Press Freedom and the Closed Shop

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Lenin in Red which had to be tackled nearly 20 years later in the Transitional Programme adopted as the founding document of the Fourth International in 1938.

Stalinism had burcaucratised and corrupted not only the Russian Communist Party but through that had led to a complete degeneration in the Comintern itself.

ABANDONED

In the course of this degeneration the Stalinists had abandoned completely the concept of the united front as formulated in the first four congresses of the Comintern.

In Britain in the years 1924-26 the 'united front' had been perverted to allow the Stalinists to form an uncritical bloc with the 'lefts' in the TUC leadership, developed through the Anglo-Russian Committee. Trotsky summed up the lessons of this sorry episode in this way In order that the Soviet trade unions might maintain the bloc with the strike-breakers of the General Council ... the British Communist Party had to be deprived of all independence. This was obtained by the actual dissolution of the party into the so-called 'minority movement', that is, the 'left' opposition inside the trade unions.

The demands for a break with the strike breakers appeared even to some within our own ranks as ... sectarianism.

... Stalin, Bukharin, Zinoviev ... sought to replace the weak British Communist Party by a 'broader current' which had at its head, to be sure, not members of the party, but 'friends' almost Communists, at any rate, fine fellows and good acquaintances...

The result of the Stalinist policy was of course that in the British General Strike of 1926 the CP had no line to put independently of the TUC. It's slogan was "All power to the Gencral Council". . And the General Council betrayed the strike after nine days.

Three years later this opportunist right wing course was burcaucratically switched to a hysterical ultra-lett policy in which any aritadanti Hitler in 1933.

Just over a year later the Comintern again changed line, to a new attack on the united front - the call for 'People's Fronts' which set out to incorporate both workers' parties and bourgeois parties. The outcome was the defeat of the In oish revolutions the compurse complete subordination of the CPs to the policies of their so-called progressive' bougeois "allies"

NEW INTERNATIONAL The failure of any soction within the Comintern to raise the slightest doubt resistance to Stalinist policies even after its sectarian line had been the major factor in the crushing of the German working class by Hitler in 1933 confirmed for the Trotskyists that a new International had to be built.

But the new International would not be able to draw on the massed resources of Inc millions-strong social democratic movement as had the Second International. Nor did it carry TOP revolutionary prestige that had rapidly drawn thousands of workers to the banner of the NOW degenerated Third The Fourth International would need to find a road to the masses in conflict with these mass formations, with only the most slender basic forces in each country.

It could not in the initial stages TENO public proposals for united fronts.

Instead the political method which had provided the basis for the united front policy was developed, in the form of a system of transitional demands outlined in general terms for a range different situations internationally.

These demands, if fought for in practice within the workers' movement, could win mass support and establish Trotskyist forces at the forefront of the daily struggles of the working class.

The term 'united front' does not feature in the main tactical discussion in the Transitional Programme-but the combined fight for united action and for the incosurated info reformist leaders Tne orientation of the programme as a whole, and the demands themselves.

One example of this which is clear today the demand for a sliding scale of wages to protect agaist inmation. The demand has a mass appeal within the working class, has the potential to satisfy Their real realitemenre 31т 10 reas. fastly rejected by the reformist leaders.

United action is both desirable and possible on such a demand -but brings workers face to face with the treacherous role of their own leaders.

In fighting along these same lines today, the Workers Socialist League does not refuse to act with other left groups insofar as we agree on particular points of programme on particular issues.

But in our view to weaken in any way the fight for the transitional demands within the workers movement in order to consolidate some form of "alliance" is to seek unity on an unprincipled basis and to retreat in practice from the fight for a mass base of support in the struggle against the reformist and Stalinist leaders.

CAPITULATION

This is why such blocs as the electoral pact between the Inter national Marxist Group and the Big Flame are by united fronts Rather, by abandoning such basic elements of the Trotskyist programme as the demand for the opening ot books employer, the fight for work sharing on full pay and the fight for a sliding scale of wages, the bloc in fact heads in diamctrically the opposite direction towards capitulation to reformism and the abandonment of political independence. As Teresy ete in age the 'There when revolutionary tendency is reduced to a small minority in the labour movement. But those epochs demand not arrangements between the small groups with mutual hiding of sins, but on the contrary, a doubly implacable struggle for a correct perspective and an education of the cadres in the spirit of genuine Marxism. Victory is one monon mal never matina quite found its way onto the TUC order paper at Blackpool this year was not set aside because of lack of time-but was knifed in the corridors outside the conference hall.

The motion from the National Union of Journalists called on all TUC unions to refuse contact with any journalist who did not belong to a TUC affiliated union.

In other words the TUC was called on to declare a position on the struggle for a closed shop for journalists in terms which would have made support for closed shop disputes difficult to avoid.

The motion-which was opposed by the right wing inside the NUJ, including the General Secretary, Ken Morgan-came at an apposite time when journalists at Darlington had been on strike for a closed shop for ten weeks.

Strikers were lobbying the TUC calling for supporting action to spread the strike against the employers-Westminster Press.

Bill Keys, General Secretary of SOGAT, had other ideas. As chairman of the Printing Industries Committee of the TUC he was at the time of the TUC meeting setting up a sell out for the Darlington strikers.

PUBLIC ATTACK

It was impossible for him to give even token support to a motion which might mean that concrete support was then demanded for strike after strike around the country.

Key's solution was simple. He told the NUJ delegation that if they did not withdraw the motion he would denounce them from the platform and would launch a public attack against the 'Trotskyists' on the national executive of the NUJ.

The motion was duly withdrawn.

It is one typical account of how the leadership of all the print unions-including the NUJ-has refused to come to terms with the drive towards the closed shop.

Not only has the union had a closed shop as official policy for more than 30 years but the NUJ itself was formed as a reaction to the older Institute of Journalists (IOJ) where leading positions were inevitably taken by management.

In recent years the campaign took active shape at the 1975 Annual Delegates Conference of the NUJ where the union was committed to fight for a closed shop and to make no exceptions for editors.

This took away the loophole by which editors have been free during a dispute to do the strikers' jobs and to sign work done by any scab without fear of sanction by the printers.

HOWL OF RAGE

The closed shop policy was met with a howl of rage throughout Fleet Street, claiming that "the freest Press on earth" was about to be delivered into the hands of NUJ 'reds' Fuelled by this witchhunt special delegate conference inside the NUJ was called which authorised a ballot of the union membership. The ballot then overturned many of the 1975 policies, while reattirming closed shops as the aim of the union.

The national executive have since made closed shops difficult to declare. Chapels (office branches) must have a vote in favour of action fron at least 75% of the members and must have at least 90% of the eligible members already.

On occasion the management has conceded without a fight. But a chan ent in itanlf answer to anylning. In ricel sureel most of the national dailies which launch the witchhunting against the NUJ militants operate effective closed shops.

The fact that some employers have happily conceded NUJ closed shops (and subsequently been forced to leave the employers federation, the Newspaper Society) is evidence that in itself the closed shop is no threat.

The contradiction-that some employers seem to have no qualms about the closed shop, while others will fight it tooth and nail-is merely a reflection of the split on tactics at present evident within the Tory Party.

OPEN CONFRONTATION Some employers have not been willing to face a lengthy strike in profitable provincial papers, when they have good reason to hope that they can prevent the full implications of the closed shop being used.

Others, however, believe that open confrontation is the best policy.

The drive towards the closed shop itself comes of course in the first place over wages. Provincial journalists are badly paid and in many offices heavily overworked.

Pay strikes by the NUJ have The samarad 1 ne concept or a iree press 15 ÷ absurd as the concept of a 'neutra state. The direction taken by the press-like the direction taken by the State-is entirely dependent or the class that owns it.

A paper which elected its editor from the workers, which decided policy through the workers, while the capitalist continued to own the paper would in fact be a form oi dual power.

The claim that "press treedom' exists today is so bizarre that the right of the whole working class to control the media should be clear.

But it is not. Confusion publicly sown within the ranks the membership by the leaders the print unions themselves.

Ken Morgan-who ended his seven year stint as NUJ General Secretary this week-said in his tarewell speech to the centra. London branch that the employe: could be right to fear the closed shop if that ever meant tha: journalists would attempt to influence editorial content.

The few examples of printers or journalists • Packing. copy OF umeLt poncal grounas nave malitinal been condemned by the same unior. leaders who refuse to lead any figh: for the defence of white

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attempting to force through age. ALRIGHT.. WHO'S BEEN UNDERMINING MY FREEDOM OF