The Newsletter, vol. 1 no. 1

(who was described by Harry Pollitt in 1954 as “a fine example to all of us by his devotion to the cause of Communism’ and by Wal Hannin; as ‘a fearless fighter for the working class and a most sincere and loyal member of our party”)

SIX MONTHS before the Khrushchev revelations at the Twentieth Congress raised the issue of the absence of collective leadership in the CPSU ut a meeting of the Scottish secretariat, T argued that the CPSU could not be all we had cracked it up to be if Khrushchev’s account of how the breach with Yugoslavia took place was truc J challenged the trials in Eastern Europe. declaring that Khrushchev's account of Beria’s activities brought under suspoy the ‘evidence® under which Communists were persecuted ater Rajk, Kostov. Gomulka and others were ‘rchubilitated’.

No discussion took place in the party. I came to the conclusion that our party leaders knew what had been going on both in the USSR and Eastern Europe. but deliberately concealed the facts from the membership Dooley about Czechoslovakia, written ‘evan years ego x At the recent party congress was shown Jetters from Pat Tn both this case and that of Dr. Edith Bone Tam convince that the party Centre knew what was happening—bet they refused to act. :

OG They say they were shocked. ‘> rtyelations. I believe them. They were shocked that Khrushcher let the cat out of the bag—but that the cat had been Kept in the bag did not concers them.

T remain loyal to the principles which brought me into the party. I cannot be ‘loyal’ to leaders who have abandoned those Principles Don Renton’s career Don Renton joined the Labour Party when he was fourteen and the Communist Party when he was seventeen—28 years ago. He served in the British Battalion of the International Brigade, was wounded at Jarama, and spent months in Franco's prisons.

Sentenced to M) years’ imprisonment. he was rescued by an exchange of prisoners. .

‘Spain,’ he says. ‘was only an incident. and a brief one, in my career, with nothing heroic about it. Other and better comrades diced in the hands of the fascists, and what is worse in the hands of brother communists in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.' In London in the late thirties Renton took part with J. B.S Haldane in dangerous breathing-apparatus tests after the Thetis disaster, and worked untiringly as a leader of the unemployed. With them he took part in lie-down demonstra.

- will contain the first instalments of two important serics Talks with Soviet Leaders on the Jewish Question by J. B Salsberg. These famous articles, now to appear for the first time in any British publication, have Seon specially translated from the Yiddish for The Newsletter. The Last Two Years in Poland by Stanisiaw Kowalski. our Warsaw correspondent. Kowalski is a young Polish journalist who has been in the thick of the struggle for democratization

May 10, tions; with them he invaded the Ritz Hotel. During the war he served for nearly six years in the Royal Artillery.

When he celebrated his 25th anniversary as a party member —he was then area organizer in Edinburgh—John Gollan “fote to him: ‘I congratulate you on all you have done and ‘now this is nothing compared with what you are going to do in achieving the aims for which we both joined the party.”

Prominent member of the Communist Party in the Lancashire and Cheshire Area, Dick Nettleton, has announced his resignation from the party.

Nettleton considers that the Communist Party is completely discredited in the eyes of the working class and feels that he can better assist the struggle for socialism by joining the Labour Party.

Because he opposed Soviet intervention in Hungary he gave up his full-time job as area organizer in November 1956. From then until the Hammersmith Congress he remained on the District Committee, hoping that the Congress would bring changes.

Hungary, John Gollan’s political report to the Congress and the Soviet hydrogen bomb tests were factors that tinally influenced him to resign.

His local branch at Walkden, he says. is more or less defunct. There have been a number of other resignations, including Dick Tyldesley, full-time Electrical Trades Union organizer in the Bolton Area. He, too, applied for membership of the Labour Party.

The neighbouring branch at Farnworth, which in 1947 had a membership of ninety, today has only one quarter of that figure on the books, Only three of these play an active part in the party work.

mist Party in 1939 and became in the North. He led the apVickers. organizer for the pafiy and t Munist League district secretary Oil 1950. From then until 1953, the YCL and visited China lion. Released from YCL ‘ io Mi . and until his resignation was the area organizer.

SCOTLAND

In Edinburgh about fifteen members have resigned since the Congress and about the same number are planning to resign at Sh ace meetings. Some branches are left with only one member, and half of the Area Committee is gone.

All those who have resigned are agreed that a Marxist movement of some kind is necessary, but whether they should go into the Labour Party, set up a Forum or build a new Communist Party is still the subject of keen debate.

_ In Glasgow there have so far been no widespread resignations. The oe meeting at Partick branch was stormy. Twelve members of the Bridgeton branch are expected to resign. There are small opposition groups in Drumchapel and Renfrew branches.

NOTTINGHAM

About twenty-five attended the report-back meeting in Nottingham. Delegate and Area Committee member Dave Bates, reporting from the floor of the meeting, shattered full-time official John Peck’s rosy picture of an “epoch-making congress’.

The first speaker in the discussion. John Murray. member of the Area Committee, resigned on the spot. saying the party had shown itself incapable of adapting itself to reality.

Since the aggregate a meeting of members of various dissident trends has taken the first step towards the formation of a group that will conduct an open principled fight within the party.

STROUD GREEN

Seven members of this branch have resigned since Hungary, One working-class critic is being described as a ‘noisy McLoughlin type’.

After a report-back to the Muswell Hill branch—the deall weapons.

“For an explanation of ‘dirty’ and ‘clean’ H-bombs. see page seven,

legate made no reference to what Hyman Levy and Johnnie McLoughlin said at the Congress—Alison Macleod and Beatrix Tudor-Hart announced their resignations.

Alison Macleod has also resigned as television critic of the Daily Worker; this is the paper's thirteenth resignation One member of the branch said in resigning that the leadeo / of the British party was ‘politically and morally disonest’.

CANTERBURY

As it was from Canterbury and Herne Bay that one of the first ‘faction’ meetings of the ‘revisionists’ sprang. it is not surprising that the Communist Party branch has been affected by the Congress.

Following my own refusal to toe the line and resignation one other member has resigned. Two others will leave after the Congress report meeting and two others are considering resigning, The secretary will be left with three of the ‘Old Guard’ But those who have left are on good terms with those who have stayed in, SCIENCE by J. H. Bradley

The Soviet test explosion reported on April 21. 1957. is the first which can be asserted beyond all possible doubt to be ‘dirty, as far as non-governmental research results go.

It may be an entircly new type of weapon. hardiy more expensive than.a ‘small atomic bomb. The report given in The Times of April 22, 1957. is so confused as to be quite misleading, and in parts smells of special pleading. Its assertion of the absence of uranium 238 in the debris is hard to accept. A good summary is given in the Manchester Guardian of April 23, 1957 (page ten).

The significant fact is the presence of much plutonium and neptunium 239 without any uranium 237. U237 first allowed a diagnosis of the fission-fusion-fission bomb. and its absence indicates that few of the neutrons present had energies above 4 million electron volts (Mev). In other words, they were not from a lithium deuteride fusion reaction.

The Guardian talks of a possible new fusion reaction. bet it is not clear that any fusion is needed. A new reaction would need much higher temperatures than the LiD system, and it ss uncertain whether that is feasible with current detonators. Mv theory is that this was probably a rather large atomic bomb surrounded with much U236 or natural uranium. kt would work like a hydrogen bomb in all points of military interest, except the price.

These questions can only be solved (other than by the Soviet Government) by a knowledge of the power of the bomb, or the amount of even heavier elements formed in it The first should be obtainable from measurements of the blast wave, and would show whether an atomic bomb COULD be the detonator on its own.

The second would reveal approximately the peak rate at which neutrons were released during the explosion. and the absence of elements beyond plutonium would confirm the loaded atomic bomb hypothesis. Their presence was fitst detected in the debris from the American test of March 19% and confirmed the Japanese evidence. This indicated a nuclear process, and exemplified the change of quantity into quality, the rate of passage of neutrons being rapid enough to make generation faster then decay.

It is clear that the Soviet Government has joined Britain and the USA in the manufacture of the most barbarous of

Tuer May LO, 1957

OPENING the conference of Socialist Forums held at Wortley Hail. near Sheffield, on April 27-28. KEN ALEXANDER said it was not an attempt to sct up a new political party. but a means by which those on the Left in the Labour movement could exchange ideas on policy and organization, Ex-Communist Party members of fairly recent vintage. ‘rebel’ communists, Labour Party members and representatives of other groups were present. He appealed for a certain amount of restraint to be shown.

The Marxist approach had been vitiated by a denial of information about the great historic experiment in the Soyvict Union. The leaders had kept the members in ignorance. had gisen them a false picture.

Could you have a Marvxist party if you gave the members a false picture?

Turning to problems of the capitalist world. Prof. Levy declared that in his view Marxist economists had completely failed in their approach to the development of British and American capitalism. _ They had forecast crises. but ‘it looks for the moment as if it is going to gu on_for a very long time’. Would capitalism possibly go on indefinitely without another crisis?

He did not know—but he would say that Marist analysis had been inadequate. He was waiting fur Marsism to justify itself in that field, instead of handling the issue in terms of an earlier epoch, Answering questions, Prof, Levy said that up to a certain level in the USSR. it was his impression that the workers controlled their methods of work. On top of that was a section rather like our administrative class, which was doing very well out_of it and hanging on to its jobs. ‘Woe betide these people finally,” he warned, Moral condemnation in a vacuum was completely meaning: less. We must try to understand how and why things went wrong.

MERCIA EMMERSON (Islington) said one of the things that made her join the Communist Party was the recognition of working-class values. that there was no such thing as absolute values.

The danger lay in a party regarding itself as the fount of wisdom and condemning those who questioned bi tively’ counter-revolutionary. Were theren tarian values? The ‘traitor’ of today wa afterwards.

JIM ROCHE (Leeds) said the workin Marxism had been distorted by those He believed there were proletarian val blacklegs. for example. There were } conduct that had been distorted, ~~ 4 The need for a Marxist party KEN COATES (Nottingham) said Marxism was inseparable from struggle, Therefore the task of those present was to go forward to build a Marxist party. It could not be done today or tomorrow, The Communist Party leaders had betrayed evactly the things they claimed to uphold; they had impaired the most fundamental value of Marxism, the class struggle, because they were prepared to make a deal.

RAYA LEVIN (London) said that to the extent the Soviet Union had not achieved a classless society. to that extent the moral values of the proletariat had been distorted. A Marxist analysis of the Soviet Union involved an analysis of why a classless society had not been achieved there.

PETER WORSLEY (Hull) said that for a long time it was denied that there were any contradictions in the Soviet Linion, but they had to start analyzing what the contradictions were. He looked at Marxism as a tool. But there had not been tuch Marxist analysis in the last few decades.

‘The sort of analysis that Deutscher and Trotsky have made, the kind of new fresh analysis we must make of the class changes in our own country: these things have hardly been touched on,’ he said.

‘There has pe been a repetition of what Lenin said fifty years ago. and an acceptance of the Soviet handout—evcept for people like Trotsky.” ° They must start from the beginning and make a critical re-analysis.

TOM KAISER (Sheffield) said the officials of the Communist Party were prepared to sce their organization disintegrate rather than give up power. They thought they knew what was best for the mass of the people.

PROFESSOR HYMAN LEVY, whose subject was ‘Why Marxism is Unimpaired’, said Marxism was in a process of development. In that sense he was a ‘revisionist’. But there were certain principles which had not been subject to change.

To him “Marsism was a scientific approach to problems of theory and practice, It should be possible to apply criteria tu what was done in the Soviet Union much closer to the criteria applied in a scientific experiment.

A scientist did not abandon his scientific method if the outcome of an eXperiment was not what he expected. We should not say ‘Our Marxism is wrong’. but rather “We didn’t know enough about the factors. We have learned a litle more. We will use it as a guide to action’.

‘If you call that a weakness in Marxism. well and good. Prof Levy said. ‘But I know of no other method of approaching social and political issues.

Prof. Levy said the elementary Marxist principles that remained unimpaired included:

The materialist interpretation of history:

The theory of the superstructure and its relationship with the economic basis:

The theory of the class struggle: that the motivating forces in society were class forces. The pattern of capitalist society had undergone tremendous changes: in particular the middle class had grown tremendously. Therefore Marvismi had to be restated in terms of the present day.

The role of the individual. Gollan tried to show that one half of Stalin's character—I don't know whether it was his right or his left’ (Laughter)—was responsible for the Negative aspects in the Soaviet Union. This was not a Marvxist approach, but a nonsensical approach:

The relativity of values. Tt was easy to say we were shocked and horrified by what had happened in the Sovict Union. but you got a rational pattern once you began to see the connection between the economic conditions and the superstructure. Ethical values were relative tu a society and must not be transferred in a mechanical way. He did not know ansthing about any ‘absolute values’.

They knew but did not tell Prof. Levy said his great criticism of the leaders of the British Communist Party was that they had known a great deal about what was going on in the USSR and had kept many of the members uninformed.

In so far as that of socialist history had been closed or distorted the minds of people who had been trying to get a Marxist understanding of it had been distorted.

It was tercibly important to try to fit what had happened in the Soviet Union into a rational Marxist pattern, to see what new forms had shown themselves in the first socialist experiment.

Was it an inevitable part of a socialist society that the kind of bureaucracy that had undovbtedly grown up in the Soviet Union should come into being? Could we lear the lessens from what had happened there so that we could avoid here the wrong things that had happened?

‘How did it come about that that kind of bureaucracy grew up there?" he asked. ‘You can see certain factors in the situation: the vast expanse of the Soviet Union: whom are you going to depend on t carry out the plans except relatively illiterate people? .,THRE NEWSLETTER

ADRIAN GASTER (Wolverhampton) thought that what happened in the Soviet Union was inevitable, but agreed that their task was to analyze what went on there and find out the practical limits which would condition the kind of socialism we got here.

JOHN DANIELS (Nottingham) said one of the things he had learned was to study the sources, including Trotsky, who Gevoted a great deal of attention to finding a Marxist exManation of developments in the Soviet Union.

‘They must study not only the rise of the Stalinist bureancracy. but the rise of all bureaucracies in the Labour miovement.

DICK GOSS (London) said things went wrong in Russia not because thes Jacked beautiful ideals. but because they oversimplihed their economic tasks and did not take the best from capitalism.

ALAN LAMOND (London) said the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the theory of the State had aiso to be examined. On many points of tact and interpretation Marxists had heen wrong and other people right.

Marxism had proved to be a defective tool in the analysis of history in the past forty years. He did not think the Trotskyist interpretation of the Soviet experience was correct --'nor is their current policy’.

Fhe most crucial question of ail was the relationship of Marxism to its institutions. Democratic centralism was based on the idea that a Marvist party should be a supreme institution. If the atiempt was made to put the principles of Marxism in the hands of a new party they would get stagnation.

H. KENDALL (London) said Prof. Levy seemed to have adopted a kind of double standard which allowed him under no circumstances to attack what was wrong in the Soviet Union when it was wrong. but only afterwards.

BERT WYNN (Derbyshire) said their biggest mistake as Marxists had been to dogmatize about the breakdown of capitalism, instead of paying due regard to the victories the eis class had already won because of its strength.

said Lamond had given no reasons - They could all sit back and agree pm. but what about the class strughet about the State machine? ull) said that by denying fundamenby supporting the Soviet Union facts. Communists had cut themWe must study history ERIC HEFFER (Liverpool) said in order to protect the interests of the bureaucracy jin the Sovict Union the Stalinists had been prepared to hold back the class struggle in country after country throughout the world.

‘Let us get down to the real task of rebuilding the movement, particularly in Britain, so that we can create a genuine Marxist movement.’ he said.

JOHN SAVILLE (Hull) said they must stop talking hot air and build a body of Marxist ideas that meant something to the British working class. That implied studying our own working-class movement and its history, about which far too little was known.

“We have not done anything yet to analyze our economy over the last thirty years. There is nobody here who can give an analysis of exactly how the working class are robbed by the Welfare State. We have not started yet to apply our Marxist tools of analysis to our contemporary society M. HAMILTON (Leeds) said Prof. Levy should have stated exactly what he meant by Marxism. Marxism was both a body of theory and a method. The fundamental concept of Marxism was the application of scientific method to the problems of society, ‘A scientist never says his scientific method is wrong. You tyest_your theories in practice In so far as it is possible to apply the scientific method to the problems we are faced with that is the only way we can tackle it, Replying to the discussion, Prof. Levy said it was a peculiar thing that the conference had concentrated on ethical issues. This was a symptom both of the type of gathering and of the situation in which they met.

May 10, i195 “You must not ask too much of Marxism in predi course of events,” he added.

Opening a discussion on “Lessons of the Stalin E: speaker stressed the importance of 2 fresh tory Of the Soviet Union and of the Communis ‘There was a view that the discussion that was wrong.

On the contrary. it was becoming ¢ what had happened and «what was goin Soviet Union in particular had more impert socialism than anything clsc.

The distortions and crimes of the Stalin era I compromised the very name of socizlism in x minds. Stalinism had also led to an unnecesiary gulf between the revolutionary socialists and the so~<aile wists, The character of the British Communist P. cies had come to be determined in way no relation to the real needs and inte working class.

‘We substituted for Marxism a very crude foom matism,’ he went on. ‘It consisted of observing * jeaders were doing and then finding reasons why it =as miei and Dei obi the necessary quotations from the classics to justify “ them. We became rather discredited =s scentiic > Marxists.”

There had been honest British Stalinists and cyricel_caes. who knew very “cll what was happening in Sai Union: he had no hesitation in naming Andrew Rethssm as an outstanding example of the latter, How was it that the Stalin system in the Some Union? Some said the origin of Stalinism was to be foumd in the First Five-Year Plan (1928-32), that it came about as result of economic necessity.

This was not an entirely satisfactory-theory. Leoking more closely, one could see the elements of Stalinism gathering in the early twenties.

Jn ‘The Interregnum’ E. H. Carr showed how bureaucracy began in the life of the party and spread into the State machine and into society.

‘In Lenin's articles written on his sick-bed in 1923 we se his increasing worry about this bureaucratic developmest Particularly important in this connection is the self-criticism which Trotsky later made in his autobiography for having agreed to certain political changes which had been one of te sources of this degeneration of the party and the State”

The speaker instanced the ban on opposition parties and te ban on factions within the Bolshevik Party. The bureaucracy became detached from the workers and developed as 2 case Was it in fact socialism, he asked, that had been buik & the Soviet Union? Or was it « transitional regime betwee= capitalism and socialism?

In his view the contradictions in the Soviet Union were those of 2 system which was not yet socialism. The fare advance to socialism might involve a number of crises. Perhaps there might have to be political revolutions of one Lind or another.

]f it was not socialism. why wasn't it? Here one had » examine again whether the absence of socialism was dze t the fact that the very idea of building socialism in 2 sinzic country was perhaps revisionist. as many people said it =zs when the idea was first put forward in the autumn of 1924 The whole problem of what was meant originally by sociziism. and whether socialism could be constructed within t= national frontiers of a country of the type of Russia, had cw be re-examined.

Perhaps the idea of socialism in ene country was the ide> logy {in the full Marxist sense of the word) of a bureaucracy which sought some justification for its rule in the eyes of the Sone workers and of sccialist-minded workers all over the world.

The disputes of the twenties about socialism in = single country might. if examined again. cive the key to the rise of Stalinism, and also perhaps the key to its present crisis.

ed “The root of the reason why a lot of us are doubtful about Marxism now is that over a long period we have failed to apply it to Russia. the speaker suggested. They had not examined such phenomena as the tremendous spread of incomes in the USSR. which would have been noticed and analyzed if they had occurred in other countries.

In his studies of the development of Sovict society he had found most valuable such writings of Trotsky as “The New Course’—it was quite uncanny to read this now—The Real Situstion in Russia’ and “fhe Revolution Betrayed’.

“‘T make a particular point of saying this because in the 23 years I have been a member of the Communist Party—and I still am. incidentally—I made something of a speciality of baiting the Trotskyists and speaking and writing against then. and I must say it seems to me one of the most regrettable features of my political career,’

Turning to the inflyence of the Stalinized CPSU on the Communist International and the CPGB. the speaker said the internal degeneration of the Soviet system might have begun partly as a result of the failure of revolutions to take place cn the more advanced countries.

He pointed to the way in which the Comintern, particularly from 1924 onwards, was transformed, under the guise of Bolshevizing the Communist Parties. into a foreign agency of the CPSU and for practical purposes of the Soviet State.

Power was concentrated in the hands of a very smail political bureau, who got rid of anybody in leading positions who showed himself a bit independent and not likely to accept mechanically any change of line that happened to be handed down from Moscow.~ What this meant was the imposition on these Communist Parties of the sort of regime that was introduced into the Bolshevik Party only in the carly twenties. With such a regime perhaps the Bolshevik Party could not haye made the October Revolution.

What effect did this have on the prospects of the revolutionary movement outside Russia?

Holding back the movement In 1926-27 the Chinese party restrained the workers’ and asants’ movement and placed tremendous confidence in jang Kai-shek, until the whole thing collapsed like a house of cards.

Also worth study by Marxists was the amazing policy carried out by the Comintern in Germany in the period 1929-33. What other policy would they have followed if it had been the conscious inténtion of the people in the Comintern headquarters to bring about the victory of Hitler?

Ta Spain the working-class movement was held back, on the ground that this was the way to win the war against Franco. It had the opposite effect. Someone ed that the policy of socialism in one country had developed into a policy of no socialism anywhere else.

This policy of turning the Communist Parties into a kind of Soviet frontier guard was based on the thesis that the criterion for a real revolutionary movement was its attitude to Russia. But was not the test of Russia ifs attitude to the revolutionary movement abroad?

Tt was essential to shake off this one-sided type of relationship with the Soviet Union, not only for the sake of our own movement, but for the sake of the Soviet comrades also.

‘If we have a feeling of solidarity with the Soviet people.” the speaker concluded. ‘we cannot show them better than by very honestly and frankly coming out over such things as the events in Hungary.

‘The spirit of the October Revolution is inseparable from 2 soll there and speaking our minds quite independently.” licy of evaluating in an independent Marxist way what is JERRY DAWSON (Merseyside Unity Theatre) said dependence on the Soviet Union was best illustrated in the field of culture. How people had been alienated by the slavish following of Zhdanov?

T. COWAN (London) thevght there was a danger of putting Trotsky on a pedestal.

HAROLD RUBEN (London) ssid Gollan used the word “revisionism’ as @ term of abuse. But Stalinism itself was an integral, well-knit system of revisionism.

Tt was a revision of the heart of Marx and Lenin on the nature of the State. This was seen best in Hungary, when the worst condemnation of Pravda was thet the workers’ councils bad come into collision with the State power.

This contemptuous attitude to the working class was the political basis of Stalinism. Its ideological basis was the Big Lie. Its philosophical basis was the substitution of idealism for materialist dialectics.

The season for reading _G. WEALY (London). who said he was expelled from the Communist Party 21 years ago for opposing the Moscow trials. called on these who had come into opposition to Stalinism more recently to have 2 little patience with the enthusiasm of anti-Stalinists of an earlier vintage. _ “This is the season for reading books, not burning them.’

tid of and study. Examine every point pip Hey r demagogy. Don't put any yon a“ cs Declaring his support for the defence of the Soviet Union against its capitalist enemies, JACK GALE (Lecds) said the teal way to defend the Soviet Union was to face up to what was wrong, analyze it and put it in its context: the socialist basis of the economy.

JEFF BARKER (Birmingham) felt there was a danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. He was not convinced that the methods used in the Sovict Union to build socialism might not turn out to be historically justified.

JOHN ST. JOHN (London) said the cult of the individual was closely tied > with the cult of the party. They needed Marxist analysis of the present as well as the past: there were going to be Ynereased conflicts in the Soviet Union.

‘There are forces arising out of the technical and social developments of the Soviet Union which are ening to do the job. people are our allies.’ he declared.

DAVID WOOD (Nottineham) said the leen to discuss too much what might have been FT notice of the tremendous material and cull of the USSR.

¥.

He was "aoe to give much of the credit in the balance of class forces in the world to the much-maligned Stalin. a yas =f :

JOHN FAIRHEAD (London) said commun en TOS work on behalf of the colonial liberation mo = MARTIN FLANNERY (Sheffield) said the economic basis of socialism had been laid in the Soviet Union ite all the cad things that had happened. Khrushchev’s tions had been forced by the movement of the Soviet people, who were “going to force a lot of other things’.

The main failing of the Soviet leadership was a lack of faith in the working-class.

In reply, the lecturer said the Soviet bureaucracy was not = ruling class: it had not come to power in the way that ruling classes do. While the bureaucracy might not submit without some rather s! fights, and it might come to some kind of political revolution. there was no scope for a social revolution.

‘This is at the basis of our whole attitude of friendshi plus criticism of the Soviet authorities.” he added.

;

“We must associate ourselves with the majority of the Soviet people who are struggling by aed means, political, fiterary and others, to bring about an all-important adjustment in the nature of Soviet society.”

“A discussion on “Winning Socialists” and the future of the

Socialist Forum movement was opened by four speakers who nad done much to build the movement and organize the conference: Pauline Harrison (Sheffield), Joe Young (London)® Lawrence Daly (Fife) and Tom Kaiser (Sheffield).

PAULINE HARRISON said there were 136 Je at the conference. about 60 of them from Yorkshire, about 30 from London and about 30 from Lancashire and Cheshire.

JOE YOUNG ssid the Forum movement had a big part 2 py between the opposite poles of Welfare Statcism and 3S sm, in the rethinking that the Left needed to engage in. "We need a kind of movement which is the opposite of the pas dogmatic approach, of 2 “line”,’ he said.

THRE NEWSLETTER LAWRENCE DALY said they all agreed that the objective was socialism, The question was: what kind of socialism? He believed firmly that the Communist Party was absolutely right to propound the idea of “The British Road to Sucialisa’. But it never had the intention of carrying it out.

They could not solve their problems by going back to Lenin or anybody else. It was living thinkers who had te supply the answers to today’s problems. Emotional fanaticism expressed in a sectarian form was one of the biggest obstacies to the advance of socialism.

TOM KAISER opposed the formation of anything that would resemble a new political party. The réle of the Forums Was nol to create 2 new centre of political power but to stimulate 2 new climate of socialist opinion.

They would thereby stimulate activity throughout the whole Labour movement. This was more important than membership or the search for a mass party.

PETER FRYER (London) said a new Marxist party would be premature—a vanguard with no one following it. He believed that Marxists should enter the Labour Party because that was where the workers were, and where experience in leadership cotld be gained. At the same time the Forums had an important part to play in the field of ideas and controversy.

ROYDEN HARRISON (Sheffield) said there was only one decision the conference should take. and that was that the discussion should go on.

The Forum movement needed a journal. The editorial boards of two Forum journals, published in London and Shefficld. had met and agreed to amalgamate.

RALPH SAMUEL (London) said the Forums could not be Primarily concerned with what happened in the Communist Party. The sooner the Forum movement had within it Left Labour people who were militant and did not give in to Fabianism the sooner it would get away from this type of introspection.

‘They should integrate themselves as much as possible with wing, IPSON (Halifax) said they must start from tish people, the Colonial peoples, the whole the threat-of world war. Their ~political derived from the statement of principles up Forums which ignore people who think sts is to cut ourselves off from hundreds orientate thei There were hundreds of forms of activity which did not depend on joining a party or taking up an attitude _ RAYMOND CHALLINOR (Stoke-on-Trent) said the question was how best they could influence members of the working class. They must have some publication which reflected their common views. Only through an interchange of ideas could they hope to break down the barriers which past sectarianism had raised, PADDY MACMAHON (London) said the interests of the working class comrades and the intellectual comrades must fuse. Both had a contribution to make. It was wrong to think that the workers were not interested in ideas. __ Unless the Forums made provision for the participation of industrial workers they would not win them.

They must continue to iron out their differences and so a build an effective movement. The working class did not look on parties as hobbies. they looked on them as tools to help them achieve their class aims.

The Forums should try to help the ferment of discussion going on inside the Communist Parties.

JOHNNIE MCLOUGHLIN (West Ham) said this gathering arose on the anvil ef world communism. It was the first large attempt to create a really organized movement of the “Marxist anti-Stalinist Left’.

The key question was the conquest of power by the working class. He himself remained in the Communist Parly because he believed that in that party was the largest number of people who could deal hammer-blows at the capitalist system.

The Labour Party had not got and could not have factory organization. The Communist Party branch at Briggs was of great value to the workers there.

The workers’ movement could be built only on clarity of ideas. He thought a Marxist workers’ party would be built. and he believed that it still could be done within the Communist Party. “l urge comrades to fight within-the party.” he added.

MICHAEL SEGAL (London) said that there was a danger of having nothing at all within a couple of months if they did not organize. On the other hand if they adopted a programme and formed a party there was a danger of becoming one more little sect, and he was not interested in that.

They should set up a national liaison committee and prepare for a further conference attended by elected representatives from all over the country—a national conference of the Left to discuss the whole range of problems that concerned the British working class.

The spirit of co-existence Mercia Emmerson suggested that industrial comrades and economists form a study circle to thrash out a Marvyist analysis of the development of present-day capitalism, and produce a sort of discussion pamphlet. Perhaps the Trotskyists could also contribute.

‘If we cannot contribute this original thinking we are doomed,” she said.

The proposal for the setting-up of 2 national co-ordinating committee was carried unanimously, Winding up the conference, John St. John* said there was general agreement that they did not want to set up a new party. But even if they did not have a platform there might emerge a recognized viewpoint, just as the Left Book Club had a viewpoint in the thirties.

Referring to the ‘wonderful spirit of co-existence’ which had manifested itself at the conference, Mr. St. John quoted Galileo as saying that the art of doubt was the only progressive art. That was something they might take to heart.

Between the various groups of Trotskyists, the various vintages of ex-Commmnists, there could be agreement—or at least friendly discussion. The proceedings had given them reason ta be hopeful and encouraged. -A vote of thanks to the organizers of the conference was moved by Edward Thompson.

* In next week's issue of the The Newsletter. John St. John writes on the future of the Socialist Forum Movement.

Older readers will remember ihe sensation caused when, in 1935, the law wus changed in the Soviet Union so as to subject children of twelve to the penalties of the Criminal Code.

That this is still the povitieg, but also that there is a movement demanding that it cease to be so, is shown by a passage in an article in Izvestia of March 21 by I. Vetrov, Minister of Justice of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.

“It is high fime.” he writes, ‘to revise the law on the criminal responsibility of juveniles. The present Jaw, under which juveniles of 12 to 14 years are liable to be held criminally responsible for certain crimes, and those over 14 for xii crimes, cannot be regarded as correct. It is necessary to dispense altogether with the criminal punishment of children between 12 and 14, and to limit substantially the criminal responsibility of minors between 14 and 16. It is clear that educational measures alone should suffice” rae a

formed in a H-bomb explosion, Calcium and strontium are

$ by our Science Correspondent In order to discuss H-bomb tests, it is essential to understand the scientific facts involved. Otherwise one might be in danger of believing Mr. Macmillan.

Many very important facts are kept secret. not for any military purpose. but because their release would cause an insuperable reaction against the present insanity. Some of the things 1 shall have to say are not quite certain. yet the facts are alarming enough to need no committees and commissions of inquiry wasting years, but immediate banning of all tests. Such commissions are mere pretexts for obsiructionism.

The worst tests are those near solid ground, such as the notorious American test of March 1954, and some of the Christmas Island tests, Tests high in the air. or over water. are in some ways less dangerous. A test near the ground takes up many thousand tons of dust. which is made radioactive by the radiations from the explosion, and by the material of the bomb which condenses on the dust. Many of these particles fall out near the explosion, as on the Japanese fishermen. but part of them is carried up into the high atmosphere, and falls all over the globe for several years. Bursts high in the zir. or Over water. form much finer dust which remains harmlessly in the stratesphere for far longer.

Since the activity formed in the explosion slowly decays. the longer it remains in the stratosphere the better. This dust gives an infallible means of detecting and dating any test, as shown by the Japanese. Pressure waves formed by the blast can be detected thousands of miles away, and these facts make nonsense of Macmillan’s talk about undetectable tests.

H-bombs are divided into ‘dirty’ and ‘clean’ according to the amount of uranium in them. Plutonium can replace part of the uranium, but this makes hardly any difference. ‘Dirty’ bombs give a very high and persistent activity, and are comconcentrated in the bene marrow. where they cause a very dangerous cancer of the blood. Secondary infections. due to destruction of the body's protective powers, are very common. Skin diseases could be due to concentration of an isotope in the skin, or to contact with active dust. The skin is very en ean and complications would almost certainly follow.

The aim of the present Soviet and American tests is probably to develop small, light bombs to fit in long-range rockets. It is folly to imagine that Britain can compete with the ecenomic giants—America and Russia—in this way. The banning of tests is now very urgent. as the Russians already have 1.500-mile rockets, and in two to five years will have £.000toile rockets. These missiles would be useless without H-bomb warheads. If they sre once put in store. they cannot be detected. and will keep for many years without attention. The aim of the British tests is impossible to discover. and seems ta be just 2s much a sham as the Civil Defence programme.

It as very difficult to allocate blame between nations. as we are not allowed to know how much each test or cach nation has contributed to the total fall-out. Perhaps the least objectionable are the Nevada tests, which have deposited dangerous amounts of activity only in Hollywood and Los Angeles.

:

Similat objections apply to all nations’ tests. since all use the worst type of bomb tested under the worst possible conditions, contaminate the whole globe, and produce effects which are largely unknown but certainly very dangerous. The British tests have the added distinction of ‘being the biggest, most expensive, and most pointless political fraud in human history.

paratively cheap—only a few million pounds each. as against tens or hundreds of millions for a ‘clean’ bomb of similar power.

The British bombs are certainly ‘dirty’. on economic alone. The authorities are not willing to admit that 2 ‘clean’ bomb has ever been tested, though it is rumoured that the first Russian bomb (1953) contained no uranium at all. It is certain that several thousand million dollars worth of plant was scrapped by the Americans just after the Russian test. when they learned they were on the wrong track.

T€ it is true that the Russians use no uranium. that puts them many years ahead of the British. A ‘clean’ bomb gives comparatively little radioactivity, almost all of which would decay within a few days, and so be a danger only near the point of explosions. Allegations before the Hubbard Association of Scientologists (Manchester Guardian, April 1S. 1957). that the large amount of gamma-rays produced makes the ‘clean’ Russian bomb more rous than the American ‘dirty’ bomb, are wishful thinking. Gamma-radiation is not important outside the blast area, where everything is dead anyhow.

The ullimate effects of the radio-isotopes produced are almost unknown. which is no excuse for poisoning ourselves with them. Reports of sudden increases in the amount of skin disease in the Pacific (Tribune. April 12. 1957), and unusnat mmambers of deformed plants in Britain (Manchester Guardian. April 15, 1957), should be treated as unproven, but require investigation with the utmost urgency.

Cancer of the blood Such events could be examples of ‘biological fractionation’ by which plants and animals take up isotopes readily from their surroundings. and can cause dangerous accumulations of activity. Large amounts of tographic film were lost in the USA through being in cardboard mede from straw grown near an atomic plant. British factories have 2 much better record in this respect.

Tests in the Pacific are very objectionable, since the fish upon which many Asians depend take up radio-strontium formed from urenium or plutonium in the bomb. along with tadio-calcium formed from the coral of the islands used for tests. The fish can also take up other elements, such as iodine, which will be concentrated in one vital organ of any human who eats them.

Fortunately only a small amount of such other elements is If we want to understand what recent Communist Party Congress i such wild accusations as Peter Fi Tribune article. The delegates were nor Were they intimidated by their dists They did not have to be. :

True, there was ‘rigging’ in the sense that amendments and resolutions were selected for discussion, so most cy that there would be the biggest possible vote against. But there would have been a majority against even the moderately phrased amendments.

The fact is that the majority of party members never knew what the battle raging within the party was about. In fact many of them did not know that it was raging at all. This was brought home to me just before the Congress. when I met a comrade, formerly the most intellectual of Ham intellectuals, who is now a member of a remote little branch in Scotland. Looking up her old friends in London, she was completely bewildered and dazed to hear them attacking the party leadership. Her branch had been too busy discussing the Rent Bill to notice that there was any crisis within the party. They had passed even the infamous Political Resolution as if stood. without smendment and apparently almost without discussion.

Those who did notice there was 2 crisis, and have taken the side of the leadership, do not see themselves as being dragooned or intimidated. They think they are standing firm, tains loyal to the working class, putting unity above all else, etc.

And the leadership feels just as virtuous. I recently saw an EC member terribly upset because a rank-and-file member, announcing her resignation from the party, said the leaders were ‘dishonest’. How could she make such 2 charge, he asked, against people who had proved their honesty time and again?

‘Honesty’, in this context, gets mixed up with financial honesty. Full-time Communist officials know that they are not making any money by being Comnmnists. ‘he district secretary, in his patched old jacket, may sit among welldressed engineers who are making twice his wages. So he reasons: “I have no selfish financial motive for believing as T do, Therefore—it’s a fallacious, but very natural, argument —‘therefore what I believe must be right.’

From this follows the next argument, just as fallacious bu: just as natural: “Anyone who brings forward facts to make me believe otherwise its a paid hireling of the capitalist What's wrong with the Communist Party. in fact. is what's wrong with the human race. We don’t like to face facts: we don’t like to listen to arguments; and we don’t like to think Hence the present danger of universal destruction.

Alison Macleod, Landon, N.10.

Cash and criticism needed A word of thanks to all those who have sent donations, ranging from a welcome two shillings to an £3 money order from Australia.

The Newsletter’s only resources are its subscribers’ goodwill, its contributors’ energy—and the evident need for such a publication as this to serve the new ferment on the Left.

Financial help is important. But if The Newsletter is going to perform the task it has undertaken there is something no less important: criticism and comments. Please put pen to paper.

GBS in Warsaw

When the Polish Theatre in Warsaw recently staged Shaw's ‘Saint Joan’ the audiences’ favourite line was where, in the Epilogue. the Earl of Warwick addresses Joan's ghost 25 years after her execution.

“My congratulations,” he says. ‘on your rehabilitation.” At this poitit the Warsaw audiences roared with laughter and applauded for a long time.

Led the weekly Swiat: ‘This phrase hits so accurately of the present situation that some people have art t wal ded to the text or that the translator para. It is not so, One plainly sees in the ulations on your rehabilitation.” * ‘ h Congress. the portrait of Stalin which thé main staircase in one of the ; ngs in Kensington Palace Gardens was Recently. little more than 2 year since the Congress, a Statucttc of the late dictator ta tenn placed in a prominent position in the Embassy library. The figure represents Stalin embracing a little girl who has just given him a bunch of flowers.

Freudian slip?

St. Pancras Labour Councillor Mrs. Peggy Duff had her name spelled ‘Dutt’ in the Daily Worker the other day. Which sub-editor has got Big Brother on his mind...? How to win a seat on the Thame Council Choose an opponent who can’t fill his nomination papers in properly.

* May 10. 1957 which for a Frenchman I thought showed remarkable control Instead we heard a lucid. objective wccount of the background leading to the terrible crimes committed in Algeria by the French ‘Socialist’ Government. This is a truly shocking revelation, which has moved many Frenchmen today in the way Nazi crimes did in the last war. The irony—and lessons—of a socialist government committing such moral crimes and political folly scem to have hit deepest.

Strong independent growth In reply to questions. Claude Bourdet (or as someone called him ‘Mr, Bordeaux’) described the growth of many ‘New Left’ groupings all over France. anxious to be integrated into 2 central organization. The ‘Centre’s’ attitude was not to rush things. but to encourage strong independent growth before talk of integration.

His forecasts for the future were modest and cautious There was no ‘wishing a movement into existence’. There is = great deal of disillusionment among many sup; af the Communist Party and among the socialists of Mollet’s Party The problem before the "New Left’ in France today was not so much that of programme bul how to combine the militant economic materialism of Marxism, which many more workers and intellectuals adhere to than in Britain, with the idealist morality of a Catholic people. Marxist economics plus idealist ethics was what he said the Nouvelle Gauche needed to get the best support and the rest results.

‘If I may say so without causing offence, the English are ment. He described how international protests pore ges a very insular nation’. said M. Bourdet amid cordial -release after only one day's detention when he was last arTested by the French police and he appealed to the British Left to be more aware of and more interested in what is happening in Europe.

Governments were moved by protests from other countries. Apart from which we would all benefit from closer contact. The audience obviously echoed this sentiment and we felt grateful to the Liniversities and Left Review Club and the Movement for Colonial Freedom for taking this initiative.

As I write, the news of the seizure of France Observateur has just come through, M. Bourdet might almost have known! Let us protest as individuals and as organizations in defence not only of France’s liberties, but ultimately. of our own.

* (They Who Are Silent Cry Out)

I was with you that day when before Bem’s statuc You raised high Hungarian and Polish banners. I know not who is wounded and who is no more Now the voices are silent, and the fires blaze.

Hearing and seeing Ciaude Bourdet, editor of France Observateur and one of the leaders of the Nouvelle Gauche, at a recent crowded meeting in the underground recesses of the Royal Hotel, produced one or two shacks.

He spoke in fluent and colloquial English. Attractive with a fine, intelligent face and reasonably young. Politician or waggish young don? His manner was decidedly not what one expects from ambitious jiticians. No demagogy. no playing to the gallery. no histrionics, hardly any ‘conducting’.

Pabiished br Peter Fryst. 1, Sesmour Terrase, London, §-E 2) ‘Your voice, Tibor Dery, in the hour of confusion, Asked me over the telephone if I was safe; And I heard that voice from the Parliament building Broken off in the ether; a last ery of despair.

We, who were history's conscience, are silent, And to, this silent speech is ‘raison d'état’... Where acrid smoke shrouds fallen bodies of rebels, This last myth has crumbled. Bem's statue remains.

* Peited by Plough Press, Ltd., ro, 130. Clapham High Sz., London, $.W.4.