MAY DAY MANIFESTO OF THE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE UNITY BETWEEN BRITISH AND COLONIAL WORKERS CAN DEFEAT H-BOMB THREAT

MAY DAY, 1960, heralds the greatest possibilities for the working class and socialism since the Russian revolution in 1917. The old empires are cracking. Tens of millions of colonial people are on the move in the vast continent of Africa. All the efforts of American imperialism to impose the rule of Syngman Rhee over the people of South Korea have failed. The passing of this imperialist puppet highlights aa entirely new stage in the ascendancy of the international revolutionary forces.

No one can now deny that these vast movements for liberation are drawn closer and closer to the powerful Labour movements of the metropolitan countries, particularly Britain and the United States. In Cuba, the government of Fidel Castro throws open its doors to the American negro people at a time when the white racialists are being firmly challenged in the deep South. Cuba shows the shape of things to come so far as Wall Street is concerned. The Pentagon diehards are feverishly plotting ways and means to destroy the Castro government, but this will prove just as impossible as the maintenance of the rule of Syngman Rhee in Korea.

The Sharpeville massacre evoked the most powerful demonstration of unity between the British and African people. Large demonstrations and protest meetings rallied tens of thousands of British workers demanding an end to apartheid and action against the South African racialist government. Such solidarity action opens a new chapter in the history of British Labour and its relations with the colonial people.

The colonial revolution is invincible, but it is not enough. For the colonial revolution to be successful, it is necessary that the working class in the metropolitan countries redouble their efforts in the fight against their imperialist masters.

Those responsible for apartheid are the businessmen of the City of London, in whose financial interests the Verwoerd government rules. The main enemy is here in Britain. The way to fight that enemy is to see to it that no supplies whatsoever of goods coming from and going to South Africa should be handled at the docks and airports. Class action. and only class action, can help the South African people.

The more desperate the plight of the imperialists, the more desperate are the measures they will resort to. Cynical American militarists have advised the Tory government that in an H-Bomb war Britain is expendable. ‘Go buy yourself some sand buckets and fire engines,’ they say.

‘Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first drive mad.’ Whilst the Macmillan government totters from crisis to crisis in its defence policy, the most enthusiastic supporters of the H-bomb are to be found amongst the Right-wing of the Labour Party. Gaitskell represents the most reactionary, anti-working class tendencies in the Labour movement. His removal from the position of leader of the Labour Party is now the most important question before the whole Labour movement. For too long these renegades have imposed their bans PPPS PEP EPP PPPPPPPPIPPPPPIPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP PPP PPP AO Socialist Labour League Hvde Park Rally 3 p.m. May Day LEAT UTUIAIUUUT Speakers: M. Banda B. Behar R. Pennington Sunday May Ist and proscriptions on the Left wing. Now that their policy has been proved completely bankrupt, the Carrons of the Amalgamated Engineering Union and the Trades Union Congress join hands with Gaitskell in a new plot to renew the witch-hunt against the Left and in particular the Socialist Labour League.

[t was not the policy of the Socialist Labour League which was responsible for the election defeat last October. It was the policy of Gaitskell, Morrison and Attlee which produced that shattering defeat. Clear out the undercover Tory supporters from the leadership of the Labour Party. Lift all bans and proscriptions. Demand that the Socialist Labour League be considered as an affiliated body to the Labour Party to take its rightful place in the development of a socialist Left wing.

pve May Day, 1960, above all else, brings a truly magnificent advance of youth. The long youthful columns of marchers from Aldermasion to Trafalgar Square protesting loudly over the policies of the Labour and Tory Parties have now been joined by tens of thousands of young engineering apprentices who. have gone into action for increases in wages. This is the real voice of the youth who will sHape the future of mankind. It is a powerful rebuff to those who have slandered and accused these young people of laziness and indifference towards the problems of the day.

Youth will provide a powerful force of strength for the adult Labour movement. Above all it wants to learn and to. live. It is in the forefront of the challenge to the H-bomb.

(Continued on page 134)

186 Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 Telephone Macaulay 7029 SATURDAY, APRIL 30 1960 A Powerful Blow Against Wall Street THE decision of the American-controlled South Korean National Assembly to send Syngman Rhee packing is a desperate attempt to ride the storm of revolt which is gathering increasing momentum. The massacres carried out by South Korea’s police and military last week succeeded in stirring the smouldering embers of discontent into a blazing conflagration. On Tuesday, April 26, 500,000 angry demonstrators marched through Seoul dragging in the dust two public statues of Rhee. Banners smeared with the blood of martyred students called for Rhee to get out now and demanded fresh elections. Last week’s demonstrations were organized by Seoul students to protest at the March 15 election. The American news magazine for March 21, 1960, says of these elections that ‘ballot stuffing and terrorism took on unprecedented proportions.’

The first mass protests at the conduct of the elections took place at Masan. During the demonstration, 16year-old Kim Chu Yul was shot by police and his body tossed into the harbour. Inimediately it was found, Masan became a centre of new anti-Rhee demonstrations. A brewery belonging to a Liberal Party (Rhee’s ruling party) political boss was sacked by demonstrators. Inside they found a mountain of leftover ballot papers all marked for Rhee’s vice-president elect, Lee-Ki-Poong.

From Masan the movement spread to Seoul. The Rhee regime began to crack. Washington had announced that Eisenhower would call on Rhee on his way back from Moscow. This visit was obviously designed to give Rhee’s rapidly waning prestige a much-needed boost. Eisenhower also intended to put pressure on the 85-year-old gangster to modify his overtough policies.

Now, however, the State Department recognizes that it is too late to save Rhee. Alarmed at the rapid spread of the revolt and scared that they might lose an important war base, the Americans have decided Rhee is expendable. The docile American-owned senators in the South Korean Assembly have been prodded into action and told to clear Rhee out. Within no time, former Korean premier Chaing Taik Sang was demanding: ‘Rhee should be told to either retire gracefully or else apologize to the people.’

As the crowd of 500,000 surged through the streets and the flames rose from the burning buildings, the government and the opposition belatedly called on Rhee to resign. He had, and the Assembly knew this, already prepared his resignation.

Some of the students and lecturers are also becoming alarmed at the direction and scope of the revolt. As more and more of the city’s poor join the demonstrations the appeals for ‘order’ go out. Calling for a halt the moderate said: ‘We have won the first round. Let us not destroy what is ours and yours.’

The workers and poor peasants of South Korea want something more than the replacement of Rhee by more ‘democratic’ politicians. The need and desire of the ordinary people of Korea is to secure the reunification of their country. The uprising is not aimed simply at an old tyrant but drives against the forces which have maintained him in power and kept Korea divided.

Two million people died and seven million were rendered homeless during the Korean war. Whole towns and villages were burned to the ground by napalm bomb raids. All this was done with the approval of the Right-wing Labour leaders in Britain who claimed it was to ‘defend democracy.’

The Marxist opposition to the South Korean government and its UNO allies during the war has now received a bloody confirmation by the recent events. America’s decision to call together the nations who fought in the Korean war constitutes the preparations for another war. British Labour must reject this and make clear that it is completely opposed to imperialist intervention in Korea.

British Labour must also do more than cluck with sympathy for the dead and the imprisoned. It must demand the immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from Korea and express its unconditional support for the Korean people in deciding their own destiny.

(Continued from page 133)

Will the H-bomb destroy mankind, or will youth, in the vanguard of Labour, destroy the H-bomb? To this we have one answer.

Every marcher on the road from Aldermaston who joins hands and supports the struggle of the engineering apprentices on the Clyde is helping to weaken the imperialist warmongers and the politicians who serve them. The way to defeat the H-bomb is to fight the employers. Every struggle for wages and improved living conditions strengthens the working class and weakens the employing class, whose interests are served by the H-bomb.

We warn all those who genuinely desire peace that there will be no peace so long as there is capitalism. The Soviet bureaucracy and the British Communist Party lie when they say that peace will be secured through discussions with the representatives of capitalism. What nonsense it is to suggest that the people responsible for making the H-bomb can be relied upon to get rid of the H-bomb. Those who advise us to take this road want to collaborate with the capitalists at a time when such collaboration can only lead to the destruction of the human race. You cannot separate the fight against the H-bomb from the drive against the Tory government in Britain.

The Socialist Labour League sends greetings to all anti-imperialist fighters throughout the world. We salute the unknown, brave heroes of the African revolution who languish in Verwoerd’s jails. We call upon the British Labour movement to demand their immediate release, Down with apartheid. Down with colonialism. Withdraw all British troops from colonial and semi-colonial territory in the British Commonwealth.

Fight the warmongers by redoubling our struggle against the employers in Britain.

End the ban and proscription on the Socialist Labour League and The Newsletter.

A New Pamphlet on Clause Four From MacDonald to Gaitskell Price 3d. from 186 Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4