Gunboat Courtesy

SPANISH SAHARA, the barren territory lying on the NW coast of Africa between Morocco and Mauritania, has only recently come into the headlines.

At the moment a Spanish colony, it is claimed by Morocco and the southern area (the Rio de Oro) is claimed also by Mauritania.

Mauritania is an ex-French colony and is effectively still tied to French imperialism.

Franco is determined not to cede it to Morocco because large phosphate deposits have been discovered in the interior.

Work is well advanced for exporting the minerals through the main town, El Ajun. Spanish, French and W German capital is heavily involved.

On June 17 more than ten people were killed when Franco's troops in El Ajun fired on several thousand demonstrators against Spanish occupation.

Subsequently 5,000 Spanish soldiers were flown to the area and the town surrounded. A strong flotilla of warships, including frigates, destroyers and a helicopter carrier, stationed itself off the coast in what 'The Times' delicately referred to as courtesy visit.

• Latest political proposal from the Franco regime is for a referendum on adherence to Since no one knows the population of the area, except that it is a good deal larger than those registered by the Spanish authorities (mainly in the tribes whose chiefs have been bribed), the referendum offers great scope for the ballot-riggers.

In any case the Spanish authorities have been 'encouraging dissident elements' to emigrate into Morocco and Mauritania for the last ten years. cow Radio for this event, it recalls some aspects of Pollitt's career the 'Morning Star' didn't mention.

In the course of his 26 years in the leadership of British Stalinism, Pollitt had the task more than once of turning the Party towards an alliance with Toryism.

1938 the CP's 'PopularFront' policy was at its height. It was aimed at uniting under the banner of 'anti-fascism' all forces which could be persuaded to support a pro-Soviet foreign policy.

When, seeing the dangers to British imperialism in Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler and Mussolini Eden resigned from the Tory cabinet, the CP's already right-wing line took a violent lurch to the right.

Support for a "broad-based' government, including Eden, Duff-Cooper and the arch anticommunist Churchill, became the order of the day.

By February 1939, Pollitt is writing:

"They try to frighten us with talk about Winston Churchill, Eden and Duff-Cooper. Surely it is a matter of political interest that inside the ranks of this great powerful Tory Party cracks are appearing; powerful leaders of Conservatism in this country openly declare that Chamberlain is sacrificing the interests of Britain.

"This is not something for us to cry about. It is something for us to welcome, to encourage, to stimulate, whatever their motives may be. They differ from us, they stand for capitalism, for the exploitation of man by man.

'We stand for socialism, for the elimination of private property and private control. But it now a Conservative or a Liberal is prepared to take a stand against Hitler and Mussolini, to prevent any more bombers raining death on innocent people, we believe our class is strong enough to handle them.' ('Defence of the People'.)

While pouring out their lies about the Trotskyists being agents of imperialism, Pollitt and his associates were trying to turn the workers' movement towards the most far-sighted representatives of the British Empire.

After retiring from the scene while Stalin was Hitler's ally, Pollitt returned to the leadership in 1941 when Churchill was not a Tory 'rebel', but the Tory leader.

Now there was no need for coyness: the line was for open and unconditional . suppont for the most outstanding enemy of the October Revolution.

In a pamphlet 'Start the Second Front' (1942), Pollitt expressed his attitude to Churchill, former friend of Mussolini, in the words:

"The people must be roused to support and strengthen the government. Sustain Churchill in carrying out the Anglo-Soviet Treaty and in opening the Second Front!' At this time, Churchill. was preparing to use the Stalinists against revolution after the warr -and then to get ready for war on the USSR.

The CP faithfully supported the 'political truce' between the Tories and the Labour leaders.

This meant that, where a Tory MP died, the Labour Party did not contest the by-election to replace him.

Pollitt, speaking to the 1942 CP Congress, made no bones about it: the Stalinists had to persuade workers, with difficulty, to vote Tory.

'We want : to deal with some of the difficulties that are said to stand in the way of our Party members when they take part in by-elections and recommend the people to vote for a candidate who happens to be a Tory...' Pollitt poured soorn on the idea that telling workers to vote Tory was an obstacle to winning them to the Party.

The ruling class was wot unaware of Pollitt's services.

A leafiet issued by the : Economic League, 'Why Strike' (1943) quates him as saying:

strikes in the present circum tances do not harm the em ployers. No one knows better than I do how prevalent is the idea that now is the time to sock the employers. That theory is understandable but shortsighted.' In fact Pollitt was even more outspoken inside the Party.

At the 1942 Congress he had said:

I salute our comrade, a docker from Hull ... When the rest ot the dockers struck work, he fought against it because he believed that the course of action he recommended would get what was wanted without a strike. What courage, what a sacred spirit of real class consciousness, to walk on the ship's gangway and resume his job.' As more and more workers were attracted to the 'theory' of fighting the employers, Pollitt glorified scabbing.

This theory became still more prevalent in the following years, when the British workers got ready to kick Churchill out at the 1945 election.

Pollitt continued his battle against it, right to the end.

In his report to the 1944 Congress of the CP, he declared:

It is necessary to break the hard core of dyed-in-the-wool Tories. This is why, whatever the form of the new government, it must rest on a solid majority of Labour and progressive Members of Parliament.' And who were these 'progressives? In a pamphlet on the Crimea Conference of Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt, issued in March 1945, Pollitt explains:

'We are of the opinion that a government should be formed which corresponds to the results of the election, which should be based primarily on the Labour and progressive majority returned at the election, but which should include representatives of all political sections supporting the Crimea policy.

'This means that Labour should take the initiative of inviting into the government those leaders and representatives of other parties that stand for the fulfilment of the Crimea policy.' So Pollitt's policy in 1945 was for a coalition government including Tories and especially his hero Churchill.

In the event, the British workers made it impossible even for the Labour leaders to avoid forming a Labour government.

In the June 27 issue of 'Comment', Betty Reid writes of Pollitt's 'Marxist understanding of the role of the working class' Reid and the other Stalinists of today continue the Pollitt tradiBut they do so in a period when the Tories are preparing to launch a massive attack on the We must not be surprised when they carry out Pollitt's heritage of Stalinist treachery by collaborating to the full with the political leaders of British capitalism.

Sydney, July 1-'We Austra- just as determined that this lians are certainly not as ega- new mood among the workers litarian as we thought we will have to be broken. were,' claimed a gentleman The words of Minister of called Mr Justice John Angus Shipping and • Transport, Mr Mr Treatina Alimma alonia familina Duitinh dan 2 PAGE FOUR Tuesday July 7, 1970