McLEAN'S CONTRIBUTION

colony. Whereas in Ireland the workers and peasants had to fight a colonial oppressor as well as their own bourgeoisie, the Scottish working class has come into being , in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution in struggle against a united Scottish and English bourgeoisie.

If Scotland was the weaker partner in the alliance its position was in no sense that of a colony.

The demand for Scottish separatism never had the slightest basis in the movement of the Scottish working class. It was the product of bourgeois ideology inthe period of the late 19th cenThose who seek to prevent the working class from becoming conscious of its real history, and of the true history of the Marxist movement — reformists, Stalinists, Maoists, and all varieties of revisionists —do precisely this.

This is the role of the John McLean Society — an unholy amalgamation of such people, including open renegades with whom John McLean would never have associated on terms other than hostility. buried on December 3, 1923, about 3,000 workers mounted a demonstration to mark their respect for a courageous and principled fighter for the working class.

Today it is no longer a question of simply paying respect. It is a question of joining the Socialist Labour League, of helping to build the revolutionary party, to carry forward - under conditions which offer far greater opportunities, and far greater dangers if those opportunities are not seized - the struggle for which McLean gave his life: the strugzle for the proletarian revolution in Britain. CONCLUDED

TORIES PLANNED TO USE TROOPS AT UCS PER CLYDE SHIPBUILDERS LimiteD which would ation which handle.' The book is firmation of were and ar civil war if defend their united class shows that *Crisis on the Clyde' Jack McGill (Davis-Poynter £1.50).

The Tory government had a plan to send troops to Clydeside at the height of the crisis at Upper Clyde Shipbuilders in July 1971. This is revealed in a book published today by Jack McGill, who covered the UCS story for the 'Scottish Daily Express'.

McGill's revelation is based on information from top government circles.

La key chapter called •Work-in' he says:

The Cabinet had considered the possibility of violence breaking out on Clydeside since the announcement that the group was going into liquidation and had delayed the publication of the Four Wise Men's report for 15 days, because on July 14 all available army units were in Northern Ireland.

'Aware that the police forces in the area would be unable to handle the situation involving thousands of workers Heath, Scottish Secretary Gordon Campbell, and Davies [then Minister for Industry in charge of the UCS situation] decided that the best course was to delay the report until troops were stationed back in Britain?

He also claims that Glasgow police chiefs had a strong uard or the UCS liquidator Robert C. Smith, but that they had told him: 'We can get you into the yard. But don't expect is to try and get any of the workers out. I we try that thousands of others will arrive.' Says McGill : 'They took the view that they were not willing to take any action lead to a situthey could not La dramatic conwarnings in ; that the Tories e prepared for workers should basic rights by action. It also the government tears this strength.

Another section of the chapter talks about an • emergency plan drawn up by the authorities in case of real crisis on the Clyde.

Glasgow chief constable ONE David McNee, the liquidator and an unnamed top civil servant all had to give permission before physical force was used against shop stewards or The author also shows it was the Communist. Party leadership of the shop stewards which prevented a clash between the working class and the government. After the liquidator was allowed into the yards (despite threats from Stalinist leaders James Reid and James Airlie to bar him) the Tories began to relax.

'The extremists of the left,' says McGill, 'regarded the Clyde situation as an ideal opportunity for disruption, but they were never allowed to move in with their plans for militant action. Oddly it was the Communists who kept them out...

The shop stewards seemed just as anxious to avoid confrontation as did the liquidator and the government. There were no barricades...

"The stewards stopped the lorries and cars at the gates to ask their occupants their business but few, if any, were turned away...

'No group of "revolutionaries" could have co-operated more with the forces of law and order.' former Tory minister Mr Selwyn Lloyd, has ruled that the expression 'pack of lies' must not be used in the House. KEEP U.C.S. AFLOAT McGill says that after a few weeks of work-in Davies dismissed the protest as 'a figment of the imagination' which had 'very little effect' on what was being done.

The author's approach is that of the typical capitalist journalist. He paints a lurid picture of the 'ultra-left, who it is implied wanted 'blood and barricades'.

Despite this it is clear from the information gathered that the Tories were afraid not of these phantoms but the working class itself.

Their first worry was that the struggle at UCS might spread to other sections of workers first on Clydeside and then elsewhere. This would have meant a major political and industrial confrontation which they could not have survived.

The book's merit is that McGill realizes in a lop-sided way that the work-in and those who led it, got the government off the hook. It is the first commentary outside Workers Press to recognize that the work-in was not an episode of unique defiance, as the Stalinists claimed, but an essential part of a deal that defused an explosive political situation.

McGill is to be congratuJames Reid, CP member. McGili writes 'Oddly it was the Communists who kept them (the exremists of the left) out.' Above: UCS workers marching from the yards. Above right: Wedgwood Benn-his role is exposed. lated for this insight, and also for his research, which has clearly involved several interviews with the Tory ministers concerned.

It is also refreshing to read an interpretation of the Clydeside struggle that does not go into raptures over Reid and Airlie.

McGill states quite correctly that by the October of 1971 the effective control of the situation had passed to the leaders of the unions involved, particularly boilermakers' president Danny McGarvey.

The stewards were mainly retained as window-dressing and a buffer between the bureaucracy, the Tories and the men in the yards.

A question not answered, however, is why the stewards Tuesday handed over control to what McGill calls the union 'establishment' This would involve an understanding of the politics of Stalinism.. Really there never was a split.

The Stalinists dealt with the men and pandered to the public illusion about the 'unique' form of workers' struggle which had been adopted on the Clyde, while McGarvey and company got on with the deal with the Tories.

Both factions worked in the cause of peaceful co-existence, the watchword of Stalinism and reformism.

The first six chapters of the book deal with the history of The role of Anthony Wedgwood Benn, the Labour Minister who set up the ill-fated consortium, is unwittingly exposed.

Benn operated as the perfect agent of capitalism, handing over massive public funds to a hopeless financial and industrial conglomerate and a feeding greedy and divided group of shipbuilding bosses thrown together by their own financial and technical incompetence.

Never once did Benn opt for the blatantly obvious socialist answer-nationalization.

Finally he shows - again almost incidentally - that for the working class UCS has been one long saga of redundancy, more productivity and fewer trade union rights.

The biggest blow of all was the final settlement, when the boilermakers, despite strong resistance, were forced to abandon their independence and sign the deals which brought two new capitalist employers to the Clyde.

McGill is a journalist who simply tells the tale with very little comment and analysis.

But he is well-informed, sharp-eyed and, I suspect, a little cynical.

At least he spares us the awful misplaced sentiment about the 'genius' of shipyard work propagated by Reid and imitated by most bourgeois commentators.

One correction, Sammy Barr, is not as McGill suggests a member of the International Socialists but a member of the Communist Party.