PHONEY CAMPAIGN OF I.S.

As the working class moves forward on several fronts to defend their basic rights against the Tory onslaught, certain ' left' tendencies are attempting to block any development towards independent class action.

Answering an objective need of capitalism, the aim of these centrist groups is to try and lead the movement into the blind-alley of single-issue politics, into protest channels through which nothing can be learned.

They deny the revolutionary potential of the working class as a force for putting an end to capitalism, and immediately the Tory government.

That is precisely the role of the so-called International Socialism group today. It was seen in the campaign against the Industrial Relations Bill how they provided a 'left' cover for the Communist Party's call to 'Kill the Bill'.

They joined with the Stalinists in confusing and misleading many workers through a campaign almed at spreading the illusion that somehow the Tories would bow to mass pressure and protest and drop their Bill.

That is why they were so hostile to the Socialist Labour League's demand that the TUC be forced to organize a General Strike to force the Tory government to resign and replace it with a Labour government committed to socialist policies.

Because for centrists like IS such a campaign would have meant involving the working class in powerful, independent action which would have laid the basis of a break from the trade union bureaucracy and construction of an alternative, revolutionary leadership inside the trade unions.

As the showdown with the Tory government becomes the order of the day, the centrists of the IS become more and more determined the working class should not break free and put an end to the government by forcing it to resign.

That is why their recent pamphlet the tenants' struggle against the Tory "fair rents' Bill assumes a most pernicious character.

The intention of the pamphlet is to use militant-sounding phrases to cover for IS's lack of principle and perspective.

It implies that at all costs the tenants' fight must remain a tenants' fight and nothing DRRESPONDENT more with the aim of making the Tories drop the Housing Finance Bill.

The beginning of the pamphlet contains absolutely no analysis of the situation in which the Tories brought in the Bill. It is as if the measure dropped out of the sky.

The 'fair rents' Bill is not just the result of mere vindictiveness on the part of the Tories. Never before have they attempted such a wholesale attack on both council and private tenants.

DRIVING DOWN LIVING STANDARDS This further Tory attempt to drive down the living standards of the working class is a result of the ever-deepening economic crisis the British ruling class faces.

They need to reduce living standards to survive as a ruling class. From the tenants they hope to reap hundreds of millions of pounds in higher rents while at the same time ending subsidies to local councils.

So it is more than a Bill 'designed to inflict massive rent increases his is superfi. introduction says. cial and one-sided. The aim of the Bill flows from the Tories' crisis.

In any case the Bill goes further than just rent rises. The whole basis of municipal housing established in struggle by the working class will be effectively destroyed by the Bill.

The introduction of market rents and the ending of subsidies will have this result. 'What can be done?' asks the pamphlet. It is at this stage that the IS begins to elaborate a strategy of unity, solidarity and determination' which 'can win through the toughest odds'.

three pages the authors attempt to distort past history of the workers' movement in order to justify a rent strike linked with industrial action as the only way forward.

'Rent strikes have won in the past and can win today. It is the only weapon tenants have that can smash the Tory Bill, they write.

It was inevitable that they would return to the Glasgow dent struggles of 1915 in an attempt to justify their position of pure militancy.

"There is no doubt that the halting of the munitions factories and the show of strength and solidarity on the part of AX uniting to force the Tories to List crisis which is forcing the resign with their Bill. lories on the road to Bonanext section, This made cower t he partism, the Is prepares to lead tenants into a trap.

Fight-(Waiting for Labour)". That is why authors are able In this section the IS make it near the end of the pamphlet clear that as far as they're con- to make the following astoundcerned the working Class has Wing statement: no possibility of breaking from 'The miners have shown us reformism: tenants should be recently that if the working sceptical of placing any re- people are organized effectively and are determined to fight for liance this promise [to their just demands, the Tories repeal the Bill] for a number and their state are powerless. of reasons.' That is why the Tories gave