THE PETER BRENNAN STORY

President Nixon has nominated Peter Brennan as his new Labour Secretary. Brennan (54) is president of the New York City. and New York State Building and Construction Trades Councils.

Described in the "New York Times' as 'well-dressed, well-fed and well-mannered', Brennan is an active churchgoer and a Boy Scout organizer in his spare time. He is also a vice-president and director of the Police Athletic League of New York.

He is an extreme anticommunist who organized his 'hard-hat' union members to beat up anti-war demonstrators in New York two years ago. His friendship with President Nixon dates from this time.

Nixon considered Brennan's public demonstration of support for the Vietnam war was reassuring and 'very meaningful'. He invited the labour leader to the White House, where Brennan presented him with a hard hat and an American flag lapel pin.

Though a Democrat, Brennan was one of the few trade union chiefs to give uncritical support to Nixon for the presidency. The majority of unions in the AFL-CIO led by George Meany supported ne cher McGovern nor Nixon.

The White House has confirmed that Brennan's appointment was cleared beforehand with Meany and with Teamsters' leader Frank Fitzsimmons, who endorsed Nixon's bid for re-election.

Meany issued a statement of confidence that Brennan would be a 'very fine Secretary of Labour' while Fitzsimmons declared the nomination was "further proof' of the President's intention to make labour 'an important part of his second administration'. In a telegram to Brennan, Frank Bonadio, president of the AFL-CIO's Building and Construction Trades Department, and Robert Georgine, stotal co-operation, and praised pledged Nixon for 'good judgement'.

They were not the only people to welcome Brennan's appointment. Extreme rightwing Republican James L. Buckley, whose successful Senate campaign was supported by Brennan, said: 'Hard-hatism is what America needs at the moment.' Not all sections of the trade unions are in favour of Brennan or his new job, however. One anonymous officer of an industrial union was quoted as saying that the nomination was 'a beautiful pay-off to one of the worst elements in the labour movement.

And Joseph Beirne, leader of the Communications Workers of America, added a note of warning to his congratulations on Brennan's appointment. He said that Martin Durkin, a former plumbers' union chief who held the Labour Secretary's job under Eisenhower, had shown that it was 'difficult for a labour leader to live up to his trade union principles when required by an administration to perform acts which are highly detrimental' to American Other critics concentrated on Brennan's abysmal record of opposition to the recruitment of black construction workers. Joseph Rauh, of Americans for Democratic Action, said the new Labour Secretary was 'clearly represęntative of those elements within the labour movement who have opposed all efforts to ensure minorities their rights to jobs'.

Herbert Hill of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, was even more outspoken. He issued a bitter statement that said, in part: "This appointment is one more in a long series of political pay-offs to the enemies of the black population. For more than a quarter of a century Peter Brennan has zealously protected a n d defended the racist practices of the building trades unions?

Other critics quoted Brennan's remarks at a conference on minority opportunities in to Nixon's attention as the organizer of 'hard-hat' building workers w ho broke up student demonstrations against the Vietnam war (above left). Leading Republicans like Wilhur Mille tank tn wearinn RIRIDDA DI MAnI CElIIAR INPRIAS huildorc' halmate and ann. vuluci• cucts anu cursorting with construction workers (below right). Brennan's appointment as secretary of Labour was welcomed by Meany, leader of the AFL-CIO, seen (above) with Nixon. 1963 where he announced: 'We won't stand for blackmail. We had that from the communists and the gangsters in the 1930s.? This man is described by Ronald Ziegler, Nixon's Press secretary, as an example of 'the best character and strength of America's working men and women'. The Nixon administration clearly hopes to make use of Brennan in order to bring the union leaders closer to the state.

Brennan claims he will be a friend of organized labour in the administration and said he 1LСEHUО LU LAUL union people into the Labour Department. There they will have the job of selling Nixon's plans for anti-strike laws, wage controls and attacks on The fact that his appointment has been endorsed by Meany Fitzsimmone and other union chiefs indicates a nower. ful swing towards corporatism in the top circles of the US union leadership.

They are responding to the requirements of big business as Nixon gears up for a second term of struggle with the working class. He has already promised even tougher wage controls when the third phase of his wage policy comes in in April.

Many big contracts come up for negotiation next year and fierce strike battles are anticipated. Ironically, some of Brennan's own 600,000 members in New York City and the surrounding state are now on strike The strike began on July 1 and is still going on. Brennan said long strikes did not help anybody and 'we should do al' we can' to avoid them.

Following the articles Renegades from Trotskyism' dealing with the situation in Ceylon, JACK GALE now goes on to examine the British section of the revisionist Unified Secretariat of the Fourth InterMandel, one of the eight member the Secretariat who d fended the IMG leadership.

Monday national, The International An unprincipled cover-up How do Mandel, Maitan, Frank and Hansen deal with the virtual civil war within the Unified Secretariat? By conducting an honest political discussion in which tendencies come out into the open? That would be the method of Bolshevism even if the result were to be a split.

But it is not the method of the revisionist gentlemen. On the contrary, they seek to do a little organizational "cleanup' job while studiously avoiding all the political questions.

The Fact-Finding Commission' into the International Marxist Group (IMG) in Britain was specifically instructed in November 1971 to find the 'facts' and ignore the politics. As if, for a Marxist, 'facts' could exist as things in themselves, apart from their political setting.

Yet the Commission members say: 'We were asked very explicitly not to enter into the political differences between the IMG majority and the tendency [minority] and we did not do so! (Page 3)' The reason for this is obvious. To deal with the politics would have split not only the IMG, but the Unified Secretariat as well. As it was, two separate statements were issued by members of the Secretariat following the Commission's report. One- -signed by eight members of the Secretariat (including Mandel Frank, and Maitan)-defends the IMG leadership. (Page 7.)

It declares:

2. Most of the considerations included in the FactFinding Commission's report start from the assumption that the main responsibility for upholding the principles of democratic centralism inside a Leninist organization lies with the leadership. There can be no dispute about this. But it cannot be applied in a mechanical way, without taking into consideration concrete circumstances.

To put the blame for all the organizational incidents on the majority in a one-sided manner, judging not on the basis of a concrete examination of the mechanics and background of each incident, but rather on the basis the general abstract rule that on principle the main responsibility lies with the majority, does not permit an understanding of the real internal process inside the IMG.

There is no doubt that the IMG leadership has made many mistakes in regard to the minority and that most of the sanctions taken di c indefensible. But there is also no doubt that minority comrades have behaved in a provocative way in several instances.

When leadership Marxist Group (IMG). minority states that it would not recognize suspensions decided by the majority, such a statement clearly challenges the right of the leadership to lead the organization. When a leader of the minority takes the initiative of setting up a political book service without the previous agreement of the party leadership, this again indicates a very clear attitude towards this leadership.

Under these circumstances the question whether the formal rules were or were not broken can at the very least not be the only one posed. One can easily acknowledge that the minority has operated more capably within these rules. Whether they respected the general principle of majority rule and abstained from any provocation towards a young and still partally ımmature leadership-that is an entirely different matter.

Minority alleges 'bureaucatic arrogance' But five members of the Secretariat would not go along with this. And they would certainly have the support of Hansen. In a separate statement they declare: (Pages 8-9.)

Our statement is intended merely to indicate where we disagree with • the criticisms levelled against the report of the Fact-Finding Commission by Walter, Pierre, Livio, Petersen, Kurt, Delfin, Pia and Ghulam.

One side consisted of minority seeking through political argument to gain a majority to its views. The other side consisted of a majority that represented more than a grouping inside the IMG; it held responsibility for leadership in the organization as a whole, and in this position it held the power to impose organizational measures besides arguing for its group views.

As the leadership of the IMG, the majority held a special responsibility to safeguard the democratic rights of minority. The majority leadership did not safeguard the democratic rights of the minority. It imposed organizational measures. Moreover, these measures constituted gross violations of the norms of democratic centralism.

sion cited Firee fagrammisstances, and presented major pieces of evidence concerning them. The Commission thus came to its conclusions not because of a 'general abstract rule that on principle the main responsibility lies with the majority'. It based its conclusions on a series of specific instances all involving concrete violations of the norms of democratic centralism which the majority was duty bound to uphold.

3. In their statement, Walter, Pierre, Livio, Petersen, Kurt, Delfin, Pia and Ghulam seek to excuse the abuses committed by the majority leadership of the IMG on IMG young organization', 'young and still immature leadership, that an imhas been that an important part of the IMG majority is well Trotskyist for long time.

ODDUSC the the norms ism. In fact evidence gathered by Commission shows sector was violation of norms of 4. The criticism levelled by Walter, Pierre, Livio, Petersen, Kurt, Delfin, and Ghulam that although two members expressed views on the question, the Fact-Finding Commission as a whole did not investigate or indicate the political background to the sanctions' taken against the minority. However, such matters were beyond the scope of inquiry set for the Commission, as indicated above.

A much more important area of inquiry - if the Commission's work were to have been expanded - would have been determination of the character of the organizational measures employed against the minority and the meaning of this for the Fourth International.

On the face of it, it is absolutely clear that the actions taken against the minority were alien to the norms and traditions of the Trotskyist movement. In what category, then, do they fall?

One of the members of the Commission, Comrade Diego who has had some 40. years experience in the Trotskyist movement, put it down as a mixture.of irresponsibility, incompetence and just plain bureaucratic arrogance'. In the procedures followed in the Scottish cases, he was struck by their resemblance to 'the kind of small-time bureaucratic fakery well-known in the labour movement the world over'.

Indeed, to what school belong such practices as demanding that comrades sign a public statement containing what they consider to be falsehoods, as entrapping members of a minority (Scottish cases), as removing the leadership of a branch solely because it was won over to a minority position, as censuring members for the way they voted at a National IMG Conference, as censuring members without filing charges against them or giving them a hearing, as engaging in acts of physical provocation?

We do not believe that the leaders of the IMG majority consciously borrowed from the school of Stalinism. We think that they did not grasp the meaning of what they were doing. Nevertheless a most disturbing question remains. How is it to be explained that the majority leadership in a Trotskyist organization fell into such a pattern?

And how could Walter, Pierre, Livio, Petersen, Kurt, Delfin, Pia, and Ghulam reach a position of trying to rationalize mistakes of such magnitude on grounds of the inexperience, immaturity, and lack of capacity of the majority leadership, and—still worseon grounds that 'minority comrades have behaved in a provocative way • in several instances'? Are the victims to be blamed for violations of their rights because they "provoked' the authorities?

Yes, some very big questions are raised by a careful reading of the evidence assembled by the Fact-Finding Commission. However, they are not of the nature suggested by the statement of Walter, Pierre, Livio, Petersen, Kurt, Delfin, Pia and Ghulam.

The Secretariat unmasked What we have here is not only a split between totally irreconcilable positions within the IMG-but an 8-5 split in the Secretariat itself.

But what do these highlyprincipled gentlemen do about it? They seek to gloss it over. As in Ceylon, unpleasant facts are swept under the carpet, political principles ignored and all hands turned to the well-known routine - finding an organizational formula which will allow everything to proceed as before.

Accordingly, the Unified Secretariat combined to send a unanimous letter to the IMG which totally ignored the political questions and principles involved. After exposing mess of right-wing political developments inside their section-—which was dealt with not politically but by manoeuvre and evasion - the revisionist leaders simply apto work peal to all concerned together and avoid political conflict. (Page 4.)

We publish this letter. Rarely can such an unprincipled document ha ve been issued by an inte rational leadership claiming to be Trotskyist to one of its sections:

To the Interna tional Marxist Group.

Dear Comrades, While we have differing evaluations on the attribution of responsibility reached by the Fact-Finding Commission (see our separate statements attached to the report p.7), we unanimously urge you to implement the following recommendations: 1) that all the charges laid and disciplinary actions taken against tendency comrades, including suspensions and censures, be rescinded. This includes, among others, the censure of Comrade A.H., the charges and actions taken against Comrade A., and the charges and actions taken against the Nottingham minority women comrades. 2) That the IMG leadership make every effort to aid the integration of tendency members into meaningful political activity - especially defence work, the expansion of British circulation of 'Intercontinental Press, and the abortioncontraception campaign where their specific opinion cannot come into conflict with efficient and enthusiastic engagement. would help assure a fraternal atmosphere inside the organization which all minority political contributions are treated as the completely normal exercise of membership rights under the norms of democratic centralism. 3) That the majority assure the tendency that the rules on recruitment of new members be uniformly applied and that the basic organizational units of the IMG be composed in such a way as not to isolate minority comrades within the 4) That within this framework of democratic rights, the IMG minority sincerely respects and applies. party discipline and recognizes the right of elected leadership to lead the organization in day-to-day activity, and that it participates in public IMG activities even though there are many with which it disagrees.

The implementation of these recommendations is in the interest of the development of democracy and political clarity and is in the interest of both the IMG as a whole and the Fourth International.

We urge the leaders of the world movement to collaborate in this effort.

The Unified Secretariat April 16, 1972 TOMORROW: THE SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY AND IMG. ' All page references throughout these articles are to the 'Report of the Fact-Finding Commission of the Unified Secretariat on the Internal Situation within the International Marxist Group' dated March 12, 1972.

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