Workers Press no. 827

workers press

TORIES OUT TO DESTROY UNIONS

A FICHTING LEAD

FROM THE DOCKERS

BY WORKERS PRESS

REPORTERS

THE STRATEGY of the Heath government took another pounding yester- day as docks delegates threw out the Jones- Aldington report on dockland's jobs crisis and called a national strike from today. Dockers erupted into a deafening chant of *Tories Out!' immediately they heard the news that the strike was on. As the strike decision • was Fleet Street remained taken, miners' down and the shut executive demanded a one-day General Strike against the Indus- trial Relations Act. Late yesterday Lord Goodman Newspaper Publishers' of the Association was meeting print asking them unions to give guarantees to stop 'further poli- tical stoppages. print unions - the Two National Graphical Association for and SLADE — have called one-day stoppages commencing midnight Sunday. These strike actions will go on despite the TUC's decision to call off the 24-hour national stoppage which had been planned to protest against the jailing of the five London dockers. The conditions have arrived where the trade union movement must unite and fight to get the government out of office.

It is clear, for example, that the Tories are preparing for an all-out confrontation. Their National Industrial Relations Court has been empowered by the House of Lords, the highest court in the land, with the com- plete authority to make crippling working decrees against the class and its trade unions.

The next stage of the Tory attack is to declare a state of national emergency and to rule, during the parliamentary vaca- tion, through the self-proclaimed and unaccountable authority of the Privy Council. The skirmishing between the Tories and the working class is at an end. The war is on and it must be a fight to the finish.

Certainly the working class is ready to fight as was demon- strated outside Transport House yesterday. When news of their strike broke, who had the building where delegates were meeting stormed outside shouting: 'We've won!

We've won!' Then they staged an im- and entirely promptu un- authorised march past Parliament to a victory rally at Tower Hill (see p.12). Police who tried to explain the march was illegal were brushed aside.

INCORPORATING THE NE

DAILY ORGAN OF THE CENTR

1al Tons

CUS

sidson

TORTIONIST

CAKNO

Inside Transport House, sombre and nervous Jack Jones, secretary of the 1.6 million- member Transport and General Workers' Union, told reporters that his proposals drawn up with London port chief Lord Alding- ton had been firmly rejected by 38 votes to 28 (Why they threw it out, page three). In astonishing contrast to the jubilation of his members, Jones said: I am a disappointed man.'

He said that he would con- tinue to work for 'peace' in the industry. He was "sorry' that the dockers had thrown the pro- posals out despite the unanimous recommendation from himself, national docks secretary Tim O'Leary, and the union's port and waterways committee. He added that he would con- tact Lord Aldington to see if any further useful work could be done in the light of the strike which starts today. *I have tried very, very hard to ind a peaceful solution and I am still trying,' he said.

Delegates undoubtedly were moved by the massive display of militancy by dockers on the lobby. The release of the five London dockers from jail has clearly had a profound and dramatic effect. Dockers feel they now have the government on the run and they want to finish it off once and for all. •

G THE NEWSLETTER

FRIDAY JULY 28,

CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE SOC

Dockers lobbying their national delegat as they heard the Jones-Aldington repor THE DECISION of the House of Lords to uphold the judge- ment of the National Industrial Relations Court in fining the Transport and General Workers' Union, as well as ruling that trade unions are responsible for the action of their shop stewards, makes a major confrontation between the unions and the Tory government unavoidable. Coming on the heels of the previous judgement by Court of Appeal Judge Megarry, which emphasized that the NIRC had all the powers necessary to fine and imprison trade unionists, its decisions are well nigh invulner- able in law. Whatever may be the delay while the appeals were being processed through the higher courts, nobody should have the slightest illusion as to Tory

JULY 28, 1972

No 827 • 4p

HE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE

al delegate conference in London yesterday br gton report had been rejected and a dock strik

BY G. HEALY

intentions in relation to the work- ing class. Through the NIRC they have created the most powerful legal instrument of rule in the history of British capitalism. From now on judgement against the unions will be swift and almost immedi- ately applicable. The employers know that here they have a means of fighting back which speedily mobilizes all the reactionary forces of the state against whatever union or trade unionist they wish to take on.

While the aim of the govern- ment is, as far as possible, to transform the right-wing reformist leaders into some kind of internal police force to discipline trade unionists, the growing class hatred of the employers must inevitably result in a flood of prosecutions before the NIRC.

No matter how loud the TUC chiefs may bleat about the need for negotiation and compromise, terday broke into chants of "Tories Out!'

dock strike called from today.

the stage is set for the greatest class battles since Chartism.

It is no longer a question of whether the General or not Strike will come, but when? Even if the right wing should go down on their bellies and crawl before Heath, there is really nothing they can do to avoid a show- down. The powerful wave of militancy which swept through the country demanding the release of the five dockers and now, the rejection of the Jones-Aldington report is a solemn warning - to the govern- ment that the working class is ready to fight, no matter what the TUC is prepared to do.

It is safe to say that this warn- ing has not gone unheeded in Tory circles. If Heath and company desire to make some last-minute use of the TUC, it is by way of creat- ing a split within the trade union movement, which would tend to

TURN TO PAGE 12

workers press

TORIES OUT TO DESTROY UNIONS

A FIGHTING LEAD

FROM THE DOCKERS

BY WORKERS PRESS

REPORTERS

THE STRATEGY of the Heath government took another pounding yester- day as docks delegates threw out the Jones- Aldington report on dockland's jobs crisis and called a national strike from today. Dockers erupted into deafening chant of "Tories Out!' immediately they heard the news that the strike was on. As the strike decision was Fleet Street remained taken, miners' the shut down and executive demanded a one-day General Strike against the Indus- trial Relations Act. Late yesterday Lord Goodman Publishers' of the Newspaper Association meeting print was asking them give unions to guarantees to stop 'further poli- tical stoppages. print Two unions - the National Graphical Association and SLADE — have called for one-day stoppages commencing midnight Sunday. actions will go These strike on despite the TUC's decision to call off the 24-hour national stoppage which had been planned to protest against the jailing of the five London dockers. The conditions have arrived where the trade union movement must unite and fight to get the government out of office.

It is clear, for example, that the Tories are preparing for an confrontation. all-out Their National Industrial Relations Court has been empowered by the House of Lords, the highest court in the land, with the com- plete authority to make crippling decrees working against class and its trade unions.

The next stage of the Tory attack is to declare a state of national emergency and to rule, during the parliamentary vaca- tion, through the self-proclaimed unaccountable authority of the Privy Council. The skirmishing between the Tories and the working class is • at an end. The war is on and it must be a fight to the finish.

Certainly the working class is ready to fight as was demon- strated outside Transport House yesterday. When news of their strike broke, who had building the where delegates were meeting stormed outside shouting: 'We've won!

We've won!' Then they staged an im- and entirely promptu un- authorised march past Parliament to a victory rally at Tower Hill (see p.12). Police who tried to explain the march was illegal were brushed aside.

INCORPORATING THE N

DAILY ORGAN OF THE CENTR

ti His Tal IonS

CUS

sidson

TOKTONIST

alicit or

TEARINC TRICK

House, Inside Transport a sombre and nervous Jack Jones, • of the 1.6 million- secretary . member Transport and General Workers' Union, told reporters that his proposals drawn up with London port chief Lord . Alding- ton had been firmly rejected by 38 votes to 28 (Why they threw it out, page three. In astonishing contrast to the jubilation of his members, Jones said: 'I am a disappointed man.

He said that he would con- tinue to work for 'peace' in the 'sorry' that industry. He was the dockers had thrown the pro- posals out despite the unanimous recommendation from himself, national docks secretary Tim O'Leary, and the union's port and waterways committee. He added that he would con- tact Lord Aldington to see if any further useful work could be done in the light of the strike which starts today. I have tried very, very hard to nna a peaceful solution and I am still trying,' he said.

Delegates undoubtedly were moved by the massive display of militancy by dockers on the lobby. The release of the five London dockers from jail has clearly had a profound and dramatic effect. Dockers feel they now have the government on the run and they to finish it off want once and for all.

FRIDAY JULY 28,

IG THE NEWSLETTER

CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE SOC

Dockers lobbying their national delegat as they heard the Jones-Aldington repor THE DECISION of the House of Lords to uphold the judge- ment of the National Industrial Relations Court in fining the Transport and General Workers' Union, as well as ruling that trade unions are responsible for the action of their shop stewards, makes a major confrontation between the unions and the Tory government unavoidable. Coming on the heels of the previous judgement by Court of Appeal Judge Megarry, which emphasized that the NIRC had all the powers necessary to fine and imprison trade unionists, its decisions are well nigh invulner- rly • able in law. Whatever may be the delay while the appeals were being processed through the higher courts, nobody should have the slightest illusion as to Tory

JULY 28, 1972

No 827 • 4p

HE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE

al delegate conference in London yesterday bre gion report had been rejected and a dock strik

BY G. HEALY

intentions in relation to the work- ing class. Through the NIRC they have created the most powerful legal instrument of rule in the history of British capitalism. From now on judgement against the unions will be swift and almost immedi- ately applicable. The employers know that here they have a means of fighting back which speedily mobilizes all the reactionary forces of the state against whatever union or trade unionist they wish to take on.

While the aim of the govern- ment is, as far as possible, to transform the right-wing reformist leaders into some kind of internal police force to discipline trade unionists, the class growing hatred . of the employers must inevitably result in a flood of prosecutions before the NIRC.

No matter how loud the TUC chiefs may bleat about the-need for negotiation and compromise, terday broke into chants of 'Tories Out!'

dock strike called from today.

the stage is set for the greatest class battles since Chartism.

It is no longer a question of whether or not the General Strike will come, but when Even if the right wing should go down on their bellies and crawl before Heath, there is really nothing they can do to avoid a show- down. The powerful wave of militancy which swept through the country demanding the release of the five dockers and now, the rejection of the Jones-Aldington report is a solemn warning to the govern- ment that the working class is ready to fight, no matter what the TUC is prepared to do.

It is safe to say that this warn- ing has not gone unheeded in Tory circles. If Heath and company desire to make some last-minute use of the TUC, it is by way of creat- ing a split within the trade union movement, which would tend to ise, TURN TO PAGE 12

US admits bombing dykes PAGE 2 Workers Press, Friday July 28, ' DICK TAVERNE, QC, has been flung out of his Lincoln con- stituency by local Labour Party members. The NEC of the party has upheld their decision to get e new MP to represent them. We fully support the decision to remove Taverne from the Throughout labour movement. the debate on the Tories' Com- mon Market legislation, he voted with the government or abstained, thereby assuring the Tories of their necessary majorities. • He voted with the Tories in spite of the overwhelming anti- Market decisions taken by the Brighton conference and the parliamentary Labour Party it- self. Now that Taverne has been booted out, the working class must deal with the other traitors who have given com- fort and assistance to this I bunch of bankers and hated speculators who comprise the Tory Cabinet. But for the vote of the 69, the Tories could have been forced into a General Elec- tion before the Industrial Rela- tions Bill was enacted, and a returned Labour government with the working class demand- ing socialist policies. The TUC, and the whole labour movement has since spoken on the Common Mar- ket. In particular, trade union- ists and working class wives have recognized that the Mar- ket is a reactionary grouping of monopolists who want to club together to fight the European working class. These firms' weapons will giant be high prices and unemploy- ment to drive down the stan- dard of living of the working class. When Taverne voted with the Tories and abstained during a number of other divisions, this is what he was ushering in for workers and their families.

In other words Taverne and his cronies have actively been engaged in shoring up this government so it can get on with and its murder, torture terror in Ulster, it can jail trade unionists, attack the social services, send prices sky- rocketing and double council rents. The Lincoln precedent must now be extended to the con- stituencies of all the _other MPs who have aided the Tories.

CORRECTION

In the Workers Press lead yesterday, July 27, a para- graph should have been in- serted between the final two paragraphs (page 8) but which, because" of last-minute difficu- ties of time, was inadvertently left out. This would have read: 'The urgent need of the hour is to mobilize the mass move- ment to make the Tory govern- ment resign and replace. It with a Labour government pledged to socialist policles.'

July 28, 1972 NORTH VIETNAMESE troops yester- day seized the key firebase Bastogne, part of the defensive ring around Hué, punching a big hole in the South Viet- namese defences. Many of the South Vietnamese troops which were defending Hué are now tak- ing part in the attempt to recapture Quang Tri further north. Despite claims that the provisional capital was in South Vietnamese hands, the liberation forces say the citadel is completely under their control. The citadel has been under bombard- ment from the US air force and Saigon claimed yesterday that 400 of its troops had entered the citadel. However, journal- ists covering the battle think it most unlikely that such a small force would be Actress Jane Fone able to take the city. eye-witness accoul THE UNITED STATES has flood control during the monsoon season. If they are breached the for the first time admitted whole Red River delta could be that irrigation dykes in North inundated, threatening millions Vietnam have been hit by of lives in this densely-populated bombing. But State Depart- area. ment spokesman Charles Bray Until Washington has now claimed the bombing had denied that dykes have heen bombed, only 'incidental despite eye-witness caused and foreign accounts by observers minor' damage to the flood and plentiful evidence supplied control system. by the North Vietnamese. The dykes are essential to The bombardment of the

FOREIGN NEWS

ALL THE children of the Tangwena tribe were herded into trucks by armed Rhodesian police on Wednesday and driven away to institutions.

The racialist Ian Smith about of the the capitulation Tangwena, regime has decreed that the determined whose resistance is a thorn in the side Tangwena lands are part of of the Smith regime. reserved for whites an area The search operation at only. Armed police with Gaeresi ranch has far cap- dogs and helicopters tured are only ten Africans, who were brought to court Wed- scouring the hills around the on nesday and charged with living tribes ranch at Gaeresi near on 'white' land. the Mozambique border. Three who pleaded guilty were fined f15 a head. One of the The adult Tangwena fled into the hills earlier this week when convicted tribesmen, called Mutimba, told the court: 'I would arrived enforce police to Ine rather die than leave Tangwena's court orders under the Land land. Il will not move to another Tenure So Act. far the police I would rather be killed have been unable to track them place. down. on my own land.' More 100 Tangwena than children - — many of them under five-have been cared for on nearby farm since 1970, when the police made first con- their certed drive the attempt to Tangwena off 'Gaeresi ranch. A spokesman for the Nyafaru Development Company, which

ULSTER'S

Social Democratic owns the farm where the child- and Labour Party has lifted its ren have been staying, said police year-long ban on talks with arrived Wednesday told on and Stormont or Westminster either they the taking were TEen until all internees were freed.

children. The SDLP has been The children driven in paving were the way for open collaboration heavy trucks Umtali, where with the Heath government for they are to be placed in institu- some time. tions, according to police spokes- Two months ago the

SDLP

men. told its members in local gov- This latest Nazi-style kid- to to their reveals the true napping duties. of the Land Tenure Act, which Now it has condemned the aimed dispossessing the at Provisional IRA for showing no Africans of all the worthwhile concern whatever for human life herding land and them into or democracy. 'reserves'. The Party's volte face coincides with a new wave of IRA arrests By deporting the children, the hope to police obviously bring and announcement from Jane Fonda (left) in North Vietnam. When she ess accounts of bombing of dykes.

dykes was under discussion by the American command five Together with the years ago. blockade of Haiphong and the stepped-up bombardment of the North, this was regarded as the final turn of the screw to force North Vietnam to negotiate.

The North Vietnamese have supplied details of bombing using raids blockbusters to undermine the dyke walls and then strafing workers who turned out to repair the damage.

EIGHT people have been jailed in two separate trials for subversion in Brno, Czechoslovakia, over the past two days. In the first trial, which • Wednesday, concluded on terms of up to five years were imposed on the six defend- ants. At the second trial yes- terday, two more jail senten- ces were handed down and four others were given sus- pended sentences. Over the ten days 28 past opponents of the ultra-Stalinist Husak • regime have been im- prisoned in a series of six trials.

Similar trials are known to be imminent involving at least three other groups of people under arrest. The Brno trials were conducted behind closed doors and even the identity of the defendants was not announced until they had been sentenced. Ulster supremo William Whitelaw that the army will now mount a "search-and-destroy' operation against the republicans. The ban on talks never enjoyed unanimous support from party leaders and last week's bomb blitz of Belfast city centre, in which more than a dozen people died and 160 were wounded, provided the oppor- tunity to change SDLP policy.

Ex-Ulster Brian premier Faulkner has had his own talks with Whitelaw and he has said that although Protestants will not accept another Belfast 'out- rage', * they will co-operate with him so long as the moves to smash the IRA continue. When she returned she brought The US ambassador at the United Nations, George Bush, claimed North Vietnam was planning to blame American resulting bombing from floods failure to maintain the from dyke system. This is plainly a hypocritical attempt to evade responsibility. The US now admits that dykes have been bombed, yet the bombing has not been called off, nor have the previous American denials been explained. In the first trial they were Dir Milan Silhan, sentenced to five years jail, Zdenek Pokorny (four years), Dr Jaroslay Meznik (three and a half years) and Peter Wurm (three years). These four sentenced were under paragraph two of article 98 of the Penal Code, dealing with subversion on a large scale in times of national danger and carrying a penalty of three to ten years. The other two defendants Alois Vyroubal (two and a half years) and Jan Schopf (26 months) were sentenced under another section of the code which has a penalty of one to five years. Announcing, the verdicts, the official Czech news agency Leteka said the six had formed a illegal group between the end of 1970 and • January this out of hostility to the socialist state system'. This the customary slander levelled against those who oppose the invasion of Czechoslovakia.. The second trial involved Jan Sabata, son of a prominent sup- of former Party leader porter Alexandr Dubcek. He and his fellow defendant Vaclay. Sabata, believed to be a relative, were sentenced to two and a half and two years respectively. Jan Sabata's parents and sister have been in prison since last November. They are expected to be brought to trial shortly. The fatter, Professor Jaroslav Sabata, was Brno secretary of the Party under Dubcek. Next Monday, Professor Milan Huebl, former rector of the Com- munist Party college and once central committee member, a Karel Kynvl, a former television commentator, and Karel Bartosek, a historian, will go on trial in Prague for subversion, according to usually reliable sources.

Journalists Jiri Hochman and Vladimir Nepras are expected to be tried in mid-August if they are well enough. The wave of trials has so far evoked no pro- test from the British Communist which claims to oppose Party, the Warsaw Pact invasion.

THE

FOUR-WEEK

strike by white-collar workers at five west Wales tinplate plants is over.

And clerical workers at Ebbw Vale are expected to review their decision to strike from August 6 in the light of the settlement agreed by a mass meeting at Swansea on Wednesday. The strike was against British Steel Corporation's refusal to implement a pay rise recom- mended by an arbitration panel.

Now management and union officials have worked out a 'peace formula'.

BY DAVID MAUDE

TWO MONTHS of back- stage discussions be- tween union chiefs and port employers produced a report which was very deservedly thrown out by dockers' delegates yester- The six page Jones-Alding- ton report offered nothing to any worker in the port trans- port industry. It serves only to reinforce the view consistently fought for_by the Socialist Labour League: that the only solution to the jobs crisis in dockland is the nation- alization of the entire industry without compensation and under workers' control. In essence, the report pro- posed that: • The register of temporarily dockers (the TUR), unattached present comprising at some 1,650 men, should be abolished by September 4. involved should be Those shared out between employers registered under the Dock Lab- our Scheme. The necessary nego- tiations were to have been com- pleted by unions and employ- ers during next month. • Unions, employers and port should authorities hold talks about making available to dock- work on groupage con- ers; tainers (those packed with part- loads at container depots rather than by manufacturers at the point of production). • There should be a five-month persuade dockers, campaign to particularly the older and unfit men, to leave the industry. Sub- stantially improved voluntary severance terms would offered. The government would foot the bill. The Transport and General Workers' Union delegates who with these pro- angry posals; so had the hundreds of rank-and-file dockers from over the country who lobbied them. T&GWU secretary Jack to the reports pious hope that tions will soon be re-established Liverpool stewards demand TUC fights the Tories LIVERPOOL shop stewards have demanded the Trainst the mental Belt about by and that the TUC be recalled to start a campaign government brought about by the to bring. down the Tory government.

This militant action of hundreds of thousands of was decided 800 shop stewards' dele- trade unionists throughout the country.

We by meeting called by Liverpool call for: Trades Council on Wednesday night.

Refusal to pay the fines imposed by the Main discussion during the evening centred NIRC on the T&GWU. • TUC must continue with its 24-hour stop- on whether to call for an immediate and in- definite General Strike to get the Tories out.

page on Monday. This was rejected by the meeting and it was • The recall of the TUC to start a campaign to bring down the Tories and return a Labour notably opposed by members of the 'Militant' group and the trades council executive. government based on a socialist programme.

The resolution, which was overwhelmingly • If any trade unionist is jailed, then the will immediately call a stop- passed stated: trades council page of work of all Liver-y This meeting of trade unionists welcomes the release of the five dockers as a vic- pool trade unionists. Jones (left) with Lord Aldington which will dockers' hard-won they enable normal work- ther attack on signed deals with the big ing. and working conditions. Upcialc conunue container while these agreements are being Ber menti should betwees.

'An as 1968, but have now left them reached'. to fight sh shrinking pool of dos.

with dockers sible between over After Tuesday's meeting of the this said eno overs industry's National Joint Coun- 'covering mont of Jones- T&GWU docks of types Aldington report suggested that secretary will stop. shrinkage registered dockworkers.' that O'leary report held Claimea. the of inland Port Se 'a possible solution' to the prob- key 10 cite just one real une assured an Steam: lems of his members. container depots the report Livernool. Ocean offereds would be vices, owned by Ocean fact the report is nothing she TuR. -wants 600 men returned to 'encouraged' Firms more cod cover tor registered cockers. LICi slashing of docks jobs, Turther This shipping line is container- and 'pressure' would be put on speed-up and cuts in wages. But the firms who operate izing its Far ust made and scan.

groupage these Southampton. Ocean 11U11

LIC

This, however,

T&GWU

•a into serous of the less than a repeat Steamship is was nothing Ball what kind of struggle of existing ered policy cent and con- container consortilm dockers expect them to lead can answered dockers' trols Containerbase Ltd. way on these issues. Freight will be shifted through achanas. The temporary unattached reg- Leeds And it is not only the dockers Containerbase

(TUR)

ister would have been who were left out in the cold by and Birmingham. What are the abolished only in name had the Liverpool report, the haulage anc report been accepted. These men, many of whom are out the country begging for jobs Much was made in the at these depots? impathy with the jailed dockers,

T&GWU

struck of Shtenen unaT are insoluble These problems employers are already retaining without nationalization. about per cent of dockers were exoccle• to concut tacu selves with a statement report k Trom Theones Alcinaton who are surplus to their require- Jones that he does not expect another extension any redundancies in the container

T&GWI

policy which, since the endorsing statement, TOlS depots. Report. has helped deci Devill Jones and the other six Hardly a reassuring comment.

mate the aock and road haulage the men committee were on

T&GWU

officials encouraged labour forces in exchange for a patting the these men into the union ensloyels when few pounds a week. the back for not throwing 4,000 more men onto the

TUR.

They them amply went on repay for this imagined kindness Employers who carried extra labour following aboli- surplus

TUR

of the report the Lull recommended. would have been able to claim compensation from 1131EL Natenal buck Lapered ard.

central fund But in addition. fulv-emploved dockers would have been expected *make appro an priate contribution' to the addi. work snaring al reduced earnings. Jones admitted at a press : con- Monday 'some terence on might earn

PAPERBACKS CENTRE

cockers somewnai He less justified this claiming: it's dockers' solution to the problem'.

rew aockers agree. The report went on 28 Charlotte St general standstill that on should recruitment every Scheme port London W1 next year-effectively possibility out any docks for opportunities

BOOKS • PERIODICALS • NEWSPAPERS

the 870,000, unemployed. tion was a cacar threat of a sure Also contained kers Press, Friday July 28, 1972 PAGE 3

BY OUR OWN REPORTER

AT THE same TUC General meeting which agreed to the one-day General Strike next Monday approval was also given to new industrial rela- tions legislation by a future Labour government. The seal was put on a deal which has been fixed up in secret meetings with the Labour Party national executive over a period of months. Although few details have yet been released, the proposals will definitely form the basis of new attacks on the trade unions.

The agreement is for Labour to repeal the Tories' Industrial Relations Act and come forward with a so-called conciliation and arbitration service. But any agreement reached between employers and unions would be binding on the rank and file. That means any wages deal would have to be accepted, which is another way of smuggling in wage-cutting operations. A separate division of the service would con- arbitratio! reform of industrial sider the relations'. The Labour government would try to bring in a new also Industrial Relations Act itself.

Although the provisions have to be finalized it is yet another attempt by the Labour traitors to launch attacks on trade union rights. All the talk about statutory is rights to belong to unions simply a cover for bringing in another 'In Place of Strife'.

The trade union and Labour leaderships have reached this agreement without any mandate rank and file. The from the working class now has to make that if they sweep clear Tories out through General Strike action, they will not tolerate anti-union laws from a new Labour government.

1971 WAS

described the as worst year for strikes since 1926. Now the headlines are appearing again about 1972.

But there is a difference. There have been more days lost through strikes in the first half of this year, after the Industrial Rela- tions Act came into force, than in the whole of last year.

13,558,000 days were lost in 1971, but between January and Lune alone 15,460,000 days were There were fewer strikes this but the number year than last, of workers involved was larger— 883,400.

NOW OPEN

Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Fri 9 a.m.-7.30 p.m. Sat 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

SPIES AGAINST

PAGE 4 Workers Press, Friday July 28, 1

BY PETER JEFFRIES

Spying, as any London docker can tell you, is Britain's number one growth industry. And like all such industries, it is no doubt receiving gener- from ous financial assistance the Tory government. If any worker is shocked about recent activities, they know little of the history of the Tories or the employers.

For Heath's predecessors have always been dab hands at informers and sending spies, agents provocateur into the labour movement. It has been in times of acute social crisis, like today, that the employers have invariably resorted to the use of spies and informers. Such a period was that fol- lowing the end of the Napole- onic Wars in 1815. Faced with a severe financial crisis, heavy unemployment and consider- able disruption of all those industries which had been geared to war production, the government of Liverpool and Castlereagh, began to build up systematic network of informers in all the areas of working-class unrest. Like today, this was a period in which the capitalist press, led, as you might have guessed, "The Times', ', but ably assisted by the 'Courier', , tried to whip up the fear of revolu- tion the middle amongst classes and consistently called for the firmest measures to put down all meeting of work- ers and reformers. The fear of revolution was well founded. As the working- movement gained in class strength and confidence, so the demand for a reformed Parlia- ment, based on universal suff- won wider and wider rage, support. Large sections of the middle class, once the champions of reform, now joined the forces of reaction. 'The spirit of Jacobinism' said Robert Southey, 'which influenced men in my sphere of life four and twenty years ago (myself and men like me, among others) has disappeared from that class and sunk into the rabble, who would have torn me to pieces for hold- ing these opinions then and would tear me to pieces for renouncing them now. It was Lord Sidmouth who led the Tory pack against the working-class movement. He was in continual contact with the local magistracy, receiving the activities of reports on trade unionists, collecting lists of names of prominent speak- ers at the many rallies and demonstrations which were held. Local squires and land- encouraged to owners were issue demands for a restora- tion of order and the banning of meetings, if bloodshed and revolution were to be avoided.

Those familiar with the ways of today's ruling class and its servile press will not be sur- prised to learn that when Sidmouth established secret Lords and Commons commit- to investigate the unrest tees in February 1817, they rapidly 'uncovered' a series of plots designed to: • Seize the bank of England and the Tower. •Cause the army to mutiny.

Effect a violent Jacobin July 28, 1972 Top: a propaganda drawing of the lea 1817 which was instigated by Oliver, a p Castlereagh, who built up a network journalist William Cobbett. Oliver hung provide a radical 'cover'.

revolution in London. These 'revelations' provided a ready excuse for the four Draconian Acts which Sid- rushed through mouth now parliament. The first suspended habeous corpus which denied the right to a trial; the sec- gave the Regent increased ond security protection; the third • increased the penal- savagely ties for inciting unrest amongst the army; the fourth placed tighter restrictions on even meetings. Now they were made almost illegal. It was in this atmosphere that spying came into its own.

informers Most the employed by the Tory govern- ment were ex-radicals or con- victs on whom Sidmouth could readily put pressure.

'William Such Oliver, a one was (real name William Richards) the most infamous of all the spies. For decades turn Oliver' afterwards, 'to meant to become a nark in the working-class movement. Oliver had been released of the leaders of the Pentridge Rising, Oliver, a police spy. Above left: Viscount • network of Informers. Right: radical liver hung his portrait in his room to from a debtor's prison early in 1817 and soon began to worm his way into the London radi- cal movement. In order to impress those whose confidence he was trying to win, Oliver placed full-length bronze a figure of Napoleon on his man- tlepiece and hung portraits of the leading radicals-Burdett, Cobbett, Horne Tooke and Fox-in his room. Reporting to Sidmouth every he had of the way, step rapidly won the friendship of a leading Joseph Mitchell, radical printer, with whom he commenced a tour of the Mid- North in April lands and 1817. Within three weeks he had established contact with every leading radical in these key centres. Everywhere his line was the same. He promised that 'Lon- ready and encour- don was aged the local leaders to pre- pare for an immediate rising.

During, April, for example, he attended a delegate meet- ing in Wakefield, represented by leaders from Birmingham, Sheffield, Huddersfield, Barns- ley and Leeds. London was awaiting the signal from the North, said Sidmouth's agent.

Secretly, he reported to his Tory master that the move- ment was 'weak and imprac- tical and that if it could be delayed it would blow itself up' One can easily imagine the confusion which Oliver and his friends spread among a move- ment operating under condi- tions of illegality. An old mem- ber of the London Correspond- ing Society recalled the effect which spies had during the French wars of the 1790s: 'If a citizen made a motion which seemed anyway spirited he was set down as a spy sent amongst them by govern- ment. If a citizen sat in a corner and said nothing, he watching their proceed- was ings that he might the better report it . . . citizens hardly knew how to act.' It was for this reason that London Corresponding the Society had included in its rules the warning that 'A noisy disposition is seldom a sign of courage, and extreme zeal is often a cloak of treachery'.

Oliver started a second tour of the provinces at the end of May after Mitchell was arrested. On June 6, delegates assembled at a meeting at Thorton Lees near Dewsbury in Yorkshire. Due to the over- zealous attitude of the local magistrate troops commanded by General Byng raided the meeting and arrested all the delegates—except Oliver. Oliver's game was up in Yorkshire and his real role was immediately understood. But by this time he was on his way to Nottingham. That is how, while local magistrates and soldiers lay in wait, 300 workers began march from Pentridge, near Derby, on Nottingham, on the night of June 8. They were rounded up with- out difficulty at Eastwood a few miles from the city. Thirty- five were tried and five were hanged, the rest being trans- ported. Oliver's masters had their money's certainly got worth. Sidmouth and Castlereagh never intended to stop a rising.

They wanted to encourage one under conditions where work- ers could be taught a savage lesson. In the words of Lord Liverpool: 'One can never feel that the King is secure upon his throne unless he has dared to spill traitor's blood.'

But the Oliver affair did not end here. Less than a week after the Pentridge rising, the leading Whig paper, the 'Leeds Mercury, exposed Oliver the Spy. Many sections of the mid- die class were shocked. As a result juries started to acquit several radicals on trial at the time including Dr Watson, who had been accused of treason.

But the main consequence was to allow the Tories to build up an atmosphere in which their repressive mea- sures against workers' the movement could be intensified.

Recent events in the Indus- trial Relations Court have shown that spying has become much more professional since the events related in this story.

Modern 'Olivers' armed with every technical device are now at work against the working class and the revolutionary movement. But the working class has also learnt many lessons since its political birth in the indus- trial revolution. We must cer- tainly be better prepared for today's Olivers than were our predecessors in 1817.

THE PROPERTY MEN

OF SOUTHERN SPAIN

BY OUR SPANISH CORRESPOND

the building. During workers' strike in Spain last year, Communist Party militant Pedro Patino was killed by fascist police whilst giving out leaflets in sup- port of the strike on a site near Madrid. the workers in a week of strikes leading up to May Day. Some of these workers are still in jail and have been viciously tortured. While these workers con- struct blocks of luxury flats and offices for the Spanish bourgeoisie, they and their families in the cities of Spain have to crowd into dismal cramped tenements where the rent will take up half of their monthly income Many are emigrés who have left Southern Spain to escape absolute poverty and degra- dation. A few miles from the tourist 'paradises' in Malaga or Seville, families of Andalucian workers and peasants have to live in caves or mud huts on less than £12 a month. Their children get no education and their only hope is to escape to the north. But even that escape route is now the economic blocked as recession shuts down factories in the industrial cities.

primitive Alongside this existence and for struggle -survival is not merely the traditional wealth of the landed aristocracy, but the property exploiters, the banks the financiers : who make and millions while Franco's police clamp down on the struggles of the masses against this exploitation. Don Enrique Negre Villa- vechia is such a man of property and finance. A well- known and respected person- ality in finance and business circles in Barcelona, brother of revered Pablo broker on the stock-exchange, Don Enrique a considerable built up empire. However, at 5 p.m. on June 14 the Don appeared at the local court in Vich and handed over documentation to back up a demand that his three com- Hoteles de Pallares, panies, ESIFINSA, and Apartamentos Rialp, should be able to sus- pend all payments. In recent months Don Enrique has spent a lot of time abroad, where he had to under- go a serious operation. There is speculation in the Barcelona that perhaps this press necessary absence from his has been a factor business determining the present state of these companies. What of these companies? The first to be created was ESIFINSA in 1965 to help foreign investment and to buy up land for urban develop- ment. This company started with £6,000 capital and shares the value of that amount. other companies were set up to exploit the Hotel Condes del Pallares and to extend specu- lation in flat building. The luxury hotel Conde del Pallares, valued at £840,000 and a block of flats built by Apartmentos Rialp in Segur de Calafell along with land in Santa Maria de Barbara is valued at (Barcelona) £415,000. and his Enrique Don entourage found no difficulty

ESPONDENT

Above: Don Enrique Negre Villavechia, a man of property. Right: the poverty of agricultural workers In southern Spain.

in raising credit from banks Within and finance houses. five £1.3m has been years, of handed over by various these institutions and the com- pany has taken over property and contracts to the value of almost £2m. Another point of interest is the headquarters of the three companies. These are registered at Torello street Block A No.

registered 1. This is also the headquarters of Enrique Villa- vechia's business in the sheep trade! When reporters visited the offices of this up-and- once coming company they found an ordinary three bed-roomed flat in the backwaters of Vich with of life. Neighbours no sign said that two gentlemen arrived one day and said that an office they were setting up there but had not been seen since. Although Don Enrique Villa- vechia is clearly a worried man, and he he still has friends certainly is not likely to receive a visit from the Civil Guard or Brigade. the Social Political That treatment is strictly re- and served for workers peasants fighting for survival under the fascist regime.

Workers Press, Friday July 28, 1972 PAGE 5 The state-owned Renault car firm made a loss last £19m for year of some only the second time in its history. The strike at the Le Mans plant in May 1971 and sagging foreign markets are blamed by Pierre Dreyfus, head of the the firm, for this financial loss.

Sales been bad in have and have North America flattened out in West Germany firms like as trade war with Volkswagen, itself. in even deeper trouble, becomes hotter. As one Renault vehicle in seven is sold in Germany a market of the contraction could have serious con- sequences. To keep pace with aggressive foreign rivals,. the firm needs to invest heavily in new plant For this it is and equipment. dependent on profits and state support. credit conditions and Easy rolling inflation have aided France and sales both in Britain so far this year. But the situation when the plant after the reopens summer break is far from settled. Big wage claims must go in to keep with the soaring cost oflie living. What happens in Renault is usually a sign for the whole French working class. The 'hot autumn' begin at the may Boulogne-Billancourt giant plant, a citadel of the French working class, or at one of the provincial plants which, since 1968, been have just as militant. Three deputies of the French Communist Party have joined with four Gaullists and three others In Signing a protest against the violation of the rules of war by the United States in Vietnam. It calls on 'world public opinion and American politi- cians the inhuman to oppose methods of warfare employed in Indo-China'. It asks other governments to remind Nixon that "security cannot exist in the world, nor can there be real international collaboration long as as great power refuses to respect the funda- mental principles of inter- national life'. Only a party which has long ago abandoned the struggle to overthrow capitalism could permit and--knowing the dis- cipline which reigns in the CP parliamentary group- age its members to sign such a declaration. Not only do these commu- line nist deputies up with enemies of the working class in a worthless protest, but they encourage illusions in the settlement of the Vietnam con- flict by negotiation. This could only mean the sell-out of the Vietnamese revolution

PAGE 6 Workers Press, Friday July 28, 1972

BY TOM KEMP

which had been imposed Georgi Dimitrov, the This the Stalin. movement by Bulgarian communist admitted by much is ames leader, became famous as Klugmann in 'Marxism Today' -though without mentioning a result of his stand in the Stalin, of course. It was this Reichstag fire trial held the German policy which led at Leipzig in 1933. Communist Party, the largest outside the Soviet Union, As a result of his enormous to disaster and defeat in 1933.

popularity he was selected by little- This period can no longer Stalin to replace the silence be passed Manuilsky as Secretary over in by known the Communist Party as it was of the Communist Inter- One of the for national. At the Seventh and many years. of this features interesting last Congress of that body held number of 'Marxism Today' is in • Moscow the summer of 1n that it actually discusses the 1935 he made the main report 'third period'. In the editorial which inaugurated the policy Popular comments 196 we of the Front. This page binding read: became policy on al 'At the end of the 1920s the until communist parties of the and in the first years Stalin decided otherwise. the 1930s there within In 1943 Dimitrov wound up were Stalin's in- all the Comintern on International, despite its many achievements, some deep the structions when it got in way of Kremlin policy of alli- mistakes, particularly sectarian of and in regard to the estimation with Britain the ance and the United States. social-democracy democratic parties, After the war he returned to social - approaches the reformist- Bulgaria as a national hero as and led trade unions on the well leader of the Com- question of the united front.'

munist Party. Supporter of the admitted that of Balkan Federation idea Dimitrov supported the policy with Tito, he came into which described social demo- flict with Stalin and died in July 1949 while in Moscow in cracy as the main enemy, as a of fascism. Usually the which have wing circumstances term 'social- never been fully explained.

meaningless fascist' Anybody of used. The Communist Party who remembers may know that has seen fit to Great Britain whole of the July Herbert Morrison, head of the devote the Council, London County was issue of its theoretical journal, 'Marxism Today', to Dimitrov habitually described as a 'social 90th anniversary fascist'. to mark the term had been used, of his birth. The contributions This and perhaps coined, by Gregory to this issue raise some funda- Zinoviev when was in mental questions about the alliance with Stalin in the early of international history the 1920s. There can be no doubt, which communist movemenT however, that the policy of the require examination. While Dimitrov was able to 'third period' was sired by pass himself off at the Leipzig Stalin who, in a famous phrase fascists and Bulgarian trial humble described the as social-democrats as 'not anti- exile studying events his podes but twins'. country he was already an im- The whole question is dis- portant Comintern official.

He was, in fact, head of the detail by cussed in unusual Bureau which, Klugmann (of 'From Trotsky to West European fame) on page 214. Un- behind the front of a harmless Tito' publishing controlled fortunately he does not house, Stalin-perhaps he the activities of the communist mention has not heard the name! The of Europe. It was, in parties the belt individuals who formulated the fact, transmission through which Stalin exercized policy and imposed it on the his control over those parties.

communist parties are some- what shadowy figures described That Dimitrov was able to conceal his real role from the as 'they' or 'the Plenum'. German police and the Gestapo was a tribute, of course, to the

UNDERESTIMATED

illegal highly organized work which the methods of

THREAT OF

Comintern had inherited ected Bolshevism.

FASCISM

reflected also in espionage rings like the 'Red Orchestra' during World Klugmann blasts the 'sectarian War II. of approaches' the 'third To that extent, too, it can period' with an eloquent pen. be agreed that Dimitrov was an There is They were, he says, 'particu- revolutionary. also no doubt that in the 1920s larly dangerous in view of the Stalin against fascist offensive. he sided with Left, 'Such approaches, he claims the Opposition led by It 'tended towards underesti- Leon Trotsky. was as of faithful Stalinist that Dimitrov mation of the threat fascism.' became a trusted Comintern There is much more in the functionary. head of the Comintern But he does As same branch concerned with relations explain why these policies were with European accepted without question on before Hitler came to from Moscow parties instructions their suicidal absurdity power, Dimitrov was necessar- when ily an adherent of the policies must have been obvious to the of the so-called 'third period' most dim-witted bureaucrat.

a study he Trotsky played a leading part in denouncing the dangers of reprinted. How often was it that Trotsky was able to expose these policies while Klugmanns of the time the blindly followed the dictates of Stalin? The reason why Klugmann is in so positive his condemn- ation of the 'third period' will In fact his be clearer later. critique of it has nothing in common with Trotsky's, but is intended to prepare the way for the justification of the turn to the Popular Front in 1935, when people like Klug- man began to be attracted into the Communist Party. The burning down of the parliament building in Berlin, February the Reichstag, 1n 1933 was made the pretext for a wave of arrests of Com- munists and other opponents of the regime. The Nazis then staged a trial in which they tried to pin responsibility for the fire onto the Communist Party in the person of Ernst Torgler, a leading Ct deputy, and three Bulgarian commun- ists, including Dimitrov.

As already pointed out, the investigation was unable to dis- for the real cover reason Dimitrov's presence in Berlin, though the Nazis were glad to 'foreign produce some com- munists' for the purposes of the trial. Reichstag fire, 1933: 10 pin blame on the com a public trial. Dimitrov was one of the defendi In the dock Dimitrov was able to turn the situation to Somewhat good ized a great public spectacle, so that Dimitrov's exchanges with particularly prosecution with Although, as Trotsky said, Dimitrov did no more and no less revolutionary than any would have done in his place, propaganda Stalinist the machine built him up into a great hero of superhuman pro- portions. The Stalinists needed a hero abysmal their to cover up had failure in Germany which the way for Hitler. opened Dimitrov was an almost provi- dential figure and they made the most of him. On his acquittal he was received in Moscow with all the honours and promoted to the Executive Committee of the Communist International.

Almost all the rest of his life was spent in the Soviet Union as a loyal Stalinist functionary.

A turn was now being pre- pared by Stalin towards what was to be known as the Popu- lar Front. Dimitrov and others work to provide this went to rightward turn with some sem- • blance of theoretical justifi- cation. 'Marxism Today' publishes letters, notes some speeches made by Dimitrov in 1934 which are claimed July, to be the starting point for the the Popular Front turn to which made Comintern was policy at the Seventh Congress in the following year. in blame on the communists, the Nazis staged is one of the defendants Whether or not Dimitrov contributed to the change of line is of little importance. Even the newest recruit could 'third that the period' see extravaganza had produced the German disaster and that it would have to be abandoned. Empirically, in a number of the local leadership, countries, often under pressure from the forced rank-and-file, was to look to joint action with social democrats and other tendencies against the growing Meanwhile, fascist menace. Stalin was making a right-turn was to in foreign policy which made a defensive military to 1935, to with France which was signed in Moscow by Pierre Laval.

7TH CONGRESS

AND SHIFT TO

THE RIGHT

Just as the 'third period' had seen an ultra-left turn, so the Seventh Congress marked aban- a shift to the right, the donment of any revolutionary perspective and the pursuit of alliances with reformist and • Anti- parties. bourgeois fascism' meant defence of 'bourgeois democracy. It was also, as Dimitroy and Stalin saw, necessary to give local Communist Party leadership in each country greater independence to make alliances and their own to develop their own tactics in line with the particular national conditions which they faced. The seeds not only of the Popular Front but also of what was later to be called 'polycentrism' being were sown. However, there can be no doubt that complete and un- swerving loyalty to the Soviet was demanded bureaucracy from every Communist Party leadership. This meant loyalty to Stalin, who was now the acknowledged theorist of the entire international movement.

The new turn was thus com- the pletely consistent with essence of Stalinism: the theory of 'socialism in one country The Popular Front policy the policy of broad alliances of of 'anti- all anti-fascists, coalitions' and the monopoly like, for which Dimitrov became responsible, were not his invention. They sprang from the foreign policy needs of the Soviet bureaucracy which, after the German defeat in 1933, had passed definitively to the side of counter-revolu- tion. The perspective which Dim- itrov put forward at the Seventh • World Congress was a Stalinist policy through and through. Although Stalin did not bother to speak at the Congress, there is no doubt that at this time he ruled the Comintern with an iron fist. Contemptuous of foreign com- munists-he was to have in the thousands murdered name of the Popular Front-he still needed the Comintern as an instrument of foreign policy and of control over the other communist parties.

STALIN

THE INFALLIBLE

POPE

The policies which were put forward at the Seventh Con- gress were endorsed by him trademark. and bore his Obeisance had to be paid to his outstanding merits as a theoretician and as a leader.

Reference to his name evoked thunderous applause. This was Stalin's consecration the as foremost Marxist of the age, pope in the infallible the Kremlin who crushed his without enemies and critics mercy. For make no mistake about it, while the Seventh Congress was in session the secret police was going about its work with determination ruthless on Stalin's instruction. Many a delegate must have thought, when Dimitrov was speaking, of another Comintern leader to whom he bore a certain physical resemblance, Zino- the once-favoured Gregory viev. then the Where was wretched Zinovier, upon whose shoulders James Klug- mann heaps responsibility for the theory of 'social fascism'?

'processed' by He was being the GPU for the first of his trials, which was to take place in the following year. In the next three or four many of Dimitrov's years, colleagues and friends were to disappear into the jails of the GPU, never to re-emerge. They Eberlein, Spartacist delegate to Hugo included First Congress the Comintern, many of the Ger- man party leaders and almost all the Poles and Yugoslavs.

It is said that Dimitrov fought hard for 'his' Bulgarians and that few of them were in fact victims of Stalin's purges.

For most of the others do very little. He, at could least, had had the benefit of a if only in a Nazi court. trial, Stalin's trials were show pieces in which the accused were re- hearsed in advance and only willing to go through those with the charade were given the benefit of a court appear- ance at all. The reality of the purges, the true story of the Comintern in the 1930s and especially after the Seventh Congress, makes a mockery of what James Klugmann and that Isabel pathetic old veteran, Dimitrov Brown, write about in 'Marxism Today'. In order to move closer to the bourgeoisie, whether of the fascist the democratic or Stalin cut down variety, thousands of honest revolu- tionaries from the international communist movement. Dim- itrov knew about it and accepted it because he was a faithful flunkey of Stalin.

So did Harry Pollit, R. Palme Dutt ('spots on the sun'), John Gollan (zealous 'anti- Trotskyite' in the YCL of the and present general time secretary) and the other leaders of the CPGB. Klugmann and company of uncomfortable course, are today with the 'third period'; 'class against class' for them is a meaningless phrase. They want to get nearer to bourgeois democracy, to reformism. That is why they see Dim- itrov as a great precursor. That is why they salute today the Seventh Congress while leaving Workers Press, Friday July 28, 1972 PAGE 7 Above left: Georgi Dimitrov. Dur- 'Reichstag fire' ing the trial his exchanges with the prosecution, particularly Goering (top right), achieved worldwide publicity. Above right: Zinoviev, who is thought to have first coined the phrase 'social fascist' completely Stalin, the out OGPU, the purges, the Moscow Trials and the horrors which followed it as an historical necessity. They cannot be allowed to get away with so much lying hypocrisy and distortion. This is not history. It is using the memory of one dead man, who a reputation conserves revolutionary honour on the basis of one action-his de- fence in the Leipzig trial-to cover up for the most abject retreats and counter-revolu- tionary policies. The Communist Party moves still further to the right. In Britain and in other countries it prepares further betrayals of the working class. Klugmann, Isabel Brown and others who evoke the Popular Fronts in France and Spain in the 1930s conveniently forget under its banner the that working class of those countries to defeats and were destruction. Dimitrov deserves no honour for his part in that.

PAGE 8 Workers Press, Friday July 28, 1972 The book by Roy Medveder translated as 'Let History Judge: the Origins and Consequences of Stalinism' (Macmillan £5.75) is the first independent attempt in the Soviet Union to under- stand the Stalin era which has come out of that country. It is a damning indictment of Stalin and Stalinism which confirms everything which Trotsky about the bureaucratic wrote degeneration of the first workers' state. From the great tension under which it is written, its passion drawn from the sufferings of millions of people, is also a testimony to the fact that the October 1917 Revolution have not been conquests of the destroyed. Medyeder writes as a communist intellectual, an oppositionist who is harassed and persecuted for his struggle to tell the truth as he sees it. His book has great merits and deserves a careful study both for what it provides in the way of corroboration for the Trotskyist analysis and what it leaves out. On some crucial questions the book is fundamentally wrong. This series of articles submit Medveder's book to detailed scrutiny with the aim of pursuing the struggle against Stalinism to the end. It will deal in particular with his errors and omissions and point the way for a more rounded analysis which must begin with the works of Trotsky which are cited in the footnotes.

BY TOM KEMP PART 2

than that of the apologists for Stalin, is and incorrect Medvedev rightly sees inadequate. that 'the rise of Stalinism The position he holds is that of the impartial observer who cannot be understood to occupy some middle tries without examining, if ground the contend- between only briefly, the struggle ing forces. Admitting that what within the was at stake was more than Party during but struggle for power also the middle and late 'serious theoretical and prac- episodes 1920s. Many tical disagreements and a con- test of ideas, especially that over connected with possibilities the methods and struggle to be need of building socialism in the Union', reconsidered in the light Soviet he refuses to •Stalin accept that was com- of the tragic events of his struggle pletely wrong in the 1930s'. with the opposition or that his Nevertheless, he seriously opponents were completely underestimates the importance right'. of the defeat of the Left The point is that only two Opposition, led by Leon Trot- alternatives presented. were sky. The interpretation he puts Stalin's policy and its con- forward, although more honest sequences, including his drive for personal power, has to be taken or rejected as a whole.

Bits of it cannot be picked out for praise and others for blame.

Only the Left Opposition carried on a consistent struggle against Stalin and his policies and put forward a line which was a continuation of Lenin's policy and offered the prospect disastrous of reversing his course. Medvedev's account of the inner-party struggle • of the behind 1920s, façade of impartiality, is basically hostile to Trotsky. He makes out that Trotsky had poorly- disguised ambition to lead the party' and that he was the first to come out with a plat- form of his own. In fact, Trotsky's behaviour during Lenin's last illness and after his death in 1924-1925 shows no evidence of a bid for personal power. Trotsky was, indeed, careful not to do any- which might give any thing substantiation to those of his enemies who were making such allegations. casting doubts on After intentions, Trotsky's Med- vedev gives a fair account of his earlier political career and shows that the adverse refer- ences to Trotsky in Lenin's pre-1917 writings, so assidu- ously collected and underlined by the Stalinists, not were intended to stick for all time.

In fact the differences between and Trotsky Lenin arose almost exclusively over the latter's attempts to conciliate different factions the Russian Social Democracy, he subsequently ad- which mitted to have been a mistake.

What Medvedev says about the earlier phases of Trotsky's are only remarkable career because the old distortions and suppressions still prevail in historical works published inside the soviet Union. It is not yet possible to show in its entirety the key role which Trotsky played in the organ- ization of the insurrection in October 1917, in the formation of the Red Army and the winning of the Civil War— during which time he enjoyed the full confidence of Lenin- Stalin's role was a and that comparatively minor one. To say that in these years Trotsky was starting his own again a personality cult is slander for which there is no substantiation. That he seemed to many to be the natural successor to Lenin arose from the actual position which he held in the party and in the sympathy of the masses as in the Communist well as International. Next to Lenin's, Trotsky's speeches and state- ments were the most authori- tative and he played an important part in shaping the key documents of the early years of the Comintern. As a theorist Trotsky was an authoritative and creative Contrary to Med- Marxist. vedev's view, the theory of the revolution permanent was a development of classic Marx- ism and not, as he makes out, a major error based on the 'underestimation of the revolu- potentiality of the tionary peasantry favourite and time- This honoured charge which the Stalinists made against Trotsky early days of the from the struggle might opposition's have been dealt with by Med- vedev in at least a more critical way. Presumably edu- cated in the Stalinist party schools and unable to consult all the relevant literature, he has allowed himself to take on trust the official propaganda.

He even gives it added weight because it is mixed in with valid criticisms of some Stalinism. Preserving the worker-peasant alliance When having Stalin, obtained control of the Party apparatus through his assump- tion of the organizational post of general secretary, made an alliance with Kamenev and Zinoviev and invented 'Trot- skyism', the 'underestimation of the peasantry became one of its main distinguishing marks. First of all, of course, no disagreement arose between Commissar for Trotsky (right) War, with Muralov, commander of Red Army Moscow garrison, dur- ing the Civil War. Lenin and Trotsky on the peasant question in the period During the 1917 to 1924. Civil War Trotsky repeatedly urged the need to preserve the worker-peasant alliance. Early in 1920 he put forward a pro- gramme which foreshadowed the New Economic Policy and included concessions to the peasantry. All the documents of the Left Opposition insist on the need to win over the middle as well as the poor peasants. Rumours of a difference of opinion between Trotsky and on the government's Lenin attitude towards the middle peasants had been circulated during : the Civil War. When the matter. was raised Lenin wrote: 'Comrade Trotsky says... that the rumours of disagree- ment between him and me are a monstrous and a despicable lie, propagated by the land- lords and capitalists and their conscious and unconscious servitors. I, upon my part, fully confirm this statement of comrade Trotsky. There are no him disagreements between and me, and in regard to the peasants, there are no middle disagreements not only be- tween Trotsky and me, but in general, in the Communist Party of which we are both members." What the Stalinists did was to pick up a rumour which had circulated by the been enemies of the Bolsheviks and turn it to account in their factional attack on Trotsky. It was, of course, combined with bitter hostility to the theory of permanent revolution with which Trotsky was identified.

Medvedev shrugs off this in theory phrase: It a resembled Marx's and Lenin's theories of uninterrupted revolution in name only? We are never informed what the difference was, if any. What is certain, however, is that in the autumn of 1924 Stalin enunciated a major revi- sion of Marxism, the theory of

'socialism in one country, which was henceforth to be the hallmark of Stalinism. A serious analysis of Stalinism must therefore begin with this 'theory' and its social basis.

Since Medvedev is not con- vinced that it is wrong, he is naturally unable to make head or tale of its antithesis: the theory of permanent revolu- tion. In declaring that it was pos- sible for socialism to be built in the Soviet Union without waiting for the spread of revolution to the more ad- countries, vanced capitalist Stalin broke decisively with the tradition of Marxist inter- nationalism. Attempts were by dragging isolated made, remarks out of context, to prove that Lenin had also sub- scribed to this theory. The attempt was, and remains, as bankrupt as it is dishonest.

After the success of the October Revolution, all the Bolsheviks, including. Stalin, believed that the defence of the revolution in Russia required its extension on an international scale. No one had foreseen • the consequences of Joseph Stalin the isolation of a workers' government in an under- developed and predominantly peasant country like Russia.

Only the size of the Soviet Union and its resources in raw materials made it possible even to conceive of such a thing as the victory of social- ism in an isolated country.

By 1924, when the theory was hatched, the isolation of the Soviet Union had become a fact. The revolutionary tide had everywhere receded and capitalism had entered upon a period of temporary stabiliza- tion; the defeat of the German October in 1923 was, in this respect, of decisive import- ance. On the other hand, the forces of counter-revolution had been unable to overthrow the workers' state, which had breathing thus acquired space after years of Civil War and upheaval. The adoption of the New Economic Policy in 1921, while necessary to preserve the basic gains of the Revolu- tion, had, nonetheless, been a rich retreat. It enabled peasant to engage in private and to accumulate trade capital. It permitted the rise of a new bourgeoisie carrying on various forms of trade and speculation. By 1924 some economic recovery had taken place, but the role of the Party and state apparatus had been greatly enhanced. The running down of indus- try had meanwhile reduced the social weight of the working class. Many of its advanced elements had been killed during the Civil War or had been drained off into the army or the state and Party appara- tus. The general penury which prevailed enhanced the dangers of bureaucratism, which began to eat into the Party itself. New layers of careerists and found their way into yes-men into public its ranks and offices. Many had never been Bolsheviks, but had come over from the Mensheviks or other parties. Trotsky had raised these dangers and put forward a policy to combat t articles which into a short book New Course'? upon the party ran unremittin against bureaucrati ing particularly of the party. He increased and goods could material basis for struggle which were strangle the revolut 'here can between contrast 'The New Course' 'socialism in one co consciously dangers and policy to reflected his very social forces strengtaening apparatus imself t making appealed dires and wanted a quiet life solidation of their i and prerogatives aft insecurity and hard Stalin built up r within the Party, side the ambitious had crossed who the Mensheviks and those sections of so had been strengthe New Economic ruling stratum within the state in a backwar It was an torical pnenomenon were no precedent Marxism, with analyse it. Stalin rose social this new parasitic caste, as I later to describe it that it was not a cl exeese a necess in a workers' state. To indersing therefore, follow a whole his which was n cess to the Soviet Union shaped was also tionship of world f first instance by th the revolution to s countines talism. The danger of counter- revolution Trotsky was took its up Due Cae did so under serio handicaps. participation active the October tion had appeared. put it in As he which he November which he was to writings?: later disillusion " no considerable oppressed immediate conque revolution nected with of the political activity of the re class engender confidence revolutionary among those the revolution tered completely among those revolution camp of reaction by development of the Referring more of the the rise Trotsky went on: The October Re a greater extent tha in astory, aroused hopes and popular masses of maximum 1917-1921, masses improved considerably. They improvement whic only reached the p collected were rt book called 'The Trotsky called party ranks to carry reaucratism, appeal- to tne youll ncreased output provide the asis for a successful these trends threatening Course' and Stalin's The in one country'. estimated the put forward them. Stalin those which were Party was mast the led directly to elements who quiet life and a con- of their new powers atives after years of and hardship his clientele Party, won his imbitious and those over from eviks and conciliated ons of society which strengthened by the Policy. The being laid for a new emerging from isolated workers' backward country. entirely new his- nomenon and there precedents, even which together with this layer, as Trotsky was scribe it to indicate s not a class nor did a necessary function ers' state. Stalinism. necessary hole historical pro- confined not iet Union, but which by the rela- £ world forces, , in the ace by the failure of tion to spread to the of advanced capi- was acutely aware the Left Opposition struggle against c degeneration. der serious objective whose masses, ticipation had made Revolution pos- er of counter-revolu- ut it in some notes jotted down 1926, and upon

WANNA M

isillusionment the section Illasses conquests and-directly th this the declin energy and f the revolutionar ender an influx among counter. classes - both by lose overinrown but not shat- well at a certain phase, thrown back into the action by the further ent or the revolution. directly to more tions which favoured of the bureaucracy, tober Revolution, to extent than any other aroused the greatest in the passions After sufferings the proletarian proved thei status oly. They cherish th which today has led the pre-war stan- dard. of living. This living experience is of incalculable significance to the masses, especially the older generation.

They have grown more cautious, more sceptical, less directly responsive to revolu- tionary slogans, less receptive to major generalizations. These moods which unfolded after the ordeals of the Civil War and after the successes of eco- nomic restoration, and which still remain undisrupted by new shifts of class forces - these moods constitute the basic political background of party life. These are the moods which bureaucratism — as an element of "law. and order" and "tranquillity"- banks on.

The attempt of the opposition to pose new questions before the party only was it difficult under these conditions for the younger generations to come forward to arrest the process, but it lacked experience and the necessary revolutionary temper. Simultaneously a shift took place in the party leader- and the bureaucracy began to appear as a distinct layer. Where then did it come from? Trotsky traces its origin to a parallel process whereby 'there has been an extreme growth in the role played in the Party and the state appara- tus by a special category of old Bolsheviks, who were mem- bers or worked actively in the Party during the 1905 period at the time of the first [i.e. Russian Revolution]; who then left the Party in the period of adapted themselves reaction, to the bourgeois regime and occupied a less more Or prominent position within it; who were defencists together with the entire bourgeois intelligentsia and together with the latter were propelled for- ward in the February revolu- tion (of which they did not dream at the beginning of the staunch war); who were opponents of the Leninist pro- gramme and of the October overturn; but who returned to Party after victory the was secured or after the stabiliza- tion of the new regime about the same time that the bour- geois intelligentsia stopped its sabotage. These elements, who more or less accommodated July 3 themselves the to i regime, can be, naturally, only elements conservative type. They are in general in stabilization, and favour of generally against every opposi- tion. The education of the party youth is largely in their hands. 'Such is the combination of in the circumstances which recent period of Party develop- has determined the ment change in the Party leadership and the shift of the Party to the right.' Trotsky goes on And to make a significant point which objective links up these developments with the rise of Stalin: 'The official adoption of the theory of "socialism in one country" signifies the theo- retical sanction of those shifts which have already taken place; and of the first open break with Marxist tradition.'

Trotsky made this dialectical analysis of the ebb and flow of the Russian Revolution not in Isaac the spirit of an Deutscher, to excuse inactivity, but to make possible the con- the scious intervention Marxist vanguard, in this case the Left Opposition. In poli- tical terms we can say without hesitation that Medvedev lines up not in the camp of Marxism, but in the camp of the revisionist Deutscher.

CONTINUED TOMORROW

'Reply to the peasant Gulou in 'Pravda' No. 35, February 15, 1919 — see Trotsky. L. 'The Stalin School of Falsification' (New York. 2nd ed. 1962) p.39.

New Park Publications. New edition now available 65p.

'See 'Fourth International, October 194l. Amid the flurry of ex-Home Maudling's former with property ana interests in shippin may go unnoticed. In the light of cu on the docks and i ing informative. chairman AS Industrial Holdings which ranks one of the to in prises received emolumen a yedi The other direct them merchant ban Hambro and Glen, once National Ports Col even better. Workers Press, Friday July 28, 1972 PAGE 9 flurry of interest in and £22,500; two were paid Secretary and £10,000; Reginald between £7,501 , former connections one was paid between £5,001 erty and finance, his and £7,500; paid one was n shipping and travel between £2,501 and £5,000; while five were paid up to ght of current events £2,500 each. cks and in shipbuild- The accounts show that the k at these may be total remuneration of directors and sundry benefits for execu- irman of Shipping tive services paid by subsidiary Holdings, a £19.5m companies amounted to £143,975, out of total direc- which by turnover tors' emoluments of £157,272 of the top 35 enter- Britain, Maudling (against £96,579 out of a total moluments of £3,000 of £108,980 in 1966). A glance at some of the er directors-among other interests of Maudling's chant banker Jocelyn ex-associates is also interest- Sir Alexander ing. Hambro, of Hambro's Bank, e a membr of the orts Council - did was also a director of Phoenix Assurance and Charter Con noluments of the solidated. Glen, one of the 'four wise men' who recom- lid director, exclud- contributions, mended, if not the butchery, to £36,216. The at least the disembowelling of UCS, was a director of British this director is not Insulated Callendar's Cables.

in the annual report And among the other direc- lysis of the emolu- tors was one I. T. Morrow, he 12 other directors chairman of north-east ship- Smith's ompany shows that, builders Dock, a former director of Rolls-Royce contribu- pension these received and a director of the container 27,501 and £30,000; and trailer firm Crane Frue- red between £20,001 hauf.

LEON TROTSKY:

Germany 1931/1932 Paperback £1.25-cloth £1.87} Where Is Britaln Going ? Paperback 37}p Revolution Betrayed Paperback 62tp-cloth £1.05 Problems of the Chinese Revolution Paperback £1.124-cloth £1.87% Permanent Revolution : Results and Prospects Paperback 75p In Defence of Marxism Paperback 75p Lessons of October Paperback 60p Postage 10p per book, 3p per pamphlet. Order from :

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PAGE 10 Workers Press, Friday July 28, 1972

THE

SEVERE blow that Reginald Maudling's resigna-

BY ALEX MITCHELL

tion was to the Tory Cabinet Maudling as the most able Tory is made clear in two edi- Harold statesman of our time. torials in leading capitalist Wilson has again and again made weeklies this week Maudling is it clear that the front-bencher whose only Tory These journals shed tears of intellect he respects.' remorse about Maudling's abrupt departure from the Home Ofice The 'Economist' is not as over- and deputy prime ministership flowing in its praise of Maudling's The business 'genius'. It reacts with most outspoken two ba City Press", the won- the weekly Maud- attacks on venomous and newspaper of the detractors seeks to ling's of defend his good name. The Lord don with its readership bankers and brokers. Cowdray-owned magazine says: 'Mr Reggie Maudling's departure The front-page article is head- from the government is a very Maudling lined: able most unhappy business. Tory ministers'. neither 'Mr Maudling is The article says: "The City is of accused nor suspected any and saddened by Regi- shocked either in connection. with Maudling's resignation. As nald the Mr John the Exchequer in bankrupt architect; Chancellor of That Pe has chosen else. the early 1960s Mr Maudling had anyone he has to can only of the City complete confidence mean that Mr Maudling has had of London he is the only and gutful of the denigration of his Chancellor. who under- post-war public men which is so much the workings of stood the intricate vogue in this It is world country. the money markets, cur- blow to British politics and liquidity problems."(!!)

shocking rency man of Mr Maudling's that maudling, the paper says, was well-balanced ersonallt! admired' 'very much lave been brought to this pass 'It is a dis- international traders. 'Economist's' view, the Heath's In the blow Mr to

ONLON

be blamed on whole aflair is to Cabinet to lose Maudling at the who simply 'communicators are very moment when all their eco- afraid that their middle age nomic policies are crashing be might show if they cease to Maudling around their ears. trendy'. So the magazine's argu- Cabinet has a first- alone in the ment goes, these communicators class understanding of the prob- 'will join progressive- any lems of managing the economy.

sounding bandwagon'. This tone reaches a adulatory of reason, the Ever the voice crescendo when the 'Economist' says: it is time Robert Carr, Maudling's suc- life, the Home Office, has now for everyone in public cessor at and journalism 'none of the political genius and politics to con- sider where the line should be which stamped intellect acute The daily papor that leads the fight agalnst the Torles. £20.28 for 12 months (312 issues) £10.14 for 6 months (156 Issues) £5.07 for 3 months (78 Issues) If you want to take Workers Press twice a week the rates are: £1.56 for 3 months (24 issues) £6.24 for 12 months (96 issues) Fill in the form below NOW and send to: 186a Clapham High St., Circulation Dept., Workers Press, London, SW4 7UG. I would like to take out a subscription to Workers Press.

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Name Address drawn between responsible criti- and irresponsible, even if cism unwitting, support to the grave- diggers of parliamentary democ- тасу' This is the clearest advocacy of censorship of information involving figures in public life.

The editorial emphasizes its call for censorship in the closing paragraph: 'This is not a time for parlia- ment to give in to the muck- rakers. ... Instead it is a time in all when responsible men parties should display the con- fidence, which they undoubtedly have, in their colleagues on their own and the opposite benches.

'A few MPs and rather more Pharisees in the press have con- trived to bring down a fine poli- tician. If their interest is genu- inely in the health of British politics there is no doubt where their duty now lies: it is in to giving open encouragement Reggie Maudling so that, how- ever long it takes to clear up the Poulson mess, he will want to return to his natural place on the Conservative front bench.'

be more difficult This may than the 'Economist' makes it Director of Public sound. The Prosecutions is at present con- trolling two investigations into two sets of companies with which Maudling was associated — the Poulson building and designing • fund empire and the ofishore activities of Jerome D. Hofiman.

Hoffman is now in prison in the US for two years on mortgage fraud charges. Until these inquiries are com- plete, Maudling says he is unable THE LEAD contamination at a Rio Tinto Zinc (RTZ) plant at Avonmouth, Bristol, was caused by inadequate preventive measures, mecha- nical failures and changes in management. But the government committee of inquiry set up in February workers' blood comes forward with little in the way of changing the situa- tion. The £14.5m smelter has the world's largest blast furnace for of lead the combined smelting has been zinc. The plant closed three times since begin- operations in December During the shut-downs maintenance and overhauls none of the workers or staff were laid off. The company spent £540,000 on maintenance in 1969, £570,000 in 1971 and £590,000 during this year's shutdown. THE CURRENT edi- departmen tion of the 'Law by giving Society Gazette' calls to the inh of entrus for curbs on private companies police forces. that shou The paper says: under the "There is no doubt that of a bod there is a legitimate responsibil function for the grow- actions.' ing band of security firms, but the time has the Rides Aga come to define torial poi boundaries of that legiti- are now I macy. "The Home Office and security or Britain. B other government slap bid taik

MAUDLING MOST ABLE

OF TORY MINISTERS

Heath and The shocked and Reginald f the problems managing addened hi Maud He is Chan. AS ac vo of both indicative econo- Exchequer in the cenor or Int early contend nels Maudling astronomic inflam- hancolor whi Development atory obert understood the intricate work.

ine mone: markets, world currency problems. expansior no the luring the dying days administration in spite this very ot nad trade neures inter- admired much national traders to lose Maudling all moment wher policies Their bencher ears. whose intellect he respects.

Maudling alone in the Cabinet The Economist Mr Reggie Maudling's departure from the Government cease to appear trer Mr Maudling is neither happened, and it is a very unhappy business.

arcused nor suspected of any crime, either in connection life, politics and jo should with the bankrupt architect, Mr John Poulson, or anyone drawn be irresponsible, even if else. As, however, Mr Poulson's other activities are now bject of investisation by the metropali lamenta digs 'Clty Press' and the 'Economist' praise Maudling as the most able man (from a business point of view) in Heath's Cabinet cannot resume his Cabi- public office and tion he to return to proposed that these post until this one suggestion IS will action is either heard or with- investigations take many months-if not years—to drawn. As such actions take upwards plete. of a year to be heard, could factor. it There is also a new week Maudling said he pro- be before Maudling Last some time resurfaces in public life.

posed taking legal 'Sunday for IN- In at the rate the the an any case, SIGHT article on his association working class is moving today there may be no Tory govern- with Hoffman's fund. By strict parliamentary tradi- ment to rejoin! only "reasonably confident' is that lead-in-air concentrations

BY PHILIP WADE

can be cut back sufficiently.

far the As committee Sir headed Brian Windeyer, The final closure came because by Uni- vice-chancellor of London the lead level in workers' blood versity- reaching a dangerousiy-high tions, they are intment of 'urgent level. research', The main recommendation of officer for industrial hygiene and the committee of inquiry is of air in all dusty more education of workers.

the monitoring of the plant to be intensi- areas Yet when visited reporters fied. number the of work- Kurt the this week they plant ers suffering from lead poisoning eye shields and pro- respirators, 'disquieting', it finds. was only they tective helmets when were And this in a situation shown round.

AMRATO

the lead-in-air levels in the Mr David Morgan, managing smelter have been above the at Avonmouth, claimed director accepted limit for four years. improvements' 'very substantial The report makes it clear, how- had been made during the two- be that workers ever, alre month shutdown. the plant, expected to return to lead of the improve- pending research into 'The effects ments have enabled us work exposure levels. Those with a blood- a much more accepted integrated workers of over 80 operation, aspects including all level micrograms per 100 millilitres of blood should go of hygiene requirements, he told Only back under supervision. reporters. RTZ has done is those with a level 120 One thing of over all the farm land in micrograms should be taken off to buy up the immediate 'safe- direct lead work. vicinity to guard the public'. report finds that RTZ Yet the police under departments might start they could muster more politan Metro- various thought men than the investigation on politan police force. criminal charges. inherent dangers it point outside Neither does entrusting "Without questioning though probably with out the integrity of the pri- compiled before Regi- should rightly be it is firms, vate security nald Maudling's resigna- under the direct control that they obvious can- the with direct tion that latest body that their not guarantee Home Secretary, Robert responsibility for its observe the same men Carr, was also direc- high standards those as of Securicor before regular police of the Entitled •Pinkerton Heath gov- joining the forces.' Again?' the edi- ernment. The 'Gazette' does not there points • See page 4 Saturday: 70 point out, however, that than noW there some- •Pinkerton: the anti- security organizations in now Metro- private eye. Between thing like 50 union

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FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT

THE NATIONAL Union of Seamen, suspended by he TUC for seeking a closed shop arrangement fron the National Industrial Relations Court, yesterday hac its application approved by the Commission on Indus- trial Relations. The NUS was one of the first unions to openly defy

TUC

policy of non-recogni- tion of the NIRC and non-co- operation with the Industrial Relations Act. The application for a closed shop made jointly by the was NUS and the British Shipping Federation. CIR approval of the union's was based the application on view that the 'social discipline' required to contain the tensions THE No. 2 North Paddington which arose aboard ships would branch Union not be improved if membership struction and Allied Trades and or non-membership of a Technicians has passed the union became a 'focus for dissent'.

following motion: More important, would it "This union branch calls on the 'prevent the frustration of any EC of

UCATT

campaign to agreement made between the Councils Action set up Shipping Federation and the local The of areas. purpose

NUS

these Councils would be to unite The CIR said: 'In their work- all local working-class organiz- ing aboard ship, lives seamen all trade union branches ations, have to measure accept a of all political parties, the area, and must be ready at Labour, Communist Party,

SLL,

autnority all time to co-operate promptly IS and IMG, tenants' associations, in action needed for the efficient and co-ops unemployed com- running and safety of the vessel.

mittees in a struggle to defend 'In the circumstances these the the interests working could reasonably purposes not class by: be expected fulfilled by to he recall the *1. Campaigning means of an agency shop agree- TUC to make it fight the Tory ment. government. A ship is only a microcosm of 2. To campaign, prepare and be society and the obiect of the instrumental in leading a General closed shop under the Act is Strike defeat Tory to the plainly bind employers and to government. bureaucrats together to '3. To campaign for the return of administer that 'social discipline' i. abour gove sociatiand encies which ..might .. otherwise be socialist policies.' absent. Julian Holloway-son of Stanley-plays Guy Western in Jimmy Stewart. medians. 7.00 In for

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PROBLENS

BRITISH

REVOLUTION

By Leon Tintsky *K A salient work of Trotsky treating with his struggle against the rising Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union. Written in the aftermath of the civil war and in the period of the New Economic Policy when, despite all the conservative pressures generated within the Soviet Union, there still seemed every chance of curbing and overcoming this bureau- cracy. This book makes a bridge between Lenin's deathbed struggles against Stalinism and the later found- ing of the Joint Left Opposition.

108 pp price 65p (postage extra) Avallable from 186a, Clapham High Streal, London SV Workers Press, Friday July 28, 1972 PAGE 11 estern in "The Man From Haven' on ITV tonight at 9 p.m.

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64 Pp price 35p (postage extra)

BY LEON TROTSKY

, 7UG and the mbacks Contro (800 p. J).

Dockers hostile PAGE 12 Workers Press, Friday July 28,

BY STEPHEN JOHNS

DOCKERS massed 1,000-stro the Jones Aldington report on mous. The men were bitterly that the Transport and Genera back the five jailed dockers.

Wild cheering broke out when three of them, Vic Turner, Bernie Steer and Tony Merrick, appeared in the crowd. The heroes' welcome they got in sharp • contrast to the was reception for union leader Jack Jones. He was collared by Merseyside portworkers who had come down 450-strong on a special train to London. said a rattled Jones, 'why don't you vote me out.' One docker dryly replied: 'How.

can we, you're in for life.'

Walter Cunningham, chairman of the shop stewards, Hull docks, commented: 'We are very pleased with the decision to free the men. It the National Industrial makes Relations Court look farcical.

'Speaking for the Hull shop stewards, there is nothing in this report. It's the old story of more severance pay to run down the industry.' Roy Garmston, deputy chair- man, Hull shop stewards, said: 'The TUC made up a calypso Industrial about the Relations Bill. This is about their level of protest. If they are in favour of the Act, why don't they come out and say so. At least the shop stewards are honest. 'We came out in total opposition to the court and the law against great odds. But the working class rallied Terry Geraghty, Hull shop and Labour councillor, steward told me: 'The TUC's one-day strike was a move to stop the development of a General Strike. This latest move in the House of Lords trade union means that every register or face will have to confiscation of its whole funds.

It's just as we warned in the struggle. The beginning of the Tory government is still out to smash the trade union movement.

'The report means nothing to us. In Hull, Ellerman Wilson and Humphrey Brown say they want to return 300 men each to the register. unattached temporary How are these men going to be absorbed? It will be us that will pay for this by lower wages and work-sharing' Jimmy Nolan, Liverpool shop steward and member of the port modernization committee, said: 'This claim that the TUR will be abolished is a big con trick.

What they really want to do is to get rid of so many men with more severance pay so that the TUR will not be necessary?

Tames Stenhouse, another Liverpool steward, said: 'As long as this union goes on accepting modernization on the bosses' terms we will suffer. against Nobody is technical change, but it must benefit the workers. I'm against this report because it does not do that.'

Tony Lazzam (23), a London port worker at the West India docks, commented: 'This report is useless. It severance, which offers £4,000 sounds like a lot of money. But it is only two year's pay. What 55 who happens to men over take it? They will not be able to get another job with the high rate of unemployment.' His friend, Pete Marshall, also of the West India, said: y Jul 28, 1972 000-strong outside Transport House port on the ports be thrown out. Th itterly critical of the report's recom General Workers' Union did not c

* GROUP OF DOCKS

SHOP STEWARDS

COMMITTEE

ISE

YE XORKERS

'I'm against this report, because central it does not tackle the problem, the rundown in the dock industry. 'Look what's happening in the wharves along the river. They're pulling them down and putting up hotels for all the smooths and kicking out the working people.

'We-started on the docks at 16 for about f4 a week and it took us years to get up to £10 or £ll a week. It was just slave labour, but this was the only way we could get into the dock industry and we're not going to let this report take that away from us.'

Bernie Whitwell, from Tilbury, said: 'Jack Jones should have stopped the country until these five men were let out. The Tories are like containers: should be they stuffed and stripped. "blue' union, John Murphy, Royal group, London; told me: "This report is merely a sop.

idea of opposed to the I'm severance. It just devalues our jobs. The TUC was just trying to retain some form of credibility when it called a one-day strike.

2,000

SOUTHAMPTON'S

dockers stayed on strike yes- and will meet this terday morning to decide on future action. They will hear a report from yesterday's dock dele- Loredon. conference held in Although the dockers main- tained their strike yesterday, the rest of the port got back to normal working. Those who returned to work included 2,000 shipyard at Vosper Thorny- workers croft, 450 NUR men who work on the docks, 900 members of the T&GWU No. 57 branch gangs, shore comprising tug gangs and dredging crews.

t House yesterday demanding out. The consensus was unani- s recommendations and angry d not call an official strike to

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isolate the militants from those workers coming into action for the first time. Many trade unionists are already asking the question that if five dockers can go to jail for their principled opposition to the NIRC, then shouldn't Jack Jones take the same course of action rather than pay the fine.

The TUC and the right-wing Labour leaders are now caught in the middle of the road between the Tories and their own rank and file. Every retreat which they make is a signal to the Tories to step up the offensive. Wilson and Feather will ruthlessly oppose every effort made to build the mass movement to make the Tory government resign. The rank-and-file trade union- ist and Labour Party member has no alternative but mercilessly to expose them and fight for their removal from leadership. The working class is ready to fight, but so long as the TUC and Labour leaders go on hob- nobbing with Heath, its hands are virtually tied behind its back.

The lessons are unmistakable.

Heath and the Tory government are completing the final arrange- ments for a brutal and ruthless repression against trade the unions. They are the apostles of violence. There can be no compromise.

Either the Tory government is made to resign and a Labour government elected pledged to socialist policies or the Tories are hell-bent upon inflicting a most serious defeat on the work- ing class.

JUBILANT

dockers and unionists other trade were warned at the victory rally at Tower Hill, London, yes- terday afternoon that they should not get carried away with the defeat inflicted on the Tory government. Paddy Doherty, a dock shop steward from Liverpool, unionists for thanked trade the help they had given in fighting for the release of the five jailed men, but there was 'a long hard struggle ahead.

London Royal Docks shop steward Colin Rees described the victory which had been Dockers march past Westminster t The Socialist Labour League has been the only organization in Britain to warn consistently about the treacherous role of the Tory government. We have called working continuously for the class to make it resign. Every single reader and sympathizer can now see how right we were. The thing is not to remain on the sidelines, but join the Socialist Labour League at once and help us build the revolutionary leadership necessary class to take the working to power.

LATE NEWS

THE biggest single reinforce- ment of British troops in Ulster - 4,000 men - is now being undertaken a Defence Ministry spokesman said yesterday.

The spokesman added: 'Following Bloody Friday, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland said nobody could be in any doubt that very resolute and determined action must be taken against those responsible. The extra units are required to enable this policy to be carried out.'

BRITISH Railways Board expected a deficit of £40m in 1972 and a comparable sum in for Transport 1973, Minister Industries Mr John Peyton told the Commons yesterday. British Rail proposed an overall fares increase of 5 per cent, averaging about 74 per cent passengers and 24 per cent for freight.

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'unparalleled'. gained If conducted trade unionists themselves in the same way that they had over the last week, he said, the dockers would win back the work which had been taken from them. In a brief comment after • Merrick, the meeting Tony one of the Pentonville Five, said that severance pay offered by the Jones-Aldington report had never been the answer to the problem of unemploy- ment. 'It is the solidarity of worker with worker that is important, he said. stminster to a Tower Hill rally NEWSPAPER Publishers' Associ- ation said last night that both evening papers had London published and were going on the A said spokesman streets. morning papers would be pub- lished in both London and Man- chester today. This follows a lengthy meeting between repre- sentatives of the print unions and the NPA. The Association spokesman said he had no im- mediate details of any agreement.

WEATHER

Northern WESTERN Scotland, Ireland and Wales will be cloudy with rain at times. Mist and fog patches in parts of central and eastern Scotland and nothern England will soon clear followed by a dry day with sunny intervals. The Midlands, central southern and south east England will be cloudy, but sunny intervals will develop except perhaps in the south east where some light showers are likely. The far north of Scotland and south west England will be dry with periods of sunshine.

Temperatures mostly near normal, but it will be rather cool in the south east and warm in the south west of England.

Outlook for Saturday and Sun- day: Becoming less settled with or rain. Tem- some showers peratures near normal. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Ofice. Published by Workers Press, 186a Clapham High Street, London,

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Printed by Plough Press Ltd. (TU).

180b Clapham High Street, London,

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