Socialist Press no. 186

ROBINSON

BETRAYED!

Strike now to stop Edwardes Derek Robinson, chair- man of the British Leyland Shop Stewards Combine Committee, and convenor giant Longbridge of the works, has been set up for a solid lead sell-out. Ked last over of 32000 November sacked • last workers were on sunke ins defence. Yet the following day the

ALEW'S

Executive right wing Council met decision on official support- preferring unofficial action the crum bied uncer ine the immediate press witch-hunt.

us act the only tea had hours Their for the strike. the AUEw leaders ordered their members back to work-and ordered an official "Irresponsiblity" Three months were unen allowed driit by, with repeated postponements of the announcement of the inquiry's findings. Wednesday Then, on the rebruary announced that Derek Robinson was.unfairly dismissed. inquiry also DUl found nm gully or respon sibility." his capacity Green of union rules on several convenor, counts. Thus. while formally calling in his defence, the ra strik UEW leaders handed Edwardo a cne ammunion ne necucu lo finish off Robinson and defeat the action Had Duffy and the AUEW enoers reav warte a strike le defend Robinson they called simultaneously have of the publication will lne inquiry's findings. As soon as it was known that demand for the was reinstatement there was a surge or support on the shop noot In Longbridge. But next day things surprisingly, occall Daily. change Mirror reported Duffy saying that the ÉC could not compel members to strike: and the anti- campaign communist the mass media swung into top gear.

Quick to capitalise Management were quick to capitalise on the material handed to them by • the

AUEW

based entirely around sit quota- tions rom ine mours revorl.

which, they aparines. "The serious and shown by lack of responsibility to Mr. D. Robinson in relation Con elor at Longbridge:** duties letter points Collially that these Out "Despite criticisms, the

AUEW героп

of reinstatement Ior asks KODInSON. Meanwhile, mangemen inspired petitions were circulat- ing in Longbridge, and letters-

SOCIALIST

PRESS

Weekly paper of the Workers Socialist League * No. 186 * February 13 1980 * 20p av vaichilly company-headed notepaper! - the Birmingham weit still west District committee, "mcn met on Friday night Pointing to an "unpreceden DC decided to call off Monday's strike. Instead meeting Longbridge AUEW stewards has been called tor weenescav February-to be followed by a further meeting of the DC Thus at a point when time is the employers. the strike has been week -while the press nas mad a rem to sow arsinu sion and demoralisation among and to whip. hysteria anti-communist amongst Longbridge workers. was appar- proposa Kolnson s fellow Communist Party mem- bers on the District Committee: * Backslapping was only prelude to betrayal: but still Robinson will not criticise AUEW leaders the sabotage! AUEW branches and it was warmly endorsed by passed resolu- tions attacking Duffy's action, daily the communisi paper, the Morning Star, which 200 passed a censure reporte spect met at motion calling for a ballot of union's membership on the of the special meeting

ALEW

West Birmingham of the entire Executive Suckle district committee last night Council. be rushed into a refused Squashed Longbridge strike.. simply the test mean of a This cynical deception Attempts at the Birmingham E. Robinson's support to mobilise large forces for a mass consistent cover-up by the Com munist and EC Party. were: JODDy Ine AUr W Robinson himself, of the role of squashed by the CP chairman, the

AUEW

bureaucracy in this Len Brindle Indeed the entire three struesic. Robinsor SuCe sacked has seen not one Inevitable Communist initiative mobilise From very TONe rall wulnel. despite all the evidence to the bring pressure to Dear on Robinson has insisted AUEW leaders. Collidiy Now Robinson is reaping the that official strike action in his support was inevitable bitter fruits of his own politica and misleadership. Time again he has but of course it is not simply a question of him avoided the slightest criticism of Duffy's handling of the struggle as an muividual. despite the fact that over 300 Afghanistan and the Fourth International Page 9 Italian CP votes for internment The Italian: government has just introduced "anti- even more draconian, terrorism" laws. Up beer possible to hold suspects fo were before. they

IOUS

new ay. Chamber of Deputies extends these the state the 12 richt nole suspects to years! This is of course a form of inter tend "Scoundrels" The Italian Communist Party the called turocommunist partit.

voted in favour of the change.

Radica Indeed when lation Paramentary deputies chanted scoundrels" ' at them This same Communist Party only recently condemned in Soviet Union's treatment Sakharov, Andrei dissident arguing that tney are detenanny "human rights" Such condemnation of the against oralinis Te Cosi Sakharov has nothing to do with the criticisms made by Trotsky..

ISIS

The Italian CP has becomı and more an echo of home and imperialish abroad profound implications for all BL workers-and for the work- ing class as a whole mafia succeed DUll • wi open and militants throughout victimisation CP leader Berlinguer when ine empovers are ariver the offensive and the The treacher plotting still further Tories are CP creates the kind of political crack the conditions in which fascism reta can strength of the unions. •evelo• lile The demand must be raised allow a capitalist party, like the at every level within the AUEW Radical Party, to appear as the Hor immedale rights detenders of democratic the entire membership in BL to the same fight Robinson's reinstate- for themselves support of ment.

LUWU

all cally introduction internment-a pledged to give official support.

measure with al a laler doll • usea against tner own All out strike members confusionist, class policies of the Conditions -for such collaborationist action coura we be dramatca TIne •isastiou Taliot im proved by the expected Stalinist policies 1930s ot the Edwardes Popula Front, which brought rejection defeat of the Spanish pay Insuilille LItt offer working class-otter no indepen All be forced dent policy to the Italian work- unions must but perpetuate to call all-out strike action to Class press the original €24 claim, and existine ditidea reid stateient as a basis demand Robinson's government, while sowing frus- in and demoralisation une labour movement

Further boost for Bani-Sadr Page 2

—INTERNATIONAL

US BOSSES

SEARCH

FOR

POLITICAL

ANSWERS

The defeat of both impressing his imperialist rivals front-runners-Ken- former pronouncements and his thump- nedy and Reagan-in the increase elec- recent lowa primary. military spending has tions, and the growing like- succeeded in establishing a reac tionary base home upon lihood that for the first time which he hopes to rebuild hi Kennedy be ever shattered electoral squeezed out of a Presiden- tial candidacy, are an indic- Grain embargo ation of the political con- fusion now that wracks But all this is nor without the US capitalist class. While Carter: has been . embargo on the USSR will have Tory switch on Chile The Tory government's As Stada Stores ager Shore angry enthusiasm for restoring full protest. the Foreign Office was diplomatic relations with torcer to issue a turther state Chilean the bloodstained ing toat 24 does beer declar believe dictatorship ran into a prob- does lem last week. Lassiov's account or ner tomurt the hands the junta. protest delegation from the Chile Solidarity campaien nevertheless take up his post in met Foreign Ottice Minister Santiao as ine onice Nicholas Ridley-only to hear between the and the Tortes whether savage Pinochet regime. had chilean recimne • actually move. The British tawv ut carried nut the torture o ment must renew ine Sheila Cassidy which, in 1975 for practical action in solidarity had led to the withdrawal of the with the Chilean working class.

When Abol Hassan Bani- Sadr goes to visit the mosta- the 'dispossessed of zajin, south Tehran, he does not go alone. With the newly elected presi- dent of the 'Islamic armed officers of the army and vorte They, are inere not so mucn to guard against attack, but to symbolise concrete the authority which Bani-Sadr 1s to bring firmly within his ambitious grasp. No other Iranian leader since Shah has had the Koni-saur the fall of the audacity alsold y escort, a thrown the political living reminder or lne which nas brutal employed against forces within ran Into a new "King pattern of rivalries and alliances, his subjects by Tne with Bani-Sadr's driving motives But Rani-Sadr does not look as the ovnate cenue. for his support or protection to Consolidate base Islamic militia precisely rascetan. he seeks The first victories in this new ana replace inel power with reconstructed forces mhase or te power struce nav‹ president to been won by the controlled direct- consolidate the base of his elec- It is this certain knowledge nor mumon. it ye the impact on prices and plight thousands of small US larmer: Carter's retractione industrial trade with the USSR will have an impact on jobs and reluctant sec them se ves lucrative Stalinist contracts which are actually guaranteed. The missile systems Soviet designed the 4767| Gaon once more on ine acien sive are to cost in excess of $33 billion and desccrate farming land And his preparations the will alienate restore drat an adas where a youth and students. Reforms cancelled The such "defence" virtually all of Carter's promised social reform measures -even in And so grave is the economic crisis that in the first weeks of predictions of the the giddy pace of $l billion per and currently stand around $40 billion. the ordo predicts that the US will decline by "'i in 1980 with all that means in terms of lost lobs and collapsing industrios.

indication of this was One last neck's announcement by himself installed Bani-Sadr insistent But has A homeinı gone uriner no aisarm une coal- escing opposition front of reac- İslamic bigots with the tionary Stalinist luden Party Chairman Last week he also conferred Unball baul ot the kevolutonary Counci and full executive powers, with new assemble right bow came are the Council members had opposed unanimously himself) Bani-sadr Course. the giving or sucn powers Derore next month's assembly elections. Bani-Sadr's election has also Drovent Inreal the 'Islamic students' in occupa- tion of the US embassy. Ine president has intensitied the campaign isolate occupation by direct attacks on

TEDDYS

CAMPAIGN

we're FaLLInG FaST. TeDDY! more HOT alr!! the Chryster Corporation of an all-time record trading loss of SI.I hillion in the last year.

This has promoted renewed speculation as to whether the Carter administration's plan te bail out the ailing car firm will ever reach fruition: its manage.

predicts rosses or sho trophic nest vcar. uno acre are пои hundreds of creditors all over the USA who could at any point its collapse by calling in outstanding payments.

For US bankers the actual collapse ‹ nrysier increasingly favourable propos auctioned-oft assets the firm

WOUIC

upwards of $200 million to be existing divided amongst government would become the and effectivel soli first to be paid off in the Callot event ¿ventual demise. With even Ford reporting US by and truck sales down 235%, Ine brooms or overpro duction in a depressed market suggest that whole range of vested interests may well I com • even now to sink (hrysier

DITC

in the hopes of restoring profitability of the surviving US Workers In any event those suffering by each turn of Carter's policies are me american works class whose leaders remain tied to the politicians the Democratic and Republican had kooked Some Kennedy as a more supposedly "pro-labour" candidate, and one centres and govern- "parallel ments within governments' now been boosted by Knomein's recent statement ta "Islamic students' had been able to capit- alise on knomeini s against tions US imperialism, and the contrast between this barrage and reticence of his attacks on the other 'super-power", the USSR last week, Khomeini DU publicly echoed statements • declaring support our oppressea aignan Droners unc condemning 'the occupation of their coming bar re been greeted turn has tilt culudss y occupation, can where have been welcomed the have the Stalinists of party yet responded to this blow. the paper While Randjbar has hailed Bani-Sadr as of struggle 'champion the the USSR' with the Chinese SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 13 February 1980 UH... We mUST ration cas now! LeT's Freeze Waces! UM... Prices, Too: more BIG GoVerNmenT! no reGisTraTion! no DraFT! UH... no sanctions acainst iran! UH.. TrY THE SHAH! better able stir some Zimbabwe semblance of enthusiasm from

WUIKCISION

massive abstention in elections has grown year by year. But now the patrotle huc From back page and cry whipped up in the after- math of Afghanistan scems to have pulled behind apparatus and 'law and order'- Witne Wnten Tines Comes. At the same tune carters govern even if they were to win sabre-rattling has Imperialism, through • Gover of stolen the thunder ageind nor Soames is taking steps ti Ronald meet Ine trear or ine crowti Reagan: he was firmly defcated of a working class alternative to lowa by the mor the politics of petty bourgeois Bush. ate" reactionary Georg reformism But tillne action nas invorver none onese enders nas av giving •greater support to the thing to offer the working class of the vicious activities army defend their class interests, US and in dudes repressive measures agains break their mass organisations ZANU and ZAPU-particular!

from the twin bourgeois parties in those areas where centralised fight building for the bureaucratic Contro TrOn has been Mugabe and Nkomo of socialist policies. the terms for e adherence to the Lancaster mouse settiemen! ot this reoressior will fall. on ZANU(PF), , whose weakened leadership by years of in-fighting betweer bourgeois Tine various reformist factions The greater autonomy of th

ZANU

military cadres orice said ov wucast support in his battle for leader ship with Sithole between 1974 Even with the full support of President Machel Mozam- of bique, Mugabe has been unable eliminati within LA Nu are v becaus those most militant were inside Zimbabwe armed combat with the Smith regime: warmly congratu- bureaucracy lating him on his election and diu less enthusiastic The Tudeh Party still main- the tains its full support With the frequent use of the •over vason or Aizianislan.

Zambian jails and police and calls on Banı-sadı irrational his renounce rresident saunoa. NKomo • Wa. the able to assume a greater central and he too failed ised control, but Imam' (i.c. Khomeini). all the militant: subores. This blatantly counter-revol- Whatever the eventual make- up of the neo-colonial govern.

utionary stance of total confid ment, one thing is certain-it is ence in homein is renectea D.

the "Islamic students'. oniv ov takino uo ine strucelt ularly in their recent petition to for their own independent the imam, tilled with mourning workers for nis liness. bravers lor nis recovery and praise for his able oereno uneir interests Leadership against whoever administers the capitalist state. Guide of the Revolu- 11c The for forward tion may nave been loucred.

way but was not visibly softened by workers is cear-inem sureneti which forces the repressive state this homage seek compromise Khomeini's 'anti-imperialist be directed to torcing those lett 'ine is now being usea to tow Bani-Sadr's bandwagon to talkind leaders who claim to be delivering them from imperialist new presi- position where the to withdraw from a repression, dent, the Imam, can dominate with all the sellout. Thie SOlE which is to stabilise the capital- apparatu:

LOPICSSIY

ist state

Top leaders purged in Vietnam Stalinist crisis Guatemalan peasants SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 13 tiebruary 1980.

NTERNATIONAL

The replacement of three last prominent • mimisters week is only the tip of a vast iceberg of political and economic problems for the Vietnamese Stalinist bureau-!

cracy. The most prominent ot the ministers is General Vo removed i who leaves the Neuten y after 30 Ministry Detence years in the job. two other septuogenar- 1 110 pensioned ian oft are Le inann NgM, Wilo las charge of economic been and Foreign Minister Nguyen Duy Trinh. No reason No official reason nas yel been given for these three sack- little ings.

DUE

Call doubt that they are connected with the disastrous state of the vietnamest suffering the problems resulting from last year's invasion and the military occupation continued of Kampuchea be linked They

MUSI

also the massive purge with taking has been in the Vietnamese CP. Given This purge has been largely that the intervening rapid was one directed against "pro-Maoisi recruitment, elements. figures imply that in CP. officially army, the of the purges at least announced,

LIC COLAC

education of hall a millon Call you distin- one million members help them many

"HEROS LO

have been expelled from or have false guish between TrUC : all Marxism and criticise and over come the venomous influence of There reasOn suppose that the three cacker "pro-Maoist" But ministers are The recult has been a fall In Party leading veteran membership of the Party from about 1½ million (al the time of leaders have been puritu Most dramatically.

HORTO

TOU EI

Hoan deposed last Van was 1976) to ony Over Vice-premier only million, according to a report in he party newspaper Nhan Dar defect to reking public conferences as werene desperate struggle The occupation of the of a score of peasant ieaders Spanish embassy in Guate being held in a dry well by the mala City a fortnight ago, army. which resulted in the killing Northern uatemala suffering all the violence of 40 people by the police, inherent in untempered imper- was an act of sheer desper- ialist expansion. ation, The cost to the workers and peasants has been extraordinar- peasants who took over building came from the ily high: between eignt and ter of Quiche are discovered daily; over northern province bodies particularly whic Mas ocen hit by the military badly rebression betweel 20,000 dictatorship of Gen. Lucas 1976 and more Enan the were killed in the 18 months up Garcia in recoll yedis to the end of 1979 in an area known Ouche Is of class violence as the Northern Transverse Strip " ne • level been given a. (NTS) which has been more constant than i trade status by the region Latin any OT military in order to lure it or AnielLa and mineral companies and Corruption into the ailing capital After of- corruption years economy. expropriation the military Capitalists operating in the and NTS pay very low taxes, receive has become a madr sector and have capitalist class in its own responded, to virtual carte blanche to do what has and they will with the local popula- fluctuations in ine relations or tion, for which troops have been production-both between capital and labour and between Thus, such companies as Sir rival sections or capital 11 Coll Goldsmith's petition-in HasiC the oniv wav Resources, registered in Luxem- bad toriuy unlands at rock villages Hence the 'reformist' sector of the bourgeoisie has suttered in order to lay he degree pot ill at cont bottom prices degree That it no longer oice lines. coherent force, winere There is resistance lie OUtlales army is sent in. leaving the state little choice for an alternative 1978 over a hundred crowd peasants were slaughtered in the of Panzos, Alta butchers. town refusing to yield Guatemala crucially after important to the imperialists. It their lands. Reports from San Miguel de Üspantan, in Quiche, give details the tide of insurgency in Central denouncing the Hanoi regime!

that all the purged party

NICHOCES

organised pro one I hey aimost certamily sepics ent diverse currents opposed to Hanoi regime; ine. burcaucialn accentuated and resistance to invasion of Kampuchea. are closely connected, since hardships economi result from partly heavy Hailitali ing massive army 200,000 Kam- pation puchea (relative to the popula- America The Guatemalan bourgeoisie has long oeen ine nedemonie force in the area and the army is the only one capable of resisting a mass uprising. 1972 the sulatemaans Salvador to intervened suppress a Christian Democratic coup; and in 1978 they went to the aid of Somoza, salvaging the Guard from defeat National the tirst pnase of the Civil war weak qualalilyls Honduran •sorentated torship ot Gen • raz Guatemalan troops are massing Honouras ano frontier of El Salvador to invade should the Salvadorean masses launch a full-scale reactor In Guatemala oppos- the dictatorship has ition been arowing appreciably The two main union feder- (comprising over 160 150 and incustria peasant oroanisations, the Democratic Front Repression

(DFR),

the acaisl is simply which •rootamme or to defend basic bourgeois demo- cratic rights. In view of the failure of any bourgeois retormist survive the repression the DFR taken almost lid. unsought rad will in the now tampon- alliances spring- ooomar Trontis ing up in Central America.

countryside the increasingly militant Committee tion of the occupied country it is one of the largest occupying ares u istory. Numerous reports from Viet- recent months attest to nam in an extreme shortage of food and other consumer goods which the burcaucracy has been promising ever since the victory to subury against American imperialism in the economic fact of the have conorton: got worse since then This not only orue expansion into Kampuchea, but of the impact of 2uSO occaus the elimination of private retal in 1978; a price structure (CUC) is substantial support drawing through its call for harvest-time strıkes and its tacit backing tol the que leads he leading guerrilla force is Army of the Poor

(EGP)

which undertaken occupations over seventy well-public: and several villaces ised kidnappings as well as the general com- manding the death squads.

The EG Is now conducting combined operations with two other groups-the Revolutionary People Organisation LTIt Arms (OPRA) and the Rebellion

(FAR)

Forces from find dissident sectors of the Christian Democrats and Stalinists.

Guatemala is perhaps excep tional in Central America in the of the peasant preponderance increasingly masses. •diC determining the orm ou struggle. Backward force Compared with thE of Handuras the have long been an extremely oack force, characterised by their attachment feudal forms ano political passivity they become Now moniced ano chaence tne oc tatorship they must be won to a revolutionary • programme me oro etardl Iney will become mere cannon- Page 3 the pages of Nhan Dan to a tidal wave of critical letters.

As is the custom with top these only too common cucunstance.

effort has been, blame onto lower devolve the admiristration levels the (Castro did the same nuDe only last month) bureau- Special shots los crats - to be abousned, le "more controlled prices realistic" (i.e. raised) and much more reliance free market, especially in food.

At the same time, official salaries new neratedy is introduceu the considerably widening present nominal differentials.

reduce nese measures la gap between the official and the : price of food (at black market present the black market price is four times the official price) bring a bit may more food onto the market But they cannot get around fundamental problems the more that • rettected country's production of rice last to amounted y va. much publicised with ll pl moon ted in 1976 required Vietnamese masses in Ho Chi Minh City million tons. the natural disas- Aside from and goods famine which offers ters (drought and floods) which material incentive affected beasalll. and influence from marker unct finally. because production problems in the co- wesorend corruption in which the bureau- north, ovidives numerous from policy vacillations and the material privileges. failure of the government to. win relation to the last point, the confidence of the small and the official ratio of the salaric. middle peasants of the south.

the of top reported that many It is also lowest paid is only 3 to 1, Ho leave

TAOC

estimated Bu Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) bureaucrats and to new the war dile taken into Ine settlements real difference more in the beginning to return in disillusion region of six or even ten ta one to the cities. Embarrassed by tailures and A favourite complaint of the the top bureau- is at present Honor bureaucracy been forced to open directed against calls "manifestations of negativism" within the masses in clearly how- a vent SnOW ever, how once again a Stalinist blame workers and peasants IO!

its own criminal acts of sabotage against socialism. socialism Wal Vietnam can oniv be ooenca ut struggle depose to Stalinist bureaucracy and install • Soviet government under the leadership _ot a party which Trotskyist incorporates the vanguard of the Vietnamese working class then can the heroic sacrifices made by Vietnamese the workers peasalts struggle against imperialism come finally to fruition.

GANDHI

GETS GOING

Gandhi The Indira government has lost no time in showing the direction in which it is headed. One of the first victims was Mr. N.K Sinah, deputy tor-general The Centra Bureau of Investigation. He was dawn raid al carzerin home and taken into custody.

Singh was the officer respon the sible investedut charges against Gandals Sanjay-charges which led him sen To receNe Lucas Garcia tence, , against which he is still reformists, appealing fodder for seek inc • forcibly takeh by more than a moderated of imperialist exploitation armer Donce to anolar stalk- for "questioning" The Guatemalan generals are was eventually peleased or looking arıxiously. TOl support and are said to be pray- Dall ing for a Rèpublican victory in Such pre-dawn raids were occurence under the the elections dictatorial "Emergency Powers" But everybody recognises the imperialist strategy that ot Gandni s last term or orrice.

they act this way changing rapidly after Afghanis police officers senior tan, and that the State Depart- faced with little choice ment is what chance is there for workers other than buoving up the dic accept attacks on tatorship or suffering the conse basic quences of civil war their jobs, wages such as tel rights? now approaching in El Salvador.

Page 4 SDLP desperate to get in on "power sharing" The ill-starred Atkins Down, Newry and Mourne-the talks on the political future arcas nave nourisned. of the occupied six coun- Paisley of ties Ireland received doubtful assistance Taller The SDLP's wheedling last week from the petty attempts to squeeze in on the bourgeois Catholic careerists all. ana secure oo ever oce for the Catholic middle class in of the SDLP. any devolved follows! on i ney tablea a position papei the staticall stressing the need for any con- orevious weel Paisley embody, who insisted that any Cabinet would ule conceol o need at the highest level. Unionists Majority-i.e. Protestant Indeed Paisley, as the strong- rule local worked a est of the Loyalist politicians at 10 t Leork at the helenose coel, they level, and therefore could Atkiris, is strongly attracted to argue. Atkins "Model A" which But in those areas where the would consist m a one namer

SDLP

"partnership" works will law-making and administration powers. will we Loyaust parties Covering up on nurseries If you don't like the law John the Stevas, • Leader House this week in Parliament! or, worse, discover you've been breaking it for the las in an amendment the 36 years off and on-well, 1944 Education Act which change it! would make

OTOVISIO

definitely a discreționary power Thus thought Norman St Sparts stage expensive failure The so-called "Leninist to put iner views Faction"-five people He pointed out that from the point they had first develop expelled from the Workers ed Spartacist positions they had d Socialist League in January three circulated for breaches of the Consti- ments and been allocated speak- ing time at every national meet- tution arising from their ing of the movement-including for the political support two special conerences. International Spartacist No agreement Tendency-held a public meeting in London last Their right to their Friday. only been challenged when Not surprising in marned became clear that they had political agreement with _our Despite that mite me which agreemend was aliciol with the -which is pledged capitalise on the Lt s claim to to smash the WSL Spartacpes independent of the IST, the Alan pointed out provided only thornell van en exon a been ma only unanimously endorsed by audience-including heavies special conference flown in from as far afield as One LF San rrancisco-but also domin- NeWS, To% the meting that had broken with ated the affair organisationally.

in order to remain in They took photographs, and hovered. Lanc alli for all the talk now of "bureau- on anyone poised to descend cratic had ar exed hat the thE leader- expulsion' Faction from the floor of the meeting wished the exceed ship was "soft" for not expell- allottea our minutes speaking ing them earlier! time. The leaders of the LF had been meen me or ana act Two August familiar and lengthy year, Spartacist added. not only kept this was WelC speakers Mark ottered by secret tom ine wol out aso South and Di Parkin from some members of the claiming they Faction itself. that had which failed expelled" „Ine meeting, from the WSL. to attract more than a handful

A WSL

non-Spartacists, member was then was which "extended" speaking even expensive Talle time-8 minutes-to reply. Even in this amount of time fraudulent pretence Tonv of the WI "independence. Its five mem- nearesol We had to mail the eate formally DeTS SOOn had been expelled announce their membership of after the IST. being allowed only 20 minutes Atkins These powers would not-at least at first-include responsib- management of the economy or law® But they would mark the step towards the restora-

TITST

tion of a the Stormont regime. lines of stormont proposals ANO ATKin

TOI

the representation of the views of the Catholic of local councils, rather than- as at present -apparently obliga tory. This move is a direct result of the legal embarrassment Tory County Counci in Oxford shire is facing as it plans to close down education service and replace 11 wits someras ver unagnoncer -playscheme service them child and parents per Urged on by the right wing- led Campaign for Nursery Educ the local bureaucracy the NUT has pledged to take thi Council to court for breaking the 1944 Education Act. And une nornev wencidi Nichat. Havers, has confirmed that existing law the plans may be legal No illusions The consequent move by the readersale nas surprised the Oxford Save Our No sets as ine poo policy illusion Ders dele Key Positions-which has been peddled by consistently CNE leaders. Nor do they see the second amendment put by of reprieve for the nurseries.

Oxford Nursery campaigners picketing Carlisle last year a free hand to do as they please.

• But su ucals DDLE indicate that-wnne pre pared to lean over backwards to secure a pro-imperialist solution —Lev sell a deal which makes no toward some form of gesture No concessions on ine olner. nand would find it hard to persuade his hard-line followers to accept Smack

LOU

strongly of concessions to the Catholics. if some squalid deal were Te emerge Irom inese spor adic talks, seems certain that struggle for the rise the brought new strength and republican confidence the will movement conclus develop. Thẻ only way forward to rights establish unle of the Catholic majority and the Protestant minority Ireland as a whole or resolve the crush ing material problems laced. Dy This amendment states that closures be nursery the Secretary State for Education, Mark Carlisle. Avoiding action But, anxious to cling to any method other mobilising direct callicis alic war Culls right wing action Tne NUT and the CNE claim that Mark Carlisle has his stated desire or nursery caucanon to remain at its present level and therefore will not allow Oxford to co area will closures. and parents must diverted 110 I appeals procedures and letter writing extravaganzas. The task ahead is to build a who services under the and use the Tory axe. This campaign being launched Agahnst Oxfordshire the Cuts Campaign which is nolding a _conterenci on March 8 in West Oxford Community Centre (10 a.m. to WIl WISCUSs policies necessary to fight the cuts SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 13 February 1980

TROOPS OUT

NOW!

IRELAND

throughout Ireland is shown itself prepared to fight workers through the struggle for an Irist for its rights: it is vital that the WUrACIS ICOUOHU

DIICISI

worker. movement mobilised fight for the ine main oostacies to such a ‚struggle are the British army of immediate withdrawal of British in the six occupation loves to enable me disa beobic Haughey to determine their own political ana Ene (bourgeon government in the South future. Irish working class has Leicester cuts fight But the conference went on The signs are that the 9-point to adopt fighting one-day strike action on 27 programme to fight the cuts, February called by the NUT Inclucino against Leicestershire's £6 * Resistance all public million cuts in education service cuts councillors will * Demandin spending receive implement the cuts retust substantial from support. and refuse to raise rates or rent: other public sector unions.

-instead adopting a policy of This emerged. •following overseenCine "successful delegate con- *Declining labour movement highly support for councils that labour terence or Tories-including cuts called by. Leicester Trades Council weekend which strike action where necessary.

i policy of occupation to attracted 45 delegate! • du tel deservers (TrOM move services, backed up by support-" Resolutions ing strike action were taken by *Fighting for strike action to

NUPE,

NALGO

branche. • Labour Partv stu cloaks do leads the National Union of Students ane to cerene mentino eves from the Inland *The demand public motion service spending to be protected a sliding for a policy of a total ban on acals Illatior And local scale of spending. the accounts of tabled a resol- Women's Grour public sector authorities to be

UTION

stressine threat posed to women by the •oeree to eected workes comi cuts in social service spending.

mittees reveal the profits made by private contractors and Tne MP Jim Marshall spoke on the ne banks of *The establishment problems tradership now delegate committee to action boseo in ine labour rarty Jo Richardson concen drawin curate from trated on the need to fight the the TooeTner celerates Trades Council cuts sub-com. mittee, the three Labour Party ano Nure Nationatice GMCs. Roger Poole peddled the union's oranene. limp policy of calling on Labour tenants' associations, women's groups and student unions.

councilors to resen roller lar implement the cuts. Selective strike gets brush off Bureaucrats in the In Avon, the savage cuts (by National Union of Teachers natural wastage) meant that new timetables had to be drawn have with come up yet Inan another form of "limited members are refusing action" in "selective areas" operate. to defeat the Tories' educa.

Council do Here the tion cuts. even ban to niscuss ine 9т?

tion, in • spite the teachers strike action, until February 15, Aller une axing or coo lods Avon and 90 in • Trafford at and the Chairman of the Educ Christmas, teachers have at last tion Committee Norman Reece called out in some school witch-hunt Tuesday Wednes strike on militant teachers by day and Thursday of the las call two weeks children • from schools scheme. argue the NUT regarded as "centres of agita- 1 IS leaders, hits the Authority two ways: a) by taking action in the attacks on the As lurtner schools and education service emerge daily - Council pay teachers' wages for along with four days out of seven in the and transport medi week! charges-the leadership of NUT In Trafford in Manchester and

NUPE

Unde the Council have further pressure to call the only conceded ten jobs and a review serious action that can be taken to defend jobs and services-all with an extra £1.5 million on next year's budget.

It's agreed-you foot SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 13 February 1980 the bill! NUPE and Labour Party local told Labour's last leaders are apparently covernment conerence week that councils that

TOO K

agreed on one point in the Tory minister Heseltine to court struggle on local authority would receive the support spending cuts: whatever Lour's tront. dench —or di that is worth! the working class happens, And Hattersley was at pains must shoulder the cost! councils should stress NUPE's Executive Council not break the law in what he "delay" carry- has tabled a policy statement to saw as moves the Labour Party. NEC that ing out ory cuts. What course

DIODUSCO

Labour councils should of these policies is any from all refuse to make cuts. the concestion 2) That instead they should organised strength of the work- increase the rates. ing class in the struggle against 3) this provokes a con- une lory cuts Tory frontation with the • whole Laboul Conniving government. Ine council should resign in order to fight a by election which would officials are reelected-give

NUPE,

whose WeTt throughout them "mandate

TON

Enel Contine Cuts rate-rising policies. the oublic sector.. orevers to out the onus on handfuls of muddle- All this is hedged about with Labour councillors But headed

CROCO:

rhetoric. each town rather than show the course nest OTTerS Labour councillors carte strength of its 700 000 mem- bers and involve other public rates sky blanche larst fight to the high-f2 per week in Lambeth- thus penalising workers" and stop the cuts. the Indeed Alan Fisher whole sections. mice cass into a write attit local covernmenu Come tiled of reactionary frenzy. did issue an appeal to NALUU and the NUT. But it was not for More likely, Labour ally a joint programme of strikes and Council Tooinaray enouen occupations to stoo Ine CUrs astronomic rate de ethe Toribs and denies thay defend Labour councils that imposing increases would be thrown igno minousy iom once oy diy overseen me buts. voters-leaving simply tone ex-counch- call Them with affiliate to the Labour Party!

passive sit back and watch Stark choice through the cuts. Labour Party's Home ' he With the Tories hell-bent on has yet

FOCU

their working pronounce on this nait willed attacks of lik scheme; but it has been eagerly class, and equipped witn a newty Council Parliamentary majority handed Lambeth endorsco them treacherous leader, leTt winger tea nright. Meanwhile the Party's years covernmen line of policy as spelt cuts and wage controls, workers present and the local authorities out by right wing Shadow Envir- Secretary HOv service fact stalk is-if possible-even choice. Hattersley They can follow their exist- Reverse Tory cuts? insists Kinnock Facing both ways-Kinnock Mark Rusher, IFL Labour trade union and leaders down ine shiboery odlti of retreat and betrayal, endors-" hopes Hallelsicy s Labour government in 1984.

Or they must take up the Wise words Former Coventry Audrey Wise has pointed out that the Labour Party defeat the Tories cannot outside until it defeats those inside its ranks. Labour Weekly reports her telling a meeting callea by Campaign Labour Party Democracy and the Labour Co.

"Prentice has found his right But an awful lot of MPs place. The witch-hunting atmosphere in the Labour Party and the crackdown on ministers by the shadow Callaghan leadership have had their tub- impact thumping Tribunite educa- tion spokesman Neil Kinnock. His wen-renearsea snow ol anger and dema- spontaneous delivery anti-Tory

COCO

truisms won a fullsome standing ovation at last year's Party con- terence But week Knock. adamant refusal to promise that would Lalu u moemer a run ana maneulalt restoration of Tory education cuts aroused an angry of the Parliamen- al d tary Labour Party. Kinnock-a committed reformist who has consistently waiting argued wwn a 1934 destared trat to mike for 1984 declared that such a promise would be "hope lessly dishonest", because it was forecast the impossible economy in the next four years!

told the Guardian after- wards that: "I am not interested in offer- ing unconvincing half truths the British people or the labour movement. shadow unev spokesman who will tell that the moon is made of green that it is there and get line bletter look for some ady else d elected office, they Immedate Caust these Callaghan-style arguments was the discussion on whether Knight. (pointing) on Lambeth cuts demo fight for a new revolutionary recoershio labour move ment which will fight for the of general strike mobilisation action to bring down the lorie and clear out the Labour traitors. the Labour nonl now flexes its muscles for a with socialists confrontation tuite for Wise and others ho rarty, now time for of the danger from Tories talk steps to drive them out. They receive the enthusiastic backing of thous- anes or aour ranty memoers should they undertake this long overdue task No the next Labour government be committed to repeal should the Tory provisions allowing councils to what they like for bus travel and school meals Even some Tory MPs from rural areas have been forced to bus travel proposals oppose tie to ice cost of poing of ermites cost of living of families outside the mam towns Kinnock's stand rebrecens abandonment of an abrupt high flown 'left' rhetoric canne. which promised Labour would instantly abolish places' Tories' scheme send сплотей то private schools. Scandalised He scandalised by calling pres sation or industries by the Thatcher government. But in now seeking ingra- Tinte me we e caca , and distance himself from gang left, Kinnock Labour's assisted by his occasional left gestures. One Labourite pointed out the Daily Telegraph after the

PLP

• meetine tar there Heell have been moves by angry wingers to oust Kinnock as Shadow Education spokesman but the new back oecaus had only recently been hreatened with the sack by the calatnan -ior volle wil Tribune Group against British nuclear programme! With a nod to the left' and right, Neil kinnock is desperately clamber- curtsey ing his way towards a career of reformist treachery. Page 5 Prentice off the leash target for savings as a result o Having finally abandoned their investications the irksome pretence of any New courses will be run to persuade and train Social Secur- concern for and the labour movement, run- start le intimidate claimants.

BOOK ELS

Labourite away right wing produced will to press •Reg Prentice is now a lead.

Th Torware can all ing light in the Tory attacks overall target is a £50 million saving in SS payments on children, the unemploy.

of All in ail the tirst year the ed, the sick, the Tory government disabled and strikers fam- additional 1,000 fraud investi- ilies. creeping and snoopin now brings covine on workine class tartie: Every week forced into poverty the new announcement of ways in inability of the capitalist system which the Tory cutbacks will hit , living • adequate jobs and most oppressed the weakest standards, child care and socia sections of the working class services. from the refusal to raise child benefits to the refusal to Driven out pensions in line with increase Labour government And as supremo, directing ролсу, the end of the subsidies on sordid operations, is th their Reg heating costs for old people.

Minister Tormel LaDoUl who But Prentice, whose tooth and nail was last year proudly told a confer- in the Labour battle to stay ence of a major charity for the very Party was endorsed to the last by over Ine bear their fair share of the Tory including Michael Foot and cuts. other Tribunites And it was Prentice who ten now Labourites are days ago fuelled the Tory rabble understandably anxious to stress the that Prentice was rousing over ine ti million # security benefits paid out of the Part! finally driven out to the families of steel strikers.

fact : that than thi thi ratne : might impiving that the lories took place only deserte Party speed up their plans for laws to frantic efforts the force unions to pay strike pay in bureaucracy-backed up otticial disputes bureaucrats like Clive Jenkins who spearheadec this Prentice is moving further and faster than Thatcher the victimisation and effective herself, who has recognised that expulsion from ASTMS of anti- Prentice campaigner Tony assume that strikers are receiving £10 Kelly. per week in strike pay, and thus But there are still elements in •vd this wom socidi security • the rary leaders indi retain more than a slight affec non-union and tion for the old renegade creating all manner of compli- Observer's cations. Raphael responds week that: correspondent Harassment 'In lighter moments last week Reg Prentici But, however frustrating this dad Stin Comes ene may be for him, Prentice is now Committee ane to uneas as dull nost.

recalling to the working class in a new Securit measures designed to thing the 1975 F coon their comrades series of harass and intimate tae unem while ployed and those social AnO .CoUTSt Tribunite Orme can still find a security friendly word for "Reg". Uncer tne cuise or a crack down on "scroungers", Prentice prentice nas. une envious resocc is establishing a new Gestapo of of his fellow crypto-Tories that on within Labour's lead linger Trauo omnicers ment review officers-whose job ing tank. will be to press-gang unemploy- Should the Callaghan inquiry and its promised witch-hunt of Militant and othe socialists in union

JOOS

social seCurl) rates of pay. _abour s rank ane me all te In one, produce the necessary unnamed, city, every the authority the unemployed worker will be sub tion the jectea to a speclal investigation: rent wind

COT

Officers will also be taken on other prentice. move , more track deserting openly-if not all the way to the down least firmly Tory front bench, at nusoano. Special investigators out o the ans o me loo each be given a £50,000 a year Prentice

MAKERS OF MODE

3. Walter Benjamin Page 6

MARXISM

known the It is only recently become 'Arcades project' Walter that Benjamin When France fell to the has been retrieved from Nazis, he fled to the Spanish the obscurity of history frontier, where and restored to his true committed sulcide on being to be told that he was perhaps status, as the handed over to the Gestapo.

brilliant nost and original Marxist cultural Tragic critic of the twentieth century. The tragic career Benjamin is in some way a Born in Berlin in 1892, sign of his tragic times.

the son of a wealthv Jewish marked by His family, Benjamin was active ille was exile, deprivation material in the radical literary move- ments of pre-war Germany, and a frustrating inabilitv to his work published. get and wrote pioneering doctoral thesis on German

HUOTTO

German/Marxist colleague, baroque tragedy. So pioneering was it that rerusea to publisa one of mis most important works). his unable exallels, writing His shot uncersiane WOre OI failed him: his degree, thus through with suttering and composed of melancholy, depriving him of all fragments and briet, academic career. brilliant passages. It Precarious marked often by a profound Beniamın obscurity. Instead, Benjamin lived a with Lortuousy existence most or callous some Berlin and Frankfurt intractable problems of as a critic and translator; he was culture. nistory ana pontics introduced Marxism by Disdaining any philosopher Ernst clarity, Benjamin writes as Bloch, and became a close though sentence has every friend playwright been painfully wrenched Bertolt Brecht. his deepest 110N I cultd- He fled to Paris in 1933 tions. Nazis the self-con- Call clu acutel power, and lived there until scious of his Jewishness-of 1940, working on a massive belonging to a cultural trad- Paris study which has ition which lids OCCIl Nazi troops march through Paris, 1940 hounded, ridiculed, mis- understood. His writing has much of the riddling Clipilalil the Jewish trad- quality of sacred wallngs demanding a severe labour reading his Irom audience. Greatly preoccupied with the importance of tradition recalls Trotsky's (Benjamin insistence in Literature and Revolution that *we Marxists have always lived in tradition'. he is at the same time a notably idio-

WHOSE

insights notoriously are annicult to caregorise What importance, Inen, has obscure, idiosyn- cratic cultural critic present-day Marxism? Break-up One answer is that Benjamin one of the most traditionalist of thinkers. he was also one of astoundingly the most Beniamır modern through a period which saw explosive The break-up ol traditional cultural forms.

Futurism, Expressionism. Surrealism: these and allied scandalously middle class. 'realism', shibboleths "tradition' 'beauty' in •and art, unleashing new produc- Hitler at a giant Nazi rally tive forces, and the drives of unconscious itself, to the challenge the settled con- ventions in which the bour- geoisie finds itself securely reflected back to itself.

Materialism But such movements are not thereby necessarily in a socialist revoluotay sense; and Benjamin's aim was to credle a revolution ary aesthetics by harnessing them to historical material- ism. In his pioneering essay as Producer', The Author he notes that the question which Marxist critics have posed traditionally work ol art is.: wnal Is It: position with regard to the productive relations of its time? Benjamin himself, how- ever. wants to pose a new question: What is the work of art's position within the productive relations of its time? What he by Hicalls all that this 1S culture depends upon certain forces and relations of production: and the task of the revolu- tionary new 'forces of cultural pro- duction' and new social rela- tions between artists and audiences Gramaohone records. Io1 example, are yelling cla SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 13 February 1980 A new From the 1920s to the tributions to Marxist the thinkers indifferent or in occasional revolutionary heritage of 1 From George Antonio Gramsci to Jean series to Herbert Marcuse, a po Marxist' theory has been to receive full critical as themselves. How are the Stalinist these writers to be weighe contributions to Marxist t In this series, Terry Ea of the theorists named ab a full evaluation of their w form of production known these social OverTUTS relations, strips off the thea- the concert hall and making it obsolete; film and trical illusion forces deeply are audiences into active; changing traditional modes critical relationship to what perception, they see techniques and relations of There seems no doubl cultural production. Benjamin's InaL Paintings in an art-gallery theories are marred by have what Benjamin calls an "technologism'-a Collall 'aura' uniqueness, that technical

OCCI

distance developments will in them- and permanence them; but the selves lead to changed social mechanical reproduction of relations the cultural 1n paintings tends to destroy field. alienating and Few would now claim the that a Hollywood close-up viewel encounter the work in his demystifying, exactly was own particular time and piace about, say, the newspaper- Whereas the portrait trad- keeps its privileged distance, itional literary divisions and the film-camera penetrates turned readers into partic- brings its object closer and ipants-has been trimphant- 'de-mystify' it. ly borne out by the Sun so lenas to And whereas traditional But it Beniamin's ootim- painting allows you restful, ism needs heavily qualifying healthily contrasts contraton STlll film is constantly modify- with the patrician pessimism con- with which many Marxist' ing your perceptons stantly producing a 'shock' critics have greeted modern effect. cultural developments. For Georg Lukacs and Brecht his Stalinist progeny, modernism in art is merely Traditional drama rigidly bourgeois decadence: art is a matter of 'timeless' value alviats stage trom dualence.

framing the play as a com- changing than Taine modity to be passively con- material production but the political They begin, as Brecht sumed. drama of writers like Bertolt remarked from the 'good Brecht of whom Beniamu ola tnings -irom Ine estad• was the first great champion lished culture of the past-

SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 13 February 1980 itself can become the basis ot a revolutionary' form of RN perception. The artistic technique of 'montage'- - the connecting dissimilar images shock an audience into new recognition-is one example this, the films Eisenstein, the theatre of Brecht, anti-tascist 'photo-montage of the German designer John Heartfield. present day, major con- It would be a mistake to think ry have been made by that Benlamin more than a 'cultural' critic.

lacahly opposed to the His otskyism. relationship between 'tradi- to Louis Althusser, tion' and relevant not only to art but aul Sartre, Karl Korsch erful body of Western lo me waole maller or wnal Marxism means by history.

veloped, which has yet ssment by Trotskyists Orthodox The 'orthodox' idea of - revisionist politics of history which Benjamin against their theoretical confronted the was _crude ory? of German evolutonish ton examines the work social democracy -history as conveyor-belt moving e, as an introduction to smoothly onwards to deliver sucialisi a some muelle point in the tuture Against Benjamin revolutionary and seek to perpetuate this concept of history - 'socialist' future: into one deeply although whereas the revolutionary, with his Jewish entwined other art as in mysuca menace sphere, must begin from the The revolutionary work- 'bad new things' -rom ine ing class, he wrote, is nour- forces and relations ished dreams notby of a disintegrating capital- liberated grandchildren, but ensaved This Benjamin's was ancestors; and the problem achievement: that he saw in thus history was the the fragmentation of very problem of how to bring advanced apitalis society past to Tne bear on the he seeds of a revolutionar present, moment of In a culture. revolutionary shock and crisis. Baudelaire What must be cultivated, he claimed, was revolmon- his breath-taking 'nostalgia'- but ary not study of the French ooe sense of a NOSLa212 in ine Charles Baudelaire, sentimental ritualising of finds Beniamir behind the dead. Baudelaire's poetry the very be

HOUSE

rhythms nineteenth- nostalgia: ceaseless industrial capital- century appropriation of the revolu- ism tionary past, which would It is a typically urban blast through the empty experience of 'shock' and time' of the present and fill disconnected sensations, it with new meaning. where experience somelning Remembrance absorbed and ritually savoured sample, in the later french (as Benjamin found an image tor this in the Jewish tradi- writer Proust), but becomes tion of 'remembrance'-that flood of conflicting perpetual renewal of the stimuli with which past, through tradition consciousness must actively which Jewish belief grapple. brings forward the time of Industrial capitalism, the Messianic coming. Benjamin has The religious idealism of recommuses deeply altered our very Benjamin's philosophy of sense-perceptions; but this history must obviously submitted a materialist Chuuue. But his dialectical uniting ot tradition ana moaernily, idealist as it is neverthe- powerfully suggestive. Less Tradition must be but can preserved only by violence preserved and struggle. Impact Benjamin In every age, wrested free from the con- which inreatens to overwhelm and this can be done only by submitting 'deadly impact of It to the new thoughts'. The revolutionary class must vigilantly preserve the whole ot its history, traditional story-lene. preserves the consciousness his society, the individual collector rescues' past which others may discard (Benjamin was himself obsessional collector) But it will only be on the the will be able to receive fullness of its Tne past', rewrite its own history and so tell its own story. Unity Beniamir Was conscious of how easily the Walter Benjamin past is fetishised as he was of how quickly can be erased. What he sought was some dialectical unity beyond possibilities. Unless such a unity was found, not even the dead he warned, would be safe trom fascism. For fascism is the final, brutal obliteration of history; socialism is the violent of

CUTCCLOT

history in the service of the present and future. Benjamin's thinking was seriously distorted by ideal- ism and dogged by a brood- ing melancholy: one of his the writer Romain Rolland Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will'. Victim But as a hounded victim of fascism, he did after all have much to be melan- cholic about; and though mitted the 'deadly to impact of new thoughts', it is a gain that fascism was not after all able to erase it When Bertolt Brecht heard of his sucide on the Spanish frontier, .com- mented that this was the first serious loss Hitler had managed to inflict German literature. Lukacs : Page 7 'Block'- a look at art in society By Ernie Stubbins Art journals come and go with the ebb and flow of James Boswell, the founders of Al and a CI the artistic movements. mustration. IrON *torte ny arts an other Boswer's work contirm bourgeois intellectuals to petty impression enormous involve themselves in the living the influence of Stalinism and were are not new. On the contrary doomed never to achieve their war art history is littered post full potential. by the wItchare attempts. Pioneering 'Block' is one of the latest of Describing itself these attempts. The case of Anthony Blunt a journal devoted theory, analysis and criticism of is another tragic examble: very few of the commentators on his design and the : mass media', a1 l case mention it fills a gap in British artistic pioneering eitorts Malas art criticism to brital Serious Peter Dunn and Loraine interesting Leeson present • ar theory and It gives the impression in its first of being a generally locussing on tnew work in bast London with trades councils serious attempt to deal with the and the Bethnal Green Hospital problems faced by the artist who seeks to relate art directly Call Dall Here are manv arusis ore pared to involve themselves with sociansi tress readers wil community struggles, but few of find stimulating reading in 'Block that unem are aoe to seline despite the fact experience theoretical 'the authors do not yet (?) have examination in that the way clear political , line as a •Dunn and Leeson are "Block' also reproduces the can be said to excluded by the Arts works have a definitely left position on Council from exhibition the range of questions, although Haves asI Sultaner this is focussed lten Conrad Atkinson's print was entirely on matters of art theory designed to be included with a which require considerable presentation set tor the vueer study. Mother, prepared by teachers at Une or ine most interesting the Slade School. accessible articles riches Artists Tony Rickaby on Thalidomide International Britain created in early the It depicts the Distillers Com 1930s, influenced by the Com- pany range of products pur- munist Party chased the family Rickaby's account brings out koyal of the displayed many and between among them I a package of the relationship the intel- deforming thalidomide drug iccluals and tie cr in lie sus.

and some more general aspects.

Which Distillers sold The extraordinary The accompanying text by Atkinson documents the rising of a whole zonelaliun of Distillers and ther mtelec uas to •olow lne loyally through its political refusal to compensate many of somersaults between the wars is . the damaged children The other work vividly depicted. saved from censorship by Block' is a series Fony • Rickaby Relationship ol arawings Dy called 'Fascades'. Again work through succeeus It is not until this depressing bland image contradiction ola picture clear that today's with the savage reality revealed by the text significance of Trotsky's efforts presents to build different forms of of the facades of the numerous political relationshir right bodies with ted wing that infest ing artists such as Rivera and Breton. activities of the organisations in The picture is fleshed out by an attached text The Battle for Trotskyism Second edition of the opposition documents presented inside the WRP by the present leader- ship of the Workers Socialist League With a new introduction Price £2.50 plus 20p postage and package from Workers Socialist League; 31 Dartmouth Park Hill London NWS 1HR

Captain middle America Page 8

THEY GAIN THE SUPPORT OF THE

GULLIBLE, THE HATEFLIL,AND

THE FEARFUL... AND PARLAY

INTO POWER ON A:

THAT

WIDE SCALE!

I'D LIKE

TO HELP

YOU, SON--

A supreme test for America" "Captain without breaking sweat. • Since probably part of the staple of commercial reading diet of all Socialist degrees But just in tress reducts. fought for the case it isn't, it may be worth fears of the deepest commenting on the story-. muddie Classes line of a recent series of preached issues. against of devastated trall ture the good Captain America fitth columnists" succeeded in smashing tous wake. gang Force and scuppering their plans Hulk for taking, New York world domina launchal comic-book No small achievement, and ing one which will have been avidly heroes as Spiderman burier. tril international audience of over Thor, the five million readers. Nick Fury was early taken and Strange America the Captaln lantern-jawed

WIIU

InC radical year after year tirelessly fights student movement. liberty and the Wiselve where anglo-saxon middle America.

adapted their heroes to take up increasingly liberal positions.

Royal blue tights OIlt series it was stunningly revealed Dressed in royal blue tights that the old McCarthyite right- wing and tunic that appear to have been sprayed onto his perfectly an imposter. muscled frame, Captain give his America s image is compierca and began by a striped belt with a white and by a stars-and-stripes star Crookea CoDs used shield which can be for well as Mana-like crimials and various bizarre lunatics bent on anytning tom a acadly weapon to a parachute He also wears a blue mask Wide eyes with a large 'A' on the forehead and rather fetching little white dove-wings over the ears case you're Dy Ine way, lil has had to grit his perfect white wondering, the 'A' does stand for anarchy-the Captain Ine most definitely an agent of the anguish that besets a super-nuro bourgeois state. pretty girl with wide he acts as the dealing with big breasts than he is forced to lawman, ultimate abandon his dream of for the police detached normality. and army, and sorting in the FBI and CIA corruption of little super-heroes, as well as taking on the super- baddies. chopping nursery, Experiment cating evil. Which brings National Force. Captain America was created in 1941 in secret laboratory ise a rally in Central Park experiment which transformed a Their leader, puny Us soldier into a ligatig Director, dresses in all-white machine who practically the Axis destroyed do mis tolowers. mmuauy powers

- -BUT MY DEPARTMENT HAS

BEEN HANDCUFFED! WORDCAME

DOWN FROM "UPSTAIRS" TO LAY

OFF THE NATIONAL FORCE!

SOMEBODY

THEY MUST HAVE

BIG ON THEIR PAYROLL!

By Jeff Harris with varying success, values and American the Mccarthyne era ne communism and icit a

PYRE!

spics in his right- In the late sixties the Marvel menacere incluu- such warm and wonderful the Silver Hulk, Incredible

T'OUT.

and Sergeant Marvel's editorial board saw and money America" Captain had in fact been alter ego a sound beat- take and politicians as of black and white audience violently workers and youth is want hate hostie_ You you get Grand Dee Grand Director tries Through it all the Captain standard fascist rhetoric some ("A white America is a strong teeth and jut out his square jaw America!") but gets pelted for personal inevitable his pains. So he sets fire to a huge sooner has he found a cross which in turn lets off eyes and turning seCTe mill has Park into an instant race 101.

Unfortunately one infected whites turns out to be All visions of raising a brood Sharon Carter. a blonde Arvan karate- temptress who Captain America . has his beady, sex-starved eyes way have to be subordina- OI. She turns into one of the ted to the selfless task of eradi- National Force's most zealous "converts". the We first become The next episode opens with her leading. an armed fascist attack on Harlem. the Grand •A T the chmacue moment only Captain America stands between them and a vengeful the

ROS

MCKENZIE.

-ART

R. PARKER « LETTERING

squad of black gangsters spear- rewards when the defence America gets heading the distance. whole The Captain breaks new 1 lit heads on both sides and leaves reaches law airship under martial Lilt York vew im posed by the National wuar The conventional forces of the state are compromised this the city with mind-gas time nowever Catal America discovers when he goes to see the Chief of Police.

but He tells the Chief that "This National Force isn't something . wait for it Nazis by a differ- new nerve be They've got to hysterical name! VIlL stopped!" tainting) The Captain himself Powerless raustus trom drowning is still The Chiet draws sagely on his pipe and says, • KnOW HU personal these hate organisations work. They prey upon the Jews, the to die for her fascist ideals.

blacks. the old. the sick anyone they can set up as scape- goats for the ills in our society!

the support of the gullible, the never shall it end." nater and ine fearful. But he is powerless to act, Cliche word has come tom somew nere "upstairs" to lay the oll National Force It emerges that the shadowy an art-form all on its own!

figure behind the fascists and • ne seriou. their Grand Director is a bloated "Captain maniac named as Dr. Faustus.

ironies become almost too bewildering contemplate! It turns out that raustus was a psychiatris in a mental hospital -the mental hospital to which the imposter been charitably the committed by right wing Nixon government!

conclusion. perfected his had l'austus mind-control gas and had resur rected the McCarthyite Captain Marvel guise of the comic companies. Hilleille In the who e Swastika of bourgeois individuality mind-boggling In one sequence the Grand Director retreat into closet broadcasts on TV Captain America, his famous shield emblazoned with a huge to emerge Americans. everywhere! Loyal, ano vales right-thinking Americans to blacks are bleeding us Tne off his spectacles death and with our bones!" of law and Needless this un- to say Way. American sporting denaviour gels its just SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 13 February 1980

THE

THIS COLD AND WINDSWEPT NIGHT.

DARK STREETS OF HARLEN HAVE BECOME

WITH CAPTAIN AMERICA CAUGHT BETWEEN

AND TACO DE THE HAVATICALS

NATIONAL FORCE. LED BY THE WOMAN

HE LOVES.

LET THIS BE AN EXAMPLE

FOR LOYAL AMERICANS

AFIRE

•CTOO THE NATIONA

FORCE: NOT EVEN

CAPTAIN AMERICA!

NO MATEN

DOWN YOUR

WEAPONS!

BLOODSHED!

NO WAY!

STEP ASIDE

WE'LL

truth in the rumour that he is real Captain about to join the NUJ and carry within zapping out a principled arallls affair he wouldn't grisly sell many comics that way!

on board i hovering and his Neo Nazis to envelop Or, words of the inthe hangs "ple got the dea ro democracy idea for the thread as the battle National accounts from Tne . of neo-Nazi marches in the Mid- crashes into the sea right next to the Statue West over the (Wild it seems that Unfortunately applause cheering and The are sevenes are gui mus different from the early years of the decade, or the thirties for rescues All of this he can be brought to trial, but torment of however, that the Captain Will espousing specific has anguish-Sharon values other than th burnt herself to a crisp in order political primal ones of freedom and liberty However in the words of the This magazine is not now, final frame, "there is no change in his resolute gaze. The danger not shali ll become, a box for social change, That's to treedom has abated :.. bul not what we're here for. In comic books the cliche is point Is tha America" empoole. many of the contradictions and that underlie most forms of popular culture.

A deeply racist symool l seen opposing racism; the only blacks in the story are criminals; and the ideology or lne tallonal Force is only Captain America's Nov. 1979 value system taken to its logical

INTERNATIONAL

DISCUSSION

And even this leaves out the 60 p entrenched sexism purveyed by

BULLETIN

OLeT

THE TRANSITIONAL

final analysis the

PROGRAMME IN

and

TODAY'S CLASS

heroine syndrome which is s popular is an important image

STRUGGLE

Founding document of All the individual has to d‹ symbolic the Trotskyist Inter- the phone-box and national Liaison shed real life identity. in order Committee as soloes -ll embodiment of bourgeois norms Available, price 75p including postage from Clark Kent only needs to whip WSL, 31 Dartmouth to become Park Hill, London Superman, aggressive champior order and the

NW5 1HR

There no

AFGHANISTAN AND THE

FOURTH INTERNATIONAL

We reprint on this page the text of a leaflet distributed at a 2,000-strong public meeting on Afghanistan recently held in Paris by the Parity Commission. The Parity Commission is a grouping comprising the Organising Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International (led by the French OCI), the Bolshevik Faction and the Leninist Trotskyist Tendency. It declares its aim as convening an open conference of Trotskyists with a view to the reconstruc The leaflet which was well received by those attending the meeting, was co-signed by the Workers Socialist League (Britain), the Bolshevik Workers League (Chile) and the Bolshevik Leninist Group (Italy), and argued the politics of the SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 13 February 1980 Counter-revolutionary i ne Politics of the Bureaucracy.

•ureaucracy Communist Party and the France seek to present the inter- Dovel

LOODS

ATonanistan act internationalism tion of the split and divided Fourth International.

which assists the struggle of the Asian masses acainst Imoerial ism: It is nothing of the kind.

What the bureaucracy newly-formed Trotskyist International Liaison Committee.

defends before anything else are interests. which are fundamentally opposed to those of the international proletariat.

Atahanistan. central As just the same characted same operated trougnour the rest or The worid It has never fought for the proletariat' Ene teader- struggle the Shio The oppressed masses by its political independence and a programme strucele imperialism as much as against On the contrary, the politics of the bureaucracy subordinate the proletariat to the national and the petty bour- geoisie, and so torm a barrier to against consistent imperialism and for the genuine of democratic realisation in Iran, the Kremlin buréau- Tudeh cracy and Party

CITE UST

TERe leadership of the mass move- against imperialism leadership which Stalinist tank in Kabul reoresses me workine cass and its organisations-and condemns the struggle oppressed 'Amin and send in its troops. At defend the Soviet struct e nations (Azerbaijanis, the same time it hastened to re- Union. Kurds) in affirm Trotskyists devotion must reaffirm the name of the national anti tric imperialist unity' portics of detente and peace necessity cerence ful coexistence'. and declare themselves clearly against the retaliatory measures Karmal has spoken more than once of how he does not In India, Moscow is seeking intend to socialism, must condemn the actanlich -nev to make the corrupt regime of and has called for a 'holý war in intervention of the Soviet Indira Gandhi troops in Atghanistan. because dily lne name or ailan acast Ine To that enemies of Afghanistan' affirm- it is inseparable from the total end, the Stalinists are diverting ing the necessity of 'respecting political position of the bureau- the struggles But the sacred principle they must Iraosses or asiam Liary. aware withdrawal Contonation to • see vocase ereco That the Indian bourgeoisie. But today the Soviet Union Soviet troops from Afghanistan These are the and main would not only give no forward same policies not just the prop which intluence the Afghanistan, but euld also give revolution terrioe local sualt workers catastroones the Dower. the hed Army has vir- and peasants. of China in 1927 tually a major boost to the policies of and Indonesia in 1965. state power. imperialism. Afghanistan, Amin's ›The bureaucracy will have That must not mean regime puts itself forward as the position of tailending the enormous CiTiculties in stanilic.

these codepends regime. Trotskyists embodiment of an 'anti-feudal" bureaucracy. must stage. 'Above all else, it feared conditions, unless Nave orocramme walch defends the independence of the ine independent mobilisation 01 our caucracy retreats betore ine the massses and the struggle by pressure from imperialism Afghan masses against the proletariat (however weak in will not be able bureaucracy, establish itself securely take control of in Afahanistan Kuna ders nationalists and against imperial- foreign trade, credit, key indus- except by the expropriation of ism; a programme which carries tries. Yet it is only such policies capital and the the struggle into the heart of the major land. Red Armv itself which can enable the success of owners a democratic agrarian revolution * Immediate expropriation of Defence of the Soviet Union.

to break the resistance of the the banks, key industries, trans The perspective of a social I port and the major landholdings Mao lancowners. overturn in Aronanistan a tresa to put thes under the control of committees retusIng on private property attack policies practice, Amin's elected by the peasants into unleashed the hysteria regime and the workers! For a workers became more and more bourgeoisie across the world isolated, and lost the support of and be covernment ! With the the masses against the reaction- support of th *Arm the masses against the ary guerrillas organised by the social democracy the Italian CI landowners and the reactionary major landowners, the religiou and nationalists of every stripe gangfor a democratic agrarian the moneylenders and has tried to Heroes. Ine ' bourgeoisie the opium dealers who all bene- rouse public revolution! Redistribute all the opinion fitted internationally in the name of land among the poor peasants increasing Credit/facilities and equipment the principle of non-interference an erialist die. and the right of peoples to self- for the peasants! determination. All this, with the *For internationalist The overthrow of Amin's policies! Only the proletariat of ot imposing measures of regime threatened to open the retaliation against the Soviet the developed countrie Union. help the masses of Afghanista may to une division or atonanic.

tan, and a deepening of the rerative weakness atter anu sla to emerce tom oack movement of oppressed nation- the defeat in Vietnam and the ward ceve oomenti alities which could fall of the Shah, has for *The Right of self determin.

dusK moment prevented imperialism ation for the Tadjiks, Uzbelis, Tine Santy Ene SOvIeT bureaucracy itself. Patchouns, Baluchis, Turkmenis.

•om resortino to a cirect milit Imperialism would inevitably *For a socialist federation of ary intervention. But there can have sought to exploit this situ- no doubt that the absence central Asia. the *Freedom of Anon-as much against revolutionary mobilisation worship. For Iranian revolution as to increase of the the separation of Islam from the internationa oroletariat its pressure on the Soviet Union.

would assist imperialism in the state! search for a way out of its crisis *For a programme of agita- fit is worn remembering thai imperialism tried to exploit the launching tion amonst the ranks of the oTtensIve national feelings of the masses against the Soviet Union and the Red Army. deformed workers' states.

*For the soldiers of the Red make independent republic of Georgia a base for The policies of the bureau- Army to play their part in the aggression against the young opposed to such a expropriations alongside the cracy arp mobilisation. That is why the Afghan Hu san workers storer. masses. Right It is this situation which led struggle to overturn the bureau- For assemov Tor the soldiers. the bureaucracy to rid itself of cracy is an integral part of the the election of officers.

Down with bureaucratic privileges!

Many soldiers come - from Soviet une bordering on Afghanistan and subjected to oppression: against the Great. mussial chauvinism The Stalinist bureaucracy! Against national oppression. For inde penoen soviet republics! political revolution! The Organisations claiming to be Trotskyist, and Afghanistan.

1) The SWP and the IST For • the US Socialist Workers Party the torward movement of the world revolution "weakens.

the bureaucracy, increases the pressure upon it and undermines From this thể situation bureaucracy is led (according to the SWP) to adopt quasi-revol- utionary politics So, according to Intercontinental Press "The size and rapidity of the Soviet Souiet do me Afghanistan much to help break ш back or lne ronikt insur.

gency and further imperialism's position. Soviet ano Afghan offensive to defeat the rightist bands is an aid to the oppressed in their battles against imperiaist domination. not on!

Afghanistan, but also neighbouring Iran and through- out the entire * and semi-colonial world." (IP 14/1/80) The

SWP

here exooses lack understanding of the fundamentally counter-revolu tionary character Kremlin's politics and its inah ility to formulate an indepen dent programme which means a Trotskyist programme it tends to turn the military stitute for world proletariat, no so takE old Pabloite con drain une. ception by which 'the revolu tionary (fervour) directed the masses joins as a supplementary force the material and technical forces which are fighting this imperial- overwhelming and •Ine majority" of these forces "is led or influenced by the Dove IM. wu couldn Quatrieme Internationale, Feb/ March 1951). The position of the Inter- Spartacist Tendency nationa differs from that of the

SWE

only by showing a still stronger The oralnoont cretinism article in Workers Vanguard of 11 January can be summed up "Backward sentence people the East, (Kremlin) bureaucracy brings you civilisation". 2) The Parity Committee. If we are to believe Infor mations Ouvrieres 930 [paper of Organisation Ine rrenci Communiste Internationaliste the USA is leaving the USSR • Tree nand to try and re estabiish order if it can" in Afghanistan. The declaration of the Parity Commissior • Comracterises Taraki's agrarian reform which "begins by a partial remission of casant ceot. Iner coes on to a •vision or the larce estates and middle sized properties into six plots". -as reform of the type whịch in the Tsarist empire." declaration goes on to assert that "the movement which allows the rebellion to develop against the central authority • is part of the wider mobilisation or the masses throughout the region".

How do f the imperialists allow. - the USSR a Tree nano. Where has the Parity Com, mittee seen that Stolypin had in expropriation and maine the redistribution of the Yand?

Parity Committee mean that the guerrillas organ ised by the landowners are part of the revolutionary movement of the masses? in fact. the Paritv Commit tee is forced to distort reality in order not to call into question ism and the bureaucracy are cooperating in a 'holy alliance maintain throughout the world And so the intervention in Afghanistan cooperation What is counter-revolution- ary in the politics of the bureau- form of genuine independence of the working class. That does not mean that its politics ano is interests can identified with those of imper- ialism if only because of the basic fact that the dominatior of the bureaucracy rests on the workers' state, and that "The contradiction exIst between world imperialism and the Soviet Union is infinitely more profound than the antag which pit the various

OAISIN:

imperialists one against • (L. Trotsky) The leaflet tor the Pariti Committee's meeting declares: There are those who claim that the Soviet Union vened in Afghanistan to support movement of the Afghan and peasants against and reaction. "If that is so, lot the Kremlin leaders order their their arms the nant over workers and pea sants of Afghan they will know istan: WHat Te do with them. "In those where imperialism has chased been Page 9 where has surfered defeats-in« China, Vietnam, Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua-there ha the 6803 troops of the Soviet Union."

There you have what takes the place o Afghanistan for the Parity Com- mittee. That the soldiers of the Red Armv then arms And then what? Should they stand back and fold their arms? The • Committer ation than more clearly for troops out logic of the Parity Committee's to remate stin make las the Itary actuall but the Oct leadershir does not dare to put it in this form, given thé campaign of the On the other hand, it implies that the absence.of a military Soviet Union contributed the of the victory masses Vietnam, China, Cuba, etc.!

For Trotsky, however "it would have been a betrayal not to help and workers of Georgia bi Peasallls dunned Imperialism Torce between and Revolution'). 3) The United Secretariat.

The United Secretariat finds itself once again the victim of confusion, torn between diamet- ranging from the tail-ending of the

(SWP)

bureaucracy tation 'democratic' public to opinion. Atter Nicaraqua. the curren situation arisino trom the event: Afghanistan has cruelly exposed absence unified acmocratic contrast international oased on rotcy.

ist principles The TILC The principal organisations . which claim to be Trotskvist art on seriously mistaken resting To resolve this crisis (opened so by the predomin ance Pabloism: International), Fourth necessam to recroup the consis tently •Transk yist and democratic Collids fighting to drive out all forms of revisionism the Fourth International and the It is with this perspective that Trotskyist International Liaison (For Committee Reconstruction of the Fourth International) has been 1 formed, we toote toe vowne (WSL) of Britain; shevik Workers League (LOB) of Chile; Bolshevik Leninist Group

/IGBL)

of Italy, Trotskyis Workers

(TAF)

League Socialist utnmark (Democratic Centralist) (SL(DC)) of the United States of America it its first conference, tl • Liaison Committee dopte meet oti the Transitional pro docu intent, Today's Class Cramme Struggle', a programmatic document of nine points After political agreement has been reached on strategic fundamenta alic Liaison Committee attacks, the into democratic-centralist tona racin The Trotskyist International Committee Liaison asked the Organisers of this evenina's meeting for the opportunity to The Parity Committee speak. has replied in the negative, using ne preext or une smal se o the and organisations groups which form the Liaison Com The LCR, on the other hand been invited has speak. It is true that the LCR is consistent organisation, but then its revisionism is also very consent de vs an exone how the Parity Committee puts into practice its orientatior 'Open Conference'- owards an all

UPCT

Trotskyist, claiming without bans or organisational preconditions'? *For a genuinely open con- ference! *For the reconstruction of the Fourth International!

Page 10

INDUSTRIAL NEWS

Fords battle lines drawn The strike Ford's resolving tnem The Langley, where line workers morale the Phase section sapport bassIve walked out demanding rein- of sacked managem ent statement a by manning ended with colleague, Slanes

WILD

return-to-work on last -which in cooperation with the dayshift, Thursday's one the scabs week after the dispute had some production to, take place begun. Strike breakers The nasr relma work was guarantee the that management plant, immediately pushed the wous be ¡aisea al a Matlvital level within a week of ending convenors the action. take Certainly the struggle cannot wetter thev the unionised labour be victory -since termed a strikes WOTKeI Te tars wilnoul us uu. and it will be difficult to resume the action from other sections, the action once •convenors called a mass meeting meeting has confirmed this However, the significance of

MO E

virtuals dispute lay in drawing the support for strike action if the the new-starters weren't removed.

than balcit La lIte

JOIN THE

WSL.

by the advance With workers trade union thousand taking to the oppose Tory : streets policies there is plainly no parliament. lack of militancy in the organised working class. ment fighting day Yet the existing trade union leaders bureaucrats and Labour or lett -have in Britain, —woerner no perspective .OTTer tnose Internationally, prepared fight workers affiliated to deterci

OOS

# VIf1 stall' dards, social services and demo- cratic rights. reconstruction These can only be detended International policies through which start the independent interests against imperialism •i Ine worKinu Class ivici, international has class. parasitic nothing to gain and every thing clacits attempts to restore to lose from degeneratea workers states.

We invite employing class Press Socialist In a period where the contra- dictions anarchic socialism. afst system force tre vroresale closure and destructon of ine forces of society, socialist planned Offty economv on a worlo scale ofters a way forward. To achieve such a perspec- tive headersi• necoed which, in today's struggles fights• Please send me more details Articles of the Workers Socialist Week of League. Name ter; Address more. including postage, 31

SYL,

31 Dart-

WSL,

Send to: London Park Hill, mouth 1HR.

NW5 1HR.

The militancy of the meeting camin pe sirik eos high management and SCaTea DOtll strikers the union bureaucracy. ane from the The new were off starters convenors. and officials, ended the line within the hour, and the rasee рагісіра- llandeencnl uaul the lines jWC- tion' body-the -was non-unionised new-starters immediately convened. At the management agreed to mcculle section, allowed the Iwo- The national meeunz anu that basis alone, without consulting the strikers

OUI

uns_enel . Iliezidlls reading: 'Dispute ended-return to work' Militant stewards inside the declare whether action, would allow break Under threat of independent unallluus Readers of Socialist Press will remember the headlines heralding the massive pay Camden rise gained by workers last

NUPE

February. an all-out strike the ATTeI local Labour-led council hac conceded a 35 hour week, and the demand for a £60 minimum wage by means or a speuia Camden supplément which made up the difference between the existing combined basic with the national rise and the workers beyond militancy, protest Despite the fact that this •o acs ane usions Inar cabil supplement was only alism can be abolished through 1700 non-bónus to conceucu workers (with bonus WorKers Workers Socialist only receiving the a rotskvist move agreed rise) it was still a major in and day vindicated which out to build such a principled all-out strike • the _decision lor readersmip in ine working class action and showed way public sector forward workers begrudgingly following ine newiy -loreu the leadershin's disastrous selec "rotckvct internationa beacor tive strike action tactic.

Committee, which fights for the rumours cir- ño u Fourth 1 here culin than are staard of ano

TAP

• burding standard of gain of revolutionary parties in every living for the majority of its the 1ea0 Strucic ano aans Stalinist. deformed and all readers seek more Getalts oi une yvon dnu ils vorK.

and to jóin us in the struggle for

RED YOUTH 18

Monthly paper of the Socialist Youth League

NUSS

on Action; anti- Six issues.. fascist activity in Leices- Three months (12 issues).

steel strike; Tory Six months (25 issues). anti-union laws; review One year (50 issues) . of new Clash album and

EUROPE

Six months (25 issues). Available, price 15p One year (50 issues) ... from

REST OF THE WORLD

Dartmouth Park Hill, London NW5 Six months (25 issues). One year (50 issues) .. Stalinists take over witch-hunters role

NUPE

says: all out 5%- ayaans insults ow pay

NUPE

theLow says: Paid £60

NOW

Demonstration during the low pay struggle

CAMDEN NUPE

PAY DIVERSION

workforce, the council are now %to pursue their line of avoiding a award, into the supplement.

fight with the Tories. implications 'absorb' that rather WoTe" alc than the The response by ammum waze demanded by Camden NUPE NUPE branch council intends merely tc Liit cuccis consolidate a large, portion of ing on vonony e januar. last ys ravie i ohe oi ate 1700 to fight such betrayal Lowest haay workers with lithe leaving The necessar or no rise in pay this year.

ing should be Left talkers ation necessary This act of treachery coming gains in their living standards.

from a counci that boasts some nut oone the most prominent lead the NUPE talkers' Coleco ss Ken Livingstone and (such leading tary aucucu lor a mass mneclm vnt urner, is ine omer sac ol sisting only their refusal mobilise Tne working class in challenging the l omes mizar lo hilvose culs cuts" group meellg Despite Inel Such a position, proudly boasted supplement they have opportunity, backdoor suronees turned Hil DiC workforce, "amaen mentation of Thatcher's cuts through rate rises. fight. Their retusal to concede the full £75 demanded by Camden NUPE is the first overt cut they

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SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 13 February 1980 John Power, ex-Trotsky- ist and for the past three years chief witch-hunter of the Oxford, last; lett in Friday handed his position 2DAu as president of the Oxford Trades Council over to the Stalinists of the Communist Party He annonced his intention to withdraw from nomination before the vote only minutes Was • aken ar ene iddes councit AGM last Friday two contenders-

UPW

Casey and detecate oerry tong-time stalinist Aucw aele gate Mick Soanes CP/right wing calif c antanct walen exisicu ut the Oxtord Trades Council since =. : was reorganised by the TUC in 1976, then swung behind the oTa inists Disputed This Soanes an gave that of right identical vote to •Ward Pa1 WAng secreta NUPE-who was challenged by NUJ delegate Peter Mcintyre ine vore nowe er wwe wads cou tig bt the stalins, ane right wing hotly . oisoulco. It was first announced to be 51 to 52, then twice recounted and changed eventually to 52 to 54 Many ce ecater •rotesTe that the vote had been mis- claimed counted, and others had been that . rignt. wingers brought into the meeting at the last minute, and had never been their elected as delegates Dy branch. Scab are making, but it is only the first of many if they are allowed After the vote for officers Stalinists, supported motion from the right wing thật the doors of the Trades Council be opened to Peter Sturges, thi 1 ne -oca tọ this plan was scurrilous anti-union Industrial Reporte r from the local Oxfara stewards, of the Mail-a leading member discuss how 'the workforce was sca• nsttute or Joutnals: : Tony Leading Stalinist Gallagher, who had just been course was voted in as treasurer explaine 'clear: an immediate mass meet- : convened to unite that this was necessary in, order "moderate" the left wing in to the whole workforce in prepar- of the Trades

SITIK

luleri meelIeS action to defend the hard won Council: This move-vigorously opposed by NUJ delegates-was than give such a Branch Secre- narrowly defeated.

IMG

member) supplement workers, to be held on February 11-the day of the key Labour 'Fighting the Cuts' (Socialist Press Supplement) policy isolates the available 15p (inc p&p) workers from the from WSL the secuul. 31, Dartmouth Park Hill. ane nea away from the necessary united London NW5 HR.

DON'T GO INTO

THE FIGHT BLINDFOLD!

SOCIALIST

For a

GET

£2.00 clear

PRESS

lead in the £4.00 struggle against £8.00 wage control, cuts £14.00 and redundancies cheque/P.O. to Send your Socialist Press, 31 Dartmouth £9.00 Park Hill, London NW5 £16.00 £10.00 £18.00

Sirs still ready to SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 13 February 1980 Coventry teachers act Over 600 in of positive stand on the cuts tollowing the example of Avon Coventry attended a meet- who face ing called by the NUT Exec- cutbacks, issued a Nas utive to discuss action over members, 330 that the proposed redun- italritis dancies the teaching are protesstonall vorce ano should therefore stage a "silent force. Opposition this first Teachers should not equip ot cutbacks was themselves

TOUTO

witn Danners. slogans, and literature, reso ute and the meetine voted chants overwhelmingly in favour of a argue the NUT bureaucrats.

Monday half-day strike on At the same time, the leader- rebruary when teachers Will

SAID

nas stadee a participate mass anti-cuts further forms of the lobby of the city's ballot form surpasses by far the zabour counci. como exities •т anv tax TOrm thus seeking to ensure a divided Te MAs nas atso suooorted this call to action by the NUT response from the membership.

will join in the protest control Money wner

• TOIS

manoeuvre will be paralysed. organising local school meetings a united call for all Solidarity mount vul suiike action parents some ConsCIOUs campaion must seventy schools have expressed waged for the formation of with the teachers committees involving the implications of these cuts stuatuls anu schoot ancillary become citar worsening students, along with teacher/pupil ratios, lowering of workers and other public sector educational standards provide corallions subiect losses from curricul; Ineerite StriKe However, It is only through the united at a time when militant and organised opposi- and firm of labour action

LIUT

Necessary.

IN T

movement inal local councHors clearly be forced to rescind their leacershto WhiCh has can been forced to adopt some kind decision.

JAGS REVOLT AT

BL GRADINGS

management's Leyland At the same time a dispute attempts to impose the new at the Jaguar plant in Kadtord led to a shortage of axles grading structure at Jaguar, assembly tracks were Browns Lane, led to a mass off laid morting revolt last week. cue to a comomation or axie BL shortages, the internal transport i ne new aracinos changed the situation signifi- and that cantly from that which existed sanctions were beginning under the previous Jaguar agree.

wite citective v there was a total For example fitters, finishers shutdown-on both day and and previous some suddenly night shifts. Only those placed on grade 1 were still working: voune inemse ves reassessed as "track assemblers", and placed A JSSC held on Wednesday on grade 3. decided to call a mass meeting By last Monday when a JSSC rriday, at which it would recommend that those still meeting recommended a com- working should stop and that it ation in all areas and any snould formally recoraec on strike sanctions That that evervone was saw most against the new grading and for sections fit to take, return to the original Jagual ting the first two and Re-fit had yidan suructure win ine orrer discuss anomalies with the ween on strike since the previous company. rriday By Tuesday The strike would last until management tactics showed clearly that they management agreed to meaning.

ful negotiations. were orovoking a controntation Different measures were taken By Friday morning, when a in relation to different sections. further

JSSC

was to be nera The Trim shop were taker mass immediate v _netore the off the clock for applying sanc union officials had tions; internal transport intervened. strike because of disci was now recommenced against one that there should be a return to dinary threats worker over the application of work go through sanctions. proccuurt dl d works connerence

AT THE TOP...

UNION DUES

auction jobs So Bill Sirs, under the watchful of huge eye negotiating team which BSC management likened to teams" 'four rugby has rejected the 13% pay offer.

But what kind of settlement are the IST leaders looking for? Are they really take stand fence by both Bod and the lory government

STUC

industry must be made at the expense of steelworkers?

they are not. Sirs, for instance, But Sirs has never challenged He was apparently initial offer -some -is con- a 4, ditioned

ISTO

une pression ai on prior ment, to be paid subject to local deals would productivity be measures and manning paid at once, and thus part of i or has he dwelt on the fac that -is only in fact the outcome of consolidating evist pay supplements into basie ing rates. No increase Irfectively steel workers have still not been offered an pay all-except Incred through selling jobs and working conditions! But STOs own drati agreement drawn up for negotia tions (revealed in outline by this *to be held on Monday or Tues.

WECK I

day union officials • With concessions Who told attendance call to cur over- The

TGWU

officials and absenteeism and argued that I was necessary lo comelete procedure foesome standards" fact the that the grading has And BSC's been imposed that own premise "significant and they are therefore free to will USt through improved perform- orocecurel. give necessary ance" five days notice, and then there would be no trouble making the Sufficient price Auew otticia. Ken Cure carr The fact is that Bill Sirs and that he would refuse

ISTC

cornered burcaucracy plant while the strike near the been forced into have il strike continued by the mood of their rank anG Opponents the begin- Tie -and nave trom ind position argued for the original sought not to defend jobs ning the conditions but recommendatior ana Workin! made official strike sell both, straight away sufficiently high price can be The vote went roughtly 54- obtained. 36 for the officials recommen- Sirs" lectut predic- cation tions impending Although delaying This kind and interventions fallen indignation repe- at the held the • line 13% offer on flave management since the new tive Friday afternoon. structure was forced in, grade Having experienced the hostility to the grading is not humiliation shelling below the surface in most t10.000 in ral tares and hote BL plants. bills for the privilege of being *As we go to press on Mon.

front of a day we hear that Browns Lane have cannot now resumed afford to call-at least for a fen Inel action against the grading system weeks-for acceptance the

TEMPERATURE, OUR WHOLE

DO HURRY WIH THAT CHATEAU VILLENFLE SNONARASS

O'FISHALL WILL BE HERE AT ANY MOMENT

NOW, AND YOU KNOW HOW CHOOSY HE IS.

WELL I THINK 13% WITH

BUGGERS QUIET, SIR CHARLES.

Sirs swallowed by the craft union leaders. Badges Sirs attires badges Even er-no string badge push lapels, sicer workers mus beware. Given the slightest lee- he will auctioning oft conditions The struggle to extend the strike workers-strengthened last week's decisio by dri Midlands West Northern lorries not to cross steelworkers' picket lines must press ahead. the february 18 protest against the cuts in • Yorkshire the fight Tor Yorkshire up struggle Strike action to defeat the steel closures and bring down the yovernmen that now threatens the whole working class *20% without strings! *Defend all jobs! *Demand the TUC call a • General Strike! *Bring down the Tories!

AND IF IT ISN'T AT EXACTLY THE RIGHT

PAY OFFER

MAY BE UTTERLY

SCUPPERED.

AH, HERE HE IS !

BUT I MEANT

THE WINE!

41 THINK.

Page 11 Water Workers 'no' workers the GMWU have voted to throw ou otter. and to take strike action in two weeks time this stand followed by

NUPE

ana • • workershe could major strtkt challenge •Tory 'cash limits policy sector—and orrer turtaer incen tive. other public to join in the struggle defend standares against runaway inflation.

WORKERS SOCIALIST

LEAGUE

Public meeting The fight against the Cuts 7.30 p.m. Thursday 21 February Lyndhurst Hall Warden Rd London NW5 (Tube: Kentish Town)

WELL?.. WHAT DO YOU THINK

OF IT, O'FISHALL?

HITSA DISGRACE!

YOU LEAV

IN OPtION

TO WALK OUT!

KNIVES OUT AGAINST

THE STEEL STRIKE

Published by Folrose Ltd for the Workers Socialist League, BM Box 5277, London WC1V 6XX. Printed by Anvil Printers Ltd., London More violence against Mugabe As imperialist allegations "terrorism" ring of out Robert daily against Mugabe's ZANU(PF) party, it is increasingly clear that the main thrust of Governor Soames and the Rhodesian is • towards forces harrassing and intimidating ZANU supporters-and even murder «neneithe Mugabe himself. The challenge facing imper- • allery neo-colonia SOlUTIOT Zimbabwe stems from the inab- ility petty bourgeois nationalist leadership to control the most militant guerrillas and sections of the working class.

clearly These sections that ine Lancaster mouse tions can bear results OT benefit to the mass of working scopie. Balancing act Mugabe and doing balancing act wall of sudden death. with then own militants and rank and file General sidlis and the guns of and South Atrican armv on tne utric!.

While they compete witn other draw greater crowds and Muzorewa, tney must same nOt any expectations or set arouse in motion a forward movement The working Class would engulf them. While they complain about the Rhodesian army and Muzor.

idating the eis torase forces tnev that it is. these which are maintaining the state Continued, p. 2

FUND

A good response during the past week, including al anonymous donation of £40 has put our rebruary rund on target with right nearly half the fund in already.

However we cannot afford to relax if we are to find the rest of the money month. by the end of the We £391.50 need of to make target £750. At the same lime ask readers and supporters £3,000 forget

HOL

Special Fund. We were speeding towards our first £1,000 until last week when only £15 came in. Remem- ber, our aim is to raise the this Special halt ot

HITSE

Fund by donations to either All fund should be to sent our new address: Socialist Press Fund BM Box 5277 London WCIV 6XX

SOCIALIST

PRESS

CORRIE BILL

HELD UP:

FORCE A

THREE-LINE

WHIP!

ate opinion polls in the last ten the Bill's provisions-and is pre- davs have agreed that 54% of all abortion bill into pardon the upper the ee- adults either oppose any restric- problems in the House of limit abortion rights, time favour more libera Commons last Friday-but actually trom 28 weeks of pregnancy to it is far from dead. icestation Labour, Liberal and Tory And women now seems certain that agreed on this Britain feel that abortion is an Icaders now seem will thred sesson: issue ne W available for its Third Reading Corrie's other, more far-reaching between the woman concerned than the expected two: rather proposals. and her doctor. and it is possible that pro-Corrie One in four women of child- filibustering and declared that, Hostility bearing manocuvres could procure even faced by unwanted Dreaman y more time to force through this they would continue to seek Corrie had originally called mediaeval abortion whatever new

ACK ON

for a 20-week limit. But his Bill rights. tions are passed in Parliament.

But it is unlikely that the -which also attempted to alter the criteria for legal abortion This prospect of a whole- will give any Torv government and to shut down charitable abor- sale growth of of its own time lor clinics-has been met by unpre- tions, with all the squalor and despite the enthus- for the Bill from iastic support cedented MOSTET y ПО1 only miserv that unis entaus and unt the House, from women throughout the problems of imposing a law that the leader country, but also from men.

would 8. widely To ted, St. John Norman against the Bill clearly played Stevas. Have minds of MPs Health minister Gerard -spurred on b' Vaughan has made it clear that 200,000 signatures. Two separ- the huge 20,000-strong anti- conditional on acceptance of a Secretary Len Murray. Murray's As the steel strike moves full scale attack on working con main eftorts in the last few into its sixth week of ditions involving weeks have been devoted not to increasingly bitter confron lahour and demanning-and a mobilising support for the steel- additional 4% local tation with the Tory govern- DossIDiC bo day id, at me expense od to call off ment, comme under at the expense of their proposed indelinite general sustained attack from differ- further jobs and conditions.

stoppage by unions atfected by ent sections of the trade the steel closures This Welsh General Strike union bureaucracy. Confrontation Even as ISTC leader Bill Sirs All this has been conceded 21. Under massive TUC pressure and Blastturnacemen's leaders for a it was • Bosy on A to Made I the craft union Hector Tucked unel with Action 28alled wounds after , the ignominious Cardift collapse still well short of the going rate January - Willkil offer" of inflation under the Tories.

BSC

moolised u o workers mn from What these strike action. nego- and general union bureaucial Now petrified prospect that the were preparing accept mators Is lie take identical deal for almost stoppare Tory government itself, as the I thus split place, Murray nas persuadco me 10,000 members, and drags Welsh TUC to call a special one- strike ine worktorce cown ine macle day conference on February to intermingie-partic Loreatens ularly in South Wales-with the Sordid deal fight against BSC's programme will be to nana over control ol protest action . against the BSC plant dill Hilas. the British sackings. ine crait unions nave giver their backing to sordid deal The Sne eed mot areneral inus erectively abandoning tne which offers a 10% General General Strike. increase- British Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office. Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the Workers Socialist League

ABORTION

KEEP IT

LEGAL

Corrie lobby on February 5 The Bill became immediately bogged protracted down discussion-winn ony Iwo OUl of 21 groups of amendments being discussed in a five-hour SeSSIon And ine possibility emergea that might actually neve reach its crucial Third Reading vote. But this does not mean that labour the movement to block Teux in ine sirusele this designed to reverse decades of struggle for women's rights of Sull GO LenS honour ves committed to suD for anti-abortion legisla port And dozens more failed tion. even o tumn uo to vole azallisi Murray conference under from Tirm instructions leaders to vote for the recom- mendation. Welsh convinced miners that this is tantamount 4710012

CAMPAIG

Jo Richardson addressing anti-Corrie rally Anti-Corrie demonstrators stages of the Corrie Bill earlier Left wingers like Jo Richard- Bill

SOT

Wno nave • {111 tooth and nail (and others ike Tony Benn who now emerge against it) t be called must fight within the

PLI

three-line whip • aDou MPs to turn out and vote in line Party' conference the Will policy request" and against any restric- Partie: LaDUl to remove MP unions must ac that flout this declared policy of the labour dictates of thei • 101OY bigoted "conscience' alla vol for laws that would cause • UN necessary suffering to thousands See also page 11 to scrapping the General Strike• call that weish NUM President Emlyn

NUM-

possibility which. voted against the steel and pit closures going it alone in taking strike action from March 3. The firmness of the miners stand has paid off. As we go to million subsidy to preserve int 7,000 threatened jobs in South Wales. Such concession will only nave weakening the fight for General Strike action • March 10-but on shows that a determined tighi can produce results Transport railway similaı workers must take a sane in acton aongsat • slee workers to stop BSC's closure and defend 40,000 threatened jobs in South Wales