LIVERPOOL Put 2.000 ON T.U.R

'Old methods protest strikes are going to be less effective' London docks shop steward Mr Alf Waters (36) is a member of the National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers union:

I first became interested in politics during the 1967 strike and afterwards I decided that I had to know the facts behind what was happening on the docks so I started going to trade union meetings.

At that time I was opposed to certain aspects of Devlin [the report by Lord Devlin on dock modernization]. After being a member of the Socialist Labour League I see now that the only way to have fought Devlin was to fight against the principles it introduced.

My real opposition began later when I realized the implications of Devlin-speed-up and the cut-back of the labour You can see how they used the Jones-Aldington report [the report drawn up by T&GWU secretary Jack Jones and Port of London Authority chairman Lord Aldington to end last year's dock strike]. 10,000 dockers have gone, they're blackmailing dock workers to increase productivity through threatening the loss of trade to other ports.

I was attending branch meetings of the NASD, but I felt more was needed. Obviously the official leaders of the union weren't prepared to do anything in support of the National Dock Labour Scheme. They were prepared to go along with Devlin, even if it meant increased productivity and a cut-back in manning. 'Abandoned It was during last summer's dock strike that I became associated with the Socialist Labour League. That was when I became a shop steward It was just after the national shop stewards decided to abandon their nine-point demand and concentrate on four. The ninth point called for the nationalization of the industry without compensation and under workers' control.

At that time there did appear some logic in cutting back from nine points to four, I can see now the only reason it was done in that way was to bury point nine. They never had any intention of being concerned about nationalization.

I think that was the beginning of the collapse of the national shop stewards' committee. I can see only one way forward now and that's for the whole committee to commit itself to Marxism and give Marxist leadership. That would mean the reintroduction of the Jones/Aldington report. As a result of this report 10,000 dockers have gone and productivity forced up. point nine as being the only way forward for dock workers.

Last year we had our series of day strikes, picketing of various groupage depots and non-Scheme ports, but it did little to alleviate the trouble.

As the crisis of capitalism extends, it is going to be reflected more and more in the docks and the old methods of protest and one-day strikes are going to be even less effective than they were before.

I was in International Socialism for two years and so were others, but I don't think we made the slightest difference to the introduction of Devlin.

I could see we weren't really achieving anything.

The League was different— from the point of view of organization and because they acted on principle and not in a purely opportunist fashion.

I went to the IS national conference and was told that because of the different levels of political consciousness you must play to the lowest common denominator. That showed me they were nothing else but opportunists.

Tory Party policies are a direct attack on the working class and the only solution we have at the moment is to bring this government down and replace it with a Labour government pledged to socialist policies.

Basic rights are being taken away and the cost of living is being forced up as the price for our entry into the Common Market.

The only way out for the working class is to bring the Tories down and that way we can educate the working class in its strength as a class and to realize the need for a revolutionary party.

The Tories have introduced the Industrial Relations Act and the state control of wages and obviously they are edging towards dictatorship and fascism. It's necessary for them to smash the working class by taking away their democratic rights in order to achieve this.

We've still got the same trade union leaders today who held office during the boom after the war. Although they were able to manage some reforms, with the end of the boom and the crisis which followed it they've been unable to defend trade union memSTE SHO 00L3A bers in any way.

They are reformers. They don't have any faith in the working class and not much understanding of the crisis. They seek to collaborate with the Tory government as the only way out of the trouble they are in at the moment.

The Labour Party is controlled by the right wing— people like Wilson and Jenkins-and at every turn of the crisis it is forced to turn away from the working class.

'Expose Wilson and the right' Our first task is to bring down this Conservative government and return the Labour Party to power. If the Labour Party continued under the control of Wilson and the right wing they would be exposed for what they are and they would have to be expelled from the Labour Party.

The crisis we are faced with would still be with us and the only way forward to the introduction of socialist measures would be through the revolutionary party.

When I joined the IS I believed they were a party which NO

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OF LIAN in getting OBEs and Royal Young Socialists on May Day kes.' Below: Victor Feather. K it is good to see young people coming forward to take their rightful places building working-class party concerned with working-class-not 'Wilson is a A thing which was 10p today Every man jack voted for I think the League is doing I think it is good to see may be 20p tomorrow-and the People's Progressive Party a great job. If you read the young people coming forward man without for no reason at all. and suddenly, after the count- to take their rightful places The Labour Party and the ing, it was a landslide victory that the Party is educating the building a working-class party TUC haven't got a policy. They —the voice of the people be- working class. If you read the concerned with working-class are always going for meetings came the voice of the devil. paper seriously every day you people-not in getting OBEs with Heath. They just agree I have finished with the would know things you never Mrs A. P. is a London with what he says. I think the League's fight church. They are passifiers. thought existed. catering assistant and a Their job is to keep the workmember of the Transport losing one, but a hard one. will be a hard one. Not a ing class down.

Our masters told us we were and General Workers' These people are going to fight voting communist. The PPP Union. She said: like hell to keep their places. showed us why we were They have built up this class oppressed. Whatever it was, I. think there is a need for system for centuries and they everybody in Guyana realized such a party. When you are not going to let go as there had to be a drastic look at the Labour Party, Wilson is a man without a easily as that. They'll fight to the death ately being kept down and change; that we were deliberpolcy. He's got the red flag keep their position. I've seen in the lett pocket and the blue in my own home town that God was taking too long and white in the right.

I think the League is the If men used to strike Nearly 2,000 years of waitonly party telling you what's Is a day instead of 6d it ing for Jesus Christ to lift our going on and building up considered very wicked burdens was too much. Waitpolitical consciousness. we often used to get a ing and waiting and • dying.

I think the policies of the bullets thrown at us. Living in hopes and dying in League are right and there's no Before the election of 1953 way of mistaking what they we suddenly became a terrible Every time you made a move they threw the bullets are. They are quite clear. communistic lot of people in Things couldn't be worse the eyes of the authorities. On than under this government. the Sunday before the election, I think it will What do I dislike about it? the Bishop of Guyana told us bullets here. They Everything. There is absolutely the voice of the people was cided not to listen nothing I can like. the voice of God. But on the we have to say.

The cost of living is dread- Tuesday, after the election, he The working ful. Going out to buy some- said the voice of the people the capacity to thing has ceased to be a joke. was the voice of the devil. eir rol ng tine ed ot.

vill hy elp luelf, prhe he ›in on ch he he led to help us.

Guyana.

for was and few despair.

at you.

fight.

LTS TOPIES

DANW UNITE COMMON FINA POLICE RAIDS and Royal handshakes. come to have deto what class here has fight and will

pursued with cynical tenacity ferring to the East German and pursued with cynical tenacity ferring to the Ei menace", but a real and justify opposition to ties with Franco within the framework of 'peaceful co-existence' The imperialists, Lopez said, 'interpret co-existence as the maintenance of the political and social status quo.. • as a brake on the anti-fascist, democratic, liberating and revolutionary changes which are being prepared within the capitalist Exactly! And the imperialists are not alone in this view: the Stalinists of the Kremlin are surely not under the illusion that by courting Franco they are helping the Spanish working class. But Lopez, a prisoner of Stalinist concepts, must pursue his pathetic argument to the end: 'For us communists it is a question of principle to reject this interpretation of peaceful co-existence as the maintenance of the political and social status quo. The number one objective of co-existence is to prevent a new world war.

That, says Lopez, is why the Spanish CP favours participation of the United States in the security conference. But Franco is something else entirely.

'The socialist countries have practised a policy of co-existence for many years without having relations with Franco. Why, now, have such relations become necessary?' He avoids at all costs drawing the glaring conclusion that the Soviet bureaucracy requires •peaceful co-existence' with fascist Spain, Greece and Portugal to combat the acute threat of revolution in the capitalist countries of Europe.

He himself draws attention to the fact that it is only now that the new generation of Spanish workers has begun to challenge the fascist state that Moscow and its satellites enter diplomatic and trade pacts with the fascists.

How is this to be explained on the basis of 'peaceful coexistence'? After over a quarter of a century of hostility, why bother forging ties with a regime which the working class is about to sweep off the map? The only explanation is that the Stalinists want at all costs to keep Franco there.

To avoid this conclusion, Lopez is at pains to cover up the real role played by the Soviet bureaucracy and his own party in strangling the revolution of the Spanish workers and opening the door for Franco to come to power as a result of the 1936-1939 civil Lopez passes lightly over this period in a few carefullychosen sentences which do not clash with the standard Stalinist version of these events. He describes the Spanish war as first battle of World War II, at the end of which 'the Spanish people were victims of a tremendous historical injustice, being lett alone to night fascism after the 'liberation' of the rest of Europe.

The fact that this 'injustice' was perpetrated by the 'Allies' with the full connivance of Stalin is passed over in silence. But isn't what happened to Spain both before and after World War Il the most devastating rebuttal of the ideology of the Popular Front and of reliance on 'democratic' bourgeoisie to fight fascism?

Lopez described the realıty of Franco's regime.

•The liberties of the people have been taken away. The working class has no unions of its own. There is no right of meeting, expression or association. In the 34 years Franco has been in power there has never been a proper amnesty Every day the number of exiles is swollen with new victims of persecution.

At present the regime is preparing a monstrous trial of ten trade unionists, among them men of national and international standing like Marcelino Camacho [a Stalinist leader of the illegal union, the Workers Commissions]. The prosecutor is demanding sentences of 20 years for the mere crime of having fought for trade union In appealing for a change of line by the Soviet and East European leaders, the Spanish delegate used the extremely reactionary argument that they should take account of the 'new reality' in Europe.

'A whole series of political forces, which have grave historical responsibilities for Franco's victory, are changing their traditional attitude.

'Thus, in this sense, the Vatican itself has entered into a conflicting political situation with regard to the Franco regime, supporting, when it is not initiating, the opposition of the Spanish Church.

'All the Common l Market countries maintain ... that while Spain remains fascist the European Economic Community will keep its doors shut against it. At the same time, inside European social-democracy there is a very important move to the left, shown in a whole series of internal questions in each of the European countries ..

'Harold Wilson, for his part, in his speech at the