The Newsletter, vol. 4 no. 152

By G. HEALY THE Summit Talks collapsed before they began. Under the influence of the British Communist Party and its so-called Peace Committee, travel-weary delegates arrived in Paris only to discover that Mr. Khrushchev was insisting on a public apology from the United States over the U-2 spy plane aggression. But the apology was not forthcoming. Eisenhower, as the representative of United States imperialism, remained adamant that such incidents were part of the American way of life.

Countless illusions have been shattered and the big lie that the summit could bring peace has been demonstratively exposed.

The Socialist Labour League and its weekly journal, The working people. Marxists have always pointed out that there Newsletter, consistently warned the Labour movement that cannot be peace between the classes. And it is this fact which such a conference could not resolve the problem of war. Yet explains Khrushchev’s dilemma. Try as he may to reach the leaders of the Aldermaston march joined hands with the agreement with the imperialists, he finds more and more Communist Party in lining up this great popular demonstra- resistance from the working-class movement of China and tion behind the summit talks. Is it not time that the rank the colonial countries. and file of the Labour and trade union movement and of the The summit talks have collapsed not so much because of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament demanded some serious the spy plane, but because of the resistance of China. The rethinking on the part of their leaderships. Chinese leaders have made plain their doubts about the outThe world today stands on the threshold of nuclear destruc- come of the summit. They are convinced of the imperialist tion, but this does not mean to say that such destruction is nature of the American war preparations. They are under unavoidable. Thanks to the resistance of the colonial peoples constant pressure from the revolutionary people in the and the anti-war forces in the metropolitan countries, there colonial world. is today a powerful opposition tc nuclear annihilation. What is lacking is leadership. The official leaderships are con- Soviet people are anti-imperialist stantly looking in the wrong direction for a solution to manIn the Soviet Union itself, despite the picture which the kind’s terrible problem. They look to the capitalist leaders Daily Worker tries to convey, the people are undoubtedly of states, who are engaged in a continuous spate of power inspired by the great technological advances which have only political intrigue.

been made possible by the tremendous economic heritage of the October revolution. There is an interconnection, thereClass struggle is decisive fore, between these successes, the confidence they inspire and Behind the war preparations stands the struggle of class the resistance of the international working class to the threat forces. The resistance of the working class is constantly of imperialist war.

Even in countries of so-called full employment, The Soviet people are not the blind passive specimens that there is a continuing demand for the improvement of con- John Gollan and the others would have us believe. They are ditions. The great Chinese revolution still inspires the people more and more beginning to exert a powerful influence over of Asia and its revolutionary implications act like a tidal the affairs of the Soviet Union and when Khrushchev speaks wave over the continent of Africa. of his difficulties he is merely admitting that within the These are the forces which constantly interfere with the Soviet Union there are important forces with which he has plans of both the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, headed by to reckon.

Khrushchev, and the imperialists, led by Eisenhower. Marxists have always defended the Soviet Union against The Soviet bureaucrats would like to maintain the peace- imperialism. We denounce the spy plan aggression as part ful status quo with imperialism, but the latter, because of of Wall Street’s continuous hostility to the Soviet Union. its inherent economic contradictions, has constantly to engage This cannot be other than it is since the imperialists have in a struggle for new sources of wealth and exploitation of (Continued on page 156)

... and The Newsletter says again: ————4 These Men Cannot Bring Peace

186 Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 Telephone Macaulay 7029 SATURDAY; May 21, 1960 ALL those who believed that summit talks would bring peace are reeling under the blows of the Paris fiasco. Judging by the dangerous cross-talk between the heads of state it almost seems as if the surest way to war is to have summit talks. The leaders of the capitalist powers and the Soviet bureaucracy almost came to blows.

The only answer the Daily Worker can give to this is to continue the outcry about the spy plane when everyone knows that that is not the real question involved. Spying has gone on continuously on all sides, yet this has not prevented the diplomats discussing possible agreements from time to time. All the Daily © Worker shows is that it is continuing its role as a mouth of Soviet diplomacy. It provides absolutely no answer to the problem before the ordinary person who is greatly perturbed about the threat of nuclear war.

The leaders of the Soviet Union are the representatives of a powerful bureaucratic caste which, above everything else, desires to maintain peace with cavitalism so that it can preserve its privileges inside the This caste is not a class in the same > way as that which exists in the imperialist countries. The bureaucracy in the Soviet Union rests upon nationalized property relations established by the October Revolution. Because of these relations and in spite of the bureaucracy, enormous progress in the development of science and planning has been made. But this progress by itself is not sufficient, it cannot stave off the threat of war. The Soviet Union is above all the child of the October Revolution which, in the words of Lenin, must be regarded as the first victory of the international revolutionary forces.

The real defence of the Soviet Union today lics in the strengthening of the class struggle in the colonial world and the countries of imperialism in such a way that the working class are prepared politically and organizationally to take the power and establish socialism. This task cannot be entrusted to the Soviet bureaucracy and their puppet Communist Parties.

The Stalinists have. constantly declared that such a solution is unrealistic in the world of today. They have posed instead the possibility of agreement between the Soviet bureaucracy and the imperialists, but is it not plain to everyone now from the experiences in Paris this wéek that if peace is left in the hands of these madmen then the world will surely be destroyed in the years to come.

‘Marxists defend the Soviet Union against imperialism. We think there is a Jot of truth in what Khrushchev said about the aggressive aims of the imperialist powers. We think it is particularly right for him to warn the German fascists and at the same time to separate them from what he termed the ‘great German people’. Now that the hue and cry of protest has gone up from the mealy-mouthed liberal press and the Daily Herald, we stand at this time on the side of the Soviet Union and against imperialism.

The trouble with Khrushchev’s speech was that it came like a bolt from the blue under conditions which have actually strengthened the propaganda weapons of imperialism. It has therefore enabled them to confuse the working class at a most critical time.

The defence of the Soviet Union cannot be carried out in this way. The preparation of the working class to take the power outside the Soviet Union requires a continuous propaganda which assists them in fighting the class enemy. It demands that the limitations of summit discussions between the Soviet Union and the capitalist powers should be made very clear. All the illusions that such discussions can bring peace must now be abandoned. That is the real lesson from the Paris gathering.

SUMMIT TALKS COLLAPSE—(Contd. from page 155)

sought to destroy the Soviet Union froin the day that Lenin and Trotsky emerged victorious.

There can be no peace and there will be no peace in a world such as it is at the present time. Even if eventually the summit is held, it will not settle a single problem of real importance. . The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is now facing a definite crisis of policy. It is perfectly true that the leaders of this movement have a much more honest approach to problems than the leaders of the British Communist Party. That organization of political paupers issued a statement on Monday, May 16, through the pen of its general secretary ‘John Gollan, to the effect that it now stands for unilateral abandonment of the manufacture of the Bomb. Just imagine the bankruptcy of a party calling itself Communist which has to admit that all this time its opposition to unilateralism was completely incorrect!

During the past year the Socialist Labour League has constantly endeavoured to forge a unity with the CND ranks on this important question. The Communist Party has been in opposition. If the CND is to go forward in the struggle against. the H-bomb it cannot get any advice from the Communist Party.

For a socialist peace policy The Socialist Labour League will endeavour to forge the widest possible agreement between all those who want to fight the threatened world war and ask only that they give serious consideration to our policies.

After the collapse of the summit the basis of a real peace policy must be full support for the working class in the colonies and in the imperialist countriés in every struggle they wage against the capitalists who exploit them. Full support must be given to all struggles, even if they are not immediately tied to the fight ‘against the H-bomb. What is needed to fight the H-bomb is a solid united class front which uses every type of struggle against the employers in order to weaken them and thereby take a step forward towards We do not say that only socialism can bring peace. It is perfectly true that this is the only final solution to the problem of war,’ but it is equally true that every effort that is made today to fight the imperialists, whether it is on living conditions, defence of democratic rights, or support for the colonial people, makes it much more difficult for the imperialists to launch a war. This is particularly true since the Chinese people, as well as powerful forces in the Soviet Union, seem more and more determined to take a stand against the warmakers.

The Leninist opposition to imperialist war is as true today as it was in the period of the first world war. The main enemy is at home. For us, that is Macmillan and: his Tory friends. The forces of peace in Britain will only be successful when they join the ranks of the Left-wing of the Labour and trade union movement, of which the Socialist Labour League is an integral part, and mobilize their great forces to defeat this class enemy.

May~21, 1960

A STATEMENT FROM FARRELL DOBBS, SWP CANDIDATE FOR US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION AT a press conference in San Francisco, May 9, which was widely reported in the Bay Area, Farrell Dobbs, presidential candidate for the Socialist Workers’ Party, denounced the flight of an American plane over Soviet territory as a provocative cold-war act that has shocked the entire world.

‘The foreign policy of this country is one of deceit, lying, spying and general misleading of the public,’ he charged.

‘Both the Democrats and Republicans’, the socialist candidate continued, ‘rushed in to say how Russia brutally shot down an unarmed pilot who happened to stray on the Soviet borders. Then it turns out the pilot was clear in the heart of Russia. . . . The Pentagon gang and their hirelings in the bought press were caught red-handed, spying and lying. .. . The people feel Washington is trying te make fools out of them.’

Brazen course The events since May 7, when Khrushchev announced the capture of an American pilot whose plane had been shot down on May 1 while on an ‘espionage’ mission deep in Soviet territory, fully bear out Dobbs’ charges.

At first the State Department, the White House and the Pentagon replied to the Soviet report by tripping over each other in a series of bald-faced lies. When Washington saw that its lies would be exploded because the US pilot declined to use his suicide kit, the State Department decided on a course so brazen as to defy historical comparison.

It blandly anounced that, yes, the US pilot was on a ; spying mission; that spy planes would continue to fly over the Soviet Union; and that the imminent danger of a Soviet ‘massive surprise attack’ on the ‘free world’ was ‘ample warrant’ for such invasions of Soviet territory.

These madmen are utterly contemptuous of the truth. They even ignore the memory of the American public about widely known facts. These assertions were made a few days after the US Army itself had released a study proving ‘that the Soviet Union was not even attempting to build a force that would enable it to start a general nuclear war’ and that the ‘Soviet leaders evidently consider it more essential . . . to fulfill their ambitious economic programme.’ (New York Times, May 5.)

When Khrushchev warned that rockets would be used against bases that allowed the US to launch invading planes, the State Department replied that the US would rush to the defence of countries ‘attacked by the Soviet Union’!

The implications of this unabashed demand by Washington that it be permitted to invade the territory of the Soviet Union without any interference and indeed without any complaint, are staggering even to the minds of the average editorialist and commentator of the monopolist press.

New York World-Telegram columnist, Henry S. Taylor, referred to Secretary of State Herter’s answer to Khrushchev ‘as the most controversial assertions since World War II.’ He said that the State Department ‘asks the world to accept a United States watchdog role everywhere, not a secret watchdog role, but a self-proclaimed policemanship. .. .’

James Reston mildly pointed out in his New York Times column, May 6: ‘It is the United States that has military and air bases close to the Soviet and China borders and not the other way around.’ And he added, ‘These are unpopular facts that are seldom mentioned in this part of the world.’

This is the truth, The US has close to 1,000 military bases surrounding the borders of the Soviet Union. Whole countries have been transformed into launching pads for invasion of the USSR. The breaching of. Soviet borders by plane and other provocative means is continuous. US imperialism is probing and jabbing all the time—looking for a soft spot to drive home the dagger of war.

Actually, Washington’s ‘confession’ about ‘spying’ is a colossal evasion and subterfuge. What is <t issue is not routine peacetime spying but deliberate acts of war. (Let us, however, recall in passing that this same pack of professional liars in Washington turned the U S into a witch-hunting purgatory over just such alleged spying by the Soviet Union.) But the issue now is way beyond spying: the US monopolists have openly declared their intention of systematically violating the territorial integrity of the second greatest power on earth —even if the whole world is blown to bits as a result.

The leaders of the Chinese Communist Party have been proven dead right in their insistent warnings to Khrushchevy that it is folly for him to rush around the world proclaiming that Eisenhower ‘genuinely wants peace’. The Chinese are 100 per cent. correct when they say that ‘Eisenhower and his kind will never lay down their butcher’s knives’, until they are disarmed by the revolutionary action of the working masses.

And that is the key to the real reason for the savage step up in the cold war, on the very eve of the Summit Conference. The US capitalist rulers are frantic over the sight of tens of millions of people all over the world awakening and driving out imperialism and capitalism.

The uprising in South Korea; the mass demonstrations of students in Turkey, Indonesia and Japan; the Cuban revolution; the South African uprising; and, yes, the historic sit-in actions of Negro students in the South; all this has terrified the whole bi-partisan war pack.

But the very revolutionary forces that have driven the capialist rulers to panic and adventurism, will pulverize the system that breeds war, force the war makers to again retreat, and finally overwhelm them.

(Reprinted from The Militant, U S socialist weekly journal.)

By 45 votes to 1, Leeds University Labour Society has demanded Gaiskell’s resignation. Their resolution reads:

‘Owing to his failure to formulate socialist home and foreign policies, and to his refusal to recognize genuine radical protest within the Labour movement, Leeds University Labour Society affirms its opposition to the continued leadership of Mr. Gaitskell and demands his immediate resignation.’

Over a hundred students attended the meeting to hear Dr. John Rex, lecturer in sociology and active Labour Party member, speak on ‘Gaitskell Must Go’, but voting was restricted to Labour Society members. This follows an anti-Gaitskell demonstration at the Leeds May Day meeting (see The Newsletter of May 6).

On the day of the Royal Wedding over 300 students heard Cliff Slaughter, a member of The Newsletter editorial board and National Committee member of the Socialist Labour League, speak on ‘Why the Monarchy Must Go’.

Since the Labour Society booked the television room for this meeting, the film of Margaret’s nuptials had to be switched off, to the chagrin of the Royalists present.

Last week 65 students attended a meeting of the newly-formed Marxist Society to hear Slaughter on ‘Fhe Socialist Revolution in Britain’.

And on Monday this week, 80 students attended a ‘United Left Club’ meeting at which John Rex and Frank Girling spoke on ‘Africa, What Now?’

This is a tremendous burst of Left-wing activity by Leeds students. Now some of them are speaking of the need to turm towards the Labour Party and Young Socialists outside the university. This bodes ill for the ossified bureaucrats of the Leeds Labour Party.

By G. GALE AFTER three successive defeats in general elections, followed by the loss of by-elections at Brighouse and Spenborough, and Harrow, the Labour Party has suffered another stinging reverse in the local elections. Labour lost control in cities like Bradford, Oxford and Bristol. Brentford and Chiswick, Darlington, Dudley, Gillingham, Ipswich, Lowestoft, Middleton, Horley and Rochester. They lost ten seats in Liverpool, nine at Manchester, nine at Nottingham, six at Leeds and four at Sheffield.

As result after depressing result rolled in, Right-wing excuses poured out.

First, it was the weather. Bad weather always lowers Labour’s vote, of course, but hardly to such a catastrophic extent as this. Next, the old favourite ‘apathy’—especially ‘the young ones don’t care’. Recent demonstrations of apathy include 100,000 in Trafalgar Square after Aldermaston, and 60,000 engineering apprentices on strike.

Afraid of the things that matter.

The Labour leadership opposes unilaterialism and ignores the apprentices. It is afraid of the things that people really feel enthusiastic about. Then, when they won’t come out in the rain to vote for Councillor Dogsbody and his dustbins— that’s apathy!

But the excuse that is growing in Right-wing circles is that now the working class is too well off. Surfeited with council houses, cars and television sets they are too idle to vote. In fact, ‘they never had it so good’ and what’s more they don’t deserve a Labour council. What they need is a damn good slump—yjust to teach ’em!

Thus the Right-wing are reduced to using Macmillan’s slogans to excuse their own bankrupicy.

Moreover, the use of such anti-working class phraseology reflects a significant trend in the Labour Party. As the party crisis gets worse, and Labour declines electorally, sections of the Right-wing get pushed more to the Right. They become more and more hostile and vicious towards the working class). This hostility is laced with fear of the latent strength of the In the long run, this could mean the growth of a new anti-working class movement beginning in the Labour Party, but eventually breaking from it.

Ominous signs In the short run, it will mean an intensification of the witchhunt against the Left in the party, that began with thc proscription of the Socialist Labour League last year. There are signs now that more expulsions are being prepared in the Leeds Labour Party. But the Right-wing will not find this’ easy. Already party members are pointing to the particularly marked decline in Labour fortunes in those wards from which the Marxists were expelled. .

A new wave of expulsions might not be directed solely at the Marxists. Gaitskell has already attacked Tribune as ‘a professional anti-leadership journal existing only on disputes within the Party’. How safe would be those MPs who oppose NATO? And how about Victory for Socialism?

The greater the danger of defeat over Clause Four or the Bomb and the more Labour loses at the polls, the greater becomes the determination of the Right to stifle all criticism within the Party (already they are saying that the Parliamentary Party is responsible to the electorate and not to the membership).

They lost control at Accrington, For this reason the fight for socialist policies is inseparable from the fight against all witch-hunts—including the proscription of the Socialist Labour League.

All this is relevant to the local election results because behind every Labour candidate—whether Left or Right-wing— loomed the shadow of Hugh Gaitskell. And at Gaitskell’s side stands the ghost of Ramsay MacDonald.

Before Labour can begin to fight back against the Tories, the Left in the party must fight for socialist policies and democratic rights within the party. To do this effectively, it must get rid of Gaitskell and the Right-wing clique at present in the leadership of the party.

ECONOMICS

Stock Exchange jargon is rather forbidding, but some useful lessons can be learnt by the Labour Movement on how financial wizards operate and it is as well to know what is meant by their language.

Take any average public company. Five years ago its capital might have been, say, £250,000, and have paid a dividend of 10 per cent. Year by year its directors decide ‘to bring the capital in line with the assets employed’ and consequently make a scrip issue. A scrip issue is an allocation of bonus shares issued out of reserves or past profits without any money consideration from the shareholders.

And so the capital of that same company could have doubled in five years so that today a shareholder whose dividend was originally, say, £1,000 on £10,000 shares could, with the same nominal rate of dividend of 10 per cent., now have a dividend of £2,000 on £20,000 shares. The company could have left the capital as it was and increased the dividend to 20 per cent. But one of the main virtues of increasing the nominal capital is to Jet workers think that dividends haven’t increased. After all, in our example, the dividend was 10 per cent. five years ago, and it is still 10 per cent.

Then there are rights issues. This is a way of raising money from existing shareholders by giving them the right to acquire more shares. If the shares are issued at par, i.e. for £1 for each £1 share, and the stock exchange price at which they are changing hands is £1 10s., there is a nice capital profit of 10s. a share for someone to pick up, free of tax, of course.

In the past year or so there has been a spate of new issues. This can mean that an existing public company makes a new issue of shares or that a former private company ‘goes to the public’. Before the war only those companies that had built up a good profit history did this. But recently there have been so many speculators with large bank balances available

that the conventional approach is not always used. The directors of a private company decide to sell part of their holding to the public. They need take no risk because underwriters will promise to take up the shares and they will be issued at a premium, that is, for more than their nominal value.

Now the prospectus or invitation to the public, might promise a yield of 10 per cent. on the issue price. If such a promise is justified the shares must ultimately rise for the attraction of so high a yield will create a big demand until the yield approximates to the normal for the type of share. So if a shareholder in the original private company still retains any, he will be able to make a tax-free capital profit not only of the premium, but considerably more. ;

But he is only selling his ‘equity—that’s what the Stock Exchange members call ordinary shares. Well they think it’s equitable!

[LETTER] DEFENCE OF THE SOVIET UNION Bob Pennington’s article in The Newsletter of May 14 includes a passage which can mislead our readers on an important political question and provide ammunition for those who seek to discredit us as dishonest and phrasemongers.

After quoting Yu Chao-Li’s remarks on imperialism as the source of war, Bob Pennington goes on to say that this is correct—‘but then he must explain how it was possible for both Soviet Russia and Mao’s forces to find themselves allied with the British, French and American imperialists during the last world war’.

The implication clearly is that any alliance between the Soviet Union and an imperialist state is wrong in principle— and specifically that, in 1941, when attacked by Germany, the Soviet Union should have rejected making any agreements with Britain and her allies already at war with Germany.

To say this puts Marxists in the same boat with the pacifists and mystics of the Independent Labour, Party. It can suggest to Communist Party members that we are not sincere in our slogan: ‘Fer the defence of the Soviet Union’.

What was Trotsky’s attitude on this question? In his article of March, 1936, commenting on the interview given by Stalin to American journalist Roy Howard to discuss Soviet foreign policy, Trotsky wrote that:

‘Not a single serious-mimded proletarian revolutionist ever denied or denies the right of the Soviet state to seek for an auxiliary support for its inviolability through a temporary agreement with the French or some other imperialism.

For this purpose, however, there is not the slightest need to call black and white and to rebaptize bloody brigands as “friend of peace”. As an example te be emulated one might take, let us say, the vew ally, the French bourgeoisie:

in concluding the agreement with the Soviets, the French

bourgeoisie presents this action very soberly, without becoming lyrical, without lavishing any compliments and even maintaining a constant undertone: of warning against the Soviet Government.

‘In order to utilize ‘the imperialist antagonisms between oo France and Germany there was not and is not the slightest need for idealizing the bourgeois ally. . . . The crime does not lie in this or another practical deal concluded with imperialists but in the fact that both the Soviet government and the Comintern are dishonestly embellishing their episodic allies... .’ Et What was wrong in principle (and therefore in the long run harmful to the Soviet Union) was not the signing of the Franco-Soviet peace of 1935—though that might be criticized for its specific undertakings—but the notorious ‘Stalin-Laval communique’ which accompanied it. This in effect called upon the French workers to give up their opposition to capitalist militarism in France and support the imperialist aims of their rulers so long as the latter were allied with the Soviet Union. Exactly the same thing happened in 1941, when the world working-class movement was called upon to pay for the help of British and other imperialisms to Russia the unnecessary (and fatal) price of abandoning struggle against these imperialisms.

The issue involved here had arisen already in the first few months of the Bolshevik revolution, when the Soviet government was compelled to seek help from the French military mission against German invasion. Lenin explained what had happened in his ‘Letter to American Workers’ :

‘Against the advancing rapacious Germans, we, in the interests of the Russian and the international socialist revolution, utilized the equally rapacious counter-interests of other imperialists.’

And he went on to say:

‘I will not hesitate a second to enter into a similar “agreement” with the German imperialist vultures if an attack upon Russia by Anglo-French treops calls for it.

Bukharin and others who in that same period in 1918 called for Soviet Russia to ‘wage a revolutionary war’, at the same time repudiated on principle Lenin’s policy of practical pacts with certain imperialist states against others. Lenin commented, in his article ‘The Itch’:

‘In their war of emancipation against England at the end of the 18th century the Americans employed the aid of Spain and France, competitors of, and colonial brigands, just as much as England. I hear that “left-wing Bolsheviks” have been found who have addressed themselves to the writing of a “learned work” on the “dirty transaction” of these Americans. ..

There was, of course, no question of the Soviet Government of 1918 calling upon the workers either in France or in Germany to stop fighting their bosses and rally round the national flag in the imperialist war then still raging, just because the French or the German bosses were, for their own interests, rendering some help to Soviet Russia. Such an idea would in those days have been unthinkable in the Communist movement.

May I recommend readers interested in pursuing further this important matter of the relation between the defence of the Soviet Urion and the revolutionary struggle in capitalist countries to read two articles in Labour Review—the study of Soviet foreign policy in 1917-1924 in the issue of AugustSeptember, 1948, and the communication of B. Farnborough on ‘Marxists in the Second World: War’ in that of April-May, 1959. BRIAN PEARCE.

The Socialist Labour League promptly and publicly declared that whilst having serious differences with the Communist Party, it would support the Communist candidate on an anti-Tory basis. However, in turning out to render assistance I was told that my help was being refused for the following reasons :

(ay We had not declared our support for the Communist Party candidate in another ward (where thc Labour Party had_ a candidate).

(b) That the Socialist Labour League disagreed with Com-. munist Party policy.

In contesting an election under such conditions the main object should be to rally all working-class tendencies against the Tories. Instead of this, sterile sectarianism and rabid anti-Trotskyism won the day.

Here I address myself to Communist Party members. Yourparty claims to be against bans and proscriptions. Why does it apply them in its dealings with the Socialist Labour League? Your leaders often have joint activity with the Right-wing, sometimes on a completely unprincipled basis. The Right-. wing not only opposes Communist Party policy, it witch-hunts Communist Party members into the bargain. Socialist Labour League fights against the witch-hunt.

In refusing to work with the Socialist Labour League with-out sacrifice of principle by either tendency, are you not aiding the capitalist class and its agents in the Labour movement?

Quote :

‘Lift all bans and proscriptions.’—John Gollan.

By its decision to defend Clause Four, extend nationalization and oppose Gaitskell's nuclear policy, the national conference of the Amalgamated Engineering Union showed the tremendous opposition inside the trade unions to the policies of the Right-wing Labour and trade union leaders.

The conference decisions were particularly important in view of the fact that they were taken in an atmosphere of almost unprecedented witch-hunting. Union president Carron opened the conference with a speech that was designed to obscure the important political and policy questions in a cloud of red-baiting. He described Communists as 'werewolves' who are rushing madly 'to industrial ruin'. 'Unofficial' shop stewards' meetings were denounced by him and strikers were referred to contemptuously as people who had a 'slap-happy tendency to run out of the factories'.

The purpose behind this tirade was quite clearly to isolate the Communist Party and left-wing members of the national committee and ensure that the union was lined-up behind Right-wing policies. This failed.

On Wednesday, May 4, the delegates voted through two decisions which will have real importance and bearing on the fight now taking place inside the Labour Party. First the delegates decided to call for unilateral nuclear disarmament by Britain. Rejecting the pleas of Salvation Army member and executive councillor John Boyd that this would leave 'Britain defenceless', conference voted by 38 votes to 14 against the Gaitskell line.

Boyd and Carron moaned that such a policy would mean getting out of NATO and said that Britain then would be no longer regarded by America as her steadfast ally.

More nationalization

That same day the conference also unanimously endorsed extension of public ownership and expressed complete opposition to any change in the Labour Party constitution, 'particularly Clause Four dealing with the common ownership of production, distribution and exchange.'

Making clear what they, the members, meant by commanding heights of the economy, conference pledged full support for nationalization of 'steel, road transport, machine tools, aircraft, shipbuilding, chemicals and motors' and instructed the executive to 'place this programme before the Labour Party for adoption in Labour's programme.'

The weakness of this resolution, however, was that it did not take up the fact that the Gaitskell addendum specifically accepts the mutual existence of public and private enterprise.

Both Boyd and Carron hastened to assure the delegates that they accepted the resolution. Boyd 'forgetting' about the 'mixed economy', claimed that no member of the executive had ever suggested that Clause Four should be dropped. Here, of course, the Right-wing leaders hope to confuse the members by covering up the fact that the new addendum accepts the place in sociey of large sectors of private enterprise and leaves what is to be nationalized to the Right-wing. Already Gaitskell's chief aide, Douglas Jay, has stated that we now have control of the 'commanding heights of the economy'.

If the demands of the conference for the nationalization of all basic industries are to be fought for at the Labour Party and Trade Union conferences, it will be necessary for the left inside the AEU to begin a campaign inside the union and the Confederation between now and these conferences.

The same rule applies of course to the union's policy on nuclear weapons. Defying the wishes of the members is not a new policy for the AEU executive. In 1956, during the disputes in the Midlands car factories, despite national committee decisions not to accept redundancy and sackings, the executive council sent their striking members back to work and accepted redundancy.

In 1955, although the elected AEU delegation to the Labour Party conference wished to cast its vote for Bevan as Party Treasurer, the executive council insisted that the vote went to Right-wing nominee Gaitskell.

The need now is for those forces inside the AEU struggling for more nationalization and against Tory and Right-wing Labour's arms policies to join forces with the left-wing inside the Labour Party and the other unions in a campaign for the removal of Gaitskell.

WHO FIGHTS THE TORIES ?

During the recent municipal elections here in Leicester, the Right-wing refused to oppose the prospective Tory Lord Mayor. Quite correctly, the Communist Party nominated a candidate, claiming that this would give workers the chance to register an anti-Tory vote.

INDUSTRY By Our Industrial Correspondent Inshannon, Tuesday.

When I interviewed some of the pickets at the India Tyre’ factory, where over 1,000 workers are on strike, the slogans displayed, ‘No Surrender to Symon’ and ‘Clyde Take Warning’, summed up the feelings of the workers, who have no illusions as to the importance of the struggle they are waging.

The strike occurred as the result of the employer disallowing allowances made for the handling of faulty materials. and refusing to negotiate with the factory’s trade union. The workers told me: ‘If we handle faulty material extra time is required, which reduces our earnings. In other cases we have to wait for new material to be supplied and again our wages would suffer if the employer’s attack is not rebuffed.’

The Tory press are trying to build the issue into some kind of wild-cat strike, but in actual fact the workers have been extremely patient. ‘When the mahger first cut the allowances’, the workers told me, ‘we worked under protest for a month. During that time we were losing as much as £3 or £4 per week.

‘The trade union officials, Transport and General Workers’ Union, negotiated with the manager, who agreed to pay the: loss of earnings incurred over the month. He also agreed to negotiate with the shop stewards concerning allowances. The employers, however, are adamant in abolishing allowances and still refuse to negotiate with the shop stewards, despite the: agreement the manager made with our officials.’

The implications of the strike are of extreme importance for the Labour movement. When the workers agreed to. resume work to negotiate, the employers maintained that they had been sacked, but that they were prepared to consider individual applications. They have now recruited some: 40 or 50 of a fresh labour force in an endeavour to break the strike. Production, however, is still at a standstill. The maintenance workers have declared they will not maintain any machines operated by scab labour.

In the light of the importance of this strike it is obvious: that if the India Tyre outfit gets away with this, other employers will follow suit. This makes it all the more amazing:

that to date the TGWU has not yet endorsed the strike.

What is needed is a complete stoppage of work, complete blacking of all work entering or leaving the factory in order to crush these arrogant employers. The entire Labour movement must bring pressure to bear on the trade unions involved to immediately declare the strike 100 per cent. official.

‘IT is possible to look forward to a peaceful revolution in Britain . . . because . . . socialist forms, however imperfect, have grown up ‘‘within” capitalism.’

E. P. Thompson in New Left Review, May-June, 1960.

‘America’s abhorrence of the very word “socialism” still prevents a general recognition that substantially there is in America more socially-organized production _and distribution (which means more socialism, if we ise above formal definitions) than in the rest of the world combined. America hides her elements of socialism under the formal facade of capitalism. .. .’

Earl Browder in Review of International Affairs (Belgrade), June 1, 1959.

A Great Social Scientist Deutscher has brought out strongly in his book ‘The Prophet “Unarmed’ the importance of Preobrazhensky, who became ‘the principal economist of Trotsky’s Left Opposition. Recently I came across a pamphlet of Preobrazhensky’s written in 1921, before the open clash with the bureaucracy had begun, which reveals his foresight and at the same time shows how false is the idea that the men who developed into the Left Opposi«tion were irresponsible and unrealistic people who knew no‘thing and cared less about the practical problems of the ‘Soviet. economy.

‘Anarchism and Communism’ was published at a time when -anarcho-syndicalist moods were spreading among sections of the Russian working class, tired and hungry after years of civil war, and finding political expression through the so-called Workers’ Opposition. Preobrazhensky patiently explains in this pamphlet how socialism reqpires centralized planning, whereas the anarchists want each factory to become in effect the property of the workers who work in it; and how it necessitates an increase in the productivity of labour beyond capitalist levels, which only the strictest co-ordination and discipline can achieve. In particuiar, the peasants can be persuaded into going over to fully socialist forms of production only on the basis of a plentiful supply of cheap manufactured goods, which will not drop from heaven.

In the transitional phase, a certain variation in wages between industry and industry and between trade and trade is essential. Otherwise the necessary distribution of forces will not be ensured and the necessary production will not take place. In a typical paradox, Preobrazhensky remarks: “We are too’ poor to afford the luxury of equality.’

Noting that a factor in fostering anerchist moods is the existence of bureaucratic tendencies in the state machine, and that the latter absorbs a tremendous amount of resources, Preobrazhensky discusses how to reduce the swollen staffs and change their style of work. In building a new state machine, the Soviet leadership had had inevitably to draw upon the personnel, ‘the human material’, of the old one, in the first instance. Unfortunately, these pecple were sometimes functioning now ‘not just as the bricks but as the bricklayers, too’, so that the new Soviet state structure too often resembled the old one! A course had to be set in the opposite direction— but how long it would take to accomplish this job of de‘bureaucratizing would depend first and foremost on the successes of the workers’ revolutionary movement in the West.

How to Expose Stalinism Readers of this column in The Newsletter of April 30 may have noticed something odd in the way one paragraph tailed off rather pointlessly. (But then again, they may not.) It was a reference to the Communist Party in this country having a record of ‘conflict ‘and the conclusion got cut for reasons of space.

The point I intended to make was this. Some people have criticized our ‘Aldermaston special’ for being an unduly sharp attack on Stalinism. But we regard it as our duty to the working-class movement, and not least to those misguided militants who follow the Communist Party’s banner, to expose relentlessly, in a serious, political way, the menace which Stalinism is. We don’t accuse Stalinists of being stooges of the British capitalists, which would be a foolish slander; we know, and explain, thatthe source of their opportunism ‘is that they mistakenly identify the interests of the working class (including those of the Russian workers) with the policies and methods of the Soviet bureaucracy.

The ruling class of this country never lets up on harrying the Communists, and they in turn are always in opposition to some section of the ruling class. If the history of the Communist Party had not been a history of conflict, based on the irreconcilability of the interests of the Soviet bureaucracy (standing as it does at the head of a workers’ state, however degenerated this may be) with those of the British capitalists, the Communist Party would not have kept so long the loyal allegiance of many of its members. Our criticism of the Stalinists relates to the way their false premises lead them to conduct the conflict im which they are engaged so as to bring disaster upon the working class—including the workers of the Soviet Union, as some of the latter have apparently been showing Co-existence Khrushchev that they are beginning to realize. — It seems to me that'a reasoned political critique such as we offered in our ‘Aldermaston special’ is on the right lines; whereas a crack such as Alasdair MacIntyre made, in his broadcast last January, about ‘ritualized pseudo-conflicts’, merely gives offence without, helping Communist Party members to re-think their position. It may be that, for instance, Sam Russell, of the Daily Worker (whom I recruited to the Communist Party a quarter of a century ago), is past the possibility of re-thinking. But a man like that, who gave up his university scholarship to fight in the Spanish civil war, and was wounded in action there, will certainly not be induced to consider our arguments if they are accompanied by talk of ‘ritualized pseudo- conflicts’ which he knows to be false.

The temptation to substitute wisecracks and abuse for politics is often intense when one is dealing with the Stalinists, whose methods towards our movement are so unscrupulous. But it won't do; and in this respect, as in so many others, Trotsky himself ‘seta clear example. During the terror of 1937:in Russia somebody wrote in an American paper that Stalin had been a Tsarist police spy in the Bolshevik Party. Trotsky at once came out with a repudiation of this foolish lie. Stalin, he declared, was an old revolutionary; and what had happened to him ‘had te be seen as the degeneration of such a person in certain. definite circumstances, otherwise its entire tragic meaning and lesson would be lost.

A New Pamphlet on Clause Four From MacDonald to Gaitskell Price 3d. from 186 Clapham High Street, London, S.WA a: el

Sixty thousand shipyard and engineering apprentices returned to work this week. The British Apprentices’ Committee representing young workers in England and Scotland, had little alternative but to recommend a return to work while the strike still remained solid.

It needed action from adult workers to punch home a victory. However, the leaders of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions refused to back the strike officially.

The lads did not succeed in getting a direct offer of an increase, but returned on the promise of negotiations between the unions and the employers and an answer from the employers before the end of the month.

Lads are not demoralized But even though the strike was ending without victory there was no demoralization among Merseyside apprentices when they met last Saturday morning. These lads feel only confidence and pride. And certainly, here and nationally, these young workers have something to be proud of. Older militants could only admire their organization and fighting spirit.

There has been an influx of young workers into the ranks of militant trade unionism. National and local organizations of apprentices are continuing after the strike.

Recruits for the Young Socialist Movement are reported all round. It is hardly necessary to add, that these recruits will be an active addition to the left-wing of the Labour Party. In their strike they have built up a contempt for Right-wing trade union leaders, particularly Carron. And they quickly see the connection between Carron’s activities in assisting the employers and that of the Right-wing of the Labour Party.

These are the positive results of the strike.

On Merseyside, while a great number of shop stewards gave these young workers unstinting support, there were others who, to their shame, actively tried to undermine the struggle.

One steward at Standard Telephones helped break the strike there by giving false information that the lads at another factory had already gone back to work.

Rebuffed Some of the stewards at Cammelf Lairds’ shipyard, Birkenhead—where 900 apprentices were out—actively encouraged a division between the lads there and those in Liverpool.

However, last week, a meeting of Cammell Lairds strikers rejected their suggestion that there should be a return with Cammell Lairds’ management being given a week to open negotiations. Had the boys at Cammell Lairds returned it could only have had an adverse effect on the Liverpool A national meeting of apprentices’ delegates is to be held on June 4 to consider the result of negotiations with the employers. According to the ‘Daily Worker’ (14/5/60), boilermakers’ leader Ted Till told an apprentice delegation at York last Friday that if their claim was turned down by the bosses ‘We'll have a go’.

But there should be no illusions that this means leaders of the Confederation have decided to back the boys up to the hilt if they get nothing, or a meagre increase.

Apprentices who were on the delegation to York declare it was not possible to get Hill to state what having ‘a go’ meant. He gave no specific pledge of action from the unions should the employers continue to resist the claim.

So it is of the greatest importance for every militant shop a Published by Socialist Labour League, 186 Clapham High St., London, SW4 Registered at the GPO as a newspaper By OUR INDUSTRIAL CORRESPONDENT stewards’ committee and trade union branch to demand now that if the employers do not give the full increase by the end of the month, then the Confederation must back the apprentices officially and call out the adult engineers to support them. And militants inside factories and shipyards should call stewards to book who are not prepared to give full and unstinted support and assistance to these young fighters.

By Our Political Correspondent

How to cide the rapidly ascending tide of opposition to the official H-bomb policy, continue as leader of the Labour Party and keep the party tied to a Tory, capitalist foreign party; that has been a big problem for Gaitskell over the past weeks.

According to the Liverpool Daily Post of Tuesday, May 17, ‘it was generally agreed’ at the Defence Committee meeting ‘that Britain should scrap H-bombs, but should retain tactical nuclear weapons on the grounds that Britain’s armed forces Should not be worse equipped than those of other nations’.

Thus, the policy which a discredited leadership has decided to try to gerrymander through the Labour Party Conference is to have an American, instead of a British H-bomb. And while the United States provides what they delicately call the ‘strategic deterrent’, Britain is to concentrate on atomic artiljery and missiles.

The rank and file of the Labour movement have made it clear that they want the ending of all testing, manufacture and stockpiling of nuclear weapons and the demolition of all rocket bases.

Members of the Amalgamated Engineering Union in particular should take warning. MPs who ate members of the AEU have already been reported (Daily Telegraph, May 6) as saying that the decision of the AEU National Committee’ on the H-bomb does not automatically commit the union executive to take the same line at the TUC and Labour Party ‘In their view’, said the Daily Telegraph, ‘the executive will be entitled to support, at its own discretion, a new policy statement which was not in existence when the decision was taken.’

Mr. William Carron’s well-known christian ‘principles’ will be no barrier to him making a move of this character, and flouting the decision of his members. The only thing that will stop him and other Right-wing leaders will be an outcry from the ranks.

Not enly do a great number of apprentices do the same work as a man, but many of them have families to keep on their scandalously low wages. What this can mean in some cases was told to a Newsletter reporter by a young worker in a Birkenhead shipyard. This lad is 19 years old. His wages are £5 8s. a week, plus a bonus, which average around 12s. But this sometimes drops as it is paid by the tradesmen and depends on what they earn.

He is married and has two children, one only a few months old. They live in a tiny room and pay 30s. a week rent.

Is it any wonder his wife is now a _ tuberculosis suspect and one ef his children is anaemic?

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