The Newsletter, vol. 2 no. 60

HE passivity and shameful silence of the Labour leaders ever the Lebanese conflict has. done more to " enceurage imperialist intervention in the middle East than anything else. More than 30,000 troops and large numbers of aereplanes and warships have been dispatched te Cyprus and the eastern Mediterranean for the ostensible purpose of ‘protecting British lives and property’.

In the meantime the U.S. Sixth Fleet provocatively manoeuvres off the Lebanese coast to the accompaniment of bellicose statements from the State Department and the White House. - ;

And what have Labour’s leaders in Parliament done to prevent a local crisis from erupting into a war which

would make the Suez crisis look like a skirmish? ENFIELD district committee of the Amalgamated ‘When Nagy and Maleter were brutally murdered the Engineering Union. has passed a resolution placing on Labour Party lost no time in organizing a protest meet- record its ‘absolute condemnation of the brutal judicial murder of Imre Nagy and his colleagues’. ing.

Yet the crisis in the Lebanon—-which even the ; ‘These cruel and vindictive executions,’ the resolution goes Economist grudingly admits is ‘factitious’ (i.e., designedly on, ‘carried out after the cowardly farce of a secret trial, have got up)-—has not given rise to a single demonstration or nothing in common with socialist ethics, and reflect the behaviour and mentality of a callous and privileged bureaucratic public rally.

The only meeting held to protest against imperialist ; ruling clique.

- ‘The same. Stalinist bureaucratic clique carried out the a meddling in the middle East was organized by the murder of the old Bolsheviks and now, reverting to type, is Movement for Colonial Freedom. : imposing. fresh infamies upon society and the working-class It seems that the Labour leaders are prepared to demovement. ° nounce the crimes of Stalinism while turning a blind ‘In doing so they, headed by Khrushchev and his fellow- . eye to the crimes of their own ruling class. gangsters, are bringing eternal disgrace upon the good name This. spirit of connivance and. collusion which characterizes of the Soviet Union and degrading. with shame the principles the official ‘attitude of the Opposition is clearly revealed once of communism.” :

-again on the question of the constitutional proposais for ‘LONDON COMMUNISTS CONDEMN THE CRIME The Tory Government’s plan for Cyprus is a crude attempt Lewisham branch of the Young Communist League has passed’a resolution of protest against the execution of Imre PITT labelled Nagy. The voting was 17 in favour of. the resolution..and _two abstentions. -Hampstead branch of the YCL and Streatham. branch -of

‘London Busmen in Battle’ is the title of a three- the Communist Party have passed similar resolutions.

penny pamphlet published this week. It is a reprint of an article in the latest issue of Labour Review by Bob RAMELSON’S ‘ACTIVE DEMOCRACY’

Potter, a member of Battersea strike committee during Suspension of, standing orders. was moved at the June the recent dispute. The pamphlet also contains an meeting of Leeds Trades Council so that an emergency resolueditorial on ‘Strike Strategy’. from the same issue. ; tion condemning the Hungarian murders might be discussed.

Although 54 delegates voted for suspension, 25 members of ‘the Communist Party lined up with six ‘non-politicals’ to to divide the island on religious and. communal lines and block discussion. by ‘preventing a necessary two-thirds majority. ; thereby perpetuate British rule.

The plan explicitly rejects self-determination and does not a This did not stop the Communist Party’s Yorkshire district even provide Cyprus with a modicum of self-government. secretary. Bert Ramelson, talking about ‘active democracy’

Instead’ it promises to dismember the island and. by in- in the British trade union movement. volving the Turkish and Greek Governments, threatens to exacerbate the already strained feelings of the two communi-

ties..

The majority of the people-of Cyprus want self-determina- A hundred people gathered on the beach at Withernseg tion. They have had enough of plans: the Harding plan. the -(Yorks.) last Friday night. stood in silence for. one minute, Radcliffe proposals and so on. That is why the representative then set off on the first’leg of their coast-to-coast march to of Archbishop Makarios has turned down categorically the Liverpool. There are about 15 in the hard core of this nuclear Tories’ Trojan Horse proposals. disarmament march.

In view of all ‘this the actions and statements of Bevan There have been warm receptions from local Labour Parties (Continued overteaf) . on the route. (Lancashire Labour will greet them: page 180)175 .

JuLty 5, 1958 CYPRUS (Continued from front page)

and Cailaghan are déubly treacherous. They have appealed to the Cypriots to accept the Tory plan as a basis for a negotiated settlement. Yet they do not recommend the plan entirely.

Al this moment the Labour movement of the world has only one request to make of the government of Janos. Kadar: that it reveal the whereabouts and condition of Julia Rajk. The reports that, together with two other Hungarian communists, she is being secretly tried on charges of treason, are too insistent to be dismissed out of hand as capitalist Press lies. Of course these reports may be false, but, in the light of the bad faith and brutality that attended the murder of Nagy and his companions, more is expected of the Budapest authorities than a mere cold silence. They have an imperative duty to respond to the anxieties of honest socialists and communists throughout the world, who are asking: ‘Has this woman not suffered enough?’

Julia Rajk is the widow of a communist framed and executed in 1949. In her prison cell she heard the execution of her husband and, as she later said, ‘in the silence of dawn heard the doctor announce the death’. Her small son was taken away from her and brought up, under another name, to revile his father as a traitor. For several years, shunned and friendless, she managed to scrape a living as a librarian. When the ‘revisionist’ breeze began to blow strongly in Hungary in the summer of 1956 Mrs Rajk spoke out, with understandable bitterness, against the Stalinists who had slandered and murdered her husband. On October 6, 1956, along with 200,000 other citizens of Budapest, she attended his ceremonial reburial. She played no active part in the Hungarian Revolution, but was one of the group of communists who left the Yugoslav embassy under a safe conduct that proved to be worthless.

Elementary justice demands that the Labour movement shall be told what is happening to Mrs. Rajk. Are we again to wake up one morning to find that one more Bevan has. a conveniently short memory. He has forgotten two essential facts—or prefers to ignore them.

First, the Cypriots do not want the Tories or their plan.

Secondly, the last annual conference of the Labour Party committed the Labour Party to support self-determination for Violates his party’s mandate Bevan—no matter how noble or pure his motives might have been—is guilty not only of betraying the people of Cyprus but also of violating his party’s mandate.

If the Labour Party continues on this road its policy will scon be indistinguishable from that of the Tories. What is worse, it will incur the lasting contempt and hatred of the colonial peoples.

Only the rank and file can help to restore the colonial peoples’ trust. British Labour has nothing in common with the imperialist rulers of Cyprus, but it certainly has much in common with the working class and peasants of Cyprus.

The struggle for the self-determination of Cyprus is an integral part of the struggle for a socialist Britain. But the verbal recognition of this. whether at Margate or Blackpool is not enough. It must be backed by positive action which will help to realize it in terms which will be understood by Greek and Turk.

Immediate and unconditional independence To compromise our principles on colonial freedom would lead us inevitably into. the unhappy: position the French Socialist Party has got itself into.

Labour must demand NOW and without equivocation the granting of immediate and unconditional independence to Cyprus, accompanied by the withdrawal of all British armed forces and British administrators.

There is no other policy worth supporting and no other : ; ; policy which can. stop Cyprus from being plunged into 4 terrible communal iragedy.

The development fund is forging ahead.

ONE does not need to share all the views of Coun.

John Lawrence, nor approve of the methods he has used to draw attention to his views, to condemn as utterly wrong the decision to expel him from the party. There is little to be said for adventurism by Left-wingers in the Labour Party; there is nothing to be said for witch-hunts. The annual conference must firmly rebuke the witch-hunters and reinstate Coun. Lawrence.

After the busmen and dockers, which section is next in line for the employers’ attack? The problems of two basic industries which may soon be in the front line, are here discussed. Coun. Price Jones of Atherton (Lancs), a member of The Newsletter’s editorial board, writes the first of two articles on the mining industry; Harry Ratner, a Lancashire engineer, discusses what must be done if engineers and shipyard workers are to win their claim. > _ Jury 5, 1958 i of easy world markets. This meant an increasing demand for

bloody act of revenge has wiped. out another eloquent witness to the real causes, real character and real course of the Hungarian Revolution? Let us be told whether a trial is taking place; if so, what the charges are and the nature of the evidence; and how many prisoners have died under interrogation this time. A year ago, pressure saved the lives of the young writers Oberszovsky and Gali. Now the Kadar régime, has taken to murdering its victims first and announcing the fact afterwards. We who are socialists, who protest with all our hearts against imperialist crimes in Kenya and Cyprus, ask the Hungarian Government in the name of common humanity and decency: ‘Where is Julia Rajk?’

* Many thanks to the Edmonton comrade who sends a donation .

of £1. .

-And to the group of readers in Manchester who have undertaken to raise ‘at least £5’ for the fund each month. We hear of one north London factory where the lads who buy The Newsletter are agreeing to pay a few coppers over the sixpence as a weekly contribution.

We think this a good idea and hope it will catch on. The first aim of the fund is t6 make it possible to produce g monthly industrial supplement similar in appearance to the Strike Bulletin.

; This will lay the basis for a full-scale workers’ weekly paper.

: * * * From next week onwards the development fund will be organized, and the fund note written, by Ivy Read, who is treasurer of the Hendon North Labour Party youth section.

* * * We remind readers that The Newsletter is taking a fortnight’s holiday this year.

There will be no issues on July 19 or 26.

AGAINST DOGMATISM

‘No one wants to make the immediate renunciation of NATO into a new dogma ., .’ (Editorial in the New Reasoner, summer 1958).

‘ITT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE’ MOOD IN PITS IS SHATTERED ‘MakE Mining Your Career.’ For the past decade this slogan has been staring at peopie from newspapers and hoardings. Now, suddenly, it will disappear-and in its ~ -place will be hung ‘No jobs here’ signs outside the pit gates.

From-a position of apparent continued expansion to a position of contraction.

Consumption down, recruiting stopped, refusal of a wage. claim (for the first time since nationalization) and the setting up of disciplinary absentee committees. ”

These have ended the aura of permanence in the mining industry and created a feeling of confusion and disillusionment among most miners.

What has happened to cause this abrupt change in the fortunes of the mining industry?

Since 1939, owing to the needs of war and easy boom conditions after the war, coal has been in constant, urgent demand.

They will have to struggle Miners have been able to obtain concessions that they never could in pre-war days and that they will find -it difficult to maintain now without a struggle.

Owing to the extreme shortage of coal and of miners—not to any inherent ‘goodness’ of nationalization—pit workers have been able to raise themselves from about 84th in the pre-war wages table to somewhere near the top.

For generations before the war miners had dreamed of nationalization. Thanks to the natural hardness of the job of getting coal, plus the obvious exploitation of miners by the coal owners, there had grown up a ‘hate the boss’ mentality.

If only the hated bosses could be shifted everything would be different.

Thus was the idea of nationalization born. No definite plans —just shift the bosses.

Things not much different 1947 saw the pits taken over by a Labour government. Very soon, however, the miners saw that things were-not much different. , coal, which the coal industry, although increasing its output ‘greatly, could not really satisfy.

Hence the import of foreign coal and its sale to industry ata loss which was wrongly charged to the NCB. -‘ The increased output answers all sneers at ‘idle miners’. The general tendency has been for output to fall ever since the feak year 1913 until it reached its lowest in 1946, when output was approximately 186 million tons.

From 1947, when the pits were taken over, output has steadily risen (in spite of the fact that the number of men and pits is _ far less than before the war) until 1957 saw a total of 223 million tons mined.

But at the same as the NCB has been concentrating on developing output, outside conditions have been rapidly changing. , Industry has found increasing competition abroad. Eas} markets have vanished because other countries, such as west Germany and Japan, having recovered from their war devastation are again competing successfully in the world markets.

Other types of fuel have begun to be used in some industries, all adding up to the fact that coal is no longer quite so urgently needed.

~ This has gone unnoticed by many miners, and apparently by the National Union of Mineworkers, which in Lancashire recently agreed to the setting up of absentee committees consisting of equal numbers of NCB and NUM representatives.

Opposition from rank and file These committees were to deal with persistent absentees who were ‘affecting output’. They have already. met with opposition from the rank-and-file miners, who feel that machinery already exists to deal with absentees and that the committees’ real purpose is to ‘discipline’ workers who kick against increasing NCB pressure...

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It is probably true that the NCB would prefer NUM collaboration, but if the men make this impossible, as will most likely happen in places like Lancashire, Yorkshire and South Wales, then they are fully prepared to ‘go it alone’.

In the west Midlands Area it was recently announced that the colliery manager would deal with all absentees.

RANK-AND-FILE MOVEMENT FOR ENGINEERS WE MUST BEGIN TO PREPARE FOR THE By Harry Ratner -

But they were loyal to the principle of nationalization. At least the hated bosses had apparently been shifted out of control, and nationalization would mean better conditions coupled with permanence of employment.

Such were the ideas. that have been dominant for the fast twelve years.

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The old bosses had not really been removed, because they were still exploiting the men and the industry through compensation. And the National Coal Board was becoming more and more bureaucratic and top-heavy.

But these facts did not detract from the feeling of permanence that most people had.

There grew up the feeling, especially among younger miners, that no matter what happened in other industries the mines would not be affected. But recently all that has been rudely shattered.

-British industry has expanded rapidly since the war because ACCORDING to the Daily Worker report, the chairman of the engineering employers ‘looked startled’ when the trade union representative in the course of applying for a ‘substantial’ increase in wages stated that ‘the least’ they could accept was 6 per cent. , No wonder! He must have been even pleasantly surprised! Since when have union negotiators—even Right-wing ones like Carron—climbed down so quickly at the very start of negotiations?

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The demand for a ‘substantial’ increase is in itself already dangerously vague. What is ‘substantial’? 15. per cent.? 10 per cent.? Certainly well above 6 per cent.

Why, even the ‘3 per cent, unions’ on the railway started by asking for 10 per cent. Before Greene and Co. allowed the (Continued at foot of next page)

By PETER [,ABOUR’S policy statement on education, ‘Learning There must be, and is. a political.reason for this debasex!

te Live’, is a poor and uninspiring document. It re- use of words. It appears on the same page: ‘Labour concloass that at present no scheme for “taking over” or “democre=> cognizes some of the problems, here and there makes a Wing” the public schools shows sufficient merits to justify te useful piece of analysis, and then fails when it comes large diversion of public money that would be involved” to saying just what should be done. Thus Labour leaders who are defenders of H-bomb pre duction and NATO are at the same time defenders of te We have a tremendous opportunity for new thinking, public schools. So now they can speak on behalf of the rulimg and it must not be thrown away. There is yet time for class, the lower middle class and the working class, whick a remedy. In reply- to ‘Learning to Live’ constructive gives you—guess what?—the NATION! criticism must propound a militant socialist policy for Certain Labour leaders, themselves from public schools. a= education.

: continually embarrassed by the fact that they are membes of what is essentially a working-class party. * In order to cover up a truth they don’t like they overwaré this word ‘nation’, which as a political concept is meaninglas.

They try to get across an extraordinary version of social:sm without the class struggle. They are afraid of the very peonm

‘Learning to Live’ has a deep underlying fault. The Labour they. lead.

Party as such hardly comes jnto the picture. It is always “Labour > They like the world the way they find it and want to keer will. . ., and this clearly means the Labour Government, the it that way—by means of a tame Labour movement.

Labour leaders only.

By taking the fight out of politics they play straight into te There is nowhere any sense of the part to be played by the hands of the Tories. Although this may not be their intentior party and the people. The result is sometimes quite extra- jt is certainly the effect of what they say and do. ‘Learning ordinary. to Live’ is only the latest example.

On page 37 we read: “We cannot hope to foster a varied and developing Youth Service without a nucleus of trained full- . * . time leaders. At. present, there are probably fess than 1.000 of these in the whole country; this force must at least be trebled.’

That statement would be perfectly in order if it were not

Let us recognize the foundations of the problem. Tze for the fact that the Labour Party youth sections are not even rublic schools provide for the sons and daughters of ts mentioned. It is apparently the official Labour view that all business. That is their real character. youth work is to be done from the ‘top’ by government policy The fact that some misguided parents scrape. save ant and by paid organizers. sacrifice their own lives to send their children to these schows This means in practice the discouraging of a politically only serves to underline their identity. To get into a pubs: conscious youth movement. What other construction can we schoal is to get on to a most important ruling-class bar= put upon it? wagon.

Then about the teachers themselves: there is nowhere any We cannot cure a disease by treating a symptom, and the sense of the party working among teachers to propagate social- public schools are the educational symptom of capitalisx ist ideas of education. The National Association of Labour They can only be done away with when we put paid to bis Teachers (the official Labour Party organization) might as well business by means of socialism. never have been born, it is so conspicuously ignored. This means that the slogan ‘Abolish the Public Schools’ <= Needless to say, Parent-Teacher Associations, vital to any. not practical politics except in a revolutionary situation. socialist concept of education, are not mentioned at all. lf and when we have occasion to think seriously of suc things us a political general strike and workers’ councils, the. and only then wul it be correct and feasible to propose th:

DEFENDERS OF PRIVILEGE. And this ‘nation’ business! ending of the bastions of educational privilege. Consider for example: ‘To make the nation’s schools fully The end of the public schools will be part of the fing worthy of the nation will be an immense achievement’. show-down with capitalism whenever and however that takes ‘ENGINEERS (Continued from previous page) make some slight concessions, it was only due to the busmen’s railwaymen to be bought off and separated from the busmen militancy. Having failed to hold the busmen they will try again by the miserable 3 per cent. they did at least pretend to with us. put up a fight—if only a purely verbal one around the negotiat- We must begin now to prepare our ranks for the tough ing table. struggie ahead.

If we engineers are to win a genuine increase the rank and Past experience shows we cannot just leave this to the official file must intervene forcibly in this claim. machine. The push must come from the militants in the ranks, Carron’s hint to the employers that 6 per cent. will do should otherwise nothing will be done. be repudiated by the rank and file. A flood of resolutions from branches, district and factory floors would make it clear that Mass meetings of stewards Carron does not speak for the membership.

There must be mass meetings of shop stewards called either But resolutions will not be enough to defeat the employers. by the district committees of the Confederation of Shipbuilding The recent bus and market disputes have shown that the em- and Engineering Unions or those of the various unions. ploying class and their government intend to resist every attempt In those district where they will not do that the initiative by workers to maintain their conditions, should be taken by the shop stewards themselves, with factory If they failed to smash the busmen and were even forced to and yard meetings to prepare the rank and file, explain the

swer to ‘Learning to Live’ IBOGAN ;

riace in Britain. It. needs only a little teflection to see the local authority provision extends and improves, the direct th of this. For what is the alternative? grant list can be reduced. Where this is done, the schools affected may elect to become maintained schools; or they may exercise their right to become private schools, indeONLY POSSIBLE WAY. The only possible way by which pendent of public funds.’ < next Labour Government might do away with these schools This incredible proposal would get a well deserved round ould be to make the payment of schools fees punishable by of applause at a Tory conference. It simply means an extenReavy fines and imprisonment. . sion of fee-paying privileged education and a further lease of Is anyone in his right. mind going to suggest that it would life for class divisions in England. te practical politics for the next Labour Government to =eprison some of the most wealthy and powerful men in Britain for the. crime of paying school fees? Of.course not. THE SOCIALIST ANSWER. ‘Learning to Live’ pays lip We cannot abolish ruling-class schools unless and until we service to ideas of equality. There is in fact a good indictment z5olish capitalist class rule itself. And that is not on the of the publi¢ school system in the section that describes. them zgenda—yet. as ‘An Estate of the Realm’. But having condemned fee-paying ‘Learning to Live’ is at fault in not making ali this clear.

in theory it is proposed to encourage it in practice.

Ht it is ai least honest enough not to urge, as it might have Four per cent, of the boys and girls of this country have done, some new and hopeless guinea-pig scheme whereby private fees paid for their education. Their parents are quite selected workers’ sons were to be sent to Eton and Harrow.

indifferent to what happens to the other 96 per cent. And these * For that is not the answer. Public schools cannot be adapted parents happen to include the majority of the most powerful “> the requirements of the twentieth century. They must be men in the country. zsolished. What we have to do is to grasp the political nature The socialist answer should be quite obvious. Sooner or zz that task of abolition.

later, by. one means or another, we intend to see to it that 100 per cent. of the parents have an interest in 100 per cent. * of the children. If a few people get their feelings hurt in the process that is just too bad. : : ” DIRECT GRANT SCHOOLS We can make a start with the direct grant schools. Then if angry parents object let them build some new schools for themBut there is something that can be done in the. meantime, selves. When we really establish socialism in Britain we shall zad this is where ‘Learning to Live’ really falls down.

take those over too.

Tf you look at the list of public schools you will see that many of them are day schools. They are the old grammar * schools, usually dating from the sixteenth century.

Many of them are classified as direct grant schools. (But not x3 direct grant schools are public schools.) This means that chev get a grant from the Government and in return take up

The great weakness of ‘Learning to Live’, however, is not x 50 per cent. of their. pupils without fees from the State in its treatment of the public schools. azimary schools. They are therefore half private and half State sxhools. Any socialist assessment of education in Britain today It would not be difficult for a Labour government to incor- . should start from the simple proposition that the outstanding sorate these schools fully in the State system and abolish their problem remaining to be solved is that of the character, zartial fee-paying character outright. © content and future of the secondary modern school.

An Act of. Parliament might name all these schools and ‘Learning to Live’ quite fails to bring out the fact that this aationalize their assets. But no! Extraordinary as it may seem. problem dwarfs everything else. Three-quarters of the. children “Learning to Live’ actually proposes the opposite course of of this country go to schools that only pretend to provide zction. Not content with defending fee-paying as an institution secondary education. What are we to do about it?

“surges us to extend it: Clearly our first requirement is a definition of secondary :

‘The next Labour Government, therefore, like the last, education.

will refuse to extend the list of direct grant schools .. . As (Fo be continued)

aT — — — — issues to them and encourage them to express their views. did. “Tt was in that way that last year the pressure from below We all remember last year how the Confederation leadership forced a very hesitant national leadership into even the limited called off our strike when it was solid and growing and the ‘strikes by district’. employers were beginning to crack, and accepted the ‘strings’ settlement without consulting the rank and file.

This time we must insist: “No division of our ranks. If we come out we must come out all together on a national scale.’ This time-we must insist that the rank and file is consulted at all stages. The rank and file must keep control of the moveWe can learn two things from the bus dispute. The failure ta extend ‘the strike to the tubes and petrol men prolonged it “ment. by several weeks. It could have been won very quickly Based on the factories Last year the Confederation leaders weakened our strike by refusing to call out maintenance men in other industries and The way to do this is to build up a network of rank-and-file even sending some back to work. Next time this must not hap- committees genuinely based on the factories and yards, to estab-. lish links between these committees all over the country. pen. The second lesson is that unless the. rank-and-file busmen in : ‘ ; co To those. who would argue that this would split the unions the garages had rejected Cousins’s first advice to return to work our answer is that on the contrary it is weak leadership at the and stood out they would not have won the partial victory they top which by frustrating the membership, by calling them 179 -out and then sending them back with little or nothing (or in this case asking for, next to nothing at the beginning of negotiations), creates apathy and ‘weakness.

A’ strong rank-and-file movement which will support the officials in so far as they fight for the membership but opposes them when they don’t is the best guarantee against demoralization.

Be public meeting in Eccles Town Hall called bythe Eccles Labour Party. Beds are being provided by the Society of Friends, food by Salford Labour Party women’s sections.

When the march sets off from Eccles. on the Saturday morning it will be joined by members of Salford, Eccles and other Labour Parties, Labour youth sections, trade unionists, and probably some Labour MPs, too.

In Warrington on Saturday evening marchers and supporters will discuss the questions: “Where do we go from here? Are marches played out? Do we need other forms of action, includ-

FRANK ALLAUN SAYS BLACKING THE BASES ‘ARE you in favour of workers engaged in the con- -struction of missile sites refusing to work on them?’ ‘Yes,’ replied Frank Allaun, Labour MP for Salford East.

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‘If unions with members involved, such as the Constructional Engineering Union and the Electrical Trades Union, were to declare the job black it would have a tremendous effect.

‘But it would be wrong for someone like me, who is. not involved, to tell them to do so. It must be a decision by the trade unions themselves.’ . Allaun was replying to a question from the floor at a 200strong meeting organized by the Manchester committee of Victory for Socialism.

He and K. Zilliacus, Labour MP for Gorton, spoke in favour of unilateral renunciation of the H-bomb by Britain.

The audience also heard an appeal by Mrs Greta Karpin, secretary of the Salford Labour Party. Anti-H-Bomb Committee, to support the Hull to Liverpool coast-to-coast march. ‘ing industrial. and political action?’ The discussion will be opened by Frank Allaun, MP.

Liverpool Trades: and Labour Council and Merseyside ;

Nuclear Disarmament Committee are sending contingents to escort the marchers.into Liverpool on Sunday.

LABOUR PARTY CONFERENCE WILL HEAR

WHEN the Hull to Liverpool anti-H-bomb coast-to-coast march reaches Lancashire this week-end it looks like receiving great support from local Labour Parties and unions as well as from the Society of Friends.

Details were agreed when a delegate from the Hull Nuclear Disarmament Committee, which is organizing the march, met the Salford Labour Party Anti-H-Bomb Committee, which is co-ordinating support in the area. a The marchers are due to reach Manchester on July 4, and will hold an open-air, meeting at midday at the Deansgate site; it will be addressed by local Labour representatives and marchers.

On Friday evening the marchers will be welcomed by a

Lit by the passing car's headlights, the poster proclaimed: 'Atoms for Peace, not War.'

It was one a.m. in Whitehall last Sunday morning. Under the bleak neon lighting, in the shadows of the tall government buildings, young people patrolled the pavement in pairs.

What were these young members of the Direct Action Committee against Nuclear War hoping to achieve by their all-night vigil?

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THE BEST THING. Roy Parsons, 25-year-old print-worker and member of Brixton Labour Party, hoped that this and similar action might make people more aware of the Government's policy.

'The best thing we can do really is to get the unions to black work on rocket bases and H-bombs.'

Ted Bond, a member of Kensington Labour Party, agreed. Both were bitter about Bevan's attitude to the Norwood resolution at last year's Labour Party conference.

Political action, they felt, was absolutely necessary to defeat the menace of H-bomb warfare.

April Carter, a former student who is now a full-time secretary of the Committee, hoped that the vigil would draw public attention to the Government's latest policy of using power stations for military production as well as for civilian purposes.

Harry Mister, business manager of Peace News, thought The Newletter's pamphlet 'Black the H-Bomb and the Rocket Bases' helped the campaign.

Providing the individual members supported the action, he was in favour of blacking work on bases and bomb.

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ANOTHER VIGIL. 'I feel a protest was needed against the Government's latest decision,' said Dorian Bradley, a 25-year-old teacher, who added that the weakness of the campaign was 'that up to now we haven't got through to the working people enough'.

On the Horse Guards' Parade a red-coated, white-plumed sentry was pacing out another kind of vigil.

ANTI-H-BOMB resolutions from Finchley and Tottenham Labour Parties will be on the agenda of the Labour Party conference.

The Finchley resolution says: ‘This conference cails upon the future Labour Government, immediately upon gaining power, to stop the manufacture, testing and stockpiling of nuclear weapons by this country. and to refuse facilities to other countries to establish or maintain bases on British territory, so creating the only conditions in which progress can be made towards general world disarmament.’

The Tottenham resolution, moved-by Coun. Sheila Berkery, of Stamford Hill ward, was passed unanimously and selected as the resolution to be sent to conference by a large majority. It says:

‘This conference recognizes that sincé the decision on nuclear warfare taken at the 1957 conference the situation has become more acute by reason of the increase of radiostrontium in the atmosphere, the proposed establishment of missile bases and the carrying of H-bombs by American -aircraft.”

Since these new factors constitute an increased threat to all. humanity, the resolution calls on the NEC for a pledge that it will review its policy, to ensure that a future Labour government will not use nuclear weapons and will dismantle call rocket bases.

“We are confident that if such a lead were given, the British Labour movement could call upon the Labour and’ socialist movements throughout the world to follow. its example.’

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In reply to the colour bar put up by the management of Wolverhampton’s Scala dance hall, the fight against racial discrimination is going forward in the Midlands, with the Labour movement right in the forefront, under the slogan: ‘Fiery Cross Today, Crooked Cross Tomorrow.’

We hope trade unionists and Labour Party members all ever Britain will join in this fight; in particular we ask them to raise the dernand that bands which play in colour-bar dance halls shall be refused engagements.

Our local Labour Party has set the example by deciding that any band which defies the instructions of the Musicians’ Union should be treated as blacklegs and refused engagements at all dances and functions run by the local authority.

The Scala management has threatened to sue the Musicians’

If they succeed, this will create another Taff Vale judgment,* which is exactly what the Tory Government wants in order to break the back of the trade union movement.

It was inspiring to see the way the rank and file moved into action in the campaign against the Scala decision.

Leaflets were distributed to dancers and the public by members of the Labour Party, Independent Labour Party and .

*In this 1901 case the House of Lords ruled that a civil action . could be brought ‘against a trade union and that it could be sued for damages arising out of the actions of its officers or servants during a trade dispute. Damages of £23,000 were awarded against the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants. By making almost any. kind of strike action hazardous, this decision undermined the power the trade unjons had built up.

THOUGH never a ‘Trotskyist’—on the contrary, a bitter enemy of that school—Arthur Horner has on at least one previous occasion found himself in agreement with the Marxist position.

A certain tendency to face the facts and difficulty in pretending that the naked emperor has a lovely suit of clothes on seem to be at the bottom of this recurrent ‘Hornerism’.

There imay well. be voices around Covent Garden saying now: ‘We should have expelled him in-1931 ..

In that year, while the Communist Party was busy isolating itself thoroughly from the main body of organized workers in this country, it was at the same time declaring that the British workers were rallying in ever-increasing numbers to Moscow’s banner.

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Horner made a scanda] in the party by saying bluntly that ‘the revolutionary movement in this country is bankrupt from every point of view’.

Hardly had he been denounced in due form in a statement . in the party journal headed ‘The Political Bureau versus Arthur Horner’ than the general election following - MacDonald’s betrayal proved how right he was.

That sort of thing does not endear a man to his less percipient colleagues. It did not please the pontifical R. P. Dutt, who, around the same period, was writing that the Labour Party ‘lay in ruins’.

Warning to Tito

“Tiro will get what Nagy got!’ Thus succinctly did a Communist Party stalwart express himself to a comrade and myself as we were distributing leaflets at Hyde Park on Sunday.

The most appropriate comment was made by a bystander when Solly Kaye was ecstatically welcoming the contingents entering Trafalgar Square: ‘The more the Beria.’

Tom Durkin appeared in the unfamiliar but somehow fitting tole of special constable when he told me to stop distributing leaflets in the Square unless I had a permit.

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Having distributed leaflets in the Square at all sorts of meetings since I was 19, I carried on and suffered no further interference.

‘Gadfly’ still stings.

One of the difficulties of the situation in which the Soviet leaders are compelled to operate is that, having to masquerade as the heirs of Lenin, they must publish his writings in large and cheap editions, and these are a constant source of fuel for ‘dangerous thoughts’.

Other books, too, which have become part of the revolutionary heritage, have to be kept available to the people, in spite of their increasing ‘unsuitability’.

Among these is the novel “Che Gadfly’, by Ethel Voynich, which enjoys remarkable popularity with each succeeding generation in Russia.

Though published here in 1897—the authoress, Ethel Boule, acquired her Polish surname by marriage—and for a time popular in Left-wing circles, ‘The Gadfly’ is today out of print and practically forgotten in Britain.

The book’s strong anti-clerical, in fact anti-Christian, trend has doubtless made it unacceptable to the various powers that be and produced a conspiracy of silence around it: for, though no masterpiece, ‘The Gadfly’ is a moving story, and some passages, notably the madness and death of Cardinal Montanelli, have unusual quality.

Banned by police

‘The Gadfly’ was translated into Russian soon after publication, immediately banned by the tsarist police—and taken to their hearts by the revolutionary young people in Russia.

Laid in Italy in the first half of last century, the story. of ‘The Gadfly’ deals with a group of characters all connected in one way or another with the fight for Italian unity and independence.

The conflict between the revolutionary and the liberal trends in the national movement underlies the clashes between these characters.

What may well be an embarrassingly topical feature of the novel in Russia today is its treatment of the’ manoeuvre of . Pope Pius IX, who tried to disarm the movement by a policy of apparent ‘self-liberalization’; a sort of false ‘thaw’, in the Papal States. . .

Many liberals fell for this, just as many worthy wishful thinkers have in the last few years fallen for ‘Khrushchevism’

‘Splendid’—or ‘yelping’?

The hero of ‘The Gadfly’ is a revolutionary journalist who makes many enemies by refusing to be taken in, but is proved right in the end.

A character named Gemma praises one of ‘The Gadfly’s’ articles: ‘This passage, where he compares Italy to a tipsy man, weeping with tenderness on the neck of the thief ‘who is picking his pocket, is splendidly written.’

To which another retorts: ‘Gemma! The very worst bit in the whole thing! I hate that ill-natured ‘yelping at everything and everybody!’

Jury 5, 1958 The branch secretary says that we must approach these people

From the Organizing Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament THERE is of course no ban on any members of the Labour Party or any question that the Campaign wishes: to bar them from any of our activities.

We are aware that our greatest hope of achieving nuclear. disarmament is to change the policy of the Labour Party and that this change can be -most quickly brought about through the co-operation and support of those within the party.

We are sorry there was some confusion about ‘political’ banners. We take the view that the Campaign should welcome the support of sections of all parties and we look forward to the day when we may evef get contingents from the Liberals and Conservatives!

On the Northern March, in which I took part, there were -a number of Labour Party banners and I understand that this was also true of the South.

‘We feared agents provocateurs’

J am very sorry about the incident. on the Easfern March -and I think I can explain how it arose.

We had reason to believe that attempts would be made by agents provocateurs of the League of Empire Loyalists to cause incidents either on the march,- in Trafalgar Square: or in Whitehall afterwards, and the stewards had been given instructions to do everything possible to avoid this.

It is possible that those on the Eastern March took their duties rather too seriously.

So far as members of the Communist Party are concerned, if in fact they support us. in working for unilateral nuclear disarmament, as some of them do, they are of course welcome gingerly and carefully about their dues because they are very sensitive and must be looked after.

I am heartily sick of this caper while steelworkers and miners are among our most consistent workers.

I believe this is the trouble with the great number of you people: you maybe don’t lack courage but appear to be afraid of-being unpopular ‘among my colleagues’.

‘Perhaps it was wrong’

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_In my opinion this attitude forms the basis of the Nagy story. Vacillating in the face of thé enemy he gave way bit by bit.

The weaknesses were not among the fighters, who were being used, but among the leadership. . Perhaps it was wrong to execute him. Perhaps the first intervention was wrong, but good God we don’t wriggle every time: things go wrong.

I could count a thousand mistakes in my eighteen years’

membership, broken by a period when. I fell foul of the party once. Seems to me that already these things have become a mania with you. Whether you will be able to find a way into the. ranks is indeed questionable. The longer you stay out.the more hostile you will become in the futility of diverting people from the main tasks. -Khrushchev let an uncontrollable thing loose after the os :

Twentieth Congress. Hungary got completely out of hand and . could have led to really disastrous consequences.

It had to be crushed sooner or later. Better now-than have these elements let loose in such a dangerous situation, and this situation must determine our attitude.

Yours fraternally, Old Hill (Staffs.) C. R. Johnson ANOTHER ANSWER TO THE QUESTIONS IN IN’ answer to the. two questions in the Open Letter to

DEAR. COMRADES, My branch of the Communist Party has been beset with the Hungarian events perhaps a little more than most.

I am not going deeply into this question but I want to make these points before it is too late.

As a rank-and-file member I have watched and taken part in the discussions and it is noticeable that it is always those that ‘have a conscience’ that are concerned; only those that have an academical interest in capitalism and socialism that seem to be fly on this question.

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Published by The Newsletter, 180 Clapham High St, London, SW4.

in the Campaign just as thousands of members of the Labour ‘Party.

London, E.C.4 Peggy Duff We urge an. inquiry [We had, of course, no intention of complaining about members of the Communist. Party taking. part in events arranged by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

What we objected to was stewards’ taking action against socialist banners ina CND demonstration, and using violence against someone carrying a socialist banner.

We should have thought it very difficult to corifuse the slogans of The ‘Newsletter, which are unmistakably against nuclear weapons, with those of the League of Empire Loyalists.

In the interests of the Campaign as a whole we would respectfully suggest that some kind-of inquiry be held to find out who the stewards were who tried to prevent our supporters’ taking part in the march, who appealed to the police to have them removed from the- procession and who assaulted one of them, so that these stewards shall not again be given responsibilities they are clearly unfitted to bear—Editors.] HUNGARY: IT HAD TO BE CRUSHED — members - of the Communist Party published in Tue NEWSLETTER last week:

1) I think the execution of Nagy and his companions was nothing more than butchery of political opponents. ' I am prepared, certainly, to join with you in. a protest against this crime—as I am prepared to join in protests against crimes in Kenya, Cyprus, Malaya or elsewhere.

One member of the Communist Party in Beckenham told me it was ‘correct’ to promise Nagy safe conduct in order to execute him, because he was the leader of a counter-revolution responsible for thousands of lives lost in Hungary.

People like this dare not face reality. Yet they would have us believe that. their morality is better than bourgeois morality.

We would be in danger If ever the Communist Party in Britain was able to takt power, as at present constituted, many of us would be in danger of our lives.

2) My attitude to the renewed campaign by the Soviet leaders against-the Yugoslav leaders is—I must confess—confused.

-There seemns to be ‘something rotten in the state of Denmark’ when, in 1948, Yugoslavia is attacked, only to be ‘rehabilitated’ a few years later, only again to be attacked in 1958.

In spite of my criticisms of my party, however, which I will shortly leave, by expulsion or by resignation, I ask the question: where then?

Can I stomach an organization like the British Labour Party, which has its British counterpart of Guy Mollet? , Can I support the policies of your paper, which appears to ask us to change one ‘ism’—Stalinism—for another ‘ism’— Trotskyism? I don’t know.

Beckenham (Kent) G. St C. Smithe Printed by Plough Press Ltd. (TU), r.0. 180 Clapham High St, London SW4