Socialist Press no. 7

WHILST STEWARDS DEMAND "OPEN THE BOOKS'

RYDER LEADS

BOSSES ATTACK

SOCIALIST

PRESS

The recommendations of the Ryder inquiry in no way constitute nationalisation. They are a straight forward battle plan against British Leyland workers- - backed by the authority of government and entirely in the interest of the employers. The finance is provided through a majority state shareholding with handouts of 3p per share above market price to the shareholders. These funds are to be used as a lever to force Leyland workers to accept rationalisation, speed-up and unemployment. Any pretension to any form of nationalisation is exposed by the recommend- ation in the report that Leyland remain within the Engineering Employers Federation - an organisation of private employers set up to fight workers in the engineering industry. Socialist Press, in our April 3rd edition, predicted that the report would become "the spearhead of attack against British Leyland workers . This assessment has proven to be completely correct.

Parliament by Wilson, welcomed by Benn and accepted by the Tories, combine blackmail, witch- hunting and class-collaboration into a plan to drive up the rate of exploitation in the Leyland plants and provide a blueprint for other sections of industry. The manage- ment changes are simply the crit- iscism of one capitalist by another for not effectively fighting his labour force.

STAGES

The report spells out in clear terms how the fight is now to be carried through. The £200m equity capital and C500m long- term loan capital, to be made

RYDER

available over the period up to 1978, will be advanced in stages.

epted the report on behalf of the Each new stage will only be ad.

government, he backed this with vanced if speed-up, flexibility the threat that "one million jobs and unemployment have been are at stake" if British Leyland peacefully accepted by workers goes into liquidation. during the previous stage. To The implications of the refer- ommended that the capital ex- ence to industrial disputes is un- mistakeable. It means that if penditure programme and the injection of government finance workers resist any management offensive - speed-up, reorganis- should be staged and that each ation, attacks on agreements or new stage should depend on evidence of a contribution both the victimisation of militant workers they will be promptly by BL's workers and its manage- ment to a reduction in industrial be threatened with the withdrawa!

disputes and increased efficiency" oi finance and the dole. ne This section was re-emphasised report endorses Leyland's intro- strongly by Wilson when he acc- duction of Measured Day Work and advocates that further steps are taken towards corporate wage negotiations entirely in the combine to the weakest sections.

Harry Urwin, Assistant General Secretary of the T&GWU, was a member of the Inquiry team together with a merchant banker, the former chief executive of Ford Europe and a city account- ant. The fact that the report was the unanimous view of this team indicates the kind of support wilch workers can expect when they come into conflict with its recommendations. Urwin's posit- ion means mat tne report T&G policy in all but letter. When dockers came into conflict with the Jones-Aldington report, a similar blueprint for the speed-up and run-down of the docks labour force, they were instructed back to work by Jones and the T&G Executive and two of the leaders are understood to be pending disciplinary measures for not recommending a return to work.

CONVENORS

The report however sees class- collaboration going much deeper than even Urwin's key appoint- ment. Its plans for the use of the reformist layers in the trade unions, especany vourenors, are made brutally clear. It says "We have therefore proposed a new structure of joint management/union councils, committees and confer- ences in which BL shop stewards and particularly senior shop stew- ards will have a major role" Ryder then defines this **major role" as "the need to provide a forum in which representatives of BL's workers can contribute effectively to improving efficiency": Ryder proposes not only the use Later in the report this is made even clearer. When saying that the number of disputes must be re- duced and productivity improved it goes on to say that the joint councils are "to seek the action required to do this"* Such proposals however did not originate with Ryder. The door was opened for him by the coll- aboration aireacy mooted oy tne "leaders" of the BL shop stewards movement - Robinson of Austin on behalf of the Stalinists and McGarry of Standard Triumph for the right-wing. In their docu- ment sent to Ryder the emphasis all through was on "co-operation" and "efficiency" Nowhere did it spell out in unambiguous terms of jobs, wages, conditions and agreements. Nowhere did it pro- ose the organisation of resistence to Ryder. They simply made ab- stract statements about national- isation with no intention of creating the conditions to fight for it. In view of this it was no surprise that the report was welcomed in broad terms by both these gentle- men, followed by Len Murray for the TUC, Bob Wright for the AUEW and Mos Evans tor the a Contrast this collaboration with the fight being put up from sec- tions of workers and stewards within Leyland to force the com- pany to open their books. This is peing rougnt tor as a part or tne fight for the defence of jobs through the demand for work sharing on full pay. The most im- portant development is the resol- ution from Cowley which was carried unanimously at the meet- ing of stewards from the motor industry held in Digbeth on April 23rd which said: "This meeting demands that the em- ployers in the motor industry and ancillary trades open all theit books to the works committees in each factory in order that the true position can be known by those workers whose lives are affected by short-time and red- undancy"

SPEED UP

The fight for policy is crucial of unemployment as a big stick.

but a substantial reduction in jobs now. The report says : "The im- provement of productivity will mean a gradual reduction in the number of workers required to produce a given number of veh icles. This is the creation of but unemployment by speed-up, there is already widespread short time working and voluntary red- undancy with the car market continued back page, cols 4&5

FORTNIGHTLY PAPER OF THE

WORKERS SOCIALIST LEAGUE

NO 7 * 1st MAY 1975 * 10p 950,000

ON DOLE

The jump in unemployment to 950,000 after the largest monthly increase since 1948, demonstrates without a shad- ow of doubt the rapid devel- opment of the economic crisis: It comes at a time of year when unemployment usually falls, due to seasonal factors. Such an in- crease, alongside an unreduced rate of inflation, now standing at an annual rate of 25%, gives the lie to the view that wage pressure is the main factor behind rising prices The "remedy" advanced by the Labour "left' and the TUC massive reflation - is now completely utopian. Further injections of government finance into ailing capitalist enterprises will increase inflation, especially since huge sums of money will have to be borrowed from the international money markets at commercial rates of in terest, depressing still more the value of the pound. At the same time these firms themselves will be forced to raise prices in an attempt to increase profits.

But to increase protits and reduce the rate of inflation, government finance must be accompanied by mesures to inc.

rease the rate of exploitation of the workers still at work - through speed-up and wage cutting. This No one who starts from a belief in the continued viability of capitalism under these conditions can produce any realistic altem- ative to these vicious policies This is why although mouthing horror at the Budget, Labour's "left" melted away into the sha- dows rather than challenge Healey at the meeting of the Parliament- ary Labour Party, and, with few exceptions, voted for the proposal: to slash jobs and increase taxes.

Unemployment is now crucial to the employers, since by increas- ing competition amongst workers for a diminishing number of johs it creates conflicts between those in work and the unemployed, and seeks to undermine resistance and hold down wages. But at a time when more and more the case is being proved for nation- alisation of bankrupt firms without compensation, and for workers" management of nationalised firms to protect jobs and conditions, the reformists refuse to carry out even the smallest fight for jobs, and turn their backs on the nec- essary demand for work sharing on full pay Such a programme is critical it the task of uniting employed and unemployed workers, now a pressing need for every Trades Council and trade union branch is to be carried through. There can be no defence for the unemployed based on separate organisations of unemployed workers or "claimants unions".

Full trade union rights and organisation must be opened up to the unemployed in every union At the same time the demand must go out for workers committees from companies bankrupted in the crisis and continued back page, col 3

Page 2

FIGHT FASCISM

The massive response to the general strike call by the Italian trade unions on Tues- day of last week was a warning to the fascists throughout Europe. Originally the strike was plann- ed as the fourth in a series of "protest" stoppages against the gov- erment's economic policy, espec- ially unemployment and inflation.

The trade union leaders - especially Italy's me stannist leadersnip .OI Targest trade union federation, the CGIL - intended it as a form of] pressure on the Moro cabinet. and us a means of strengthening their paramentary manceuvres for a co- alition based further to the left.

But the strike actually took place following a series of dozens of bombings and assaults by ext- reme right-wing groups, wilich have frequent for several years, been which accelcrated in the last fow weeks. These culminated in the deaths of two young left-wingers in Milan and the unprovoked shoot- ing of a Communist Party worker, Rodollo Boschi. by plain-clothes policemen guarding the Florence offices of a fascist organisation.

MASS RESPONSE

The strike therelore became a mass response by all sections of the working class and trade union move- the mounting wave

DICH.L

CLO

fascsit violence and provocation, and against the forces in the police, the apparatus and capitalist state barnes uno Contive atu

WCINU

million workers downed tools. In Milan the four-hour national strike was extended to eiaht homrs call the city

SMUCONY

LOT Ere day. whole In dozens of cities mass marches and demonstrations took place; well over a hundred thousand workers gainercd in the central square oi Milan as six different marches con- verged for a single demonstration.

S.E. ASIA PUPPET

STATES TREMBLE

Unable to fight. unable even to surrender competently, the undignilied collapse of the US puppet state in South Vietnam forms the mirror in half dozen which a pro- imperialist regimes in S.E. Asia and the Pacific can read their own future. Last week Kissinger's protege Thieu fed to Taiwan and reported exile in Hampstead taking with him over £30m in gold - [l for every man, almost and child in Vietnam. Behind him, with 15 divisions of liberation forces poised within casy striking distance of Saigon, the parasites and policemen of his regime queued up at rapidly closing Western embassies well- Visas to take them to deserved exile.

RESHUFFLING

Meanwhile the remnants ot Thieu's regime embarked on almost 'reshuffling', under the a week of guidance of the French Foreign Office in which the only goal was to find a cabinet with which the Provisional Revolutionary Govern- ment would agree to negotiate a surrender. Nothing could more clearly show the rotten character

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

ITALY WORKERS

The response - far bigger than the turn-out on the fragmented 'general' strike calls of a few hours on refor- policies over the last few

TUTSE

months - showed that the working class the most cautious lead on such an essential question as the detence against fascism. It is this readiness for struggle that has derailed the anti-commun- ist "law-and-order' campaign headed Rome. by Amintore Fanfani, secretary of the Christian Democrats, the main capitalst party, and former apolog- ist for Mussolini. Fanfani, supported within the Christian

IC ORS

Democrats who are opposed to the Communist Parly's perspective of a coalition

CERTECO

tougher police and legal measures to deal with the rising 'crime rate' - on this platform they hoped to produce a substantial swing to the right in elections, zenona scheduled for mid-June. of regimes like Thieu's wneTe not single anti-communist t- than liberated Da Nang.

willing and "defend cedom" - where the vast majority of the the NLF people have welcomed soldiers, and the liberated imperial capital of Hue, where the NLF was able to hold a 30,000 strong political rally this week.

BARBARIC

Yet un to tne ast moment Thieu's generals fought with the US military equip- most barbaric Reports last week ment. revealed that, as Xuan Loc fell, South Vietnamese bombed the

A TCTATE

outskirts with "decompression" When these explode they bombs. remove the oxygen from the air over a considerable area, so that those not killed by the blast die of suffocation. of Kut what the liberation Cambodia and Vietnam have shown is that no amount of technological savagery can guarantee the survival of imperialism S.E. Asia. Regimes throughout the

EUCLEEC

being shaken. In Laos, the now coahtion of the Pathet bao wiln bourgeois politicians is in jeopardy Lao forces clash with government troops along the main highway. But the response of the Stalin- the only way to deal with fascism ists and Social-democratic leaders is through the organised, armed strength of the working class itself.

10 CHe LasCISE LECaE nas beG wnowy Defenders and archit- Last week's demonstrations were inadequate. ects of Italy's post-war "democratic" given an added effect by the fact constitution (which left that fall almost exactly 8 aTe8 thev part of Mussolini's legislation intact) the 30th anniversary of the libe- from agam tara COTaL

HOTENCT

the sole defence for the Mussolini and his Nazi backers - state as in April 1945. workers movement. They now ned- die the illusion that more stringent legal measures against fuscist But this liberation was carried organisations, such as the draft bill out, in most of the northern cities, now being discussed in the Chamber by armed resistance groups who led of Deputies, can be the answer to mass workers" number up- the danger. Canitalie reveals such policies as was only re-established by the deli wnat a fraud is the series of conspiracies berate policy of the Stalinist for a coup d'etat, to protect leaders, who from the beginning fascists from arrest and prosccutio: attempted to disarm the victorious and to infiltrate left-wing organis- forces, and handed the

LES CARSC

ations in many power back first to the 'allied

TUNGI

CHOTEE

senior officials of the state appara- military authorities, and then to the The fact constitutional assembly. that fascism is able to raise its head at all in Italy today stems from this betrayal. The spread of fascist activity underlines the need for a revolu- Trotskyist party in Italy, tionary, to politically challenge able the Stalinists and social democrats. An pae de and for walens essentisl must militias, based on the trade unions the factory councils and other wor kers' will organisations, protect workers movement aute against violence and provocations.

The bitter lessons learned in the against fascism will SUugSLe strengthen the struggle for such a policy In the summer of 1948. when a young fascist attempted to shoot Communist Party leader Togliatti, a spontaneous Palmiro strike erupted in many of the Italian cities. Resistance mem- bers look up the weapons which they had kept (against the instruc- protest at fascist violence tions of their leaders set up road blocks in a number of areas been implicated in the tus The Communist Party leadership All these organi- last few years. had to strain every political muscle sations, including the armed forces, to welch was the remoral of thee restore "order result the criminal police, the inteligence services (SID), and even the forest Communist Party from government.

guards, are riddled with pro-fascist The lesson of the last few months and savagely anti-communist ele- in Italy is that the real traditions The idea that they will of the resistance cannot be carried

IWLA.

ever be able laws to forward by for

CHEOTEA

manceuvres coa- the fascists, inside and lition with the capitalist politicians, suppress their outside own ranks, is a re- but only by revolutionary policies formist pipc-dream. drawing strungth oltne The Italian workers" movement workers movement as an indepen- has atready shown in practice that dent force. PRG soldiers riding through Da Nang In Thailand, Maoists guerrillas of the

ASEAN

"alliance" have Khmer Rouge last defeated also recognised the the Pramoi government's army in engagements government in Cambodia, and are on Icly communi te imal to the Pramoj has pushing for closer relations with Poling prolicy committe: And spokesmen of the removal of US from troops Korean regime have also Thailand In the Phillipines expressed worries about the effec tiveness of US "support" President Marcos, long-time ally o US imperialismn, has made a rapid But the diplomatic shifts in of foreign policy *readjustment S.F. Asia in no way alter the even threatening to take over Clark character of all these reactionary Field, the largest US airforce base regimes, and their utter hostility outside Indonesian to the liberation Amenca torces mn them foreign Malik, minister, held out The revolutionary own countries. an olive branch to Hanoi, publicly victories in Indochina have shaken declaring that Indochinese them; it is now the duty of the federation could help neighbouring Cambodian and Vietnamese countries to "resist the ambitions revolutionary governments to give political and material support to and pressures of the great powers the area." Malaysia liberation and fighters Singapore, the other two members nel hbouring countries. SOCIALIST PRESS, Thursday May Ist, 1975

TURKEY

Arthur Hartman, special of US Secretary of envoy State Kissinger and President Ford, landed in Athens last week in the wake of massive demonstrations by almost three thousand young workers and students against

NATO

and US bases in the country.

The main demonstration called by the youth sections of all the left-wing political parties, took place on April 21si. cighth the of the colonels putsch anniversary Shouting "Fascism shall I1 1907. not pass!" and •Ghikas (Minister •Public Order' in the Karamanlis cabinet) is a fascist!

large numbers of the demonstrators the American embassy, where they were met by violent police charges, backed up with tear gas and armoured vehicles Several dozen people were injured

DT CHESTER

Hartman's task is to find way with the collaboration of the Turkish Greek and govern- ments - to preserve US interests both Greece and Turkey. Commuting between Athens and •Ankara, one of this main tasks is to pressure the Turkish cabinet into making territorial and political con cessions in the occupied northern part of Cyprus, while preserving, with promises that the Congressio nal ban on military aid will soon be lifted, Turkish membership of NATO.

SHAKEN

But Hartman ana nis chiel: diplomatic are playing a delicate The Karamanlis government game. in Greece nas been shaken nor on by anti-American demonstra- the tions, but by the shift to the left in a series of local elections during And in Turkey the Demirel April. government is a fragile bargaining- Fowed dy anmicth partner. after weeks intricate

ZLO.

negotiations, rests on the CO- operation of Demirel's Justice Party with three groups of extreme right- wing parlamentarians including Erbakan's fanatically Muslim and anti-communist Party of National which supports the com Satety, plete annexation of Cyprus by the Turkish army, and the pro-fascist Party of National Action.

Demirel himself, whose inaugural statement to Parlament in April promised to *fight against communism and all subversive attempts threaten national unity and republican order represents to the full the corrupt and brutal character of the national bourgeoisie. With inflation running at about thirty per cent a year and unemployment 1,800,000 the government will seck use the Cyprus question as diversion from their fallure to do anything about the acute economic crisis which now presses on the workers and small farmers . Cyprus is also a cover for keeping the army - and the threat of resumed military rule in the wings of poli- tics, and for the Government's open tolerance of right-wing violence against the labour movement.

Pivo wolnded by gunfire, and hundreds arrested when fascist commandos attacked a demonstration at Istanbul univer rity a week ago.

STALINISM

Tie thorote Demirel govern- reactionary character of the ment has in no way altered the of the Soviet bureaucracy policics Since 1964 the Kremlin has been angling with a succession of right wing Turkish regimes for "neutra- lity from NATO, overlooking the state left repression against organisations and the right to strike The restoration of Demirel, regarder the chief *Washington man rmong Turkish politicians, in an open coalition with fascist elements is one of the bitter fruits of this cynical disregard of the-interests of the Turkish workers movement

SOCIALIST PRESS, Thursday May Ist, 1975.

28th December 1974 Dear Comrade Healy, We write to you as the Executive Committee of the Workers Socialist League, which was provisionally constituted on Sunday December 22nd, 1974. Our movement, which will maintain an ongoing critique of the wrong perspectives Revolutionary leadership of the Workers part of the fight for the continuation of Trotskyism in Britain and internationally, will of course fight on its own perspectives in the workers moverent. The foundation of our movement was entirely precipitated by your bureaucratic response to the political quest- ions advanced for discussion by Comrade Thornett, culminating to the expulsion, prior to the Conference, of everyone who in any way supported his position. It was at all times our wish that these Issues snoute nave been lougat out in a principica way, within the raks of the Workers Revolutionary Party, and under its constitution.

This you were determined to avoid. Some of the expulsions were carried out by an the Political sub-committee

UNCONSTEREOTEL

DE and still more by i correspondence with committee, no hearing being afforded at all. As a result, a number of us, some still in the WRP, found it necessary, beine presented to the membershipdistribute cause of the suppression of views and the distortions to lobby London Area Aggregate, and to Thornett's Second Document (which you had agreed to distribute and then suppressed) at the First Annual Conference of the WRP. We arrived at the Conference (at Battersea Town Hall) just after 9.00 pm with the intention of handing On arrival, we found that a large out our iterature. number of police, including dog vans, special branch women were already deployed around the She-DouCe building, with others held in reserve close estimate the number of police involved to be close on a hundred. It was clear from the approaches the police attempted to make to us that not only had they been called in by Party leadership, but had been told that it was our intention instigate considerable violence.

restit of this our comrades who wanted to exercise the normal right to distribute literature at a Confer- ence, were harassed continuously by this large force of police. In audition your action exposed WRP mem- ers in the Conference nad the WRP an an organisat- son, to the survelllance and penetration by the police.

Politically of course your action is unprecedented We had the incredible spectacle of the Ist Annual Conference of the WRP being held under the protect- ion of the State, or more precisely the use by leadership of the Workers Revolutionary Party of the forces of the state in a factional conflict with a group of members and expelled members wishing to express the views for which they had been denied expression within the party. We therefore wish to register the strongest poss- ible protest against your actions, which completely to Communist principles. contrary think you are obliged to give a political explanation of your actions, and we call upon you to print this letter, together with your reply, Workers Press. Yours fraternally. V/SL Executive Committee.

The attacks on the Clay government as punishment for their refusal to implement the reactionary Tory Act are still continuing after months of Labour This comes on top of an existing £6,985 surcharge on 11 of the 21 The £52,209 comprises €11,000 paid in bonuses and standby €11,000 paid in increases to war-

WRP 'PRINCIPLES'

Since the mass expulsions from the WRP of those sections which now comprise the Workers Socialist League, the departure of the WRP leadership from basic class principle has been spectacular. When 22 expelled members lobbied the WRP Annual Conference on December 15th last year, to hand out documents, Healy called the police. Recently Healy has been systematically identifying our members in Workers Press. The letters reprinted below were sent to Healy on 28th December 1974 and April 8th 1975. We have received no reply.

This week, after receipt of our letter, Healy printed a photograph of yet another of our mem- bers in Workers Press whom he knew at the time was being harassed by the immigration authorities. We therefore publish this correspondence to the labour movement.

Dear Comrade Healy, On the gates of the BLMC Cowley Assembly Plant this morning the Economic League were distributing leaflets advertising a militant workers in the industry, giving their political of the affiliations (with an address to send for postal copies).

Party as Ins dossic is published in order that those workers identified in it can be witch-hunted or blacklisted by employers who copies. reading today's Workers Press, however, we After wonder if Economic League need bother distribute information WSL. It seems the employers are being supplied with all they need through the medium of the Workers Press, which has engaged in a systematic identification ot our members. We are not here talking about well- known members, but militant and comrades in jobs where direct victimisation is a constant factor. In your centre page article "Thornett's Philosoph- publish photographs of BLMC workers and identify them as WL members. You are well aware that this opens these workers to victimisation. You know the individual workers concerned, the fight they are in Alan with the employer and their vulnerability to victim- isations. You also know from our past joint exper- iences that the BLM management scrutinises the Workers Press daily for such information. It is clear you have not forgotten this by the care you take (correctly) to avoid the unnecessary identification of We are happy that Cde Slaughter defends your There is much yet to be said about the philosophical questions held by yourself and the WRP, and we expect you to reply. But when in doing so you expose members to victimisation by the employers - that is something quite different.

AS 2 You did this knowing full well that the comrade concerned not only works for a notoriously ruthless employer, but that he was recently sacked and polit- witch-hunted, although defended he stands constantly close to victimisation.

Let us take another example. In the last of your three recent published a photograph and named one of our com- the even revealing the position he had previously We consider the protection of any militant worker or a member of any political tendency in the labour movement against the employer to be a principle. The Workers Scoialist League will stand by the principle under all circumstances. We therefore demand that you politically explain the incidents detailed in this letter, and that you give us a tirm assurance - publicly or privately - that you will in future act in a principled manner.

LAY CROSS: CHARGI

£30,000 in wages to new workmen whom Mr. Harrison considers were "not needed" by the council.

government is prepared to stand by and watch while principled Labour actions in defence of living stan- consistent policy of class betrayal with a government which has itself being carried out by the Wilson used troops to smash a strike in Glasgow for wages, and has brought in, economic measures to slash em- ployment in the interests of capi- The surcharge has brought a the full weight of the Labour and Misone from around 100 Labour LaCe responsibility for fixing wage, 1974 after 200 over Workers Revolutionary Party.

The reason for 8th April, 1975. Tealy leadership and the Workers Press The issues were first containing a statement of his differences dossier on discussion never took place. document was expelled This split was a supplied with more rapid development, began revolutionary parties in all its areas of work.

questions of the WRP leadership Transitional Programme, and the way its the WRP from the working class became clear.

workers in factories, without compensation under workers control" maintain and fight We Trotskyism. are methods. forward into struggle in this period construct the new party. revisionism which must create successfully Thornett's Expulsion' you and the development of revolutionary political strength, Yours fraternally,

COMPLETE THIS FORM AND SEND TO:

31, Dartmouth Parl: H111, WSL Executive Committee. Name.... Address 6 Issues..... 12 Issues hes with elected councillors and 24 Issues cution ors a lot of ts 2,00

COMPLETE THIS FORM AND SEND TO

31, Dartmouth Park Hill. Yet clearly this particular issue Name. Address. All penalties must be lifted Page 3

WHAT IS THE

WORKERS SOCIALIST

LEAGUE?

The Workers Socialist League was formed on December 22nc members were expelled from the expulsions was that Alan Thornett, who was at that time a Central Committee member of the WRP, set out to bring abou discussion within that party on the wrong positions being taken by th raised on the Central Committee, and that committee agreed to circulate a document written by comrade Thornett.

and to arrange a full and free discussion within the party prior to the first annual conference.

That free Anyone who in any way supported the product of particular political conditions.

The rapid development of the economic crisis and the forward movement of the working class all over the world, which has since escalated to an even to produce the conditions to build was precisely in this period that the WRP began to decline It was this decline more than any other factor political which led to an examination of the and to Alan Thornett's documents. As the split emerged, the sectarianism of the WRP, its departure from the maximum programme isolate To understand the response to comrade Thornett's document in the WRP it is necessary to recognise the period we are now in.

The defence of jobs through the fight for the sliding scale of hours without loss of pay the detence of living standards through the fight for the sliding scale of wages related to rising prices; the challenging of the employer and the preparation of the struggle for power by the fight to open the books and establish workers control in the fight for nationalisation under workers management; are now called for in this situation in the form of a programme of transitional demands which will form a bridge between the present consciousness and struggles of the working class to the need to take power.

Yet the WRP right up to the opening of the discussion by comrade Thornett had never seriously fought for any of these demands.

Instead it restricted itself to the sterile maximum demand "nationalise the economy The impossibility of any kind of opposition within the WRP forced us to found the Workers Socialist League as an independent organisation which will the traditions develop and principles

WRP

continuing to maintain a critique of the leadership, but most important to us now are the new developments in from trade union work and new areas opened up by our break

WRP

We are now turning to recruit and train the new forces thrown not only trade unionists, but also professional workers, housewives, students and youth - in the fight tol We have shown already that we continue to fight against all forms of - whether the state capitalist theories of IS or the Pabloit revisions of the IMG, and against Stalinism and reformism.

Already it is clear that our struggles for Trotskyism in Britain take place under conditions similar splits and discussions throughout the world.

For this reason the WS is now engaging in a process of internal discussion prior to a full founding conference, a vital part of which is to hammer out and adopt perspectives for the building of the Trotskyist Fourth International, based on the Trotskyist

DETECS

Programme in every country in the struggle to end capitalism.

We were able to assemile the necessary political, editorial and material resources to begin regular publication of Socialist Press just five weeks after provisionally constituting the Workers Socialist League.

Already the raper is winning important new contacts and establishing a firm base in the workers movement as the organiser of a Trotskyist party of considerable I would like more information about the

WORKERS SOCIALIST LEAGUE

London NWS 1HR

SOCIALIST PRESS

.93p ..€1.86 p .£3.72 London NW5 1HR - - .. I would like to take out a subscription to SOCIALIST PRESS I would like...... issues, I enclose.........subscription

LETTERS

The Editorial Board wants to encourage readers" letters on any subject. Send them to: 31, Dartmouth Park Hill, NW5 1HP.

STATE CAPITALISM

"POLITICAL TRADITION' OF I.S.

"We often seek salvation from unfamiliar phenomens in familiar terms. An attempt has been made to conceal the enigma of the Soviet regime by calling it "state capitalism."

This term has the advantage that nobody knows exactly what it means. The term "state capitalism" originally arose to designate all the phenomena which arise when a bourgeois state takes direct charge of the means of transport or of industrial enterprises. The very necessity of such measures is one of the signs that the productive forces have outgrown capitalism and are bringing it to a partial self-negation in practice. But the outworn system, along with its elements of self-negation, continues to as a capitalist system....

..The first concentration of the means of production in the hands of the state to occur in history was achieved by the proletariat with the method of social revolution, and not by capitalists with the method of state trustification. Our brief analysis is sufficient to show how absurd are the attempts to identify capitalist state-ism with the Soviet system. The former is reactionary, the latter progressive" (Leon Trotsky, Revolution Berrayed, pp 2458247-8) The International Socia- Tony Cliff's book on Russia.

1948 in the internal Bulletin of the Revolutionary Commu- tently refuted (by Ted Grant) publication reflects a growing

ROCKI

their paper, Socialist Worker.

In a desperate attempt to establish

SOIL SOLE

around which to retain the member- ship, the IS leadership have recently confused capitulation to the Marxist analysis in place of a purely the accumulation of means of produc- owns tion is only important as part of The process of capital accumulation Verange invested order to expand his this process capital takes the form purpose of expanding the sum of alternately of money and means of rate and a cessation Needless labour time of the who own nothing but their labour As analysis of the degenerated workers

ASSERTION

state in Russia Revolution Betrayed: *The attempt to represent the Soviet bureaucracy as a class Cliff tried however to assert of 'state capitalists will that the Soviet bureaucracy was obviously crili- nOt WitnsLand of the ruling class new cism. buresucracy has *Bureaucratic State Capitalism neither stocks nor bonds though he was never able to prove is recruited, supplemented and this fiction throughout his book renewed in the manner of an remained an a priori assertion. administrative inde hierarchy, devoted the chapter pendently relations of its out. special 'proving this hypothesis. having property quoted Marx the effect that The individual bureaucrat can- the essence of capitalist production transmit to his heirs his not is 'accumulation for accumulation's rights in the exploitation of sake' Cliff then just proceeds to the The state apparatus. bureaucracy enjoys its privileges the assertion: *We can say therefore that the

LECTICTOR GET OWE OH

Russian bureaucracy 'owning' It its power. conceals and that as a does the of special social group it does not controlling accumulation is the personifi- Its appropriation even exist. Catin f. Tital in its purest or a vast share ol the nationa character form income the has All this makes his totally begged the question social parasitism. the position of the commanding f whether it was capital that was being accumulated or simply means Soviet stratum in the highest production. degree contradictory, equivocal ine queston how the surplus value of the soviet and undignified, notwithstand- ing the completeness working class is transformed intp its capital at the hands of the bureau- power and the smoke screen racy was never explained by Clifi of flattery that conceals it.

Cliff could find no sources of 249-50) PP. capital accumulation in Russia tried to find the causes "The division since as he both of the absence of says crises in labour within Russian Russia and the cause of 'capital" society 1s in essence a species of the division accumulation international the of labour within a single workshop.

military competition with the west.

A review of Tony Cliff: State Capitalism in Rursia, Pluto Press (1974).

He fails in both attempts, but the ideas thrown up. appearance of stability post-war capitalism, economic theory of the "permanent arms economy" regards accumulation, military competition ensures is that devotes productive resources to armaments.

This would be necessary neatiny workers sta seems to think "competition' is the cause of capital accumulation. In fact as Marx insisted, capitalist competition LENIN and TROTSKY: IS. believes that all the gains of the 1917 Russian Revolution have been destroyed by the purasitic Kremlin bureaucracy.

is the result of capitalists attemp- ting to preserve the value of their capital especially times economic crises. Likewise, Russia was a capitalist state then certainly arms production would off the falling rate of stave profit, in fact it would exaggerate the tendency through inflation as it has done in the capitalist states.

State Capitalism in Russia presents us with a galaxy of similar confusions, and distortions of Marxism. the SA gainst jumbo of people like Cliff Trotsky consistently that in the nature of the analying Soviet Union it was necessary to CLIFF: refuted by Trotsky.

begin from the contradiction between the nationalised property relations the anO bureaucracy, not, as Cliff a опс- sidedical rule of the te totalitarian alone. Trotsky analysed the Soviet Union in terms of its relations production as a workers state.

"Classes are characterized by their position in the social system economy, and primarily by their relation to the means of production. In civilised property

SOCIENC

relations are validated by laws.

The nationalisation of land, the means of industrial production exchange, to- transpor gether with the monopoly foreign trade, constitute the basis of the Soviet social structure. Through these relations, established the by proletarian revolution, the nature of the Sovict Union as proletarian state is for us basically defined. (Revolution Betrayed p 248) Trotsky understood that social organ and such is every class) can take shape only as a result of the deeply rooted inner needs of production" (In Defence ment as there has been has taken place despite the bureaucracy.

planned economy of the USSR based on the nationalised property relations presupposes for its proper democracy. In the absence of the capitalist market, the management soviets and factory committees, of all levels of the productive apparatus is the only class that expresses the "deeply rooted inner duction to its own ends, and being It is this contradiction that is the source of the numerous mistakes and 'crises' in the Soviet economy, not some mythical State power had been arrogated by the Kremlin bureaucrats: LO11211 its exploitation of the But it is also in a vast way has a bureaucracy bourgeois society, the bureau- the represents interests of a possessing and educated class, which has at its disposal innumerable of every- over its admini- day control stration of affairs. the oute SOCIALIST PRESS. Thursday May Ist 19: bureaucracy has risen above a class which is hardly emerging from destitution and darkness and has tradition dominion or command. "In this sense we cannot deny that it is something more than burcaucracy It is in the full sense of the word the sole privileged and commanding stratum in the Soviet society.

The strength of the bureaucracy as a bonapartist form of rule rests on the isolation of the USSR and the pressures of world imperialism through the bureaucracy's Which policy of 'socialism in one country hinder the process of world revol ation necessary for the international development of the productive forces needed to achieve socialism Despite comparative this of the development forces has taken place in the USSR If therefore Russia is capitalist, then it must be the case that, as Grant noted: "Il we have state capitalism in Russia (ushered in by a prolet- arian revolution) then it is clear that the crisis of capitalism on which we have based ourselve the past decades was not insoluble but purely the birth capitalism....This would shatter the theoretical entire basis of the Leninist-Trotskyist movement". (E Grant: Reply to Cliff c. 1948) This attack on Trotskyism the thing IS has one consistent tried to do. Once the anaiver o the present epoch as one in which capitalism can no longer fundament- ally develop the productive forces is overthrown, then with it is over thrown any understanding of the crisis of leadership in the working class and the necessity and possib- ility of building revolutionary lead- Cut adrift without any standing of the epoch in which we skyism. Trotsky founded the Fourth International in 1938 on the basis of massive defeats for the working class in the period following 1917 because he understood that these defeats expressed the crisis of pro- Flowing from this was the need with the objective tasks posed by the crisis of capitalism, through the struggle for the Transitional For the IS however "The history organisation that does not reflect a rising tide of class consciousness" (International Socialism 18 pp2-3) This is a clear recipe for centrism Trotskyists take their starting movements of the working class, but the conflict between the con- siousness develope py those mov conflict also with the state capital- that the WL fights to build the Fourth International as the revol- utionary leadership in the working class, by taking up defend and develop the Transitional (see also our The andiysis of Cliff's latest book contract or socialem crisis: social Press, number 5, April 3rd, 1975,

BY JOHN LEA.

.. THE WOMAN

QUESTION ...

SOCIALIST PRESS, Thursday May Ist, 1975 won will serve to expose equality the real roots of the opp- where Tession lie - in the capitalist system: "In the industrial world. however, the specific character of the economic oppression that weighs down the proletariat stands out in all sharpness only after all legal privileges of the the special capitalist class have been set aside and the complete juridical equality of both class is established.

The democratic republic does not abolish the antagonism between the two classes; on the contrary, it pro- vides the field on which it is fought And similarly the peculiar character of man's domination over woman in the modern family, and the necessity, as well as the manner of establishing real social equality between the will be brought two, out into full relief only when both are completely equal before the law It will then become evident that the first premise for the emancipation of women is the re-introduction of the entire into public The position of women in industry; and that this again demands capitalist society was stressed that the quality possessed by the individual family of being the eco- time and again by Lenin and nomic unit of society be abolished."

Trotsky, and Trotsky in the (as above) Transitional Programme. the This clear to Lenin after was founding document of the the October Revolution, when full legal equality provided for Fourth International, under- was women, restrictions on divorce lifted.

lines the importance of bring- abortions freely available, etc., and ing women into the revolution- the then for requirement Yet this is a field productive ary party. women to tilly enter work: which has been allowed by the British Trotskyist movement to remain in the domain of

TRANSFORMATION

middle class liberals. conference of Speaking to "Not withstanding all the laws the Soviet working

WUHICHE

emancipating woman, she continues Union on 23rd September, 1919, be domestic slave, because LO Tenin said: petty housework crushes, strangles, You all know that even and degrades her, chains her to the when women have full rights, they kitchen and the nursery, and she still remain factually downtrodden WaSteS ACt JaDour on Daroarouss because housework is left to and rushing drudgery. unproductive, them. In most cases, housework drudgery. stultifying crushing is the most unproductive, the most The real of women, barbarous and the arduous will begin real only work can do. It is woman where and when an all-out struggle exceptionally petty and does not.in begins... against this petty house- the development any way promote keeping, or ratner waen is wRote of the woman. sale transformation into a - large- (Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 30, scale economy begins."* pp. 40-6) And he goes on to explain the means by which this transformation can take place:

OPPRESSION

Public catering establish- ments, nurseries, kindergartens - here And we all know that this is we have examples of these shoots, still the situation in the family to- here we have the simple, everyday Of course, it can be argued day. means. which can really eman- that the technological developments they (these cipate WOmEn,. means) were created by capitalism made since 191y nave considcraons lightened the arduous work' of the but remained first a rarity and housewife. Similar developments secondly . . . either profit-making decreased the manual labour have : or acroDaTes O bourgeois charity of workers in industry, but this in (Lenin Collected Works, Volume 29 way lessens the oppression workers by the pp. 428-9, emphasis in original) employers content of this oppression lies the Let us look at the situation in in the social relations of capitalis production. So the of mothers of young children drugged essence by anti-depressants in order to face woman s oppression must be under stood by undertaking a serious study the "petty, nerve-wracking drudgery', of the social relations within the state nurseries provided for children family. As Engels wrote, in Origins of unsupported mothers only - and of the Family, Private Property and even here there is great pressure on the State: Ine momner to say at nome, causing "Today, in the great majority of almost complete isolation from the cases, the man has to be the carner, outside world - and private nurseries rich the bread-winner of the family.

those pay. this him a dominating Nursery schools exist but, gives as Plowden position which requires no Report emphasised, E119 legal privileges. provision is strictly for the child's is the bourgeois; the wife represents education and certainly must not the proletariat. (emphasis added) assist the mother to take employ- (Marx Engels Selected Works, ment outside the home. Playgroups and Vol. 3, p. 247) have been organised by •arouns oi The gains won by women since mothers because of the State's refusa ingels was writing - the right to to provide these basic services but ote, the Married Women's Propert again, because of their limited hours, Act, the omission from the marriage they are of no value to the working Public eating places and service of the word 'obey', etc

MOTTET.

have done nothing to change this laundering facilities of course exist basic inequality. As Engels goes on strictly as capitalist enterprises and explain, legal certainly do not regard service to democratic working people as their raison- d'etro. The plans of the October Revolution were to provide of social care and finished system accommodation: child-care centres, social dining rooms, schoois, hospi- However, Trotsky tals, etc. as explains in Revolution Betrayed, the actual liberation of unrealisable on basis of "generalised want (In cther words until the material conditions not existed.) The growth of the Women's Liberation demonstration.

bureaucracy under Stalin's leadership was accompanca Dy the movement away from the social dining rooms layers, and the children lack generally proper which the child feels than worse at home is not a child- but bad care centre orphan asylum" reported Soviet in the mid-1930's. "You cannot abolish the family you have to replace it" said Trotsky and Stalin's refusal to make adequate provision opened the door to the re-introduction of the woman's role in the hortion Save entry divorce in the home. were tightened and the modern situation is uP summed up in the experience of a Polish mother who has to get at 5.30 in order to take the child his kindergarten across the city to return and do a full day's work in local factory, shop, fetch the child home and then cook and clean up for the whole family. The growth of the Women's Liberation movement over the recent period shows the possibilities .for traditionally, by virtue WORiCT of their isolation in the home, completely unorganised - to become a fighting force However this movement is almost totally comprised from middle class and completely refuses to entertain the idea of leadership, maintaining that every woman must be left free her confidence regain after lifetime of domination by the male the sex Thus emphasis 1s Or individual solutions and certainly not of society. analysis any class on Here the, socialist women in Women's Liberation from the

IMG

IS bear and the major responsibility for this lack of fight political for a clear leadership in the movement. Much of the activity in Women's Liberation revolves around the Consciousneg Raising groups where small groups of women meet regularly closed sessions 1T to delve deeply into their inner- most thoughts in order presumably to purge themselves of their feelings of inadequacy which the domination of the male sex throughout their upbringing has nurtured. These inevitably "frank" TEn into discussions revelations and about sexual problems. Lenin was clear on these kind of groups

YVIV

which were prevalent in the feminist movement at his time: "It seems to me that these flourishing sexual theories which are mainly hypothetical, and often quite arbitrary, arise from the personal need to justify personal abnormality or hypertrophy in sexual life before bourgeois morality, and to entreat its patience. This masked respect for bouregois morality seems to me Just as repulsive as interfering in sexual matters. However wild and revolutionary the behaviour may be, Working class housewife in slum area.

it is still really quite bourgeois.

It the mainly, of intellectuals and nearest to them. There is no place the class for it - the party, in 0111 conscious, fighting proletariat."

with Klara : Zetkin, (In discussion Autumn 1920; Reminiscences of Lenin, Klara Zetkin) The biggest danger of this activity Page 5 in the movement is that it diverts from a materialist completely away problems facing approach to the women: And what is the result of this futile, un-Marxist way of dealing with all this? That the great social question appears as an adjunct as a part, of sexual problems.

The thing a suDsiclar That does not only endanger matter. clarity on that question itself, muddles the thoughts of the class conscious women generally Is to amuse proletariar now the time with discussions how women on and is loved, how one marries and is married? (Lenin: as above)

ABORTION LAW

The Women's Liberation move- is though, ment also, attempting to mobilise action for legal reforms.

We fight support. completely the against the new abortion law introduced in Parliament proposes White which would the restrict drastically the availability of merely to cases of extreme medical risk. The decision to have children should lie with the woman life will whose be radically altered by mother, and with her alone. Health Service should operate in order to protect the • nealtr would be women, who otherwise forced into the hands of the "back-street with abortionists dangureconse Working fight Women's Charter _ also be must supported However me cawa to mobilise a fight in the working class on these issues is through the organisations of the working class the trade unions - and central to fight is the fisht against the reformist leadership in the trade which has held back on the

TRIOTS

fight Equal Pay Act and which we have recently seen in at* the

NUT

action conference against a delegate proposing actior the Working Womens Charter 110] The be build a struggle must to the revolutionary leadership in which will fight on these

LILOSIS

issues and begin to mobilise working women in the struggle for socialism material conditions for biting the oppression thereby of women. We are totally against concept of separate organisation fo women. As Lenin said connection inseparable between the social and human position of the woman and private property in the means of production must be strongly brought out.

That wil draw a clear and ineradicable line of distinction between our policy and feminism. And it will supply the basis for regarding the woman question as a part of the social workers" question, of the problem, and hind it firmly to the proletarian class struggle andthe Our ideological revolution dictate the principles conceptions of special organisation: organisations for women. A woman communist is a member of the party just as a man communist."

Klara Zettin (LenIT Autumn 1920: Reminiscences Lenin, Klara Zetkin) This article is intended to pro- vide the basis for a discussion within Trotskyist movement on question of demands through which the revolutionary party can raise the level of women's day-to-day struggles to show the necessity of the socialist revolution.

We invite readers" comments and contributions to this discussion.

AID TO FAMINE

Page 6 The last article showed the "world fallacy of the food how enough food could be produced if it were not for the fetters imposed by capitalist relations of product- ion. The inflationary crisis intensifies shortage and price rises a hundredfold. Poor con- tries with balance of payments problems have suffered drought and world demand for grain has increased. Prices have risen, doubling bet- ween 1970 and 1973 as speculators looking for a profitable way out of declining industrial investment, have cashed in through advanced buying of future production of basic food commodities. In an attempt to con- tain domestic inflation the US has stopped grain and fertiliser exports - a hammer blow at the economies of underdeveloped countries. Dom- estic prices

TOSC

even faster Britain as the Tories took the cost of agricultural support from import levies instead of the Treasury, and negotiated entry into the Common Market. This working out of the inflat- crisis of capitalism in the ionary world economy, while it threatens cuts in the living standards of work- the West, brings starvation ries capitalism has kept economically anaeroeveroned ana taus intensines the political crisis for imperialism throughout the world.

REVOLUTION

This is seen clearly if we exam- the ine agrarian problem the underdeveloped countries.

A revol- ution in agricultural technique needed to enable these countries to support even the rural population, let alone the large industrial work- force necessary to raise the overall technical level and productivity. Yet this change in methods can only come ahout when the exploitation of the peasantry by the landowners and by monopolist suppliers and has been eliminated contractors through social revolution.

Production on the land is shack- led by the exploiting role western capitalism which not only plunders resources, looking simply for a return on its investment, the "imperial tribute', perpetuates imperialist subjugation by supporting corrupt bourgeois nationalist governments and puppet rulers. The working of the Green Rev- olution' in India provides a good examole of the contradictione Afte the two-year drought from 1965-67

USA

Indian the persuaded government to high-yield use the variety (HYV) Mexican dwarf wheat which can double grain yield.

The of 3.8m tons of wheat the pre-drought 10.7m tons

OVER

was dramatic for the few Northern states which used these varieties, but the rest of India was unchanged because only these few states had irrigation. sufficient Likewise the use of HYV rice is restricted to a few areas on the East coast with large river deltas. These varieties are critically de- pendant on adequate irrigation, drai- nage, large amounts of fertiliser (up to 4 times as much as lor traditional plants) and pesticides, and on farm machinery to prepare and reap the multiple harvests possible in year. These 'inputs cost 1125 Rupees hectare 1971, when the per 600 Rupees. Who can afford it? In a typical HYV rice area farmers own less than half a hectare, 38% own between % and 2 hectares, and the last 1% most of the

OWIL

land (up to 1,000 hectares each). small farmer nas to nOTO money for these inputs' but the banks and co-ops only lend to big by R. Roberts rich farmers with land as security: the smallholders are forced there- private lenders fore to resort to charging 100-200% interest. The loan can obviously never be paid back and the smallholdings are sold the pitasant to the mone landless peasants becomme landless labourers. The tenant and sharecroppers in the poor population face massive rent increases from landowners us- the HYV varieties - up to 70% Ing Like the of their peasants, can't raise loans are thrown off the land. they The big landowners, with cheap- er capital borrowed from the banks.

profit soaring and bu and that the poor are forced of while the rich from the towns join in the land bonanza. The switch to HIYV grain by capitalist farmers for its high profit also means that pulses, the main source of protein which is already in very short supply, are abandoned, Protein deficiency, which stunts the mental growth of children and in- creases susceptibility to disease, is A family of Tuareg nomads, victims of drought in Central Niger rapidly increasing. If this were not enough, fertiliser is so short that wenty times the present consumption is needed even for of grain. traditional varieties Such vast quantities are not avail- able to India on the world market.

even if the national economy could pay for it - which it can't, with the and other increased rice of oil The imports. world shortage of chemical fertiliser which has tripled from monopolies prices was come like the group of mines in Saskatch- of Canada supplying ewan, of the world's potash. They have kept production down deliberately to force prices up. By similar tactics Morroco, which supplies two-thirds of the world's market for phosph- ates, has forced prices up 600% since 1972. So while foreign manufacturers dump toxic insecticides (which are banned as dangerous in their home countries) on the Indian market, the US can use as much fertiliser as that used throughout the whole of India just on lawns and golf courses!

EXPLOITERS

There can be no end to famine and no solution to the world food capitalist and Crisis wnlle semi- feudal relations of production chan- nel surplus into the hands of small class of exploiters, while mill ions of peasants and landless labour- ers living at the brink of starvation afford to buy grain cannot even shipments. sent over in "aid" The picture is often presented by capitalism's apologists, of famine being caused by natural disasters like flooding

OTOUTUBEY

documentary (criticised in the pre- vious article blamed a long term change in world weather narrowing the causing drought, and the Ecologist blamed 'bad weather' for the first fall in in world food production since th priced, and the US had protected Sccond World War in 1972. Climati changes and natural hazards have with us. But this is promising industry in Brazil.

side of the only one problem Development in the Indian tex- The floods in Bangladesh in the autumn of 1974 caused widespread import quotas and tariffs applied stas on mause to the f refu-

TOTEC

only because of feudal agricultural relations which, as in developed countries are prevented India, that peasants live from diversifying their exports and close to subsistence levels that when thus advancing their technical level any land is flooded, they are lost.

Facing a situation where they pay halt the crop to a landlord as rent and have to borrow at 100-200% rates of interest when their half of out of the four major commodities the crop runs out, where when they on the London grain to raise cash to repay loans the price manipulated by the monopolists is low, and may have doubled d later in are forced to above those of 1973 buy seed later the year, the small farmer has no margin to

COUT NES TO TOTT

survive. cut exports and defend their price "drought" areas One of the Agreements were proposed in Latin worst hit was the Sahel region of America for bauxite, copper, silver, Northern Africa, which is vulnerable iron ore, coffee and bananas.

American imperialism declared BEne ferences and tariff advantages to producer countries which are mem- bers of commodity turers from the rest of the world The selt defence of imperialism expense of the economic clearly in the ficid of ad" "Aid" has never been a gift to

COLLEC

increase in landless and unemployed there has been no local shortage of food, but the victims have had nothing to buy it with. the best commercial opportunities.

tied to Dur to long dry periods. Its nomadic chases of goods often uncompetitive tribesmen accumulated livestock and in price or quantity that would find stored grain in readiness. The French on colonial administration however

DELET

TLO1

went hungrily after increased profit by doing away with these provisions the cnormous rates of interest on third world debt - ther increased herds which over grazed the land cash-crops, especially ground-nuts, for export soil

STRATEGIC

on the markets for cash c The returns on such laid' are greater than the Latin American sub- aid itself - when drought one year the sidiaries of US corporations sent back £425m profit to the US the possibility more than double the amount the whole region received new Similarly investment and foreigr aid put together. to keep

AT 1S BRAS

for the reactionary ruling elites in power and prevent local social reform local sud solution for and covers huge population has turned political once sums spent productive areas. especially Even food aid StrategIc Durposes. Africa, and deserts is use this way. United States Itis no! so-called Public Law 480 states that the "Third World" policy conuTess is make maximum efficient use of into Poor surplus agricultural commodities in furtherance of the Foreign Policy of the United States" face the w market where An official of the Department Western cap of Agriculture who. wrote the first draft of the explained "I could-see the possibility of the American government controlling by agreements a couple of dozen countries through these free-food shipments. We could control them because the producer heel by food power over the gave us because everyone would C112E This happened would not unload the know wheat if the government went over coffee, own board to the Communist lef 14% US has achieving the American Now since 1973 the suspended export sales of fertiliser and decided that the 75% drop in US tood-aid over the 10 years SOCIALIST PRESS, Thursday May Ist, 1975 *should not be replaced. For the workers and peasants of the under-developed countries there is solution in secking or merely increased commodity prices The central question end their exploitation by national and by landlordism. Thus the masses now come into the struggle against the the landlords and the monopolists as a part of the world development of the class struggle. As Trotsky's Transitional Programme states: *Colonia and semi-colonial backward coun countries are tries by their very essence.

But backward countries are part of a world dominated by imperia- lism. Their development, there- fore, has combined character: the most primitive economic forms are combined with the last word in capitalist technique and culture. In like manner are defined the political strivings of the proletariat of the countries: struggle for the most elementary achievements of national inde pendence and bourgeois demo стасу combined with the socialist struggle against world imperialism. Democratic slo gons. transitiona demands and the problems of the socialist revolution are not divided into separate historical epochs in this struggle, but stem directly from one another (p. 41, emphasis added)

LINKED

This position has been vividly borne out in the struggles in Indo China and indeed Chinese revolution Again, as Trotsky continues: "In this sense the present pro- gramme (the Transitional completely Programme) applicable to colonial and semi- colonial countries, at least to those where the proletariat has become capable of carrying on independent politics. The cen- tral task of colonial and -the semi-colonial countries is the agrarian revolution. Le. liquid- ation of feudal heritages, and overthrow imperialist yoke. Both tasks are closely linked with each other.' (p. 42) The key question for Trotsky- ists is to understand how these struggles must flow over into tran- and socialist sitional demands through the conscious intervention oi revolutionanes in conflict with the Stalinist theory of rigidly dis- tinct separate 'stages. At the same time the demand for the nationalisation of the land and collectivisation of agriculture mey says than tom a Trotsky that

SAYS

very basis it should exclude the possibility of expropriation of small farmers and their compulsory collectivisation. The farmer wil remain owner of his plot of lan as long as he himself believes it possible or necessary" Thus the big estates must be expropriated and collectivised, while leaving the small holders to take their ow! go over to socialist

3CC110M

planned production. To assist this however the banks be must nationalised and merged into a single national institution under the mana- workers committees, which can then provide favourabl terms of credit for the small fa mers as well as financing the Targe collectives. The nationalisation of the banks does not therefore mean the nationalisation of small deposits but the best guarantee that thos deposits can be of value to thei

CONTROL

At each point the struggles of small farmers must be

OTTEOLLO

the strongest links with the opposition working class in tc. monopoly capitalism Again as Trotsky wrote: the banks, the trusts the merchants rob the farme from every side Only the

LETTER: Chinese Trotskyists SOCIALIST PRESS, Thursday May Ist, 1975 The First

MAY DAY

by Alan Clinton period of In each new the struggle of the working movement it becomes class necessary to remind the rising generation of the sacrifices which have been needed to system. set up our organisations and establish our rights. of conspiracy" It came as a surprise to one incident. of our members in his union cated policies branch the other week to discover that nobody seemed to know why celebrated Inter- May Day national Workers' Day. The ge-

STOLE

1887. neral opinion was that it might have something to fer- do with declared: tility rites, Morris Dancing and the when our so it seemed beginning of Spring, a good idea to explain that its gle today' origins really he in particular struggle to improve workers con- the for ditions and to express solidarity with those who have suffered to not forgotten. maintain them. Lisbon: May Day 1974. In 1884 an obscure American the name workers organisation by of the Federation of teased Trade and Labour Unions issued a if there call for a legal eight hour day and 1st strike if this was not for a general Many obtained within two years.

actions were initiated on this call in the following period throughout country United States, the and though eight hours. individual employers were forced to concede shorter hours, there was no general legal change. When the two yet Read 1836.

strations 1886, to end workers in every part of America were on strike or were preparing to do so to obtain the eight hour day.

In Chicago least four workers were shot dead as they tried to prevent the entry of scabs into a factory On the evening of 4th May about end.

3000 gathered the people Haymarket Square in the centre of As they were town to protest. dispersing, the police suddenly char- crowd, and a bomb the in ged into went off killing seven policemen.

To this day it is uncertain who let off the bomb, but the most likely lihoods in explanation is that the explosion agent was the work continued from page 6 peasant themselves, with the farmers help of the workers, can curb generalise Committees this robbery. elected should make their appearaners small farmers the national scene and on commit- ointy with workers and committees of bank peasants tees employees take into their hands control of transport, credit and mercantile operations affecting agriculture. (p. 29) The richness of these demands Trotsky worked through by on the basis of the experience of the peasants (which itself Revolution Russian took place in a backward, largely ped to the ground any linger- ing hopes among trade union- ists meant preservation oi jobs or living standards in exchange for the pressure has increased on provocateur or an attempt to pay off a personal grudge. the trade However, any careful conside- Workers was impossible ration of the case leaders fight for increases to match at the time in an atmosphere of the escalating rate of witch-hunt and hysteria built up by now an annual rate of 25.4%.

the press and exploited by the legal After numerous raids and able to arrests, eight men were found guilty month cost of living deal paying -not because they 15p for every 1% increase in the could have played any part in the Retail Prices Index, starting from but because advo- next month wnieh according to the police might have led to it "threshold" - Of these one committed suicide "trigger" is involved were hanged in certain With the tope around his It is tolerated. August Spies, neck, one of them, *There will time wages though of course a sliding silence will be more scale would include all increases powerful than the voices you stran- in living costs determined by trade unionists and not centre on merely The stepping up of the struggle the government-distorted figures of hour day ensured cight the Retail Prices Index. that the Haymarket martyrs were The American Fed- in defence of grants and the right to free education is now being viciously fought by the university authorities, with the government. militants at Lancaster for a year. block, rent strike eration of Labour, to which most unions were affiliated at the time, took up the call for further action by were no concessions May 1890. In 1889 when the Socialist (second) International was sct up, one of the first motions it passed called for action in every on that day aiming *to reduce the working day by law to Thus on May Day 1890 there were stoppages of work and demon- throughout Europe and letter from North America demand, and many gains were reported from Leeds. The ma France, the United States and else- Britain which where. Only in Britain did the con- principles servative trade union leaders refuse to initiate any action on May Day have already itself, but called instead for demon- our part, we strations over the following week- dorse its call which it refers This rather shame-faced practice is no doubt partly responsible for the fact that few British workers now seem to know that May Day began News Agency militant action and solidarity minals just with those throughout the world amnesty who have lost their lives and live- for the struggle the belonged to the emancipation of their class.

puppet Jamales all economy) is lost by Manchuria and those who turn their backs on the Transitional Programme and merely Autonomous "colonial the revolution about (19 March 1975, Pekint) have 110W Yet it is only through the fight for such demands that the But no united strength of workers and ever been both mobilised can defeat imperialism and the national bourgeoisie and to be pre- the course pared to take the struggle forward ber 1952. to the establishment of a planned were seized. with the full and demo. cratic participation of workers and ever made public committees and soviets was ever held. Only in this way can the world were refused food crisis be solved. reiptives and friends.

TUC ON THE SPOT

As Healy's budget chop- But even this creates agony for trade union Teachers' leaders for instance, put on spot that the socia contract settlements conceded to workers, civil servants, and miners, have been forced to scrap their earlier 28% claim in favour of one "restraint" in wage claims, for about 26% Yet the NUT leaders showed union leaders. fight their reluctance blaming the employers for are demanding these as union official scrung Henry Clother inflation - have had a quick settlement but they chose not to do so. It will In London, busmen have been extract an offer of a 12 now cost them much more Similar embarassment is shown the railwaymen's leader Sid Weighell, who, forced EJ 3 pressure of his membership reflected This eliminates the reactionary through the NUR executive rejected British Rail' reluctantly conception, since no offer and is holding whereby a 21.2% for 30%. Desperately attempting level of price increase is considerable to prevent strike action (only defea step towards a full sliding scale of ted by two votes on the executive Weighell has called for non-binding instant arbitration, while prepara- tions go ahead for a strike.

He plainly feels uncomfortable in confronting the employer, and blames his memhers.

LANCASTER: FIVE

STUDENTS EXPELLED

ment in the hope of preventing Every action by students further action. time At the same sentences were announced kangaroo by the court Lancaster Disciplinary Committee full backing of the Labour- the occupation continued at War wick University against the holding of grant cheques and as an escalation of their continuing rent A clear example of this is the strike. wholesale victimisation of student

NATIONAL POLICY

University, as shown in Socialist Press where five students (including the (17.4et;) t the rent stoke Union President, Dick Soper) have national policy of the NUS and it been expelled and eight suspended The charges arise from is an obligation on leadership to generalise these corr an occupation of the administration which developed from their ect and necessary struggles. danger to individual students arises action in the struggle from the abdication for increased grants. The occunation within the NUS, and from the way was broken up by police after 12 the grants struggle has been restrict- days. The victimisations are intend• ed to simply a "student" issuc. It is ed to intimidate the student move- It is therefore impossible We have received the following with any Gregor Benton of the say those Trotskyist mili- happened to Chinese Department, University of We do not know what papers published tanis since. they were charged with 'crimes' claim adherence We do not even know how many of Trotskyism have all received copies, and some are still alive. ot them information we have indicates that published it. For would strongly en- most of the vounger ones are now living under supervision for the issues to years or to be taken up

MOTE

and are barred from employment.

throughout the Labour movement.

comrades continue to The older rot behind bars. According to a recent Hsinhua Who are these Chinese Trotsky- "war cri- dispatch, ists Mao judges more dangerous to special released by than 293 his regime all, counter-revolutionaries? criminals who clude: Chiang Kai-shek Ch'ao-lin: a founding Chen clique, two war criminals trom the of the Chinese member regime Party and the mist one war criminal movement, a leader of Trotskyist from the puppet Inner Mongolian 1925-27 the revolution. Government' This prominent writer and translator. means that all war-criminals held in he is still that released. Assuming been Cheng will be 74 years old.

will have spent 30 years in jail - amnesty has Chang under declared in the case of twenty-three under Mao. those revolutionaries, in particular Chiang Iseng-tung: the Trotskyists, who were arrested activist in the Shanghai of a nation-wide movement and a participant in the raid on the night of 23-24 Decem- strike Shanghai general Altogether 200 persons rising of 1927. No indictment was would now be about 65 No public trial 3. Ho Chi-shen: a student leader Those arrested contect with their in rekine In uc who joined the CCP shortly after Page 7 life intolerable." he said "because my members don't accept bureaucracy. the situation that the gate should be closed now with the NUR the the 20-30% only one left outside." Left to power- himself, Weighell obviously would have sold out long ago. It is this massive working class pressure, escalated by the budget attacks on living standards, which by is now disrupting the wage cutting social contract between the Labour not leaders and the TUC. This is not for want of trying by the TUC "They could Len Murray made clear last week his disappointment that wages had been forced up. He said that the social contract had been "very successful" in many ways, but ad- the mitted "wages and salaries have gone up much faster than we had hoped". Without TUC influence "things really would have gone through

OTH

ceiling." said Murray. the thus proudly stating his belief that the TUC's function is to keep dowr wages in line with the needs o capitalism. This raises the need for a new and determined leadership in the unions to replace the present half- hearted and shame-faced reformists "It has made part of the fight of the working class to defend free education, and against the reactionary policies of as these the Labour government on wages jobs and public spending the Students must therefore take force their opportunity to

CYCL

with- teadership into carrying through official NUS policy with the the -full strength of the union, at the area carrying same time in every out an active struggle to win sup port from the trade union move- ment. In developing this fight, the linked demands for a sliding scale policy of grants and for a sliding scale o the national education spending linked to the of living are vital rising cost defend jobs in education and the The living standards of students and the fight But central to workers of leadership noW is the defence of the victim- students and their full reinstatement by the University.

Together with Mao, its formation. to Ho played a leading role both in what 1925-27 revolution and in the the Province are is deran He Province after defeat. Chen Ch'ao-lin, Ho will have spent What little seven years der all under son under Mao his old and comrade-in-arms If alive, her will after now be 79 years old. Ying Kwan: a student in France ot imprisonment 4. with Chou En-lai the carly 1920s intimate friend Marshal Ch'en Yi and a leading inuting the 1925-21 heve the CCP activist Province revo- Kuomintang lution. Ying Kwan was aiso a founding member-of the Chinese They in- Trotskyist movement. As Trotskyist, he was jailed twice by Commu- Kuomintang police during the If stil would Chinese 1930s. he allve. be about 75 years old. Lin Huan-hua: a revolutionary leader of the younger generation.

He worked underground in the alive, from He anti-Japanese

TOSSTAGE

1938-1945, and was a member of Kai-shek. the Executive of the Canton Printworkers' Union when arrested by the Maoists. He is now a little a leading over fifty years old labour This issue must be taken up and up- throughout the labour movement and a carapaign launched for the If still alive, he immediate release of all Chinese Trotskyists and other revolutiona- carly "twenties, ries still in jail.

"'LEFTS' RESCUE WILSON

Page 8 At its meeting in Aberdeen the Scottish TUC adopted a resolution calling for sliding scale of wages agrecments.

the modon, trom suring Trades Council, calls on unions to fight for cost of living clauses which would transform thresh- hold agreements into a sliding Labour Prime Minister scale of wages based on a cost of Wilson now stands blatantly living index worked out by the in breach of the decisions of trade union committees. every policy-making body in This important decision comes at a time when this demand is the Labour Party, and is only developing in the mass move- preserved by the reluctance ment. It goes alongside the dem- of the 'left' to push him out.

and to open the books adopted This is the message, loud and clear by the Birmingham meeting of from the Labour Party Special motor industry shop stewards Conference, held in the Sobell n Avril 23rc LIS HOE CIOR aowerer 5117 ly to pass resolutions on these urday. The Conference threw out by a demands. The Scottish TUC 2 to 1 majority Wilson's policy allowed the troops to be used against the Glasgow dustmen of entry into the Common Market and called for a 'no' vote in the who were fighting for wages.

Only through a fight against referendum in line with a resolu- tion submitted on hehalf of the these leaders will these corr- NEC majority by Brian Stanley.

ect demands for the sliding P.O.E.U. General Secretary, scale of wages be implemen- Not one delegate would get up ted. to move the logical conclusion to

NF IN

PORTUGAL:

Bradford aSUNS

ELECTION

Last Saturday, 26th April.

the anti-working class racialists The results of the Portuguese elec- of the National Front were tion, for all the confusion and com- allowed to march through the promise emanating from the leaders of the Communist and Socialist Par- centre of Bradford and hold ties, represent an important blow by a meeting in St. George's Hall.

the working class against capitalist A counter-demonstration was policies and, above all, against any called by the Trades Council but attempts at a right-wing or military having done this, the officials appa- comeback. rently considered that after this The very small vote (7%) for their responsibilities ended.

the most right-wing party running, Though 7000 trade union the Centre Democrat Social Party, members were mobilised in 1972 (CDS), which carried the approval against the Industrial Relations of the British Tory Party, was a Act the Trades Council did nothing clear signal that not onlv the wor- against this potentially greater king class, but most of the peasants threat to the working class move and the middle class. will have no ment. (not to mention Bradtord: truck with the political formations enormous ummagrant community).

most clearly compromised by The AUEW District Committee association with fascism.

that week retused to consider the The Socialist Party and the proposal of a delegate, a WSL Communist Party together won a member, to take up the question.

clear majority (55%) of the votes, As a result only one trade union and a clear command of the Consti- banner appearca on a counter- tuent Assembly. At the end of the demonstration of 3000, together election, therelore, the main obstacle with the Indian Workers Association standing in the way of a government and a large contingent of students.

of working class parties was one of All political tendencies within their own making - the fact that the workinı class movement were both the Communist Party leader represented including a section Cunhal and the Socialist Party from the Workers Socialist League.

Icader Soares had signed a treacher- Even the sectarians of the WRP ous electoral 'pact" with the chiefs sent a small group on the counter- ol the Aimed Forces Movement a march, though they disappeared fortnight before the election.

before the arrival of the fascists.

The road to power for the The Trades Council having Portuguese workers movement lies abdicated from the organisation of not through a bourgeois parliament trade unionists against the fascists which is just a front for AFM rule, tried to prevent even a meetg ae and handcuffed by the major partics the spot where the counter- before it is born, but in the strength- demonstration was called.

ening and unification of the organs The anti-fascists marched of workers power which already through the centre of town and Ine committees or workeIs.

eventually were followed by about soldiers, peasants and tenants in 400 National Front members under the localities.

MCEWY VOUCC OTOLOGEON

SETES:

were allowed by police to punch € 500 monthly and kick the anti-fascists with im- punity, and a number were injured.

The feelings of workers in Bradford were shown by the house- development wives and pensioners who went to retalate by weilding their handbags at the fascists. A clear call and fund determined organisation from the working class moverent would draw out a response which would make it impossible for the National From the first edition of Socialist Front again to show their face on Press, where we analysed Benn's the streets of Bradford or anywhere Industry Bill, under the headline else. *Jail For Opening the Books?', our In Swindon, AUEW District Secr- paper has exposed the betrayals of etary Les Thompson has called for the reformists, while fighting in the town's labou movement to practice in the workers movementi prevent a planned National Front for the demands and principles of demonstration through the town the Transitional Prozramme.

on Saturday, May 3rd. His state- ment, the direct result of press- Our paper is already winning a ure from WSL members, must wery favorable response from be followed by the full mobil- many new readers. To improve it isation not only of the Swindon and move towards weekly public- AUEW District Committee, but ation we need your support.

all anti-fascists in a counter- demonstration on May 3rd.

Send donations to our t500 per month development tund to: Printed and Published by the Workers Socialist Socialist Press, 31, Dartmouth Pk Bondon wws thR Dartmouth Park Hill, Hill: London NWS_1HR. Printed hy Trade Upion that position - that if Wilson's policy is thrown out, Wilson him- self, along with Jenkins, Prentice, Callaghan and the pro-Market faction should also be removed.

Wilson thus remains in his position by defauit, ruling the roost from BELu Ic LU dak ninisters like Heffer who step ou of line, and carrying out the strat- egic requirement of British capital- ism by advocating British entry and by staging this referendum rather than follow the mandate given him by the labour movement.

LOYAL

Where does the "left' stand on tiese questions? Perhaps they can best be characterised by the loyal opp- osition of the Militant group, whose speakers confined them- The Annual Conference of ASTMS, the white collar and technicians union, is being held on 10th, 11th and 12th May in Bournemouth. The agenda containing motions and amendments clearly shows, as the economic crisis, particulariy inflation, together with the defence of democratic rights, should be the dominating factor in shaping union The Annual Report from the policy. National Executive, however shows the role of the reformist leadership in protecting the Labour government in its defence of capitalism.

The report gives an account of the union's achievements over the Jast year - quoting many large percentage pay increascs, but does not mention any form of cost of living clause in any agreement which has been won or even fought for So most of the pay increases will have already been croded by inflation Once again this shows how far the NEC is from the requirements of the membership, which has submit- ted many motions calling for realistic threshold agreements and sliding scales of wages on an index decided by trade unionists, as opposed to the Retail Price Index. The section on the Health Service exposes all these contradictions. It also shows that the NEC has in no way tried to fight for a free NHS and the ending of Private Practice.

From all over the country, however, motions have been submitted call- Tacking of private ing for t hore action by the patients and

NEC.

A large number of Health Service branches have already star- ted a black on private patients, and have taken a stand openly opposed to the Labour Govern- ment and its lack of action, yet the NEC does not even mention this struggle in the Report.

To break the working class from its reformist leadership is an obvious necessity. It is al.

ready coming into conflict with the limitations of this leadership on the whole range of daily trade union struggles. The success of this ASTMS conference will be measured by the extent to which the inadequacies and betrayals of the NEC are exposed and fought by the delegates.

(Continued from Front Page) those threatened with closure to meet in order to draw up a plan of useful public works to create new jobs after their fitis have been nationalised. Such a programme, which must also inclüde a sliding scale of wages to compensate for infla- tion, comes into immediate con- flict with capitalism's measures for survival, and the reformist trade union and labour leader- ship, posing the need for new caorso m we worke selves to platitudes about the Socialist United States of Europe.

divorced from any conception of how it is to be achieved. At the same time they refused to attack the main obstacle to such a policy - the Labour Party leadership - and refused to criticise the refusa!

of the Tribunites to fight in supp- ort of Heffer.

NEC

Now that the conference is over, and Wilson still in the saddle, the press is trying to whip up a frenzy against Benn's supposed "plot" to isolate Wilson by directing through the NECa campaign for a "no" vote - Of course the NEC would be correct in using all party resources to carry out agreed party policy (Continued from Front Page ) rapidly declining further. Ryder therefore equals unemployment.

on a considerahle scale. The report completely establ- ishes the case for the books be opened. The figures revealed show that not oniy was nearly ail the profit distributed to shareholders as dividends rather than used as investment but that these profits were based on false book-keeping. The report says for example: "A substantial pro- portion of Bi's tixed sesete were old and had been fully written down. The depreciation charge was therefore an inadequate measure of what should have been spent on capital investment"

BOOKS FIDDLE

In other words Stokes and company were fiddling the books in the interest of the shareholders with the jobs of a million workers and their Tamines involved. The case for opening the books of every BL plant and every assoc lated supplier is unanswerable The "leadership of the Combined Stewards Committee must be forced to stop collaboration with Ryder and fight to implement the Cowley resolution. Ryder, ex-charman of Reed role of leadership when it comes to a fight. In a section of the Teport therelore ne continues the witch-hunt started by Leyland management in Cowley last year when Alan Thornett was victim- ised. He makes the following statement in an attempt to streng- then the right wing and weaken any shop steward prepared to fight to defend jobs, wages, con- ditions and agreements in the Leyland plants. He says: "It may be argued that some of the shop stewards are motivated by extrem- ist political views, and do not act in conformity with the policy of their members. It must be for the members themselves to recognise the responsibilities which the shop stewards are exercising on their behalf, and to ensure that the right people are chosen to exercise these responsibilities" In other words he is saying elect yes-men who will accept every dictate of the company because if you elect somone who will lead

BIRMINGHAM

Digbeth Institute WEDNESDAY 28th MAY 7.30 Speaker: A.Thornett A Programme to Fight Unemployment and Short Time SOCIALIST PRESS, Thursday Ist May, 1975 Wilson: Still in the saddle and in fighting Wilson. But of course all the hullabaloo about the referendum simply covers over the fact that a principled socialist leadershin would not b putting such an issue to a vote- but would merely withdraw uni- laterally from the capitalist con- federation of the EEC. While calling for a "no" vote in the referendum, we stress again that the crucial issue at this point is the fight to remove Wilson as Labour leader, and expose those who protect him with "left' talk in the labour movement a resistance we will stop the money and put you on the dole. He is re- ported to be considering backing this up with the appointment of Derek Whittaker, the managing director of the Cowley complex, who directed the victimisation last year to the key position of nead of the new Cars Division.

These threats must be set against the incredible mismanagement Ryder was forced to reveal in the report, such as competition be tween models in the same sector of the market and the chaotic com ponent planning. The report is heavily bridged on the basis of "commercial confid- entiality - COmmONIY KnOWn aS business secrets. So even now with workers" jobs at stake they are not to know the truth. Benn's role in this is central. The plan is to be administered by his National Enterprise Board which will have provisions for opening the books to selected TO bureaucrats, in order to suck them into further collaboration, whilst making it a criminal offence for them to reveal such intormation to the working class -as Socialist Press was first to point out on Feb- ruary 6th. Benn does this under a left cover of fraudulent "wor- kers participation in the Ryder plan.

STRATEGIST BENN

Therefore Benn, the great ad- vocate of nationalisation, emerges as, in many ways, the best long term strateust of capitalsm van of the industries which grew up in the boom period can no longer find the capital needed for the super exploitation of workers necessary in today's cut-throat competition. They now find this capital through the Labour Gov- crament and Benn. British Leyland workers must reject the Ryder report outright.

They must demand that their leaders also reject it and fight for full nationalisation under the management of elected comm ittees of workers- not simply capitalist nationalisation which in British Steel has led to the ann- ouncement of 20,000 redundan- cies beginning in the next few months. Ryder must not be scen as an issue moy or Be workers hut a test bed for an offensive against the whole working class.

WSL.PUBLIC MEETINGS

BANBURY

Town Hall FRIDAY 16th MAY 7.30 Speaker: A.Thornett