Miners since nationalization. Part two

FOR MANY years the alternative for miners appeared to be the Communist Party, or in recent times, 'lefts' like Laurence Daly, who were supported by the Communist Party.

Until Daly's election, the chief office in the union— general secretary—had been held since nationalization by members of the Communist Party-first, Arthur Horner and then Will Paynter.

Horner, in the first days of nationalization, assiduously opposed strikes as 'betrayals of the Labour government' not a word about the Labour government's betrayals of the miners!) and he intervened personally to try to end the 1947 Grimethorpe strike.

The record of the more recent Will Paynter, a member of the Communist Party for 40 years and now holding down a £6,500-a-year job on Wilson's Commission on Industrial Relations, was analysed at length in "The Newsletter' (February 4 and February 25, 1969).

Paynter had been pushed for this 'plum' job by "The FALTH, CHANGI BEFORE IT IS SHAFR Labour Party Conference in 1968.

Guardian' and 'The Financial 'The Guardian', in particular, praised him in the most lavish manner-for preventing trouble over pit closures !

'His outstanding performance at the NUM during the contraction of the industry and his constant advocacy of a rational plan for restructuring the unions has won him many admirers.' (February 1, 1969.)

But Paynter devoted his 'outstanding performances' to stopping industrial action against pit closures.

His most blatant performance was his intervention against the New Monckton men in 1966. When 1,600 men lost their jobs at this pit the Yorkshire area council decided to fight.

"Co-operation' A right-wing Yorkshire area Peter From him fl risten n Sid Schofield, then declared that pit closures were AVUUU PI: CLOSURES nEIR FIITI SAFECUA UUn ..

government policy and that the union could not change that policy without the support of 'the whole labour and trade union movement'.

Paynter urged the Yorkshiremen to co-operate with the Coal Board in the closure of New Monckton and this intervention enabled the right wing in the Yorkshire area leadership to reverse the previous decision to take action against the closure.

However, Paynter's reference to 'the whole labour and trade union movement' was merely a blind to cover his retreat before pit closures.

Towards the end of 1967 both the Scottish and Yorkshire areas of the NUM demanded a special re-call The line was the same as dragged out again to defend that which is now Daly—he is in a minority in the national executive, doesn't really want to do what he is doing, secretly he 'sympathizes' with the militants, etc., etc.

ER OF PIT CLOSURES TOO LATELDSUE GRACIE, OVERN TOO LATE LINE AA Paynter, who remained a member of the Communist Party until he joined the government's Commission for Industrial Relations, tried to prevent any industrial action against pit closures. Miners, instead, have been channelled by the Communist Party into organizing lobbies like this one at the Brighton conference of over closures.

Paynter then wrote to the Yorkshire area saying that 'no useful purpose would be served' by acting on this suggestion.

(The texts of both these letters were published in "The Newsletter', February 25, 1969)

In fact, Paynter's only gesture in relation to closures was to offer concessions to the very government which was closing the pits !

HALT HALT PIT CLOSURES In the 'Coal News' of May 1968 he declared that he would accept seven-day working in selected pits in return Wilson's promise of a slow-down in the rate of pit closures.

Fighting talk indeed!

Every miner in the land knows he is working himself out of a job and that the Wilson government cynically broke its promises made to the miners in 1964.

Paynter's attitude to the miners, however, much more fierce. In April 1967 at South Wales he placed the blame for the economic ills of the industry not on the interest payments which are bleeding it white, but on the miners themselves!

His attack on absenteeism gave the green light to every vindictive manager in the land to launch an 'efficiency' drive against the men.

This would make a mockery of all the Party members' efforts to get their leading members in official positions if all they can do when they get there is behave as ventriloquists' dummies for the right But, in any case, it is just not true.

Paynter demonstrated this himself in 1964 when a special delegate conference called for But Paynter's story is not merely the story of one man's political degeneration. It is the story of Stalinism in Britain.

Throughout all this, the Communist Party defended Paynter and many sincere rank-and-file members desperately sought for fig leaves with which to cover him. a strike in support of a fl increase for day-wage men.

All the main areas supported this demand against the opposition of the NEC.

Here was Paynter's opportunity! He had the ranks solidly behind him, and a conference vote to back it up.

Now he could really go to war against the right wing.

He went to war, right enough-against the militants. Not only did he-like Daly, today-fall back on 'procedure' (a ballot with a two-thirds majority before a strike can be official) he and Ford toured the country opposing strike action on the eve of the ballot.

Paynter openly declared that he was speaking not only for the NEC, but for himselt, and to underline this, the rightwing area council in Lancashire had his speech printed and distributed to every branch in the area in time for the vote.

Paynter's parting gift to his members was a public statement in 'The Guardian' to the effect that the unions should base their strategy not on the economic and financial requirements of their members, but on those of the employers !

'Government — Labour or Conservative-is in industrial relations to stay. We are facing a permanent and irreversible change in society. Our collective bargaining strategy depends on the overall economic and financial requirements of two groups-the government and the dominant employers.' ('The Guardian', December 6, 1968.) class battles developed, the Party would come into its own because industrial strength.

Dominated by the theory of peaceful transitions to socialism, the Communist Party failed to build and train Marxists in the unions.

In the immediate post-war years the Communist Party held leading positions in a number of key unions-such as the National Union of Mineworkers, the Electrical Trades Union, the Fire Brigades Union and the Amalgamated Engineering Union amongst cuety rester mat ten others.

frequently reassured that when 6.00 6.45 7.05 7.30 8.00 8.50 10.30 11.15 11.45

Yet now the Communist Party has lost position after position in one union after another.

After years of covering up for Paynter, Dash and . Etheridge it now-far from leading the growing militancy of the working class-devotes entire energies toward canalizing it behind the 'official' leaderships of 'lefts' such as Daly, Scanlon and Jack Jones.

These are not mistakes. It is the theories and policies of Stalinism which prevent any member of the Communist Party from developing as a revolutionary within its ranks.

Lenin always insisted on a fight against the ideas of even the best workers who came to the communist movement, to free them from the dominance of bourgeois ideology.

He carried out this fight in the early Congresses of the Communist International and in writings such as 'Left-Wing Communism'.

Decline

Stalinism not only liquidated the leading cadres of the Communist International, it also abandoned the struggle for revolutionary consciousness amongst the advanced workers.

It is this which led to the betrayals in France and it is this which accounts for the industrial decline of the British The one great question which emerges from the recent strike over surface hours—the biggest miners' strike since 1926 — is the need and now the opportunity for a new leadership in the coalfield.

Events are moving with lightning rapidity.

Only a few months ago Daly was taken at face value by many miners. He was elected, with Communist Party support, because the men believed he would lead a fight on closures and wages. He had talked about strike action to stop closures.

But in the strike over surface hours, Daly stood out against the miners.

Branch after branch, meeting after meeting demanded the resignations of both Ford and Daly.

members, of course, supported Daly . against the right-wing candidate, but we warned that 9.38 a.m.-12 noon Schools. 12.30 p.m. Farm Management. 1.00 Cadw Cwmni. 1.30 Watch With Mother. 1.45-1.53 News and Weather. 2.05-2.25 Schools. 4.20 Play School. 4.40_Jackanory. 4.55 Blue Peter. 5.20 Journey To The Centre Of The Earth. 5.44 National News and Weather.

Car-Wise. 4 Hours (part n today's By-ı it would be a big mistake to place full confidence in him because he was not committed to the overthrow of capitalism.

At that time the Communist Party said we were 'sectarian' and many members of the NUM believed them. At least, they were willing to give Daly a chance.

Well, he has had his chance now.

So, the record is that the right wing, the Communist Party and the Labour 'lefts' have all betrayed.

Yet the hours strike, like the Cadeby strike which preceded it, shows what a wealth of fight there is in the working class.

But today more and more miners are beginning to realize that a completely new leadership must be built.

It was Jock Kane and Sammy Taylor of the Communist Party who accompanied right-wing officials Schofield and Lee in trying to talk the Cadeby men into going back to work.

And the Yorkshire area council of the NUM as was pointed out in Workers Press at the time-tried to use the hours question to wriggle out of a fight over wages and were caught in their own trap.

All the miners' pent-up resentments, accumulated the years, burst to the surface.

But this strike spreading like a forest fire through York shire, Wabes, kent in Scotland, , did more than put the right wing on the spot.

Spectre

It threatened the government's incomes policy and raised the spectre of new leadership in the mines.

every political tendency except the Socialist Labour League was thus compelled to work to bring the strike to an end.

For the Communist Party it was not simply a matter of failing to train militants as Marxists. They have now gone much farther than that.

They are the most reactionary force in the labour moveThey lined up openly with TUC general secretary Vic Feather, claiming that his intervention was a "breakthrough'. This pamphlet appears to Communist Party members support of the revisionists' were divided and demoralized. 'Institute for Workers' ConIn the Yorkshire area panels some CP members were call- One of its signatories is Jim ing for an end to the strike. Oldham, a leader of the YorkTODAYS TV. 9.10 The Canterbury Tales. Regional Programmes as BBC-1 except at the following times :

Others turned up to lobby the Yorkshire area council against the sell-out and had to refuse to read the 'Morning Star' in front of political opponents because they could not justify the line it caried.

The unofficial strike committees were unable, because of their limited political position, to carry a fight through against the combined opposition of the government, the Coal Board and their own union leaders, 'left' and right.

As a result, they ran Victor Feather to get them the hook and called off strike without consulting strikers.

Shortly afterwards, a pamphlet appeared called What Next For Britain's Miners?' Whilst containing some criticisms of Lawrence Daly and calling for democratic reforms within the National Union of Mineworkers, this pamphlet leaves out the main question -the construction of a new leadership.

Cinema. shire strike committee and the man who moved the recommendation in the Yorkshire area council for a return to work.

The revisionists end up supporting those who were pushed into a dead-end by this strike and proved incapable of leading it to victory.

But the widespread disgust at the present NUM leadership must be transformed into a movement to replace it.

Campaign

That movement is the All Trades Unions Alliance. It has a daily paper, the Workers Press.

There is plenty to on: • Genuine rank and file representation on all strike committees. No self-appointed strike "leaders'. • End the system of permanent officials. All positions to be up for re-election every three years. • No-retreat on the hours question. Eight-hour day on the surface and seven hours underground NOW. The wages concessions were won by the strike and nothing led faceworkers, no matter where they are allocated. • Solve the crisis in the industry by stopping all interest payments. Men's livelihoods are more important than profits. • Workers' control of the pits. Open the books of the Coal Board. Let the workers themselves, employing the help of sympathetic experts, accountants, technicians, etc., examine all plans.

DIRECT MORE, UNTED AURIN• CAFEGUREN INTI R FUTURE INTO ' sur - INDU HALT ANI UNEMPLOYMENT NOW -NOT A MAN TO THE ROAD STOP CLOSURES TO-DAY -SAVE JOBS TOMORROW - MOT O MA else. The hours will only be gained in the same way. • A fight on wages. Everywhere miners are saying that the demand for a f15 minimum on the surface and £16 underground was too modest. A year ago, the All Trades Union Alliance suggested a struggle for £16 and £17. But many miners are now going beyond this. They are saying that the dustmen are right to demand £20 and miners should demand it, too. • Full county rate for all skil-

No pit to close unless genuinely worked out, or for some valid geological reason.

Workers' committees to agree before any pit can close. Transfer to suitable alternative work with no loss of earnings.

End 'divide and rule. Disputes in any one colliery to be immediately circularized, first to those in the same panel, then to the county as whole, for solidarity action. • Extend nationalization, under workers' control, to all fuel industries and to all other major industries. • Immediate ratification of strikes and payment of strike pay unless satisfactory negotiations are begun. Revoke the present negotiation and arbitration machinery. • Build a revolutionary leadership in the unions through the All Trades Unions Alliance and the Workers Press, together with workers in other industries, particularly engineering, cars and docks.

This is a programme around which a new leadership can be built in the mines.

On the move The treachery of the TUC leaders in the 1926 General Strike isolated the miners for many years from other sections of the working class.

They sought their salvation in a Labour government and hopes of nationalization. They have had both of these and been disappointed in both.

The sell-out of the surface hours strike can bring only a temporary respite.

The miners, like the carworkers, dockers, dustmen, firemen and schoolteachers, are on the move.

The Wilson government, under orders from the international bankers, must resist.

Trotsky's analysis and conclusions from the General Strike-the need to construct a revolutionary leadership in the unions-is more valid today than ever before.

What is involved now is not an industrial struggle but a political struggle-linking on to the struggle carried on by the Young Socialists against all the betrayals of the Wilson government since 1964.

It is the struggle for the Fourth International.