Miners' pickets blanket the country

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speaks out firmly on the side of the miners. It is the only paper the expose the only paper to expose the union leadership and to warn the miners of their treachery.

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January Appeal Fund, 186a Clapham High Street, London, SW4 7UG Wthat we think Learn lessons of 1926 THE MINERS' strike will only be won in an all-out struggle to mobilize the whole working-class movement to force the Tory government to resign. Only preparation for such • a struggle, which will replace the Tories with a Labour government to legislate the miners' demands and bring in workers' control and the ending of compensation, is serious preparation to match those of the Tory enemy. The miners themselves are determined to fight it out, and they are receiving solidarity action from workers in transport and on the docks and at power stations.

But the trade union leadership stands aside. The TUC refused to call together the unions for co-ordinated action.

Everybody knows the danger from right-wing leaders like Gormley in the National Union of Mineworkers. and Feather at the TUC.

But what about the Communist Party, which has the leadership in the Kent, S Wales and Scottish coalfields? What about the 'lefts' like Scanion and Jones, whom they support? These three were. the only areas last week where the NCB received co-operation on safety work.

This is by no means the lost important indication of the of picketing miners began to und, the first positive gesture of coal handling unionists in the industry was made at Fulham.

Immediately after the picket lines but nothing else first NUM pickets arrived -the miners are making the a spokesman for the and force an early settlement ' hauliers said: 'We will not of their wage claim. move any coal from this saie iu picket London and the station while the strike is South East, S Wales miner: on.' West, York miners are going Similar results are expected and Northumberland are to from Battersea, Tilbury _and assist Scottish miners. other stations around Lon- Picketing is so intense that don. The intensified picketing in some areas, like Wigan, follows the rejection by the coal merchants have been NUM executive of an offer of alleging loudly that supplies arbitration on Thursday of coal are not reaching penevening. sioners, hospitals etc.

Leaders of the power unions These allegations have been yesteraay aeciaea to postpone daniana ..alaa any fight for an increase in their wages until after February 1.

After day-long talks in London the four unions involved — the electriciand engineers, Transport General Workers and General and Municipal Workers-announced they might impose a ban on overtime if their claim is not settled before February The power unions, like the engineers last Monday, have abandoned any Joint wages fight with the miners.

This isolation of the miners' struggle by the TUC and the other unions poses the greatest dangers for Britain's coalworkers, who today end the first week of their first national stoppage since 1926.

Since the TUC has told mamhar uninnicte not to ernes real policy of the Stalinists, however.

Yesterday the Communist Party's 'Morning Star' carried a full-page feature called "The Miners' Case'— written by one of their members, Jack Dunn, president of the Kent area NUM. It was the CP's case. Dunn concluded: 'With solidarity and unity, we can make this a short and successful strike which will win the miners' immediate demands. 'We can also strike a blow against the Tory government which will speed the day when it is defeated and replaced by a government which will take the side of the workers and not the millionaires.' This is a policy directed AGAINST the interests of the miners.

Dunn chooses his words very carefully. He stresses *immediate demands', because he knows that workers' control and the ending of compensation are necessary if the miners are to get any gains they can keep.

And he knows that to get this means a , political mobilization of the miners.

is frightens Dunn out of his wits; he is completely committed to • the Stalinist policy of alliances within union bureaucracy, which excludes building a Marxist political leadership in the unions. most of this decision to try Kent and Midlands miners are to picket in the South to E Anglia while Durham venemently denied by the local executive who have reaffirmed their decision to allow supplies to go to hospitals, schools and pensioners. ABOUT 250 Cardiff dockers voted unanimously not to unload 22,000 tons of US coal from the French carrier Alain LD yesterday after a 500strong miners' picket arrived at the dock gates.

And at the meeting between representatives from the National Union of Mineworkers, the National Union of Seamen, the British Electricity Generating Board and the British Transport Docks Board, dockers made it clear they would black all future coal imports.

Mr Tom Jones, Welsh regional secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Ininn to which the dockers To delude miners into thinking they can have a quick victory purely on the wages issue is treachery.

The future of the government's economic policydriven on by the crisis of their system—is at stake.

And this means the future of the government itselt. Dunn deliberately waters this miners to saying that• a victory would 'speed the day' when the Tories are deftated.

SOUNDS like anti-Toryism, outie miners eske as tust another strike among many others.

Dunn simply does not mention the betrayal of the TUC. He does not mention retreat of Scanlon and the engineers' leaders by dropping their national claim last week. He does no' take up the refusal of Jack Jones to unequivocally instruct his members to "black' coal. He knows that the growing movement to make the miners' strike the spearhead of a unified struggle of the working class to get the Tories out implies an exposure ot these union leaders and their replacement by a revolutionary leadership.

his is the explanation • of Dunn's failure to raise even once the question of workers' control, or to link this demand with the struggle _of engineering

MINERS

PICKET belong said afterwards, "There is a conscious understanding among the dockers that the miners are fighting their battle.

'The T&GWU has given no instructions to the men. We are keeping out of it because the new Industrial Relations Act makes it very difficult for us to tell them what to do' At yesterday's 7 a.m. mass meeting of dockers, miners' leaders warned they would be next in line in the wages fight if the Tories defeat the coal strike.

After the vote pickets from workers and others against unemployment.

Nationalization under workers' control and without compensation is the demand which unites the struggles of all workers-in nationalized as well as privately-owned industries.

The position of the Stalinists is nakedly exposed if we refer back • to the General Strike of 1926.

Let us quote trom a leanet issued on May 5, second day of the strike: 'Therefore let the workers answer the bosses' challenge with a challenge of their own: "nationalization of the workers, coal-owners, under mines without compensation control through pit committees! •... The third essential slogan of the General Strike must be: "resignation of the forgery [Tory] government -formation of a Labour government!"' Who published this appeal?

The Communist Party. What reason did they give for this policy? •.. the Communist Party warns the workers against the attempt being made to limit the struggle to its previous character of self-defence against the capitalist offensive? (Quoted on p. 180 of R. Page Arnot's 'The General Strike, May 1926', published by the Labour Research Department.) KE MI Pl 1 OFFir Cwm and Ffaldau colliery and Crown multi-heat plant at Roath dock said they have won an important victory by getNow with nationalization already won 25 years ago, the Stalinists resort to *immediate demands' and 'speeding the day'. This is how far the CP has degenerated.

They use the 'Morning Star' as nothing but a 'left' cover for the treacherous union and Labour leaders.

But the lessons of 1926 went deeper.

Then the CP was only at the very beginning of its descent into Stalinism.

Still making correct general policy statements, it had begun to accommodate to the trade union bureaucracy. It deceived the working class into thinking that 'lefts' on the TUC General Council could be relied on to fight for socialist policies and stop a sell-out.

What actually happened was that these "lefts' caved in with the right-wing leaders. The CP had above all failed to build an independent party of Marxists, able to give leadership through to the end of the fight to remove the capitalist governThe construction of such a leadership today, through the Socialist Labour League and Workers Press, fighting on the policies we have outlined here, is the most important question facing the miners and the whole working class. aided this reactionary exercise by the TUC, the 'left' union leaders, the Stalinists and the "Tribune' centrists who talk glibly about 'defeating the Tories' whilst opposing a generalized struggle of the whole working class to replace the Tory government with a Labour government pledged to socialist policies.

Once again we say that militancy and solidarity alone cannot win this strike.

Without a political programme tying the wages struggle to the question of governmental power and workers'. control, this militancy will be turned into its opposite and will open the door to defeat and retreat.

To win the strike is to create the political condition for the resignation of the Tories. That is the most vital issue of the strike.

The miners went on strike in the town - 200 miles from Salisbury, the sent out from Britain "tests'