Strike wins site safety

A TWO-MONTH struggle by 5,000 building workers in S Wales this week finally won the setting-up of an official safety committee including representatives of the men.

The men - working on a British Petroleum petrochemicals plant construction site at Baglan Bay, near Port Talbotstruck work last: week after three of their number were injured on the same day. They threatened further action if a committee was not set up by Within hours of the deadline, the site management gave in -on its previous refusal.

Site stewards claim that the three men injured last week had to wait 40 minutes for an ambulance before they could be taken to hospital for treatment.

_ Long wait Other injuries have also occurred on the site in the last two months.

Within one week in October, two men were killed as a result of falling on their heads while vorking on scaffolding — while the other was being buried.

Both were married with child. ren.

Protest politics at Greene grapples with "The Enemy' FELIX GREENE'S 'Notes on Imperialism and Revolution' is both a damning indictment of world capitalism and its effects on the colonial and semi-colonial countries and a personal record of one man's attempt to get to grips with the problem of fighting it.

Strongest when he is detailing — with often startlingly graphic examples -the ravages imperialism has wreaked, its methods of operation and pursuit of profit at the expense of humanity, Greene's book nevertheless does not answer many of the questions he set out to confront.

Indeed, the book reflects with candour Greene's own experience: a talented writer and filmmaker who was deeply shaken in his political thinking by visiting China in 1957 and who has since written enthusiastically about the struggles of workers and peasants in SE Asia and in Cuba.

Familiar • Greene will already be familiar to many readers as the author With particular knowledge of SE Asia and Cuba (above), Greene shows how such countries have been plundered in the Interests of "THE ENEMY mperialism and Revolution' Jonathan Cape, London. 48s.

of 'A Wall has Two Sides' and "Vietnam! Vietnam!' Now he tries to work out on imperialism and what it repre- his own attitude sents. He brings together a wide variety information about modern capitalism - particularly in the United States-to compile a dossier of imperialism's inhuman rape of the world.

He shows how US imperialism established its dominant position after the decline of the old empires and how a tiny group of monopolists systematically plundered the 'free' world in the interests of their own proht.

He underscores the economic roots of the Indo-China war and shows how imperialism exploits the backward countries and the working class at home. • But because Greene has no worked-out conception of the working class as the force which United States profits Greene: His book is symptomatic of important changes taking place amongst intellectuals will destroy imperalism and establish its own power, his book is gravely flawed.

There can be no rounded-out study of imperialism without the closest examination of its effects on the workers' movement—in particular the crisis of working-class leadership caused by the betrayals of Stalinism and social-democracy.

At centre The struggle against bureaucracy and for the scientific theory and principles of Marxism is right at the centre of the fight against imperialism.

Stalinism and social-democracy are the chief barriers to the revolutionary development of the working class. It is not a matter of 'The Movement' in the sense of groups of people who 'reject' imperialism, as Greene considers.

Greene expresses clearly the difficulties felt by those who have taken part in the protesi moments of the past few years.

'Many have said to me; "I have marched. I have protested, I have taken part in teach-ins and be-ins and love-ins; I was among those who picketed the Pentagon; I have stood up to the police and the tear-gas; 1 have torn up my draft card. ... I have been to jail-now what do I do? Tactically, I'm dried up":' Greene comes to the conclusion that 'the initial battleground is in myself. ... It will be my political task—in however simple and tentative way it may begin—to start exploring the real nature of our society and the extent to which it has distorted our thoughts and feelings. •.. The political climate of a national will only become a revolutionary climate when there exists a myriad of such small and dedicated groups which individually may appear insignificant'.

Honest

Greene's book does not provide a programme for overturning the highly centralized rule of imperialism he describes in it.

But it represents an honest attempt to grapple with the political problems posed by the break-up of protest politics under the impact of imperialism's crisis.

"The Enemy' is symptomatic of important changes not only in Greene's own thinking, but among a number of intellectuals who have tried various forms of radical protest politics, but have begun to recognize their inadequacies.

Only a few weeks ago, from his Bolivian prison cell, Regis underestimates' had been built into his calculation.

'When we talk about a Birmingham half-coloured in the early part of the next century we are not being entirely realistic because before that proportion is anywhere reached there will be an outflux of the indigenous population which will push the proportion up even more still. (Our emphasis.)

"That is the future the people of Birmingham face. The prospect is correspondig for other towns and cities from inner London to the other towns and cities in the W Riding of Yorkshire....

"The truth must be told. The government must tell the people the truth. They have the right to know. They must know!

BOXING

Neither before or after this reactionary outburst — a thinly veiled plea for repatriation—did the Labour 'opposition' go further than mere shadow-boxing.

In opening the debate, Labour Home Office spokesman • Merlyn Rees made it clear that some 'control' was necessary.

'What matters more and more is not the new arrivals, but the movement from, say, the W Midlands to Slough or vice versa. There is, for example, the search for marginally higher pay and what matters is the internal movement of those already here.

In other words-not so much immigration control as control of immigrants!

Having accepted the Tories' basic arguments, the remainder the debate became another public relations exercise for Powellism.

Said Shadow Home Secretary Jim Callaghan: 'Mr Powell is an honourable man. I do not wish to be personally offensive to him. I have every respect for his intellect and capacity to see these things.' HEART AND GUTS It was clear that this was the opinion of many of the Tories.

Ilford N MP Tom Ironmonger said that Powell is speaking in this house for the feeling, heart and guts of the people in this country-right or wrong-in a way others are afraid to speak...

I would like to see legislation such as would absolutely stop immigration permanently.' The course of the debate made crystal clear that there will be no opposition to the Tory government's immigration attacks from the opposition benches.