NEW NEWS TROTSKYIST ORGANIZATION IN GERMANY

A German apprentice's demonstration last Ma: VAnsalt feilen ha fräsen wirach Besen HARDLY A DAY goes goes by that some item, falling under the general heading of 'pollution' appears in the national press or is the subject of some comment or documentary on radio and A constant source of anxiety-and newspaper copy - is the increasing frequency of arrival of oil slicks on beaches in this and other countries, usually accompanied by the death of seabirds and fish.

Over the last few weeks, we have had the honour of watching some 66 tons of nerve gas make its much-publicized journey to a watery grave (perhaps!) and were able to muse on the various horrific possibilities, should one of the huge concrete coffins happen to crack.

Not considered What the inevitable leaking of the gas will do to sea-life and possibly those living in the Bahamas at some future date is not considered and—we can be certain - the Pentagon doesn't give a damn anyway.

Air pollution, water pollution and even outer-space pollution takes place through the disposal of chemical, biological and radioactive wastes. This mounting Sermany 1931 1932 Leon Trotsky PRICE: TWENTY FIVE SHILLINGS RLICATIONE Price 25s MARTIN ZARROP'S Waste not, want not threat to man and his environment, particularly since the last war, has forced its way through to become the issue.

Of course, it is extremely profitable to pollute.

The production of commodities, not for use, but to sell and to realise surplus value puts no obligation on the employers to dispose safely of the waste products of the manufacturing process. As with decent living conditions and wages, the levels of safety standards both inside the factory and out are determined in struggle between the classes and are not god-sent.

Hypothetically left to their own devices, manufacturers will pollute or not pollute according to the profit rate.

Not many people will buy soap that leaves a dirty scum round the bath-so a great deal of cash was poured into producing soap that left no scum.

the other hand, most people have been led to believe that the cleaning power of soap and detergents is directly related to the quality of lather produced and we have had the sight of persistent seas of suds clogging up rivers up and down the country.

No inconsistency at all!

We can be sure that, insofar as attempts are made to cut down pollution or remove its effects, the rate at which this is carried out will depend strongly on how profitable it will be.

Those who remember the "Torrey Canyon' affair, will recall how millions of gallons of expensive detergent were sprayed onto the huge oil slick.

JUST OUT SCIENTIFIC WORLD No doubt the thoughts of both the detergent manufacturers and oil moguls could well be summed up by a recent cartoon in one of the national dailies, in which one businessman enthuses another: 'I had a lovely holiday. The beaches were covered in oil' This "comment, in different forms, could of course repeated millions of times.

The 'war against pollution' is therefore not quite the straightforward problem that is usually presented.

Often, the picture is painted of man somehow drowning in the products of his own affluence some inevitable disease of this technological age.

Rather, it is the inevitable outcome of an unplanned and diseased system of commodity production on a massive international scale in which the private ownership of the means of production dominates.

The cash which has started to trickle through the anti-pollution channels will find its way to the giant monpolies; there is no way that order can be brought out of the present chaos through reformist anti-pollution programmes. Nevertheless, in waging the 'war against pollution', the possibilities for rational planning keep pushing their way to the surface.

Roads

In the United States, researcher at the Texas Transportation Institute has been using disposable wastes and litter for resurfacing roads.

By mixing ground glass from car windscreens and bottles, discarded plastic containers and old rubber tyres with asphalt or concrete Dr Douglas Bynum has produced a superior road surface.

It seems that the rubber increases the asphalt's strength and cohesiveness, the crushed glass also adds strength to the roadway and prevents heat expansion and plastic waste products-ground to a powder —improve the pliable characteristics of asphaltic concrete.

According to Dr Bynum, the amount of glass, rubber and plastic discarded each year the US alone would be sufficient to pave tens of thousands of miles of roads.

We can well believe it, for today there is hardly any item which can be bought-particularly if it is portable-that is not enshrouded in some gaudy throwaway wrapper.

The burning of this mountain of refuse does not normally solve the problem because of air pollution. However, one incineration plant operated by the US Navy produces little smoke pollution and is able to produce 50,000 pounds of steam an hour by consuming 140 tons of refuse a day.

Probably the best solution, which awaits the necessary technological advance, is to reduce waste back to its constituent elements-iron, copper, aluminium etc. - by controlled thermonuclear means. In other words, to use the extremely high temperatures from future plants of WITH the Brandt government's increasing attacks on wages and conditions of German youth — both young workers and students - militancy and a turn towards political action is on the increase.

The deepening economic crisis of European capitalism has its repercussions in Germany and is most sharply reflected in its effects on the youth.

The student protest movements of 1967, 1968 and 1969 were only forerunners of much bigger class battles which are now on the agenda.

In this situation the Trotskyist youth organization Junge Garde was born — out of a struggle to turn to the workers and away from the futile radical protest and police confrontation.

Junge Garde is a relatively new youth organization. It developed out of the movement in Germany in May-June 1968 against the emergency laws enforced by the government at that time.

It was through an intervention this nature to vapourize matter.

So, having spent millions of pounds and dollars in replacing re-usable containers, further large sums are being used to get rid of them.

Research teams in the United States and Sweden are experimenting with containers that, when discarded, will disintegrate in sunlight and turn into a sort of fertilizer.

Other lines of research involve bottles that melt away after being broken, the conversion of organic waste such as stale food and paper into fuel gas for cooking, etc. and--best of allthe development of an edible protective coating for food that eliminates the need for packaging altogether.

This type of pollution is not one that is particularly worrying at present to the majority of day's growth, but 1,000 pounds the world's population. While no one is safe from reported a French scientist. radiation damage or contamination from DDT (the latter has Protein deficiency in children A Blafran boy wandering in search of food been found in Arctic polar bears), it is estimated that 10,000 people die every day trom mainutrition and its consequences.

To them food packaging is a non-problem.

This devastation continues while food is destroyed in the United States and W Europe to keep up market prices.

The argument that in any case, there is a world food shortage' doesn't hold water. Food science has proceeded by leaps and bounds over the last decade, as was revealed at the third international congress of food scientists and technologists held in Washington last week.

Leading scientists derided the myth of the so-called world protein shortage. As one leading nutritionist stated:

"The problem is not a scarcity of protein but rather the widespread prevalence of poverty, or the inability of very low-income in this struggle, and later in 1969 against the trade union bureauthat the basis for Junge Garde was formed - from amongst young workers who supported Junge Garde's perspective of a national strike against the employers' attempts to enforce legislation on apprenticeships.

In a recent interview Junge Garde members described the events now taking place in Germany which will have an important bearing on the building of their movement.

Attacks

Ulli works in a heavy engineering factory. He explained:

'Attacks are being made on the youth in all aspects of their life, especially education and living conditions.

'Universities are severely restricting the number of new entrants. They have plans to close down the universities for two years and many technical colleges are already closed.

•Working-class youth are not trained properly. The prescribed millions to buy foods commercially available.

In other words, pay up or die.

Certainly, no one at the conference pul instant steak and formula for chips; what emerged were the diverse methods available for cheaply producing protein, without which life cannot continue.

Processes have been discovered for turning organic waste. — like seaweed and leaves-into protein-rich cattle food. Palatable leaf-protein concentrate is forthcoming which is almost equivalent to milk.

The use of petroleum to derive protein from yeast, bacteria and fungi were also described.

'A 1,000-pound steer can make a pound of useful protein in one of yeast can make 4,000 pounds of protein in the same time,' can lead to permanent physical and mental damage. One protein food — called superamine-was provided free in five Algerian villages for a year and cut the infant mortality by half.

With this in mind it is bizarre to consider that one of the most fruitful areas for the development of enriched. compact foods-40 new types in all -has been in connection with feeding astronauts. on their trips into space.

As we have already commented elsewhere at greater length, profit and imperialist prestige were at the very heart of those exertions.

The provision of the basic essentials of life, as with the 'war' -at certain periods and for certain sections of humanity against pollution, remains at the level of 'spin-off' from the main imperialist preoccupation:

extracting surplus value by every possible means and at the highest possible rate. teaching time of eight hours for apprentices is not maintained.' Young secretary Ursula added:

'Over the last five years the situation in Germany has changed. The crisis is expressing itself in sharp class struggle.

"This was shown in the recent elections when the vote was polarized by the government's economic policies which increased taxation and the attempts to integrate the trade unions with the state machine.

"The main attack on the youth, which has been carried out by a Social - Democratic government, has been through the introduction of a new plan for training apprentices — called the Krupp "This plan,' she explained, 'creates a new layer of workers between the skilled and the unskilled. Previously 75 per cent of the workers in Germany were skilled after a three-year training. The new plan allows only 30 per cent to finish their apprentice. ships.' Unofficial strikes, caused by the increases in taxation, have taken place throughout the whole THE TORY PARTY decision on arms for the British semicolony known as apartheid S Africa was simply the regularization of the de facto positions.

Shortly after the statement of Sir Alec Douglas Home on arms shipments, joint naval exercises between the British and African navies were carried out from Simonstown.

These joint 'anti-submarine' exercises, it was announced by the Tory government, had been arranged under the previous Labour Party Wilson government.

This reveals only that there is no principled difference between the two parties on this question, as indeed on foreign policy generally.

REVEALED

During the debate on the arms shipments it was further revealed that under the Wilson government an agreement had been reached for the mining and shipment of massive quantities of SW African ore from the first opencast uranium mine in the world.

Although to date this agreement had not yet been put into effect, according to the Commons debate it had been made with the South African government not by the Tories, but by the Wilson government.

Uranium, of course, is the major raw material of 'modern' warfare.

This agreement was made during the so-called 'arms ban' by Wilson's government when indirect arms 'replacement' shipments were made.

DEVICE

The 'arms ban' itself, besides being a fraud, was a device to retain the loyalty of the subservient 'independent' African states, which in practice collaborate with British imperialism and S African capitalists, but have o make the 'appropriate noises' against apartheid to divert local opposition into démogogic channels.

The Labour government's role was continued during the 'debate' on arms shipments in the British House of Commons-the same House which, without dissent, pased the 1909 Act of Union, which remains to this day the basic S African apartheid constitution.

In the arms debate the Labour leaders made a show of opposing the shipment of arms which it had, in fact, continued under cover of the arms embargo. This bogus opposition was simply complementary to the Tory Party's role.

While the Tory of Germany. A thousand workers at the Ford factory in Cologne walked out.

Since September 1969 the wage battles — never mentioned in the capitalist press — have shown that the working class is prepared to fight, said the Junge Garde members.

Commenting on forthcoming elections in the Hessen area, which is dominated by heavy industry, Herma explained: 'Young workers voting for the first time will be radicalized by the wages struggles.' Success Ursula added: 'We are the only group fighting the Social-Democratic bureaucracy and Stalinism for revolutionary policies. Our perspective is for real practical work and an active fight — that is the reason for our success.' Junge Garde has a programme of demands which they put forward in the August strike wave of last year: • 1,000 D. Mark minimum wage guaranteed by law.

CLASS STRUGGLES took responsibility for resuming legal arms shipments, the Labour government made a show of opposition-for the sake of maintaining the Commonwealth-that pseudonym for the British Empire.

There was no opposition between the two parties, but a division of labour.

Wilson's 'opposition' would tend to have the effect of putting the brake on the present antiCommonwealth moves in Uganda, Tanzania and other 'independent' African states.

The collaborationist leaders of these governments would be able to point to a difference in 'British public opinion' to justify continued membership of the Commonwealth.

This is an old House of Commons game, played for the sake of the colonies, but little or no attention has been drawn to its use in the arms question.

OLD TIES

There are very old ideological and political ties between the Labour Party Fabians and others on one side and the African Nationalists on the other.

The major views of most African leaders were a result mainly of indoctrination by missionaries in Africa itself and Labour Party Social Democracy in Britain and W Europe.

IMPORTAN IN NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS PRIF 22sEd ISCA Che Heals Four weeks' holiday.

Two weeks' training holiday.

Sliding scale of wages guaranteed by law.

In addition the Junge Garde demands that the Social-Democratic Party must throw out its coalition partner the FDP and pass these laws.

Central to the political struggle in Germany is the fight against Stalinism and for a united socialist Germany within a united socialist states of Europe.

On this point Walter said:

"The youth in Czechoslovakia were fighting against the Stalinist bureaucracy just as we are fighting against it in Germany. We have contacts in Berlin and E Germany and we intend to build a united youth organization.?

Junge Garde held their national meeting earlier this year from which they issued a manifesto and planned their programme of work amongst the youth and in the trade unions.

From here they are determined to go forward to build a national youth movement pledged to fight on Trotskyist principles of the Fourth International.

AI RICA This relationship continues still, and has to be borne in mind when viewing Labour Party antics in the House on matters concerning British foreign policy.

ANTICS

The real movement which these antics were mean to stem was expresed in July by demonstrations in Kampala and elsewhere against British embassies and in 'militant' speeches by Uganda and Tanzanian Cabinet Ministers, at times with the blessing of Obote and Nyerere themselves.

In the present situation the semi-colonial workers and "oppressed, suffering under the heavy, yoke ot British capital, the African Nationalist Tory face the combined opposition of Labour leaders and the On the basis of anti-imperialist and internationalist principles, every support has to be given by the British working class to the anti-Commonwealth movement unfolding in 'British' Africa.

The breakaway of the 'independent' states from the Commonwealth and the destruction of this body are increasingly becoming inseparably linked with struggle against apartheid itself, by the oppressed semi-colonial toilers of Africa.

READING NEW PARK PUBLICATION TROTSKYIST ANALYSIS

MEMBERS of the Tyneside Confederation of ShipPAGE WORKERI Thursday, August 20, 1970