REPLIES

Marxist theory - the theor! of dialectical materialism which is a method of reason ing applied to the every da! practical problems, not ar unchangeable mechanistic blueprint for revolution. I have no hostility tr theory, as Royston Bul claims (in fact, I have in cluded a good proportion ir my book, although it ma! not be to his taste). Theor! is essential, but people whi only theorize are not. I agre with Lenin that 'all distinc leaders are to be. Unfortunately, and to their detriment, they then leave the leaders to get on with leading. I don't believe that it is 'patronizing' to say that the working class have suffered because of their blind faith in the leaders they elected-MacDonald, Bevin, Deakin, Wilson, etc. This is not 'blaming the working class for the failures of the Labour and trade union leadership'; it is simply saying that being passive and uncritical permits false leaders to remain in control of In his book, Roberts writes: 'The weaknesses, the reactionary tendencies, the bourgeois leadership of the Labour Party, as well as its successes, are the responsibility of the working class.' And: 'The political education of the working class has never been of such a high standard as to enable a General Strike to be successful. The apparent strength of "them" and is dominated by various forms of idealism, the philosophical basis of bourgeois rule, which conceals the real relations of capitalist producDeveloped out of the class struggles in the 19th century, dialectical materialism became the theory of knowledge of the revolutionary proletariat which alone can systematically combat idealism and break the working class from the illusions created by capital. ism. tion and the taking of power, both of which, not surpris ingly, he writes in inverted cominas For the rest, Roberts either repeats the mistakes his book, alrealy dealt with in 19). or else commits even worse errors, the most remarkable being 'dialectical reasoning applied to the everto materialism method day practical problems' wonder Mr Roberts has diffi culty understanding Marxism.

Ramsay MacDonald (front, next to driver), Ben Tillett (standing In back) Arthur Henderson on their way to Downing Street. Having utterly failed to prepare for the General Strike, the TUC leaders then did everything possible to sabotage it.

June BOOK REVIEW, PART 'The General Strike, May 1926.' By Christopher Farman. Rupert Hart-Davis. £3.50.

Faced with the determination of the Tories to engineer a confrontation with the working class in 1926, the trade union leaders, even the most 'left' and "militant of them, found the ground Pushed from under their pushed from under their teet.

Since the Tories were quite unprepared to make any sort of concession, the union leaders were deprived of their usual role of manoeuvre and compromise. Thus Farman records how on April 13, 1926, Arthur Cook, general secretary of the Miners' Federation, told Tom Jones: "While a lot of our chaps won't agree with me, we shall have to have a national minimum not only with plusses above it, but with minuses below it.

This astonishing statement IS different from the slogan quiteNot a penny off the pay, not a second on the day' that Cook was constantly to be heard repeating in public.

So the most militant" of all the trade union leaders of the day was prepared to make compromises with the Tories, which •the Tories in turn would not accept.

Arthur Pugh, the General Council chairman, spoke to the assembled delegates on April 29 in terms which Farman correctly summarizes as amounting to saying that 'the Genera! Council was prepared to countenance wage-cuts'. But the Tories wanted capitulation, not compromise.

While the negotiations were going on, they had already published posters proclaiming the State of Emergency. No amount of last-minute manocuvIe was possible. For the Tories, for the working class, this had to be a decisive battle without the possibility of compromise on either side.

The whole situation of struggle without quarter exposed the position of the trade union bureaucrats very clearly.

is revealed in Davidson's memoirs that in October 1923 Ben Tillett, one-time hero of the 1889 dock strike, was apBardwin and his Cabin which parently prepared to help fight communism' for which the payment of £1,000 was suggested.

The attitude of those still in leading positions in the Move ent eas also revealed.

movement was also Clynes, who was both a union arid Labour party leader at the time, said: am not in fear of the capitalist class. The only class I fear is my own.' A characteristic combination of confusion, complacency, and fear, emerges from industrial secretary of the NUR. He told the 1924 Labour Party conference that they should 'work and ask for the co-operation of all classes', and later claimed not to have 'the slightest fear' of the strike-breaking organizations that were being prepared.

It is not surprising that 'we can't win Convinced when the strike actually began, he was convinced that Prepare for the General Strike, Having utterly failed to the TUC leaders did much during its course that prevented it being run efficiently. Farman's account describes 1973 many obstructive actions of the union leaders. Owing to the lack of preparation, there was confusion about who was being called out, and about what goods were to be blacked or moved with the approval of trade unionists.

Building workers were supposed to stop work except on hospitals and homes, but local union secretaries found that they all had differently worded instructions' on the interpretation of this order.

Workers in power stations were told to negotiate with the authorities about emergency supplies, but this rarely happened in practice.

Engineering workers were supposed to come out in a 'second wave' over a week after the beginning of the strike, but long before that many of them were on strike anyway. This happened in most of the engineering shops in Leeds, and in Coventry those in the car factories claimed to be 'transport workers' and came out soon after the start.

The policy of the 'second wave' did much to weaken the impact of the strike and helped to demoralize some of the most militant groups of When • the struggle actually began, the union leaders tried desperately to retain control over it in ways which directly impeded its effectiveness. They set up a National Transport Committee and a London equivalent, which were supposed to issue instructions about the movement of essential goods.

Leaders railway

transport union set up separate local committees Just consisting of their own members to interpret these deciSIOnS. This was not only a very inefficient way of organizing things, it was ignored in virtually every town where there was a council of action or joint strike committee strong enough to speak on behalf of substantial groups of the strikers and their supporters.

Davidson's memoirs make it clear that it was precisely these local joint committees that worried the Tories both before and during the strike. The Tories made efficient and decentralized arrangements for movement of goods, which were 'never seriously threatened' by the TUC.

Since the General Council proposed only 'joint' arrangeaeord the ignore them ald menTc. the government could afford to carry on with their own plans. Local strike organizations usually followed this lead and often tried to 'share power', particularly on policing.

However, steps towards 'dual power' could be seen in the efforts of councils of action to control the movement of goods. Lack of preparation and the absence of any political perspective meant that within three days of the opening of the strike nearly all such efforts had broken down.

On May 7, the National Transport Committee decreed that all permits should be 'reviewed', which, as Farman says, was usually taken to mean 'revoke'. After this, the Tories were largely left to their own devices, even when they had to negotiate strike committees, as happened at Newcastle.

When the struggle was on, the main concern of the General Council leaders, besides retaining control of what happened in the districts, was to find somebody to arrange a settlement with. This was no easy task, since the Tories were quite adamant in their desire to crush the miners, and were not prepared to negotiate about anything.

Thus Jimmie Thomas of the NUR took part in a number of discussions with coalowners and minor Tory leaders, in which he perpetrated what Farman calls 'a persistently wilful misrepresentation A. J. Cook-on April 13, 1826 proposed compromises with the Tories. of the miners' position', claiming they were prepared to concede enormous cuts in their wages in return for vague promises about the 'reorganization' of the industry.

Ramsay MacDonald also made a desperate little secret visit to Downing Street, oftering, without any authorization whatever, 10 per cent cuts in the wages of the miners. Baldwin showed him the door.

Before the strike was a week old, TUC general secretary Citrine wrote that it was 'hopeless to continue' unless the miners accepted substantial cuts. Since the miners themselves as well as the millions of workers on strike were clearly not prepared to accept this, the discussions were undertaken by the TUC leaders in a spirit which Farman describes as having something of the atmosphere of 'Wonderland' Viscount Simon, the former Liberal Cabinet minister was prepared to write down a formula which was supposed to be the basis for a settlement. Simon 'made it clear from the outset' that he was acting entirely on his 'own initiative' that he had 'received no authority from the government, and could give no assurance on their behalf'.

There are none so blind as those who will not see, and most of the General Council leaders simply closed their eyes to the fact that all that was actually agreed on May 12 with the Tories was that the strike was off. Baldwin said he could not 'say at this moment what would happen' The union leaders thus simply abandoned their members to their fate. They abandoned the miners also, refusing to put an embargo on coal, and thus hastening the collapse of the whole struggle.

CONTINUED TOMORROW

RIOTOUS A contributor to 'Pri ›be' magazine has discovered reason for civil riots. ('Probe' is the journal of the General Dental Practitioners' AssociaThe writer-one F. R. Bertrand-has discovered that there has been rioting over the years in 80 per cent of American cities with fluoride in the water, but only in 20 per cent of American cities without fluoride in the water.

The conclusion is simple: fluoride causes riots.

In fact, it can even cause riots in advance. In Detroit the water was artificially fluoridated on August 1, 1967, _and serious riots broke out in July. But our intrepid author insists on the terms of his brief.

'In the terms of this survey,' he declares, 'Detroit up to January 1, 1968, had fluoridated its water supply and had had a riot.' That's only a minor difficulty. And our determined dentist doesn't duck major ones.

Take Ireland. There's a lot more rioting in Northern Ireland than in Eire. Yet Eire is the only country in the world to have mandatory fluoridation. Northern Ireland doesn't have it at all.

But it's all quite simple: The trouble is caused by people sneaking over the border from Eire where they are all high on fluoride!

'Such are the ramifications of fluoridation' says our prober, 'that it would be impossible to fluoridate the water of Eire without substantially increasing the amount of fluoride consumed by the people PAGE asked that Vescoe's donation to 'Creep' be made in cash. In the event of a trial, Edward would almost certainly have to testify.

Vescoe's influence among Nixon's closest aides has been considerable. When, in 1971, he was arrested and jailed by the Geneva police it was Attorney-General John Mitchell who fixed his release.

Mitchell phoned the US Embassy in Geneva and made the arrangements. Mitchell also intervened to help Vescoe during delicate negotiations to take over a Lebanese bank. This seemingly close relationship with Mitchell deserves study.

Until the 1968 presidential election, Mitchell and Nixon were partners in the same law firm. In the 1968 race Mitchell was Nixon's campaign manager and his most intimate political adviser.

Shortly after the election he made Mitchell his AttorneyGeneral and automatically included him among his innerexecutive. It seems reasonable to suppose that Nixon himself was familiar with the Vescoe situation, and this is a view certainly held by a number of Washington correspondents.

It is against this explosive situation that Vescoe has declared that he will return to the US and testify before the Senate hearing if other charges against him are dropped.

There is little chance of such a deal being struck.

There is a $224m fraud at stake and who could believe what he testified anyway?