The Newsletter, vol. 2 no. 59

Like you we were shocked by the revelations of Khrushchev at the Twentieth Congress of the Russian Communist Party. Like you we hoped that there would be big changes in the Soviet Union, in eastern Europe and in the communist parties. In this hope you stayed in the party. We either resigned or were expelled. Recent events move us to ask you two questions: What is your attitude to the execution of Imre Nagy and his three companions? Are you prepared to join with us in a protest against this crime? We ask you to believe that we fully respect your wish to remain members of the Communist Party. But we appeal to you not to allow loyalty to leaders to prevent of your hopes.

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BRIAN BEHAN IDA FISHER PETER CADOGAN MARTIN FLANNERY Vv. P. CHEEK PETER FRYER KEN COATES FRANK GIRLING LAWRENCE DALY RICHARD GOSS JOHN DANIELS F. GUBB BERYL DOBBINS ROBERT HUNTER BRIAN DOBBINS COLIN JONES *Who has resigned from the Communist Party in protest.at the executions. ‘Tide of Protest Mounts: centre pages)

The Labour Party policy document on education, What is your attitude to the renewed campaign by the Soviet leaders against the Yugoslav leaders? Are you prepared to join with us in a protest against this campaign?

your protesting against the murder of Imre Nagy and TOM KEMP , JIM ROCHE DORA SCARLETT LEN KNIGHT CLIFF SLAUGHTER Prof. BERNARD STEVENS.

ALISON MACLEOD BEATRIX TUDOR-HART BRIAN PEARCE Prof. E. A. THOMPSON BOB POTTER JILL WHEATLEY JIM ROBERTSON JIM WHEATLEY GERTIE ROCHE SHIRLEY WHEATLEY PETER WORSLEY -THANKS, BIRMINGHAM AND LEICESTER!

Till our development fund gets on its feet we shall not be able to continue the publication of a weekly industrial supplement for mass sales. ' The success of the Strike Bulletin, however, has been very encouraging, and the work of producing it has taught us a great deal.

Largely written by rank-and-file strikers themselves, the Bulletin soon reached a steady circulation of 20,000 copies a week, and became recognized as: the only paper which presented the sectional struggles: as part of one common battle against. the employers’ offensive. As soon as we have enough money we shall start to produce a regular industrial supplement once more, as a first step towards the necessary expansion and improvement of The Newsletter.

* Newsletter readers in Birmingham have guaranteed a regular 25s. a month to the development fund, and readers in Leicester are guaranteeing 10s. a month. If readers in other centres follow suit, we shall be well on the way to our target.

* To enable the editors and printing staff to take a fortnight’s holiday, there will be no issue of The Newslettez on July 19 or 26 , = 167:

‘Learning to Live’, looks like provoking one of the biggest storms at this year’s Labour Party conference.

Our educational correspondent, whe is a London teacher, here gives an introductory survey and criticism of the document; his article will be followed by a series from Peter Cadogan, which he describes as ‘the product of seven years’ hard thinking and experience’ and which will say ‘quite a few things that are well enough known bat just never put into print’.

All these articles are designed to provide facts and arguments for Labour Party members and conference delegates, .

By Our Educational Correspondent Tre Labour Party’s policy document ‘Learning to Live’ sught to be called ‘Learning to Live under Capitalism’— >: “Teaching Capitalism to Live’.

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L:ke ‘Industry and Society’ before it. the education policy icxument bears all the hallmarks of the reformist approach: vs make capitalism work more efficiently, and with greater riances of survival, than the Tories can.

-(Continued overleaf)

JUNE. 28, 1958 LEARNING TO LIVE (Continued from front page)

It is true-that the: inttoduction’ warns that’ on. no account must ‘our ideas of ‘the aims and functions of education: be confined within the: limits of~the existing social order’. ::

S OME ‘regrettable incidents marred the demonstration .for nuclear disarmament.in London last Sunday. A ‘number of Labour Party members walked -behind a banner with the words ‘Industrial action: black the H-bomb and the rocket bases’ and shouted the slogan ‘No work on rocket bases—no work on H-bombs’. advocates of industrial action against the H-bomb and the rocket bases are not newcomers. to the campaign: similar banners and slogans had been part of the distinctive contribution made by readers of THe NEwsLETTER who marched all the way to Aldermaston. Last Sunday, however, attempts were made by some of. the stewards to prevent:.the carrying of such banners and the shouting of such slogans. Some stewards appealed to the police—the same police that guard the Aldermaston enclosure, and that manhandled anti-H-bomb demonstrators in Whitehall not long ago—to have this group of Labour Party members removed from the demonstration. One police motor-cyclist rode his vehicle into the column and halted it athwart our contingent. When this failed, stewards with linked arms tried to bar our path and to seize our banners. One of the editors of THe NEWSLETTER, an ex-member of the Communist Party, had his glasses knocked off and was punched violently in the back, ail without provocation. The individual who did this is a member of the Ex-Service Movement for Peace, an organization controlled by a party which does not support ‘unilateralism’. Elsewhere in the demonstration Labour Party youth section banners were barred and trade union banners questioned. One steward asked of an AUBTW banner brought from Liverpool: ‘Is it a political trade union?’

These happenings are not of great intrinsic importance, but they do symbolize a disturbing trend in the development of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Since Aldermaston the tempo of the campaign has manifestly dwindled, almost from week to week: and now, we are told, there are to be no more marches. No attempt is. made to take the campaign into the factories and trade union branches. It seems that certain of its leaders are fostering a dangerous, negative and sterile anti-political feeling, in particular a sentiment opposed to the Labour Party as ‘such. This is the path, not to the mobilization of decisive sections of the British people against the H-bomb, but to the repetition of the fate of all previous peace campaigns that have lacked working-class bite and drive.

The leaders of the campaign cannot but be aware that in the eyes of many of their supporters they are leading the movement up a blind alley.. Do they seriously suppose that they can wage an effective campaign for nuclear disarmament in a kind of suprapolitical vacuum? Do they. view with equanimity the infiltration into responsible positions of persons who abuse their stewards’ armbands to vent their spleen on those they disagree with? Do they seriously believe that, having called on men of goodwill to join the campaign, they alone have the right to determine what slogans are to be used and what banners are to be carried? The fight against the H-bomb is too important to become the private property of anyone.

But no attempt is made to examine the content of educaition, nor to clarify the aims and functions of education under ~ .

It is true that we are told that the purpose of education is not to conserve the present system by ‘trimming and polishing successive generations to meet its requirements’, But we are not invited to consider what this implies for practising jeachers. all too often faced with. the effects of moribund capitalism on the pupils they have to educate.

This, of course, raises the whole question of whether it is possible to construct an education system free from the effects of capitalism. without first eliminating capitalism itself.

The document’s positive features The document is by no means devoid of positive features. These are to be found mainly in the section dealing with the State schools, which commits the next Labour Government to carry through such long overdue measures as:

1) The reduction of the size of classes to 30 in both primary and secondary schools. , 2) The provision of more new schools, and the elimination of slum and all-age schools.

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3) The recruitment and training of the necessary teacher force to permit these changes, though how -this:-is to be done without increased salaries is not clear.

4) The more efficient development of children’s potentialities through the extension of the comprehensive principle, and the introduction of the full four-year course of secondary education (later to be extended to five years).

5) The rationalization and expansion of technical and university education, and the payment of better grants for students to enable the fullest possible numbers to take advantage of higher education.

Pigeon-holed by successive governments There is, of course, nothing revolutionary. about these proposals. _ Most of them merely reiterate the provisions of the 1944 Education Act which have since been pigeon-holed by successive governments, but are now brought forward again to meet ~ the growing crisis of British capitalism in the world economy.

An overhaul of the educational system has now become necessary for the maintenance of capitalism itself.

The precise manner in which these proposals are detailed. in the document contrasts strikingly with the uncertainty which pervades the paragraphs dealing with their implementation.

Current educational expenditure amounts to 3 per cent. of national income, the same as in 1938.. These measures will cost considerably more, but no indication is given of the proportion of national income which a Labour government would allocate for this purpose.

Utmost vigilance by Labour The implementation of comprehensive education is to be left to local authorities, with the enjoinder that they do so ‘with all reasonable speed’. Experience warns us to be wary of such indefinite phraseology, Even these measures of educational reform may never be fully implemented without the utmost vigilance on the part of the Labour movement.

As a practising teacher and a socialist, I feel bound to comment on the section of the document dealing with the control of schools by boards of managers and governors appointed by the local education authorities.

The document states:

‘Delegation of responsibility... . has enabled a wide range .

of people to take part in the administration of education...

The people who take on this work as school managers...

give the nation excellent service.’ '

Such a. statement completely disregards the widespread criti- effends only against a wealthy ‘minority can be equated. with cism:of these bodies by teachers. They are -not democratically elected, but. appointed in a.manner-which. 1s, to-say the. least, obscure.

The result is usually a mixed bag of do- gooders, clergymen, business.men and budding politicians seeking the local lime- light.

The bulk of them have no expert knowledge of educational matters. Nevertheléss they have the responsibility of appointing heads and staffs.

Such a system all too frequently results in the appointment of head teachers who are totally unfitted for the responsibility, but who are plausible enough to impress the governors.

Careerists are to be found: among teachers as. elsewhere, and this system fosters all kinds of window dressing techniques in the schools which have nothing to do with sound education.

It also gives rise to appointments to. the best posts in schools on the basis of personal contacts rather than genuine This corruption has all too often ruined potentially good. consideration of ability.

schools.

Subtle and demoralizing effect It is, of course, just one more aspect of the kind of corruption which permeates all branches of capitalist. society today, including the trade unions and the Labour Party itself.

When it appears in schools it has a subtle and demoralizing effect on young people.

Certainly individuals inspired by such ‘ideals’ cannot hope to gain the confidence and respect of a generation whose whole instinct is to rebel against a society based on such ‘principles’. Many a fine comprehensive school may well degenerate as a result.

Socialists must find the answer to this question of control, not only of industry, but also of our schools.

When dealing with the public schools the document clearly reveals its political slant. Lip-service is paid to the traditional demands of the Labour movement for equal educational opportunity for all, ‘whatever their parents’ income’.

In the introduction we are told that ‘individual right and national need both require that all children, whatever their parents’ income and wherever their homes may be, should have equal opportunity for development.’

On page 56 we are informed that: ‘If we look at the group of people who—most of them by virtue of their parents’ incomes—have travelled the royal road of preparatory school—public school—Oxford or Cambridge, we find that they constitute a kind of estate of the realm.

‘Many of. them hold influential positions and have a natural tendency to approve the road that led them there. ‘This system distorts the choice of people for responsible positions; it damages national efficiency and offends the sense of justice. Further, it creates an irrational social cleavage which is a great injury to education as a whole.’ After thus nailing the red flag to its mast, the document proceeds to the conclusion that the only way to eliminate this tuling-class élite would be completely to prohibit the private purchase of education.

‘Unjustifiable invasion of liberty’

But don’t get excited! Beware lest, in ridding ourselves of this curse, we forge worse fetters for ourselves!

‘Such a prohibition would mean that a citizen who. had paid his share of the cost of public education would not be allowed to spend any of his own money on sending his own children to the kind of school he wished. ‘If in addition to paying his rates and taxes he wishes to buy private education, he cannot in a free country be prohibited from so doing. ‘Labour believes that this would be an unjustifiable .invasion of liberty.’

It is difficult to see how the granting of precedence to a principle which. offends against the majority over one which’ =: freedom!

When boiled down to its bare proposals, therefore, this docu- : ment can fairly be: summarized. thus: Labour undertakes to overhaul and expand the present State system of education, ‘thereby enabling ‘it more efficiently to serve the needs of midtwentieth ‘century British capitalism; while preserving intact the’ privately maintained public schools—the breeding ground of the ruling-class élite which occupies the main ramparts of the State apparatus.

No wonder the Times Educational Supplement purrs editorially (June 20): ‘There is much good sense in the Labour Party’s statement of policy on education : . . It sees the need for reform but does not muddle reform with ‘revolution.’

NATIONALIZATION IS REAL WAY TO BRING THE cost of prescriptions is one of the biggest charges on the National Health Service and one which is constantly rising. This is confirmed in the interim report of the Hinchcliffe Committee on the Cost of Prescribing (Stationery Office, 9d.).

The Committee, which included nine physicians, was set up a year ago to investigate the factors contributing to the rising cost of prescriptions issued through the NHS and to make practical proposals for checking the current trend.

As any member of the Socialist Medical Association could have told them, the Committee confirms that one of the main factors for the ever-increasing cost.of prescribing is that many doctors too readily prescribe a proprietary preparation instead of an equivalent drug in the British National Formulary.

The doctors are not wholly to blame. They are busy people and they are inundated with literature from the manufacturers of proprietary medicines, extolling the virtues of their particular brands. ;

Many of these firms employ highly-paid writers who specialize in this method of high-pressure salesmanship.

Their efforts have been stepped up as more and more American capital is invested in the drug. industry and more and more American products appear on the British market.

Manufacturers’ claims are eyewash The proposals of the Hinchcliffe Committee will go only part of the way in solving the problem.

_They propose the publication of a prescribers’ guide which will keep the medical practitioner informed of the comparative cost of proprietary and standard preparations having the same therapeutic use..

Most of the publicity put out by the big manufacturing chemists claiming special qualities for their products is so much eyewash.

But the real solution would be to-nationalize the grug,. chemical and pharmaceutical industries, and the next Labour: Government should put this high on its schedule for forthcoming legislation.

The present’ competitive system in these industries, with its huge expenditure on. advertising and circularizing the. medical profession, is only sending up the cost of drugs.

In many important drugs, too, the manufacturer who financed the research holds a virtual monopoly and is able to hold the country to ransom.

British Oxygen, for example, has a complete monopoly in the’ supply of vital gases to hospitals, and also in the mannfacture and maintenance of the equipment required to utilize these gases.

Of course; when these industries are nationalized, the Government must make available the necessary funds for research into new therapeutic agents, which. should be regarded as an integral part of the National Health Service.

ee 1DE OF PROTEST MOUNTS AG

IN signing the Open Letter to members of the Communist Party, I want to add my own vehement protest against the execution of Imre Nagy and his companions.

About Imre Nagy and Pal Maléter I do not need to say much, as their names are well known over here.

But I can testify from personal experience to the vast popularity of Nagy, from the time of his first premiership in 1953 throughout his period of enforced retirement and disgrace at the hands of Rakosi, culminating in the genuine and nationwide demand which brought him back in 1956.

To anyone living in the country the idea that he should need to plot for this end would have been absurd.

All that was needed was to stand for a sane economic policy and an end to deportations and illegal arrests, and to remain true to this policy in spite of condemnation, threats and browbeatings. Maléter’s courage during the uprising is also well known.

Demanded Rajk’s rehabilitation Fewer people here heard of .Miklés Gimes before the news of the executions was published. I knew him personally, and used to visit him for supper and discussions on the political situation in Hungary.

He was one of the top-ranking journalists in Hungary, and had been sacked from his job and expelled from the party because he had the courage to demand that Laszlo Rajk, executed in 1949 on a framed charge of complicity in a plot with Tito, should be cleared and publicly rehabilitated.

This was in 1955, after Bulganin and Khrushchev had paid their memorable visit to Belgrade and assured ‘comrade’ Tito that the charges against him had been based on forgery.

It followed inescapably that Rajk was innocent of the crime for which he had been hanged, but Rakosi, who had been responsible for this judicial murder, was stubbornly refusing to admit it, The whole country knew the situation, but few people had the courage io put the demand into words.

Speeches over their grave By the beginning of October, 1956, the flood of public opinion had risen so high that the party had to give way.

Rakosi had resigned, and the party and government leaders caused the bodies of Rajk and his three companions to be brought from the prison graveyard and reinterred in Budapest cemetery near the graves of the greatest national heroes. One after another they mounted the rostrum to make fulsome speeches about ‘our martyrs’, swearing that such things would never be done in Hungary again.

Tronically, it was among that vast crowd trampling the grass of the Kerepesi Cemetery that I last met Gimes. It was October 6. ;

I met him quite by chance, and asked him what he thought of ihe whole fantastic show.

He said: ‘The party had to do it. There was nothing else they could do; but people are saying that it is the same men who killed Rajk who are now making speeches over his grave.’

Taken back into party After being sacked from the party daily, Szabad Nép, Gimes had been given a job in Corvina, the foreign languages publishing house. It was a job far below his capacity.

There were in Budapest a number of cultural institutions which became a kind of dumping ground for people whom the party found it too awkward to have ‘in political or public life, and Corvina was one of them.

During the ‘Great Thaw’ of 1956 he was taken back into the party. This was a process which always took months.

When I asked him if he was back in the party yet he would say: ‘I am on my way.’ By October his return to Szabad Ne was also under consideration. Ultimately he got his pan 3 card back.

Another irony of the fate of this man was that he took. ; stand against the practice of conducting secret trials.

Public trial for Farkas In 1956 Mihaly Farkas, the former chief of security poh= who had been responsible for countless tortures and execution had been removed and discredited and it was known that & might be brought to trial.

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I heard that the trial might be secret. My immediate reacom was that this would be a calamity.

A fresh wind was blowing in Hungary. We were at te gefting rid of the foulness and injustice of the past. Wa mlm = = must do everything honestly and openly. No more hole-amé corner trials and executions.

When I saw Gimes he said: ‘This is the important things the Farkas trial must be public.’

At this time our party committee in the Radio put forwzn ® nine-point resolution, and one of the points was for a pubic trial for Farkas. :

Evidence implicated Soviet Union P I naturally supported this. But the whole: thing was quashet when our ‘political responsible’ (there is no English translarx 4 of this word) told us, at an information meeting, officicin 4 and quite candidly, that a public trial could not be alloxe: 4

The following resolution was passed at a meetiy ¢ is a working-class district in North Kensington):

‘This branch urges the executive committee of tam Communist Party about the execution of Imre Nea whether they were guilty or not.

‘In the present world situation, we consider thet “In particular, the secrecy of the trial, the naturee: up charges so familiar in Stalin’s day—and the anmesm out, must cause great concern to socialists and comm such methods were a relic of the past.’

lll ettt ttt Det tpt Ee eit TTT PPP rir because the evidence would implicate not only Rakosi but te a Gimes was certainly closely involved in the movemez-:

ki a which led to the demonstration of October 23, but no one wi: knew his ideas could believe that he planned to restore capita— ism with the aid of all sorts of reactionary and fascist riff-raz He was and remained a communist. He said he wantec communism, but not this kind.

That, of course, is ‘revisionism’, but it is the only possibs attitude of an honest man who sees the unspeakable corruptic: into which the party and the whole system has fallen, Communist respect for truth He implored me to write a book making known the facz about Hungary because, he said, if even one communist par: in the West would stop slavishly applauding every move of “im the Soviet Union it would make a vast difference to inte:- ail

Be> 2 healthier régime.

Scsh was his confidence in the ultimate respect of comw 281s for truth.

Ex was guilty of many things, though not of the crime W iit ~hich he was hanged. Farkas was a villain.

‘Eumes attacked the party’s treatment of them, not for their % r<o- sakes. but for the honesty of public life.

“ow he himself has suffered eighteen months’ imprisonment, 3 s<rTet trial, and summary execution. He was a brave man.

&% EXECUTIVE MEMBER RESIGNS FROM SCR:

= Brian Pearce has sent the following letter to Campbell travellers to do likewise.

Appreciation of the culture of the Russians and the other nations of the USSR, and desire to make this culture better known in this country, are sentiments in which I share now no less than before. Cultural progress in the USSR has taken place in spite of, not because of, the bureaucracy and its crimes.

The oppression of Hungary and the attack on Yugoslavia are being accompanied by an intensified drive against cultural freedom inside the Soviet Union.

It is contrary to the interests of the Soviet working class that their friends in the West should continue to give any kind of endorsement, however indirect, to. the claims of the bureaucracy to represent them.

True friendship with the Soviet peoples and true defence ; of the Soviet Union require that socialists, above all, should repudiate such organizations as the SCR together with the rest of the Stalinist system.

—LEEDS STUDENTS’ PROTEST

= Creighton, secretary of the Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR we --= murder of Imre Nagy, who was kidnapped by Soviet y x=urity forces in violation of a safe conduct agreed wc- the Yugoslav Embassy in Budapest, leaves no one — ®£= any more excuse for illusions about the nature 7% ine present régime in the USSR and its attitude to E we peoples under its sway.

Linked as this murder is with the renewed campaign of mczment and intimidation against Yugoslavia, it must be “mec as a bloody warning to all who still treat seriously the w-cziled ‘thaw’.

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m <= these circumstances, socialists—even more than others— mi = to consider whether by associating with propaganda y @=xcizations of any kind that are linked’ with the Soviet ui ‘mrscucracy they are not condoning the crimes (past, present

SEGehome branch of the Communist Party (Golbome @heemnnist Party to protest strongly to the Hungarian ing the three other accused in the recent secret trial, e@ watence to be completely unnecessary.

e@paharees—which are very reminiscent of the trumpedmummt of the sentences only after they had been carried waits all cver the world who had begun to hope that e mm “sture) of this bureaucracy.

[ <nink that by such association they do condone these fi Mmmms. just as membership of The Link and similar bodies w i@mhed in the pre-war years condonation of the crimes of - Secs.

E » SER should be repudiated &s a member of the SCR for many years, a former employee ie Mkts headquarters and a member of its executive committee mw. Mic [ was elecied at the last annual general meeting, I can Gare 30 doubts regarding the closeness of the link between ii -:rganization and the Soviet Embassy, or the spirit of @mer-modation to the political needs of that embassy in which m @eatairs are conducted.

Te time has quite evidently come for me to resign both gf @een he executive committee and from the SCR, and to urge e BE vher members who are not hard-core Stalinists or fellow-

Ninety-two students at Leeds University have signed the following letter:

WE the undersigned, members of Leeds University Labour Society, Socialist Society, colonial students and others, wish to protest in the strongest possible terms against the execution of Imre Nagy and others.

We regard this as an act of political terrorism for which there can be no possible justification.

The statement that there has been a ‘trial’ at which the accused ‘confessed’ to crimes of ‘treason’ will deceive no one, but it points to the nature of the political régime under which such acts occur.

Is this an example of ‘socialist legality’? We believe that neither of these words is applicable. This is a crime against world socialism.

-It is the more to be condemned when the real traitors to the Hungarian Revolution, Rakosi, Geré and others, have not been brought to trial but are being given asylum in the Soviet We regard this as a danger signal. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of other lives in danger in the prisons of Hungary, the Soviet Union and other east European countries.

We urge all those who think as we do to spare no effort to save their fellow comrades from the same fate as Nagy.

By an overwhelming majority, three shift meetings of the miners at Glencraig colliery, Fife—about 200 men—passed the following resolution, which has been sent to John Gollan, general secretary of the Communist Party, and to the Hungarian Legation in London:

‘That this meeting of Glencraig miners strongly protests against the execution of Imre Nagy and his comrades. We ex_press our solidarity with the Hungarian workers in these days of sorrow and we express our disgust at the brutal actions of the present Hungarian Government.

‘We ask the British Communist Party, in particular Mr _ W. Lauchlan, to get the Communist Party’s demonstration in London on June 29 to publicly condemn this abominable crime.’

Fife County Councillor Lawrence Daly and three local Labour councillors have signed a protest to the Hungarian Legation against the execution of Imre Nagy.

‘Three communist councillors, Robert Smith and Abe Moffat of Lumphinnans and A. Mitchell of Ballingry indignantly refused to sign when I approached them,’ writes Daly.

2 8, So strong was the demonstration that the leaders made ‘up

‘OF FRANCE’S WORKERS

EVEN more than the Algiers coup d@ état, that of Ajaccio revealed how deep was the crisis.of.France’s ruling class, and how great the will of the Algiers ‘ultras’ to. impose their policy.

The French capitalist class was threatened with dismemberment, since the army, which remained the only efficient instru~ ment of its rule, was in danger of escaping from its control.

The capitalists organized a reshuffle, thus tipping the scales once and for all in de Gaulle’s favour. It became imperative for the working-class organizations, if. they were to avoid annihilation, to bring the workers into’ activity.

And so the CGT called a strike*for Tuesday. May 27. But since May 25 the social-democratic- organizations had -been planning a demonstration for the Wednesday.

Knowing that this was to take place, the CGT nevertheless proceeded with its strike call for the Tuesday.

What looked like militancy on the surface in fact prevented the workers from acting in an effective way. In the event, the Tuesday strike was a failure, the Wednesday demonstration an unprecedented success.

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Answered in own language There had not been such a demonstration in Paris since 1935. For the first time since the Algiers coup the workers were answering the ‘ultras’ in their own language.

But their answer was at once not enough—and too much. Not enough to stop de Gaulle’s advent to power, yet too much for the leaders of the traditional organizations, who feared that the immense forces they had’ set i in motion would overtake and submerge them.

These leaders mobilized the workers while demobilizing them, encouraged them to struggle while demoralizing them, pushed them into action while scattering their forces.

The leaders spread false rumours. For instance, they put it about that Tarbes had fallen into the hands of the parachutists, They were trying to foster panic and so rally the militants around the trade union machinery and prevent any chance of the workers themselves taking the initiative.

In the Paris region active workers were frequently woken up in the middle of the night with the news that the parachutists were ‘descending’ on Paris—via the Seine! The Communist Party even launched the slogan: ‘Watch the airports’!

Trade union and political leadefs were holding meetings This is the conclusion’ of the article by Daniel Renard on de Gaulle’s coming to power, the first part of which appeared in our issue of June 14. Comrade Renard was for many years an engineer atthe Renault works in Paris.

PPP DLA A AA SDAA A LD ADI DID DD DP DIED PD DD DP ONIN SNPS in the factories nearly every day. They talked in very radical language, calling on the workers to exercise vigilance.

But while the ‘ultras’ were occupying official buildings in Algiers and Corsica the workers’ Jeaders in Paris were asking their members to sign petitions and to send ‘letters and telegrams to Parliament.

In spite of the panic campaign, im spite of the attempts to discourage the workers, the May 28" demonstration was a really enormous success. The.workers responded far mote! ‘readily and solidly than ‘ any of the leaders had expected: That is why there was -no follow-up. their minds that ariything- was preferable to such ‘uncontrollable’ mass strength.

By itself, the Federation of National Education, the indepedent teachers’ union, issued a call to all its members for a general strike on Friday, May 30, and called’ on the CGT and Force ‘Ouvriére unions for support.

But the latter refused to join in.

Members coshed—leaders silent The French teachers wanted to press home the success gained on May 28. The Stalinists and reformists said no.

In spite of their refusal to join the teachers’ strike the Communist Party leaders two days later launched a call for street demonstrations, in the same. style as those they had called six years before, when Ridgway arrived in Paris.

Alone, or practically alone, the active Communist Party members came on to the streets, only to be savagely beaten by large numbers of police.

And at the same time as the rank-and-file communists wer2 being batoned. the communist deputies sat silently through de Gaulie’s investiture, behaving with a calm and dignity which were praised by the whole French capitalist Press.

De Gaulle had come to power—but it was not the fault of the workers.

MARXIST PHILOSOPHER SUSPENDED FROM

It is reported that the Marxist philosopher Henri Lefébvre and two doctors, Michel Sapir and Bernard Abramovicz, have been suspended from the French Communist Party for periods varying from six months to one year, for ‘factional activities’.

CEYLON’S RACE RIOTS INCITED BY THOSE WHO FEAR WORKERS’ SWING TO LEFT From a Special Correspondent AT the end of May communal riots suddenly broke the calm of Ceylon. The events were bloody and widespread, and the Government has clamp sed a rigid censorship on news of what really has been happening.

Under cover of this censorship it is trying to impose a solution that threatens to destroy permanently the unity of the Ceylonese people.

Ever since the last General Election, when chauvinist cries about language and religion were raised, communal tension has mounted.

The passage of the Sinhala-Only Language Bill, in the main an attempt to solve the unemployment problem in favour of the Sinhalese majority, further aggravated the situation.

The past year has been marked by the most -militant trade union struggles. in the history of the island and by growing unrest among the peasants.

The result has been considerable gains by the Trotskyist Lanka Sama Samaja Party in the last few months, at the expense of the Communist Party and the MEP (People’s United Front), the racialist Government party.

Trying to split workers This pronounced leftward swing and the inability of the Bandaranaike Government to check it and maintain the status quo on. behalf of the local and foreign capitalists have disturbed the capitalists and the middle class.

They want a ‘strong government’ that will effectively safeguard their interests.

Their salvation lies in a strong man and-a fascist-type dictatorship..And so the last: few months have seen’ increased activity among the Sinhalese and Tamil racialists to divide

the people, and especially the working class, on the basis of language.

The Federalists campaigned in the North and East. calling .

on the. Tamils to prepare for struggle -to preserve their language rights. The ‘Language Freedom Front’, led by second-rank parlia:

mentary politicians. and backed by certain sections of. the Buddhist clergy, campaigned in the Sinhalese majority areas for people to boycott Tamil.shops and sever relations with the Tamil people so as. to reduce them to a more servile position.

The key plantation workers refused to be drawn into this feud; but the capitalist Press by and large was silent about activities that could lead only to language riots and the splitting of the nation.

The campaign of the Sinhalese racialists was reaching its climax towards the end of May, when the newspapers reported the killing of a prominent Sinhalese business man in the Eastern Province, along with ‘several: other similar incidents.

This added fuel to the mounting communal hysteria in the South by giving substance to the widespread propaganda of alleged Tamil atrocities against the Sinhalese in the North and East.

On May 25 and 26 looting and arson directéd mainly at the Tamil shops became widespread in the Sinhalese areas, The Government still remained inactive and the police, who were given orders not to fire under any circumstances, looked on—and at places even encouraged the hooligans.

Ignorant, callous or frightened?

The Prime Minister’s reply to an appeal by certain prominent citizens to declare a state of emergency. was: ‘Gentlemen, does the situation merit such strong action?’

The inference is that either Bandaranaike was not being kept informed of what was happening, or that he was callous as to the consequences, or more probably that he feared to take strong measures against the very people who put him in power on chauvinist slogans.

It. was only under the pressure of the trade unions, which met on the initiative of the LSSP and threatened to organize the workers for the defence and restoration of law and order, that Bandaranaike declared a: state of emergency.

A. few days of military law and a dusk to dawn curfew were required to restore some degree of order.

In the South looting and arson began when agitators went round the shopping areas distributing leaflets and spreading rumours attributing all manner of atrocities to the Tamils in the North.

At the same time special squads of thugs, often in Volkswagen vans or cars, went around breaking open Tamil shops, initiating. the looting, and at places starting fires. There is no doubt that this action was aided by the neighbouring Sinhalese merchants.

Criminals Iooted and murdered The damage was done in a-few minutes and the culprits disappeared before the police arrived. The inattivity of the police in the early part of the trouble encouraged criminal elements, who, having looted, then began to roam the streets in large angry mobs.

Anyone suspected of being a Tamil was assaulted, often killed. The violence spread to the Tamil residential areas in the suburbs of Colombo and the damage to life and property was heavy.

Several people, including three Hindu priests in Panadura, were burnt alive. In the interior the sequence of events was similar.

Where the Sinhalese and’ Tamils lived in harmony the trouble was started by outsiders.

In Gampaha and several other. towns that lie by the railway lines the racialists arrived by train.

In Badulla, persistent rumours of Tamil attacks on the Sinhalese led a band of over 500 land development workers “from nearby Alutnuwara to raid and sack the Tamil shops and houses, leaving behind them a trail. of death and destruetion. mo Finally the military, called in from Diyatalawa, :cornered the mob in the Mukijangana Buddhist-temple. ‘They were arrested and .a search of:the premises" revealed a large store of guns and ammunition, In the predominantly’ “Pamil- North and East the main attacks were directed against. the Government,.i.c., the police and the military... There were no Sinhalese killed and only a _ few injured. There was little” looting, but much Sinhalese property: was “damaged. In ‘spite: of: this’ the Government in its daily: Press reports—especially at the beginning of June—spoke of tension in the North and East and expressed anxiety. at the events.

Since the most horrible atrocities taking place in the South were being ignored.these..Press reports gave rise to the wildest conjectures and: the worst. possible interpretation on the part of the Sinhalese in the South.

Reports from the North indicate. that the struggle started. ; with the high-handed action of the Army authorities.

In all these events the. work of an organization can be seen in the number of radio transmitters that operated from the beginning of the trouble, whipping up racial hatred.

. Driving the wedge deeper Fheir operators had obtained the police and military codes and wavelengths and were able to misdirect the authorities A prominent supporter of the previous governing - party was taken into custody for the printing of the leaflets. A Right-wing MEP minister was associated with the incidents in the interior town of Polonnaruwa.

It is unfortunate that the MEP government has sought a communal solution to the. problem by sending the Tamils and Sinhalese back to their ‘own areas’.

This is bound to drive the wedge deeper between the two peoples and accentuate communal differences, besides causing ‘further economic problems.

Ceylon’s capitalists are ‘trying to split the workers by sowing tacialism. Though they have not succeeded, these events are a serious warning to the. whole of the Ceylonese workers.

[usa] _FAUBUS CONSPIRES WITH USS. GOVERNMENT

' By Shane Mage Tue U.S. Government has capitulated to Governor _ Faubus and his ‘White Citizens’ Council’ thugs.

The district court judge in Little Rock has ‘decided, on the pretext that ‘racial strife and tension should be ameliorated’, to ‘postpone’ integration in Little Rock for two and a half - years.

The immediate victims of this-betrayal are the seven cour‘ageous Negro children who have spent a year under constant provocation and physical violence at the hands of.a tiny but - officially-protected group of white students.

It is also a betrayal of the promise of school integration ‘made four years ago to the Negro people.

If equality is to be ‘postponed’ in Little Rock it can never be obtained in the rest of the South, once the racialists know that they can ‘postpone’ integration simply by stirring up ‘racial strife and tension’.

Leave dirty work to successor Make no mistake about it, this court ruling expresses the policy of the Eisenhower administration and is the result of a shameful conspiracy. with Faubus.

The figure of two and a half years was not chosen by accident. It coincides exactly with the expiration of his term as Arkansas Governor, after’ which he can move on to Washington as a ‘Southern Liberal’, leaving the continuing dirty work of blocking integration to. his successor. —

The direct responsibility of Washington in this conspiracy is shown by the fact that, while in the original court case the Justice Department had intervened in favour of .integration, in this case it refused to take any position—thereby, in -fact, taking a position of silent complicity with Faubus. immediately towards unilaterally renouncing British manufacture and stockpiling of the H-bomb.’

Over 20,000 marchers turned out in pouring rain in Barns-

General management committee of Wandsworth constituency Labour Party has gone on record in favour of the unilateral renunciation of the hydrogen-bomb by Britain.

Its resolution, passed by 33 votes to 11, declares:

‘Members of the GMC of Wandsworth constituency Labour Party, in full support of the ideals of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and aware of the uselessness of Civil Defence in this country against the devastating forces of the H-bomb, call upon the Labour Party to give a lead Constant Reader

JUNE-18, 1958, has much in common with July 30, 1925, known to history as ‘Red Friday’.

On both occasions a Tory government intent on beating down a key section of the working class as a preliminary to a general onslaught discovered it had bitten off more than it could chew and hastily retreated. _.

Presumably nobody imagines that now, any more than after -Red Friday, the capitalists and their State have given up the struggle.

-They will try again a little later, in a new way and perhaps on another part of the front, to make the break-through that . failed this time.

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And they will rely on the working-class movement committing the same mistakes again that it made after Red Friday—mistakes that led to the disastrous defeat of May 1926.

While the Government got busy forming its strike-breaking Organization for the Maintenance of Supplies and preparing its emergency system of Civil Commissioners for each region. so as to be ready for the next round, ‘masterly inactivity’ prevailed on the workers’ side. There was not even any exposure of these doings by the Tories.

-‘Not entirely inert As Julian Symons comments, in ‘The General Strike’ (1957): “The leaders of the Labour Party seem to have been unaware of the preparations being made: or perhaps, of course, they silently approved of them’

~ To say that the leaders of Labour were entirely inert in the crucial months between Red Friday and the General Strike would give a false impression.

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These months saw an intensified drive to expel Left-wingers from the movement, coinciding with a stepped-up campaign by the police against the same elements:

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Some aspects of this ‘combined operation’ come across vividly in Leslie Paul’s novel of the period, ‘Men in May’ (1937).

Two campaigns contrasted THE half-heartedness of the French Communist Party’s campaign during the last four years against the war in Algeria contrasts sharply with-what it did in 1925-26, during the war in Morocco (the Riff war), though the party was then much smaller and had only a minority of the workers behind it.A manifesto by the party declaring that the enemies of.the Moroccans were the enemies of the French workers was translated into Arabic on the orders of Abd-EI-Krim, the rebel leader, and widely distributed among his followers.

A Council of Action was set up in France, on which both . Printed by Plough Press Ltd. (TU), r.o. 180 Clapham High St, London SW4 socialist and communist workers. were represented, and this organized a series of rank-and-file anti-war conferences in all the big industrial centres.

Some huge demonstrations were held, including one in Paris . attended by 60,000 people. ‘The Black Sea mutiny of 1919 was recalled in many speeches, and fraternization with the rebels called for, and a number of instances of mutiny and fraternization actually occurred, :

900,000 workers struck The slogan of peace with the. Moroccans was linked with demands for higher wages and lower taxes, and the one-day’ protest strike summoned for October 12, 1925, involved 900,060 workers, in spite of the hostile attitude of the socialist leadership.

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The funeral procession of a worker killed by the police ; during this strike was 100,000 strong.

Although the campaign failed to ensure victory to the rebel cause—Abd-El-Krim was forced to surrender in May 1926—it had big political consequences, especially in bringing socialist and communist workers closer together and in convincing many North Africans that the French workers were their allies.

A British commentator (Allen Hutt) observed that this campaign was ‘the first organized intervention of the west European proletariat in. a-colonial war: the first case in which the workers of an imperialist country have, by deeds and not only by words, made common cause with one of “their” colonial people in revolt’.

A ‘comparative study’

AN old Stalinist acquaintance of mine is engaged in research for 4 ‘comparative study’ of British and Soviet governmental] institutions.

When I met him the other day he assured me that if one compares what goes on in the British Empire and in the Soviet Union, criticism of the latter’s rulers proves to be ‘idealist’, for what they do is no worse than what is done in Kenya ete.!

The mind boggles at the thought of what Lenin would have ; said if Stalin had replied to his criticisms of bureaucratic and sergeant-major tendencies in party and State in 1922-23 by saying: ‘Oh, come, Ilyich—this is nothing to what happens -in India, you know.’

Actually, the Stalin of those days, and those around him, . would probably have been incapable of such an ‘argument’. Which is a measure of the degeneration that has taken place among the Stalinists.

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

ley on Saturday for the Yorkshire miners’ gala.

A banner from Hatfield Main branch of the National Union of Mineworkers carried the slogan: ‘Less wages plus more rent equals. starvation. We are not going back to that.’

Yorkshire miners are objecting strongly to proposed increases in National Coal Board house rents.

SAYING OF THE WEEK ‘Spain is certainly not part of the communist world: it is therefore part of the free world.—Sir David Eccles, President of the Board of Trade.

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