Socialist Press no. 67

PAY UPSURGE

CONFRONTS TUC

DROP THE CHARGES

Government policy on wages is Callaghan clear. and the Liberal leadership are determined to impose a third year of rigid wage controls on the working class. Chancellor Healey has spelled demands: out unilateral restrict pay settlements to and stick to the 12-month rule. And regardless union OT conterence decisions opposing a Phase 3, the coalition government will use the all Hucas disposal to enforce it against growing militancy on wages.

As part of the preparations the Confederation of British Industry has sent a circular to all members telling them not to publicise pay claims because, they say, if other would have a snow- balling effect.

WAVE OF CLAIMS

And Foreign Secretary David Owen has pleaded for the press to "take individual wage claims off the front page of our

LICW DI

papers. Employers and government alike both know only

LOO

W CL

that though the main

CYCH

publicity has so far been focussed on workers lining up to break the 12-month rule on pay increases, behind these workers is a wave of pay claims that threaten to burst asunder the 6% limit. These claims are building up despite the fact that the

TUC-

though officially abandoning their Phase plans IOT a wage control-are straining to hold the fort for the Lib-Lab coalition government. Healey The government itself has for this adopted policy advocated by the Liberal Party -using sanctions against any breaks Healey's employer who 5-6% limit. These sanctions allow retusa to price increases, refusal to grant emer- gency credit, and cancellation of workers reansea une size or tnes

SOCIALIST

PRESS *

Healey's strategy is to impose rigid cash limits, in order to create wage increases above the limit could cause unem- ployment. Meanwhile the TUC is working just as actively enforce the to 12-month rule as it did to police Phase 2's limit. Heinz At caled to the Wons nave been TUC, while at General Engineer- agreed increase ung an nas been stopped.

FLOUTED

The

TUC

main leaders flout their

OWI

conference Clearest decisions. example is the Finance and Gen- eral Purposes Committee of the

TGWU,

which has sent out a circular to officials telling them to the 12-month respect: rule-a policy specifically defeated at the TGWU conference Now the committee has said that the letter "only applies until the TUC Congress" in September, that after September the TGWU-while itself voting against the 12-month rule-would accept the TUC majority vote. The Communist Party's daily paper, Morning Star hailed The this scandalous statement as: "a considerable shot in the arm for the fight to win a majority [against the 12-month rule] at the TÚC."

NO SUPPORT

This is a clear sign that the Communist Party will give support those sections of But this is not enough. Policies who correctly reject the must be fought for that challenge WOlKerS idea that the

TUC

bureaucrats all of the threats made by the should override the sovere explosion the Calle conterence decisions of individual unions, and and possible explosions" who decide to fight, regardless of unemployment. the TUC VOLe. 12-month rule and any

COWLEY €100 CLAIM

against conectve bargaining. The TGWU shop stewards com- In just the same way the Com- mittee at Leyland's Body Plant munist Party scabbed on actions Cowley, representing 7,000 like the Leyland toolroom strike members, has given a lead on this which could have broken Phase by voting overwhelmingly 2. submit a claim for an increase of The policy needed full £33.64 across the board-making support for all those who take production workers' wages £100 action to regain and defend their per week. living standards, and for support- Most important of all this ing action. catching up claim is linked to a demand for a cost of living clause

FIGHT BEGUN

to protect against inflation assessed by a trade union com Akready have some sections The demand is for this to mittee. begun the fight. Export At be paid in October-four months Packing Services, Banbury, TGWU ahead of the February review members are out. strike date demanding £15 a week increase, The biggest TGWU branch in at Lucas in Birmingham toolroom neighbouring Leyland workers are still out for £5.

Assembly plant has adopted Other claims include Chrysler similar policy and is now pressing skilled workers (£92 per week). dockers (£100 week) and Cont'd Back Page Col 5 miners (£135 per week) as well as

FORTNIGHTLY PAPER OF THE

WORKERS SOCIALIST LEAGUE

No. 67 * August 17, 1977 * 10p.

Frustration at years of police brutality seen in the could be actions of black youth in the anti- National Front demonstration in Lewisham last weekend. The police made no bones about it, they there to were defend the fascists and to brutal- from the first ise the anti-fascists, use of horses at 1.15pm (nearly two hours before the NF WeiC set off) right the way aue through the afternoon One thing was certain. The 500 or so National Front marchers, in a march that had been publi- all the national press Ciscaby were confronted by many times their number of anti-fascists.

BISHOPS

This was under conditions Party where the Labour (right wing and left' talkers) and the Communist Party told their sup- porters not to go, not to attempt to stop the fascists. 'respectable' These people bishops and other clergy and cal on the capitalist state to ban the fascists, who themselves are sup- porters or capilausin As it is the capitalist press have turned this into an attack on the

INSIDE

Spanish Civil War. Page 6&7 Split in British Communist Party: First Part ......P.9 Inflation Contrick..... P.5 Heffer Applauds the Social Contract. ...P.4 Cyprus. ...P.2 Queen Visits her Torturers .. Back Page. Desoutters Strike.. Page 10 Corporate Bargaining Voted Out...............P.1 Police clear route for fascists sporting Ku Klux Klan flag Some 'left' MPs have called just for the banning of National Front marches But this policy only plays into the hands of those who want to attack the workers movement.

Remember it was the same McNee in charge of policing the mass picket on July 11 : Order Act of 1936 was brought in supposedly against the fascists, but was used only against the left wing To our knowledg no left win MP has yet supported the action of those workers and youth who dealt a tremendous blow to the Saturday-a blow which on could have driven them off the streets altogether if the organised labour movement had been fully mobilised against them. None of them have taken up the demand those release arrested and for the dropping of the charges. fascists are racialists. They want to break ust the whole labour movement. But Saturday showed that possible now to organise workers defence capable of defending black workers, labour movement premises, meetings and picket lines from fascist attack.

WHAT NEXT IN CYPRUS?

Page = "One thousand Makarioses will maintained work". That is the continue his motto carved on the mountain top Thus in tomb in which the man officially known as His Beatitude Archbishop Makarios I|| was buried last week.

YULE

Greek Cypriot political But pro-Enosis leaders seem to nave do not yet found even one new Makarios-that betrayal, is a President sanctioned by the complete the Communist Party Communist Party imperialists, and God. • Socialist Party. elected Arch- Makarios was the Autocephalous of bourgeois bishop (Orthodox) Church of Cyprus (then despite a British colony) in 1950.

has His oath taking office AKEL's class. included committment Enosis" (union of the island with Greece). Enosis has previously been supported not only by the Church

AKEL

but also by the Communist Party (known as AKEL) which had hoped island's federation, the a Communist victory in 10| Greek civil war of the 1940s of the the victory The imperialist-backed right wing, Lyssarides, Enosis in Cyprus became the policy of the right. Through Makarios

EOKA

act In the same year that Makarios reactionary became Archbishop, the colonel, George Grivas established EOKA, an organisation pledged to a on the other. the military campaign against British in favour of Enosis.

political anti-com- had led Grivas Ine offered commando group and 'X' munist also ordered his followers to attack Communists in Cyprus. Grivas realised however, that he the not succeed could powerful the Arch- support bishop. Makarios, as the price of nis ambiguous) collabor- (sometimes alliance with got Grivas to ation

LUK A

attacks on the Com- his the munists. return AKEL maintained

EOKA

on the Hence neutral position abstained from any more campaign, principled form of anti-colonialist the struggle and hid behind the copious the minority. Beatitude-a prestige of position they maintained faithfully up to hiss OKA launched of 1955 its ing" major military campaign against the which was unable to since. British Army control it and resorted to general- Greek reprisals ised against unc of the island (80% of population porters the total). aligned" practice influence leader, the ship which Greece closely allied Makarios 1972 The removal of Makarios to a year's exile in the Seychelle Islands 1956 and 1957 had the opposite effect to the one the British colon- ialists wanted. repatriated and, after He was iong negotiations with the leaders minority Turkish the community, the British, Greek and was the London much Turkish governments, Zurich accords signed were in tich led to Cyprus independence Gicek 460. The agreement involved a renun- led by oi Enosis at the insistence Turkish government. anu d conscutional safeguards with communiti

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

The Turkish army invaded the Greece and Turkey. The British also isiand (and has occupied 40% of it military generous ever since). Sampson was forced to facilities on the isiand.

1960 Cyprus became a resign and replaced by a caretaker regime under right-winger Glafcos neo-colonial state and Makarios was elected President with 70% of the Clerides. And the Greek Junta was fatally by these The support he lost from some wounded of spoke within a few weeks had itself been forces who sus made of the AKEL the

AKEL

In December 1974 support and the EDEK returned to Cyprus lished the old although a section of the right-wing EDEK's origins are as a petty- nationalist party and under 'socialist' President, decided to move into pretentions failed challenge the more ation for the end of the regime of control of the working Makarios whose health was already

UNCHALLENGED

has dominated the main

PEO.

But EDEK the has been as abject a supporter of Makarios as AKEL.

EDEK

leader, Vassos Archbishop's was the personal physician. 1960's the early maintained unchallenged power through a delicate balancing between the FOKA and its Greece on side and

AKEL

one EDEK Socialists Communists and kind was racket-he protection "protection" to each side against the other. But he was unable to meet the demands of either the supporters of the masses Cypriot workers who voted for the AKEL Communists. seemed The one policy able to prevent the pro-Makarios was dall aggressive chauvinist policy within the minority island towards Turkish community. 1963 Makarios proposed constitutional changes to have which would

STOP

Turks of reduced the formal protection This precipitated inter-commun- ity violence and in 1964 the arrival a United Nations "peace-keep force which has remained ever The other policy through which Makarios aimed to reconcile the potential conticis among ns sup was his demagogic

PLAN

policy which him increasingly brought close to the Soviet Union, although was careful never to lose the confidence of the imperialists.

This policy also meant increasing for the

AKEL

whose With Papaioannou, has a season ticket to Moscow. Downing Street,

OPPOSITION

Heathrow Airport, to missing-the been This policy, however, met with of the workers increasingly active opposition trom Zimbabwe. military dictator- reactionary had taken power 1 ne which was 1n to Grivas and the remnants of EOKA. States, Britain and South Africa This conflict came to a head in What they Makarios accepted when lan of military aid from Czechoslovakia.

removal forced Greek Junta neo-colonial Makarios to hand over these arms to the United Nations, to sack his cabinet and replace it with person- ments from political power.

nel ace tad pro-makarios at ailiance pro-makanos rely shaken and came to he more on the far right pro- into accepting African government. Enosis forces. But this was not enough for the Hence the eiven by British In they coloness. supported a coup against Makarios Nicos Sampson, an officer Vance Minister of the in the Cypriot army Although Makarios fled into his in London last week. second exile. the ioup proved to be deteriorating. year's general elections In last Democratic Rally Clerides' failed to win any of the 35 seats in the parliament. the All were won by alliance of

AKEL.

front and and events Front which supported Makarios.

Immediately after death this popular front alliance is Makarios still holding together. and reestab- political alliance- His "natural successor" Sypros of Kyprianou, leader Democratic Front, and the interim interim President, is in poor health.

political leaders open opposition in prepar This why over which of have been arguing Presidents two Makarios in his coffin the frenetic diplomacy Smith. taking place over the last week in The South African dictatorship and wants least of all to see a military Chequers and political victory to the liber- "solve' the ation movements. Zimbabwe problem, one thing has authentic voice of

OPPORTUNISTS

and peasants centrepiece of the discus- At the same time it is probably sions has been a renewed effort to convinced that the not reactivate the Zimbabwe 'stabilis neo-colonia. American ation plan devised by the United capable of avoiding this outcome.

If the racists of South Atrica are is the are planning essential to one side of the Owen- and his Smith, Vance plan, the opportunists of the rapid replacement with a black and black ruled states and the Zimbab- government wean nationalist organisations are legitimised through elections which equally essential to the other side.

would exclude the liberation move- were in London last Iney I00 Tanzanian weck. An essential part of this plan is has implied that he will Nyerere, that Smith's arm should he twisted support the plan which can only the South by is prepared to withdraw mean he material aid to the guerrillas.

welcome fawning More crucial to Owen and Vanco Foreign Secretary is Bishop Abel Muzorewa, Owen and US Secretary of State United African Foreign Botha, Council. racist dictatorship Muzorowa is extremely anxious to destro! the guerrilla armies and Botha has succeeded in keeping succeed Makarios. responsibility for this

EDEK

lies with the party situation more with Socialist Partv and even the Stalinists of the AKEL Com- munist Party. populat-

AKEL

The policies of the Democratic leaders have been totally consistent for 30 years: a complete refusal to Makarios' independent up for алу demands of the working class.

They have tied the interests of the working class to Makarios and the the Cypriot and imperialist bour- geoisie Although they receive up to 40% of the votes in elections, they have narrow abjectly supported to chauvinist policies and his consis- tently anti-working class social and economic measures. fawning adulation AKEL's bureau- Makarios nas allowed Its cratic leaders to grow fat.

The party has concessions to run businesses such import-export the People's Spirit Company of Limassol! "leaders of the Cypnot lest working class" are in effect part of the capitalist class. No need now greater Cyprus than the building of a Trot- skyist party which can fight for the independence of the Cyprot workers and peasants and against decades consequences ine chauvinism and class-collaboration.

Such a party must fight against the installation of a new Makarios: for the withdrawal of all (those of Cyprus armies Turkey, Greece Britain and the United Nations); for an end to the and for whole front; programme of economic and social demands for workers and peasants along with democratic rights for the Turkish minority. week behind a In London last of bombast smokescreen about "one vote" he man, one compromise pushing pernicious Smith replace Constitutional Council representing Smith's racist Rhodesia the UANC, Front and the British government.

There are persistent reports that he has already done a secret deal of this kind with Smith. of

ZANU

visits leader Robert Mugabe, and LAPL to Peking leader, Joshua • Nkomo Havana respectively suggest and that they are preparing to step up ale war. Nonetheless, both in the past (for instance, shown Owen through their participation in last year's Geneva conference) that they are prepared to compromise with and Nkomo took the imperialists, Cuba by way of care London however, itself, Zimbabwe In developments in the national liber- have highlighted ation war

TANE

desperate situation of the racists.

recent weeks major railway have been lines around Salisbury British- cut three times by bombs.

plan the face of the growing assault Smith is trying to repair his damaged prestige among the whites "general election" at the through a

LAST - DITCH EFFORT

president Julius which has It is that situation made Owen, Vance and Botha rush to try to achiere what can only be a last-ditch effort at compromise.

of the British labour is the task movement to sabotage this counter- head of by demanding revolutionary plan National from the party of the expulsion Labour Onen and other rese neile for collabor- Ministers Southern

Turkish bosses boost fascists The right wing National Front coalition government in Turkey led by Justice Party leader Suleyman Demirel has achieved a vote of confidence in Parliament.

This clearly marks a decision by to the urkish capitalist class that efforts their plight

IN BRIEF

CHILE

Dictator Pinochet's announce- ment of the "dissolution" of the DINA (the hated semi-autonomous secret police) is nothing more than cosmetic gesture designed make it easier for Carter's "human rights" - administration furnish to the the hard-pressed The

DINA

will cease vation. function name only. Its functions are to be taken over by call "left' an innocently-named government information agency on Carter's CIA.

PERU

within The wave of strikes and demon- strations against the military dictat- economic austerity measures have led to hundreds of Employers arrests. have tofowed the regime's encouragement to sack thousands of militant workers.

day

ETHIOPIA

nothing The Ethiopian military dictator- ship has virtually admitted the claim of the West Somalia Liber- ation Organisation to control 90% class of the Ogaden region. As the war has sharply intensified so has the embarrassment of Soviet the bureaucracy, allied nominally down both sides. The Soviet news agency, Tass, has issued a series of plaintive workers appeals for negotiation. formed.

ARGENTINA:

ACT TO HELP

FREE MILITANTS

Since the military coup of March 24, 1976, the workers of Argentina trade have been faced with a two-pronged attack from General Videla's junta.

rushed Political repression has been capped by an onslaught on working workers. class living standards in an attempt to strengthen bourgeois rule in the trade discipline Real wages during the first has, 1977 quarter were OT one-third lower than they were in 1960, and ine just 53% of what they were in 1943. These cuts have been achieved by holding wages down and letting inflation rip: for the first five months of this year the inflation Broguen. 42%-an rate was figure actively which conceals the even higher rises in the price of essential goods.

On July 1, rents were increased now by 25%-which means that rents have risen tenfold over the last He year. lawyers to All told it is calculated that an last year, immediate wage nse ot 130% is needed just to restore living stan- Nel red dr dards to the 1974 level. It In of factories dozens the socialists workers have shown a clear willing- resist ness economic Britain

LAUS

onslaught by demanding higher countryes wages. But this preparedness fight nas not yet been channelled into an organised, systematic movement capable of smashing through these starvation wages and overthrowing the Videla regime. Chief culprit blocking the formation of such a movement is Videla's trade

UNICIE

burcaucracy throughout the country. desperate (with a 35% currency devaluation to come) that they are now determined to bolster up the million dollars fascist forces that are Demirel's stable-mates in the coalition.

The capitalists feel unable now rely before the loval The speaker of the union leaders control and divert the working class at a time when yet another series Counsel of attacks living standaras Is Watergate about to be unleashed. hush-money.

GENERAL STRIKE

recorded Rather they must attempt to out precisely smash the Even the most umons. was referring to. Igni wing union bureaucrats have But details This is what pressed edition leaders of the right wing confeder- Nixon that ation Turk-is to call for a general NF against the coalition for government-in a desperate bid by ased connected with bureaucracy self-preser- union, the Teamsters. Talks are now planned on this between Turk-is and une union confederation,

DISK

The fund Central on the agenda of these connected bureaucrats will be the problem of intended instead as a keeping such a strike under control, the bounds of bourgeois Fitzsimmons-a democracy. Nixonite-

DEFENCE SQUADS

Teamsters until 1967. They wil certainly set out to limit the strike to a one-day or two- long investigation token protest-which will do politically sentence strengthen the working class, and encourage mail fraud Nixon further fascist attacks. The call must be for working December 1n proviso that Hoffa organisations and workers' parties to break all links with the March 1980, bourgeois parties and to mobilise would have expired. an all-out general strike to bring Demirel To the coalition. such legal niceties against fascist attacks, defence squads be But and held onto power himself.

July 30, 1975 presumed dead. "normalisation" plans (i.e. his scheme for a docile, housebroken structure), class- the collaborationist have bureducrats betraying every demand raised by the Videla cannot rely on the union bureaucracy One TO the class, and working the year since the coup, although he stepped up repression. latest victim of these measures is one Enrique Broquen, Nixon pay off. the main legal adviser of the PST- In addition, was Teamster Argentinian sympathising section of "United secretariat unti his conviction Fourth International. racketeering-is 69, had been aged suspect in Hoffa's disappearance involved defending According to the prisoners-including the almost 100 members of the PST Salvatore Briguglio missing or jail-until his in kidnapping on July 5. delivered to is one of courier in Las Vegas several defence have disappeared since Provenzano and is probably now un one of Videla's countless jails-if ted the money had is the elementary duty of been provided to demand that also on leaders of the labour movement in Allen Dorital and Chicago hoodlum and other capitalist call the Teamsters' Pension Fund.

blacking action 'Argentina to secure the and the tne Junta of full democratic High on this list of rights must saying that the be the demand for the immediate requested release of Broquen Charles Colson, all onel sible for political prisoners in Argentina.

White relations. crush the Argentinian working class through significant, for economic and political terror must

INTERNATONAL NEMS

TEAMSTER LEADERS

IN NIXON SCANDAL

'What I mean is you could get a -and you could get it in cash. I know it could be gotten... we could get the money.

There is no problem in that."

-Richard Nixon; the time-March 21, 1973; the context -a conversation with White House Dean about the burglars' demands for Since the transcript of that tape conversation was made public in 1974, noone has figured what money Nixon of a secret FBI report, published in the August 8 of Time magazine, reveal referring was threatened sing secret cash fund which had been burglary and the cover-up unless he him by lackelet was paid for his silence.

America's largest simmons cash was obviously much needed. No-one yet knows what became

"THANK YOU"

$1,000,000 of the directly was not from Teamster members. with Watergate. The FBI have established that a • wa. "thank-you" Provenzano courier payment from Teamster boss Frank Vegas on January Colson was absent from the White -for White House co-oper- House on the 6th and 7th, and that ation in preventing ex-union leader he spoke to Jimmy Hoffa regaining control.

8th. Hoffa had been top dog in the But so far-according to Then, after a version-they have been unable to led by Robert unearth the cash. Kennedy he was given a 13 year jail was interviewed by FBI agents last for jury-tampering February, has denied all knowledge ditc of the Teamster money. commuted the sentence The FBI have yet to speak to 1971, but added Nixon-but any immune from any punishment for nave nothing to do with the union until federal crimes committed during his when sentence years office pardon granted by Gerald Ford.

Like all gangsters Hoffa scorned and persisted in

TIP OF ICEBERG

his efforts to oust Fitzsimmons and restore himself to the presidency.

These revelations are obviously with considerable help Irom only the tip of the iceberg. the Nixon administration, Fitzsim- FBI-notorious throughout mons managed to beat down Hoffa for anti-working anti-union activities-have Hoffa subsequently vanished on intention of pursuing this inquiry and is still missing, through to the what slimy objects dragged into the light of day such an investigation? even if the

AHT

pursue their inquiries, this would be of no benefit to America's working Nixon Fitzsimmons still rules the roost, Anthony allu Provenzano are now being fingered by the FBI in connection with the cuts. Provenzano-who forced by boss in New Jersey political questions. in for considered lime report. Provenzano and a strong arm heavy ordered January 1973 that $500,000 in cash White House alleged to have told an associate that he had collec- Fitzsimmons' at of 'workers' participation' in industry.

request, and that another $500,000 Nixon- Fitzsimmons' request-by convicted the Labour Party. "adviser" to

SIGNIFICANT

fined Britain. Provenzano is further quoted as struct the Trotskyist Fourth International.

cash had been White House aide wno was House/Teamster initiative towards its reconstruction.

The timing of these payments is was in late 1972 class. A chie: enquir! bolster the mat impartial, politici In the case oi.- myth has been badly tarnishes result of Vietnam and Water By turning few notoriou corrupt individuals into scapego the rBI obviousiv hope to rest confidence in the US state mach Moreover, the subject of inquiry in this instance is Frank Fitzsimmons Provenzano; it is in reality Union, Teamsters which- matter how reactionary the bure cracy at head-remains Fitzsimmons workers' organisation, which must be uncondition about protected against any form capitalist aggression. The Fitz- The FBI's investigation can o be used against the whole. Socialists in America must the syphoned off fore demand the immediate end

FBI

the inquiry But demand must be linked to a call was Las workers investigation of 6; that Charles Teamsters' financial transactions.

Rank and file teamsters this information not for plato Fitzsimmons on the purposes, but as a lever to oust t rotten pro-capitalist matia-ty their bureaucracy which weighs down them. Colson, Such an inquiry could serve show American workers the need break all ties with the Democra Republican and parties and need their case he union-based, workers' party.

the The the class, no who knows would be by FBI were For

WORKERS

SOCIALIST LEAGUE

The Workers Socialist League is a Trotskyist organisation fighting to build a revolutionary teadership in the working class to lead the mounting opposition to the betrayals of both left' and right wing Labour and trade union leaders and the Communist Party, as they attempt to enforce wage control, sackings, speed-up and public service As workers take up the struggle against these policies they are the sheer weight of forces opposing them to confront Only with an understanding of the role of the labour bureaucracy and a programme to unite the broadest sections of workers in struggle can a way forward be found.

The Workers Socialist League is the only movement that sets out to do this, fighting consistently in the working class for transitional demands, which go beyond simply trade union militancy to raise the political questions to workers and prepare the forms of organis.

ation and the knowledge necessary for the struggle for socialism.

As a result we have been at the forefront of struggles agairist the cuts, against wage control, for unionisation, and against redundancy.

We have done more than any other tendency to fight the introduction And we have strongly supp- orted the Campaign for Democracy in the Labour Movement, whict has set out to show the link between the reactionary policies of the Social Contract and bureaucratic dictatorship in both the unions and But our practical struggle for the continuity of the principles and method of Trotsky's Transitional Programme is in no way a task con It requires an attention and involvement in the struggles of the working class internationally, and the fight to recon So there has been a consistent drive within the WSL to deepen and enrich the movement's understanding of the history and the present crisis of the Fourth International as an essential part of our We urge all readers who agree on the need for revolutionary lead.

ership and the demands we out forward to find out man chie ell

Page 4 Life has not been easy recently for those who cling on to hopes that 'left' Labourites such as Eric Heffer will some day turn and fight the reactionary Callaghan-Healey leadership. Not only has Heffer, with his left- some ess

COLCHIC

talking cronies in the Tribune Group trooped time and again into the Parliamentary lobby to register support for the coalition deal with the Liberal Party, but now to add insult to injury he has gone into print with an exultant article in the Labour Party's press service bulletin "The Social Contract is proclaiming Still Alive and Well»

FABRICATED

Heffer this begins piece of professional confusion-mongering by insisting: • there has been a great deal deliberate misunderstanding of about the Social Contract. It has been interpreted purely as a wages policy by far too many people.

Heffer is careful himself not to oppose the concept of an incomes policy. And he sets out to bolster the illusion fabricated by both govern- ment and TUC that the two years #voluntary of wage control was a policy. reality … ot course it was a Ill policy bureaucratically compulsory foisted on their members by TUC Headers. But Heffer "understands" the revulsion of union members against these betrayals: "The revolt of the rank and file has been perfectly understandable.

They have accepted [!] real reduc- Call to spread strike WESTMINSTER PRESS group chapel of the National Union of Journalists have voted overwhelm- strike at ingly to call for the Darlington to be extended through- out the group. Darlington NUJ members have now out for ll weeks on :

HOOT

demand for a 100% entry post membership agreement and for the last two weeks have been joined by bringing the papers to a printers, The demand has gone to the Emergency Committee of the NUJ will from there to the and go Printing Industries Committee the TUC. A major fight will now be needed to get the policy put into operation.

FOUNDERED

The government's plan to call in ACAS foundered when Westminster Press refused to budge. Their offer was to recruit nobody at all until a Press Charter, limiting the action of journalists to strike has been pushed through Parliament.

Meanwhile national journalists are demanding pay increases of up 45% refusing to settle after under Phase 2. The membership is clearly of the position their rejecting delegation to the NUJ's annual conference, which swung the narrow vote in favour of controlled retur to free collective bargaining and against a complete return.

conference decided The annual however that all pay claims should

HEFFER APPLAUDS

SOCIAL CONTRACT

Chric Movies Report their standard of living, cuts and a rigid cash tions in ribbons by limits straightjacket? and with the best will in the world, housing, with prices and unemployment Was it about about laid waste by rise be education, likewise expected the swingeing cuts of Healey and co-operate indefinitely." Callaghan? But, Heffer repeats, "the Social Whichever way you look, the Social Contract when was first fire of rhetoric of the conceived was not about wages."

Contract is reduced to the squalid reality of class betrayal by Labour and trade union leaders selling the interests of their members to the profit-gluttons of the CBI in the name of some supposedly common "national interest

DIGGING IN

This has now reached a new depth in the Lib-Lab coalition. The TUC's endorsement of an extension of the Social Contract now means fresh endorsement of a deal which subordinates the Labour Party to Britain's second string capitalist party. Labour Party members must Benn-another left' supporter of the heed this warning. Heffer and the Lib-Lab coalition. 'left' are digging in for prolonged So what was it about? Was it and conscious support for the coalition deal. lowering unemployment, 300T now at a record 1.61 million?

Every CLP must be mobilised to Was about holding down demand the "lefts' fight to break 17.6% prices, the Lib-Lab deal, and to remove

NU W

wingers who aim to per year? those right Was about improving the extend it social The October Labour Party services, now slashed to

WHY WE STILL SAY -

Following the unwritten rule of selecting obnoxious and anti-social- ist candidates tor by-elections in the Midlands, Birmingham Lady- wood Labour Party is fielding John Sever, a 34-year old executive with a travel company, in a bid to hold the seat abandoned by extreme right wing Labourite Brian another year of rigid wage restraint Walden. and to avoid the implementation This takes after pa Terry even of socialist policies. Leyland manager Davis, But what of those thousands of uncritically on the wage- standing workers who still turn out to vote of the cutting Labour poncies Labour? Are we to assume that succeeded in destroy- Labour majority in support these workers

HELLI

wing line of Callaghan? Roy Jenkins' former seat at Stech- lord in Birmingham, swept away in

ONLY MASS PARTY

an 18% swing to the Tories.

Of course it is not objectionable On the contrary, Marxists have candidates as individuals that are always insisted that workers vote the Labour Party's devastating for social democratic parties like electoral support the Labour Party not because of the reactionary line of their leaders but in spite of them. Workers vote Labour because it remains the only mass party based the organisations of the WOUl class-built by the trade union movement at the turn of the century. When Marxists argue for workers Labour against the Tories to vote and Liberals in general elections it view. We give no is with this in whatever to the Labour support We give no support to the leaders. they reformist programme put forward. Instead we call tor workers to pursue the fight within the unions John Sever and within the Labour Party for a and for the SOCIaLIsI programmine Rather it is the hostility of the construction of a leadership capable working, flass to the reactionary dontin, a the nament implemented by the In this way we show the need Callaghan-Healey leadership: for a new type of party and leader- policies which can only foster the ship: a revolutionary party.

belief that there is little difference between a Tory Labour

COALITION

government. This illusion has been further The situation is of course more developed coalition deal between the tentar Parliamentary complicated in by-elections present because the Labour right- leaders and the Liberal Party, wing's policy involves advocating a Heffer conference must be lobbied around these demands *Break the Lib-Lab coalition!

* Labour 'lefts' must campaign for the removal of the Callaghan- Healey leadership. * Adopt a socialist programme to fight the next general election.

The trial of the Islington 18 is now over. The jury, after a week of considering their verdicts could only return eight 'guilty verdicts out of 51. They 28 agree onl

CO DOI

of others, including the charges

'VOTE LABOUR

Were this coalition deal to be extended to embrace joint slates of coalition candidates in elections, it would clearly necessary for workers to withold campaign their votes from such Labour Party candidates, and any who endorsed the coalition. But despite the yearning of the Labour right wing this is not yet the case. In Ladywood the Labout candidate is opposing the Liberal (however ineffectively). The task therefore is to mobilise locally to eject Sever, along with other right wing Labourite, from the Labour Party candidates Newham North East

CLP

list and Liverpool Edge have showed this is possible given a serious fight.

MASS ORGANISATIONS

There is no substitute at this struggle these 1O T of and principle questiols programme within the mass organ- working isations of the class The propaganda campaigns of the two rival left-wing opportunist candidates, Kim Gordon (SWP) and Raghib "Socialist Unity» candidat Ahsan Flame's candidate) go no resolving this central way problem of leadership. This why we maintain our for policy ot calling YOLE On Labour coupled with a fight in the union branches and Labour Parties to break the Lib-Lab coalition, for the expulsion of the crypto-Tories.

and for a socialist programme Ir opposition to that of Callaghan and Healey. SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 17 August 1977

LOBBY

TUC!

We call on all readers and supporters to rally on 5 Septem.

ber at 11.00 am. in Blackpool, on the following demands:

*TGWU

and AUEW accept conference decisions. *No to the 12-month rule.

*End unemployment! For a programme of public works.

*Stop all sackings: occupy and *Regain defend standards: wage claims to restore 1974 levels with cost of living clauses. *Full-scale blacking of Grunwick by all unions. * National strike action to force a halt to all cuts in social services. Nowfor the real verdict "conspiracy to rob' and 'conspiracy to steal'. This is one indication of the difficulty they had in considering the the statements obtained from boys by force in the police stations of Islington. The Judge, a former Tory MP, took time in his summing up to commend Sgt. Gallagher and his team for their of the case This commendation is to be conveyed to the police superiors and so give them carte blanche to continue their previous practices of extracting statements by force and keeping keys in order to return for after later searches making dawn raids on people's homes. those 'guilty' the For found were harsh. Two were SentelLes given 3 years for robbery, and fines of £150 and £75 borstal sentences were also given. One of the 18 has effectively been deported. His defence counsel pleaded that he wanted to go to Nigeria so the Judge set a date for his departure and ruled that he could not return to this country for 5 years of those acquitted, some had spent six months detention consistently because the police refused bail, while on the outstand- ing charges, the Judge decided that there would not be a re-trial but has left the charges hanging over the heads of the youths, to be taken up again the future should the authorities so decide The parents had sent a letter to Merlyn Rees, the Home Secretary, re-trial. They out the pointed record length of time it had taken the jury to consider S1 out of 89 charges, that only 8 guilty verdicts had been reached and that the Judge had dismissed them before the they had returned verdicts on charges-implying that conspiracy tnere was very nuit suoslance tr these charges The report of the Labour Move- ment Enquiry into the affair organ- ised under the auspices of the Islington 18 Defence Committee is due to be published as we go to press. The Defence Committee has all the labour move- written to at ment tha represented to send enquiry calling on them observers to the Notting Carnival at the end of the month.

The announcement by the Metropolitan Police that they intend to have their new riot shields on hand at the Carnival is itself a provocation Labour movement bodies which would like to send observers to thi Notting Hill Carnival should 18 Defence contact the Islington

CON-TRICK IN FULL

SCRAP THE IMMIGRATION LAWS

SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 17 August 1977

INFLATION

By an Economics Correspondent.

Lies and distortions about the passed on. current state of British capitalism Nor can the cost of goods from are being used as a major weapon in abroad be expected to stay low in the long The cost of raw an attempt to impose a third stage material commodities on the world of incomes policy. market determined almost Labour Ministers are vying with exclusively by speculation.

most make optimistic forecasts about the

OUTPUT FELL

future prospects for the economy.

The euphoria has been fuelled The most important fact by the rise in the Retail Price Index emerging from last month's figures in July of 0.1%, hailed as the down- output tel in turn towards single figure inflation, Britain by the largest amount for but all forecasts centre on the warn- over two years. Production is now ing that the only thing which can well below the level of the three stop this is wage increases substan- day week. So much for 'booming tially over six per cent.

Britain. So what is the state of British The balance of trade was far capitalism? worse than the governinent had predicted and only North Sea Oil

FRESH VEGETABLES

prevented the figures from being appalling. Part of the smallness of the rise The result of the low output in July is directly due to the sharp has been to make projections about drop in the price of fresh vegetables unemployment still more gloomy.

(down of 11%. If the price Dy core' The 1.4 million 'hard fresh food is excluded then the unemployed excluding school- rate for the month jumps leavers is now expected to rise to from 0.1% to 0.65%, not that much 1.7 or 1.8 million by the end of the lower than the similar figures for year. The two million mark cannot May and June. be ruled out. The figures also include part of the excess profit refund which the

FOREIGN CAPITAL

Post Office has been ordered to make to telephone subscribers.

The other leg of the so-called Reductions of this nature have a been the influx of recovery has once-only impact and no effect at foreign capital. all on the underlying trend. Next This is what used to be more month's figures will show also called 'hot footloose accurately similar once-off effect: the cut in monev' by the covernment in the the price of petrol. days before they needed it.

slops around world

TAE

RAW MATERIALS

for the looking best short term reward and will leave with as little The cost of goods leaving British compunction as it arrived.

factories-that is the wholesale Since the pound is being allowed price index-went up last month by the cost of imports drops to rise. 14% rate and become CADULLs 1101C unchanged at 21% expensive-destroying the 'export This is despite a fall in the cost led boom' we are told to expect of abroad. materials from raw and sacrifice for. Since manufacturers are paying out real wages,

WRONG SORT

Jess beCuase Phases I and Il it is clear that the effect of the wage curbs has been to Imports last month were all of do nothing for prices but every- the wrong sort for any recovery.

thing for profits. Manufactured goods being are bought at The lower costs have not been levels, Over the last four months three charges. It is conspiracy claimed his shop in the of Warwick courtrooms Leamington was the base for the and Leamington have seen the operations. enactment of the latest state "illegal' campaign against

DEPORTED

immigration. On March 2, in a move that won the convicted men have been deported, splitting one from national press publicity, the police arrested 15 people in Southall and his wife who legally living in Britain. The Leamington. Since then another 17 judge at the appeal locked awaiting hearing for this man remarked: up, LaYe occu charges of "illegal" immigration or The important thing is that of conspiracy to this people who enter this country illegally are deported there traffic. The inordinate time it is taking is precious little to prevent this sort of traffic continuing. these through the lo ulag Canes courts (especially the He added: "There is public conspiracy outrage over this at the moment."

charges) even caused the chairman of Leamington Magistrates to urge The real political direction of the trial could not have been better the Director of Public Prosecutions The whole trial is against exposed to get a move on "illegal" immigration, not the crim-

RACKET

inal activity or exploitation that surrounds it. The prosecution's plan has been The eftect of successful prose- cutions of both to push through convictions immigrants and actual immigrants to provide the organisers will be to whip up this 'public outrage' against biacks.

which will now not take place to these dangerous isers, In response until at least September, six months ad-hoc committee has after the arrests! been formed by both IWA's, the

LPYS,

So far four Indians have been Leamington Anti-Racist Group SWP and the WSL to organ- breaking convicted for "knowingly' ise a protest meeting when the main the regulations-a immigration trial starts and to picket the court if virtual impossibility. since they all spoke hardly any English and were the fascists appear as they have at earlier hearings. Interate al seems i meant al In a letter to Lar cur Perser sent out to Punjat paid anion and sanches beiween £600 and E1600 o::e: 5005 :: = ramandas flare. Lal c=a Gardip Singh Sanchu. "This trial is not motivared by a

SWING

PHOTO: Chris Davies. Report imports for industry are not being increased. of British death throes capitalism as part of a crisis ridden world system will take more than a bedside from Healey Hialle

CLU

The vital necessity for wage tises to match inflation is with us It exploitation. is a dangerous threat to all immigrants. It opens the way to continuous police inves- tigations into the of black lives workers and their families, increasing numbers of deportations and increased freedom to activity for the police. "If the trial is ignored or given support by the labour movement it will strengthen the racialists who seek to blame unemployment, bad other housing and so cial 211l problems on immigrants and who deportations and the hounding of the black population as a 'solution'". Trotskyism Today Theoretical Journal of the Workers Socialist League.

NUMBER ONE

Features include:

* POLITICS AND

ORGANISATION • A reply to the IMG on 'Faction and Party.

* WHAT ARE THE LESS

ONS OF CUBA?

Ciseas 500.

MSL

Sarnout Park H: TUC leader Murray. Healey using lies and distortions more than ever before. Far from prompting a new wave of inflation, such a policy is the means of combatting Only inevitable price _ rush ot massive increases in the autumn and winter this year. Police investigations after the murder of Mrs. Gautam, an Indian woman. last September, have undoubtedly aided their work for this trial The Protest Meeting Committee has agreed to take up these attacks with the platform of: Abolish immigration controls! Immigration Laws are to blame- Stop the Trial; No Deportations- End Police Harrassment of Black Workers. This provide political can answer to this political trial.

TROTSKYISM

TODAY*

Page 5

PRESS

GANG

Whenever the Press announces that it is defending a basic freedom you can be sure that some enemy of the capitalist class is about to catch it in the neck. The freedom "to join or not te join" a trade union (as at Grunwick and thousands other places! means the freedom to be crushed by the employer But nothing exceed defended hypocrisy the "freedom' by the Press for the past two weeks Nationa: -the freedom of the Front to march. The NF march has played ar important role for the press. In the first they have used the place opportunity to smear the left and to attempt to identify communism with fascism, which practice carries little weight in the organised sections of the working class.

It does however make an appeal to the petty bourgeoisie, where the popular press finds its strongest response. The Dai he fascist. example referred the fascists of Right and of the Left". every piece written about the NF march has carried a formal indictment of the fascists What then is the record of the racialism? press on Last yeat reporting on the case of the Malawi Asians led directly to the murder of an Asian. But for years the press has pursued a policy of rampant racialism, and jingoism Even as it declared its interest in "race relations' the press continued its racialist campaign. George Gale in the Daily Express "Look on the in a piece headed black side" squalid produced stream of complaints against West Jews and Irish for Indians, ability to become inte "inability their grated". Gale 1s calling for a census o black and brown people in Britain "The problem is not just one of colour. It is also one of numbers But we don't know how many of (orig. them there are. emphasis; This is only an extreme example of the way that the press produces its racialism from behind a shield "We" need to know of moderation. of "them" there are how many Race problems are not caused in the host country but imported in the immigrants "The theory that Britain would on the whole gain from the injection of new blood, as it has in the past, does not appear to be well founded. The strains and stresse imposed upon our society by the of immigration out. latest wave congh unch advantages to the host weigh such Which leads naturally onto the NF. On August 12 the Daily Mai!

-defending their right to march through a black area of Lewisham- ts through the virulence said Front was attracting

TCCUES

its racist propaganda". Only one week earlier the same put at the top of a page a paper story headed "Armed vigilante plar from National which quoted the NF in Bristol as saying "able night bodied young men" would walk the streets with sticks. The story quoted one Labour Tory one and communit! relations chairman condemning the moye and also quoted the police as saying that it was up to the police "law and order" and the: maintain were not aware of a mugging they problem But it devoted the majority the story to allowing the 5: 23: old company representative the Bris: tront

HOLLS

"unsate Defending the rent: to march is a defence ai the sar ism of the press owners. As the editonals phrased: vie "Dear Adelph: don't approve of your plan to destroy the Forking class morement. murde million Jess and Fascist regime ... bur se defemi Io

POPULAR FRONT

ENSURES DEFEAT

Page 6 Nicolau, d'Olwer. crisis Capitalism in con- of sows the seeds tinually specific fascism, but required for conditions are these to flourish. Weeding out individual parts as they appear above the surface is vital, but not enough; only a revolution- ary alternative to the anarchic of capitalism can methods seeds before these destroy they germinate. failing to solve the revol- By • tasks posed in Spain, the itionary government 931-33 Republican contributed directly to the rise of its electoral

CEDA

and the triumph in 1933. Robles, leader of the CEDA, Gil impressed by his had been deeply experience of Hitler's methods and attempted reproduce inese holding mass rallies and by the rhetoric of Nazism. imitating

NOT EQUIPPED

But for all its electoral successes

CEDA

was not equipped to the into a mass fascist party develop capable of taking power. Drawing support from the large landowners and big Gil Robles could not bourgeoisie, put forward a 'radical' programme of social transformation that could effectively mobilise the petty bour- geoisie and lum penproletariat right wing With its extreme heavily deoendent pollins monarchism and the most reaction- the aspects ary carnoncisin, 'came to seek a parliamen-

CEDA

tary road to fascism, which was to prove its downfall. time other small At the same groupings came together on a very different basis. Jose Antonio Primo Falange Rivera founded the de (Spanish Phalanx) Espanola October 1933, but six months later unite his organisation was driven to

HOW FASCISTS TOOK

STATE POWER: NO4

Azana with his ministers in the Popular Front government. Front (l. to r.) Albornoz, Primo de Rivera modelled programme closely that of Mussolini. was in fact a paid Jose agent of Mussolini. The new organ- small (3,000 isation was still very members at the very most), but the Socialist sections Party recognised its significance and to drive waged campaign Falangists off the streets.

Armed skirmishes broke out, but these were only a part of the whole working class movement which responded with militant self- defence to the attacks launched by the choice of installing Gil Robles in power or dissolving the Cortes, he opted for elections.

GERMANY

The bienio negro" had not just for Spanish been a Diack period The defeat of the workers alone. Hitler's with German prolelallal power had tipped the inter- rise to balance of forces against national the working class more important the Soviet Far leadership had reacted in 1935 by a switch international further adopting the policy of the policy Front which was to Popular millions ot sacrifice preserve fascism in order to bureaucratic caste in the Kremlin The course of the Spanish revol- ution was to be determined not by the strength of the bourgeoisie and within Spain- forces reactionary not even by the military In their battle against fascism, shown constant heroism and deter- mination but this spontaneous resis- tance could not of itself develop a conscious programme necessary for the completion of a revolutionary working class grew, it became more, not less necessary conditions are required: *three The events of 1936 showed with force that such a party Zamora had been confident that a majority would be returned for the bourgeois parties of the "centre'. He miscalculated badly. On the one hand, the parties of Popular Front had been formed and classic formation of its kind. United not simply to exchange votes, but Giral, Azana, Lerroux, programme, Socialists and Staunists here worked side by Catalan separatists of the Esquerra and even the Republican Union, an of the After the crushing •Lerroux s 1934, the commune Asturian "two black years' of second of the the Spanish Republic was one of intensifying struggle. Increasingly the government was forced to send the Civil Guard into who had was inevitably that of the bourgeois action against peasants expropriated land attempted to close As the state down unions and the labour press isation and redistribution election workers asserted their strength and illegal by forming independence nationalisation of the banks, unem- and publishing illegal organisations paptis

STRIKES

even a hint di sought Capitalists, who crisis by Iesolve their economic the proletariat, assaults confronted with strikes for higher wages and better conditions.

Constantly subjected to these bourgeois state local attacks, the those which had afflicted with near total was joined the Popular Front!

paralysis on May Day 1935 as the working class united in a national Donald general strike. sections of It became the ruling class that parliamentary efforts of their treacherous leaders, democracy the masses of workers and peasants could no longer their interests by even controlling, who elected the Popular Front into let alone preventing this movement.

office did not content themselves Gil Robles, now Minister of War for the made preparations inevitable confrontation fortifi- for power: struggle cations were placed round Madrid, not only and the stockpiled reorganised (this task was trusted to reforms of its programme; it also that loyal servant of the Republic.

continued aspects of the repression General Franco). At the same time he manoeuvred Radicals and other to oust the WOrKerS enable the right wing

"OTCCS LU

CEDA to form a government which would establish a corporate state anarchist CNT, supported by UGT

"DEMOCRATIC"

called a general strike in LO frustrated But here he was still the bourgooisie Sections could be reckoned that tell rule 'democratic' by maintained control of the mass movement. But when governmental methods. SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 17 August 1977

INO

ASCISMO

MADRID SER

ian revolution was the immedia develop within the Socialist Party, and t daily took on a greater significan on wi increasing strength, up political demands alongside t As the The activity of the fascists 1 drawing unemployed youth 10,0 (excluding several thousand stud leaders, had been imprisoned w the Falange was outlawed in Mar terrorist force, beyond his perso had been in contact with the a officers who were plotting the a signifi but, the pray Civil War had begun.

SOK/ALIS: 35=31

PASARAN:

LRERONQUIS

•LA TUMBA DEL FASCISMO-6

At every turn, Franco was able advance to only because the policies followed by Popular the Front had paved the way for him.

The initial organisation of the uprising was possible because Popular Front TelUSCu icioni bile ally Franco's military advance across Spain could be made because the peasants led the ranks of his army.

the whom the Popular peasants rront naa rerusea to iced.

Azana's government had prepared the conditions for this attack the Republic by its grotesquely inadequate policies; but LIt its policies prepared to change the fight to defend the Republic. The Republicans iirst tried to suppress all news of the uprising: their main initiative was to attempt craven negotiations with its leaders, who rebuffed them.

ARMS SEIZED

of this further In defiance treachery, the workers broke into the arsenals themselves, to attacked the garrisons and entered struggle with into one drawn-out the enemies outside the Republic, ana ine traitors within it In pace with the counter-revol- ution outside, a situation of dual power rapidly emerged internally. It Catolonia that this was developed revolutionary the its highest level, under to

CNT

leadership and ne (Partido Obero de Unifi-

POUM

cacion Marxista-Workers Party of Marxist Unification). The POUM had been formed in September 1935 as a fusion of the Workers and Peasants Bloc with former forces of the International Left Opposition in Spain which had abandoned the call to build the Fourth International and followed Nin Andreas and Andrade dissolving their political principles willin ins centrist gloup.

months later the Ten

POUM

broke from its support for the Popular Front and joined with the anarchists in recognising that the civil war had to be fought by political as well as military methods thoroughly had be LU launched.

MILITIAS

Factories were brought under workers' control, land seized by the peasants, militias formed; all under "Central Com- the leadership of the Militias of mittee of Anti-fascist 'They Shall Not Pass!' The famous slogan displayed in Madrid.

Catalonia'. all the workers' organis- Here ations united to co-ordinate the activity of the factory committees workers' organs directing them in the war control, against Franco's army.

LAND REDISTRIBUTED

Nor did the workers confine the Catalonia. Militias revolution marched into Aragon as an army of social liberation: was redistributed to the peasants, and collectives established control all aspects of social life. The peasants of Aragon were won to the side of the revolutionary iat. But although the anarchists and the POUM acted at this stage as if the theory they permanent revolution, they were show themselves inade- quate to the tasks of revolutionary leadership. In September 1936 the Popular Front government was re-formed, and the leader of the left Socialists, Largo Caballero, entered as Prime Minister. Caballero declared: This govern- was constituted-all those previously Icnounce the defence of our principles and particular tendencies-in order to remain united on sole aspir- defend Spain her alone struggle against fascism.

What this declaration really signified was that the left Socialists had abandoned their principles-in to support the principle of order Lie bourgeois

DETEC CLA

of the private property against demands of the working class.

ANTES MORIR

Bishops bless the Fascists' cause.

At the same time, the POUM workers' militias; the outlawing of the POUM; the restoration of all and CNT entered the government of Catalonia. Precisely at the point expropriated property. break In Catalonia and Aragon, the CP where it was necessary bourgeois moved to oust the anarchists and to trom tile the embryonic forms of the leadersnip or te workers and peasants-not to assert СОПЕТО ПТО soviets anu their leadership, but organise them nationally into to le establish bourgeois rule workers' government to establish of the proletariat, the dictatorship at this point the anarchists and

STALINISTS

centrists turned their backs on the In May 1937 the forces of the socialist revolution and followed Caballero into class collaboration.

central government supported the Stalinists in their attempt to wrest they aCE ensured the defeat of the Spanish control of Barcelona from the CNT For the entry of the and POUM militias. Revolution. up and workers parties Barricades were thrown into tne ment did nothing to transform the mass resistance developed, but the and leaders anarchist centrist bourgeois character of the Popular Front. argued that the workers should co- with the Popular Front operate

COMPROMISED

forces. With this betrayal it was certain On the contrary: while the left that whichever camp-Loyalist

POUM

Socialists, anarchists and Republican-should win the compromised their principles, their Millay Wald participation the government would triumph in Spain, either as the bourgeoisie to enabled regain fascism or as a restoration of the the mass movement. control OVer bourgeois rule of the Popular Front In this task it was consciously supported by reformism and inter- and ruthlessly assisted by the national Stalinism. Stalinists. Barcelona subdued; was Spanish Communist Party

POUM

outlawed its militants was guided by the Soviet bureau- massacred along with the CNT's.

cracy's requirement that the inter- To detail the betrayals and national 'status quo' be preserved crimes committed bv • the leaders of This meant social revol- the Spanish working class parties in in Spain. The CP's contri- ution the name of "democracy would bution to the Republican ad last issues of Socialist was based on a desire to Press. re-establish stable bourgeois rule, as The pattern had been established it frequently declared: and was relentlessly imposed.

'It is absolutely false that the While Franco's armies advanced, present workers' movement has for the the Popular government establishment of a its object the Front systematically destroyed the proletarian dictatorship, after the basis of any resistance to fascism. war has terminated. are motivated exclusively by a desire

MORE TERRIFYING

to defend the democratic republic.

The CP had grown rapidly in size the outbreak of civil war but The forward movement of the unce masses presented it with a far more drew its recruits-particularly in Franco's Catalonia-from layers of the petty terrifying threat than bourgeoisie terrified by the move- progress. ment of the working class.

In the areas occupied by the "Loyalist' forces.

CCSSIOLI

COLLAPSE

mass and unleashed: With the flight of the big bour- geoisie and the collapse of support for the 'left' Republicans, the CP functioned increasingly as the main agent of the bourgeoisie within the Republic. It was to prove a very efficient henchman. The Stalinists wère the first to demand the ending of the

JURAO SABRISTASLE TRASHERN

QUECONSERT RITUALS

People's Army on the way to the front.

For! imprisonment, torture and persecu The which flocked tion. elements to join the CP in the Republican here rushed to the Falange

LODIC.

But it was not the Falange which power. Antonio and ened of leaders had many its been executed by the Republic; the others were in Franco's entourage where the Generalissimo played them oft againt the monarchist other and extreme reactionaries Franco took over the rhetorio of the Falange, adopted of its trappings, but the party itself he purged so that it formed no his personal Loreal

CLO

power It was not in a fascist party that but in the peasantry which filled the Loyalis armies to overthrow the Republic nothing bu that had given them empty promises.

BALANCE

To his dictatorship establish Franco needed to balance various forces against each other so that he could rise above them, the ralang took its place here , with the the army major caurch, capitalists and large landowners When the Republic had been finally crushed in March 1939, the corporate state was imposed on the working Spanish class the Falangist form-with 'vertical syndicates opposed to class- "horizontal' syndicates-and baseu hailed as a Jose Antonio was martyr But the triumph of fascism owed little to his work. The responsibility for that victory rests with the leaders of the Spanish movement and workers above all with the Stalinists. As with bitter Trotsky remarked irony 'The work of the Moscow executioners confirms in its own correctness of the theon of permanent revolution."

CONCLUDED.

Republican refugees head for Franc

Page 8

ART TO

EXPOSE

FASCISM

whose Heartfield, John produced and porks were osted up all over Germany, emains virtually unknown in The few studies his country. hat have been devoted to (notably by Tretyakov aim. and John Berger) are now out of print and his name appears only as a footnote in most Art" of "History copular 00ks. This forced exclusion by the art 'experts" would have come as no purprise to Heartfield who shunned the exhibition halls and devoted his mergies to deriding the ruling class, and the church while army officers arousing the German workers to the fascist danger. would have been totally He of dissatisfied with any his hadn't been bonstructions if they adolent of the violence, cruelty and degraded sexuality he saw all around him. The retrospective of his work on how at the ICA in London till the 15 September ThereTOre to and timely attempt malcome acquaint people with a portion of as enormous output. 1891, Heartfield soon Born in showed himself to be a talented The unconventional artist. Dada movement which had sprung in Zurich in 1916 found fertile roand in Berlin where, disillusion- formal education Munich, Heartfield settled after the and simply Although nihilist at bourgeois pontent to poke fun Dada did begin to culture, art assume a political role during the having turned German revolution, to the Soviet Union for ideological direction and to discover there new artistic forms that had blossomed October Revolution.

OLI

of the

DER SINN DES

HITLERGRUSSES:

grobe Gaber werner mena bior bal "Millions Stand Behind Me" This period had decisive and both the form irtuence of Heartfield's work: he and atopted more realistic styles consciously focused on social and political events. To these ends he daveloped the technique of photo- aggressive Creatons several pictures from esposite Factographs. juxtaposing seemingly was able, images he as trelated Ernst said. make the Mit "to ce presented play the role of Tee #hatomontages he produced •== ime: for mass circulation a=:. the German

• KPD: = 1919

tom: i==: A Review of an exhibition of work by John Heartfield, on show at the Institute of Contemporary London, until September Arts, 15. April 1932, Heartfield's purpose is crystal clear. shows Hitler's He not only rhetoric as feeding on the interests of capital but, by portraying him shouldered and bird-like as puny shatters the edifice the fascists had cult of his built up around the personality and his superhuman powers. all the This like was, WOIk patiently others, so carefully built that the parts still retain their original, real appearance yet when viewed in situ illustrate not objects but forces and symbols. popular fascist By transposing slogans in this way he was able to demystify and expose them His "Millions Stand Behind Me" -one of his most famous creations photomontage at its

MOSI

effective.

BANKER

The "Millions" no longer signify people but bank notes, the people are transformed into one obese stands not banker who bourgeois "ascist salute bedomes no more than "behind" but : a begging hand. To spend an hour in this exhibition is to relive the years of collapse of the Weimar the Republic and to witness the rise of the detea: of the and Sparish Repurdians :3. This pamphlet was produc- ed by a group of ex-members of the International Socialists who resigned because they saw in the Right to Work' and election campaigns gimmicks trade replacing steady union work and the building of the rank and file groups. It is not surprising, therefore, "Adolph the Superman Swallows Gold and Spouts Junk" Stalinist and Heartfield was the strictly followed Comintern out of Germany Hounded 3une 1933, he moved to Prague, then to London, and died in 1968 in East Berlin. "tactfully" The exhibits are the period during chosen. Stalinist bureaucracy which the labelled the Social Democrats "Social Fascists" who had to be defeated before it was possible to tackle fascism we are shown very few pictures.

BETRAYALS

Stalinist Similarly with the betrayals in Spain during the Civil accompanying the apologetic and exhibition, is an sickening text: the of the Social Democrats' is blamed for policies during the Third Period, and we are told tnat ine spanis Republicans were defeated "due to Italian and German intervention" "Dada" as a force seen 1s now "fought on the side of the that proletariat" and international Popular Fronts existed before 1935! These faults cannot however from the overall strengths detract exhibition, (which also of this features a collection of Conteni West German photomon- porary tages) strengths which derive from Heartfield's method itself.

The exhibits local and are periodised relegates :.21 •as the sus tea B SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 17 August 1977

PURE MILITANCY

IS NOT ENOUGH

A review of "The Case Against the Social Contract' by the Group of Independent Socialists introduce the important element pamphlet reflects the that the will which workers syndicalist notions which dominate of

COLLO.

to an independent the IS, (now the SWP). point the way working class solution to the crisis.

the pamphlet style of general political weakness The however, is appealing. The authors illustrated here is repeated through- everyday attempt out the pamphlet's list of demands questions that workers are likely in the section 'What happens now?'

to ask those milltanis who lead On unemployment, the cuts and pay struggles. What is the relation- answer offered is only ship of wages to inflation? Don't prices the • paid? militant direct action. wage controls help the low What about price controls? Don't

PROGRAMME

we need to make sacrifices for the economy?-and a host oner for a way to There is a mass of interesting Workers looking and facts fight sackings, stop cuts and useful a boul wages, wages should look to the prices, profits and cuts.

increase Trotskyist Transitional Programme, the In general however, pamphlet fails to give a lead on the which offers an independent class struggle programme and a strategy way forward or serious socialism through analysis of the crisis. winning Despite reference to investment workers control section "If the Social pamphlet repeats difficulties the In the traditional IS "nasty employer" is bad why was Contract

GIS

the argument. crisis is laid at the agreed?" the i ne growing incorporation of the trade door of those who prefer to drink rather than invest union leadership into the govern- champagne ment and the increase in its policing wisely.

IU1C

INFLATION

However, in not pointing out the way in which votes for the Social Marxist The absence Contract bureaucratically were analysis of the crisis of capitalism forced through the trade unions the shows itself clearly

GIS

near most dangerously section on inflation. blaming the working class for its "In a moment of rare honesty accelance even the Tories admitted in 1970, the The central task facing Britain faces the worst the truth. working class is the construction of This inflation for years. leadership-a COnsCIO LI of tax increases the result mostly revolutionary party. and devaluation. not address them- The Gis do What the authors fail to show is this problem and simply selves to that any attempt by the govern- say that their policies 'can help to restore profitability ment to build a movement towards a society capitalism simply British depend on wrecking which doesn't And while reaction to the crisis. our standard of living' inevitably government measures We have reviewed this pamphlet crisis (for nothing the (sales of which are now reported eate tale short of the total defeat of the to be at the 4,000 mark) because could working we think the ideas within it need to Cas. temporary equilibrium) they must be combatted. never be mistaken for its cause Those like the Group of Indep-

SHARP

endent Socialists (GIS) who go to ruling great lengths If the GIS comrades are to go class mismanagement as the origins forward towards the correct inflation and unemployment, then the Trotskyist programme living standards them of difference to merely arguing for bene WILl close must be sharply argued. volent' capitalism. Otherwise Trotskyists are saying Whilst devoting a page to the and causes of British inflation (deval- that their own theory vation, the Common Market, other are optional extras. programme of Socialist first government policy), world inflatior The Challenge reviewed this pamphlet is seen as the result of 'complicated and made much of its wages policy.

reasons' Here is what Will Reese wrote proposal that "The pamphlet's

DEEPER

agreements should be open. NarC ended and re-opened if prices keep The GIS will need to go a lot very close to the call rising comes this if they want to deeper than for automatic wage rises for every drive reformism out of the workers rise in the cost of living.

, This is an movement! forward from the important step It must be made clear that the syndicalist position which sees this tendency for the rate of profit to demand as a threat to the militancy fall is a fundamental contradiction of the working class. of capitalist production. It is gen- process of the erated

NOT MUCH DIFFERENT

accumulation of capital. In this way we can locate the cause of the crisis in the anarchic If there has been a step forward itself. capitalist system the formulation -and essential demands for workers to pamphlet is, in fact. not significant- organise around can then be shown that sometime wifferent to be those which point to nation- used by IS-the fact that there is workers control of alisation and be demand for Inlation production and planning. assessed by workers and housewives The GIS shopping list of forms price committees is a considerable of opposition to attacks on wages weakness. told, and conditions can, The pamphlet as a whole is in 'defend living existing devoid fact completely standards'-but in the absence demands of transitional any organs of workers' control this Trotskyists workers' control. is clearly impossible must insist on these demands and Correctly exposing the fraud of be absolutely precise on the nature government price controls, the GIS of the sliding scale demands if any project simply trade is be political development to response made with forces such as pamphlet Copies of the are

DIRECT ACTION

plas 10p each obtainable action over rents, fares "Direct postage. irom: can get results. But and fuel bills 31. Greshan Resa. C:e-: the only real defeat against price 31- Wavertes RE else wage rises. rises By Keith WEre ¡lusion The Jemand and Jo hirin =:

TWO SHOOTS FROM

SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 17 August 1977 other outdated In *needed endence Cheat l make sense

NOT

porcles wnich are often no more to

COLES

unconsciously lamen into tne same come evolutionaly cult ma une workers movement.

COMINTERN

The revolutionary overthrow of capitalism in Russia was led on the basis of Lenin's opposition to the treacherous by

DOSILLOIS

leaders of the Second (Social Democratic: Internatonal These parties (today including the British Labour Party) declared their position openly at the start of World War when party declared in support of their own Thus German, CaNs French Social British and Democrats found themselves at war with each other, each claiming that workers in their own countries had common interest with their "own" capitalist class. It was parties and groupings that opposed inis line and that were in favour of the defeat of their "own' capitalist class that lenin and the Bolsheviks brought together 1919 form the Third (Communist) International, the 'Comintern'. The first four congresses of the Comintern, under the leadership of Lenin and lotsky fought both to break the isolation of the Russian Revolution and give firm

SEED OF

STALINISM

VITOEVER EXPECTS

THAT SOCIALISM WILL

BE ACHIEVED WITHOUT

AND THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT

IS NOT A SOCIALIST

LENIN

CONMUNIGIRPART

SURREY DISTRICT

A meeting this June held by the Frenchite opposition before their decision to leave the Communist Party.

world the poverty of society in objects of and construct the resulting parties in all consumption, revoluionary struggle of each against all. When there is enough goods in a store, the i can come whenever thev

NOT COMPLETED

When the lines are in line. very long, it is necessary to appoint period trom capitalism to socialism policeman to keep order. Such is We have never the starting point of the the Soviet bureaucracy. It "knows" Both Lenin and Trotsky always was easier to lead a revolution in

COLON

productive forces. For this reason they insisted on socialism in Russia alone, and the necessity for socialist revolution in

COSTS

N.E.P.

peasants in When Russia began grain strikes and the destruction of away food measures to oppose the as careil work to break the policy of Communism' war whereby food had been requisitioned with little given return while the Civil War was in Bolsheviks progress the were forced to introduce the New Economic Policy. allowed

NATIONALISM

This small capitalism the re-emerge isolation This strengthened in order to persuade countryside the peasants to produce. It was of conservative, nationalist tendencies course a necessary step backwards, Russia on Based and it had the result of prompting backwardness of the country, the the layer rich small the working class growth SIze 0ł ('Kulaks') relative to the peasantry, the peasants the wreaked by civil countryside • a force hostile the dcraslatil. fuelled by imperialism which socialism followed the evolution (described period that was in this by Trotsky as "surpassing anything conservative and nationalist history"); seen bV and the small began size of the Bolshevik Party, which into a bureaucratic caste within the had to stand in the forefront of the workers state, which from 1922 civil war and lost many of its best emerged into open the and was forces, well furnishing fought by both Lenin and Trotsky.

organisers in both countrvside and At first based on the conflict in in the towns. interest between industrial In these conditions tendencies to development in the towns and the

THE

FIRST

PART

OF A

THREE-PART SERIES ON THE

UNDERLYING

ISSUES

THE

RECENT SPLIT IN THE BRIT-

ISH COMMUNIST PARTY.

By Tony Richardson.

SOCIAL REVOLUTION

defence of its privileges

FOREIGN TRADE

SUCH

LENIN'S TESTAMENT

It was at the end of 1922 and early 1923 that Lenin wrote what is known as his Testament, in which he said: "Stalin rude, and this Is too defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealings among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a General Secretary. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about of removing Irom unal post . Of course rudeness was the trait of the bureaucrat, and Lenin broke relations with Stalin over his treatment of Krupskaya, Lenin's wife.

GEORGIA AFFAIR

At the time a leading sallie Georgian Communist who obiecter to the bureaucratic chauvinist PrEe 9 attacked by dismissed the right io secede s scrap of paper' The responsibility for this a was laid on slaln by Lenin.

asked Trotsky to undertake defence of the Georgia case ir party CC were the last action Lenin before he died. All of t centred on joint fight Trotksy against bureaucratism.

SIMILARITY

There similarity was between Lenin's approach to in Be problem of bureaucracy Fewer But Better-a bookle 1922 initially suppressed by S Trotsky's approach -and New Course written in 1924.

After Lenin's death it fel Trotsky to carry through this f Stalin joined first Kamener Zinovier and ag: Trotsky, and this triumv ensured that Lenin's Testament suppressed. Lucy Course' New passing December 1923-insis ution in on the need for inner-party de cracy-but then refusing to in ment it. Stalin, now the foremost reg entative of the forces of cons tism and nationalism, rested u material forces too and his Trotsky supporters defeat. in 1923 this bur Already стасу had helped the defeat possible revolution in Germany which Stalin commented: "In the Gern my opinion must be curbed and not spu on."

INTERNATIONAL POLI

was 1924 that In formulated his conservative view an international policy . He cha a section of his book Foundat of Leninism to reverse statement. saying "impossible" to achieve socialis one country, the wording changed to say that it was possi Such a "theory" flowed not f ideas in Stalin's mind, but from response of the bureaucracy material problems of the So Union This "theory" was then central to the work of the Cor All tern those who oppo Stalin's view that their sole task to assist the building of "sociali in the Soviet Union were expe or removed. fought this "theory and fought its polit implications. Though sceptics to Trotsky argue that was manoeuvring against Stalin, fail to see that Trotsky's objec was to change the leadership b Russia and in Comintern.

LEFT OPPOSITION

This was why Trotsky chose to deny, for tactical reas the existence of Lenin's Testar -so that he could stay within CPSU and develop the basis for Left Opposition to Stalin And the main manifestatior the bureaucracy's policies fol by Trotsky the concept was 'Socialism in One Country' this position was brought the Stalinists to transf the Comintern parties into groups agitating for requirements of the Soviet bur стасу within each capit: country. And such policies could lead to a turn away from the cra fight for an independent revolut ary leadership for the working ci They led for example in Bri in 1926 to the failure of the B= Communist Party to put I0. independent policy General Strike. Instead their s "All Power to

TUC

was even as the sell-out took place When we come today examine the split British Communist Party it must remembered that both factions the Communist Part bear all political hallmarks of Tory history Neither wing contests or fionadered contestine Socials=.

"theory" one country' And neither wing gave or w sliohtact 51-9-- pive now the

INDUSTRIAL NEWS

Since the sell-outs of "Black Friday" July 29, on which the trade union bureaucracy set out to defuse the situation by sabotaging the blacking of mail and calling off the August 8 mass picket, there has been a strengthening of the political independence of the Grunwick strikers from their own bureaucracies. This is exemplified in the reor- ganisation of the

APEX/GWU

strike committee more aolna militant Friday 5, mem pers on and in tightening up the picketing olıcc l bolco

AUEW

MUST

ACT

As the Desoutter strike reaches its 15th week it is becoming clear that the determination the strikers is being continually sabo- taged by the inaction of the AUEW bureaucracy. From District Committee to Executive Committee, efforts are being made to stifle calls from number of branches, including Sembley and tasi Acton, for national blacking of Desoutter tools and for the union to give more than the miserable £9 a week strike pay.

is-what The question has happened these motions? Members of the District Committee insist that motions were passed six Fezks ago and urged that the Exec- atite Committee support them.

Jim However Swift, District Sectetary refuses to give a straight answer on the tate oi these resol- #tons. He says that it is tactically better act io ask the Executive to call a патла black because if it votes azinst them the limited unofficial blacking will end I: temains unclear as to whether he izs tammarded this motion to the Eresune *bether he

CACI

•75.i: Tie hostity of the Stalinist Dianat Committee leadership to

RESTORE MASS PICKET;

BLACK GRUNWICK!

The Cricklewood postmen, too, shown their have indebendence by unanimously rejecting threats of UPW Deputy General Secretary Norman Stagg to withold hardship fund money if they refused to sign the document implicitly binding them to handle Grunwick mail. illusions Any that full time officials like

TGWU

London Regional Secretary Ron Todd would win this dispute have been rudely shattered. 24 mere hours after the Region 1 Committee responded to a lobby endorsed demands

DESOUTTERS STRIKE

the strikers was clear at a recent meeting. When convenor Jim Black called for a district levy to support the strıkers Brother G. Anthony in the chair launched a vicious attack on this call. When challenged after the meeting about what the strikets should do about money he said: "You will just have to stick it out". One striker commented: "If we are fighting to get the AUEW recognised inside Desoutters and this is all the support the AUEW leadership can offer us, it is about time we kicked out these leaders who refuse to put up a fight for union recognition."

Even when delegate from Chiswick Works protested that his called branch had for levy, Anthony wouldn't put it to the vote and closed the meting.

The same attitude was witnessed on the lobby of the Executive.

scanion's arrogance and his con- tempt for the members who pay his wages was clear to the strikers when delegation attempted to lobby him before an EC meeting.

BLACKING

He refused to allow a striker into the meting to put their case and would not commit himself to any of the demands about blacking and finance Strikers went to the Grunwick mass picket August and for support and doguutu donations. The enthusiastic yelded £120.50 and TeSaOse blatking from factories promises of all round the country of many which the unaware Desoutter strike. The strikers are determined to fight on for full union recognition.

At the time of going to press the management has stated that workers "could be union members if they wished" but that negotia- tions and decisions woud be from Grunwick

TGWU

drivers for support on the August 8 mass picket, the Committee changed their decision. Todd then circulated every TGWU, branch in London telling them to stay away on that day The TGWU drivers have learned over the last two weeks that only way to win this strike is to an independent fight in karly the union for support the U1 the trade unin emenent of trade Hovelell national blacking on supplies and services to Grunwicks. The drivers have reponded this week by adressing metings of trade unionists for support on their own initiative. The question of principled leadership is central at this point.

A clear policy must be taken by the strike committee to the SE

TUC

and

TGWU

Region meeting on August 23. Tons must condem the intimi- dation strikers both Grantham and Stagg and demand the repudiation of Todd's sell out.

It must. demand full restor- ation of ine mass picketing from August 22 onwards and the full immediate implementation of TUC policy total blacking of Grunwicks supplies and services.

carried out by the tame works com- mittee and the union could not organise nor represent members. This is clearly unacceptable.

The fight must be taken back into the AUEW and this hierarchy either forced to defend the right to organise or be kicked out.

Don't let the Desoutters strike be overshadowed by the Grunwick dispute. Cash and cheques should be rushed to Barry Marony, 27, Springfield Mount, Kingsbury, London NW9. supporters should take par in the mass picket every Thursday.

AUEW:

VOTE

WILKINS

Only four candidates have sub- mitted election adresses the coming election for the Presidency of the AUEW. The right wing candidate Terry Duffy; the Broad Left is Bob Wright (who has candidate supported all the right wing actions the Executive);

SWP

ALEG

candidate lan Morris has submitted a reformist programme of a 35-hou week and opposition to the Social Contract on a programme verv little different from those the Broad Left used to have. Only

WRP

candkiate Alan Wilkins has programme which includes a"sliding scale of working hours" and "threshold rises".

Whilst we have differences with the

WRP

and way the programme is presented. we call on our supporters to vote for Wilkins.

SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 17 August 1977

STALINIST BOSS

DEFEATED

Women workers at Forward them." Trading Co., Caventry, who went of the 18 women joined the on strike and kept up a picket every

TGWU

last November. Surinder Singh recognise day week the refused the Tor a ensure IO factory remained closed, won agree- negotiate July 15 he made 6 workers ment from the managing director, redundant and the rest of the Surinder Singh on their demands workers struck in support.

for trade union recognition, rein- Although the strike resulted in a statement of redundant workers, victory for the workers, Surinder accurate records of working hours Singh has announced plans to move and improved holidays. smaller premises and he said, The managing director resigned redundancies were inevitable from Communist Party of A similar strike at Leofric Shirt Great Britain after the secretary of Company, also in Coventry, began the Coventry Tony 10 August when 20 branch, women McNally said : 9 workers had been

SLUCK

atte "We have no hesitation made redundant. declaring that the actions he The say that manage- W uniteir pursuing are inconsistent with ment have victimised active union membership of the Communist members in the factory since they Party. We do TGWU 2 months ago. not denar people from becoming members of this They are paid 50p an hour for a they have got 40 hour week. party decause business [!]. But we would demand These disputes are only the tip basics of of the iceberg as far as clothing that they CAlIY OUL LEE trade union recognition.'

manufacture in the area goes The fact that the women could relatively for the easy show pay slips for 42 hours piece- sewing and pressing machines to be work of between f8 and £18, and to new premises and for that the hourly rate was. 45p, went owners to set up with new non- unchallenged the Communist union labour. Party until the women's strike TGWU members must argue for action closed the factory down.

recruitment campaign to Surinder Singh said of seek out these sweatshops and to his lead a fight for organisation, trade wuike "They should be really grateful and im proved con- lales for those who created the jobs for

CILIOHS

LUCAS

DICTATE

LOCAS

NOT

PHOTO. John Stumock. Report

PANAGEMENT

• NECOTIATE

Lucas picket at Wolverhampton Strikers Lucas Stand

2-MONTH

LOCKOUT

Firm

ENDED

toolroom The Lucas bonus dispute, now in its seventh week, is affecting Leyland factories through-

800 AUEW

members at Lucas out the West Midlands. Wolverhampton, Aerospace, have we go to press, workers on been persuaded by shop stewards the Princess Marina tracks in and and full time officials to accept a Cowley, and at MG Abingdon formula this selurll have been laid off. Monday after a 2-month lock-out.

As Lucas is a major supplier of formula included further components the whole eracal talks on a revised bonus scheme.

industry car is threatened with In the meantime guaranteed shutdown. bonuses will be paid, and i More lay-offs month workers will receive £40 as Celalu Leyland, however, have managed to "comensation' period locked out. icsume producuon on lne marına but oniy by flying in components Clearly management have given irom other countries, including as virtually nothing away, and workers far away as Australia. were not taken in by the bluster of All Lucas management have

AUEW

Bill Divisional Organiser come up with so far is the derisory Jordan. offer of 49p on top of the existing Workers know only too well that bonus. the company has already warned it They have made an alternative decide to shut may down the offer to scrap the present bonus for good-with the loss of HOTOrY scheme and, in its place, establish all 1,700 jobs. a new bonus system whose details With this threat over their heads they are not prepared they know that their Icvtal This would an extra di per leaders at plant and district level ball week. have done nothing to prepare for a rejected 'Ihese ofters have been fight against such a move, should and the dispute remains solid.

the company decide simply to use But it is essential for the tool- the next month to complete work room workers demand the in hand and then announce closure.

AUEW fight throughout the motor A campaign must belaunched to industry make Lucas open their books to an umans lor a olack on al imported and home produced elected trade union committee components aimed SOSLIEuLe their plans revealed and breaking the strik e

NEW LEYLAND BID FOR

SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 17 August 1977 • Since 1967 the central plank of

CORPORATE

British Leyland management policy the right of has been to abolish individual workers in plants to bargain for wages and to introduce corporation wide negotiations.

In this way they have sought to strengthen the hand of management

BARGAINING

and increase the influence of the national officers of the trade The obstacle to their aspiration has been the shop stewards move- ment and this proved difficult overcome. of The implementation the Ryder Report brought new did Not only situation. If they had been acting openly recommend corporate bargaining- for management they could not but it tackled the question of the have done better. Taken together shop stewards movement. 'objectives' tolt contain all the main elements of British Ley-

SOFTENED

land management policy. Point 1 means corporate bargain- Joint Management Participation ing. were set committees Point corporate softened many of the shop stewards is simoiv bargaining by another name.

and sucked them closer to manage- Point what management been trying to get accepted have Combine On the Committee, for the past year. Party member and Communist Point 4 is speed-up. chairman Derek committee surprise therefore Robinson began to advocate a move that the away from plant bargaining.

CORDENY

IcolestlltaLLye this responded opportunity. The groundwork was costillidi Their response was lo produce Al British Levland now prepareu. new document taking into account wanted was the right opportunity these tour objectives for a new initiative. Such an oppor- tunitv began with the month long toolroom strike in February/March oI Inis year. The strength of the toolroom strike was the threat it posed to Stage 2 of the Social Contract since its demands could not be settled win wade controls loice Its weakness was its demand of lead inevitably parity which must structure and nationally negotiated wages.

APPOINTED

inherent To compound this danger Leyland workers, the

SETTICURE

involved the setting up of a "joint working party" to look the throughout Leyland cars. Leyland had the chance they wanted. They could now develop tool-

LEC

room strike and turn into a full scale attack on Leyland workers.

Robinson working party was not elected, but appointed Firstly they said they would by national 'principle' of parity of officers. The qualifications-to be accept the rates, and pointed out that the clear right wing and pro-managemen.

first meeting the manage- logic of this was corporate bargain- At its ment spelled out what they wanted ing. -corporate bargaining. This the They proposed that rates would equalise over a two year period, but 'trade union' side rejected, saying since they had no money to pay for would prepare proposals of they this the exercise would have to be their own. "self-financing" proposals they drew up 1ne Parity money would be paid to were as follows: "1. Phased programme over two those on the lower rates in six monthly increments-but only years to achieve bargaining retorms outlined in the Ryder Report.

providing productivit) criteria had met in the preceeding six principle of been 4. Ine grades in British Leyland Cars to be months. If not, no money.

Secondly staff achieved no later than November conditions objective they were even 1979. 3. Staff conditions to be imple- more blatant, simply attaching to fringe the benefit' mented by November 1978. package unc rejected 4. The introduction of incentive document by an over- negotiated and mutually whelming vote of Leyland workers schemes, agreed at plant level." in January of this year.

PAY LIMIT

UNDER FIRE

HOSTILITY TO THE AUEW

Phase 2 have lodged claims for a circular by Hugh Scanlon support- £20 a week increase ing the I2-month rule is growing

TWENTY

ONE PRODUCTION

Sheffield workers, with among workers at Flame Hardeners Ltd., workers number of local to breach Sheffield who walked out on strike factories aiming the on July 18 against the sacking of a TUC ruling. and then all joined the Ai Shardlows AUEW members

AUER

have won complete are already imposing an overtime claim for an increase of ban for a officially-backed around £20 a week. in defiance of lasting four weeks the workers the TL C's recommendations.

blacking special meeting of the action And imposed by the big steelworks in Sheifieid Confed. shOD next Tuesday will discuss the fight the town and were able to force and management to concede reinstate- ihe 102191 TAPe ment the sacked worker and opposition to Scanlon's cucular.

Meanwhile at Osborn Hadrields gaji minheri of TiSS APE and Ther have lodged a daim

INDUSTRIAL NEWS

The document was rejected by meetings (although mended by the convenors) because contained a series of penalty aimed re-establishing clauses at management dictatorship on the shop floor. Finally on "incentives" the story was the same. Again the scheme was labelled "self-financing"

SPEED UP

The reality of the scheme was even worse. The speed-up involved, coupled with the penalty clauses contained would in assively in 1l. conditions and working reduce manning levels. Taken together these proposals represent an all out attack on the wages and working conditions of Leyland workers It is clear that they emanate not from British Leyland simply management but, through Industry Varley-from Secretary Eric the government itself. The working party was split on the proposals. Neither side of the however, were interested in split defending the workforce against them The split was over variations on the corporate bargaining theme.

RIGHTWARD SWING

Alternative proposals were made which would protect the individual interests or personal power base of the various convenors involved.

however Management would have none of it, and on August 4 the party called a full working meeting of convenors to consider the offer. Amazingly the meeting almost accepted the proposals-a tribute to the rightward of the swing convenors since 'participation' Voting showed a small majority against the document and then a favour of small continuing negotiations on it.

Disaster Leyland TO Ti

WORKCIN

almost came with a third motion from the Rover shop stewards

BANBURY

STRIKE

HITS AT

12- mONTH

RULE

700 TGWU members at Export Packing Services tactory near ban- bury are now on indefinite strike action for an immediate £15 a week following increase. claim submitted the wake the 0I

TCHI

raiserion ni tha Fraser (supported by the Militant Group and International Marxist Group members in Rover). This motion called for full bargaining- but gave it a left face. It called for and a f15 corporate bargaining a week wage claim and a cost of living clause. The elt lace had a marked effect and it was defeated by an even smaller margin 95-87.

If the Rover motion had been carried, management would have taken a giant stride towards their objectives. But the battle did not end with the The government voles. determined That Dennis Healey referred arrectly to tne Leyland proposdis I.

his speech last Thursday-excepting Leyland from the 12-month rule- is a measure of that determination.

PUSHED ASIDE

The collaborators the convenors' committee have served their purpose for the moment and are now to be pushed to one side.

Leyland has announced that they intend to go over the heads of the convenors and attempt to ballot of support ine plants Scanlon and the bureaucracy of the Confed The problem is that the resis- tance and hostility to the deal is develoning tast They could not get it in without a fight. In plants such as Cowley the response has been developed-an without independent wage claim. strings to regain and defend wages lost in the period of the Social Contract. *Our next issue will carry an examination of the role of the left groups on the corporate bargaining issue. NO

SECRET

TAR BANBURY

T BE ITS

DEALS

NIED BY

MC The next official pay review not for another six months. But high feeline on among the workforce. floor from ine for Page 11 Defend Stewards

AUEW

As we went to press, shop stewaras representing mail tenance workers at Heathrow were due recommend to a mas meeting that strike action should be taken in defence of sacked steward Jack Gatsky if management do not reinstate him by Thursday.

Gatsky sacked for calling was for the safety an inquiry record of British Airways, after 3 number of Trident aircratt their grounded with cracks in wings. lan Morris Another steward, has been suspended for defending Gatsky's right to make the state- and for he did, refuting BA Chairman McFazdean's claim that "there is a political campaigr to ground the airline." faces the sack He clearly also if Gatsky is not successfully defended Most disturbing, however, is the off the delay in getting action ground in defence ol lit stewards. suspended Gatsky was first nearly two weeks ago and Morris was suspended on 9 August.

But instead of taking immediate action.

not call a mass the stewards did meeting until Friday 12 August when news of Gatsky's dismissa was released. officials Because union still consulting with managemen: when the meeting was due to sta: the meeting was postponed unt Tuesday 16 August. stewards" meeting Monday's decided which recommens strike action has permitted turize: delay by giving management ur:.

Thursday to reinstate Gatsky and failing to take a position sE the suspension of Morris.

British Airways are clearly c* to provoke a strike. They have :: Tridents grounded and are alreat!

short of aircraft as the peak seasor To therefore sack leading steward under these ccr.

ditions is clearly to invite strin: action in response McFazdean's motive: Whatever in taking such provocative actior.

the challenge must not unanswered Strike action must be implem ented straight away and maintaine; until Gatsky is reinstated and the charges against Morris are dropped A return to work should also ba made Britis:. conditional on shift Airways paying pa: money negotiated and agreed a let weeks ago, which the governmer: I now say cannot be paid till Januas i and must be part of the engineer's 10% annual pay rise! meeting. ite at once despite the ei The meating alo

HER TORTURERS

Page 12 Six years after the introduction Behind of internment the Queen visited her Irish colony. To permit this royal has inspection of a subjugated part of the Irish people to go forward a MPs massive influx of troops was sent Michael on ahead to saturate the nationalist ment. areas of Belfast. Despite the alarm whipped up in the mass media that some Repub- lican would marksman waste bullet on this parasitical drone, the undisguisable fact of the matter was package that the entire oppressed nationalist working minority boycotted the royal good been will' circus. repression Even the Catholic middle class Gerry Fitt, Social of the Democratic Labour Party, feeling the of the unanimous hostility Indeed nationalist population was obliged Windsor to refuse to attend any of the royal Engand than restivities.

SECLUDED

changes". clear. And all glossed over the fact that she had not gone where she pleased and that she had only met a hand- ful of predominantly middle class Protestants in secluded surroun-

LUW

dings in the predominantly Protes- of Hillsborough tant and towns Coleraine. Even to achieve these meetings she needed the protection

RUC

32,000 police and the deployment of innumerable heli- Gerry Dowdall. copters and an undisclosed number of submarines to protect the royal yacht. All told it the greatest was security operation ever mounted in the north-greater than internment, incident Holida loyalist strike.

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Send this form to: Socialist Press, 31, Dartmouth Park Hill, London NW5 1HR.

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Please send me more information about the Workers Socialist League. Name. Address Post to WSL, 31, Dartmouth Park Hill, London NW5 1HR

WORKERS SOCIALIST

LEAGUE

COVENTRY

Public Meeting "Regain and Defend Living Standards Tuesday August 30 at 8pm 'Old Dyers Arms'

QUEEN VISITS

the visit however lies the sordid deal that Michacl Foot Guards' cooked with the Ulster Unionist MPs at Westminster. It is dead. with this gang of backwoods Tory Taken to one-time so-called left Foot has secured agree- had to wait they felt Dowdall

NO WITHDRAWAL

enough to lace an operation.

Two major abdomen In return for their support in Petting the Callaghan-Healey he Though Phase through against the class the Unionists have to be good given military teletened the Catholics against Po daare that there pour bese is to declare that there reagh interrogation troop withdrawal. Belfast has this 10 woman returned Beaten and wounds Tory sensitive spokesman the police, Airey Neave demands that the visit five be followed up with "constitutional Road prison. What these would be is quite A restored Stormont under unionist domination. A domination nationalist population secured by the RUC. This expanded, militarised, and victimisations "non-sectarian"

RUC

key element in the British govern- thirst strike. strategy, fraudulent ities responded by wrecking his cell.

character of the English propaganda Dowdall's on the new impartial and reformed brought public to well exposed two priests Murray and Faul. Their Catholic priests over the case of British Army sectarian muraers carried our Dy

GRENADIERS

Her Majesty's Ulster Defence Regi- miangle" the Itchi Dowdall was hit several times in are the front of his body in a shooting Republic. South Derry members of the Grenadier Guards.

RUC is a clear foretaste of the kind €1.50 £3.00 £6.00 €2.10 €8.40 us a total of £1, 686.08.

LEAGUE

Saturday 1st October East Oxford Community

WORKERS SOCIALIST

Princes St.

LEAGUE

Off Cowley Road

LIVERPOOL

Doors open: 2.30 Public Meeting Bottle stalls "South Africa" * Cakes Buy Jewellery * Raffles * Clothes Wednesday 7 September at 7.30 pm AUEW Hall So bad were the wounds from the velocity that niles Dowdall was at first assumed to be Musgrave Park top security hospital in Belfast surgeons several weeks before was strong on his operations spaced out. kidney, lost a his chances of recovery after surviving second operation were thought until visitors to his hospital bed on June 8 found that he had been abducted by the RUC and taken to the notorious Castle- tast Come a abused his still pulled by open Dowdall was held for days of intensive questioning before being transferred to Crumlin

HUNGER STRIKE

Denied exercise granted to other and subject to constant by the prison, Dowdall protested by a hunger and lo which the author- treatment was attention by pamphlets containing exposures of atrocities and of regime that the British govern- Tyrone 'murder ment hopes to restore. banned the

IRA

ten bombs adequate protest against The torturing of Dowdall by the Queen's visit to occupied territory.

23,000 FOR

THE WEEKLY

With only seven weeks remaining, there is still a long way to go to reach the £3,000 target for the Special Fund to launch the weekly Socialist Press. Since our last issue we have received exactly £126.00 giving The greatest effort will have to be mounted in those remaining weeks to ensure that the full amount is reached and the weekly paper is launched on target, at the beginning of October.

Meanwhile our thanks to the following for donations received: TW & BW £30; JH $30; RE £5; East London £1; Carworkers £4.50; Oxford supporters £21.43; Leamington £12.25; Liverpool £8.10; CK £5; Hull £8.50 Manchester £6.22. Posters £18; American readers $50.

All donations should be sent to: Socialist Press Speciai Fund 31, Dartmouth Park Hill, London NW5 1HR.

60th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution

WORKERS SOCIALIST

To commemorate the of the Anniversary Autumn Bazaar Revolution the Workers Socialist League has produced in a limited edition of 500, a five colour silk screen print of a recruitment Centre poster for the Red Cavalry.

This poster is available from of the Workers local branches Socialist League, Bring and from WSL, 31, Dartmouth Park Books NW5 1HR Hill, London £1 plus 25p p & p. All proceeds to the Socialist Press Special Fund for the weekly SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 17 August 1977.

Strikes involving all the nation- alist population rather than indiv- are no idual heroics are what is required prise loose the grip of British the Irish imperialism. Wages... (From Front Page) Panout PHOTO. Andrew Wind Callaghan for this to be plant policy.

sector, unions In the public must reject attempt to any cash limits, fighting instead for social service spending lo rise to protect services againsi inflation. Where private employers claim government departments they cannot pay we must demand 60th they open Russian elected trade union committee to expose the real state the concern and its links with banks and private suppliers. Each of these policies means complete opposition to the Lib- Lab camelot Workers must demand that 'left' Labour MPs and delegates to the Labour Party conference fight for price f1 or break this wage-cutting coalition and vote against all its reactionary policies price The Workers Socialist League is fighting on for a these pollcies new leadership within the unions, and will be lobbying both the