Behind the Tory

INDUSTRIAL THE PROPAGANDA onslaught against the gasmen, whose official industrial action started at midnight, continued in the capitalist Press and elsewhere yesterday.

The 'Sun' newspaper switched to men' theme following its 'Gasmen's the previous day. And another middle-class group, the National Protection Council, joined the attack.

'We are extremely concerned, said the NCPC, 'that the gasmen seem to be knowingly putting consumers' lives at risk and we ask them consider whether any situation justifies a risk to life.' The campaign of intimidation against the gasworkers, who are launching a campaign of selective strikes, works-to-rule, and overtime bans, is in the tradition of propaganda stunts against men on strike. The purpose is to stampede the middle class into all-out support of the government and the authorities.

'The Times' editorial yesterday revealed exactly why this is now more than ever necessary. The capitalist class and the working class are heading for a revolutionary confrontation. It is essential for the governnent to have protessional people and the middle class ehind them if they are to deal a decisive defeat to the working class in this challenge to the rule of capitalism.

The Tories' need is to drive those sections of workers which go on strike against their pay laws back to work without any concessions. The government must break the growing strike movement at all costs.

Minister for Industry Mr Tom Boardman made clear the government's determination not to have the drive to reduce Britain's labour costs held up as it was by last year's miners' strike. There will be no repetition of the Wilberforce court inquiry which got the government off the hook after its wage restraint policy had been defeated by the miners.

The government must defeat this wages movement or it will not survive the sharpening competition in the capitalist world markets.

The government is now fully geared up to use every tactic against the strike movement— emergency powers, court fines, imprisonment, police intimidation and a massive propaganda offensive.

Boardman's touching concern for the suffering of old people during the gas dispute was part of this campaign, as was his statement entin was bound once at explosions was bound to increase With some satisfaction, Boardman commended the Press and the media for getting across the message of danger.

This campaign recalls sickening efforts of Soviet Minister off to Spain THE FRANCO government has revealed that for the first time in history a Soviet Minister will visit Spain.

This weekend, Alexander Ishkove, Soviet Minister for Fishing , will inspect the Soviet fishing fleet base in Puerto de la Luz, Canary Islands.

The Soviet delegation will then fly to Madrid where Ishkove will have talks with the under-secretary of the Merchant Navy, Admiral Boado, and the head of the Spanish fishing industry, Fernando Marsillach.

This new measure of Moscow support for the Franco regime is consistent with the establishment of political relations between Madrid and the East German government..

a 'Gas wild roulette' of do-gooding Consumer years ago to incite their readers against the electricity power station workers with horror stories of hospital patients in peril because of power cuts which stopped heart machines and the like.

The same attempts at intimidation were made during last year's pit strike. But the authorities got a big surprise on this occasion. Popular sentiment was Left victory would mean a clash with Pompidou ELECTION of a left in the French Assembly is now alr tain to precipitate constitutional and crisis.

Regardless of the result, President Pompidou has made it clear he will not call on a premier from the Union of the Left, even if this coalition of Communist, Socialist and Radical Parties wins a majority in the March election.

It is a conscious blow against the Spanish workand students' opposition to the fascist police state.

While the Soviet Minister gets a Canary Islands sun tan,. first-year philosophy student, Maria Luisa Trenas Fargas will stay in a Barcelona hospital with a fractured pelvis and serious brain damage.

She was run down by a police jeep during clashes on Monday between riot police and 1,000 students on an illegal demonstration against the closure of the university faculties.

The Moscow-Madrid collaboration is deepening the crisis within the Spanish Communist _Party whose members suffer the full impact of fascist repression.

The leadership under secretary Santiago Carrillo had already accepted the majority National lost cera major political BY The chairman of the Gas Corporation, chairman, Dennis Rookes at yesterday's JUAN GARCIA Soviet trade pact with Spain as a question of political 'realism'.

But the latest issue of 'Mun do Obrero', the Party's fortnightly paper, carries a page-long Executive Committee statement condemning East Germany's diplomatic moves.

The EC recalls: • Thousands of German communists died fighting the fascists as part of the Thaelmann battalion in the International Brigades. • Franco received full support from Hitler. 'After the defeat, Franco sent the Blue Division in the belligerent Nazi-fascist aggression against the Soviet Union' • 'We Spanish revolutionaries have had to rebuild our forces in conditions of unrivalled terror. This Hitlerite basis of the power of Arthur Press with the miners all the way.

One of the reasons for this was the decisiveness of the miners' actions, swarming round the country in specially hired transport and marching 500 strong into completely new territory to stop power stations from working.

The middle class, which suffers just as much from the disintegration of the capitalist system as does the working class, will EDITO Under the 1958 constitution which established the Fifth Republic, he is well within his rights. This constitution is thoroughly Bonapartist and allows the President to act as supreme arbiter of the national interest.

The Union of the Left is committed to a very moderate programme of reforms (the Common i Programme) including the nationalization of 1 per cent of French industry, retirement at Franco is not just a tion of past history.' The statement points out how the East Germans did not even inform or consult Carrillo about their decision.

Also, the success of fascist Foreign Minister Lopez Bravo's policy of opening up to the east strengthens the Franco regime 'while Carrero Blanco and his clique intensify repression, using methods from the blackest period of fascism'.

This unprecedented attack from the Carrillo leadership reflects increased rank-and-file anger.

At the same time, it strives to cover up the real reasons for the betrayal by claiming that it is the 'wrong application of the policy of peaceful co-existence'.

Proper peaceful co-existence should be orientated Hetherington (left) conference. take a lead from the trade unions, provided their actions are determined and comprehensive enough.

This is where I David Basnett and John Edmonds, the G&MWU leaders, are showing alarming weakness. With their members now out in front and in an exposed position, these leaders are spending 100 per cent of their time making nice with Boardman and the liberal do60 and wage.

Both the Socialist and the Stalinist leaders are laying heavy stress on their adherence to the constitution and the peaceful, parliamentary character. of their ambitions.

Faced with a ruling class blatantly preparing for civil war in the event of a left victory the Popular Front chiefs are appealing to Pompidou's sense of fair to the 'democratic' states in the Common Market.

The Carrillo leadership refuses to speak about its civil war role. It linked with the international Stalinist attack on the Trotskyist movement as 'agents of fascism'.

The murder of Andres Nin and other POUMists who had had relations with Trotsky were the fruit of Stalin's desire for an alliance with 'democratic' imperialism.

It is the privileged bureaucratic caste in the Soviet Union which now, together with, its eastern European satellites, seeks to join with Franco and capital throughout Europe against the working class. The British 'Morning Star' continues to maintain its silence on the plot against Spanish workers and the destruction of the Spanish CP as part of peaceful co-existence today. play and to his respect people's sovereignty.

CP leader Georges Mai chais has said: 'We are opposed to a President of the Republic decides everything, on his own and for everybody.

'But that does not mean that we will reduce the President's role to the opening of flower shows.' In Marchais' TV debate with the Gaullist leader Michel Debré on Monday, he said: "The people have the right to decide in March for a new policy. They were tricked in 1969. Promises were made which were not kept.

"The French people who were betrayed in 1969, who have watched prices rise and unemployment spread have the right to say: this must change?

But it was the Stalinists above all who played the crucial part in bringing this about. They diverted the working class behind the 1969 presidential election and ensured the continuation of the Bonapartist regime.

The CP-Socialist alliance does not intend fighting French capitalism or defeating Gaullism.

The leaders of this new-style Popular Front have made clear repeatedly they will try to restrain the working class and prevent them going beyond the bounds of the Common Programme.

However, it is precisely the fear of the independent strength of the working class that lies behind Pompidou's declaration.

He said • in his recent TV broadcast:

'May 1968s [General Strike] are never averted for ever, no matter what people think.' Pompidou is deliberately raising the red bogey to frighten the middle class. But behind the stock anti-communist rhetoric is the preparation for war with the working class.

The situation will be greatly intensified by the dollar devaluation and the resulting setback to the French capitalist economy.

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