Wilson government continues Tory foreign policy

LIKE its home policy, the Wilson government's foreign policy consists of subservient support for the interests of the bankers and big businessmen in the City of London.

It nowhere differs essentially from the policy of its Tory predecessor, despite the brave words in Labour's election statements about 'aiding the underdeveloped countries'.

In fact, Labour government policy has never been better illustrated than in its attacks on the workers and peasants of the colonial and ex-colonial countries.

Wilson's government took office in a period of rapidly deepening crisis for British imperialism. The weakness of British capitalism had forced it for a number of years to make a 'strategic withdrawal' from one colonial country after another — almost invariably after installing reliable regimes to maintain the substance, if not the form, of imperialist rule.

Wilson's policy in Aden is nothing more than a continuation of that of his Tory predecessors Duncan Sandys (seen above) and Despite the decline of British holdings even in traditionally 'British' areas such as Africa, and the rapid growth of American capital investment in these territories, the Labour government found common ground with US big business in making the world safe tor imperialism.

PLEDGE

This common concern of the imperialist powers to preserve their sources of colonial profits, combined with Wilson's virulent anti-communism (in the tradition of Ernest Bevin), explains the Labour government's continued support for US policies in south-east Asia and other areas where American capitalism has taken over the role of international gendarme.

One of the most explicit pledges in Labour's nebulous foreign policy statements before the 1964 General Election was that the Labour government would cease to sell arms to South Africa.

This pledge, which might at the time have seemed the easiest to keep, proved the first to be broken.

Almost immediately

assuming office, Wilson not only sold a number of Buccaneer military aircraft to the South African government, but set up a special department to handle sales of arms overseas.

This capitulation to the South African racialists foreshadowed the far more serious betrayal carried out at the end of 1965—the sell-out to the white Rhodesian leader lan Smith.' In the weeks leading up to Smith's unilateral declaration of independence (UDI), Wilson made it abundantly clear that he would place no real obstacles in the way of the Rhodesian racialists. While talking vaguely about 'one man, one vote' in Rhodesia, and lauding the 1961 constitution, Wilson and his special envoy Bottomley continued to treat Smith at his own valuation.

The 1961 constitution, of course, was nothing more than a slave-drivers' charter which provided for the suppression of the national liberation movement and the jailing and exile of hundreds of African workers.

Commonwealth minister Arthur Bottomley was sent to Salisbury to talk with Smith, but his conciliatory position only persuaded the Rhodesian leader that UDI was possible without serious British government opposition. Wilson's conciliatory stance was maintained, however, not only before, but after the declaraHaving smoothed the way for UDI, Wilson . then went through the motions of a 'show of force'-a show which fooled nobody. One thing was made absolutely clear: the African majority in Rhodesia figured neither in Smith's plans nor in Wilson's except as raw material for exploitaPROLONGED FARCE As Wilson pointed out in the parliamentary debate that followed UDI: 'The Labour government has consistently followed the principles_laid down by the previous Ilory. government and sought to give effect to them'.

The African nationalists, Wilson maintained, should 'work the constitution' (i.e., the 1961 constitution) and should not resort to force to overthrow the 'illegal' regime.

Then followed the elaborate and prolonged farce of the negotiations between Wilson and Smith, first on the battleship "Tiger' and then on the 'Fearless'.

Not only did these give Smith all the time he required to consolidate his racialist regime, but they made abundantly clear that Wilson was ready at any time to throw overboard even the meagre Tory 'principles' by which he had professed to be guided.

The government's indulgent attitude to the Smith regime continues to this day, despite the farce of United Nations sanctions - sanctions which have in no way • prevented Smith from tightening his hold on the Rhodesian working class and péasantry.

The smokescreen for the Labour government's Rhodesia policies in the 'thieves' kitchen' of the United Nations came from the Soviet Union. International Stalinism raised a hue and cry against Smith, but left out of account the continual retreat of Wilson.

Like the Communist Part! in Britain, which substituted the liberal slogan 'one man, one vote for the revolutionary policy of calling tor the arming of the African workers the Soviet diplomats at the United Nations gave an international cover to Wilson's sell-out over Rhodesia.

Not only did Wilson provide Smith with the opportunity to suppress the African masses in Rhodesia, he proved throughout the life of the present government the most consistent supporter of the United States' war in Vietnam. Despite all manner of phoney 'peace' proposals, Wilson remains to the last the best backer for US imperialism in its attacks on the Vietnamese working class and peasantry.

Backed by the Labour Party's executive, which in 1965 voted its full support for the US policy in Vietnam, Wilson bent his energies to justifying the war. As the US situation in Vietnam began to deteriorate in 1965, British aid for the US troops was stepped up as much as possible short of sending British troops.!

While publicly wringing its hands over the Biafran war the Labour government nevertheless undertook to keep it going supplying arms to the Nigerian armed forces under the command of Lt.-Col. Gowon (above).

Training camps for US special forces were established in Malaysia, while British 'advisors' went to Vietnam to assist the establishment of fortified villages (concentration camps) along the lines used in Malaya during the emergency there.

The British Labour leaders emerged as roving international ambassadors on behalf of the US president. Wilson's various "peace initiatives' and the continued unquestioning support of the Labour leaders played an essential part in bolstering the American war strategy.

In all this, a vital role was played by the 'Tribune' 'left' in the parliamentary Labour Party. Not only did these people provide the left cover for attacks on the workers and peasants of Vietnam, but they became 'ambassadors' Wilson's various 'missions'.

One example was the Hanoi trip undertaken by Harold Davies, MP for Leek.

He went as an unofficial envoy for Wilson to the North Vietnamese capital as part of the Labour strategy of seeking concessions from the Vietnamese.

He got short shrift from the North Vietnamese, who rightly treated him as nothing more than an errand-boy for Lyndon Johnson.

The 'left' confined itself to platonic protests against the bombing of the North, protests which suited the US strategy very well: they gave the United States a bargaining counter in the shape of bombing pauses and threats to step up attacks.

All these people refused to fight on the only principled basis: that the struggle of the Vietnamese workers and peasants was completely bound with the struggle in Britain against Wilson's Tory policies.

COLONIAL.

ADVENTURES

Only the Socialist Labour League and its supporters campaigned along these class lines.

While British capitalism, under Wilson's government, proved unable to intervene militarily in Vietnam, it was nevertheless able to console itself with colonial adventures on a smaller scale.

The most important of these, of course, was the war against the Adeni patriots, a campaign which, though small in scale, was conducted with the utmost brutality and disregard for the rights of the Adeni workers.

At stake in Aden was the domination of the strategic Persian Gulf area, with its rich British oil holdings.

As always, Wilson and his cabinet were ready to jump to the defence of allegedly vital British interests in the area. The policy they carried out was nothing more than a conCareful not • offend the influential Arab sheiks whose territory in made clear the government's delight at Arab defeat. S tinuation of the policy of Duncan Sandys and Harold Macmillan, whose brain-child, the South Arabian Federation, was an attempt to subordinate the advanced Adeni workers to the backward feudal sheikhdoms of the Gulf.

The Federation having broken in pieces under the impact of the Arab national movement, British troops were used in an attempt to impose a settlement on Aden, based on United Nations intervention and the divisions in the Arab movement.

The Labour government gave its full support to the troops of 'Mad Mitch'-the colonel of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders who later played a leading part in the 'Save the Argylls' campaign and stood as a Tory candidate.

Thus, the Labour government's policies in Aden, like those of the French Fourth Republic in Algeria, prepared a rod for the back of the working class at home, encouraging the right wing to organize and giving a key role to conservative army officers.

By its backing for the reactionary feudalists the Middle East, Labour's cabinet gave training opportunities to the right wing at home.

CHEER ON But the Aden events were to be completely overshadowed by the Arab-Israel war which broke out in June 1967. Wilson was careful not to offend the influential Arab sheikhs whose territory included British oil pipelines, but the Labour cabinet made it clear that it would cheer on the Israelis even though, unlike the Tories in 1956, it was not prepared to intervene actively.

Government spokesmen like George Brown publicly supported Israel and made clear their delight at the Arab defeat.

The June war aptly illustrated the real character of the Labour leadership and the malignant and decrepit capitalism they administer. Too weak to intervene openly, they nevertheless favoured the imperialist client state of Israel in its attacks on the Arab revolution.

The same unprincipled subservience to imperialism distinguished the government's policy in relation to the war between Nigeria and Biafra.

After pogroms against the Ibo people of Eastern Nigeria, which were immediately seized on by rival imperialist oil interests, the Ibos were encouraged to secede from the Nigerian Federation by creating the state of Biafra.

While publicly wringing its hands over the war, the Labour government nevertheless undertook to keep it going, supplying large quantities of arms to the Nigerian side, no doubt after guarantees that British oil interests would be protected in the event of a Nigerian victory.

The Biafran government was quick to label the war as 'Wilson's war' and to point out the calculated hypocrisy of the Labour government's position. There can be no doubt that a large share of the responsibility for the continuation of this bloody conflict rests in Whitehall.

BLOODSTAINED

TRADITION The Wilson government's foreign policy is entirely in the bloodstained tradition of previous Labour governments. Like those of Attlee and MacDonald, Wilson's government remains a loyal servant of its imperialist masters.

Labour's foreign policy is Tory policy tailored to the requirements of imperialism in decline.

The best assistance which British workers can render to workers and peasants overseas is an implacable struggle against the Tories, and against Wilson and his 'left' and Stalinist friends.

Only such a principled struggle, based on internationalism, can prepare the way for the liberation of colonial peoples and for the socialist revolution in Britain. It is on this basis that the Socialist Labour League and its supporters have fought and will continue to fight.

The fight against imperialism in Britain and internationally is the fight to build the International Committee of the Fourth International and its British section, the Socialist Labour League, to overthrow capitalism establish a socialist society.

International Committee of the Fourth International portance in the course of the terrible but exhilarating Kremlin bureaucracy and satellite bureaucracies, the the world, after a long political battle to assemble the battle, begun more than 40 years ago, to assure the con- working class of Czechoslovakia leading the way. necessary n leans, the Socialist Labour League affirms its tinuity of Bolshevism and to construct that revolution- The hour has struck for the reconstruction of the determinati on to drive forward in a decisive way the ary leadership which the founding programme of the Fourth International and for the construction of its building of the revolutionary party in England, and Comrades, Workers' Press Fourth International states as the condition for the the reconstruction of the Fourth International throughThe International Committee and all its sections victory of the proletarian revolution and of socialism Once again the question of power, of the overthrow out the w orld. In this way it arms itself to defeat rehave followed with enormous interest your struggle to of the bourgeoisie, of the overthrow of the counter- formism, Stalinism, centrism, and the renegades from bring out the daily Workers' Press. It has been a The appearance of the daily Workers' Press takes revolutionary bureaucracies, and of handing back to the the Fourth International of the United Secretariat in all political battle concerning the whole of the movement place at a moment when a new phase is opening in the working class the conquests of the October Revoluworld class struggle and in the relations between the tion and its extensions in Eastern Europe, depends on The appearance of the daily Workers' Press will After more than 40 years of struggle, first of all by working class and its traditional social-democratic and the construction of the revolutionary leadership. This be an im portant gain for the whole International ComTrotsky and the Left Opposition against the degenera- Stalinist organizations, as well as in their relations time the International Committee and its sections are mittee ar id each of its sections at a time when the contion of the Third International and the Communist with the bureaucratic apparatus of the trade unions. in a position to accomplish the task of reconstructing ditions a ind possibilities are becoming clearer for the parties, against the development of the Stalinist bureau- Everywhere, in England, in Germany, in Italy, in "final vic tory of the Fourth International' of which Trotcracy and the degeneration of the workers' state created France in all the economically developed capitalist Up to the present we have taken responsibility sky spoke with assurance on his death bed. by the October Revolution, and then-still under the countries, in those under the imperialist yoke, the for the continuity of the programme, of the Com- We assure you of the fraternal support of the Inleadership of Trotsky-for the founding of the Fourth working class is unleashing new assaults against bour- munist tradition, of Marxism, in spite of the difficulties. ternatio aal Committee and of its sections in view of the International and the construction of its sections, and geois society, against imperialist domination, and is It has been a long but indispensable stage. In going success of the first daily Trotskyist paper, Workers' finally against the Pabloite liquidationist revisionism making gains, shaking the control of the old organiza- forward to reconstruct the Fourth International and in the Fourth International, the English section of the tions and of their leaderships integrated into bourgeois to construct its sections, we must apply the proFourth International is today in a position to publish society, while since the 1956 Hungarian Soviet revolu- gramme of the proletarian revolution, the programme the first Trotskyist daily paper to appear in the world. tion, the proletariat of Eastern Europe and of the This is undeniably a moment of the greatest im- Soviet Union has entered into open conflict with the In bringing out the first daily Trotskyist Henry Schultz 1969 founded by Leon Trotsky. the Political Committee of the Editorial Board of over imperialism and Stalinist reaction. sections. this revolutionary leadership. of the Fourth International. spheres. Press.

THREE the International Committee of the Fourth International, S. JUST