The Newsletter, vol. 1 no. 11

By Our New York Correspondent HE current session of the United States Supreme Court has put a powerful iegal and moral weapon in the hands of these who e¢ppose a police state in America, In exonerating John Watkins, u union official convieted of contempt of Congress. the Supreme Court Congressional ‘investiguting” commitdealt a blow tees which have been a spearhead ‘of the witch-hunt.

Watkins had been earmarked fer prison for refusing lo give the House Un-American Activities Committee the names at people whom he knew to be members of the Communist Party.

Ruling in his favour, the Court declared that Congressional committees do not have the power ‘to expose for the sake of =aposure’.

The Supreme Court also staked out significant new limits en the thought-control Smith Act. Under this law, eighteen aders of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers’ Party were convieted in 194] on the trumped-up charge of advocating “forojble overthrow of the government.

A witch-hunt precedent This conviction was the precedent used by the government dering the last ten years of the cold war to convict over a hendred leading Communist Party members.

In 4 reaflirmation of the right of free inquiry in the schools. che Court also reversed the conviction of the socialist editor end writer Paul Sweezy.

He had been hauled before a New Hampshire state inquisiterial committee and convicted for refusing to answer qitestens about his political associations. The committee had acted after Sweezy had delivered lectures at a college in the

After careful consideration of the finaneial position of The Newsletter it has been found possible to reduce the subscription to 9s. for twelve issues, post free.

This reduction will take effect from issue no. 13. Subscribers who have already paid for more than twelve issues will have their subscriptions extended accordingty.

Tf tse circulation of The Newsletier continues to expand at the present rate, if may be found possible, despite rising costs, to make a further reduction in the subscription.

Readers are therefore asked not only to renew their cwn subscriptions promptly, but to suggest nanies and addresses of potential new subscribers. / (The First Three Months: overleaf)

According to the Hungarian opera manager Gyula Kertesz, the Kadar régime is to censor Beethoven's epera Fidelic.

Because the opera expresses a passionate protest against arbitrary imprisonment it inspired popular demonstrations when it was performed recently in the town of Szeged.

Kertesz said that in future ‘the real historical background of the opera’ would be explained. “In addition we shall change a few scenes, he said.

state.

Last month the Supreme Court struck at the FBI's use of professional informers and its practice of refusing its victims she opportunity to confront witnesses and examine ‘evidence™ im its possession.

The Court's ruling freed Clinton Jencks. a union organizer convicted for allegedly filing a false “non-communist’ affidavit. Such aflidavits are required by the union-curbing Taft-Hart=y law.)

‘Joseph Kovago, quoted in the UN Report as “the Mayor of Budapest”, I now find was not appointed by any known body with any legal authority whatever-—W. Wainwright, World News. July 13.

[Gad, Sir. damned irregular: didn’t something of the same sort happen in Paris 86 years ago?]

A debt of gratitude The witch-hunters are not taking these decisions lying down. Legislation has already been introduced by both leading Reicans and Democrats to ‘protect the files’ of the FBI.

2h moves clearly indicate that the witch-hunt that has inated! this country for the past decade is far from over. Nevertheless the Supreme Court decisions represent substanvial obstacles to the police-state trend.

For this the American working people—the prime beneficiaries of any setback to the police-staters—owe a big debt of gratitude to the working people throughout the rest

MEETINGS

FRL, JULY 12, at 8. Bromley Library. Bromley Branch C.P. invite all Party ‘members to discuss—A Democratic Communist Party.

(Daily Worker, July 10)

NOTICE THE MEETING announced to take place at Bromley Library tonight has been cancelled.

(Daily Worker, July 12)

of the world.

Far in rendering its decisions, the Supreme Court had in the need to rehabilitate to some extent the standing of imperialism among the anti-capitalist. pro-democratic socialist workers abroad.

in this respect the Court decisions on civil liberties parallel (Continued on back page) Wuat has happened to the ‘discussion journal’ which King Street promised to Communist Party members on the eve of the Hammersmith Congress?

Marxist Quarterly was closed down, it will be recalled, on the pretext of making way for this new journal. Is it ever (Continued overleaf, col. 2)

Jury 20, 1957 ‘DISCUSSION JOURNAL’ (Continued from front page) going to appear? Who is being consulted about its form and content? Who is to edit it?

If this journal ever comes out. will it suffer the same fate

NE of the least endearing features of many newspapers nowadays is a kind of shricking self-consciousness, an editorial egotism that is forever drawing attention to ‘your’ paper’s uniqueness or common touch, wisdom or cleverness, rectitude or lubricity. ‘We’ have two front pages, or are read by the “top” people, or employ twelve men on a story where one would do, or serve up more salacious revelations than our rivals, or detect and shame evil-doers, or mend hearts and marriages. or receive royal greetings on our round-number issues. The malady is due to the desperate battle for circulation, for very existence even, now in progress in Fleet Street. If this commentary is devoted to THE NEWSLETTER it is not because we have caught this disease, but because the time has come, this being the last issue but one that original subseriders will receive. to thank readers for the support they have given to a new and struggling venture, and to ask that subscriptions be renewed promptly.

THE NEWSLETTER could scarcely have been launched at a less propitious time. The death of Picture Post and the crises at the Daily Herald and the News Chronicle show what straits the newspaper industry is in. And there were some who said that there were so many new socialist journals springing up that a weekly oi this kind was neither necessary nor viable.

Yes, THE NEWSLETTER Was a gamble. It was started without capital, without staff, without an office, without a typewriter. without a telephone, without so much as a filing cabinet or a packet of paper-clips. Its motive power has been the belief that socialists needed an independent source of the kind of intelligence other papers tend to suppress or distort: the determination that not all the journalistic know-how that the Daily Werker shed through its betrayal of communist principles should be lost to the working-class movement: and the enthusiasm and energy of voluntary correspondents. The gamble came off. THE NEWSLETTER is a modest success. journalistically and financially. It has as the party monthly Discussion (1936-38)?

This began promisingly enough, but soon showed signs of strangulation, ceased to live up to its name. and eventually became a journal in which a few leaders pontificated while the rank and file merely ‘described their experiences in carrying out party policy’.

By 17 votes to none Hyde Park (Leeds) branch of the

Communist Party agreed to send its secretary and chairman lo see Jim Roche. who fecently resigned from the party after 27 years’ membership, to ask him to. rejoin.

A few days later the area committee instructed the branch that while members might visit Jim Roche as individuals. there must be no official delegation to him.

. By Peter Gibson

improved in both appearance and content. Though it makes no profit it is paying its way—hence the reduction in the subscription rate announced in this issue, Not counting postage, which cannot be cut, this is a teduction of twelve and a half per cent.

* Al sevenpence per copy plus postage THE NerwsLETTER is not dear. It is a matter of pride that whereas four pages a week were promised, there have never yet been fewer than six. (Though while the Editor is on holiday, returning one day each week to assemble the paper. there will have to be two fourpage issues.) It is a matter of pride that practically all the many letters we have received have praised this venture, and that many have enclosed donations. With these donations the basic equipment of a weekly newsservice is being assembled, so that in the next three months THe NEWSLETTER can improve still further its service to socialists. THE rally that was most unlike a rally: no banners, no singing or slogans. no flags or posters. five speakers znd no enthusiasm, That was last Saturday afternoon in Hyde Park at the Labour Youth Section Rally.

The Ministry of Works banned the display of banners and flags. and the sale or distribution of papers. One member of Leeds youth section had his name taken by a Police superintendent for selling copies of the rank-and-file youth paper Keep Left.

The only signs of feeling aroused among the S00 young people there were when the Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Labour M.P. for Bristol. S.E.. promised to protest in the House of Commons at the ban on banners, and when the general secretary of the Swedish socialist youth declared: ‘The Welfare State is all very well. but only the complete control of the means of production and distribution could win the fight against capitalism!”

When a contingent of about forty German socialist youth filed into the rally (the Police had stopped them marching in with their flags) they were ignored by the chairman. National Executive member George Brinham. who carried on speaking without a word of welcome to them.

By contrast to the flatness of the rally, the social organized in the evening by Keep Left was packed with hundreds of young people from all over Britain and Sweden, dancing, singing militant songs and discussing the future of socialist youth.

SOME EVENTS OF THE WEEK HUNGARY: Seven death sentences for the murder of police during the Revolution were upheld, seven commuted to imprisonment. by the Supreme Court.

USA: A Federal Judge denounced as ‘intolerable’ the practice in Congressional investigations of asking witnesses about the political associations of their old friends. USSR: Marshal Zhukov told a Leningrad audience that Molotov, Kaganoyich and Malenkov were ‘monstrosities within the praesidium of our party’, had committed (unspecified)

illegal acts.

FRANCE: Mr. Chaker, a Tunisian lawyer and director of the political bureau of the Neo-Destour. was arrested at Orly airport on arrival from Tunis, charged before a military court with plotting against State security.

SOUTH AFRICA: A total of 892 African women are to appear al a magistrates’ court in the Transvaal on charges arising from a public demonstration against the extension of pass Jaws to women: police had charged the women demonstrators with truncheons.

BULGARIA: Georgi Chankoy. deputy prime minister. Dobri Terpechev, Minister of Labour (said to be pro-Tito) and Yonko Panov (regarded as anti-Stalinist) were expelled from the Central Committee of the Communist Party, and Chankoy from the Politburo, for ‘anti-party activity’.

Jury 20, 1957

Two long-awaited Labour Party policy statements are published this week, on ‘Industry and Society’ and on ‘Public Enterprise’. The first discusses Labour's policy on future nationalization; the second the past and future of those industries already nationalized. The pamphlets are analyzed here \ feature of Labour's policy. The Constitution adopted ATIONALIZATION has always been a prominent in 1918 clearly states that it is the Labour Party's purpose;

‘To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible, upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.’

Clear enough! One is grateful to the party for recalling this clause in its introduction to the new policy pamphlet “Industry and Society—Labour’s Policy on Future Social Ownership’.

CLARITY IS LACKING. But alas, the policy as it emerges completely lacks the simplicity and clarity of purpose of that clause in the Constitution.

If this document is accepted in its present form the next Labour Government will be committed to nothing in the way of nationalization—apart from a definite undertaking on public ownership of the steel and long-distance road haulage industries, which were denationalized by the Tories.

‘Beyond that,” says the policy statement. ‘we reserve the Tight to extend public ownership in any industry or part of industry which, after thorough inquiry, is found to be seriously failing the nation.

‘This will not necessarily mean taking over an entire industry It may be that the solution will lie in the acquisition for the commiinity of one or a number of firms. . . 2”

But it might not even mean that. Tt is also suggested that the Government might acquire shares in various companies —paying the full market price. of course.

One can imagine the Stock Exchange bears hugging themselves with glee as the news that the State broker is on the job sends the price of shares soaring.

BIG MONOPOLIES SAFE. The great monopoly enterprises, such as Unilevers and ICI. whose development into giant corporations the pamphlet traces so eloquently, appear to be safe from nationalization.

‘The great majority... are serving the nation well.” we are told.

All that the next Labour Government will demand of these enterprises which form the very pinnacle of capitalist. economic and social power, is that “the community is entitled to satisfy itself that these independent boards act in conformity with the needs and interests of the nation’.

In fact inefficiency will become the main criterion of whether a firm is to be taken over by the State or not. As there is a repeated promise of ‘full and fair compensation’ many a potential bankrupt will be saved from Carey Street by this form of State intervention.

And by what possible interpretation can it be said that State intervention in capitalist enterprise is a means of securing for the workers ‘the full fruits of their industry’?

Or does the presence of a retired trade union official in the board room ensure “the best obtainable system of popular administration and control’?

EASY TO SELL BACK. One more question. If it was so easy for a Tory Government to denationalize iron and steel and road haulage, how much easier is it going to be for a by Labour Party member GEORGE CUNVIN.

Tt is of course one of the functions of the capitalist Press to suppress any news of successes in the nationalized sector of the economy—whereas the proposals outlined in “Industry and Society’ carry little threat to capitalism.

The review of what has been achieved by even the limited nationalizations carried out by the Labour Government, and despite the enormous overheads in the form of compensation payments, makes impressive reading.

Production of coal has increased from 190 million tons in 1946 to 222 million tons in 1956, Output per coal face worker has gone up from 2} tons per shift in 1946 to 34 tons in 1956—an all-time record for Britain and the highest in Europe.

THE MINERS’ POWER. Collieries have been reconstructed and modernized, a scientific department with two research establishments has been set up, the mines have been made safer. health and welfare services have been transformed.

The power of the nfiners’ union has ensured that a proportion of the increased wealth produced by their labours has gone to the miners. Instead of being one of the poorest-paid sections of the British working class they are now well in the van.

Since the nationalization of the electricity supply industry in 1948 the number of consumers has increased by nearly one third: new generating plant of over 14,500,000 horsepower (an increase of nearly 100 per cent) has been provided: more than 102.000 farms have been supplied with electricity for the first time.

Gas-making capacity has been increased by a fifth, and thermal efliciency is up from 71 to 76 per cent, with a saving of two million tons of coal a year.

The main object of the 1947 Transport Act was to coordinate road and rail transport. The Tories sabotaged this by returning the more profitable road transport units to ‘private enterprise’.

Despite this the nationalized railways can chalk up substantial advances. Improved use of locomotives and of their crews increased the net ton-miles per engine from 520 in 1947 to 638 in 1956. Average wagon load rose by I8 per cent.

Road haulage, iron and steel, civil aviation—all tell the same story. Even with the limitations imposed on it by a capitalist. environment, nationalization has brought about increased productivity and, compared with capitalist enterprises. has kept down costs.

NOT YET SOCIALISM. Yet nationalization as conceived by the Labour Government is still far from the socialist society conceived of by the pioneers.

The workers’ relationship with the boards remains that of labour and capital. This pamphlet makes no proposals for altering this relationship. All that is proposed is a development of the joint consultative machinery.

But it is emphasized that ‘joint consultation is advisory in purpose and spirit: final decisions rest with management’.

While there is much to criticize in this pamphlet—especially the proposed future policies for the already nationalized industries—the first section is a damning indictment of the fainthearts who have abandoned Labour's traditional stand on nationalization for the policies advocated in “Industry and Society’.

future Tory Government simply to dispose of its holdings by offering them for sale?

The capitalists who gained from the rise in the price of shares when the Labour Government bought them will now reap the benefit of the fall in price as the Tory Government release them for sale!

It is significant that the policy pamphlet ‘Public Enterprise’ has not received from the national Press anything like the publicity accorded its companion pamphlet “Industry and Society’.

LLLP OO"

Wigan Trades and Labour Council is sefding a resolution for inclusion on the agenda of the Annual Conference of the Labour Party asking that the National Executive reconstitute the Labour League of Youth on a national basis and call a national conference of the Labour youth sections.

Salford City Labour Party's resolution to this year’s Annual Conference demands that the next Labour Government repeal the Rent Act pending the implementation of Labour's policy of the municipalization of housing.

oppose co-existence policies and the improvement of Soviet

(This iy a -reprint-of the article by Joseph Clark, “The Latest Shakeup in the Soviet Union’, published in the New York Daily Worker on July 12.)

Four years and four months ago I stood in Moscow's Red Square and watched a group of short, stocky men ascend the marble tomb freshly engraved—LEnINSTALIN.

Nikita Khrushchev then introduced the three speakers at Stalin's funeral meeting. They were Georgi Malenkov, Lavrenti Beria and Vyacheslav Molotov.

‘These three had been closest to Stalin. All have been swept aside. Beria went by way of execution after a secret trial. Malenkoy and Molotov were removed in the latest shakeup of the Soviet Communist Party's leadership. Ousted with them was Stalin's old co-worker. Lazar Kaganovich.

The direction in which Soviet society must move was already indicated by the speeches of Malenkov and Beria at Stalin’s funeral. This basic trend was more clearly illuminated by the recent Soviet Party changes.

It would be unfortunate if that basic trend were obscured by the methods being used by the Soviet leaders to fight against Stalinism.

At issue in the inner-party struggle. according to the Central Committee’s resolution. were the following points:

1) Relaxing international tensions and opposition to the policy of ‘tightening the screws’ in East-West relations.

2) Democratization and eliminating the miscarriages of law anid justice.

3) Drastically improving living standards, consumer goods production and housing.

4) Decentralizing economic and political controls and enhancing the rights of the various national republics in opposition to the violations of national equality.

_ As noted before. the essence of these issues was also stressed in the Malenkoy and Beria funeral orations when Stalin died. living conditions. Maybe so. But Malenkoy as premier sponsored moves which greatly eased world tensions. and he was the author of the programme emphasizing consumer goods production. In fact, he was fired as premier in 1955 for that emphasis.

Perhaps later Malenkov changed his views and adopted Molotov’s. That’s always possible. Indeed he had changed in the few days since Stalin died, from supporting Stalinism to his later statement of post-Stalin policies.

But if he was guilty as charged by the recent resolution the Soviet people were entitled to evidence and a statement from both sides. They were never given the benefit of public debate.

The struggle was bottled up in the praesidium and in the Party's Central Committee. If anything, the methods used in the struggle against Stalinism shows that it will still take considerable time before democratic controls and procedures and direct working-class rule in all phases of Soviet life are established.

* But the statement of the issues shows the irend, And the fact that the Central Committee debated the issue is a far cry from the days when Stalin alone made decisions.

In this regard the studies of Isaac Deutscher on the Soviet Union have received startling confirmation once again. As far back as 11 years ago, in his biography of Stalin. Deutscher showed that the forces unleashed by the industrialization of Russia under Stalin would ullimately lead to the downfall of Very few of the top figures who worked directly with Stalin are left in Sovict leadership. Most are out.

It is fatuous to think that those ousted were not responsible for some of the achievements during the Stalim era as well as for the crimes.

It would be just as fatuous to think that Khrushchev, Mikoyan, Bulganin and Voroshiloy. remaining collaborators of Stalin, were also not responsible for the Leningrad frame-up and the repressions of the 30's, for which they now blame Molotoy. Malenkov and Kaganovich.

Meanwhile, it is progress that the worst aspect of Stalinisin is not being repeated—those defeated jn political struggle have not been executed or exiled.

Aside from what this may show about the inner-party conflicts the main lesson of the post-Stalin era seems to be that democracy, equality and rising living standards. along with peaceful co-existence. are the only conditions under which a socialist economy can develop, Stalinism was death to socialism on all four counts above.

Even so conseryative a foe of socialism as Winston Churchill has discerned the maior direction of Soviet policy—towards achieving lasting peace.

* Lenin once said that communism meant the Soviet system plus universal electrification. It seems that Lazar Kaganovich was no enthusiast for either element.

In association with Stalin and Molotoy he helped put an end to Soviet democracy. According to the head of the Sverdlovsk (Urals) Railway (Pravda. July 9). he obstructed the electrification of main lines. concentrating instead on the further development of steam traction: electrification began to go ahead on a big scale only after the Twentieth Congress,

Therefore it would be most unfortunate if the special demonology which says Malenkov was a foe of peaceful coexistence would hide the vital conflict over foreign policy which went on ever sinve Stalin died.

And it would be too bad if one had to accept the conclusion that Kaganovich never did know how to run a railroad in order to understand the conflict over the relationship of heavy industry, agriculture and living standards.

There was unquestionably an issue of policy behind every conflict in the Soviet party leadership.

But this doesn’t mean there wasn't also jockeying for jeadership and power, The account published in the Italian Communist newspaper Unita showed what a close struggle (six to five) there was in the praesidium.

The lack of basic democratic procedure in the Soviet ComTaunist Party, which still persists, makes it possible to hurl accusations while the people don’t hear both sides of the argument.

For example, Malenkov is accused of joining Molotoy, to Six journalists on two French Trotskyist papers have been sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for writing articles against the war in Algeria.

This is the first time that French journalists have been sent to prison solely for articles published by them.

Those sentenced are Gerard Bloch. S. Just. Pierre Lambert and D. Renard. of La Vérité, and Pierre Frank and J. Privas. of La Vérité des Travailleurs, JOINT SOVIET-YUGOSLAV FILM COMING A film is to be made jointly by Soviet and Yugoslay studios about Oleko Dundich. a Serbian hero of the Russian Civil War.

Dundich served in the Austro-Hungarian army in the 1914 war. and was in a prison camp in Russian at the time of the October Revolution.

He commanded an ‘international brigade’ which formed part of Budyonny’s First Cavalry Army.

ea Se ee USA The American Way of Life 1 two soNs AND TWO FATHERS Martin Dantets, aged sixteen, lived with his unemployed docker father in a South Philadelphia slum.

Martin’s father had a long record of arrests for burglary and assault and often beat his six children, Two weeks ago Martin's father took his boy's tumbledown car and forty dollars housekeeping money and went off on a drinking bout with a woman, Martin and his mother found them in a bar and demanded the money.

‘1 don't have a cent left. We were over in Jersey and we had a good time. was the reply.

* « « .

Jury 20. LOST ‘T can’t stand this any more.’ said Martin. He told his fourteen-vear-old friend Raymond Edwards: ‘I'm fed up with him, I'm going to get a gun.

Martin borrowed a hunting rifle. Raymond did the shooting—he held a marksmanship medal, Al twenty yards he shot Martin's father in the chest and killed him.

When police asked Raymond why he fired the rifle he answered: ‘Because Martin asked me to.’ Then he said: “I had he urge to kill”. Had he ever had the urge before? “I don’t now.

Then the police discovered that two years ago. for shooting a man to death during an attempted robbery, Raymond's father had been put to death in the electric chair.

. ® = * Now my friend is no enemy of progress, and he was all for

AN old copy of the New York Times has finally informed me that last May the United States Information Agency opened up an exhibit in Colombo, Ceylon, called “People’s Capitalism’.

The star of the exhibit. says the Times, is one Ed Barnes. a S6.000-a-year US Steel miilwright from Pennsylvania, who represents the American workers, or at Jeast the American steel workers.

The reason for the name. “People’s Capitalism’, is that the Asian people are interested in terms like “people's democracies’. ‘people's government’, ‘democratic socialism’. etc, ‘People’s capitalism’ is Wall Strect’s name tor American imperialism, and the USIA blandly states that in the United States, “almost everybody becomes a capitalist’ of some kind.

The exhibit shows Ed Barnes at work and home in his nice little plave with his family. Mrs, Bares has all the modern appliances to make housework easy.

The neat. well-furnished living room is reproduced, and visitors can even sit an the furniture. In addition there are pictures and charts and films showing that life can be beautiful in the good old USA.

The exhibitors’ loyable modesty With lovable modesty they go so far as to admit that all is not perfeet here: but they imply that this is a temporary situation soon to be remedied.

For instance. one poster confesses that “No economic system is perfect, but in a really free society faults cannot be hidden’, and shows a slum along with the housing project which was built to replace it.

Now I've worked in factories for a good many years. and T've gotten to know a lot of people. What strikes me as odd és that all the guys [ve worked with have been the exceptions to the rule.

Not a one of them has ever become a capitalist in any form whatever—unless the exhibit referred to-the fellow who sold mbers up and down the furnace line, or the guy in the Shine shop who used to book horses when the foreman out of the department.

Apart from these two, the American workers T have known have all been the farthest thing from capitalists that you've ster scen.

And I've had a little experience in slum clearance too. A friend of mine lived in a terrible rat-hole. The only reason seu couldn't call it a firetrap was that it was so damp it prabably wouldnt burn. He paid $75 a month rent.

But. as they say. in this country “faults cannot be hidden’.

Just in passing I can't help wondering how you could hide = slum in any kind of society!)

So one day a man came around and informed my friend hat he and his family would have to get out. The neighbourGod was a slum. It was condemned and would be torn down and replaced by a fine new housing project. slum clearance. But he and his family had picked up the damnedest habit of living indoors.

The habit was so deeply ingrained that they could not even sleep out on the ground for the brief year or so that it would take to raze the neighbourhood and erect the project.

So he moved with his family into another slum where he was lucky enough to find another damp rat-hole for $75. It seas a little smaller, but then the whole neighbourhood was more crowded. since his neighbours all had to find new places to live, too.

The rent of rat-holes Finally the new project was finished. My friend went around to look at it but found the rents ranged from $85 to $45 a month. so he couldn't afford it.

He’s still in favour of progress, but he hopes the city doesn’t decide to clear out the slum he lives in now, The next rat-hole might cost more than $75 a month, Of course the New York Times didn’t have space to report the exhibit in each and every detail. But T think I'd almost be willing to make a small bet that the exhibit did not deal with this aspect of slum clearance.

And T can’t help suspecting that the picture they gave of the American stecl worker may have been just a litthe tncomplete.

_ Therefore. as a public service, I should like to propose that in the interest of clarity the United States Information Agency add a few more items to the exhibit:

(4) I know another steel worker named Barnes—not Ed, Reuben. We call him Ruby. He's a Negro, and he's not a millwright. He's a labourer.

Not all Negroes in the steel plant have bad jobs; but most of the good jobs belong to white men. Ruby doesn’t earn $6.000 a year. He earns Jess than $4,000, and that’s before taxes. In Order to take home S6.000. it takes him almost two years.

Since there are so many more labourers than millwrights, and since most sleel workers earn a wage more like Ruby’s than Ed’s. isn’t it funny that the USIA used Ed as an example instead of Ruby?

The old man’s jacket (B) The Old Man’s jacket would make a good exhibit. In fact it was one. We had it hanging up for months on Number Five Blast Furnace after we pulled it off the Old Man the night the tapping hole blew ont on him.

It was half burnt up, and it looked as though a load of buckshot had gone through the back.

We didn’t mean to display it. Somebody just hung it up, and nobody thought to take it down, Finally it disappeared.

Probably the Old Man threw it away when he came back to work about three months later. But if it turns up, we'd be glad send it on to Ceylon. Its a good example of what a steel orker faces on the job.

_ (C) The average steel worker's wife has a clothes dryer, but it's better than the one in the exhibit. No moving parts to wear out. If it breaks, you just tie it together. Its a rope.

You stretch it across a yard, if you have a yard, or string it between two buildings, and hang the clothes on it. Then if any sun can get to them, they dry.

(D) The exhibit needs more pictures of our homes. Something more real. Our places have that lived-in look. They arent new and raw-looking: they're mellow. People have been living in them SO or 100 years.

And maybe they could send a Jandlord over there too, to stand around in the exhibit. In case none is available, maybe the right hand of some landlord who has gone to his reward could be displayed. pickled in alcohol. and gently curved. palm up, in position to receive the monthly rent.

(E) But to get the best picture of the American steel worker there should be a photograph of ten graves in the quiet of a cemetery, the graves of those Republican Steel strikers who were shot down by the Chicago cops 20 years ago for the crime of picketing to organize the plant.

They were not the only martyrs to the workers’ struggle. but they will do. They are a symbol for all the rest. The gains that we have made, and such good things as we do enjoy, are due to militant workers like they were.

There could be many more suggestions. but these alone would make the steel worker exhibit much more accurate.

Still, when you think it over, you can see this might really gum up the works. ‘People’s Capitalism’ wouldn't look so good, and the people of Ceylon might not believe that over here ‘almost everybody becomes a capitalist’.

But then again, I kind of think the Ceylonese people aren't going to believe it anyway.

Jury 20, Khrushchev was obviously aware of this fact, He therefore directed most of his remarks to me and tried to persuade me of the consistent class character of the party's approach to this matter.

Unfortunately his words had the opposite effect on me. Our disagreement became crystal clear.

Khrushchev’s opening remarks were devoted to the achievements and problems of the USSR. He dealt with some aspects of the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and with developments in the international arena, with special stress on their effect on preserving world peace.

His views and conclusions on these general questions were extraordinarily interesting and enlightening. I intend to write about these on another occasion.

First. Khrushchev denied all slanders of anti-Semitism directed against himself and against the party. He listed the names of numerous Soviet Jews who held key positions in the USSR. He even mentioned that his daughter-in-law was Jewish.

The right should be there He repeated the view already mentioned that Soviet Jews in the majority were integrated in the general life of the country. He stressed that such integration was historically progressive whereas separatism was reactionary, He disagreed with the idea of establishing Jewish schools. He showed how much better off Jewish children are if they go to the general schools, and remarked that even in Kiev some comrades were complaining that the people preferred to send their children to the Russian rather than to the Ukrainian schools. In Lvov, he said. the Russian theatre is competing with the Ukrainian theatre.

(I should point out that at no time did I propose any separating of Jewish children only from the general Soviet schoo!

By J. B. Sulsberg (This is the seventh in the series of articles, “Talks with Soviet Leaders on the Jewish Question’)

AcyHouan i have hitherto avoided naming persons wiio said this or that, T want to make an exception in the case of Nikita Khrushchev for several important reasons, First, because Khrushchev is now the most influential per- . son in the Soviet party and government. His approach to, or opinion on. any question is very important, perhaps decisive.

What he had to say about Jewish problems is therefore of special significance and must be carefully examined.

Second, because T was disturbed by his attitude toward the Jewish question’ as he expressed it at our conference, T am especially concerned because in my opinion the main partly leadership at presents orients itself on Khrushchev's central conclusions on Jewish questions in the Soviet Union. although they may not agree with all his approaches to these questions.

Third, Khrushchev’s conclusions strengthened my convic- : tion that the Communist Party of ‘the Soviet Union is still guilty of serious deviations from the liberating socialist theory of the solution of the national question in a socialist society. This deviation leads to Jewish problems in the USSR.

For all these reasons and because I am convinced that the interests of socialism, of the Soviet Union and of Soviet Jews require a public discussion. polemic and criticism of every development in the USSR which is in*contradiction with socialist democracy. or which smacks of backward prejudice. T make an exception in the case of Khrushchev.

As I mentioned earlier, Khrushchev participated in the official discussions at the final meeting with our delegation.

The session took place in his own. office and lasted for approximately two hours. It was devoted almost exclusively to the Jewish problem in the USSR.

The reason for this was that both my colleagues on the Canadian delegation and the leaders of the Soviet party who had participated in the previous sessions were aware that I was still dissatisfied with the explanations that we had received regarding the “Jewish question’. system, although I feel this right too must be granted if there are sufficient parents who desire it.

What I stressed was the right of that section of the Jewish population that desires to give its children a Jewish education to have the right and opportunity of doing so.

Whether this would be in the form of afternoon classes as is the case in Canada and the United States, or in the form of special classes in the regular government schools. or in the form of entirely separate schoojs where both the general and specific Jewish subjects are taught—as is the case frequently in Poland and Rumania—should be determined freely and democratically by the parents who are interested in Jewish education.)

Khrushchev then turned to the question that there are good and bad in every people, whether Russian. Ukrainian or Jewish. To make his point he listed some of the negative characteristics of the Jewish people.

During the incorporation into the USSR of those parts of Rumania that reaction had captured during the revolution, very many Jews chose to return to Rumania rather than to adopt Soviet citizenship.

‘Wherever a Jew settles . . 2 After the liberation of Chernovitz (Bukovina) the streets were found to be very dirty. When the Jews were asked why the streets were not cleaned, they replied that the non-Jewish population that used to be responsible for this task had fled the city.

Thousands of Soviet citizens have taken tourist trips out of the country. Only three have failed to return. All of them were Jews.

Wherever a Jew settles down. he immediately builds a synagogue.

He, Khrushchev, agreed with Stalin that the Crimea. which was depopulated at the end of the war against Hitler, should not be designated a centre for Jewish colonization, because in case of war it would be turned into a ‘place d’armes’ [a base for attack] against the USSR.

Solomon Lozoevsky. world famous and devoted Old Bolshevik. for many years head of the “Red ‘Trade Union International’, was unjustifiably executed because he was dragged into the Crimea affair, (According to information at my disposal, Lozovsky perished together with the Jewish writers on August 12. 1952. One of Stalin’s false charges against these writers and against Lozovsky was that they wanted to ‘tear the Crimea away from the USSR*.)

At the close of the discussion Khrushchev advised me in a comradely way not to allow myself to be saddled by the bourgeoisie and the Zionists.

I was very disturbed by the foregoing and other remarks.

They express a backward prejudice against the Jews as a group, as a people—prejudice which is in sharpest contradiction with a Marxist way of thinking.

It reuinds me somewhat of Stalin’s approach to a number of small peoples during the war that he deported because of the sins of certain individuals among them.

Khrushchev himself sharply denounced Stalin for these practices at the Twentieth Congress.

Tn my opinion Khrushchey’s statements to our delegation smack of Great-Russian chauvinism, which Lenin so strongly fought all his life.

L also feel that his approach to the question of the Jewish nationality is an unforgivable violation of socialist demoeracy. It can only lead to forced assimilation instead of voluntary integration, which is a historical process for generations.

T cannot agree with those of my colleagues who argue that we have to approach Khrushchev’s remarks from a ‘class viewJury 20, 1957 point’ and seek out their ‘class content’.

Certainly the class composition of the Russian Jews was a hundred thousand times less satisfactory in the years following the revolution than today, 40 years later.

And what boundless confidence and understanding Lenin had for the Jewish masses! What love and hope did the Jewish poor show for the new society in those years!

Tf Khrushchevy’s distrust of the Jewish people as a group is justified. then it is a terrible indictment not of the Soviet Jews, but of the Stalinist crimes and distortions of the nationalities policy in general and particularly as applied to the Jewish people.

It is time that we speak plainly and enter into a public polemic with Soviet leaders on this painful matter. After Khrushchey’s statements there can be no question about the need for this task.

(To be continued)

WHY HAROLD REYNOLDS IS WRONG ir seems to me that Harold Reynolds and Alison Maclead are both wrong—for different reasons—in their attitude towards the Labour Party.

A drift towards reformist ideas would be no less an error than support for Stalinism.

But to dismiss the Constituency Labour Parties as ‘electoral machines which are defunct in between elections’ and to imply that all those former members of the Communist Party who join the Labour Party are capitulating to reformism, is to be swayed by superficial impressions.

Ward and Constituency Labour Party organizations are just about as well or as poorly attended as the vast majority of trade union branches—i.e.. mainly by the most active people.

This does not mean these organizations are defunct: but as mass organizations they reflect the industrial and political inactivity of the members, who are only moved into action on major national or local issues.

Harold Reynolds’ ‘rule of thumb” attendance argument could just as well lead towards dismissing not only the Labour Party but also trade union branches as a medium for Marxist activily.

Nobody suggests-that reformists and careerists don’t join the Labour Party. Of course they do, and they join trade unions too.

But the fact remains that the overwhelming majority of the working class. including former Communist Party members. who join these organizations. are neither careerists nor teformists even though they may be unclear about many things.

Take the workers as they are A genuine application of Marxism must begin with taking the working class as it is now, and not as we would like it to be.

Reynolds insists that we must be in the’‘potential centres of organized power’ such as the factories. shop stewards’ organizations, trade unions and trades councils. True enough, but why omit the Labour Party?

The Labour Party. he says, is an ‘essential prop’ of the capitalist system. This is an over-simplification which leads 10 a serious error, because it lumps the rank and file with the opportunist leaders, who are certainly all that Reynolds claims them to be.

In Britain the trade unions founded the Labour Party and must be considered as an integral part of it. Is not the Labour Party therefore a ‘centre of organized power?

One does not have to be a Marxist to realize that there is every chance that Labour will win the next election. What will the next Labour Government be if not ‘a centre of organized power?

A Marxist is active in his trade union not only to improve the conditions of its members but also to demonstrate in practice the correctness of his political ideas.

Political policy formulated in the trade unions is carried into practice through the Labour Party.

A Marxist trade unionist who wins support for his policy must of necessity carry the fight into the Labour Party if he is to take the inembership through the practical experience of the struggle against reformism.

That is why the building of a Marxist trend in the trade unions is inseparable from pursuing a similar policy in the Labour Party.

A Marxist organization by all means. Harold Reynolds. but one which is fighting side by side with the workers, teaching them and learning from their experiences, inside the Labour Party and trade unions.

An organization completely or partially outside these bodies . vould be nothing more than another talking shop—and we have cnough of those already.

London, S.W,

The Order of Lenin has been awarded, ‘on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday’, to Professor Meyer Vovsi.

Prof. Voysi was one of the group of doctors who were charged in January 1953 with having murdered Zhdanoy and plotted the murder of other Soviet public men. on the instigation of Zionists.

8!

Children of Hiroshima: 16 mm. film available from Plate JuLty 20, 1957 It is a movement to stop such bombing ever happening again and to organize the victims so that they may meet sociany and give each other understanding. hope and the will to ive.

Setting up a new party, complete with a hundred per cent correct programme, a weekly paper, full-time workers and offices is no guarantee that the millions of workers who today support the Labour Party will transfer their allegiance to the new party.

Before the British working class recognize the need for a Marxist programme and leadership, they have first to be convinced that the present Right-wing leaders are not going to solve their problems.

How can that necessary transformation be achieved? By speeches and propaganda alone? Of course not.

First of all, the workers must test out the old leadership. This is done, not in the discussion clubs and the debating societies, but in the mass organizations of the working class, where the workers place their political demands upon the Right wing.

Surely the job of Marxists is to be in these organizations, counterposing a principled socialist programme to the 'Welfare State-ism' of the Gaitskells and Carrons.

For Marxist ideas to gain a mass base in Britain, then they must prove their superiority in the Left wing of the Labour Party and the trade unions.

Of course the sectarian will hurriedly cross himself here and mutter 'Betrayal'. Such people are in essence not prepared to trust themselves not to be opportunists.

I can only ask them: 'Is it a betrayal to join the Labour Party in order to fight the ideas of Fabianism and help to construct a Left wing?'

One final point. Some of those who have taken part in this discussion in The Newsletter seem to be getting a little starry-eyed about the Labour Party.

They should note that although its base is working-class, its leadership basically thinks and acts like capitalists. Unless we lead a struggle against that leadership, our membership is useless.

Liverpool, 9.

Bob Pennington

Films, Ltd. 18 Greek St, London, W.1 (Gerrard 4753). THis very moving film about the effects of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima was made by a group of Japanese film-makers and sponsored by the Japanese National Congress for the Abolition of the H-Bomb.

It tells of how, a decade after this diabolical thing dropped from the skies. it is still causing death and living death to so many Japanese.

The three victims who take part in the film are shown first. not only as sufferers from leukaemia. as facially disfigured. as hopelessly crippled. but as victims of personal despair wntil they helped and inspired by a growing movement among the Japanese people.

Liverpool. 9.

The film lasts for only about twenty minutes. and it has been specially ‘edited’ for British audiences. No one should expect a work of art—there is much to crilicize technically.

But somehow its understatement is much more moving than a more lurid film might have been.

Although it shows suffering. it also shows how precious life is, and the courage and humanity with which the Japanese are fighting to ban atomic and hydrogen bombs, not only for themselves. but for the sake of all people on earth and the unborn millions.

Organizations will find that because of its short running time this film is most suitable as a complement to a speaker or to a discussion on the H-bomb. It can be booked for a small fee.

Mercia Emmerson By J. H. Bradley

WILLIAM LaucHtaN's article on the British Communist Party today, in World News of July 13, is devoted in part to running down the Labour Party and, in particular, the idea that Marxists and militants can achieve anything inside. it.

The article is illustrated with a picture showing ‘a section of the densely-packed crowd which rallied in London’s Trafalgar Square last November to protest against the war over UCZ .

Yet this demonstration was not called by the CP—it was a Labour affair!

By the way, I have heard that Pravda, which usually plays up the significance of communist-organized demonstrations, however small, gave not one line to this historic demonstration of London’s citizens.

YT wonder why it chose to keep the news (good news, one would have thought) from its readers?

Beaminster (Dorset).

US WITCH-HUNT (Continued from front page) their decision banning racial discrimination in the nation’s public schools.

That decision was both a concession to the American Negroes and an effort to offset the liability that the Jim-Crow system represents to US imperialism in the colonial world.

And just as the Negro people seized upon the school decision to organize a militant struggle for equality, so the American Labour movement must utilize the recent court decisions in the struggle for restoring the Bill of Rights to America, (The American Way of Life: page 79)

Published by Peter Fryer, 180, Clapham High St., London, S.W4.

Macuines have lately been doing many of the things which for centuries were declared to be exclusive to living organisms. One was recently demonstrated which showed a ‘conditioned reflex’, which is actually quite simple to produce.

Another machine teaches the reflex, but can just as well teach touch-typing. and in the very near future similar principles will be applied to many kinds of operation.

The ‘teacher’ tells the pupil what exercise to perform, and checks whether he carries it out correctly. The commonest type will be a simple electronic computer. as this can ‘remember’ perfectly all the pupil’s mistakes, and drills him with particular care on the points he most often gets wrong.

_ From time to time the machine recapitulates the earlier and simpler exercises. to make sure the pupil has not forgotten them, Repetitive or complex jobs Teaching machines are most easily applied to the most boring and repetitive jobs. such as typing. driving, many machining operations, learning Latin, marking homework, etc, They can be applied, with more ingenuity. even to complex skills. such as radio designing. usually by breaking down the course into simple parts.

‘Programming’ will allow one machine to teach many diverse tasks, selected at the turn of a switch. No new ‘teacher’ will be needed just because the task has been modified in some way.

In many cases the automatic teachers can in due course be replaced by automatic machines such as a fully automatic Jathe. but they will be especially valuable for many years in teaching very complex tasks with simple parts. such as working the controls of a car.

Never tired or forgetful Our social system ensured that the first task was teaching to fly jet planes, which is now obsolescent anyway.

Automatic teachers are never tired or forgetful, can show any required ‘irritation’ or ‘pleasure’ at their pupil's performance, and give the most detailed personal supervision!

Teaching machines are unlikely to be more expensive, in terms of capital invested, than a human being who represents up to £10.000 of human work, depending on his training.

Their maintenance is probably considerably cheaper. and a rational society will use machines to release human beings for tasks which require full human capacities. as well as to offset to some extent the present acute shortage of science teachers.

Printed by Plough Press, Lw., r.o, 180, Clapham High St., London, SW.4.