Mass strike paralyses W Bengal

Tory press praise for The 'Dundee Courier and Advertiser reports that Bowman, a leading member of the National Union of Railwaymen, has been accepted as a member of the Dundee Labour 'Mr Bowman has decided to 57, after faithful adherence to Communist ideals for the past Hes oratory the undreds of pearances in the City Square, respect of political triend and foe alike.' To illustrate the political raise. 'Courier and Advertiser' carries an editorial in support of the Smith regime The CP Executive statement announcing Bowman's resigna'We regret that Comrade Sier many decided active 'Disagreement' It quotes Bowman's letter of resignation as saying 'he has been in disagreement with the executive committee of the cole see arky regard.

Executive statement declares: The Pope and his favourite politician puppet Andreotti.

The composition of the political committee is decided by the executive committee, and is certainly not a matter for resignation from the Communist Party, with which Dave Bowman had no political differences.

'We understand that the difference on trade union work arises from his desire to run for the post of president, barred to Communists, of the National Union of RailwayThe Executive goes on to deplore bans and proscriptions in the trade unions, but to differ with Bowman's decision to leave the ranks of the Party in order to comply with undemocratic rules and practices'.

The Stalinists have 'no political differences' with a man who leaves their Party, at a time when railwaymen, like all other sections of workers, are facing sharp struggles with the Tories.

As recently as April, the CP Executive sent Bowman as one of its representatives to the Lenin centenary celebrations in Moscow.

Bowman has joined the growing number of trade union leaders who have left the CP to go to the right.

In each case the Stalinist leaders have expressed 'regret' and attempted to maintain a friendly relation with them in Sanderson in the Electrical Trades Union and Whitehead in the S Wales Miners' Union were followed by the move of Paynter to the Commission on GENERAL STRIKE IN CALABRIA The Italian economic crisis refuses to await the resolution of the political crisis.

A further massive balance of payments deficit, of $560 million • over the last six months, was announced this So far this year imports have risen 20 per cent, while exports have increased by less than 6 per cent.

The resigning Finance Minister, Preti, warned that 'to escape the difficulties of the present economic situation there is only one road-an increase in productivity.

His formal denial of an impending devaluation of the lira was widely taken with a pinch of salt.

ex-C.P. railwayman BY JOHN Industrial Relations, now to be given greater powers under the Tories.

Earlier generations of Communist Party trade unionists have moved out of the Party, some to replenish the ranks of the right-wing union leaders, some to maintain a 'left' stance in the labour movement.

Daly of the Mineworkers, Scanlon of the Engineers and Jones of the Transport Workers' Union are examples of the latter category.

The most important example of the evolution of a right-wing trade union leader from Stalinism is that of Cannon in the ETU.

In each case, the break with the CP was not the result of struggle on political principles, but of the persistent covering up of fundamental disagreements right up to the time of desertion-and usually afterwards.

Explained away

Communist Party members must realize that this process of defection of prominent Party trade unionists, now becoming a flood, is not a matter of a few 'black sheep'. That was how the ETU experience was explained away by the Stalinist leadership.

What is involved here is the outcome of the break with Marxism embodied in the 'British Road to Socialism', and the history of Stalinism.

The Party "educates' its trade union leaders with the conception that the employing class will be overthrown tween police and demonstrators on • Wednesday, the second day of the. general strike called in Reggio Calabria against the decision to place the 'capital' of the newly - formed region of Calabria, in the 'toe' of Italy, at Catanzaro.

The Communist and Socialist parties have refused to support the strike, on the grounds that no formal decision has yet been made. In the poverty-stricken South of Italy the promises that regional reform will provide jobs to alleviate the chronic unemployment and insecurity represent nothing more than the employers' cynical desire to keep • the area "peaceful' to provide a stream of cheap immigrant labour for the industry of the North and centre. is openly admitted that all the new regional governments will be rank with corruption and nepotism— to the point where a leading Republican politician even suggested that the capital of Lazio should not be Rome —in order that at least the regional politics of the area could be free from the 'excessively complicated' atmosphere of the capital. scare in me EAKING at last Schofield, Natio e-president, war:

CRAWFORD through the constitutional 'democratic processes'.

From this conception flows the unprincipled deals and manoeuvres which are the stock-in-trade of CP trade union work: the 'democratic' system of British capitalism depends entirely on the ability of union leaders to hold back the working class with such tricks.

Careerism is the result of this political metliod, not the responsibility of the individuals concerned.

The Party whose leadership lied in the service of Stalin, and goes on lying and concealing the truth in the interests of his successors, cannot but develop its trade union work in this way.

Sharpest struggle

The fight for a communist leadership in the trade unions requires above all the sharpest struggle for principles and Marxist theory.

The evolution of men like Bowman today, as the working class enters the most revolutionary struggles in its history, can only be understood as part of the historic crisis of Stalinism. Its dangers for the workers' movement can be answered only through the building of a party based on the fight against Stalinism and reformism and for the revolutionary principles fought for by Trotsky in his struggle against Stalinism.

We can confidently predict that Bowman will not be the last to leave the Communist Party and move rightwards. THE INDIAN state of W Bengal came to an almost total standstill on Tuesday as workers defied thousands of troops and police to stage a 24-hour "bandh' (complete stoppage of work).

All shops in the capi ital, Calcutta, were sh nut, offices were closed : and public transport a private vehicles were off the road.

Trains and air flights v vere cancelled.

The huge Calcutta fac belt was silent and sch 1ools and colleges all over the s itate were closed for the day.

W Bengal has been r uled directly from Delhi ince March, and the Congress 1 government of Mrs Indira Gar ndhi sent thousands of troops and armed units of the central I reserve police into the statı e in an attempt to coerce wor kers and break the strike.

The police opened fire on A Red mines the National Executive, which unsuccessfully opposed the strike resolution, is now grasping at straws to find a way out.

After all, secretary. Lawrence Daly excused his failure to support the 1969 surtace hours' strike by claiming that it was unconstitutional.

Why, then, did he not support the S Wales resolution-which would have tional? * strike constituThis been voted on by a national conference of the union. You can't constitutional than that.

Yet every miner knows that the Executive will do all they can to prevent it taking place. BY A FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT demonstrators in Calcutta, and strikers replied by throwing bombs at police vehicles Unemployment, low slum housing (or no housing at all and a massive agrarian CriSIS combine to make Bengal the most crisis-ridden state the entire sub-continent.

the countryside, there continual which the important part overcrowded cities, unemployed strikes, demonand clashes with the army and the police are every"The capitalist class evells. 1s not only unable and unwilreforms, wants to Use military ICOICO. sion against the workers and poor peasants.

MANOEUVRING The two main Stalinist parties (pro-Moscow and DrO• Peking) are manoeuvring peasants brant and series vanamentar manoeuvres, Jostling tor power a reconstituted staté govof the Was direct rule immeciate ena from Delhi and the holding of elections for the state legislature. world, ahd particularly British, imperialism, the incian economy is bankrupt. take Indonesian road ndia's will try the WOrK class -using and Caste lifferences to prepare the was for the decimation of work ing-class leadership.

Revolutionary leadership a vital necessitv in the situation now tront of the Indian working class.