Socialist Press no. 27

MASSIVE RAIL JOB CUTS

WILSON KNIFES

LABOUR'S ROOTS

Redundancy for 150,000 out of 260,000 railway workers is threatened if the Government's investment plans for British Rail go ahead as announced by Environment Secretary Crosland last week. The plans have far reaching political implications for the labour movement. December, Crosland had rail unions' Tory denounced the 'unproductive predictions of just such enormous codswallop'. But his transport

CULS

statement to THe

COHOES

February 4th that he is limiting railway investment 1238 million a year must now force him to eat his words. of The present rail system 11,500 miles cannot possibly be a low cash such injection. The unions forecast that it would have to be cut to around 4,000 miles - bringing the loss of railways altogether to big towns like Sunderland, Huddersfield and Penzance - while fares, which have 1n risen by 50% over the last twelve will be jacked up another months. 17½% in April, with further increases expected this year.

EFFORTS

of tens This threat to thousands of rail jobs and to any public transport system is the latest fruits of the efforts of the Labour Government to solve the capitalist crisis at the working class of the expense

STRIKE

ON THE

Taff Vale Railway. Men's Headquarters. There has been a strike on the Taff Vale Railway since Monday last means to decoy men here who they purpose of black-legging the men on strike.

Drivers, Firemen, Guards, Brakesmen, and SIGNALMEN, are all out. Are you willing to be known as a Blackleg ? If you accept employment on the Taff Vale, that is what you will berknown by. On arriving at Cardin, call at the where above address, assistance.

RICHARD

SOCIALIST

PRESS *

courts, Labour ministers each day echo for attacks calls like labour, and the SerVices

ULL

public sector in general.

of of capitalists'

SCOL

steelworkers and cuts throughout health, education and the social the policies of the Labour government precisely those sections who were at the forefront of building the including the Labour Party itself.

historically played a crucial role in The struggle of the Taff Vale railway workers in 1901 led to the Cobourn Street. Cathays. The Management are using every employ for the spokesmen shackle banner of 'Never again!' unmistakeably recalled San Francisco on you can get information and The and Cuba

BELL,

of type General Secretary. tolerated in the future. poster from the Taff Vale Strike.

The following the legal attack on one of their unions the leaders movement in make such a of workers that they and trade million

ITTO

these twin weaken Yet Wilson and his Cabinet are now busily hacking away at these This is the movement built in generations of rail cuts.

NUR

members Newcastle that "The Saturday the remained one Party's generous with paying disintegration of the Labour Party Offered nothing but campaigns. this workers have turned to the new kind of this decimated the crassest prejudices of petty- membership Wilson's cuts!). The glimmer of a fighting policy from

MPLA VICTORY NEAR

ANGOLA

In Washington echoed to the this time from this flying Wyoming) rattle of dominoes last week reaction admitted as one US capitalist politician too late TO after another ate their words Angola." on Angola. For the second Kissinger was soon followed by key figures in Ford's administra- time in less than a year the tion and in Congress. By Friday of the most February 6th, Assistant Secretary powerful imperialist state on of State for Africa earth were driven to a con- admitted cession of defeat and ram- military situation in Angola meant the MPLA would almost certainly attempts to rally prevail. support beneath the tattered And Democratic Senator Dick chairman of Clark, sub-committee for African affairs, Leading the pack was Secretary called for a new US policy toward of State Kissinger. In terms which Southern Africa. President Ford's speeches after US imperial- ism was driven out of Indochina "We must not make the same in April last year, he declared in mistakes again," he said, adding February 3rd; has the "As Communist administration their duty to make it clear to the USSR

TESSERICC

that Angola cannot long look at become a precedent and that this them." The events unfolding in Angola will action not be are a gain for the colonial peoples and the working class everywhere.

day, (speaking

FORTNIGHTLY PAPER OF THE

WORKERS SOCIALIST LEAGUE

No 27 * 11th February 1976 * 10p labour would movement Every time they

TOC

organisations, of the issue of Crosland Labour MPs. In the fight for j in the industry the question keeps comng up is this: Weighell told are these sponso to whom last - to the work

NUR

MPs responsible has where t put them class who Labour are, or to the Tories and ban most who dictate the policies of currently Labour government? £60,000 Last December Weighell to rally of railwaymen "We shall hesitate to say to the ten MPs you will no longer support government." kind sustained, this militant lead will get a resp from by cont'd Back page, col 4. Far from 1 being the last, tact Laramie, sherrif of retreat of American imperia they give a world-wide impetu "It is perhaps the offensive and confidence do anything about the world's working class.

At the same time they give lie to the treacherous internat of the Stali "programme" bureaucracy. William that the While Brezhnev was Helsinki dett preparing the with its pledges last year, "peaceful coexistence, the the Senate ruling class was preparing to vacated the into place Portuguese imperialism in Ang And every victory, gained by the M of territory has had to be won arms in h the CIA-backed against financed, mercenary-staffed i forces continue of the FLA and UNITA. we must take a fact that 'peaceful coexisten our relations with a fiction was sharply under by

FNLA

President Roberto at the end of last we Continued on page 2

FRANCE

in is truth treated in There no 'Iz- da and no news in gresses. silence! ¡ia"?" Russian the goes Seldom has it been ing. confirmed than richly used. a week. the leadership of the Paris Polish the Communist Party, at burying d. Congress, was busy *dictatorship of the goal of the a road out written into the Party etariat', ramme at its foundation fifty- But in Moscow the years ago. fundamental main dailies were busy burying experiences socialism'. move which has opened a ean party cow Communist Parties, French which were General Secretary Georges On the 4th with a report which German party editorial - to formally, explicitly notion datorship of the proletariat.

ocratic lined, dropped because it does not the reality of our politics, to oppose reality of what we are propos- What remained And the working class was a 'leading Rumanian same furiously European press on the political signiti- culated of this shift and its impli- ns for the Communist Party- alist Party 'Union of the Left', gate after delegate trooped to their microphone to vent* sfaction that the perspicacious- of their leadership had finally opposite effects. theory French bught the tinism into line with its practice.

Buda- has never But Moscow, Berlin, Prague, Sophia, where readers struggle for generally the party press colonial Арт 1974, utionary Mail (he basic classes in Rand nothing that the end empire. huge finance from the ther =mocratic' place The time Washington. Vietnam the - in id now - have never government in road' to Pated the last fional liberation socialism 'independence

MPLA,

with suit- ents the Us tor recruit former Washington's routed in decades, while antics provision openly MPLA by US govern- mitted that Cuba. bank- funds for the likes way, and the Mitch' that the peoples pass through a special able British the sponsibility

IOI

forkers movement. Peking, applied 'settlement'. to ent has ecome in the that many OI trem Republicans combined obscene scandal. must im- control. movement rade ediately demand that the Labour overnment recognise the MPLA as interests government legitimate to the use put a stop lagola and Britian as a base for military perations against her. events which in Indo- In Angola, china took decades have been tele- Certainly, coper inte months. As the colonial truggle drove the original imperial- Angola into political crisis, the that NTERNATIONAL nEUS

CP REVOLUTIONARY

LINE EXTINGUISHED

in 1936-39, to the requirems ts of tedious detail to the front' 'popular proceedings of "fraternal patty con- capitalist "progressive' This they cemented with the notor- Hitler-Stalin pact. ious, held back waI they Stalinist-led resistance in France, Italy and Greece from a bid for power, Trybuna paper, states to imperialism. In dropping the demand for class power as a sop to bourgeois opinion corresponds and the national interest', Marchais only recognises treachery. But, of Stalinist universal Marcha Europe the building in 01 and eastern have to bureaucracy with the political revolution against came comflieuts their autocratic rule - already ex- implicit strong pressed in the workers' uprisings in Marchais Berlin 1953, in same Hungary in 1956, in Czechoslovakia 1968, carried an and of the 1970. use the 8U- For them proletariat' the camouflage foI bureaucratic the dictatorship the use they intend leader Ceasescu of Eastern Marx and from with, but careful Thus the in

DISMAY

constipated Why has Marchais' move caused such dismay in the party and state apparatuses of Eastern Europe? The explanation is that the same cause may produce, in different situation bureaucracy is control of the The Soviet Stalinist bureaucracy Marchais' held to any principle of class power. working proletarian They sacrificed the Spanish workers struggles liberation brought the collapse of fascism in the opening of revol- the between struggles Portugal itself, and colonial entire OI minerals were exploited, while the But imperialism will never yield 'peacefully' whatever "liberal' formulae may from time to Lisbon voiced have already driven millions in the The Portuguese

AFM

colonial countries to revolt against the schemed before Angolan moment cripple the to refused them and by pitalist police seys orintry recognition of any form. The field was thus left open for struggle in southern Africa.

step in. The fact that puppets have

NATIONALISATION

rather than months directly from the results to the aid of millary the Soviet Union and people (and turned to the support It shows, in the clearest possible struggles) by nationalisation and an that the years of bloody wat overall economic plan to repair the of Indochina had before they were from free iner countries But the MPLA has no such policy, imperialism are the responsibility of and Stalinists Moscow who could easily have pro- owned Gulf oil sources in military them with instead sufficient for victory, but look to continuing the exploitation for a continual pressure of Angola under different political The fact that military aid has gone to Angola demonstrates not Mobutu - who has provided a base Moscow has abandoned overall strategy of compromise with operations across the border - last imperialism, but that the Stalinist week reshuffled his cabinet, sacked chiefs are caught up in a permanent process revolutionary moved towards acceptance of the which they are far from being able with the multi- tude of political and commercial to stake reaching ouL above all, the Marxist perspective of claims in Angola, they are unwilling the permanent, combined nature of becoming another risk Angola the world revolution. Vietnam - a long-running war con- tinually undermining their attempts The offers now at compromise on a world scale.

Moscow 1S intent l finding agreement with Washington OvEr the South West 'exception', and is an Rhodesia in regime once this dispute is resolved and Mobutu in Zaire. the fact that their own rule rests on October the agreements the social gains in which the dictator- politicians. revolution, of the proletariat was estab- ship lished for the first time in history.

After the the And the turn by the mass, Party has a more than symptomatic movements As the second largest importance. and returned these Communist Party Europe, with a membership of half million, and more than thousand recruits in the last year, it has now moved towards forming explicitly decades an 'axis' with the right-wing courses unlike of the Italian and Spanish of apparatchiks munist Parties. Soviet the

COMPROMISE

deal directly they are not united by any positive principles, Poland and but by a common given a free hand to compromise Poland again in with their 'own' capitalist class. But this in itself tends to destroy the Moscow Stalinists' attempts to of 'dictatorship political the usurp- Burian Communist Parties.

the unanimity and tanks in the future, Marchais echoed him, indignant noises blatant Paris, and through conceal from their own in more recently added huge resources of oil and the same conditions that On February 2nd the rapid- advancing struggle of class new leap forward. In Barcelona on that day 70,000 demonstrators took to the streets to call for a complete amnesty and an end to the dictatorship: authorities fascist The rubber bullets, tear gas and smoke bombs and charges police failed for four hours to stop the continual regroupment of the demonstrators. The workers and students over- turned cars and tore up covers to make barricades against police attacks. Thousands of motorists in the traffic-bound streets and residents in surrounding houses hooted and support cheered their demonstration. This is a new illustration of how demands and actions the working class are breaking through within which The struggle in Angola confirms, bounds and reformist leaderships Stalinist wish to keep them. At the same time the fascists are hopelessly raising and resources ricades against change. racist threaten Minister Prime dictatorship in South Africa, and its to the Cortes, speech huge territory "parliament', on Smith caricature the Africa, 28th was even further to the right (Zimbabwe), than the policy statement he made SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 11th February 1976 movement "is not, and cannot be, a Church, nor a centralised organ- isation submitting each party to a uniform law. binding decrees, And the leadership of the Spanish duly greeted the CP, in their turn, dropping of the dictatorship of the and proletariat' correct weicome move. Also echoing in the CP Congress of Leonid Plioutch, was the case mathematician the socialist for in Soviet incarcerated years 'psychiatric' hospitals - run by the KGB. Plioutch was freed and expel- led to France early in January atter a campaign, centred in the French which formally movement, forced Marchais and the CP leader- ship to request his release.

At a press conference on the eve CP Congress Plioutch - who French of the is still recovering from the drugs forcibly administered to him at the Dnipropetrovsk hospital - repeated Western was a communist. He sup- that he ported the Dubcek reform move- eighty ment of Czechoslovakia in 1968, stressing that: The spirit of Dubcek is totally unacceptable to the Soviet bureau- Com- They do not wish to lose the benefits and privileges which they that for to me hold. of the USSR it is the population possible and acceptable the only escape from the political, way to impasse they social and spirituas find themselves in! The CP leadership conveniently "lost' a letter from Plioutch, appeal- ing to them to defend other politic-

USSR.

And al prisoners report evaded the issue, Marchais' referring in general and apologetic terms to 'repressive measures'.

no way But such comments indicate that the French Stalinists are moving to defend communist oppositionists in the workers states, only that they respond more and more to the pressures of bourgeois "public opinion'.

SPAIN

MASS MOVES IN

BARCELONA

'continuity of the work need for inherited from Franco'. the This mixture of the most merci- took a of with the upsurge less reaction workers' preparedness to fight for their demands is an explosive one.

is this explosion Terror the widening fissures in

KUNLES

Spanish ruling class. Realising that speech supplied Navarro's using Arias or nothing for the leaders of little Stalinist and reformist parties of mounted the cling onto as a basis for their virtually collaborationist the whole of the Spanish press were sharply critical. This included Pueblo the paper manhole "unions'. of the official corporatist The only exception was El Alcazar, the paper of the Francoist feder- ation of civil war veterans.

papers dared What none of the to report was that, while the Cortes foI the applauded all references to Franco Navarro's speech, it met reference to King Juan Carlos with of the stony silence. power of Spanish fascism The all the stability has now Its most sophisticated sandcastle. as Interior Minister such leaders, the only thing Fraga, know that their own bat- it being washed which can workers' away by the tide of the Arias Navarro's offensive is the collaboration of the Spain's Stalinist and reformist leaderships.

January uncom- With a principled promising leadership this offensive don enough to obliterate the

CUBA: FIRST CP

CONGRESS

PART 3: THE CONGRESS.

Marxists; After being promised for that the revolutionary over 5 years, the first Congress

PSP

was political record of the Communist of the Cuban unblemished; of the 26 Party (now having 203,000 the policies

TA PARE

July Movement and the PSP in the members) finally took place in 1950s tactically were late December - more than complementary; the former merely ten years after the Party was added the correct tactic of guerilla hammered together out of the political war to old Stalinist (the positions of the latter; party from the that, apart Popular Socialist Party) and 'sectarianism' of 1962 (when the the remains of Fidel Castro's PSP secretary Anibal Escalante was 26 July Movement. Soviet Union) any the apologised for the previous political errors were those Castro of idealism made by the 26 July which in 'brevity' of his speech, Movement. fact lasted for over nine hours and In these gross distortions, there 1½ days of the 5 day took up attempt to have the long Congress! Its content ranged from 1s an record of opportunistic twists and history the Cuban and compromises betrayals independence movement in the of political movements 19th century to information on the expunged from the record, along number of pencils distributed to with the bitter quarrels between the educational institutions in 1974(46 million of them). The bourgois radical and stalinist threads of the history of the Cuban

PURPOSE

revolution are now claimed to have always been firmly plaited But the political purpose of the speech was to present the Cuban "authorised

REHABILITATION

version" of Cuba's political history The total rehabilitation which of the

PSP

that the political positions of was formally marked by the of Blas Roca addition and Carlos the late-nineteenth century Raphael Rodriguez

(PSP

writer and independence fighter leader Jose Marti, the prophet of Castro's since the 1930s) Political to the Bureau of the Cuban CP, hitherto petty. bourgeois identical the preserve Castro Movement, were to those and of Lenin; closest colleagues in the leadership of the 26 July Movement and the that the leadership of the 26 July Movement, though its Revolutionary Directorate.

not had supporters, always Parallel to this, the international Socialist Press Subscriptions

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THE

WORKERS

SOCIALIST LEAGUE

The Workers Socialist League was formed in December 1974 to struggle the of for the continuity principles the rebuilding of the 'Trotskyism in Britain and towards Fourth International. In the daily struggle to take the demands and principles of Trotsky's the WSL' has been at the Transiiional Programme into the trade unions, forefront of the fight for the sliding scale of wages, and work sharing - demands which at the T&GWU Conference were the only on full pay. alternative to Jones' treacherous f6 pay plan and the wholesale accept- ance of redundancies by the bureaucracy.

WSL

comrades have led the struggie for the In the Heath Service. sliding scale of NHS spending and for trade union committees to open the books of the with the fight to end all private Authorities, along practice - policies adopted by ASTMS National Conference.

In local disputes also, WSL comrades have tested and developed the demands of the Transitional Programme, putting forward in every case, the only real opposition to the Stalinists and the right-wing. Our struggle for the "open the books" demand in the motor industry has won a mass response. At the same time we have put forward a policy to fight unemploy.

ment, calling for unity of employed and unemployed through the fight to mobilise the trade union movement.

The WSL is the 'only movement that fights consistently for transition- al demands, going beyond mere trade union militancy to pose the pol- itical issues to workers.

While these practical interventions have developed the League's grasp of Trotsky's Programme, there has been a consistent drive to deepen and understanding of the history and movement's the bresent analon crisis of the Fourth International, as an essential part of any serious initiative towards its reconstruction.

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

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

section of the was panegyric of the Stalinist policy of peaceful coexistence. Cuba's international Un own policy, from a vigourous apart defence Cuba's material assistance to the MPLA in Angola, the emphasis was placed the the last few years development in of increasingly friendly relations with a large number of bourgeois governments, from the reactionary military clique in Peru (who, Castro said, open 'a new era in the position of certain military forces in Latin America') and Mrs. . Gandhi (whose state of emergency he supported) to France and Britain. In an exhaustive Castro of survey to Spain with omitted coutnry. Cubans, forgotten barely two half-mast Congress, 'work' the Castro's to apart almost addresses, changes policy already major the leadership. decided upon The Economic and Planning System. of based on provinces. newly The Economic Management and reintroduction of the categories of credit and interest in the operation of all state-owned enterprises (that is, the entire Cuban economy apart a few taxi-drivers and all chiropodists). Now payments since the early 1960s and abolisher from 1967) are reintroduced make a profit and, while be a five year national plan giving targets for major

VELDUL

industries, economic decisions are general decentralised the individual enterprise level.

Loss-making enterprises may be deliberately subsidised by the state or they may obtain loans from the "commercial' rates Central BAnk at of interest - failing this, they must introduce speed-up, cut costs, redundancies or even face closure.

New material incentives will be devised to encourage managers and workers in successful enterprises.

February 16th marks a new stage in the collaboration of the Labour government with the brutal and repressive tyranny of the Shah of Iran.

On that day 21 Iranian students the Old Bailey trial at charged after occupying the Iranian embassy last April 21st under the conspiracy laws. against the protest The was torture to death of nine of Iran's The nine 40,000 political prisoners.

were killed according to the Shah's "trying to escape" regime, But most of them were close to the end of their sentences; and the their refused permit regime bodies to be examined.

DAILY

Similar murders daily event. Twenty-five •Known the last two have taken place in weeks and well over 300 in the last four years. Taxation (abolished in Cuba in 1967) is to be reintroduced in the form of tax general turnover VAT) which will form (similar to the of central and local basis government revenues. This complete reversal of Cuba's economic policies is response to the continual economic decline produced in the 1960s by policies which idealistically abolished all relationship between costs and the value of production; culminated in the economic disaster of the 1970 sugar harvest. policies Castto is now have been errors so now are the remedies. extreme 1973 a relationship between work and pay was re established via full-scale piece-work system throughout the economy. While this has helped to produce a very fast growth in production in the last two years, at the same time it involves the loss in practice of the wage provision operating before then. All this was justified by what Castro calls the "socialist" principle 'From each of distribution his ability, to each according to according to his work'.

TROTSKY

But, as Trotsky pointed out in relation similarly argued change in the Soviet Union in 1936 it is inclination rather than ability which labour expended is on a bourgeois of anyway principle distribution. Such a principle is historicaliy the low development of the material forces of production. It is a serious error to make virtues of necessities.

SUPPORT

IRANIAN

In Iran theré is political Resurrection Party: party, the membership is compulsory for all adults. Trade unions are illegal.

Repression is ruthlessly adminis- the Shah's tered by the SAVAK ubiquitous secret police. The Shah's stated aim is that should by Iran become the world's third- ranking military power. Assisting him this 1slne government which British Labour has encouraged arms deals as a major part of its economic strategy to assist British capitalism.

Iran is one of the two countries outside Britain and France to buy the supersonic white elephant, the Concorde. Iran plays a key role in the Chrysler plan due to its long term contract to buy Avengers. The Shah has lent money and oil to the British government; some of the proceeds of North Sea Oil mortgaged these debts. And the Shah's forces collaborators British the whole imperialism in Arabian Gulf area. The resolutions were, needless t say, unanimously adopted by Congress, as the theses on whic they are based were voted for by 9 per cent of the 6½ million Cuban who. had (according to Castro participated in discussions at worl and the mas centres organisation in the weeks befor the Congress. As before the Trade Unior 1973 Cubai Congress the leadership attempted to create th resolutions ha lusion that the emerged democratically as the wil of the masses. In fact, policies decided upon b the leadership were submitted to form of 'discussion' in which it wa not possible to advocate any mor detailed amendments to th than drafting. The this resolution was advocating the speed peasantry incoroporation small-holdin peasants into cooperativ stat production units and the agricultural plan. Their resistance produced som and energet amendments an Castro that th reassurance implemente measure he slowly without very and an compulsion. In all other respects the Congre which devoted so many words t discussing democratic

TOTOTH

showed attemptt ony anew consolidate bureaucratic power.

The increasing attention democratic forms, however, is a indication of the growing resistanc of the masses of Cuban workers t sudden twists policy failures. For economic leadership therefore, necessary but contradictory polic 21! In these the Labo ways government is deeply dependent ‹ the Shah's tyranny. The Shah has used this positi to put pressure on the British Hon Office to convict and deport one students back to Ir twenty where they would, of course, fa imprisonment, torture and possib death.

DEMAND

Tor aris sions of the labo organisations movement should demand that charges against dropped immediately. The case al points to the need to abolish t break laws and to and political lin trade, monetary with the Iranian dictatorship.

Readers of Socialist Press urged to support the demonstrati organised by the Committee for t defence of the 21 on February 14 Cavend meeting at at l Square, as well as the picket outsi Bailey on February 16 the Old starting at 10.00 a.m.

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

1905-1914 + YEARS OF REACTION

Isarism scored a temporary 1905, tory in but the shevik Party was able to astorm this experience into victorious revolution of ober Later: without nie Lenin arked later: ess rehearsal' of 1905 the of the October огу volution in 1917 would most significant dopments after 1905 was bupment of class forces. The bourgeois Struve, openly its sentatives like the ater-revolution. They held the ement of the working class in fear greater than Tsarism. Mensheviks by adapting to pressures of the bourgeoisie. stently sought to relegate the ing class to a subordinate role • which the workers would provide the muscle to push ch the cart of the democratic ton and then hand over the of power to the liberal scoisie. nen, therefore, the liberal coisie ended its flirtation with orking class during 1905, the hevik Social taction turned on the working cracy and blamed workers for the t of 1905. They claimed that ssive" demands, like the eight day, had driven the liberal geoisie away from the side of into the of the Jord class and Tsarism. perspective forerunner of the later Stalinist Eed stages-irst the democratic revolution rigidly ,, and only then, in the distant a pemon or capilansl sion, the socialist stage - ) tably led them to bow before liberal bourgeoisie and deny working class a leading role in evolution. hen the liberal bourgeoisie doned the perspective of the Throw of Tsardom. by did the means, sheviks. the eyes of the Mensheviks, the revolution had come Tsarism had been end. Formed from an autocracy into onstitutional monarchy dore it was essential for the to down its water become acceptable to form of organisation and ist with Tsarism.

BOLSHEVIKS

Bolshevik faction when it its assessment of 1905 took pposing point of view. They Trarism had only won the first in a fight which could only when the working class eted the bourgeois cratic revolution as part of the leading the socialist revolutionary •task had been esolved and the party during riod 1907-10 needed to take the to its political independence the and reign under Prime Minister pin book rapskaya in her Droud fa beginnings of Stolypin's period of Marxism highlighted in the was terror in June 1906: debate on legal opportunities.

"The government, feeling that it After the June 3rd Coup, the could not place further reliance on Tsarist altered the government the Duma, opened the offensive. franchise so that peasant deputies Peaceful demonstrations began to had to be approved the big broken incendiarism started in up, landowners. As a consequence buildings used for public meetings, clear that the 3rd State Duma and pogroms commenced against would be brazenly reactionary.

At the Jews". majority Bolsheviks

IANE

The period of reaction was the supported boycotting it. Lenin, outcome of the Tsarist autocracy's however, resolutely argued for failure to stem the evolutionaly participation in the Duma, tide, which continued from 1905-7, notwithstanding its teactionary by means of granting a state duma character. (Parliament) which included limited 1905 the Bolsheviks had working class and podsalll adopted a position of boycotting representation. the so-called "Bulygin Juma but Although the of the party that had been a purely consultative bourgeoisie, Cadets, the won an had been an attempt to body and overwhelming madrity, the divert the revolutionary movement, revolutionary mood the then the boil, into legal was also reflected in the channels. Duma and, as a result, clashed with The conditions in 1907 were the Csarist entirely different. The State Duma, consequently dissolved the Duma.

argued Lenin, afforded very In following their turn towards precious opportunity to use a legal non party workers, the Mensheviks opening direct revolutionary were forced to abandon the agitation at the masses. revolutionary programme of Social Democracy with its demands for a

THE BOYCOTTERS

democratic republic the dill dictatorship of the proletariat. The faction which was in favour Liquidationism set out to of boycotting the State Dumi destroy both the political became known as the 'Otzovists' independence of the party and its (Recallists) because they wanted to recall deputies from State to the interests of the bourgeoisie Duma. Their arguments, though by adapting to bourgeois legality.

very revolutionary sounding, were a form of desertion - a retreat from

ILLEGALITY

to contact the harsh struggle class with the Party's The decisive turning point was working 3rd 1907 the second agitation by whatever channels June when were available. state Duma was dissolved and the Their arguments would have led Social Democratic delegates

WEIG

the Party from charges of away arrested on conspiracy. these unions as were A neriod of illegality. began. This This was sectarianism was a period of crisis for the party reactionary. which sought to cut the party off when its very survival came under from Erass. it staces with the attack. Even before the coup of June successiul, it would have transformed the Bolsheviks into a 3rd, the Mensheviks had responded the sect which turned in on itself. to counter-revolutionary in these years of Opportunism movement by writing in the reaction thus took two apparently they had press, initiated a campaign for a non-party opposite forms liquidationism on the one side, and Workers Congress. By contrast the Bolsheriks had se boris on to destroy the destroy both begun underground, trey had also issued preparations ndependence and effectiveness o be Marxist party of the workin the illegal paper Proletarii. What the were doing class. nowevel, by calling for a non-party workers A particular danger arising from liquidationism was that in seeking congress, far. from protecting the to dissolve the Party into the was seeking to dissolve or working class and transform it from liquidate the party. This trend was he a ranguard party, for this a vanguard liquidationism by the Bolsheviks to the influence prey encouraged 1907-10 bourgeoisie, The years undisciplined attitude to the party, dangerous years for revolutionaries.

ideal soil in remained Russia provided the which Those who faced imprisonment and torture if spies and 'agent provocatuers' could discovered, or even assassination at flourish. Russian fascists, After the 1905 revolution, the of the Tsarist government attempted to the 'Black Hundreds, as they infiltrate Pride ison menst Pessimism and the with spies. became known. demoralisation became a cancerous The mood and despair which down rot in the party. bore writes, it Zinoviey even heavily on Party members created

TANN

affected the cultural climate of this ripe conditions for the autocracy to recruit unstable Party elements as period: "Degeneration could be spies. observed - as is always the case after Malinovsky, this way, defeats - in all spheres of cultute, talented though unstable both in science revolutionary was able to occupy a and which brought forth a flowering of leading position within the Party of the ornography mysticism and every being in pay ind of religious outlook" Okhrana, the Russian secret police.

trend There was marked idealism. philosophical

PLEKHANOV

towards Party members, especially Not all Mensheviks succumbed petty-bourgeois intellectuals, left in desertion. from to liquidationism. of a to exile in 1906. Plekhanov, Mensheviks, around although supporting the Mensheviks on other questions, roundly condemned the liquidators.

formed Lenin therefore with this small section of alliance the Mensheviks in defence of the Party against liquidationism both in the ranks of the Mensheviks and what he termed "liquidationism from the left' 'Otzovists' or boycotters. In 1909 the boycotters were expelled from the Bolshevik tendency.

PHILOSOPHY

A number of boycotters, headed by Bogdanov and Lunacharsky, also Marx's came openly against

OUL

materialist philosophy. In its place they adopted the idealist views of Mach called 'Empirio Criticism'. In his book Materialism Empirio-Criticism Lenin defended materialism against idealist philosophy. Again he was joined by • Plekhanov. This dispute was not academic, although it was fought out at a high theoretical level. Lenin grasped that philosophical questions were intimately bound up with practical issues: it was no coincidence that the empirio critics were sectarians in their practice. Their most blatant revision of Marxism was a pernicious altempt to reconcile Marxism and religion, the latter being a weapon in the of the ruling ideological armoury While they did not believe in class. the organised church, they believed in a kind of "Marxist version" of god.

Gorki, Russian the famous writer, was also involved in the Lenin faction, 'God-builders' as it was His efforts to known. organise a Party school on the island of Capri these to propagandise views to woen amber of the to naught when a number workers as they present, as soon were treated to lecture on God-building, upped and went to join Lenin in exile outside Paris.

elonin, al need with liquidationism, whether of the left variety. Many, including right leading Bolsheviks, preached the need for unity. Lenin, too, argued party unity for but he did not liquidationism include Orzovism', trends which were intent upon destroying the party.

A leading advocate of unity was who stood outside both Bolshevik and factions and attempted wrongly to Bolsheviks, reconcile pro-party Menchevits Stantdators and SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 11th February 1976 'otzovists' within one party.

The only basis for united party could liquidationism, both and "right'. other unity would Any dissolve the party on the Moreover unity liquidator's terms. this form meant uniting with "those who [quite literally] spread bourgeois among proletariat".

ISOLATED

in a discussion Later, Trotsky about the state of the Party said that, in 1910: "In the whole there

CULELLY

a few dozen people. Some were were in Siberia but they were not organised. The people whom Lenin could reach by correspondence or bv an agent numbered 30 or 4¢ a1 However, the tradition and most. the ideas among the more advanced workers was a tremendous capital which was used later during the revolution, but practically, at this time we were absolutely isolated".

Once the working class began to stir again, it became necessary to break from the liquidationists, gather ped forces were • to its scattered and resist the efforts of the bourgeoisie and its agents within the working class to undermine it. The in late period, beginning 1910, up to the start of the war in August 1914 was marked by a revolutionary revival. month," "Every wrote "saw an increase in the Krupskaya, strength of the labour movement.

But this

WEN

growing under conditions entirely different from which the labour before movement grew 1905. It was developing on the basis of the experiences of the 1905 revolution. The proletariat had gone through a great deal.

- a wave of of armed strikes, number uprisings, tremendous mass movement; and it had experienced years of defeat."

UPSURGE

The revolutionary upsurge began with the mass strikes in response to the shooting of 270 strikers from the Siberia. Lena goldmines Immediately, the Bolsheviks founded agitational ¿vezda, an newspaper, in order to contact the resurgent workers' movement.

Although they collaborated with the pro-Party Mensheviks, gradually became a solely Bolshevik Like pre-1905 organ. the paper Iskra it became a weapon in the struggle against opportunism within the working class movement, especially the liquidators The break with the liquidators the Prague Conference of 1912. Here, Zinovier puts it: number) 20 Comrade Lenin . took upon itself the Pasmine preace This conference deposed the Old Central Committee which had half rotted away and said to itself: it is we who are the Party; whoever is not with us against us; we will conduct a sharp struggle against everyone who refuses for his part to struggle against liquidationism" One of the most important decisions of this historic conference was to establish a daily paper, Pravda.

SUPPORT

Pravde gradually won leadership This was of the class. working reflected amongst other things, the kopecks which literally flooded in from the pockets of workers to help finance the paper. Also in the elections to the State Duma, six Bolshevik deputies out of a possible six were elected from the workers districts. The split with the Menshevik liquidators historically was justified. It was the struggle by the Bolsheviks to safeguard the leading tole of the working class in the revolution that enabled the Party to the enormous pressures sustain which the bourgeoisie exert on the workets movement. These pressures which came to the fore clearly with most World War outbreak of the First the greatest were to produce the divisions within movement Only Bolshevism internationally. withstood them.

SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 11th February 1976

GOING NOWHERE

Review of 'WORKERS' POWER' - forerunner to WORKERS' ACTION' This exceedingly shabby obsession with rank and fileism publication is the product of a derives. As IS theoretician Duncan Hallas of people who, posing group put it, today's conditions Left Alternative to the putting aside grandiose ideas of leadership of the International international leadership, Socialists, recently were congresses and the like in favour of the humdrum expelled from tasks of propaganda that and agitation in one's own country organisation. For IS it was In the existing situation the their fifth national purging in analogy of First the many years and that they International is in some ways more felt threatened by the relevant than that of Lenin and the Third". innocuous criticism of such

FOI

materialist, one members these as can only consequence of this testify to the desperate and capitalism had overcome the degenerate state that the contradictions of the imperialist epoch and now had a new epoch of organisation is in. expansion in front of it would be to Any attempt to understand the present practice of IS and from that understanding to advance principled and coherent alternative to it, cannot avoid as Workers Power do persistently avoid, examination of the politics of that organisation and the historical conditions that produced those politics. Within IS this left centrist left alternative ducked always such considerations. UNEMPLOYMENT: A Worker's He voc Diplomacy required silence on the theory of the Permanent Arms Economy and State Capitalism, the collabo cultivating of the membership proceeded by duplicity and leading the equivocation to remarkable fact that an opposition which they 'commenced 1972' leaves IS more than three later without having expressed opinion on a single IS's basic revisions of Marxism! tactic from when outside supposedly independent of policy theoretical evasiveness we endorse

UNLE

from for one centrism can period of the conference) and Workers' Action! socialists. political positions were the conclude that the Russian Revolution of 1917 was adventure For the premature that the group that was Mensheviks were right to oppose. the failure

ATTACK

not understanding to IS do not shirk this conclusion.

their journal (issue 40) but rejection of Marxism Duncan Hallas attacks the Socialist altogether. Labour League on precisely these The they grounds. "The SLL claims be the orthodox embodiment extended of its across Trotskyism'. The claim has considerable justification. The vorld's League's present policies are rooted the Transitional Programme of the Fourth International. Its errors United States Capitalist arise fundamentally from the stability the been attempt to apply this analysis to a in arms, world situation which trelevanitor taose in it raise the organic It could not be more clearly put, pomposition of and yet Workers Power who hope consequently the create the practice while refusing to face the revisionist theory that underpins it, already give ample evidence in this

"THEORY".

first issue that they will repeat much of it. Indeed far from attacking the Keynesian economics For the IS theoreticians saw in that are at the base of IS theories "theory" of the Permanent told that the main problem Economy Trus capitalism's with IS was not its bourgeois ideas but the failure of the IS leadership atradictions. own Thus imperialism hammer a programme out of not (as Lenin and these ideas! done for and in red) the highest "IS stage but in Kidron's telling splendid work workers 14,1* |0. at it was the 'highest stage but struggle every But its socialist i 8 amani task). policies It is from this belief that we have remained the on level of * instead at the beginist e poca abstract propaganda for socialism instead at beginning and workers' control". epoch of capitalist and state But for working class is much more than the three of four shopping lists that scattered about the pages of are Workers Power! How hostile Workers Power are Transitional Programme of to the Trotsky is made very clear in their Portugal article on where we are "left told that centrist grouping are more healthy in the short run' (p12) and on the National Abortion Campaign "we must work in the NAC to improve it not to take it over". (p14) recent struggle in Wolverhampton, grossly misteported on the of tirst page this magazine gave vorkers Powei tradio tonit tong to continue the IS tradition serious and NURKERS POWEr Answer nation We can eat it together

LORKERS

"SIT

JINN

splendid work" for workers in struggle. In collusion with the shop stewards, two militants were dismissed from their place of work by management. Because of the initial acquiescence of the work force,

WSL

comrades had a hard fight persuading the two victimised workers to fight what was on a basic trade union cically principle. At the stage of having won the two militants Mr Pratt around. representing Workers Power made his He argued that the appearance. trade union principle was "not th important question"

"RANK AND FILE"

The important question according to Mr Pratt was to build a "rank and file movement" for the T&GWU (the union ac the victimised two members). For one of the two this 'alternative' was the ideal way to rationalise his reluctance to fight and Mr Pratt's intervention served as the pretext to retreat from a struggle. When the WL proposed that Mr Pratt and his colleagues join with the WSL in a campaign in defence of this trade union principle MI Pratt declined on the grounds that

WSL

were only interested in members". least Pratt showed instinct opportunist that hsi organisation stood to gain little and the WS much from campaign on principle (though it does throw some doubt how on meaningful is WP's talk of united level in While the implications of shop steward collaboration management were clearly leaflets 1n distributed at factory the shop stewards to fight for re-instatement. When the stewards was shouted the platform, new elections were the of real workers' do power, what OuT. say? Nothing. nothing. bureaucrat. sold out Yarnolds ( the in the same on behalf Having Workers seen how Power' leaders fakers, and Benn typ mavericks it is Party to expose and to put 15) actually be the purpose exposing the gratuitous malice discomfort superfluous purpose of the "united front" support arises because process of a struggle against reformist leaders. clear united front' he observes "Were we simply to unite the working class banner around eliminating the reformist parties or trade union organisations that of course would be the best way. But in that case the very question of the united front in its present form would be non-existent.

'VACUUM'

Here again Workers Power repeat IS who believed that they had discovered a 'vacuum on the left' in the early 1960s because workers in that period had advanced their interests without recourse to the parties to force ade lefts tali ont leaders because as Trotsky said: "We are interested apart from all other considerations in dragging the reformists from out of their lairs and in setting them beside us at the head of the struggling masses. With a correct tactic we alone stand to gain thereby. The communist wh is dubious or afraid of this behaves after the fashion of swimmer who after approving.

the the best propositions regards method of swimming dares not risk jumping into the water." In a perverse way the shoddiness magazine of this its most attractive feature, the preparing reader as well and as honestly as it does for the confusion of ideas that reign within. Sad and surprising such a long labour in IS has failed produce anything more than to commonplaces badly expressed.

recognition that they have nothing to say is probably responsible for the tone • of false chumminess that pervades the magazine "we' must lo this and 'we' mustn't accept thal is the ingratiating method by which presumably hope to pass themselves off as part of the workers movement.

REBOUND

Before this review of the first issue of this magazine could be written Workers Power went out of existence. On the rebound from a Page 5 were emotionally rushing into a hasty marriage to expelled from is in 1971 satose sionar features to the object Workers Power's disappointed suit.

USFI, the Pabloite International led USFI, the USFI not unreasonably British section of the International to Fight found it impossible to join their national section whose main Fight was a propagandistic passivity that refused to issue calls to action.

This approach was enshrined in the perspectives. accepted at the IMG's general strike - one of their leaders perspectives, Tony Whelan, resigned in disgust and took his supporters with him to continue the strategy Tony Whelan out of the way the niting with the interational with solidarity' had been removed.

and his passive propagandists! The unprincipled manoeuvre led to with they thought were declarations of solidarity were in fact no more than from a principled reassessment of in the recent history of the USFI could justify such a turnabout. In such the Labour Party. In the first issu of their theoretical journal you can read about identical arguments for abstaining in a fight with the labour lefts as are to be found in the first issue of Workers Power. But having failed with this "revolutionary' hot air to raise Workers Fight's modest issue of the journal finds the entire battle grounds that Workers Fight though they will probably find her far too coy and embarrassed in her new surroundings to be capable of

SAME ROAD

Clearly Workers Power is going nowhere and in these inflationary times it is eminently sensible to share the costs with a group that for many years have been travelling the saine road. For us the desire to unite the class around revolutionary programme forces us into an implacable struggle against these unprincipled manoeuvres which for the revisionist groups are no more than a desparate clutching at straws. "Before we. can anite and in order that may unite first of all draw firm and must definite lines of demarcation Otherwise will be our unity confusion prevailin inder its radical elimination' (Lenin: Collected Works Vol 4 p. 354). In this brief passage Lens opens up the alternative Toad to standst onat starero regroupment that stands out against the unprincipled combinations of 'Workers Fight' "Workers and Power. by Joe Quiglev.

TROOPS OUT OF IRELAND!

LIBERALS' DIVERSION

While thousands of demon- Troops Out of Ireland' which ap- rators in Derry and London peared in Socialist Press. 25 (dated 14th January). the first week-end in Feb- Partly acting on wrong inform- remembered ation, and through muddled formu- urdered by British soldiers welcomed the lations, article Bloody Sunday four years large Catholic-Protestant demon- Tory leaders have strations protesting about sectarian egun to build up pressure for killings' in Armagh, and went on to protestant-catholic "joint call for more 'positive' role for the defence patrols with the workers' oops in 1976. sectarian aim of preventing in the Daily murders. It was disclosed elegraph of 6th February that

MISTAKE

bry front bench spokesmen Airey Biggs Davidson had and e saying this we made theisions several days observing the divisions accepting South of the army in created by imperialism, and expres- Their report, which magh. no sing the need for workers unity pubt reflects the views of senior only within those limits.

says that too much em- icers, In fact it is vital to begin from asis has been placed on keeping a the needs of the whole of the Irish profile in the area. This is a working class, North and South, call for more mass searches unfinished and the tasks other forms of harrassment of national revolution. • nationalist population.

we implied At the same time, both sides that the 'sectarianism'

STEPPED UP

can be equated. Socialists, however, have to make a distinction between With the increasing inability of the outbursts of the oppressed, and the sectarian actions of the oppres- titish imperialism to discover any olitical' solution in Northern Ire- sors. In Ireland, the UVF and UDA d, there can be no question but the troops will which have support terror gangs, repression by stepped up. It has thus become Protestant workers, act in among agents of imperialism urgent to fight in the en more The TRA, on the other hand, for all movement through- orking cias. false rialisis, is Ireland and Britain to force out mattery actually fighting imperialism. * troops. As part of this struggle the WSL theretore considers it necessary to cor- unconditionally in the camp of the the wrong positions contained anti-imperialist 'Unite Force ing our complete right to criticise the to On the same day as Norman was making allegations cott Barnstaple court about Thorpe, John_Pardoe тету London announcing in the first priority in iberal Party economic policy is the complete emascula- on of the Trade Unions. Pardoe, who makes no secret of ambition to replace 1 norpe ds beral leader, is one of the most ciferous opponents of the trade He insisted that trade union power must be reduced, gaining d that "the sacred cow of free bargaining" lective was unlikely to include must however, Caplan, who prefers to live "new wage determ- Gerald placed by a ation process", in Monte Carlo rather than London No doubt his speech was music at the moment. of the the ears of Jack Jones. Jones, Caplan chairman was and County London chitect of the £6 pay limit which

CO120CN

cut deeply into living Securities Group, the spectacular already of which, to undards, pressing foI record JUNr Thorpe, "was almost entirely due other limit expected be to the genius and drive of the chair- out £3 a week. director, And Jones himself is no stranger and managing the conferences organised by the Caplan.. The inspectors appointed by the investors at one of which Pardoe Department of Trade to investigate ronicle, London and County also noted Mr.

dience of businessmen. speaking an appreciative Caplan's "genius". allegations of frauds The audience this occasion. Making Our task is to build tactics. an alternative revolutionary leadership will take within that camp which the national liberation of Ireland through to its end. It was on this basis that we part- icipated in the Bloody Sunday com- memoration demonstration held in London on 1st February, advocat- ing our policies by calling for the immediate withdrawal of British troops and self-determination for the Irish people. which can unite Irish workers with a class struggle method of fighting for national liberation. The starting point is the struggle for democratic Special Pops cop initie No the, and measures such as the Criminal Jurisdiction Bill in the South. This people in the Republic for 'crimes committed United Ireland for

SOLDIERS RIGHTS

must demand that all soldiers, whether have the right to form trade unions be freedom of working class and republican tendencies.

Relying on their the working class should begin to fight for control of transport and strategic industries so as to put a stop to military collaboration bet- relating to loans of up to f5 mitir inspectors refer inherent deviousness, Caplan's almost amounting to capacity genius not to give a straight answer to a straight question". The full story is consequently hard to unravel, involving cheques with no backing, but with a face the invention value of 14 million; of a non-existent J. Cartwright with deals; whom to do with issued share company an capital of £2 which was owned by Caplan and his wife and which kept no books of account. The meticulous attention given ween the Southern government and British troops. Workers must also demand that the multinational the firms that super-exploit the Irish people should be opened to their elected representatives. They not only expose their profits and plans, but must prepare the way for nationalisation of these industries under workers management.

CONTROL

In order to prevent the murder- ous attacks by loyalist gangs on the Catholic population, anti- imperialist forces, including the various wings of the IRA, must work under the democratic contro of the nationalist masses.

The fight around such demands class the puts working on it possible for offensive, makes them to express their power in such a way as to begin to organise a Irish genuinely independent Workers Republic with the eviction of foreign troops. It is of course the case that all workers in Ireland, whatever their political or religious opinions, are faced with vicious attacks on their theit right to work. However, no struggles around wages ana loos wil be success G the heart of the goes to matter: imperialist domination of Ireland.

We have the explain to Protestant of the North workers that as long as they remain under the domination of the loyalist they will not be able to gentry, by the capitalist press to the alleged Scott by ex- ayments to Normat IP Peter Bessell (a fiver a week, contrasts sharply to the payments by Caplan's company to Jeremy £100 a week, or twenty Thorpe - times as much. Department of Trade As the Thorpe was inspectors point out, "mainly of use to the London and couly group In opening a number of in-store banks, with considerable publicity...No doubt this helped to create confidence in such banks on the part of would-be depositors.

RESCUE

In fact, must depositore lose nothing because operation organised by the Bank of England - a nationalised industry.

But as many as 13,000 depositors with Fidelity Life may suffer as a result of the London and County collapse. The titillation and trivia in the capitalist converning the press affairs of Scott, Bessell and Thorpe being used to are obscure the tip of the iceburg dis- covered when London and County was investigated: the deliberate manipulation of company accounts in the interests of shareholders.

SUHANIST iKвs, weanesaay 1ith cero effectively defend a single job or fight for a single wage increase. is on this basis that unity must be forged between the Catholic and Protestant workers. socialists must take In Britain, the struggle for the immediate with- right into. the drawal •ot troons labour movement. This must be done in such a way as to connect with the struggles British of the working class. We have to explain that spending the Lrish waI, running into on muons, contributes to the cuts in social services, housing: health and much else. We have to demand that all spending on this wat be stopped immediately.

HYPOCRITICAL

The trade union leaders

WAO

hypocritical noises about make unemployment must be forced to out against recruitment into recruit the and instead агту, into the trade unions to WOrkers fight against the bosses.

opposition way. must be built to attacks on demo- contained such cratic rights as the so-called "Preven- his has tion of Terrorism' Act. and the police enormous given arbitrary which have powers unsparingly been used already socialists and against republicans, trade unionists. These laws are directly opposed to the interests of British workers.

their interests served by Nor are having republicans locked in British jails.

TASK

The urgent task of the day for us in Britain is to build a movement class that is within the working strong enough to force the troops out of Ireland at once. From this point of view, the lowest common politics of the organ- denominator February isers of the Ist demon- stration in London, and particularly of the

IMG

who prec omnalcu unprincipled there, was diversion. It is not a question of seeking to and the class, trick advocating nur tea policies in an but stating clearly way, undernand and truthfully how we see the role Ireland, of British imperialism what we see as the next step and that has to be taken to defeat it.

Hull Branch Fights Witch Hunt This motion was branch on Hull

AUEW

No branch January 26th unanimously: views with "That this branch disgust the unwarranted interference by the national press and television coverage on elections as occurred movement, with OLI shop just recently over steward positions in the car industry. Elections for these positions are the concern of members only and we as of a democratic branch movement condemn such an challenge to the independence of trade unionists to choose their own representatives and the reject motive and implications of any employer who states he will not recognise steward's credentials even if chosen In view of the fact that such shop stewards are a elections for this branch daily requests that, the NEC of our own union would under such conditions issue the following directives: Immediate cancellations of elections. Elections proceed when unwarranted interference elapsed.

A TUC

enquiry into such methods of disrupting internal trade union democracy. of this resolution to be A copy forwarded to the

NEC,

District Committee and also the Hull Trades Council for further discussion.

BACK ISSUES!

We have back issues available of both "Trotskyism Today' and of 'Socialist Press'

UNION DEMOCRACY SUPPRESSED

SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 11th February 1976 Jack Jones - holds office 'during the pleasure of the Union'.

be branch result particular is only one There declared invalid! conclusion that can be drawn Not only that, but there is no the manoeuvres of the whatever for procedure from Region 5 bureaucracy of the complaints or queries by branches or individuals in relation to ballots General Transport and to be dealt with. This is what has Workers Union to block an left the Region 5 Committee free into the December enquiry to ignore complaints and demands regional and ballot for. for an enquiry from branches representing over 5,000 workers, national positions. documented together with is that the non-elected This which shows evidence full time union bureaucracy of the conclusively that anything.

OYEL

the democratic publicly 5,000 votes members within the rights ballot December announced T&GWU with complete contempt.

figures can not be accounted for.

Two of the major Oxford cars

NO RULE

branches, the 51293 (BL Plant) Branch, with instance, that Assembly foI it emerges 3,500 and the 5/55 within the T&GWU there is not a members, provides Branch, rule which lodged demands for an enquiry disciplinary action of any kind to which the be taken against a branch, district into the election in wing slate right officer who violates or regional supported by the Oxford District the rules of elections or rigs a returned huge union ballot. unsubstantiated votes completely The sole action within union in the Regional ballot for General rules which could flow even from Executive Council, Regional corruption conclusive proof National Committee and the and ballot rigging 1s that

TASS

MOTIONS

together with vitich sidind As part of the continuing scale of wages would the WSL the fight of the basic movement for the labour wage of all members at weekly or adoption of the programme inflation. tere rate ep actation inflation. The rate which will provide the basis should be determined by elected transition for the committees of trade unionists and

WSL

members socialism, working wives in each division and have successfully fought in the membership should be prepared for this campaign with propaganda for the their branches and meetings of members at following amended motions levels. This campaign be to be presented to the 1976 organised with the closest possible

AUEW-TASS

national co-operation with the Engineering Section at all stages." Representative Council:

GENERAL

amended by Corotry No 6 branch

MOTION

MOTION

NO 84,

GENERAL

amended by Coventry No 6 branch: to read: "This Representative Council "This Representative Council gives full support to the immediate difficulties that the implementation industrial members now face at plant level in in both the public and democracy, pursuit of wage increases, instructs private sectors of industry by the the Executive Committee to pursue election by trade union annual claim national wage within each company membership across-the-board substantial of and industry committees empowered to gain full access to books (accounts, investment and production plans etc.) of the companies and industries in which

LETTERS

the work. Such members would the information nembers to know the state of their We welcome readers' comments company and industry, and should and criticisms on Socialist Press be used by the members to expose any plans by the management articles. Letters should be addressed which would adversely affect the to the Editorial Board, members' interests, and enable the alternative Committee positions. Most blatant of these results was the 6,134 votes claimed for Jack Addams, the unknown right. Oxford District put winger the forward for Regional Committee as an automotive group candidate.

Addams comes from the tiny MC where he factory at Abingdon, 100

T&GWU

less than members. In the Cowley Assembly Plant 5/293 Branch he won only 167 of 3,500 possible votes. The out of its 5/55 Branch cast none 1,500 votes (having decided not to praticipate in the ballot). This meant that Addams' votes had to 6,500 either he Cowley the Body members in Plant or from Coventry, the other main area covered by the election.

COVENTRY

Coventry All the available can be seen to have been votes cast for Coventry candidates in the election, while a major branch 5/920, with that area, the 6,000 members, also did not vote at all. In other words, to amass 6,134 Awards of 9,000 Votes from the have needed Addams Plant. But it can be Cowley Body that only a shown conclusively few hundred workers in the Body Plant voted at all in the election!

And, despite continuous pressure from stewards, the leadership of the Body Plant (5/60) Branch will not reveal the voting figures from that factory ballot. positions, which Body two Plant Bill Roche was convenot election for second of like 5,000 CaSt 5,000-5,500 between and possible published votes cast. And Branch refuse to intervention And now Region further enquiry The The Regional after "preliminar) opened the two of those had lodged complaints interviewed the Regional their entire election. "minor technical the ballot one "minor Yet this even would infringement" enquiry was lodged by 5/55 Branch! "technical Along the infringement" Region "did not this Votes seem kegional Mathers made Secretary great the previous in Regional election which Alan 7,000 votes, position with while deputy convenor of the Assembly Plant, and stewards campaigned for his election on the As a result he won 3,500 tracks. from his own plant, while

YULED

District nomination the Oxford a further 3,000 votes him won Thus fom from the Body Plant. factories 6,500 of the only

IWO

Yet Matessa is naco expectin.

is now expecting Mathers workers to take seriously election of Addams with 6,134 than 500- votes when no "votes" can be of 0UU accounted for! Mathers -unelected. For bureaucracy the the unanswered questions of the December ballot are now a thing of the past. They do not intend to start an investigation which could serious questions as to only raise the role of the extreme right wing 5/60 Branch leadership and serve to further discredit them in the town. the But most workers in in Cowley Body Plant ale the They question. doubt on know only a handful voted in the why and leadership refuse to declare the results. For this reason the results from the re-run ballot in the Plant will little conviction. But the experience of fighting these issues and more militant means more workers are beginning to wonder what action they can take within their union to assert rights in elections. democratic Parsons - 5,000 Page 7 If the bureaucracy can evade exonerate an enquiry and branch leadership simply result invalid and declaring is way reballotting, forward? sharp This is a particularly remember that issue when of the full-time

T&GWU

none District and Regional Officers is elected, and none answerable to than the General anyone other Jack Jones who Secretary practice carries the power of the union's elected General Executive elected, (and who himself, once "shall hold office during the pleasure of the union).

WIDE OPEN

biggest union in the The thus has a rule book is wide open to the most which breaches ofdemocratic flagrant procedure by its officials. This is on which political platform the Jones stands in leading the fight and wage-cutting pay laws for against suppressing the struggle To and redundancies. speed-unis workers fight bureaucracy need to take more than a political programme - they need to take up an unremitting struggle of for the most basic guarantees within the democratic rights unions. do this every avenue for To manipulation and corruption must of be shut off, and the process brought out into the elections where they are beyond open dispute. The secret ballot, in which all information is concentrated in the of the bureaucratic hands apparatus itself, must be opposed op in he, and the fight taken elections to be conducted by show of hands at branch meetings with candidates having equal rights to address the meeting prior to the vote. In this votes would be visibly cast way no longer and the voting system to corruption by branch open officials, This system would also make witch hunting by the capitalist more difficult. Candidates press would have the chance to answer these slanders before the vote was taken. In instances where ballots do take place, workers must pressure way for the election of in every rank and file branch members as scrutineers, and for voting. figures and procedures to be for open time inspection any to members of the branch. New rules providing for the automatic removal from all office of a scrutineer or branch officer who to a dishonest is party election must be brought forward that all full along with demands time officials of the union be subject to regular election and recall by the membership.

PRES.

for such changes In fighting workers will confront. not simply the bureaucracy but the concerted action of the Tory press which, in defence of the bureaucracy, continue to suppress the truth of ballot and support the this existing corrupt en socal systems.

For this reason Socialist called on Friday February 6th a labour news movement conference, inviting participatio Socialist is Action, orkers Red Weekly Press, Socialist Worker, Militant and the Morning Star as a start launching offensive on these questions. enthusiasm Despite the Workers Press to attend recent anti-communist witch hunter Reg conferences news Parsons, they together with Stalinists of the Morning Star, the Militant and fake lefts of the "rank and file" specialists of Socialist Worker failed to attend the news conference. We challenge these groups to state where they stand on these questions, and demand that they take up with us these basic issues of workers democracy full unions. Demand enquiry into these elections; and

8

BLACKWELLS STRIKE

FOR RECOGNITION

Pickets outside the Blackwell's office block.

effective apporition to their plans begun to introduce during the last local colleges have given help on maintained from 7 a.m. to 5p.m.

the called on all students to stop using have given over their JCR facilities the pickets and Ruskin have also organised Trade Union support has already been significant, with the Post Office and

NUR

blacking deliveries. Oxtord Irades Councı. voted unanimously to support and

PROVOKED

the following branches passed resolutions of support and doubt that There 10

BLMC

Service Fnance:T8 T&G provoked the inagement have Leyland 5/55; British esent confrontation in the hope Assembly 5/293; T&G Export end to the t they can put an Packing Services, Banbury 5/104; and destroy any on for good

NEW PAY LAWS?

The TUC leaders are again atting their heads together ith the Labour government id the employers - this time work out Stage Iwo of state pay laws, to follow from Jones' notorious £6 nit. At a time when January's rise was 1¾% wholesale prices very one of the proposals floated • lar amounts to a massive wage at for the working class.

the Sunday is being Telegraph, 4% ItTT1T '- with a £2.40 "safety miggested. to protect

"JOW

minimum Healey- demanded f6 limit.

workers", and £10 aid capitalism. It was in attempting to impose wages that the state control Tory government was forced out

OWN FIGURES

of office by the miners in 1974.

with state pay laws already Now, six months on the statute books the This that by means figures a low under a Labour government union Peronner Jones are falling over leaders like worker is séen themselves in than f60 per the rusn to devise erning less wash. further restraints. thanks to repeated betrayals This, At the same time the 'lefts' of the TUC leadership, the Tribune group who claim to vast majority of industrial and Wilson's policies have at oppose sector workers. That the voting on number should be described best ige his policies in Parlament and not paid also indicates the low led any fight in defence of tree mpact of the inflationary policies Wilson by the Cole#N bardad insued It hard overstate the is to defence of

INFORMATION

I would like more information on the WSL COMPLETE and SEND to: 31, Dartmouth Park Hill, London NW5 IHR Name .. Address DIlOls. has alre Saturday organised for next butside the Broad Street shop at We urge all readers to midday. support. workers' living impact standards of this abolition of free No longer do wage bargaining. trade unionists take into account forced increases in effort or the the cost of increases in massive living in putting in for a new pay Instead all argument is increase. restricted to a haggle around the The consistent policy of the is to Socialist Workers oppose all forms of state contro!

a flat wages - whether this be of figure or a percentage limit. rate The defence of living standards we fight instead for a demands wages siiding scale O1 written in to all wage agreements to fully compensate for inflation, and to come on top of substantial needed nOW to increases wage year's huge make fot last up inflation. € 500 monthly development fund The great success of our Ann- iversary Rallies in London and Birmingham indicates the big advances made by our papers over the last year. Our £500 Development Fund is to enable us further to imp- and prepare rove its coverage Socialist Press.. for the weekly Send donations to: WSL, 31, Dartmouth Park Hill, London NWS IHR.

LEYLAND

SUES SIT-IN

The workers occupation of British Leyland's bankrupt Innocenti plant in Milan has continued since the end of November. continues to The occupation centre of the Italian he at the political posing major stage, the totering problems Christian Democratic government occasioning anla trade union of demonstrations solidarity through the streets of Milan.

NOT PAID

British Leyland has still not promised paid out a penny Not payments. redundancy with having thrown content several thousand workers out of a job, Leyland are now suing them the in the Italian courts for of the and cars repossessioll they which noW equipment control. The cars, alone (Bertoni minis) worth £7.5m - enough offset about one month's losses at last year's level. this legal action In bringing Leyland are trying to force the Italian government to send in the occupation. police to break the wanld provoke Such a move from the resistence massive workers in Milan and the rest of Italy.

CRISIS

victory in the So a Leyland (which begins on court case February 17th) could worsen Italy's already profound political

CISIS.

RALLY:

Ist ANIVERSARY of

'SOCIALIST PRESS'

LEEDS

Sunday 15th February, 7.30 Trades Council Club

RAIL

Continued from Front Page But working class. the trom petrified at the prospect Weighell, of launching a real fight, within an abject wiitten 24 hours letter to the Speaker of the House offering this "humble hiscourtesy apologies for The real issue is not of course one of parlamentary manoeuvring - even Tory spokesmen are to be heard now promising to subsidise lines as certain

COMMIULCI

"social service"! The question is to prepare the power organised railwaymen and all other sections of workers for action in defence Such of and conditions.

JODS

towards direct action kicking out Wilson and the trade leaders who connive with union him.

NOTHING

Labour MPs must be called to account by the working class. The 'Lefts' Tothin UR have done The Wilson. TaHOY sponsored MPs have lifted not a finger to defend railwaymen. Can NUR members allow such people as Gordon Bagier, MP for (and Sunderland South of extreme well-known supporter Michael right wing regimes), North, Islington O'Halloran of A s Dalina (TIl) SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday February Ttk, ?

The long Innocenti occupation therefore, Italy's. an also, embarrassment

TEO.!

all to preserve its Tepeciabiity all to preserve its interests of its cherished 11 luc ambition of forming a calition with the Christian government Democrats.

SUPPRESSED

All the major political parties giving as little publicity as possible to the situation at Innocenti. The head off the problem by trying to organise a purchase of the plant.

manufacture cars in the plant was Dushed out by another project of Fiat to assemble vans. has been abandoned in favour of a plan involving the specialist motor cycle and sports car firms Guzzi The Italian union leaderships

WONUS

search for some other capitalist to buy up the plant. It is only occupying determinațion workers not to give in that has so far prevented this solution.

SWALLOWED UP

principled and Only leadership, uncompromising nationalisation fighting

IOI

without compensation, which will prevent the interests of Innocenti swallowed up in workers being and Leyland's search for money the Italian CP's hunger for a part in the government.

WSL EDUCATION CLASS

OXFORD

Lake St Community Centre, Sunday, 15th February, 8.00.

"The General Strike" party is so (whose constituency practices riddled with

ARDIDEN

that even the NEC is to investigate them) to continue to receive financial backing of the union? It high tire these people Waly told by workers to fight Wilson os get out.

STRIKE

Weighell, nor ASLEF Neither leader Buckton has called for any to defend jobs. industrial action Crosland's plans show clearly that the time has come for a campaign from Tail of strike action The demands of the strike unions. call must be: * Stop all interest payments to the banks! BR's books to Open committees of railwaymen and rail users to draw up plans for an integrated transpoto finance Goverument cash to finance such a system. basis prepare the On this British Rail: abolition of the workers Board and full

HEHEHCLL.

* Work-sharing with no loss of - no redundancies and no pay conditions on the attacks on rail ways. by fighting for such Only the coherent programme labour and trade union movement itself against ilson's defend latest attacks