IRISH WORKERS NEED A MARXIST PARTY

THE Minister of Education says that the ‘battle of the was marred for him by the rejection in a national bulge’ has been won and all schoolchildren are getting plebiscite of his pet Bill abolishing proportional full-time education. What is really happening? representation. ee In Renfrewshire, under the new block-grant system, the This was a blow against those who want to set up a semiestimated grant for education will be £351,700 for 1959-60. fascist State in the twenty-six counties. ' Compared with the probable grant for 1958-59 this is a But what of the Irish working class? Is it to remain for reduction of some £2,300,800. And what are the consequences? ever the tool of native and foreign capitalists?

Roy At a recent headmasters’ conference in Glasgow, the Director Of course not. Like downtrodden people everywhere the of Education gave notice that, because of the absolute shortage Irish will. conquer their class enemies.’ But to do this they of qualified teachers, headmasters were to make their own need a Marxist party following in the revolutionary proletarian arrangements for dealing with their problems. tradition of James Connolly and containing all the vital knowledge and dynamism of the tradition of Lenin and Trotsky. The ‘better’ pupils, and those in the critical years of their schooling, were to be given preferential treatment, and where To speed the day when such a party can be formed in it was ‘necessary’ pupils were to be released from attendance Ireland, Irish workers over here should join the Socialist Labour League, which sees workers all over the world as when no suitable members of the staff were available to members of the same class, with the same enemies and the teach them. , same aims to be fought for and won.’ The news was, of course, not to be divulged to the Press.

London, W.9 Pat O’Donovan CONFERENCE (Continued from front page)

The editorial delivers a trenchant attack against the ideas of class for the socialist revolution; a body called ‘The International Secretariat of the Fourth ALL those who, seeking to be in the forefront of the national International’, which has attacked the Socialist Labour League liberation struggle in the colonial and semi-colonial countries, and developed anti-Marxist theories which have undermined base their activity on the need to build independent working- the very foundations of the Fourth International.

class revolutionary movements as the only leadership able to carry through the struggle for national independence to Trotsky on military specialists the end by fusing the national revolution with the socialist The new issue of Labour Review also contains an article revolution; on the inaugural conference of the Socialist Labour League, ALL those who oppose the idea that Stalinism and social adopted by that conference; an article by Cliff Slaughter on democracy can be transformed into revolutionary forces and who consciously intervene in mass movements for the ‘The “New Left” and the Working Class’; and an article by purpose of winning leadership and smashing the bureau- Trotsky on ‘military specialists’, translated in full into English for the first time by Brian Pearce.

crats’ hold over the working class.

There are five pages of book reviews, including reviews by _ ‘The time has come,’ Labour Review declares, ‘to reorganize Douglas Goldring, Stanley Evans’ and John Byrne. the Fourth International and build it as a powerful international party linking the vanguard of the working class Labour Review can be obtained for 2s. Sd. post free from throughout the world. We are confident that the proposed New Park publications Ltd, 186 Clapham High Street, London, international conference will be a milestone along this road.’ S.W.4 (please note new address).

_ Out Next Week