Socialist Press no. 43

STRIKEBREAKERS!

TUC -

The power of the working class, though muted in this period by the betrayals of its leadership, has now opened a jagged crack in the wage- cutting social contract drawn up by Jack Jones and the bureaucrats of the TUC with the Labour government. The vote for stike action by 58,000 seamen - one of the smaller sections of the TUC not only shook the employers and

TIM

the stability of the pound, but threatened the very existence of the Labour government.

LOGIC

The vote drew out into the open tea tony fore the of the reactionary policies reformist leaders of the TUC. As the strike deadline approached the confrontation came not with the shipowners as in the past, nor even with the Labour government in 1966, with Jones, as but Scanlon and the General Council of the TUC. Massive pressure was applied to the NUS have been MCCORdION quoted in the Sunday Times as asking General Secretary Slater if ne was prepared to destrov union, the and tent supporter the своношу Labour government.

SMASH

Had only be Ins can

OUCE

threat by Jones that if the seamen took action he would set out to ding smash the NUS as a union.

/ BRITISİ LEYLAND

Mirror September 15th 1976-

NO. 4E

A message from Jack Jones and hugh Scanlon

N KEEP

WORKING!

SOCIALIST

PRESS *

0 0

SHUT THE DOOR...

THEY'RE COMING IN THE WINDOW

Central to this was the threat to expel the NUS from the TUC.

inflation, This step would then have been gone in better equipped used as a pretext for arguing that the seamen were "no longer in the labour movement" that action - a label now attached to any opponents of the seamen TUC bureaucracy. And this would contract there and then. followed by issuing instructions to dockers and trans- port drivers to work scab ships.

But Slater, who has been a consis- about the of the capitalist arguments used to back up the social contract was in no position to resist this pressure. he opposed the social

TUC

would the from start adopted a clear position of defen- une aving standaras Orm members through demanding a Every month's quality month in the Mirror Car chief urges: Think of the other Africa continues 120,000 people in increasingly the Group the racist authorities. Johannesburg the In about three pan of me area i The paign and Alexandra black main 1,000 workers taken into custody. Some of occurred terror

TUC

chance of success. Already key

INFLATION

sections of workers were declaring support for the seamen. These solidarity workers reflected the strength of the working class, as did the seven

NUS

Executive members voted for strike action right to the end. Indeed the problem for Jones and Murray from the that they were not confronting Slater and the NUS Executive the 42% deal - but the working class behind them, forcing them working class have not accepted the 42%. It was only accepted on their behalf by the union bureau- siding scale of was to keep pace would militancy which is now emerging The betrayal of Slater using his would have emerged, and will still castin vote to call ore tented te prevented the once a lead is given from smashing the social It demonstrates that the miners favour of a fight against the 44%

BATTERED

battered with arguments mended rejection and not accep- economy and the pound and the need to 'save the Such is the hostility to the 42% and the pressure within the Labour government at all costs, he was in no position to see that the strike-breaking policies of the Duffy, newly elected as Midlands have stood little

GENERAL STRIKE

IN SOUTH AFRICA

BLACKS AND COLOUREDS IN JOINT STRUGGLE AGAINST APARTHEID

The black revolt in South school students gather schools protest to Kissinger's visit. strength even in the face of fired Police indiscriminate murdering on their criminately, murder and repression from own admission ten students.

Many others received bullet wounds or head wounds second from rifle butts. general strike in a month lasted three days and was responded to

ADMIT

quarters of all The official estimates that over fifty coloured demon- mass arrests. In Soweto strators have been killed in the last two weeks in Cape Town and

ONCSOLELS

suburbs) well over the 25 other towns and cities in were Cape Province to house to house searches in which revolt has now spread. anyone not at work or school was Last week also the revolt for the first time the ghastly most only one of South Africa's four events in the campaign of police provinces until then still unaffec- Soweto when

FORTNIGHTLY PAPER OF THE

WORKERS SOCIALIST LEAGUE

No 43 * 22nd September 1976 * 10p

TRADES UNION CONGRESS

BRIGHTON 1976

Executive Councilman for th AUEW was forced to point out a the weekend that: "You have no idea of th moves by hostility I have already encour tered from men reluctant swallow pay restraint for anothe who year."

DUFFY

start was And this hostility forced Duff in reality to declare also that: "If the seamen awarde are who had accepted fringe benefits, my members wi want each and every one as well.

In excess of 5 million worke are now lined up to pursue fring benefit claims on the lines of th

SOCCE

Jones' and Murray's attemp to manipulate the working cla into wage cuts has blown up i their faces. The fringe benef seen by them a

EL&LLOCLYIC

means of saving the soci has in fact given

CONTACL

working class a means throug which it can express its resistance Murray's statement, hours afte the strike called off, th "the social contract has stood th test" already sounds somewha hollow.

ENORMOUS

The lessons of this period f the working class on the questio of leadership are enormous. Thi •Continued on back page col occupied their In Durban and Port Elizabet against marches of several hundred scho students were arrested en mas them indis- by the police. The revolt, then, is now natio wide and has moved completel either out of the control, not only of th racist. government, but also who have posed as leader of the black South Africans.

The regime has no answer t the movement apart from murde admit ous repression because it has neve permitted the development of an significant layer of reformis leaders who might be able to pla their treacherous role of divertin which the the mass movement into compro mise and defeat. Only in the coloured commun reached Natal, the ity in Cape Province did any suc Continued on back page col

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MAD A RIVOLUTIONARY GENERATON

Mao Ise-tung (third from left) with other leaders of the Autumn Harvest Uprising, 1927 The death of Mao Tse-tung on 9th September marks the end of a major phase in the Chinese Revolution. Mao led the most important upsurge of the oppressed masses of the world since - the Russian Revolution. He will be remembered down the generations for his role in bringing peasantry and working class from centuries of feudal barbarism, from capitalist militarism and imperialist exploitation.

But how far did Mao take this process? His revolution was constrained by the narrowness its social base, and the rigidity of its nationalism. Mao led the Chinese

TENSES

along a revolutionary road, but his method and his

DEALING

limit upon the distance he, or they, development could travel following The death of Mao, practice closely on Chou En-lai, political organiser of theChineseCP, development The Workers Socialist League The Workers Socialist League is a Trotskyist organisation fighting to build a revolutionary leadership in the working class in opposition to the betrayals of both Party. In the daily struggle to take the demands and principles of Trotsky's Transitional Programme into the trade unions; the WSL has been at the forefront of the fight for the sliding scaie of wages, full pay at the 1975 T&GWU only alternative to Jones' £6 pay plan and the wholesale acceptance of redundancies by the bureaucracy. In today's fight against the TUC's 42% (rising according to the rising cost of living as assessed by trade union committees) is the essential basis of consistent opposition.

scale of NHS spending, for the start of workers' control of the service (beginning with opening the books of the Health Authorities), along with the fight to end all private practice. Perhaps more important we have led the growing call for strike action to defend the NHS against the cuts and policies, fighting those like the ASTMS and NUPE leadership who substitute the words for the action.

In London this policy has already day action against the closure of the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital 2,000 hospital workers in the area struck and 400 marched to 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 and against all forms of "workers' participation" have won mass responses nave forward JuL unemployment, calling for unity of employed and unemployed through the fight to mobilise the trade union movement.

is tne olly transitional demands, going beyond mere trade union militancy to pose In doing this our comrades have been forced also to lead struggles for trade union democracy against the bureaucratic manipulation of the Stalinists and right-wing.

But our struggle for the continuity of the principles of Trotskyism is in no way a task confined to Britain. It requires an attention and involve- ment in the international struggles of the working class and moves to rebuild the Trotskyist Fourth International.

So while many interventions grasp of Trotsky's Transitional Programme, there has been a consistent drive to deepen and enrich the movement's understanding of the history and the present crisis of the essential part of any serious initiative towards its reconstruction.

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

Revolution. focus has limited its social base and economic development. The Stalinised the masses. Mao set by themselves. gravedigger of revolution.

forward the Chinese revolgh on we 1914 and Chu Teh, its greatest military politician, marks the passing of a revolutionary generation.

But it is necessary to go beyond the nauseating hagiography of their counter-revolutionary of cynıcism their heritage. must say first that the of 'socialism country' has stultified the political Chinese exploitation. The slow was not even Chinese until 1920, largely. May Fourth period: "left" and right trade union leaders and the Communist Our ideals true to a scholar spirit Just and upright, fearless and frank, We pointed the finger at our land, Conference were the This somewhat of youthful contact with a form this demand for a sliding scale of wages that owed more to the mechanical conceptions of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer comrades have led the struggle for a sliding dialectical materialism against Hegel through Lenin. 'stages' of social development, and not the dialectical relationship of class revolutionary struggle.

VOLUNTARISM

WSL comrades have tested and developed the capitalist commentators have seen in Mao was less an attempt to look at the objective and material basis abpeals to doctrine of self-denial. fights consistently for Communists that they only began was beginning to look away from struggle and trying to win friends and influence people in such places in Britain have developed the League's Trotskyist Fourth International, as an most effete and temporary role in with its revolution in 1911, but it

THE PASSING OF

Reliance on a OI economic resources. party has created

DMT,

especially * Want capitarat credentials, and came under the control of Chiang anti-capitalist credentials, Kai-shek in the mid-20s, was never able to put reliance on the self-activity of an end to the influence of the feudal warlords, or to push and his companions have back the incursions of international left behind a closeted bureaucratic imperialism. elite who look to the mobilisation Yet it was to this class the historically backward KMT that the leaders of the Chinese CP were first directed. To take a case himself point, 4426 national leadership of both move- sattelites sing out "The East ments, and even retained KMT after he had position in the lost it in the Communist 01 thousands of whose members were

NATIONAL MOVEMENT

The CP obviously had to take part in the national movement, but from the start it denied itself the right independent blackguard, even stooping as low as initiative, and thus only the backbone for Edward Heath and Richard Nixon.

which had none of its own.

This policy proved a disaster. In he professed to admire, a conscious the 1927 Revolution against warlords and the remnants of the old feudal order, sometimes despite his own political were by far the best fighters, took over power in many of the big cities, notably Shanghai.

Then they were turned upon and murdered in their thousands by the KMT. Chou En-lai only escaped by minutes, and Mao by remote part of the countryside. If the KMT had for policies of Stalin, thanks to The the first upsurge of the defeated Chinese proletariat, they were never then able to confront the economic and social problems that inevitably faced any countless In they particular, millions around the world inspired impotent against and three invasion Trotsky to turn to the traditions of provinces, which began of struggle against local and particular forms of of Chinese Marxism can be gathered from the fact that the Communist Manifesto translated into and from the student orientation of the 1919 movement, expressed by Mao in a poem of the During those crowded months and years of endeavour, All of us students together and all of us young, Our bearing was proud, our bodies strong, We praised and condemned through our writings, And those in high positions we counted no more than dust.

aimless attitude revolt Colane

HILO

of Marxism than to the developed Marx and It was a Marxism that saw rigid development and Young communist army volunteers in North China, 1937 In any they concerned to the job wipe out the Communists and their!

supporters. This was the most desperate and heroic period in the history of the Chinese CP. Feared by the warlords, hated by the Japanese, harassed and attacked by the Kuo Min Tang, the nevertheless built up support political force. Even the most fighter revolutionary today has not had to put up with a thousanth part of the deprivations of the heroes of those days. nothing can but achievement of the Long March of after it

SO TEN

marched 6000 miles to a saf haven. Only 20,000 survived.

This great feat of revolutionar warfare had a number of importan political consequences. Mao and his supporters and to confirmed in the leadership of th Chinese Communist Party, and th main political basis for this was in In suture lull to tue peasantry From the of view point revolutionary Marxism. his inevitable that the peasantry woul play a decisive role in the Chinese Party. Revolution, and Chen Tu-hsiu of Trotsky SUP leader came round to this vien supporter forme also. However, Mao went beyond a turn to the peasantry, to of the working class. He policy OI consistently held back the working provided class from action, both before and movement after the CP came to power.

RESTRICTED

the This narrowed the social base o the Communists the revolution, and restricted it and ability to go beyond the capitalis The conditions under which stage. capitalism was finally overthrowi will be dealt with in more detail i the second article in this series.

could be

LUTHEN

being in a seen the of method party building during the time when the time, CCP was largely confined to its bast area in the Yenan part of Shens provuice, a successful It military was machine, rather than a Party in th tradition of Lenin that emerger from this, a bureaucratic military were command structure whost Japanese mobilisation could of necessits Northern only be within the limits set by its 1931. leaders. Bottom: Chiachin Mountain on the route of the Long March, 1934-35.

The Party-builder Liu Shao-chi and? represented ..traditions that into ultimate conflict with the revolutionary process. Neither the military radicals represented by Lin Piao Mao sought keep within the limits to impose. and continually There was much talk in later years of the 'spirit of Yenan", which Communists had a positive side terms of enough heroism and self-sacrifice.

serious But it also brought with it the creation of a military-bureaucratic stalwart elite who needed its commands to in Ine west be obeyed and ruthlessly suppressed all opposition.

terrible Communist Continued Next Edition.

AND TRADE UNION

Weighell Jones When the "Nation" (ie the ruling class) is threatened, the TUC and Labour leaders join the employers to hands with attack the "enemy". "unity" and "the This is why nation" as much today's TUC 41V banners as they were in Britain is now seen by the union leaders as besieged by 'foreigners' is not yet But they claim, all lost: "There is already much going for Britain, so long we are effort" the prepared to make

TUC

Len the cried Murray at Conference at Brighton. Against the villains of the piece Japanese the dreaded and "Trotskyist bootboys" course the fervent and only the most dedicated class collaboraton implied Murray and his colleagues, can offer any protection.

"NATIONAL SOLUTIONS"

"national" Accordingly the

TUC

solutions offered by the merely, echo the arguments of the way to restore full "The only employment and rising living stan- dards is by expansion of manufac Murray informed turing industry us. And for this "we" need invest- exports to keep the and 'foreigners' at bay. This nationalist fervour was the

TUC'S

central the keynote dess tee erstoe poti, voice of voice erstwile

AUEW

President Scanlon which anti-internationalist put the most concretely: Speaking message after Murray had launched Scanlon the Japanese, attack stressed: "We are not asking for a reversal of the present policy that Britain can only get out of its current ills on a basis of efficient manufactur- ing industries. we are askong Ior d more sustained and vigorous imple- mentation of that strategy. shilly-shallying, no more HOTe delays: the government should import selective controls!"

SCANDALOUS

Through arguments like these, linked to his scandalous call in the workers Leyland allow management to get away with anything rather than impede peddles Scanlon the production, illusion that the British working magically can crass saved by their main preserving British capitalists! enemy - As to the workers of the rest of the world, Scanion spared them one thought: "Some of these countries have we'd never labour standards descend to. nationalist and class Scanlon's however, collaborationist policies, are the reverse of what is required "labour standards" to improve the

SPOTLIGHT

ON

REFORMISM

OUR REGULAR FEATURE EXAMINING THE POLITICS OF THE LABOUR

LEADERS - AND CONTRASTING THEIR POLICIES

WITH A SOCIALIST APPROACH.

Murray Scanion and Bassnett

TUC FLIES THE FLAG

By DI PARKIN from August Ist 1977. Yet Murray, anywhere else in the world.

avoiding the use of the There is as Lenin said only one carefully "free", felt obliged to make way to combat national hatred and word gestures towards a return to wage rIvalry . bargaining: "organising the class of the collective bargain- "Voluntary oppressed for a struggle against the ing provides a continuous system of class of the oppressors

CYCLY

adjustment….... and by the single country other words some flexibility amalgamation such helps defuse tension and make the working class organisations into a collaborationist role of the bureau- single international working class crat easier. But Murray was firm on combating international for wanting to give the major say on capital". wages to the state.

COLLABORATION

Other delegates similarly saw Col tike bag anth the sase too The policy the TUC leaders put tinkering • with the system forward at Brighton raising differentials tne with the None mentioned the crucial impor advocated collaboration the interests tance of free collective bargaining oppressors In increasing national rivalries.

as a weapon of the working class in In this atmosphere the platitudes fighting the employers. the TUC uttered by the bureaucrats on other The capitulation by great the public days had a hollow ring. was equally on of Geoffrey Drain The union leaders made it clear spending cuts. that their complicity in the Labour dolefully spoke of the

NALGO

government's Tory policies was in situation; yet it was a position he practice unconditional: was at heart ready to accept.

"What if the government does expenditure", "Public announ we are saying? We not need wilal "has come to play a key ced Drain, will still fulfil bargain" our the the controlling of part 1n announced Scanion, while Jones economy. We acknowledge this last "we that: have no role; it's going to stay with us."

stressed intention of weakening the govern- ment's position."

LINE

no "buts', and no There reservations about government But of course much public Many were made policy. "stay with spendint into ben slash "unacceptable" about levels but is to be slashed. Drain, which somehow unemployment however, simply the line all

TUC

leaders have managed to welfare spending are accept. But action against govern- in order to. boost the necessary policy was labelled "unneces- ment manufacturing sector. (How out of sary" by Murray: work teachers could possibly aid "There are stoppages of work the manufacture of books, which should not need to take the production of ployed nurses place and that profit no one inclu- engines, or 1½ million ding the people involved in them" aerospace unemployed workers the he preached.

• AGAINST THE JAPANESE,

• AMERICANS, FRENCH.

GERMANS. INDIANS,

PORTUGUESE, ITALIANS,

EAST EUROPEANS,

ASIANS AFRICANS,

POLES, WRECKERS,

WORKERS

ANARCHISTS....

OF THE

WORLD

UNITE...

The 'socialist' approach to import controls.

tion of anything is not explained!)

"un- No doubt he meant such Drain would like more tinkering necessary" objectives as the defence with the works and a determined of jobs (Export Packing Services, "foreigners" through stab at the Banbury, and in the social services).

import controls for equal pay (Trico), in defence of but not at any against the Labour shop floor trade unionism against cost, government's Tory policies.

(BL and, victimisation class all, if we National unnecessary of most dread of collaboration, and believe Murray, for higher wages and working strength: these then entence class (the Seamen). were the real On wages, Congress voted down themes of this year's TUC.

the amended resolution calling for a

STUDENTS FACE

FRESH ATTACKS

NOITS, NO BUTS.

ENO TO

EDUCATION CUTS,

This week, the start of the thousands of academic year, students will come face to face with the effects of the contin- uing attacks on education and other social services. Course books will not appear in libraries due to lack of money, new equipment will not be bought and many options stopped through lack of staff. All of this caused directly by the Labour government's cuts in public spending. At the same time soaring rents and continued price rises will again With high deep Cull unemployment and graduate teachers on the 30,000 qualified students all over the country dole, are facing a grim year ahead.

CUTS

The cuts in public spending ar he results of the Labour govern ment's attempts so dial sereices es services to from social away bolster up private industry.

have only However these through by the been pushed betrayals of the present trade union everything in their leaders who do power to stop the growing oppos- ition to the cuts within the working breaking through the social class

RIGHT TO WORK

TUC leadership While the were meeting in Brighton this put the seal month to acceptance on an extension of 500 Contract, the Social highly publicised unemployed marched workers and youth from London to Brighton to demand the Right to Work.

In a period in which the fight lacking against unemployment, remained sporadic has localised, such and mobilisation might have played an important role in taking the fight forward.

"RANK AND FILE"

the the 500 But in led by the Inter- marchers were under the national Socialists (who, guise of their 'Rank and File' front, organised the march) into the blind protest, publicity stunts alley O1 and adventurism. travelled The To leadership nas this road so many times before it direction. And knows no each time they set off afresh they lead a different group ot workers eventual disillusionment and into cynicism. There is no doubt of course that the size of the march reflected the fight which exists willingness to Through- within the working class.

out the country young workers wey of whom bove heen without SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 22nd September 1976

HOYED

HERS

FiA OVERCROWDED

CLASSE

Yet this class collabor- ation is not confined to the trade Student teachers will union leaders. remember with bitterness the role dominated Union of Students last National

OCCUPATIONS

The NUS leadership refused to take up the question of the cuts in public spending especially those in education. Yet by the end of the year the of 20,000 qualified harsh reality the dole brought teachers in Scotland into student teachers college occupations. This action spread throughout the centering on demand of reducing class sizes to 30 to provide employment to those unemployed teachers. In the face of this militancy the NUS executive refüsed to call on other colleges and universities to support the teachers. They then reversed the decision of the June Sth delegate conference of those occupation colleges which called for full support for the lobby of Parliament against unem- ployment on June 16th, called by the assemb v on Unemployment result and thousands were diverted students were split their own lobby the day onto

MARCH

jobs for up to two years, are look- in the struggle for direction ing against unemployment. provided them with no 'The s political direction, since it has none to offer. TUC delegates So while were urged *fight for the right to work", they were given no indic- ation of how this was to be done.

Indeed the main policy that did - the call for the emerge trom s was so much a 35-hour week it that was demand where easily passed by the TUC, as Jack Jones right-wingers such voted for it! The other main demand is an ban, conditions overtime under of where workers, because many refusal of the trade union the defend living leadership standards are working overtime to make up a living wage. This demand ends up blaming the working class.

On their arrival in Brighton to lobby the

TUC

Congress the varied their chant with marchers the for "the right to speak" Unfortunately, however, the IS has not shown itself too eager to other allow the same right tendencies within the working class In stage-managing the march, the political IS demanded that 110 • Labour Party banners not even banners — should be carried, and no political literature sold (except that Work Campaign).

GINE

SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 22nd September 1976 before, in order to separate them from the labour movement.

This betrayal by the NUS must not be repeated. All colleges and universities must start a cannoaen around the demand for

ILUW

massive injection of funds into the social that public and protected spending should be against inflation.

WEEK OF ACTION

Grants must index. Support for be linked workers price week of action the the called by South East Region TUC (8-12 Nov- ember) must be built around strike action. This strike action must not contined to students alone but fought for in all unions, especially those in education. This will force leaders like NALGO's Geoffrey Drain to turn their verbal opposition into action or stand exposed. vital I his because precisely these union leaders who have continualv retused to cal tori any action against the cuts.

The question of teachet unem- be taken into the ployment must NUT. We call for full union rights tor al unempioved teachers.

the permanent implementation of a national policy cover for ºI no absent teachers with the reduction of class sizes till all teachers are employed. This fight must be linked to forcing the opening of the books of the LEA's to elected committees of students and trade unionists.

WORKERS PLAN

Further enquiries would reveal the massive sums of money paid to education suppliers, school building firms and examination boards.

for education, A workers linked to the educational require- ments of youth and workers in each area would then be produced, based the nationalisation of these companies. But the fight for a new leader- will ship in the trade unions which defend the living standards of the working. class be taken into the NUS if this year's graduates are not to follow last years onto the dole queues. This be taken fight can onily around forward it will or every the outlined above. of the hostility the stage Communist Party-led Broad Left Who as last year showed are willing partners to the trade union leaders who accept wage cuts and attacks social services the trom Labour government. By Peter Dawson The organisers also managed to make an exception of IS banners in the final stage of the march.

Enforcing this rule the march leaders physically pulled down the Gay Workers banners of the and the "Women's Right Work". Both these banners were supported by the International Marxist Group wao were present on tae marca and accepted all the disciplines including no banners. The harsh reality was that the IMG disappeared without trace into the march, and were lett without political any independent voice when the TUC lobby began.

On the Sunday before the TUC started mcorectly disrupted a Tribune meeting and on the Tuesday of the TUC there were 'scenes' the

TUC

lobby marchers provoked by the arrogant behaviour of delegates, which the was able capitalist press to twist and use against the campaign.

The used the bureaucracy tactical error of the IS to attack all those opposed to their sell-out and describe them as being fascists' or close fascists, and therefore outside the labour movement.

KILLED

BY RYDER

UNDER WAY

While the TUC launched its attack on the and seamen Jones and Scanlon attempted to tighten their noose around the shop stewards movement in the motor industry, more trade union support has been won for the fight back - the October 24th Conference on Wage Control and Union Democracy called by the for Democracy in Campaign the Labour Movement. In Cowley, where

TGWU

officials have working hand been with Leyland manage- glove ment in allowing recognition to be

SITTEE

IS banner on the 'non-political' Right to Work March.

So there Murray, was battle the arming to do with seamen, talking about Trotskyist 'boot boys, and Healey talking about 'Hitler Jungend' chant taken up by the Tribune.

This unholy chorus was taken up by

WRP,

showing the right- wing politics which is the other side of their sectarianism. In scandalous attack the Right Work marchers, the WRP's News Line branded them "hooligans" We completely defend the Right to Work march against the slanders of the WRP and the proven scab leaders of the

TUC.

We recognise the frustration and anger felt by the marchers when confronted by trade Labour union and leaders who arrogantly refuse to take the slightest action in defence of their members. But at the same time we must point out sharply that the adven- turism and protest politics of the creating the illusion that they are breaking workers from reform- by ism simply howling down reformist leaders, cannot provide a way forward to the building of new Ieadershin.

UNION

HEAUCRACY

LIS OUT

DI! THE

Export Packing workers in struggle against Ryder plan lobby TGWU officials.

CONFERENCE CAMPAIGN

withdrawn from four shop stewards, the 5/293 TGWU Branch has supported the Conterence and elected a delegation of twelve.

STRIKE

Also Oxford the 5/833 ACTSS (Blackwells) Branch, which this year earlier carried through a long successiul strike against victim- isation in the teeth of obstruction from. local

TOWE

officials, has agreed to sponsor the Conference, and provisionally elected six delegates with the possibility of additional delegates from the next branch meeting. In the Trades Leamington, Council has agreed to support the

CHILE MARCH

On Sunday 12th September 4000 people marched through London demonstration in called by the "Chile Solidarity Campaign". A contingent from the Workers Socialist League joined the march.

This event, called to commem- 3rd anniversary orate the of the Chilean military take-over had the character of a funeral march.

Dominated by the Communist Party and assorted Labour lefts', both the slogans of the demon- stration and the speeches at the end reflected attempt to avoid any discussion of the lessons of the Chilean coup. In this the Stalinists of the Communist Party found support in revisionist groups like the IMG and IS who also made no attempt to raise these questions. The Workers Socialist League the was only organisation there which openly denounced the role oi the Chilean Stalinists who did nothing to the working class against the coup. The WSL also fought to expose the current attempts of the CP in Chile to form an alliance with the Christian Democrats, thus creating a new barrier to the struggle overthrow Pinochet and lead the workeniel criticam from Desotte criticism those breaking me unity of the demon.

claimed WSL. was stration, the WSL carried on this light on the understanding that only by drawing the main lesson &f Chilean defeat - the counter- revolutionary role of the Stalinist Communist Parties can the working class prepare the ground for future victorier Page S public spending cuts control and To fight against them, we: T*: 001 1) call all NUR sponsores MPs to vote against all governmen freezes and attacks cuts, walt they refuse to do th

JUST 3

workers. PARTiCiPATiON: the union must withdraw its back

THATS A

COMMiTTEE ing and call on the Labour Part constituencies to remove them.

THRows 2) say that if Sidney Weighe 300 and Bowman not campaign to defend their members jobs they must be removed fron office. 3) agree to support the Nationa Conference. of the fo Campaign Democracy in the Labour Move ment to be held in Birmingham or October 24th."

NEW SITUATION

In the new situation opened uI by the blatant betrayals of the trade union leaders, and the damag inflicted on the social contract by the seamen's settement. the time is ripe for a full discussion on th political questions involved in th struggle against wage control an for new leadership in the working class The WSL repeats its call to al fight and supporters to within the trade union movement for the fullest support thi Conference, which trade unionists in addition to trade amon acidales.

CAMPAIGN FOR

DEMOCRACY IN THE

LABOUR MOVEMENT

Conference on and call on atfiliated Conterence

WAGE CONTROL AND

branches while itself to support sending a delegate.

UNION DEMOCRACY

Another TGWU branch in recent Sunday 24th October conflict with full-time officials and Digbeth Hall, Birmingham.

impact Ryder partici- the 5/104 Branch pation scheme - Sessions Services, Export Packing Banbury, has voted support for the 10am - 12.30pm. Conference and elected a delegation 1.30pm - 4.00pm. of seven, while inside the factory a Credentials, 50p, from number of additional workers have Kevin Lee, Campaign In London the following Secretary, 44, Devonshire resolution has been passed.

Road, Handsworth Wood, branch of the Birmingham 20-

NUR

42% opposes wage Cowley workers leaving TGWU Oxford office.

BOOKS

FOLROSE

THE TRANSITIONAL

PROGRAMME

BATTLE LOR

The Death Agony of Capitalism and

TROTSKVISW

the Tasks of the Fourth Inter- national:..... ...30p

BEHIND THE SMOKESCREEN

workers press An analysis of the sectarian politics of the WRP. .40p (p&p: 10p)

SOCIALIST

TROTSKYISM TODAY

PRESS

BACK ISSUES

"Fourth International Problems and Tasks" .. 130 "In Defence of a Great Revolutionary: James P. Cannon" by Tim Wohlforth 10p The Post-war Reconstruction of Capital- Docunents of the Oppos- ism" plus a reply to Wohlforth's article ition expelled from the on Cannon. Workers "The General Strike" : •.•.P Revolutionary Party in 1974 v Significance of the * he sitional account of the expuisions.

Programme" ..5p Price El plus 20p p&p p&p: 6½p available from WSL. 31, Dartmouth Park Hill. London NIS THP

CHILE

PART TWO: POPULAR UNITY AND THE ARMY.

The most glaring flaw in the politics Popular Unity Allende's coalition owed up in its attitude to the army.

Allende said in 1971: "This process of change is possible because e armed forces and the carabineros (armed lice) have a respect for the constitution, ich is not the case in the majority of Latin erican countries". from the This position never changed ety. wot heens of torperiod of Popular weeks before ammunist Party daily newspaper El Sigio rried a full-page advertisement praising the respect for democracy and the my for its With bitter irony the September insitution. 173 Communist Party British journal Today carried an article by the Chilean CP, Luis neral Secretary of the ora con thie to suppo continue to support the absolutely ofessional character of the armed stitutions. Their enemies are not among the aks of the people but in the reactionary mp". Examples of statements of this kind could - multiplied indefinitely. Did the Communist leaders believe this? Their hologists in Europe claim they did and admit was a "tragic error" The Chilean CP itself has made a public If-criticism on this question: "One of our most serious errors as a Party to have overestimated in various ways the emocratic capacity ot the state svstem i pile not have acted in to time amed for, 5 as well aed in er guesto the.

forces as other questions". (Official Documents of the Chilean Com- Santiago since unist Party issued in the pup, p.125) This humble of seemingly contession "rIOr" is nothing more than an tempt to criminal political cover up the Presidential Palace bombed in the coup ways. Sadly, the Stalinists have again been helped up by the USFI. In in this attempted cover the IMG's pamphlet on Chile we read: "The which the mistake Popular Unity made was its estimation of the army....

Given the Popular this wrong assessment, Unity tackled the question of the army in the wrong way"

(IMG,

Chile, The Lessons of the Coup, pp20-21, emphasis added.)

FALSE

his view is totalv tase There is no Popular doubt whatever that the possible Unity leaders were always aware of the possib- ility of a military But it was the very coup. nature of their politics which compelled them to treat the army in the way they did.

Trotsky again made the same point very cleariy in relation to Spain: "Many French socialists are asking them- selves..... Why is it that the Spanish Front, who have held power since February, did not take the necessary steps to deal with the army? What a blunder! etc.

• What these people do not understand is that it is not a question of la blunder' one of but entirely class interests. When the bourgeoisie is con- concude an allance between its left-wing and the workers' organisations, it needs tae nicer corps more Wai counterweight for the important most the question of the protection question i.e., of property is then posed.

This was no blunder at all!"

(Trotsky, The Spanish Revolution, pp230- 231). The Popular Unity leaders did not consider they were making blunder when they flattered and bribed the army into not making a coup on behalf of the capitalist class. They rapidly improved the material conditions of SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 22nd September 1976

THE REAL LESSONS

OF THE 1973 COUP

generals entered the cabinet, the army was what government dictate the to aDie reforms it would accept and what it would not. On the other side, the Popular Unity tried to avert the necessity of a military coup by the "provocative" independent combatting mobilisation of the working class. The leaders knew that, if they failed in their role as police- men of the working class, then the bourgeoisie would overthrow them in order to defeat the In their effort to prevent mass movement. this, the Popular Unity parties agreed in 1971 to abandon all their political activities in the army to which the generals objected.

In 1972 the Popular Unity deputies either abstained oI voted in favour of the control. introduced by the bourgeois with the collaboration of the army, parties military unrestricted giving the search for in factories and workers Chill homes. Under this law the army began 1t5 atrocities against the militant campaign of workers long before it overturned the Popular Unity government. In these ways, the Popular Unity's attitude another part of its to the army collaborationist politics treacherous class disaster for the which, were to bring such the military The policy on class. perhaps more clearly than anything

SHOWS

how, through their acceptance of the inviolab- ility of the bourgeois state, the Popular Unity militarily dis- politically leaders both and armed the working class. It this which underlines the irony of Allende's calling for armed workers' resistance to the coup - the arms with which this resistance could have been taken by from the made had been torce workers with the knowledge and help ot Allende's own government.

THE FALSE LESSONS OF

THE POPULAR UNITY

of the working class No political party appearing to draw the avoid at least can lessons of the Chilean catastrophe. but lile particular have since Stalinist parties 1973 been conducting a world- September wide campaign to suppress what they know to be the real lessons because they know that their they would be deathblow politics. unchanged class collaborationist There are many components in this campaign The first is to say that the situation in Chile was different from what it is now in, say, France or Italy. In those countries, they "pluralistic democracy", has deeper roots say, would not exceed its alloted and the In other words, they use the same words Tot in their Popular Unity leaders used the effort to try to blind their working class sup- porters to the truth. The bourgeoisie is under no such illusion. first comment on the coup in Chile In its of democracy the bastion bourgeois that London Times said that *any reasonable the same man' would have taken military steps as did the Chilean military on September 11th 1973! When the Popular Unity was first elected and when it survived its first year havıng launched a number of reforms, the similarities with Western Burope were emphasised by the Parties. after the Communist oniy defeat they have made an effort to present Chile as another world. But nothing hide the similarities between the politics of the Chilean CP in the Popular Unity and the same class collabor- politics every day lead the European working class into greater danger.

Secondly, the Stalinists and reformists say hat the Popular Unity was not a "fair test" o popular front politics because the election o Allende was almost an accident, caused by the 1970 right-wing vote splitting the between two candidates. The Popular Unity, therefore, to came power belle bicy weit ready for it; before they had more than 50% backing from the population.

This argument is as fraudulent as the tirst.

For one thing, the popular backing for reform grew at enormous speed and this was reflected CP in the in a more than 50% vote for the of 1971. instead of municipal elections mobilising the political support building and for reform, the Popular atically tried to hold it back to avoid giving too great an offence to the bourgeoisie.

"ERRORS"

Thirdly, the Stalinists and reformists, because they are forced to try to explain why the Popular Unity had such disastrous con- manage to discern these errors during the three that the Popular Front govern- years ment held office. This itself suggests the truth of the matter that the admission of "errors" which is to justify the part of a cover-up operation European and other CPs preceeding Western the same political line as that which led the Chilean working class into such appalling straits. The Italian CP, for example, says that the "error" of the Chilean CP and the Popular was in not making a closer alliance with Unity the Christian Democrats which, by an the coincidence, just what amazing Stalinists are falling over themselves to do in Italy! We have already seen the example of the Portuguese Communist Party's creation of ilusions in the Armed hotces Movement life Spanish Communist Party supports US bases and has proposed a "democratic Spain between the people and the army.

alliance" French opposed trade unions in Ine the army and supported military discipline.

APPEASEMENT

appease the In Italy the CP attempts to army by saying that it supports Italian partic- ipation in the anti-communist military alliance NATO. None of these • policies are they flow directly and inevitably from a line which politically ties the working class to the bourgeoisie Is wise po thare thity d wing shich terms the Popular Unity did wrong brought the Chilean working class to defeat in 1973, but precisely those things which in its own terms it did right. A fourth way in which the Stalinists and cover up the lessons is by reformists try attributing the defeat almost exclusively to of United States the overwhelming power Of there the imperialism. course, not slightest doubt at all that the international companies like ITT, the CIA and the US State Department plotted continuously against the Popular Unity government and to prevent any real social change taking place in Chile.

But the Stalinists and reformists use these further support to their facts to try to give They say that class collaborationist politics. • basically between the struggle was one imperialism and Chilean repot the Tne majority of which they include the Chilean bourgeoisie. They play down the fact that within Chile itself there was a powerful class which was utterly hostile to any increase in the power of But it was the capitalist the working class. class of Chile itself, along with its allies in which (of course, the army and the Church, with American imperialist support) overthrew towards trying to crush ere Chilean working Popular Unity government

VIETNAM

the principal Villains were the exposed the victorious struggles by Vietnam against US intervention in Angola. The final item in the cover up operation which has been conducted by Stalinism and allies since the witting its and unwitting Chilean coup is the claim that the Popular Unity government only failed because of the "dangerous and provocative" actions of the "ultra-left", , and in particular the MIR (Move- ment of the Revolutionary Left.

This was the way in which the British Com- Party leaped to 'explain' the catas-

LILIESL

trophe which its policy had led to in Chile: "Whatever their intentions, the ultra-left groups outside the UP, such as the MIR, and those sections supporting them in the Socialist Party and MAPU, acted in such a way which played into the hands of reaction.'

(Jack Woddis, Morning Star, September 22nd., 1973). This slanderous and cowardly position has principal "lesson" that the Chilean been the Communist Party itset has drawn trom the One of its major recent political state- wup. ments analysing the experience of the Populat Unity and attacking the MIR is in fact entitled Ultra-Leftism, Trojan Horse of Imperialism.

Stalinism has uttered slanderous filth of this kind on every occasion when its class class policies collaborationist, anti-working have directly led to defeat.

The words are almost identical which Stalinists have 'explained' the defeat which took place in the Civil War in Spain in 1939.

They are the same words which are used by

SOCIALIST PRESS, Medreades Z2ad Sepeember 1976

THE 'REVOLUTIONARY' LEFT

The organisations which claimed in Chile to be revolutionary, in particular the largest of them, the MIR, cannot, however, be exoner- ated from responsibility for what took place Chile in 1973. But the of their nature itsponsibility is the opposite of what the Communist Party claims it to be.

inen laull was not in taling to support ine opular Unity leadership but in failing to provide ship. Despite the revolutionary rhetoric through which criticised the They Popular Unity, they in fact contributed, in particular among the politically advanced sections of workers and beasants and students to strengthening illusions the Popular Unity. The MIR's attitude to the Popular Unity ambiguous. Unti and 1973 it refused to vote for the Popular Unity In elecions, yer at tue same time gave its symbolic support the by IO providing (until the army objected) Allende's personal armed bodyguard.

In the last months of the Popular Unity, when the strength of the mass mobilisations unprecedented an opportunity to Bave separate the workers from their class collabor- ationist leadership, the MIR moved closer and closer to the Popular Unity.

It presented the tasks of the working class in the period before the coup not so much as building separate leadership and separate organisations to defend all the gains ot the working class but rather as defending the Popular Unity govern- I1Cl. The MIR's concept of political programme did not go far beyond the demand that the Popular Unity implement its own programme more rapidly. unable to present an Top: Armed workers detachment before the coup Below left: Pinochet with his Generals.

alternative revolutionary programme of its own which met the real needs of the working class and peasantry. The MIR in the end, therefore, played the of a left cover for role the Popular Unity itself. Its large size and influence in Chile meant that, in spite of its real efforts to arm workers and it peasants, must bear heavy responsibility for their political disarm- ament. MIR has not, any more than the Ine parties of the Popular Unity, been able to draw out the lessons of the Chilean defeat. It has with the Popular Unity now lomed up parties in the class-collaborationist resistance

RESISTANCE AND SOLIDARITY

Since the coup every working class organ- isation and party in Chile has suffered most appalling repression. Leaders

¿FIO

militants of all working class parties have been tortured, jailed and exiled. Not have all the embryonic Ollly dual power organisations which the workers set 1970 and 1973 been disbanded, but between so have the trade unions themselves.

Unemployment and astronomic inflation have slashed the living conditions of workers. to virtual starvation levels. The Generals have made Chile unsafe for the working class. But they have still been unable to make it safe for capitalism as they intended. It is true that thev have received sunnor from the compelled to hold back from helping the Chilean dictatorship as much as they would like to. This is because the defeat in Chile took place in a period of major advance for the working class on a world scale. The complete victory of the forces of reaction in Chile has been prevented by the weakening position of imperialism and capitalism on a world scale.

The strength of the working class : can be mobilised against the dictatofship And one of the lessons of Chile for the working class movement is that the organ- resistence must be isation or sondanty and based on this strength of the working class.

The Chilean working class parties, however, are at the present time condemning the resis- tance to a position of impotence by malntall- ing and even extending the class-collaboration politics. of the Popular Unity. The leaders not only of the Popular Unity parties but also of the Mik relect a resistance movement organ- ised around a united front of working class parties. wish to They alliance with buld an capitalist the

SECHOES

ol tre major party, Christian Democrats, the majority of whose actually supported the leaders along the of with leaders the Koman church in Chile to which they are so closely allied. Just like the Communist Party of Spain they argue that the bourgeoisie wishes to reintroduce bourgeois democratic rights in Chile and that the needs of the working class "progressive second must take place to those of these capitalists. The CP and says that the goes murtner Christian Democrats are a "multi-class" party.

The Christian Democrats with whom the Stalinists, reformists and centrists desperately wish collaborate are at the LU same time busy all the time in Chile negotiat- ing with the military dictators to get a share of power. Below right: Allende with Army officers.

A resistance movement based on collabor- ation with the capitalist class is totally un- principled. It has its parallel in the various committees of solidarity with Chile which have been set up in Britain and other capitalist It is not surprising that vocal sup- countries. port for these committees has come from the of the leadership of the labour movement which are the strongest advocates of class collaboration in their own countries.

Britain this means the trade leaders who have helped to introduce the pay laws of the last two years, the Labour Party Tetts' who have failed to lead any fight against such collaboration and, cover the Communist Party.

The Chile Solidarity Campaign has helped to prevent the learning of the lessons of Chile which must be a precondition for the develop- ment of real active solidarity with the Chilean working class. Dominated by the Stalinists and left reformists this campaign has virtually outlawed political discussion real of the politics of the Popular Unity in the interests of an unprincipled, and therefore impotent "unity" against the military junta.

Although workers in many trade unicas in Britain have made attempts to implement a policy of economic boycott of the Chilean regime, this has in practice been opposed by the same trade union leaders claim to wile with the Chilean working support solidarity class. A real campaign of working class solidarity with the workers of Chile must be built in the trade unions and labour movement the This means therefore, that it has to be built against the class collaborationist leaders of the working class in Britain and Europe.

THE TRUE LESSONS OF CHILE

The election of the Popular Unity govern- ment in 1970 was one reflection of the offen- working class against capitalism.

He one Workers and peasants in Chile, however, soon came to realise that the leaders of the Popular Unity were not their allies in this offensive, but, on the contrary, wished to hold it back and restrict its aims. demands The and working class and peasantry came increasingly into conflict with the Popular Unity government.

The military coup took place in 1973 because of the huge steps forward which the workers' movement had taken in spite of the earlier attempts to hold it back by the Popular Unity government. All over Chile, against the will of the Popular Unity leaders, capitalism and private property was under severe attack.

In the space of three years the trade unions and other organisations had grown enormously. And in the last months of the Allende government more and more workers joined the movement to establish factory and neighbourhood committees which were the embryos of dual power. The objective of the coup was to destroy not the Popular Unity government as such but the strengthening independent workers' move- ment which the government was no longer able to control. The Stalinist and reformist leaders of the parties in the Popular Unity had not weren set out to create the catastrophe which the workers' movement suffered in 1973; they themselves in the WElL away Salic Nor had they set out to lead the work- storm. ing class to power nor to create socialism; they sought only to increase the power of their own parasitic caste by exercis- ing it through the bourgeois state as well as the organisations of the workers' movement.

"HISTORIC COMPROMISE"

This necessitated that they make "historic compromise" capitalist with the class. The capitalist class for its part was only prepared to accept this "compromise as long as the Popular Unity leaders could deliver the mass of the working class promise. In order to maintain their leadership the working class the Popular Unity leaders were obliged to arouse its expectations.

In order to maintain their compromise with the bourgeoisie, on which their power also rested, they obliged to become policemen of wete the class and working prevent the expec- tations they had created from being realised.

As the situation in Chile became more and more polarised between the capitalist. class and the working class, the role of the Popula Unity leadership was to strengthen the capital- ist class and the military working class. They did not will what happened in September 1973 but they were responsible for it. It was their conscious aim to prevent the working class from playing an independent its TOle support demands; they had hoped that the teeth of the workers could and without blood. palmlessly Page 7 desperate attempt to save their own skins by offering to hand over power to the bourgeois- Thus, just before the coup, the Com- munist Party wished to abdicate in favour of Frei and the Christian Democrats. But by that time the capitalist class saw that the uncon- ditional surrender of the leaders would not be followed by the majority of the working class.

Only through bloodbath could the capitalists begin to reconstitute their power.

This result followed not from the "errors."

and "mistakes" of the Stalinist änd reformist leaders. It was necessary to their compromise capitalist class that they should will te destroy the. independent strength of the workers' movement. The very strength of the workers' movement in Chile prevented them from doing this along the peaceful road which thev desired They therefore ineluctably paved the way for the success of the military coup. The of class collaboration apologists throughout the world labour movement try to that the coup succeeded OCCaLISE Chilean working class was 'too weak".

. This is a cowardly excuse for the than 110 treachery of the class collaborationist leaders.

coup succeeded because the political aims of the Popular Unity leadership led them to oppose every manifestation of the inherent strength of the working class.

As Trotsky wrote in Whither France?: "Whoever declares that the prolétariat does not want to wage or is incapable of waging a revolutionary struggle, himself spreads calumny by ascribing his own feebleness and his own cowardice to the toiling masses.

(Trotsky, Whither France?, New Park, p68) Everything the Stalinists and reformists offer as an excuse for the defeat can be traced back to their own actions and policies.

But the coup was not inevitable. It succeeded also because no alternative revol- utionary leadership was built in the Chilean working class. Every political organisation in to be revolutionary, the world claiming of asserts that course, defeat occurred because there was no revolutionary party in Chile. But this conclusion becomes nothing more than a tautology unless the conditions of building a revolutionary party are clearly understood.

This task building leadership inseparable from the application the Programme Transitional each concrete situation. And it is an international task.

CRISES

There can be no doubt that the internal crises of the organisations claiming to be the Fourth international and their errors of analysis played a crucial part in preventing Chile's small Trotskyist groups from playing a major role in Chile between 1970 and 1973. A further lesson of Chile, then, is that the Fourth International must be urgently rebuilt.

The defeat in Chile latent the was in politics of class collaboration. An equivalent defeat is today latent in the politics of the leaders of the Stalinist and reformist workers' Western Europe. The parties in lessons of Chile are also the lessons of Britain, Spain, and Portugal. The fight to learn Italy, France, them is the fight to build a new revolutionary leadership Transitional basec on LITe Programme of the Fourth International.

WRP

MAINTAINS

HANSEN

FRAME-UP

At the beginning of August recently unearthed in the State Department archives by the WRP's Hansen, foseph veteran 'investigating' (who give no team member of the American precise location for the document).

Socialist Workers Party, his the consular report, bublished a lengthy reply to official, Robert G. McGregor, wrote that Hansen had suggested various slanders levelled against the lines of enquiry in the United him in the publications of the States might th Workers Revolutionary Party.

responsibility of the GPU apparatus In his reply Hansen demolished for Trotsky's murder. the main pillars of the mountainous

CONTACT

labrication of 'evidence' erected by the leading clique of Gerry Healy in told Hansen reportedly the WRP who allege that he has McGregor that he himself had been 40 years an agent been for almost in contact with a GPU agent in the of the Stalinist GPU. The reaction of the WRP leader- US for several months. The passage ship since Hansen's reply reads: "For, while Hansen is convinced confirmed to the hilt the assess- made earlier of Healy's that the murder is a GPU job, that ment very fact makes it hard to unravel.

that. it is a delib- investigation that when in New which Hansen stated erate and cynical frame-up, himself York in 1938 he marshalls its 'evidence' by distor- was approached by an agent of the GPU lions, lies and concealment, and desert the Fourth only to divert from and asked which serves Intereat heretend join the Third.

the to rebuilding of are international Trotskyist leader- Trotsky who asked him to go as far FOr with the possible. ship of working class. See the Socialist three months Hansen had relations •WRP Frames Hansen in with a man who merely identified (Press 'of December 31st. 1975).

himself 'John', and did not as otherwise reveal his real identity.

DIFFERENCES

GPU

How the (Quoted Murdered Trotsky, Chapter 17, no Then as now, we spoke up in page number.) these defence of Hansen against memorandum McGregor's slanders, despite fundamental the star became differences from immediately which divide us exhibit in Healy's 'case'. It had the of the revisionist politics. *United Secretariat of the Fourth advantage for them that - unike virtually all the rest of the material International' (with Party which the as a named though individual, rather than just the SWP ¡political sympathy, or its leadership as a whole and it prevented by reactionary legis- with showed a conscious contact lation from affiliating).

the GPU. We did so not only be nee such believe that slanders

EXCLUSIVE

vicious and serious character must be combatted on principle wherever The WRP used it to try to they appear within the workers' establish two distinct and in fact the movement, but because mutually exclusive, charges against political crisis of the world Trotsky- Hansen. (Perhaps there were at one ist movement poses tasks of such too many cooks stirring the stage urgency and importance for the broth). of struggles the dir oly teet mats relationship working class that - more than at kind illegitimate relationship other time in the post-war with the US authorities and/or the any period it is impermissible to FBI, concealed from the Trotsky- Cliff Slaughter allow methods such those and (they ist movement Go Foul and antruct the poultical Healy anad insinuated) that he might even be an FBI agent. struggles that are on the agenda.

The 'evidence' for this was the that Hansen met McGregor on fact

DETAILS

Saturday (ie outside normal office hours) and appeared to have Nothing short of a book could 'a familiar relationship" with him.

examine in detail the whole of the simply But allegation WRP's accusations. But it will be collapsed under the fact that (as is highly illuminating their clear from the WRP's own methods to focus on the key items.

material) Hansen was only one of Examining in detail the reactions of several of the Fourth members

WRP

Hansen's the leadersnip International •(including Trotsky reply will make clear the character himself who had had quite open of timorame-up. conversations with McGregor.

the volume of Among unearthed 'evidence' Healy's

DROPPED

"investigators' only one single item related to Hansen individually.

Characteristically the

WRP

This discretely dropped this line of official of the Us ensulate in insinuation. Mexico City of his conversation Secon when he said that sens with Hansen on Saturday August of lying when said that his 3157,15 meetings with the GPU agent were , 1940. was eleven days after reported one leadeder the direc- Trotsky was murdered at his house tion leadership the Mexico City by Stalin's agent, Trotskyist movement. Mercader. The clear implication was that Hansen The report was forwarded to the was acting for the

GPU

The document was thus used as the number one prop in the alleg- and is an ation that Hansen was suggested", the seriously

WRP

"that leader of the Red Army, would ask inexperienced relatively newcomer from Salt Lake City Lie skillei terror machine of the CRUt infiltrate Hansen J What could have been the purpose of this infiltration? There are no published records to show that intrating the GPU Trotsky evinced interest

GPU

Murdered (How the Trotsky, Chapter 17). The WRP's rhetorical questions are answered in what is perhaps the Hansen's important item reply. Trotsky did (Hansen relates) attempt to use him to infiltrate the

GPU

in the and apparatus thereby to gain vital knowledge of Stalinists' against the the plots movement and Trotsky himself.

took 1939 This place McGregor is mistaken in placing it 1938 Secret communications York and between Hansen in New Trotsky in Mexico the matter on went through one V.T. O'Brien, an American guard of Trotsky, who is.

still alive and has testified in writing to his role in the operation.

Trotsky's And moreover, the SWP leadership in New advice, York drew up a confidential record at rame na nata Cannon Hansen himself (though Hansen was then a member of the leader-

HOL

ship). Hansen has now published this report (Intercontinental Press, August, 1976, p.1210) It is worth reprinting, both for it sheds the serious the light manner in which Trotsky and the American Trotskyist leadership approached the overwhelming task of protecting the movement against Stalin's murder-squads, and in order to appreciate the utter cynicism of the WRP's reaction to it.

April 7, 1939 To the Political Committee of the Socialist Workers Party: Comrades: Upon his return to the United States from Mexico, Comrade Joe Hansen chanced to meet an agent of the GPU. This agent introduced Hansen to a superior in the GPU, a man apparently the head or one of heads of the American division the GPU. This man whose real of the know but name Hansen does not "Y" who may be called sounded out the possibilities of converting Hansen into an agent of the GPU Hansen immediately informed Cannon and Comrades Trotsky, Shachtman. Under their direction and with their full approval he of recon- conducted for purposes American

GPU

in the Trotsky organisation a series conver- 0I «y" sations with upon the Stalin book which Comrade Trotsky SOCIALIST PRÉSS, Wednesday 22nd September 1976 Above left: Hansen Above: Schachtman in all cases giving at Mexico, misleading answers to equivocal, him questions "Y's" things that are semi-public know- ledge, reporting in detail after each Trotsky, Comrades meeting Cannon, and Shachtman. Through- valuable these conversations out information has been gained for the Fourth International. disinclined - for fear that the story and because the might leak out reconnaisance is not yet completed PC should be that the entire made aware of this affair at present guarantees that his full

WHEN L

personal safety and the which might accrue political gains be safe-guarded by complete silence part of PC members with on the their political associates, friends, regarding this and correspondents most guarded Even the affair. hints might cause the allusions or this work failure respect. J.P. Cannon Max Shachtman Joe Hansen How have the WRP responded to this document? At no point have they challenged its authenticity. On they in an the contrary have logical somersault astonishing taken it as additional evidence for their "indictment"!

LEAFLET

hurriedly-prepared leaflet WRP's London issued to the - osten- meeting on August 13tn sibly organised to "commemorate" reality

LIOLSKY,

Hansen Trotsky's and pollute carried the astonishing

LICHOL

"Hansen the headline Admits Charges!" This leaflet like the other statements on the matter produced by the WRP since then - manages to avoid any explicit mention the very existence of the document quoted above, although the leaflet attempt to quite obviously an that it obfuscate the fact destroys the only item in the WRP's 'case direct bearing on that had any Hansen's individual role Secretary of As Cliff Slaughter, Committee" Healy's International (and now coming forward as one of in the attempt main architects shore up the fabrications) to it is "circum- rightly commented *abounds in stantial evidence" that situations of this sort." (News Line, August 21st).

METICULOUS

a report dealing in Evidently, detail with the matter, clearing James Hansen and signed Cannon, is so "circumstantial" that not its very existence must Healy's allegedly mentioned by 'meticulous' investigators!

direction of the political WRP's "investigation' emerged with over the weekend dazzling clarity of Sunday August 15th. Far from pausing 1o1 even the briefest re-evaluation of their case the WRP leadership turned immed- iately to the capitalist press (as they have accurately described them "the sewers of Fleet Street').

Healy's apprentices in the matter without hesi „wilinA thA intornol

of August uncritically Holden WRP's case, including a the and avoid the - at Holden 'infor- best naively of his courtesy former Sunday Next day the Revealing leverage they up. (their epithets, we agree WRP called a "press to which the and capitalist press on ine Pieces duly Guardian and Times the next of day. They did not, course, arranged on the Monday for Harold Robbins, a guards and one Mexico, In it, though not completely attempted to revive

GPU

agents, and they I'm that some of them double agents, agents to have War 1." From their for 'parity of the switched eye-lid, get witch-hunt through the There no clearer indictment of the factional, anti-political of the evidence highlights, in fact, the serious and revolutionary manner in which Trotsky and the small cadres of the Fourth International in 1930s faced up the task of defence against the avalanche of violence launched by Stalin.

SWP

report which And, if the Hansen publishes authentic (which the WRP have at no point challenged) it shows that his own secondary,

LIOUSIL

was courageous one. Not only was he in the firing line of Trotsky's guards in as one Mexico, but ne exposca nimsell Lo the serious risk of 'liquidation' at the hands of the

GPU

they he hoodwinking discovered them: a

GPU

which had: machine already taken the lives of thousands of Stalin's political It is necessary to comment also which the slander way campaign against Hansen highlights the enormous acceleration in political degeneration of the

WRP

and its leadership, a degeneration in the fight which the against founding members of the Workers Socialist League were illegally.

and bureaucratically expelled by Healy al tne eno o1 1934. Cutting themselves off from their base in the organised workers' their backs on the day-to-day for struggle leadershe in the unions. mouthing fer sectarian slogans

PROBLEMS OF

(including scab all committees) Healy's these show "Trotskyism"

MARXISM IN

and intrigue. Healy narrow circle of

PAKISTAN

and search for the 'conspiracies' explain of her In the two parts (SP41 and discussion article push

GUL

Fauzia Comrade Rafiq 42), outlined many aspects of the light-minded Similarly, history of the Marxist move- speculation ment in Pakistan. One fact emerges glaringly from There is a complete this account. this refèrence to absence alty Trotskyism. whole tradition of Indeed the Indian and later Pakistani Marxism with virtually no exceptions of from 1924 onwards been confined within the suffocatingly narrow his horizons of Stalinism. evidence prescies defence. In her article, part one Fauzia It is this Comrade points

VUI

correctly that: Stalin's national in the well before the 'In the As a skilled India bourgeois (0I his showed be ally operator Party a plan which the would allow to meet more of India. openly New This to the from the ranks sordid story compromise and collaboration neen

GPU

the im as a whole and Indian pretending sub-contin We onl India as the today, wh Cannon her

CHEY

UWIL

Congress F upport Gar ule, to Indira that these ive He thus agent (or unchanged in the move- within ment. the

SWP,

disguising 26-27 Just as in

SWP

himself as Stalin of the sup inside the ostensibly Communist into the pretending to an agent of the intang bourgeois to the - OF so on ad -a munists Lausodill. the for hek in 1927 articul- after "Pop- daly ular Front" the independe class subor was international and Stalinism collaboration bourgeois parties. And anoeu- vres took place in such a way that the petty bourgeois ana peasanl layers supposedly to be won were in fact alienated from the national + Trotsky Death Wropo Communist Parties. of the CPI was therefore t of Stalinism, ces being exclusively drawn from the Idle Report of Trotsky's murder in the Daily News.

from the ciass No doubt, If the WRP leadership masses. ace come forward with this chooses to in nist version, they will find excellent Party for 'dialectical' 'philosophical' and the same y a reasons to butress it with.

handful of Stalinist Allu Tiest are lie Desl Icasous they can find, since in the nature of academics Of the of the the case, the "facts' of the matter as course and they have emerged so tar can emergence list 'logically" prove nOI in enormous disprove it. POWel It is, like all the WRP's recent 1moact on Pakistan. the war dia "philosophy' inherently the metaphysical. Soviet backing It is the sort of 'theory' which sided with

WRP'S

India while would allow the Pakistan, 'investigators" to leave aside all the substantial current. 'circumstantial evidence' ers' took including, the detailed history of This Maoism movement Hansen's Joseph more than emerged years in the Trotskyist movement - ICEs the als except where it was convenient for and bourgeoisi them to select from it. seeking

MANIPULATED

Khan's policy subordinating It allows Pakistan finance Healy's International LU capital. Committee to represent all the important splits of the Trotskyist movement real as

HOL

political battles Yet crises Point o ble fomented and manipulated by as the Stalinist agents. Chinese lin- like their campaign against ism, And, simp. •I- Hansen to date, it represents not an political ary seeing attempt to protect and strengthen internation Lter Trotskyist but of the movement, manoeuvres slanderous and incompetent imperialist and the invention. Kremlin. The ged therefore aped Moscow-line Communist Parties but, since they were serving the requirements of Peking and not Moscow, they courted different bourgeois parties.

This created huge tensions within the Maoist ranks at the time Bangladesh war of indepen- of the mentioned Comrade Fauzia's anticie). While Maoists in East Bengal, confronted by the threat of immed- iate slaughter at the hands of the of Yahya Khan, butchering army took up arms and joined the battle for national self determination, the Maoists in West Pakistan, following the line of Peking gave support to the war on the army blaming "Indian intervention"! Bhutto could be found of chauvinist the Following logic, Maoists fell the populist in rhetoric of bourgeois the

WOIKI!

class. Mairaj a leading murder of presiding over himself being unceremoniously arrested. - no firm based alternative to his power, in Pakistan to of the and for revolutionary leadership. Quite semi-legality Pakistan in 1n isolation from international strengthening the oppressed emergence and masses struggle against the

HOSL

barbaric the clearest cases. the question is The decisive the out in Pakistan. cadte In cipled movement of standing and the policies behind of the social concrete particular problems and forms of of the Page 9 In the last two editions of Press' have 'Socialist we s printed a discussion article by Fauzia Rafiq on the history and problems of the Marxist movement in Pakistan. Here John Lister gives our reply to the points made. must combine further demands which though they begin from itional The section entitled "The Alliance shows the Workers "While the independent need of credit, of agri- able and conscientious of the his agricultural products. Committees elected should by make their the iointlv national scene and with workers' take into their hands of transport, credit operations The Programme shows absolutely opposite to : collaboration- "fronts" ist the bourgeoisie middle and class into proposed by the the "middle proletariat classes' but the and all against exploiters, of the can be based not middle classes only on free but consent, programme 'contract' is transitional "voluntarily with such Equipped method of the Trotskvist patient work the Pakistani peasantry. easy, Comrade closing para- "closer contact with the and other communists countries, militants move into embrace with "Communist worst of any Stalinist or or This would only signify from any away independent pro- gramme and policy for the if And on the defensive" and "retreat their open fronts" mass movement in Pakistan, turism nor but method and seeking avenues for WIth practical work. And the be not

INDUSTRIAL NEWS

Page 10 Fred Jarvis, NUT General Secretary, speaking at the TUC.

TEACHERS LEAD

CUTS STRIKES

As the Labour government's ing NUT bureaucrat, Stedman, are Like right-wingers spending cuts begin really to dangerous in some other he maintains areas, bite in every area, resistance is "far that the Tory Council is going intensifying. beyond" the requirements of the reactionary In Oxfordshire, the severity of Labour March White Paper public the latest proposed cuts in educa- on tion spending by the County spending cuts. Council has at last forced even the result his demand is for As a right-wing local NUT leadership to Shirley Williams to force the Tory Council to pull back. take a stand. As outlined in the last issue of

REQUIREMENTS

Socialist Press the Tory Council is proposing cutting £5 million off the budget, £34 million of which will But of the cuts are course, come off the education budget entirely in line with Callaghan and causing 500 of the county's 5,000 Healey's requirements in backing teachers to be sacked. capitalism and pandering the to Alongside this is planned massive - the tact cuts teaching and they seem larger merely means that part-time anciliary staff, and a 20% reduction the Labour government did not at the allowance for capitation. that time dare openly to impose the books and equipment. axe so severely. The line that the cuts are "going

CUTS BODY

too far" is merely paving the way for stabbing the fight should the These proposals have been Council partially concede and passed by the Council's newly reduce the level of the cuts.

cuts body the Policy For the defence of education and Resources Committee - two and the social services it 15 noł a y khe fal Cuncl on Tusday question of the scale of the cuts, Council on Tuesday but an absolute rejection of the September 21st. right of the government to impose After their betrayals of the last sackines or cuts in seryice.

year, in which they allowed £1½ The demand must therefore be million of cuts equipment, Ior the social service and education bulding, the 'rising 5's' decision budget to be restored to its value (by which young children have lost before against inflation by a stidio scale protected least one term's schooling), together with sackings and of spending, rising pace with In redeployment of part time teachers increased costs. as assessed ov trade and anciliary staff, the NUT leader- ,committees with full access union ship were at ast forced by fhese the accounts of the local new attacks to call for action.

authorities. They immediately-contacted the Union's National Executive for permission to call a half day strike to lobby the Council meting.

This call has met with a massive tesponse trom union members and has been supported by other teach- te CEON evcil mauug lcac teachers and other local govern- ment employee unions.

90% SHUT

POR

JUSTICE

Over 90% of the schools in the will be shut, county with letters

AT WORK

sent out parents calling for support. The next step must be to follow the NAs in imposing sanctions in

JOIN THE

all the schools, refusing to cover for

T.G.W.U.

absent and sick teachers and especially for unfilled posts.

TRA LARGESI TARDE UnONI Teachers in the NUT must not allow the bureaucratic manoeuvres of the leadership deter them this for

TOM

Nemands izdeinite strike be action must Even trying humour in an attempt to if leadership #ade the TRe boost membership - this poster seen Councl is still determined to slash in the window of the Oxford TGWU the service. office. The arguments of the local lead- Trico Strikers Stand Firm A mass meeting attended by 350 of the 400 women strikers at the Irico Folberth factory in• North London last week rejected a new management offer which is still way below their demand for equal pay.

This now takes the strike into its eighteenth week, making it a crucial test of trade union strength as well as a major instance of the fight for equal pay.

NO CONCESSIONS

The been Company has noW shut down for a fort- completely night, but has refused to make any

CH COHCOSTO.

But this fight is being sabotaged by full officials timne within the

AUEW

which is in formal terms giving official support.

The joint policy statement by Scanlon and Jones, published in the Leyland Mirror that announces Ceyland are to be outlawed in the justified disputes within interests of continuous production.

Yet this the since long standing call by

AUEW

officials in Southall for the blacking Trico windscreen wipers, followed up a fortnight ago by a call "for the blacking of all wind- screen must be a cynical wipers, deception of Trico workers.

Scanlon Trico manufactures 90% of British wipers, supplying Leyland and Chrysler. The imposition of a black on these products would therefore bring the Leyland lines to a standstill, and severely disrupt production in Chrysler. Nothing of has sort Tele happened, of course, because in those factories, the AUEW officials see it as their job to maintain and maximise production the interests of "viability" (i.e. profits).

So all that has emerged has been occasional financial donations to Irico strike fund while "blacked" windscreen wipers fitted daily to Leyland and Chrysler cars. me hind the ofi ala ce intale 'left' while sO ne (KlEO Trico exposing the workers to immense dangers of defeat.

Militants the car industry up betrayal and

TAKN

TA10 demand their local officials and their stewards committees act to impose a black on Trico products - ensuring that a setback is inflicted these industry Comenen employers which can pave the way for the struggle in defence of trade unionism and against the 4% pay limit throughout the motor industry as a whole.

BLOW TO RYDER

PARTICIPATION

A major blow at the Ryder participation' system in British Leyland, and in partic- ular at the right wing TGWU leadership in the BLMC Body Plant at Cowley was struck on 6th September, when the

AUEW

monthly Shop Stewards meting in the plant voted to pull out of 'partici- pation'. This takes some 1,000 AUEW members in the plant out of the participation machinery and is a severe setback for TGWU convenor Bill Roche, who is on the highest body of participation - Leyland's 'Cars Council'.

RESIGNED

the

AUEW

After the vote convenor resigned and a new one was elected - but the decision still stands. When the Dureaucrac. accepted participation for the membership, they argued it was on "a year's trial'. That year is now up, and a campaign must be launched

NO ANSWER ON

JAG PAINTSHOP

Despite ban, an overtime guerilla strikes and a policy of non-cooperation, British Leyland continue to reject the demand by paintshop workers at Jaguar, Coventry for public enquiry into the siting of the new paintshop. In response to the paintshop Leyland workers stand, manage- last week HelI thousands of lay-offs if the actions were not called off. This move was followed a few days later by the intervention of ACAS Ahit adonory, Comeli Concifation Arbitration danasene MORLARA With participation, the centre- piece of the Ryder deal, in danger of collapsing round its ears British Leyland must do all in its power to "cooperation" draw workers into The link between Leyland's Body and Assembly plants at Cowley in every Leyland plant for the right of the on this InCDeN scheme and throw it out. The lead in pulling out has been given both by the Jaguar workers and now by the body plant AUEW stewards, who join those sections of Leyland that never accepted the introduction of participation in the first place. Jaguar workers have seen clearly the real meaning of participation, as the • company announces the removal of the paintshop from Coventry. In the Cowley Assembly Plant, workers have witnessed the removal recognition from four shop stewards by the Company. And now all Leyland workers have seen Jones and Scanlon sum up the class collaborationist essence ot participation in their disgracetui 'Keep Working' article in the employers' house journal, Leyland Mirror, The best way to answer these attacks is now to withdraw from the reactionary participation fight to reassert the SAnEue independence of the trade union movement. with management. At the same time it is vital that militant like the Palall® shop workers are not seen to have won concessions by action.

Workers at Jaguar should reject the so-called initiatives the "independent"

ACAS

and move now to set up their own enquiry into the siting of the paintshop.

This is not just a question for paintshop workers. The proposed siting of the paintshop at Castle Bromwich rather than Brown's Lane Coventry goes hand in hand with other examples of rational- ending of car Sation sucn as tue production at Leyland's Triumph plant at Canley, Coventry.

The enquiry can only be carried out if full access to all British Leyland's books fought for, making possible a full assessment of future employment plans.

S THIUMPH

SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 22nd September 1976

FEATHERING

THEIR NESTS

General Council of the TUC have It was announced this week such jobs. that Victor Feather, the late, Examples. include Jack Jones, unlamented General Secretary with sideline jobs with a total value of the TUC, left an estate of of £2870 a year; Hugh • Scanion, Smith of UCATT £61,309. Workers will wonder George £2,000; who collects £2,000 for three days where earth he made so on and Boilermakers' work a month much money. leader Dan McGarvey Who picks up Some idea of how certain trade £1,250 plus a £25 a day attendance union leaders are more than just Manpower allowance make ends meet were Services Commission. manages lo revealed a recent edition of the Alan Fisher of NUPE gets £1000 in News of the World.

EEPTU

Frank Chapple, while £1250 and Cyri

KEMP

leader receives Plant is paid £2300 a year plus £16 for the Socialist Press has already detail- day attendance Community Relations Council.

Kemp, full ed the case or poste Lawrence Daly said that he was time building trades officer of the "quite happy as he was" with his TGWU who is retiring because of "ill health" £7, 400 salary (plus union car, etc).

but who will' be Outside the TUC at Brighton: an official's Granada Ghia receiving on top of his pension over These the people who are decided to accept the f6 pay limit £7,700 per annum from his jobs' on various government boards.

and now the 42% wage-cutting deal with Healey, and who daily lecture The News of the World reports workers on the need for 'sacrifice this but goes on to point out how much some other trade union to restore profitability to private officials are receiving. industry. fight for new leadership in Of the 5,000 of what the paper The (jobs Quasi- the working class must also take up calls

QUANGO

on Autonomous National Government the need for all full time officials to Organisations) 1.000 are divided be both elected and restricted income to the average wage of the 3,500 union officials between the in the country. Nearly half of the members they represent.

RIGHT SPLITTING

AUEW

The dictatorial role of the A rigorous of Baldwin's test patience was the behaviour of the extreme right wing majority section's leadership at leadership in the the, AUEW Conference. In defiance section Engineering of the of the agreement AUEW is threatening to break Scanlon instructed all 52 sections, engineering auto up the unity between the giant delegates matic majority at the Conference union's four sections. to vote in line with the engineering

AUEW

The was formed by section's decision to support amalgamating together sections 42% pay deal. representing engineering, construc- The amalgamation agreement and technical and however specifies that delegates to supervisory workers. the full conference should not last John Baldwin, mandated by sections. general secretary of the construc- The upshot of this blatant tion section, brought into the open was that the 4½% deal of the tensions which have was endorsed by a minority at the built beneath the surface.

conference, while majority Writing in the section's journal abstained. he states his patience is exhausted So in the name of winning paper acceptance of the wage-cutting pay he contemplating the and prospect of a merger with other big deal, the right wing have now.come the brink of splitting Britain's unions such as UCATT, the BEPTU or even the Boilermakers.

second largest union.

DRIVERS FIGHT FOR JOBS

Eighty car delivery drivers by workers at Autocars and Car- at Silcock & Collings Coventry transport. Drivers at Silcock and Collings Depot are on strike over a plan are expected to stay out in support to make 17 drivers redundant.

of the Toleman James workers even Threats to make the strike if their own dispute is settled.

national which Coventry Engines some 800 drivers - were suspended last week during further discussions with management. to AS we go 800

NINETY

press, representatives

LABOURERS

at drivers are meeting with Leyland's manage- British plant at en, Corentry, ment in Coventry. Courthouse Green; Meanwhile other delivery drivers walked out last Tuesday leaving are on strike in Coventry against behind on their benches copies ol the refusal by Toleman james to the Mirror Leyland flamell take on extra workers. which Jack Jones and Hugh The company has recently won a Scanlon plead for an end to strikes.

contract to deliver Fords in the The strike was sparked off by Midlands but have not the suspension of one of the men taken extra workers. the backgroand ong The strikers, members of the standing dispate OTEr

INDUSTRIAL NEWS

NALGO TO

RECALL

In a significant response to escalating for the pressure government against action spending cuts from their mem- NALGO leaders voted bers, weekend this to summon special recall union conference December only

SIX

in months after their annual conference. The 600,000 strong union faces devastating member- ship as Chancellor Healey's spend- ing cuts percolate through administrations of local government and the health service, creating widespread sackings and closures.

PARADING

NALGO

General Secretary Geoffrey Drain has until attempted to defuse opposition to these moves by parading the with a of 'left' country series sounding denunciations of govern- policy while giving no practical lead for action.

Indeed the left'

YET WAIL SO

far as to affiliate NALGO officially to the National Coordinating Com- mittee Against Cuts in the National Health Service - whose programme includes the demand for a sliding of scale social service spending rising in pace with increased costs to defend against inflation.

Yet when action was taken by health service workers London - a one day strike by 2,000 hospit- al workers against the closure of the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson hospital - it was NALGO members who crossed the picket line.

DEMAND

But now Drain in facing Conference recalled must know that the demand from the rank and file will be for the union to act in defence of jobs and social services - and if he avoided the issue at the June Conference, he cannot duck it noW. Also under increasing pressure is

NUPE

General Secretary Alan Fisher, whom lobbyers at the TUC Congress in Brighton saw posturing with acute contingent of NUPE workers calling for an end to the cuts.

NUPE

"guerilla for strikes" local level to stop the dear that such not eous

MISLE ARVIL

ALL OUT ON NOVEMBER 17!

CONFERENCE

protest gestures designed to "pressure' local administrators.

NUP

members no ever inve many areas they shown in already of willing to take the policy action to stop the cuts at face value and to fight each attack by manage- ment.

ESCALATE

likely This militancy escalate further as more and more local administrators in the social planned cut-

SENTE

CHOICE

backs. An example is in the Hackney the Health area, where Area Authority has announced 400 . shashed, hospital jobs to be blood testing and overtime halved, Х-тау 75-80%, services end to automatic replacement of absent doctors, and the closure of one of the area's three accident units. No half-hearted "guerilla" strikes OI verbal posturing will succeed in beating back this barrage of attacks and this is only one area of many affected.

NUPE

NUPE has already called a lobby of the Labour Party Conference on Tuesday 28th September to take up the question of the cuts.

And November 17th, NALGO has announced it will join NUPE on a national demonstration and lobby of Parliament in protest

MORE INFORMATION

Please Socialist League. Name. . Address U

HRMS

not education Fisher with NUPE lab! against the cuts. On the same the Civil and Public Services As iation largest of the The is calling a Service unions - to strike against plans 46,000 Civil Service jobs The fight must be taken u - every area for NUPE and NAI with other local auth along and health service unions als take national strike action day, as the opening shots of an out brogramme of strikes to the implementation of the plar cuts.

ACTION

In every sector where cuts threatened before this date all-out indus must be met by action, calling on the support of movement in def local labour of jobs and the social services.

The demands must be: * No cuts, no sackings! *For a sliding scale of st service spending to protect ag: inflation. *For all accounts, plans of local administra resources to be opened to elected commit and the da of trade unionists, day running of the social ser to be controlled by them.

*Nationalise social service pliers, private health and educat

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