Czechoslovak debate Effects of Stalinist history dominate

Problems not 'THE MISTAKES of 30 years ago occurred because, in our desire to help the Soviet Union, we suspended our critical faculties? This harmed socialism, 'Morning Star' editor Geoge Matthews told the Communist Party Congress replying to Sunday's Czechoslovakia debate.

Though far from being their intention, Matthews 11.... words confirm what we have always insisted was at the heart of the crisis within the British Communist Party —its slavish support for the policies of Stalinism.

Matthews admitted that his Party had adopted a position of 'my Stalin or my Khrushcher or my Brezhnev right or wrong', which came to be falsely equated with unconditional defence of the Soviet Union.

Peter Kerrigan, once a die-hard Stalin supporter, revealed that the 1956 revelations 'came as a heavy blow' though he never wavered in support for the Soviet Union.

Grave

Here, at least, is an admission of grave political errors, something which we have always insisted had to be undertaken before the British Communist Party came to grips with its inability to win mass working-class support.

But having said 'A', Matthews, Kerrigan and the rest baulk at 'B', let alone the rest of the alphabet.

This became very clear when the leadership prevented discussion on resolutions which specifically asked for an historical analysis of the roots of the Czechoslovak invasion.

The voting, deputy 'Star' editor William Wainwright insisted, had to be for or against the executive's resolucerned, prior to the intervention of August 21, 1968'.

These are significant trends inside the Party.

They reflect a desire to go to the roots of the present crisis and to break free of the Stalinist straitjacket imposed on the debate by Dutt and French (Surrey CP) on the side of the interventionists and the ultrareformist, patriotic faction headed by Gollan and ably assisted by Monty Johnstone.

The Dutt-French faction registered 118 votes against 295 for the EC position, an opposition which would have in all probability been larger still had the Congress not been largely in the hands of the Gollan faction.

The split was out in the open.

Factions sat and voted in blocks, and even conducted faction meetings, much to the annoyance of the platform.

Never before has there been such a cleavage in the ranks and the leadership of the British Communist The time has definitely onma for Conroe Matthewe Peter Kerrigan and other CP leaders to explain just how this 'suspension of critical faculties' came about.

Initiative

An enormous error, one affecting the lives of thousands of communists and millions of workers, has been publicly admitted. Good.

But such an admissic is only the beginning.

All Communist Party members who now fight for an historical, Marxist analysis of the rise of Stalinism in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe have the political initiative in this crisis, despite ROBERT BLACK their exclusion from the Congress discussion by the Party bureaucracy.

There are enormous historical class forces working in favour of all those who fight for Marxist principles and the historical analysis of the present crisis of Stalinism.

Gollan's road leads directly to the right, to social-democracy and the severance of all ties with the Soviet Union, while Dutt clings cpenly to Stalin's crimes and endorses all the betrayals of his successors.

Explain

But at the Congress another trend began to emerge, which rejected both these counter - revolutionary alternatives.

Armed with the theory of Trotskyism, they can join with us in a united fight to build a genuine communist leadership in Britain.

That is why we repeat the challenge that we issued in Saturday's Workers Press: Explain your past—it is the key to your present crisis. Full recognition for BSR strikers EAST KILBRIDE'S BSR a full disnutes procedure and -mastrikers return to work today with full trade union recognition, won after their bitter 14-week struggle.

Negotiated terms for the return were accepted by the strikers at a stormy mass meeting on Friday, when strikers put officials of the Amalgamated Engineers and Foundryworkers through the mill about crucial sections of the settlement.

Above women seen marching past the factory on Friday. Two big questions — the criminal charges made against 47 workers after last week's police attack on pickets and what happens to the "blacklegs' who worked throughout the strike — still concern the strikers.

Shaken by their explosive mand. trade union officials VALINIO insisted—against vigorous opposition from militants-that the meeting vote on the proposed settlement before questions were allowed.

AEF regional officer Mr Bill Aitken told the meeting that the company had conceded full recognition to the union, press at its Congress that it is so virulently hostile to the revolutionary press being present.

The reason for this position is the counter - revolutionary Stalinist politics of the Communist Party, which has drawn a line of blood between itself and Trotskyism.

CONTINUANCE Stalinism drew that line more than 30 years ago, when it betrayed the German workers into the hands of the Nazis, and when it began the physical annihilation of the majority of Lenin's Bolshevik leadership.

Chater and Wainwright in banning the Workers Press, were only continuing Stalin's work.

But Stalinism is not in the position it was in during the 1930s.

Trotskyism is today a force in the working class, with a daily press able to campaign and hit THE LONDON tube guards' action committee decided on Saturday by a majority of one to accept the improved offer' on mileage rates put forward by the London Transport Board.

The Board's offer-which concedes about 70 per cent of the guards' claim-follows the last-minute cancellation of Wednesday's planned strike action.

Under the terms of the present offer, only 38 per cent of the men—instead of 60 per cent as orginally proposed -will be on the lowest mileage rate of ls. per day.

Other mileage grades have been increased slightly in proportion.

In addition, the guards committee has given London the allocation of a senior member of the union to the plant for a period-paid by the company — to advise on implementation of the agreeThe union had conceded no victimization on either side, the continuation of flexibility and mobility of labour in the factory and a phased return to work.

Roars of No! Get them out!' and "Shame!' greeted This claim that everyone — unionists and "blacklegs' -would have to work in harmony in the factory after the return to work.

Neither were their fears of redundancy completely allayed by his statement that all the strikers would be started back at the factory.

BSR had said 501 workers would be surplus to requirements.

While forced to agree to the union's insistence on 'no redundancy' at this stage, thought one striker, there was still the danger it would introduce redundancy later 'by the back door'.

out at its enemies as never before.

The Stalinists, discredited in wide layers of the class, in deep crisis inside their own Party, cannot stand up to this type of campaign. full claim.

All London Transport workers must draw the lessons of this retreat by the committee.

London Transport, now controlled by the Tory Greater London Council, is determined to run the underground at a