The Newsletter, vol. 1 no. 15

SWANT to explain to readers ot The Newsletter why thousands of London portworkers have taken their stand this week at the side of the Covent Garden market men.

And why. moreover, the dock section committee of WHY WE FOUGHT—AND WILL FIGHT AGAIN the National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers, reBy a Covent Garden Porter presenting ‘blue’ union men in London, Liverpool, BirEven after years of successful struggle, our working kenhead, Manchester and Hull, declared its support for conditions are still among the worst in Britain. the dockers’ solidarity action.

Briefly, the dockers see the action of the Covent Garden Most of us begin work at 6 a.m. and finish al 3.30 to 4 p.m.

We have to pull. for long distances, barrows and trolleys of employers as an all-out attack on wade unionism, ancient design (which we hire ourselves). laden with anything In the past the Covent Garden men have always given finanup to three-quarters of a ton of produce. cial support to the dockers in their struggles. We were therefore bound to help them—particularly as a defeat for the markst Some of us have to walk as many as twenty miles a day. men would be only the prelude to an attack on conditions in _This arduous labour is carried on even in the wettest weather, Yet there is hardly an employer who provides adequate drying the ports.

We already have pooled labour, which they were being asked facilities for our clothes. io aczept. and we know its disadvantages. Tn the whole of Covent Garden there are only three public At Tooley Street, where the refusal to handle produce that lavatories provided for more than 3,000 men who. regularly was destined to cross a picket line sparked off the strike. there attend the market. is a tradition that nothing is done that would daniage the cause Some firms do provide toilet facilities. but these are usually of trade unionism, kept in such a dirty state that most workers prefer nat to use Two weeks ago. at the Canary Wharf, a fruit ship was dethem. elared black. and the employers had to take her to Oslo. The But what of the chaotic and archaic system of frait and ould not tench her. Up in Leith the dackers ‘blacked’ docke: vegetable distributicn? Lt is a paradise £ rtrartts! Covent Garden produce.

Forty per cent of the produce that goes through Covent GarIncensed by blackleg labour den is regonsigned to other parts of the country. Quile oft goods will come down from Liverpool, be inspected by :

On thing above all that has incensed the dockers is the emcommission agent. and be sent back to Liverpool! ployers’ use of blackleg labour to handle crates of fruit even In other words. highly perishable commodities have tc he while digxcussions were luking place.

siphoned through Leadon. And somebody in that market is all ‘This happened at the Butlers Wharf Extension. They tried time getting his cut on fruit and vegetables which are to tell us the fruit was condemned. But the crates were a5 clean never even unloaded. 4s a whistle. And all the time they were being taken off, discussions were proceeding. This really got our backs up in the Distribution takes over half West India Docks.

According to H. D. Walston’s ‘Our Daily Bread’. published Most of the Transport and General Workers’ Union officials by the Labour Party in 1952. over fifty per cent of the price are so discredited in the eyes of the men that they have nor the housewife pays for her fruit and vegetables goes on transshown themselves at meetings—all except one, who told us he port and distribution. did not care whether we were working or starving.

After four weeks of struggle many of the lads have come to This official tried to talk about the possibility of the owners the conclusion that only the nationalization of the fruit and of fruit and vegetables issuing writs against the Port of London vegetable wholesale trade can finally solve the problem—with Authority. the workers playing a full part in the ruaning of the markets.

But he was jeered at. As Tommy Walker. who is leading the This is the only way to improve their working conditions. strike at Butler's Wharf, pointed out. the only documents we are interested in are not legal writs but union cards, and the Meanwhile the Covent Garden men are determined not to obligations they impose on loyal trade unionists. let the bosses smash trade union organization. That is why we put up the fight we did. We are ready to fight again if need be, (Garston Strike: overleaf)

‘NO’ TO TEACHERS’ £20 A MONTH CLAIM The Southern Rhodesia Prime Minister and Minister of

The only real White Terrorist to be discovered in Hungary Native Education, Mr. Garfield Todd, has rejected a plea from since the outbreak of the revolution last October 23, Mihaly Native teachers for a wage increase. says The Federation of Kiss (69) has been executed, reports Budapest Radio. His Rhodesia and Nyasaland Newsletter. crimes were committed in 1919.

Mr. Todd told a delegation from the African Teachers’ Association that there was no money available to meet the demands.

The teachers had asked him to reconsider their salary scales,

‘No CP National Congress Next Year?’—The Newsletter, ‘bearing in mind thal the lowest salary on which the professional man can subsist is £20 a month, with a possible mini- June 22. mum of £15". Their appeal was supported by a family budget. “1958 Communist Congress Ol —Daily Telegraph. August 10.

11-10: 509-432 B OTH Mr. Frank Cousins and Mr. Donald Mack will be studying these figures very carefully. When the terms for a resumption of work were first put by the former to the Covent Garden branch committee of his union they were accepted by 16 votes to 3. After the committee had had time to consider their implications. however, it was decided by 11 votes to 10 to recommend that the strike go on. An hour of Mr. Cousins’s oratory could not over-persuade 432 of the market men that the terms he had secured afforded them proper protection against the employers’ offensive.

This substantial minority seem to have felt that Mr. Cousins had Jet them down. They shouted ‘Judas’ at him and ‘You sold us down the river’ and ‘Sling him out’ and “Get back to your holiday’. And indeed, those who opposed a return to work may turn out in the long run to have been the wiser and more far-sighted. The employing class is clearly determined to weaken trade union organization by every possible means. The splendid solidarity action of the portworkers shows that they understood the significance of the Covent Garden fight, and that they are determined not to retreat.

17, 1957 By Our Industria] Correspondent

Wing tear gas and fixed bayonets against strikers. The news from Lodz is deeply disturbing. Who ever heard of strikers freely admitting that their strike was “wrong and unjust’? Mr. Gordon Cruickshank’s dispatches in the Daily Worker would have been more convincing if they had been datelined ‘Lodz’ instead of ‘Warsaw’. Was he refused permission to go to Lodz? If so, why? If the Polish Government wishes to allay the anxiety of workers abroad about the way this affair has been handled. it will invite a delegation of rank-and-file trade unionists to visit Lodz. interview transport workers freely, and find out on the spot what caused this strike and whether unnecessary violence was used in breaking it.

THE TAINTED SEAS ON another page our Science Correspondent discusses some of the recent discoveries with which a rational society will ease and enrich the lives of its citizens. No doubt efficient sewage disposal will be a feature of such a society. Certainly the inefficiency of capitalist society is summed up in the startling revelations of The Times about the discharge of untreated sewage into the sea around our coasts. According to the secretary of the Institution of Public Health Engineers ‘no public health engineer would ever think of bathing in the sea who has special knowledge of sewage disposal’. Discoloration of the sea along much of the coast, with human excrement floating off and settling on bathing beaches. can easily be seen from the air. Municipal Engineering suggests that this may be causing the spread of poliomyelitis. The seaside local authorities cannot afford to spend between £100,000 and £250,000 each to keep the sea unpolluted. The Government say it is not a matter for them: any Minister who gave permission for the huge outlay necessary for sewage purification works would be ‘frightfully unpopular’, The Timey calls it ‘a filthy business’. But if there was any profit to be made out of it, the seas would soon be swept and sweetened.

PorTWORKERS at the Mersey port of Garston have gone back to work, They came out in defence of the rights of Mr. H. R. Sappa. a member of the National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers—the ‘blue’ union.

The men have agreed to leave the matter in the hands of the NASD Executive for the time being.

Mr. Sappa, a crane driver, has been denied a place on the permanent register, although. according to custom and praclice, his turn came two years ago.

When a vacancy arises on the register it is filled by the next senior man from the daily register.

In March 1955 there was a vacancy, and Mr. Sappa was al the top of the list for up-grading. But he received a letler from ihe local Transport and General Workers’ Union secretary, Mr. A. Hardman, informing him that ‘all men employed in this department must be members of the TGWU".

Mr. Sappa insisted on his right to belong to the union of his choice. The matter hung in abeyance for two years, and the two men below Mr. Sappa on the list refused to be up-graded over his head.

On August 8 the Transport Commission tried to fill the vacancy. The workers’ reaction was instantaneous. Dockers and permanent crane drivers streamed off the ships in protest.

Mr. Joe Hooley. Garston branch secretary, told me: ‘The men of both unions are determined to fight against this attack on what for years has been a recognized procedure.

Mr. Bill Johnson, area secretary of the NASD. said: ‘The matter is not closed but will be resolved some time.”

Y OU cannot correct the mistakes of twelve years by usINDONESIA: With 90.000 votes, the Communist Party won control of the municipal council in Bandung. capital of Western Java.

USA: A strike of three hundred packers, who are demanding higher wages. stopped publication of six newspapers in Boston (pop. $00,000).

KENYA: Police made a baton charge on crowds which welcomed Mr. Tom Mboya and Mr. Ronald Ngala, African members of the Kenya Legislative Council. on their return from Britain.

OMAN: Following the capture of Nizwa the Sultan of Muscat sent Air Vice-Marshal Sinclair a message expressing special!

appreciation of the RAF’s ‘magnificent offensive action’ and hoping that British troops were not suffering too, greatiy from the severe heat and hard conditions.

FRANCE: Though newspapers other than Libération and the communist Humanité avoided the word ‘devaluation’ the French Government has in fact devalued the france. These meastires to ease the financial crisis have been taken: 1) A surcharge of 20 per cent is impesed on all imports other than of raw materials: 2) Exporters are given a bonus of 20 per cent of the value of their sales abroad: 3) Foreign tourists can buy frances at 20 per cent below the official rate; and 4) The Bank Rate is increased from 4 per cent to 5 per cent —the highest since 1937.

* * *

Arter fights between transport workers armed with iron bars and soldiers with fixed bayonets the strike at Lodz has ended.

The Polish Government has agreed to increase the wages of tramway workers throughout the country, Strikers were twice ejected from tram depots they occupied at night. and tear gas was used. Government and party buildings were guarded by armed men.

Warsaw radio claims that the workers themselves admitted that their strike was ‘wrong and unjust’. They had ‘lent their

ears lo irresponsible elements’ and put forward ‘unrealistic demands’.

The strikers’ three main demands were:

1) Higher pay;

2) Restoration of a one-month’s bonus pay at the end of every twelfth month (the thirteenth wage, as it is called). This was at one time granted, but later the concession was cancelled:

3) A change in the system of wages. which they say is unjust.

One woman. waving a tear-gas cartridge in the face of the Minister of Local Government. Stanislas Sroka, is reported to have asked him: ‘Is this what you use against women?”

Workers on long-distance buses serving Lodz—an old centre of revolutionary socialism—declared their solidarity with the municipal transport workers.

Informed sources in Warsaw are saying that Mao Tse-tung’s which published its first annual report in June this year. and announced its sent ham to set up a new fund to promote research on any problem relating to smoking and health.

Meanwhile it had appointed its own scientific consultants, who offered some criticisms of the statistical surveys on which the relationship between tobacco smoking and lung cancer is established by the MRC.

The gist of the Standing Committee's criticism is that the suggestion of cause and effect cannot be convincingly deduced solely from observation, but must be derived from strictly controlled experiment on random populations: moreover the relationship is unsupported by convincing laboratory evidence.

Reviewing this criticism. the Lancet recalls the events of 1854, when the last great outbreak of cholera occurred in this country.

Purely observational data at that time convinced Dr. John Snow of the responsibility of the Broad Street pump in spread-

visit to Poland has again been postponed. and will not now take lace till after the Polish United Workers’ Congress in Decemer or January.

Mao was first expected in Warsaw last month and then in November.

From Our New York Correspondent ing the disease.

He would have had to wait thirty years for laboratory evidence comparable to that demanded by the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Standing Committee—the discovery by Koch in 1883 of the Vibrio Cholerae, the organism responsible for the disease.

He could scarcely be expected to wait so long before ‘per suading Londoners not to drink their own sewage’! It is simiJarly unreasonable to hold back from positive action against lung cancer.

Tur National Committee of the U.S. Communist Party has approved the appointment of nine secretaries to serve us the party’s collective leadership.

They replace the temporary eleven-man administrative committee which was established following the party's convention last February.

They are: Eugene Dennis (national alfairs): Sid Stein (organization): Benjamin Davis (Negro affairs): Tames Jackson (Southern affairs); Hy Lumer (education and publications): Fred Fine (labour affairs): John Gates (public affairs): Earl Durham (youth work): and Carl Ross (farm work).

‘The first seven will comprise the party’s administrative committee. Of the committce’s eleven temporary members. Willian Z. Foster, George Blake Charney. Doxie Wilkerson and Charles Lehman were dropped.

Most of the new commillee are not committed to either the Foster or Gates wings of the leadership. and some of them are known as supporters of Eugene Dennis.

By Our Medicat Correspondent While the relationship with lung cancer remains the most dramatic and least curable of the effects of cigarette smoking. other important illnesses are being found to have well-defined connections with the consumption of tobacco.

Tuberculosis and bronchitis _ Respiratory tuberculosis has been shown to be activated by increased smoking (Low. Brit. Med, J. 1956).

Coronary artery disease is related to it in a report to the World Health Organization, as well as in the research carried out by Doll and Bradford Hill among doctors.

And the great killer in Britain, chronic bronchitis, though more diilicull to estimate. has almost certainly resulted in part from increased smoking. (Edwards. Brit. J. Prev. Soc. Med. 1957)

The latter concluded that deaths from the most inyportant respiratory diseases in this country would be halyed if cigarette smoking ceased.

Faced with a body of evidence so convincingly condenmatory of the tobacco habit. the Government has handed responsibility to the local authorities. without giving them any statutory instructions.

This is hardly surprising since the Government relies on the innocent tobacco smoker to the extent of nearly £700 million a year of its income.

Nor is it surprising that the tobacco manufacturers should

Steven weeks have passed since the Medical Research Council published its statement associating lung cancer with tobacco smoking. Yet little or nothing is being done or planned to make use of this knowledge in combatting a great und growing threat to the nation’s health.

Just how great this threat is (with all due respect to Sir Compton Mackenzie) may be judged [rom some of the known facts. Among all the men dying during the current twelve months. more than one in Wwenty will succumb to lung cancer.

If you have eight friends who each smoke twenty to twenty-five cigarettes a day. it is almost certain that. if the laws of chance operate equally over the population. one of these friends will die of lung cancer.

Most important of all, the general trend of the disease throughout the population shows a continuing increase. not a diminishing incidence. In 1955 lung cancer killed at more than twice the rate recorded ten years before—388 deaths per millian population compared with 188 in 1945.

Inevitably the conclusions of the Medical Research Council have been subjected to crilicism—and not only by the vested interests of the tobacco industry.

These interests established a Standing Committee in 1956 be fighting hard against any measures liable to reduce their profits. But what about the medical profesion and the organized Labour movement?

In 1956 the British Medical Association set an example at its annual conference by invoking its existing standing orders which forbade smoking during the proceedings.

No organized education Individually. few doctors are so inconsiderate or so illmannered as to smoke while being consulted. But there remains a singular absence of any organized attempt to educate the general public out of the smoking habit.

Without this education, smoking will continue and lung cancer will increase: and who better than the doctors to convince the public of the dangers of the cigarette?

The record of the Labour movement in face of this urgent threat is even more deplorable. The Socialist Medical Association, much to its credit, passed an emergency resolution at its annual conference in 1956. demanding a ‘nalional educational campaign. paying special emphasis to school leavers and young people’.

Later in the same year, the Medical Practitioners’ Union moved a resolution at the Trades Union Congress calling on the Government ‘to take all reasonable steps to discourage young people from smoking’. Thanks to the uncompromising (Continued at foot of next page)

veces OW Science Will Lighten Our Labour ~~ The pioneers of socialism used to paint an inspiring, but imaginative picture of the future society, Science has now brought the elimination of much unnecessary or unpleasant labour within sight, and the ‘glean’ of Morris, Blatchford and Tressell can be put in practical terms, as this account by our Science Correspondent, J. H. BRADLEY, shows.

SLLLLLLLIL LL SD ILL LL PL LLL LL LL LL LLL LDL LLL LL DPL DLL ED LL D DDD LIDS DLL LILLIE DDD DLL ELLE PD DDD DO Ss $ § $ Q § T is now possible to discuss in detail how a rational $ society will abolish or mechanize many of the boring.

unpleasant and dangerous jobs.

Refuse collection is being cut down in the USA by sink‘ $ grinders. which use stainless steel pulverizers to reduce $ nearly all household waste—including tin cans—to a powder. $ § This is automatically fed down the drain.

Ss Tin cans are likely to be replaced by plastic containers. so $ problems of metal recovery can be abolished.

Britain has advanced only as far as rubbish chutes in the best flats. and we still endure unsightly rubbish tips and $ Ss incinerators.

Ss $ Food will be mostly fresh-frozen, as this gives far better Ss quality and less risk. Waste will be further reduced. and ss § cooking times cut substantially.

Household solid fuel will be replaced by electricity or gas. Underground gasification of coal will cut down the number of mines, and solid coal will be extracted only for use as a chemical raw material, § After a few more decades even this will be given up. gas ‘ being used for chemical work. at rather greater expense.

Ss Oil will be reserved for the manufacture of chemicals such Ss as detergents and plastics, and fuel for ships and acroplanes.

SUBSTITUTE FOR PETROL. Petrol will, however. be $ largely replaced by fucl alcohol, which can be made tn unlimited quantities in the tropics. An efficient storage battery would probably lead to electric cars, which are quieter and Ss give no objectionable fumes.

Ss Coal and oil will be delivered by pipeline. including the $ $ huge amounts of natural gas now burnt to waste in the Middle East. All powders and liquids will be treated simiSs larly in bulk.

Shop assistants can be replaced by vending machines 11 all cases where the customer knows what he wants, thus providing twenty-four hour service. Britain is far behind Ss Denmark in this respect.

$ Delivery services will either disappear. or be centralized § Ss by a super-Supermarket. where the goods are assembled by $ machine in response to a punched card. teleprinter. or other N coding device.

Ss Local public transport will go over to the one-charge sysSs tem common in Canada and the USA, and inspection of N long-distance tickets can be by turnstiles worked by code marks on the ticket.

Eventually automatic steering will make drivers unnecesSs § sary. and roads will probably tend to be replaced by rail$ ways, as the guidance problems are simpler.

$ $ PIPELINES AND COMPUTERS. Goods transport will be severely cut down by the use of pipelines and by the expany sion of local production.

$ Especially in light engineering. automatic machines will $ make short runs of articles nearly as cheap as long ones.

The instructions for any particular article can be sent by Ss < HEALTH (Continued from previous page)

opposition of the Tobacco Workers’ Union. the resolution was defeated.

And the resolutions for the Labour Party conference this year include 127 on the H-bomb. several on free chiropody services. and one on the abolition of blood sports, but the nearest approach to the problem of lung cancer is a resolution on smoke abatement. And not cigarette smoke. either.

Shaw pointed out the insanity of giving surgeons a vested interest in removing people's limbs. ‘ san Perhaps we are just as unrealistic in expecting a population AuGcusT 17, 1957 Fi Ss Ss Q Ss teleprinter. or as a roll of magnetic or punched paper tape. ready to feed the controlling electronic computer.

The use of pallets and containers will be carried to the $ logical conclusion of vehicles which travel from factory to destination. with automatic cranes and guidance devices worked by instructions on the packages as needed.

Buildings will be factory-made. plastic-coated against corrosion, and readily washable. Every attention will be paid to Ss reducing the manual labour involved. ba Clothes will be made of plastic shect or cloth. in order to Ss Ss abolish farming methods. after a stage of mechanization of Ss ‘ crop-tending.

PLASTIC CLOTHES CHEAPER. Plastic clothes can even- Ss tually be far cheaper than woo] or cotton, and porous plastic Ss sheet reinforced by un-spun plastic threads may become Ss Ss common. N Most farm work will be replaced by hydroponics—zrowing plants in tanks—since this is cleaner. more easily mechanized. and readily controlled. Animal husbandry will need much attention. and may quite possibly be given up as intractable.

These possibilities are not all Utopian. Everything men- Ss tioned is technically feasible. Not many of these methods Ss are yet ‘economic’. if by economic we mean just cheap. $ Much more attention will be paid to genuine economy, but no resource will be stinted for any desirable purpose.

In capitalist society, men are replaced by machines only when machines are cheaper. or when a product is desired nN Ss which cannot be made of the required quality by hand methods. High wages are the best spur to technical progress Ss under such conditions. Ss The abolition of dirty. dangerous, boring and unhealthy Ss jobs is desirable for its own sake. The necessary work » tuke several decades. and cost thousands of millions of pounds.

DAWN OF HISTORY. No fall in our living standards Ss need result. despite the huge capital invested, because of the bd large increase in productivity now possible. Ss Ss A rational rethinking of our whole way of life—in every Ss detail affecting each individual and factory, but even more ‘ $ in basic methods—is indispensable. $ When productivity is high enough to be able to distribuic bs goods free of charge, the dawn of rational human history will be breaking. and unending social evolution is to be Ss expected.

The few vague phrases scattered in socialist literature bg about ending the contrast between town and country, between manual and intellectual work. can now be given substance.

Every human being will be able to choose work requiring the full use of his abilities. Many scientists love work. which is still to them the creative craftsman’s pleasure. and the pursuit of leisure is likely to be less important when it is Ss not in such short supply.

Ss made up predominantly of drug addicts (which after all what tobacco smokers are, however unpleasant the term may seem) to carry out a campaign to cure itself of that addiction.

As the epidemic grows it is becoming more than ever essential that some means be found to help the addict give up his drug and the non-smoker—particularly the young one—never lo acquire the craving.

Fashions change. and smoking is as much a question of fashion as hats and hair styles. Nevertheless we all have a responsibility to understand why we must change our current fashions. and how it is possible to do so.

All our propaganda agencies must be used to characterize smoking for what it is—a dirty. anti-social. disease-producing eatetion, engaged in only by the irresponsible and the spineess.

The sale of cigarettes to young people below the age of cighteen should be forbidden, with severe punishment for those who break this law.

By J. B. Salsherg 1957 Above all. our health services must turn their attention from the cure to the prevention of illness, so that doctors can engage in their proper role of health educationalists.

It's never too late, by the way. However much you've smoked. you'll reduce your chances of succumbing to the disease if you stop NOW. And your example will help someone else to stop too.

(This is the last in the series of articles, ‘Talks with Soviet Leaders on the Jewish Question’) -Here_are some other conclusions at which I have arrived, 1. The fewish Question is part of the general question ef socialist demecracy in the Soviet Union.

A general conclusion to which I have come is that the rise and fall of Jewish cultural and communal life in the Soviet Union coincides with the rise and fall of democracy—socialist democracy—in the USSR.

A graph showing the level of Jewish cultural activity and Soviet democracy would indicate a strikingly parallel development.

The new socialist democracy created by the Russian Revolution ushered in an era of sweeping growth in the cultural life of all the Soviet peoples, large and small, formerly appressed under reactionary tsarism.

Among Seviet Jews there developed an all-sided flowering of secular culture that played an important role in the socialist transformation of the status of the Jewish poor and that raised the cultural level of the Jewish population.

Schools, all manner of educational institutions. scientific institutes, theatres, dramatic circles. newspapers, magazines. publishing houses. blossomed everywhere. There grew up and matured a whole new~generation—a socialist generation—of Jewish poets, novelists. artists, singers, critics. research workers, etc.

Of course it is impossible to leave out of account a whole number of objective factors which contributed to this cultural outpouring. Neither can we ignore the damaging effect ef some of the wrongly oriented leaders of the former Jewish Committee of the Communist Party (Yevsekstia). But this is a subject in itself.

What I think is most important and was largely responsible fer the gradual decline of Jewish cultural life in the USSR tin the middle thirties was the Stalinist suppression of socialist democracy.

The wholesale charges of ‘bourgeois nationalism’ that were levelled at many innocent people in those years played havoc with and weakened those forces that had a healthy and positive approach to Jewish culture.

Tt strengthened the hand of the assimilationist elements and of those who argued that it was their revolutionary duty to speed up the ‘historical process’ of national integration, The more socialist justice was violated, the faster Jewish cultural activity declined.

The period 1948-53 was the blackest for Jewish culture and its creators. These were the bitter years when Yiddish cultural institutions were crushed. when the writers and activists in the Jewish field were arrested and when the tragic doctors’ plot was initiated.

This dark period coincides with the worst years of Stalin's ene-man rule. Democracy was undermined more than ever before.

I: was at this time that the criminal frame ups were organized against the Rajks in Hungary. the Slanskys in Czechoslovakia and their opposite numbers in several other countries.

With the death of Stalin new winds began to blow. They began to melt the ice that had hardened over Jewish culture.

To the extent, however, that the Stalin heritage has conUnued, to that extent has the national question in general and the Jewish question in particular not yet been satisfactorily resolved, From this we can conclude that the struggle for the full revival of all-sided Jewish cultural activity in the Soviet Union is part of the general struggle to return to socialist democratic norms in all spheres of Soviet life; and that every step in the direction of democratization is at the same time a contributing factor to the revival of Jewish cultural fife.

* 2. Do the Soviet Jews need or want Jewish cultural und conununal activity?

Many prominent Sovict Jewish personalities and many important party leaders (non-Jews) either questioned the contention that many Soviet Jews want and need distinctive Jewish cultural expression or they completely denied the existence of such a need.

This position in my opinion is false, It does not correspond to reality and merely expresses the subjective desires of those who give Voice to these opinions.

And it makes no difference whether these desires stem from a ‘class’ approach. or from a general political approach or from an inferiority complex of an assimilationist.

T am convinced that at this very moment there are very large numbers of Soviet Jews who desire and need—and even crave—Jewish cultural and communal expression.

It is impossible to ignore or deny that the process of language assimilation exists in the USSR. The same process can be seen in our own country, in the United States, France, England and in other lands where the Jews are in a minority.

For a number of specific reasons this process has developed more rapidly in the Soviet Union, Included among the latter is the fact that for a number of years no Jewish schools have existed in the country.

But despite the foregoing considerations there are still many Yiddish speaking people—young as well as old—in the USSR. Many of those who attended the Jewish schools up to the middle thirties still thirst for a ‘Jewish word’.

(In addition. who can say that creative Jewish cultural values cannot be digested in the Russian language; or that the establishment of Jewish educational institutions would not broaden the base of Jewish cultural and communal activity in the USSR?)

Not only representatives of the bourgeois and social-democratic press but also representatives of Left-wing newspapers who have visited the Soviet Union all agree that there exists a widespread desire for Jewish culture.

The Jewish writers whom IT met. without exception. believe that a Jewish publishing house could sell Jewish books today in numbers not smaller than the volume turned out by some of the smaller republics.

As one writer told me: “People speak Yiddish in Vilna as # matter of principle. in Bobruisk because it’s natural. and at the beaches of the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea—because it's a pleasure’

The Yiddish concerts—and they are expanding in number —are sold out everywhere, T also spoke with dozens of Jews in the streets of Moscow and practically all of them gave the same positive reply, both in regard to the desire to have Jewish books, a paper, a theatre. a club. cte,. and to the readiness to give their children a Jewish education.

Some were quite positive in their personal desire for Jewish social life. but were doubtful whether their children would be

interested, True. I spoke to people in the streets, but it was not too difficult to find people to speak with.

Yes, there are many people who need and want Jewish cultural and social life. What's needed is to create the possibilities and a free atmosphere for their expression.

* 3. The question of ‘integration’.

The official line goes as follows. Since integration is progressive and separation is reactionary, therefore no progressive person, especially not a communist. should demand anything which would disturb the progressive process.

The consequence of such an approach is: first, that people who demanded Jewish schools, clubs, a newspaper, theatre, books. etc., are asking for things which would delay if not continue separatism and therefore are reactionary. And who wants to be a reactionary?

Second, if integration is a progressive thing. why not move in that direction more quickly? Why not speed up the process and create a short cut?

I believe that such a placing of the question, and especially when one demands a priori declarations that integration is progressive. amounts to placing the question in an abstract way and not in a concrete manner, in the way Marxists should place questions.

It means doing away with the possibilities for immediate work, and robbing large sections of a people of their people's culture.

You could just as logically argue. for example. that since socialism is progressive and will in the long run abolish classes and even parties, including socialist ones. that we should give up these parties now.

We are here dealing with a historical process of long duration. with “a time that will come’ (the prophets also dreamed of the emergence of one people the world over).

But we are not obliged to speculate as to how many years or generations this will take or whether it will turn out because we are products of our time and our consciousness refiects present-day reality and not that of the future.

Indeed. objective reality in the Soviet Unien is the fact that there are between two and three million Jews there. They have a generations-old history and cultural inheritance. This has not disappeared overnight.

They—that is. those that wish it—need, and I believe that eventually they will be given, the unbounded rights and opportunities for the fullest educational, cultural and social activity in the framework of socialist institutions.

T believe that this can and will be achieved, because I am convinced that we are here confronted with an ideological distortion which, in the new period, cannot continue forever.

* 4. Our task is not anti-Sevietism but a friendly and persistent fight.

My final conclusion is that we need not despair but that. on the contrary, the conditions for Jewish cultural development in the USSR can and will be changed.

My assumption is based not on subjective desire. but on a number of objective conditions.

First, despite all the Stalinist distortions and injustices, the Soviet Union remains a socialist land. There is no class there that can benefit from oppressing or limiting the rights of any other nation, nationality or people.

What has happened until now is not the result of socialism but rather of serious distortions of socialist theory and morality which cannot long continue, The fact is that the bitter period that lasted for some twenty years would have had to end in any case. Stalin’s death only hastened the process of the deep-going revision and gradual elimination of the bitter legacy.

Second, the international situation, which played a significant role during the Stalin regime, has become and is continuAuGuUST 17, 1957 ing to become more stabilized.

Of course there is still the danger of war, but the great strength of the USSR and the evergrowing desire for peace by all humanity is leading to peaceful co-existence between the two parts of the world and this will still further hasten the process of democratization in the Soviet Union itself. This will eventually improve the situation for Soviet Jews as well.

Third, the de-Stalinization process is far from over. You can’t rid yourself of such a legacy overnight.

T agree with Tito that there remain in the Soviet party and government many who find it hard to break completely with the approach and methods which reigned for such a long ime.

But the process of doing away with the distortions and evils of the Stalin period cannot and will not be stopped; this is because both the internal and external conditions have radically changed since the pre-war period. _ The sole fact that socialism is now a world system, taking in a whole series of states, including gigantic China, simply forces the abandonment of the idea that the exclusive forms National and racial chauvinism is a vestige of the

misanthropic customs characteristic of the period of cannibalism. Anti-semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism.

Anti-semitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Anti-semitism is dangerous for the working people as being a false path that leads them off the right road and lands them in the jungle. Hence communists, as consistent internations!ists, cannot but be irreconcilable, sworn enemies of 2ntisemitism.

In the USSR anti-semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostife to the Soviet system. Under USSR law active anti-semites are liable to the death penalty.

January 12, 1931. 4. Stalin, (5. V. Stalin, Works, vol. 13, p. 30) ———— eee and methods used in the Soviet Union over a long period of time are universal.

The national peculiarities and yaried conditions in every country demand particular approaches, and this must inevitably also influence the Soviet Union in its approach to the various nationalities and peoples in its own country.

No individual in the Soviet leadership. great or small. will be able to resist for a long time the new socialist. influences and experiences coming from the other socialist countries.

From this point of view. the experiences of China. the recent events in Poland. and even the tragic developments in Hungary. will influence and specd up changes in the USSR, which must of necessity affect the approach to the national question and to the Jewish question in. particular.

Fourth. I have confidence in the stubborn will of the majority of Soviet Jews and their creative forces to endure the temporary restrictions and rejuvenate their social-cultural life. I do not despair of them.

On the contrary, I regard their cultural re-emergence as one that will have vital effects on the life of Jews everywhere, And fifth, I am convinced that we can play an important part in the rehabilitation of Jewish social-cultural life in the I mean we who believe in socialism, who were always the friends of the first socialist state in the world, as we were and remain vitally concerned about Jewish culture and all Jewish people’s problems.

Of course, we should not Jet ourselves become partners with the enemies of socialism, of those who use the Soviet Jewish problem as an excuse for their anti-Sovietism.

But we should also recognize that the time has long passed for us to be extremely reserved in our approach to events in

the USSR.

We should carry on a stubborn but friendly ideological and political struggle in a whole number of countries to influence the Soviet leaders to radically change their present approach to the national question in the Soviet Union, This must be done with an approach and methods which have not been utilized sufficiently until now. The detailed plan for such a political-organizational approach is an immediate necessity. This is being studied by the progressive Jewish movement in some countries.

AuGcustT 17, 1957 happiness of the people and the cause of building communism’).

And he rebukes those critics who call for more attention to be given to portraying characters taken from the rank-and-file Such critics evidently lack knowledge of the history of Soviet literature, the reviewer says. or they would realize that this is a mistake that was overcome long ago,

THE editorial in Literaturnaya Gazeta of July 23 seeks to convince writers that the changes in Soviet Communist Party leadership are to their advantage.

“No harm was done to’ the development of literature by the vulgarizing statements of Malenkov about “the typical”, taken trom a dubious source.”

(This must refer to the much-quoted passage about literature in Malenkov’s report to the Nineteenth Congress of the CPSU in 1982, spoken in Stalin's presence.)

*Kaganovich demagogically accused good Ukrainian poets of nationalism.”

As for Shepiloy. he was guilty of liberalism and failure to stamp hard enough on ‘unhealthy phenomena’.

What Molotov was doing in that galley is not specified.

A reviewer in the same issue. surveying a year’s numbers of the magazine Molodaya Gyardia. seems to refer obliquely to the Chinese doctrine of many flowers and divers schools when he comments that Soviet literature has not grown strong in conditions of an ‘idyllic harmony of all writers’, but in ‘fierce struggle’ against ‘slanderers of Soviet life’ such as Pilnyak, He also deplores the tendency shown by certain of today’s writers to depict party officials as resembling members of the ruling class under the old regime (whereas in reality they are people who ‘place above everything else the well-being and LETTERS Reform, Revolution, Ritual and. . . Rothstein LET'S DROP STALINIST RITUAL THINKING Into the discussion on political parties is being injected a great deal of argument which dates from the time when Stalinist assumptions greatly influenced our thinking.

Harold Reynolds mentions three dates of betrayal—1914, 1926 and 1931. I think it is fair to say that support given io the Liberal Government by socialists at the outbreak 1914-18 war was a betrayal of previously agreed decisions of the Socialist International, but the other two dates need closer examination.

The whole period of the General Strike requires therough re-examination by Marvist historians ‘The account given by Allen Hutt in his Post-War History of the British Working Class—in spite of the author's agreement with the theory of betrayal—seems to me to suggest that the Labour leaders were caught up in a situation beyond their competence to manage.

Only a minority betrayed There may be an element of betrayal in this situation but this is a point requiring neat assessment. By contrast the Tery leaders showed a skill in their management of events which requires equal study.

In 1931 the small circle round Macdonald did a deal with the Tories. Even’ Arthur Henderson. mercilessly criticized by

AFTER enjoying wide popularity and official backing during the twenties, Esperanto came under Stalin's frown and faded out in the USSR for a period of two decades.

Dayid Zaslavsky. the dictators favourite journalist (once described by Lenin as ‘that political prostitute’) wrote that Russian was becoming the international language of modern times, just as Latin had been that of the Middle Ages.

But life increasingly contradicted him. Russian made progress, but English made even greater progress as an international medium of communication.

After Stalin's death active official disapproval of Esperanto ceased. Many groups have been formed in recent years in the USSR for the study of this artificial auxiliary language.

But. as an article in Literaturnaya Gazeta of July 18 points out, no organized measures have been taken by the authorities to help Esperanto students, and textbooks haye to be sought by them in second-hand bookshops. where moreover they are now rarities.

The absence of any positive encouragement of Esperanto is perhaps connected with that “sometimes quite hostile’ attitude to it, as ‘a harmful cosmopolitan phenomenon’, which the writer mentions as still to be encountered.

This article urging help to Soviet Esperantists was inspired by the World Youth Festival and the practical problems of communication with their guests which it raised for Sovivt citizens. _ One aspect of Stalinism is ihe ossification of this jargon into Ume-honoured ritual thinking.

It is important that new Labour Party members should noi enter with the object of working ‘to overthrow: the reformist leadership and instal a real socialist one’, as Beatrix TudorHart advises. _ Any move which tends to divide the Labour Party into seetions 1s contrary to the spirit of the post-Stalin era.

The distinction between reform and revolution belongs to the World War One era. Properly contracted social reform in the era of atomic power can be most electrifying in a socialist sense, _Opportunist elements will have to be checked by the combined ctforts of ‘reformists’ and ‘revolutionaries’ alike.

There are others who are not politicians and will not join the Labour Party. There is socialist work to be done in fields such as journalism. the arts, histery and economics. to mention only a few, Each type of work requires its own type of socialist organization, Let us create them.

Bushey (Herts) Peter Roe _ [From now on contributions to this discussion should be limited to two hundred words: preference will be given to readers who have not already taken part in it—Editor]

Lenin as a Right-wing social-democrat in an earlier period. remained with the Labour Party.

‘The betrayal here was that of a smail number of opportunists within the leadership, but not the leadership as a whole.

The whole jargon of ‘betrayal by the Right-wing social-democratic leaders’ belongs to the polemics of the World War One period. separated from us now by four decades. THE NEWSLETTER misses my point. I entirely agree that the Communist Party Executive should intervene on behalf of Rose Cohen.

Perhaps Gollan did act. Significantly he has never officially claimed to have done so. We can be certain that he was a party

17, 1957 and which had the most human and sincere outlook about the effect of bureaucracy in the Polish railways on an honest but obstinate old man.

The placing of the East German Lissy above this on the prize list was regarded by many as the most political of the

From a Correspondent lately at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival Goin the rounds of the European film festivals for noncompetitive showing has been a wonderfully moving Hungarian film, a 1914 love story called In Private's Uniform.

Reason for its not being entered for competition, where success would have been assured, is the fact that the leading man, Ivan Darvas. is in prison awaiting trial for ‘counterrevolutionary activities” last October when he Iet people out of jail.

For the same reason this film is not being shown in Hungary.

* * * Prizes at Karlovy Vary were to some degree political but on the whole the winning of all major prizes but one by communist-made films was a true reflection of the merit of these films.

The most underestimated film was the Polish Man on the Rails which was only awarded half of a best direction prize.

LETTERS (Continued from previous page) to concealing the facts of Wincott’s imprisonment for years. I remain sceptical.

Undeniably neither Gollan nor the Communist Party want Wincott home again. Nor do they wish Rose Cohen or any other victims of the purge brought back to life.

The fate of these people is in our hands. Unless working class opinion can be roused in their defence nothing at all will be done. And we may be sure that in such a task Gollan will be one of our most bitter opponents.

London, S.W.19. prize awards—in fact the only one at which this accusation could almost certainly be levelled.

Increasing trade between the Eastern and Western countries in films is reported, but a recent snag is that most of these countries are running into foreign exchange difficulties.

It is reported that Czechoslovakia has cut the foreign curtency allowance for cultural purposes, book translations. ete, presumably including films. by seventy-five per cent. Some reversion to attempting to trade films on a barter basis is therefore evident.

* * * In Prague they tell the story of how a middle-aged man was looking at a magnificent new car and said to a passer-by: ‘Isn't this a wonderful Russian car—iook at all those chromium fittings and luxury inside.”

‘The second replied: “Are you such a fool that you can’t see that it is an American car?’

‘Fool yourself.” replied the first, “of course know what sort of car it is, but do L know who you are?”

ECONOMICS By Our Economic Correspondent

D. DEsMoND comments that the library at Marx House has a crypt for forbidden books. The same practice prevails at the Society for Cultural Relations library. where a ‘poison’ cupboard of ‘unsuitable’ books is kept hidden from members’ sight.

Perhaps this coincidence is explained in that Andrew Rothsicin is both chairman of the Marx House library and the King Street appointed fraction leader for the SCR.

When appearing al Marx House Mr. Rothstein disguises himself as a Marxist. At the SCR he turns up dressed as a ‘non-political’.

Marx's favourite motio was ‘doubt everything’—Rothstein’s is obviously ‘trust Moscow. doubt everyone else’.

As Stalinist thinking flies from truth, objectivity and scholarship the books on the shelves of libraries under Stalinist contro] will no doubt diminish while the crypts and poison cupboards overflow.

Facts must be jettisoned As the facts do not fit the theories. clearly the facts must be jettisoned.

And should not the works of Stalinists be banned also in the interests of Stalinism?

What is niore likely to undermine faith in Stalinism than the re-reading now in the light_of events of the writings of Dutt. Kiugmann, Rothstein and Co.?

When one dav the tombs are opened and these libraries reorganized and brought into line with their declared objectives, should not Rothstein be honoured by placing his works in their rightful place on the shelves marked ‘fairy stories”?

Esher (Surrey)

Printed by Plough Press, Ltd., r.c. 180, Clapham High St., London, $.W.4

THE 2.279 public companies which published their reports in the first seven months of 1957 have done very well for the shareholders, despite the aftermath of Suez. the strikes and the inflation.

The total profits have risen 3.6 per cent frem £1,940.527.000 to £2,047.217.000.

Some groups of companies have done better than others. Shipping. for example. has done very well for its shareholders, Despite the panic about the ‘catastrophic’ fall in Wamp shipping rates they have been able to help themselves to an increased 22.6 per cent.

The food industry has also done well: its total take has jumped from £103.718,000 to £121.996.000—or an 18.5 per cent increase in its slice of the cake.

How about that. Mr. Thorneycroft? Don’t you think cheaper food prices would be of more help in the ‘battle’ against inflation than ‘three wise men“?

Some groups actually made a loss. ‘Motors, Cycles and Aircraft, ‘Rayon’, and ‘Electrical und Radic’ for example.

However, there is no need for despondency. The 377 conipanies which published their accounts in July have done much better than those whose accounts were published carlier in the year.

These companies showed increased profits of 6.7 per cent against the average of 5.6 per cent. and the Financial Times is confident that the figures will improve in the months to come.

These increases in the level of profits are all the more interesting when it is remembered the profits of public companies tase from £2.883 million in 1955 to £2.968 million ia 1956. The 1985 figure was an all time record. £298 million-above. the 1984 figure—the previous highest ever.

Less than four years after the British Government staged its coup d'etat in British Guiana. suspending the Constitution and overthrowing the elected People’s Progressive Party Government. the PPP has won eight out of the 14 seats on the Legislative Council.

But the Governor has the power to pack the Council with appointed members.

Published by Peter Fryer, 180, Clapham High St., London, S.W.4.