THE H-BOMB: THE WAY AHEAD

ANTI-H-BOMB CAMPAIGN Where next in the campaign against the H-bomb? The danger at this point is that members of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Direct Action Committee fall victim to belief in a political miracle. For it would be nothing less than a miracle if a Tory government were to renounce the H-bomb. Their defence policy, with the dropping of conscription, relies ‘more and more on nuclear weapons. Their foreign policy relies as always upon NATO. Their economic policies all take H-bomb politics for granted. Yet this is the government which many leaders of CND and Direct Action hope to influence by public opinion. Hasn’t it yet struck them that the last General Election result followed two Aldermaston marches and _ the Swaffham demonstration? Now they plan a third Aldermaston march and Direct Action looks for new gaols to rest in.

A misleading conclusion .

Some supporters of Direct Action draw a misleading parallel with the activities of Gandhi’s supporters in India. They argue that peaceful civil disobedience worked there and could work again here. What they ignore is that Gandhi’s supporters had the mass of the population to back them up. Obstruction, even passive obstruction, by large sections of workers can make the whole task of government impossible. It has some of the effects of a general strike.. It is utterly unlike demonstrations by small isolated groups. What the example of Gandhi should point us to is the necessity of bringing large sections of workers into the struggle against the H-bomb.

This can only be done as part of the general task of making the working class conscious that what opposes them is not this or that employer, but the employing class and the State power which represents its interests. For it is the same State power ~ which depends upon the H-bomb. And the enemy is the men who are prepared to use it and the capitalistic society which produces such men. The State which cannot find money for adequate old age pensions and dare not lay open the books of the nationalized industries before the workers in those industries is the State which can find all the money it needs for producing nuclear weapons.

The H-bomb and summit talks Sometimes workers ask, ‘How can capitalism be responsible for the H-bomb? The Soviet Union also relies upon the H-bomb and it isn’t a capitalist State’. The answer to this is that one of the evils of the rise of Stalinism is that the government of the Soviet Union ceased to rely on the international working class as its first line of defence. Instead it started to play the capitalist game of international diplomacy So the Soviet government negotiates treaties with capitalist governments, but never makes direct appeals to the workers in capitalist States over the head of those governments. Communist Parties in capitalist States then find themselves forced to defend the Soviet Union’s possession of the H-bomb. Consequently the British Communist Party cannot come out against the British H-bomb. For, if they did, workers would ask, ‘If Britain should give up the H-bomb, why not Russia?’

It is because of this that the Communist Party has to fall back on a policy of supporting Summit talks. This involves them in saying in domestic politics that Eisenhower and Macmillan are the worst enemies of the working class, men who represent the interests of the capitalist class at every point; but in international politics we suddenly find that for -men of peace, who must be supported. But to support them abroad is necessarily to strengthen them at home and therefore to strengthen the power of the capitalist class. Thus this policy ends by reinforcing the defenders of the H-bomb.

It would therefore be tragic if CND were distracted from its unilateralist aims in any way or to join the propaganda in favour of summit talks in any way. What is the alternative?

The alternative is for the strengthening of all those sections of the Labour movement who are trying to work out a unified policy against the State power of the capitalist class. Those in CND and the Direct Action Committee who are not yet playing a part in the Labour movement can here find the most important field for activity. As the industrial action of workers becomes more and more politically conscious, the possibility of effective industrial action against the H-bomb and the rocket bases comes nearer and nearer.

The next stage in the development of this will be the Assemblies of Labour which will be taking place in large cities throughout the country in March and April. Every CND and Direct Action member ought to make attendance at their nearest Assembly of Labour a top priority.

C.P. STUDENT LEADER BACKS DOWN ON