussing Phase 3.

MORE MODEST TUC's pathetic proposals the extent of justified tax proved in the event to be can sign such a statement and then pose as the leaders of a fight against the Social Contract is breathtaking.

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

PHOTO: John Sturrock, Report.

Wyn Bevan Unfortunately, this was not done. The platform survived by a combination of a refusal of the left wingers who got to the microphone to challenge them on these issues, and the platform's decision to exclude from the discussion any delegate known to be likely to attack their record.

The polar opposite to the plateven more modest than those of the IMF but they were thinking along more or less the same lines.

The one thing the Budget was not was a workers' Budget. In return for a negligible unconditional cut in taxes it 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 amount in lost wages through another year of wage control. form, and representing those workers now in active struggle against Stage II was Wyn Bevan, convener of the electricians at the massive British Steel Corporation 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 the odds they face are formidable. The strikers had been "isolated and disowned by our own union"

They recognise that they are up against "the TUC, the government and the Social Contract"

DETERMINATION

But Bevan expressed the determination of his members. "We will stay out because our cause is just, and we intend to win"

Bevan's contribution was received in stony silence by the section of the conference which backed the Communist Party.

But its impact was felt throughout the conference. CP speakers stepped up their attacks on "breakaway groups" and from the other side demands were shouted from the floor for an emergency resolution in support of the Port Talbot men.

The platform was adamant. it While the well-trained TUC bureaucrats show every sign of lining up to jump through the hoop which Healey, the IMF, the CBI and the Liberal Party have manufactured, workers are already showing through the growing resistance to Phase 2 that they completely reject the anti-working class economic strategies of this government, Budget and all. SO much for the democracy m this "rank and file TUC"

The main blame for letting the CP off the hook must be pinned firmly on the International Marxist Group. Three IMG members were allowed to speak during the morning, and none challenged the record of the platform even once:

This was not so much the fault of the speakers themselves but of the confusion created by IMG policy. Red Weekly and IMG leaders regarded the conterence as a "limited step in the right direction" which simply had to be built and extended.

The nearest thing to a challenge to the Stalinists was made by John Deason of the SWP. He defended the toolmakers and attacked Scanion for supporting British Leyland's threat to sack them.

STRONG SUPPORT

His contribution received strong support from a section of the con ference and an embarrasing rebuke form Robinson, who said that the organisers had agreed for Deason to speak but that his contribution "abused the privilege"

The only other 'left' speaker wa: the WRP's Tom White, whe provided simply a more militani version of the Stalinist policycalling for an all out stoppage in August for a 23% wage increase!

In the afternoon session Eddi MeGarry mounted the rostrum MeGarry has been a supporter o the Social Contract from the outse and was a key speaker in support o Jones at the 1975 GWU confer ence which brought in wagi control.

McGarry began by attacking thi toolmakers and went on to call fo free collective bargaining in August Replying to the hostile reception hi received, he declared he was "heri to do penance" for his past actions Wright He was followed by Stalinis Kevin Halpin, chairman of th CP's front, the Liaison Committe for the Defence of Trade Unions.

Halpin stepped up the attack o "sectional strikes" , and said it wa "too late to stop Stage 2". called instead for the "unity" o the working class.

Final speaker in the Conferenc was right winger Bob Wright masquerading this time as a "Broa Left" . He made an election speec for the forthcoming ballot fa Presidency of the AUEW.

Wright stoutly defended th reactionary nationalist policy c import controls, and called for th Labour government to *chang direction"

The "declaration" eventuall moved by the platform was consi erably worse than the original drai agreed at the Leyland Combin Stewards Conference.

The demand for import contro had been inserted and the origin.

diversionary call for a one da token strike was watered down to "lobby of Parliament" and a "da of action", to ensure that stri action onl that day would t minimised.

The vote at the end was ove whelmingly for the "declaration Delegates supporting tt Workers Socialist League vote against this, along with the IC!

IMG supporters were spi between votes in favour and abste:

tion, despite the tact that th conference had shown clearly thi the fight against wage control not just a fight against the reformi bureaucracy but against the CP.

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

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"The broad democratic fiance not only needs to be I association of class forces he working class, parts of the ipitalist class |!, the interediate strata) but of other hportant forces in society" These and many other abstract Irases which make up the new aft programme of the Communist irty of Great Britain, The British pad to Socialism Draft. may seem and to visualise in practice. But there are clear examples roughout the world of the impact [such policies.

I In Italy, a conscious policy of ammunist parliamentary abstenons preserves the reactionary wage Itting Christian Democrat (Tory) ›vernment of Andreotti in officehile the Italian CP itself seeks an hance not with the Socialist irty, but with this, the main ilian capitalist party.

DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE In Chile, the 'Popular Unity' ilicy implemented by the late esident Allende attempted to aw the army into its "broad ¡mocratic alliance' appointing ift-wing' generals to the governent-with the result being the mous 1973 coup and continued ilitary dictatorship in Chile. In Spain, Communist Party ider Santiago Carrillo has nounced that he is not only not pinst 'liberal' fascist prime Inister Suarez, but is "pro-Suarez' iving the process of "democrat¡tion" of the fascist state in the inds of Franco's heirs, and restricig working class action to protest rel.

And in Britain the CP proudly fers platform positions to local pries in their protest campaigns pinst racialism, while slandering illed workers striking for wage creases outside of the Phase 2 pits as "divisive" elements jacked by the Tory press" , and pporting British Leyland manageent's threats to sack 3,000 piking toolmakers (See article on b CP and wage controls, page 5). At the same time CP Executive mber Derek Robinson, "unione" joint chairman of the highest itish Leyland participation body, ; Cars Council, has by taking this 1, cemented an alliance with one Britain's largest monopolies inst the interests of Leyland's op floor workforce, and underren to assist management in the roduction of speed-up and ionalisation.

This is the reality behind Dad democratic alliance' The nationalist and essentially bait content of the whole of • British Road to Socialism both re ine same political starting it. This is the revision of most by the Stalinist bureauEy and in particular their nation* theory of Socialism in One ISOLATED This iheory of Stalin's arose in i specifia conditions confronting ¡fEst porkers' state in the early E225.

capitalist world 132 ettects of me. yeas =: as and civil war.

iechnology and industry necessary to build socialism, conservative sections of Rússian society became increasingly hostile to any further attempt to support and develop international revolution, wishing instead to concentrate on rebuilding the Russian economy, ('socialism in one country').

The most widespread base of support for these views was among the peasantry and the bureaucracy that emerged in the post-revolutionary crisis, led by Stalin.

DESTROYED

In a capitalist worid hostile to socialism, the best conditions for such of the bureaucracy, pen thi the peaceful coexistence" with the Imperialist powers, irrespective of the impact of such a policy on the workers' movement internationally.

To achieve this the Third International had to be completely destroyed as the international Santiago, organiser of proletarian revolution and the Communist Parties transformed into counter-revolutionary agencies of the Soviet bureaucracy whose job was to mediate the class Allende By the time Stalin wrote the first draft of The British Road to Socialism (published in 1952) Communist Parties in Greece, Italy France and Indo-China had already betrayed post-war struggles of the Stalin working class, as their contribution to the establishment of "peaceful coexistence" on an international scale.

In the 25 years since The British Road to Socialism was first published, every hint of Marxism has been expunged from the programme of the CPGB.

Lenin's concept of the vanguard party; the united front; the dictatorship of the proletariat; the role of social democracy and the class nature of the state are all either completely missing or distorted to such an extent that they are turned into their opposite.

The Marxist conception of the revolutionary party as an instrument for the recruitment and training of cadres able to provide leadership for the working class in the struggle for power is rejected.

Instead the CP offers a reformist schema for the evolution from 3T 2:

Chile, just before the 1973 coup.

capitalism to socialism in which the role of the Communist Party is that of a left "pressure group" on he Labour Party, and in particular, he Labour Party 'lefts' The Stalinist schema runs basically as follows: the sheer size and potential of the British working class, combined with the new balance of world forces in which the ability of the imperialists to roll back revolutionary movements is now greatly hampered, means that socialism can be achieved in Britain without violent revolution and civil war.

FIRST STEP The forces exist, they say, which can put Britain on the road to socialism and what is needed is to unite them in a "broad democratic alliance"

Since the winning of political power by this broad democratic alliance will be a process, the first step according to the CP must be the election of a left Labour government which will begin to tackle the economic crisis.

A succession of progressively more left wing Labour governments will, the Stalinists hope, take Britain to the point where, with the democratisation of the State (the Civil Service, the judiciary and the police and armed forces), the power Berlinguer of the capitalist class can be challenged once and for all, and Parliament [not Soviets!] turned into the real sovereign body of the land.

And all this will supposedly be achieved by left Labour governments combined with the "democratic mass struggles" of the people.

The role of the Communist Party in this schema is seen basically as a pressure group on the left Labour MPs who will presumably form the basis for these Labour governments.

ANTITHESIS

Left reformists will, they say, gradually be replaced by Marxists as the working class, in breaking from reformism, lends its support to Labour leaders who are further and further to the lett.

Under these conditions, according to the draft, Labour-Communist unity can be built which will enable the government to move forward to socialism.

As the draft programme sets about developing this schema it becomes absolutely clear that in every respect it is the complete antithesis of Marxism.

Firstly there is no attempt to go beyond an assertion of the possib ility of a peaceful transition to socialism.

No evidence is offered in support of this argument although on a world scale there are numerous examples in the 1970s alone of the determination of the imperialists to defeat every revolutionary upsurge by force of arms.

VAST MAJORITY

Indo-China, Angola and Chile, to mention only three, all represent desperate attempts by the bourgeoisie to preserve their power, while the relatively peaceful revolutions which overthrew the Greek dictatorship and Portuguese fascism did not in fact successfully challenge capitalist rule and have therefore not been confronted with mass repression and civil war by the ruling class.

But, the Stalinists argue, the 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. But it did not lead Lenin Trotsky to the conclusion that the socialist revolution in Britain would be a peaceful affair.

They both recognte: teet tee ruling class would never give up its power and privileges without a fight and that the control of the state apparatus, including the armed forces, by the ruling class meant that civil war would be an almost inevitable consequence of the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism.

In reply to this the CP argue that it would be possible to "democratise" the state apparatus in order to prevent such violence. This is dangerous nonsense.

The Chilean "Marxist"President Allende,_supported by the Communist Party, argued to the last that the army was democratic and respected the "will of the people" above the will of any individual class.

But of course the army acted in the interests of the ruling class and overthrew the Allende regime, regardless of his illusions.

For al hundred years now Marxists have understood that the capitalist state in an instrument for the rule of the capitalist class and cannot be reformed but must be smashed and replaced by a workers state.

PHOTO: John Sturrock, Report.

Robinson This lesson was written in the blood of the workers, who established the Paris Commune and was confirmed in a positive way by it is a lesson which the Stalinists chose to forget in their attempts to establish "peaceful coexistence" with the major imperialist powersand the result can be counted in the for at Ribber

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This article continues our series on the revolutionary history of France. The first two parts dealt with the 1789 Revolution and the period after the 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 breaking the working class from reformism.

And this cannot be done simply by waiting for forces to emerge from the reformist party itself - a •party which while it draws on the support of the working class, serves the interests of capitalism.

The working class has to be mobilised independently of the other classes, under the leadership of a revolutionary party. Only on such a basis can alliances be made with other classes -clearly recognising the leading role of the working class in socialist revolution.

None of this process can begin unless afight begins to break the illusions workers have in the reformists and in particular the left' reformists.

BREAK

This is why we put demands on these leaders that they wage a fight within the Labour Party and the PLP for a break with the coalition deal with the Liberals and for alternative socialist policies. And to stress the sharpness of this call, we demand they begin this fight by Napoleon

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time and time again by the organisers of the so-called