TORIES PLAN FOR DISTRESSED AREAS

~ 1,000,000 unemployed after election T ORY plans for more unemployment will become effective immediately the general election is over. 85.000:

are to be sacked’from the coal mines. A government White Paper declares that 120,000 railway workers:

are threatened. In aircraft, it is estimated that 100,000 will lose their jobs.

Taken in conjunction with the present unemployment figure of half-a-million, Britain’s future army of unemployed is almost certain to reach the million mark.

This is recognized by a Bill-which is to be presented by the Tories Prepare for Slump Tories early in the new Parliament which talks in terms of getting rid of patches of xinemployment, in other words, distressed areas. The Tires of September 14 remarked that: The announcement by Alderman Joseph Barrow, ‘The intention is to epable the new Government to deal with leader of the Middlesex County Council, that the special local problerns, without applying a general stimulus Ministry of Education had cut the school building prothat might be inflationary in its effects.’

gramme for the years 1960-62 from £8 million to £3 Here is an implied admission that the Tories have utilized inflationary medsures during the pre-election period. The million is a sure guide to Tory policy after the election. recent decline id unemployment was quite deliberately part of _ Facing a severe economic crisis, the Tories are in an election policy by the Tories who, if they are returned to power, are perfectly resigned to a rapid increase. all these thatters there is not one squeak from the Labour effect now gearing their economy towards the possibilities of a slump and these cuts which affect the most Party. When it should be going all out to expose the real 20n vital of all social services show that they may very soon, - meaning of Tory election policies it maintains a discreet should the position get worse, be extended to the Health silence because thé, Labour leaders know full well that if they Service, Unemployment benefit and the other social should be returned, to power, they will be forced to do likewise. ON services.

-That is why they avojd real discussion on the nationalization This is the real Tory policy and not the puffed-up question, for there is but one real answer to unemployment.

election statements. [t is one more powerful argument If the industries concerned cannot guarantee a decent standard for a socialist policy for Labour. of living to those who work in them, then they must be taken from the present owners, nationalized, and placed in the control of the workers employed in them.

Labour’s Left and the General Election Rank-and-file members of Labour’s left wing are this campaign. Yet, as the staunchest supporter swings from worried about the general election. They realize that one demonstration to ariother, he or she is forced to recognize that the campaign has*achieved little more than propaganda the Right-wing have adamantly refused to develop a results over the past period. socialist policy over the past five years, and that this It is at present in a state of crisis as a result of the interthreatens to weaken the party considerably at the polls.

vention of Mr Cousins and the Stalinists, who are aiming to They are also aware that the Bevanite movement, which in divert the policy of opposition to H-bomb manufacture into 1955 provided broad expression for Left-wing policies, has channels which suggest that this only be done by international almost completely collapsed over the past five years, with the agreement. Which adds up to Britain retaining the bomb for exception of the small Victory for Socialism group. Mr Bevan, the time being. who on the eve of the 1955 election was on the verge of ex- The Marxist movement has ‘one great advantage over all pulsion, is now a staunch pillar of the Right-wing establish- -others, although at times this may appear to be a disadvantage. ment and collaborates on all important questions with By basing itself on the class struggle, and confronting the Gaitskell. Tories with policies which are diametrically opposed to theirs, If the balance-sheet of Bevanism over this period is. it bases itself on the historic requirements of the working class. examined, it will be seen that Left-wing organizations which hover between the Right-wing on the one hand and the GENERAL ELECTION Marxist movement on the other,.are doomed to disintegration A class question and capitulation to the Right. There is absolutely no future for a centre group inside the Labour Party except, perhaps, to Consequently, as the struggle develops, it more and more provide careers for unscrupulous politicians. _ tends to attract attention within the workers’ movement, although when the tempo is slow Marxists find themselves on CENTRIST PARALYSIS occasion temporarily isolated.

The importance of the present general election is that it is Marxism attracts workers not a normal routine affair so far as the Tories are concerned. ' The paralysis of centre politics can best be seen in an It is part of an employers’ strategic offensive against the examination of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Labour movement, under conditions of increasing struggle in Tribune claims that it is the paper which constantly champions (Continued overleaf)

186 Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 Telephone Macaulay 7029 SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1959 _LUNIKS AND LUNATICS "THE arrival of Lunik II on the surface of the moon represents a great scientific achievement.

It represents an everlasting monument to the memory of those who successfully led the Bolshevik Party to victory in 1917. From out of the semi-feudal Tsarist empire came a relatively unknown body of men whose only claim to prominence was in their command of Marxism as a science.

History records the achievements and limitations of their revolution. Regardless of the criminal acts which the Stalinist bureaucracy and its henchmen who now rule the Soviet Union have inflicted upon the world movement, nevertheless it can plainly be seen that the former far outweigh the latter:

Lunik II is the product of a productive technique that would be impossible if Russia had remained in the control of the Tsar. The science of Marxism is the foundation for the development of the Soviet Union to its present leading position in the world of science.

But it is at this juncture, right at this moment when Lunik IT implants the hammer and sickle on the surface of the moon that the leaders of the Soviet Union are about to once again publicly reject all the basic teachings of Marxism in relation to the class struggle. As Khrushchev prepares for his journey to the United States, he makes it perfectly clear that he is for the maintenance of. peaceful co-existence with the Wall Street capitalists. He is not for any change in the property relations of the United States. The whole message of those who pioneered the revolution in the Soviet Union was that science and production were being constantly hampered by the private ownership of the means of production. Yet Mr Khrushchev defends this private ownership. In the most crude and vulgar fashion, whilst puffing out his chest over the achievement of the Lunik II, he proceeds to reject the very Marxist principles which made it possible...

.The policy of class-collaboration in international affairs preached by Khrushchev flies in the face of all scientific fact; far from preventing war it has in the past facilitated the preparations of the imperialists for war, because it disarmed the working class on the real role of their main enemy. Marxist science has proved over and over again that the only force which ends war is the working class. Khrushchev’s policy under these circumstances can only be described as the moon madness of the twentieth century.

This, in a nutshell, is the contradiction of the Soviet Union today. The contradiction between a bureaucracy wishing to preserve its narrow privileges, willing to collaborate with the capitalists on the basis of peaceful co-existence, but at the same time resting on socialist property relations established by the revolution of 1917 which willy-nilly are breaking. through the ‘bureaucracy and demonstrating for all to see that it is not the narrow-minded, parasitic agreements of the pampered diplomats and statesmen which will decide but the great advances of technique liberated by the social revolution. LABOUR’S LEFT (Continued from front page)

Britain. This, in fact, has been the case since the famous motor car strikes of 1956.

Meanwhile the Bevanite centre movement has staggered from crisis to crisis, despite the wallpaper pasted over the cracks by a well-meaning Tribune. Correspondingly the Marxist movement, represented by the Socialist Labour League, has grown, not spectacularly in a numerical sense, but steadily. It has made important progress in matters of theory and practical experience.

As the general election propaganda increases, the centre movement of Tribune, as well as some others who claim to be more left, rapidly immerse themselves in the politics of the Transport House machine. This is excused by the argument that we must have unity during the election and that discussion on policy would antagonize people.

Basing themselves on such explanations, the Right-wing have effectively paralysed Party conferences for three years before each general election. ‘You never know when it may happen,’ they say, ‘so keep your mouth shut in case it happens next year.’

A class vote