Stalinist chickens come home to rOOSt

'A number of left trade leaders fell into the trap of entering into talks with the government on incomes policy, when they should have been using all their time and energies to mobilize the working class?

The talks, said Falber, who was speaking at a meeting of the Communist Party's National Executive, had 'created some consternation . . . and were an important factor in strengthening the Tory hand'. Those union leaders who have continually collaborated with the Tories have, of course, been able to do so because the door was opened for them by the Communist Party itself. They did not so much 'fall' into the trap, as run willingly into it.

If, as Falber says, 'major criticism must be levelled at rightwing leaders who all along sought a deal with the government and did everything to prevent May Day being a 100 per cent success' , then 'major criticism' must also be levelled at the CP leadership, particularly Bert Ramelson the Party's national industrial organizer.

For it was Ramelson who mobilized Communist Party delegates and supporters at last September's Trades Union Congress to vote for a formula which permitted continued talks between the TUC leaders, the bosses and their government.

Since then the Morning Star' has continually covered up for Gold breaks the THE PRICE of gold broke through the $ an ounce mark for the first time ever European bullion markets yesterday.

Paris the price reached $102.55 during day, while in Zurich it went over $100 ounce at the start of trading.

In London the price broke the $100 barrier before the morning fixing, where the official price was set at $99.75 an ounce, $2.80 up on Friday's closing price and an all-time record for the London market.

The relentless upward march of the gold price is an index of the severity of the economic crisis and the growing fear in bourgeois circles that the dollar will undergo another great devaluation. The political instability of the scandal-ridden Nixon regime is inflaming the existing crisis still further.

The economic crisis has now merged with the political crisis in the US government to produce an unparalleled situation on the world money markets.

The weakest currencies, among them sterling and the lira, are floating upwards at a rapid rate against the dollar which is now completely unwanted.

The downward spiral of the dollar and the constant escalation or the gold price int licate the complete instability and untenable character of the two-month-old monetary agreement under which almost all major currencies are now floating.

Governments, hnanciers, bankers and speculators are helpless to stem the build-up of tension in the markets and avert a new on In an While Workers Press consistently denounced the class-collaborationist actions of the trade union leaders and called for unity of the entire strength of the trade union movement behind workers in struggle, the 'Morning Star' repeatedly implied that all was well and that the TUC and the 'lefts' were leading the fight.

The Stalinist paper told its readers that the TUC 'will give little encouragement to the Tories who hope to accommodate the TÚC in talks on economic problems' (September 8); that 'the more realistic bosses' were calling for concessions to the unions (September 27); that the TUC was giving 'a clear lead' (September 28); that 'a deal seems unlikely' (October 28); that Heath had 'failed to trap the trade union leaders' (November 4); and that the state pay laws were a confession failure' by the Tories (November 7).:

These words were matched by the actions organized by Ramelson inside the trade union movement. At the National Union of Teachers' conference, for example, the Communist Party delegation voted with the right wing against a call to come out on May Day. lumbers' Aud bets the deetrie the Stalinists abstained on a resolution calling for a General Strike to bring down the Tory government.

Meanwhile, the 'left' cover-up and even nore devastating currency crisis.

When the central bankers from the main capitalist countries met in Basle yesterday they were reported in a 'sombre mood'.

They fear that the March monetary agreement cannot hold up much longer, and, according to the 'Financial Times', they are worried that 'wild rumours of the kind which started last week's pressure on the dollar in West Germany could again set Chilean fascists arrested TOP CHILEAN government officials have stated that there is a plot to topple the 30-monthold ruling Popular Unity coalition headed by President Salvador Allende.

The allegations follow raids on the hide-outs of the fascist Fatherland and Freedom Movement in which large quantities of arms and ammunition were seized by police.

than continues. Clearly the blatant acceptance of Tory measures and the total collapse of the official trade union 'opposition' to the state pay laws has created problems within CP ranks.

This forces Falber to admit: 'All the factors for a widespread revolt against the government are there and are growing. It is to head off the struggle in this developing situation that the government has entered into new talks with trade union leaders.' Falber's task, however, is to leadership got him to 'do divert this movement behind their dirty work' by giving the 'left' trade union leaders him a case to put before the in order to obstruct the de- Industrial Court, industrial velopment of an alternative tribunals and the Commission revolutionary leadership. That on Industrial Relations. is why he says that it was only the right-wing leaders And Scanlon and Jones who sought collaboration with accompanied Feather and the the government.

In fact, the pace for this collaboration has been set by Scanlon and Jones. It was Scanlon who publicly declared that he would accept an amended Industrial Relations Act, and it was Scanlon who told the AUEW National Committee that the Tories had 'won the first round' on state off a speculative wave which would undermine monetary stability.

The problem here is that even the wildest rumours pale alongside the facts emerging from Washington on the Watergate affair which is creating a political and constitutional crisis on a scale never seen before.

The central bankers have hopes of putting the situation back together again, which no doubt explains their air of gloomy expectation.

arrested during the raids in several cities after the government received repeated intelligence reports, according to Interior Ministry • under-secretary Daniel Vergara.

Vergara told newsmen the arrested members of the fascist group were charged with possession of arms, which he described as 'illegal and criminal conduct aimed at toppling the government through a coup d'etat and then unleashing a civil war. better'. He threw down the gauntlet to the Stalinists and the 'left wing', who voted overwhelmingly at the conclusion of the debate on the state pay laws to give him the go-ahead for further talks with Heath. with Heath. The Stalinists and their sup- lon, Jones and the trade union porters made no clear call for bureaucracy, but recently rethe union leaders to break jected a proposal of principled off • their relations with the unity from the Socialist LaTories. As at the TUC, they bour League, the International voted for a formula which Marxist Group and the Interpermitted talks to go ahead. national Socialists to defend This was the Stalinists' 'left workers' organizations against unity' in action.

And, according to Clive Jenkins of ASTMS, Scanlon is now co-operating with the National Industrial Relations Court in a roundabout way, even though it is AUEW policy to ignore all the machinery of the Industrial Relations Act.

Jenkins clairus that the AUEW And Scanlon and Jones accompanied Feather and the TUC right wing in secret talks TUC right wing in secret talks with Heath behind the backs of their members-secret talks which do not even get a mention in Falber's speech. When Falber and the rest of the Stalinists talk about 'left unity', they do not mean the unity the working class against the Tories, but continued unity with "'left' London area SLL members meet in conference AN ENTHUSIASTIC conference of supporters of the Socialist Labour League in London at the weekend pledged themselves to expand the strength and influence of the SLL and the Workers Press in preparation for the founding conference of the Revolutionary Party in October.

Gerry Healy, SLL national secretary, introduced a five-hour discussion of the two pamphlets 'Transforming the League into a Party' and 'Marxist Analysis of the Crisis'.

Healy said Britain was entering into a revolutionary situation because capitalism could no longer function without engaging in the greatest class struggles against the working class in all He traced the development of the capitalist crisis from the devaluation of the pound in 1967 and explained how the further deepening of the crisis with the dollar devaluation this year formed the background to the confusion in the TUC Special Congress on March 5, temporarily relieved by the compromise of a one-day strike and a continuation of secret discussions with the Tories.

The world-wide domination of US imperialism meant that the crisis at the heart of the capitalist system affected every town, village and street in the world.

The Watergate affair was not a scandal involving Nixon, but an aspect of the economic crisis and the split in the capitalist world. The bourgeoisie were divided among themselves about how to meet the crisis and how to fight the working class.

Some older established sections of capitalism were blaming newer inflation-based sections for the crisis. ( German banks, for example, were advocating a decisive cutting of the inflationary spiral regardless of the mass unemployment which would be caused and warning that all values This 'unity, therefore, pa sses through • the 'lefts' and trade union bureaucracy and ends up as 'unity" with Tory government itself.

The Stalinists seek a totally unprincipled unity with Scanattacks from the capitalist state machine.

The Stalinist brand of unity is counter-revolutionary to the core. Precisely when a growing number of workers are beginning to see their established leaders exposed action and can be won to a revolutionary alternative, the Stalinists rush to prop up these leaders under the cover of 'unity'.

Workers' living standards and democratic rights can only be defended by the construction of the revolutionary party, which the Socialist Labour League is pledged to build. This involves a relentless struggle against the opportunist trade union leaders and counter - revolutionary Stalinism.

Falber's speech proves once again that not a single step forward to remove the trade union bureaucracy can be made without a consistent fight against Stalinism which provides a 'left' cover for it.

will be undermined if inflation continues.

Healy said the disruption of the inystique of authority that surrounds the presidency had done greater damage in one week to old ties and relationships than a thousand strikes could achieve.

'The idea that there is someone up there in control of things, who can plan and fix something up if there are difficulties, no longer works. The great mythical tie that mystifies is no longer Just to call Nixon a crook was to miss the real crisis in the ruling class, the ending of the legends which helped keep the the working class in line. Now a great tremor was running through all social relationships and capitalist rule was breaking into a thousand pieces.

Healy said the conditions of compromise in Britain between the ruling class and the labour and trade union leaders, which had slowed the development of the revolutionary crisis and worked against the development Marxism, now turned into their opposite.

The defence of democratic rights more and mo 'e is becoming a revolutionary demand as the crisis worsens.

TUC secretary Victor Feather at home among the delegates at the Congress of Europe conference. powered SF corpo