Revisionist treachery OUT

FOLLOWING the one-day strike on December 8, the great task now before the working-class movement is to force the trade union leaders to mobilize the full force of the unions' membership in a general strike to force the Tory government to resign.

January 12 could be made the beginning of this mobilization.

To force the union leaders into this fight is a political struggle, against the politics of reformism and Stalinism.

The reformists and Stalinists are being helped at every turn by the revisionists 'state capitalist' International The witch-hunters of the capitalist press find it convenient to call this group "Trotskyist'. It is nothing of the sort: it is opposed to Trotskyism, and its policies are the opposite of the policies of Socialist Labour League.

The latest issue of its paper, 'Socialist Worker' (December 11), makes this crystal clear.

Discussing editorially the fight against the anti-union laws following December 8, they systematically exclude all mention of bringing down the Tory government.

After demagogically declaring that the laws can be fought now, they go on to demand of the trade union leaders only to refuse co-operation with the Bill after it is passed.

The decisive question of forcing them to lead now is ducked. They are let off the hook.

And this is done behind a smokescreen of 'left' talk, e.g. :

"The fight back has to be organized from below, by building Councils of Action with a genuine basis among organized trade unionists in each locality.' This leaves the union leaders scot-free. No policy is put forward for the next stage of the fight, apart from (in a news story) ' .. bigger stoppages on January 12 and after . . . and lay the basis for a powerful into tea transing organizations'.

Sounds left Tory governments.

Stee Tories. The same state Nithout any further explana on. they now say: "There is n A new ATUA pamphlet 6d

Just

off the READING FOR ALL TRADE UNIONIST AVAILABLE FROM 186a Clapham High Street, LECTURES open likelihood that a future Labour somed not forget its pree in promises and behave in the same way.' This is a political line containing great dangers. Radical phrasemongering by a middle-class propaganda group now becomes the worst kind of irresponsible adventurism.

The 'state capitalists' do not start from the interests of the united action, in its mass organ- the forging of its izations, to bring down the Tories.

Instead, they start from the immediate possibility of making a few gains from militants thrown into isolated protest struggles and becoming disillusioned. For this purpose they cynically collaborate • to the hilt with the Stalinists on the Liaison Committee. • In this way the 'state capitalists' have ended up in a position London, almost identical with that of the German Stalinists of the period before Hitler came to power.

They dismiss as impossible a fight of the mass reformist and trade union organization and look forward to 'their turn' after reaction, in the shape of the new laws, has triumphed.

Sectarianism

In this way opportunism turns very easily into sectarianism. The consequences of the 'state capitalists' policy would be to put the working class at grave risk of the continuation in office of the Tory government with the laws passed, for the 'temporary advantage they expect from ineffectual protests.

The more we look at the policies of the 'state capitalists', the more criminal they obviously 'Socialist Worker' reports its own 'industrial conference' with summaries of the speeches made by IS spokesmen Roger, Rose. well and Jim Higgins. Rosewell repeats that 'rank-and-file workers will have to do the job, but goes further:

'He said that the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions had issued the call for the December 8 strike, but it was a bureaucratic organization. It had to be democratized and made into a fighting organization. Councils of Action, when they were set up, should seek affiliation to the Liaison Committee.' Suggestions If there are any militant workers who accepted at face value the 'state capitalists' talk about rank-and-file workers as opposed to the Stalinist bureaucracy, and if there are any workers who were influenced by the St Helens 'state capitalists' talk about 'viable alternative to Stalinism', let them ponder these suggestions of Rosewell!

He knows that the Liaison Committee is a Stalinist front organization. He proposes to reform it, to turn the instrument of a counter-revolutionary bureaucracy into ... a fighting He advocates the very leitsounding 'Councils of Action' instead of a political fight within the unions, but he wants to hand over these bodies to the Stalinists!

And this is not the worst that these leaders 'cannot sell out the members completely.

On another page of the same issue, "Socialist Worker' headlines a historical article by Mr Sabby Sagall, '1926: magnificent solidarity of the rank and file was betrayed by TUC'. Perhaps his friend Higgins will explain to him that they were not 'completely' betrayed! Discussing the December 8 demonstration against the anti-union laws (see section of Hyde Park meeting below), "Soclalist • Worker' excludes all mention of bringing down the Tory governWhere did this opportunist line come from? From the Stalin-Zinoviev formulation that in Britain the socialist revolution might come 'not through the narrow gateway of the Communist Party, but through the broad gateway of the trade unions'!

How was it justified to the powerful Minority Movement? By painting as some sort of revolutionaries the fake lefts (Swales Purcell, Hicks) on the General Council, because they