The Newsletter, vol. 4 no. 153

DOCKERS DEMAND ACTION p. 166 Weekly Journal of the Socialist Labour League Vol. 4, No 153 Threepence GAITSKELL STOOGES LAUNCH DRIVE > AGAINST THE LEFT By OUR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT MR. JAMES MATTHEWS, the notorious anti-Communist leader of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers, followed Gaitskell’s H-bomb victory at the union conference in Great Yarmouth with a personal attack on Michael Foot and Ian Mikardo. Speaking about the Labour Party Mr. Matthews said: ‘The position will not be improved until these political boys learn what loyalty to a party really means. We would be better off without them. . . . Hugh Gaitskell has been made a bogeyman by what I call the journalistic spivs of the extreme left.’

This spirited defence of H-bomb Hugh should not number of propaganda articles have appeared in be taken light-heartedly. Now that the summit talks Tribune. Victory for Socialism remains a small illusion is blown sky-high, the Right are consolidating organization, although both Michael Foot and Ian their grip inside the Labour Party. This vicious per- Mikardo are listed amongst its leaders. ‘sonal attack on two leading members of the Left in- It is little use making fun of Matthews. The time side the party is the logical outcome of the hard fact is long overdue for the Left to strengthen the Victory that the Left has no real policy to answer the Right- for Socialism organization by a broad recruiting appeal based upon definite policy proposals for the next wing.

Labour Party conference. Tribune must get off the On summit talks it pursued a similar line to Gaitfence and give whole-hearted support for a fighting skell. It still avoids a clear statement as to what Victory for Socialism. The Clause Four Campaign industries should be nationalized. It has not led a Commitee which has already held a number of meetreal campaign for the retention of Clause Four.

Kings in the London area should receive much greater At the Blackpool conference Michael Foot made a support than it is now getting from the leaders of firm contribution to the discussion. At the same con- Victory for Socialism. Unless this is done the Left ference Mikardo lost his seat on the National Execu- have no real reply to Gaitskell and Matthews. tive Committee. Several vital months have gone by The expulsion of Foot and Mikardo may be much since then and all that has really happened is that a closer than they think.

By G. HEALY AS the statesmen return home from the Summit debacle the Labour movement remains dangerously confused. In many respects we are reminded of that fatal August in 1939 when Stalin Signed a peace pact with Hitler and jettisoned the theory that a ‘peace alliance’ could halt fascist aggression.

The confusion sown by the Communist Party and Labour lefts who supported this theory was in no small measure responsible for the immobilization of PPPPPPPP PPP PPP PPPRPPRPPRPPRPPPPAD the British working class at a most critical time in the struggle against the second world war. SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE In the days that followed the Stalin-Hitler pact the world PUBLIC MEETING drifted irresistibly towards disaster. The working class were Summit Talks Fail — What Next? confused and leaderless. The policy of Stalin weakened the defence of the Soviet Union, and the forces of imSpeakers—G. HEALY (national secretary) perialism stepped up their war preparations.

But May, 1960, is not August, 1939. Whilst war is not B. PEARCE (joint editor, Labour Review) at this moment as near as it was in 1939, no one can doubt that a new round of military expenditure and jingo propa- Sunday, May 29, at 7.30 p.m. ganda is now being launched by the imperialists and their DENISON HOUSE VAUXHALL BRIDGE ROAD. right-wing Labour lackeys. Speaking at the conference of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers in Great S.W.1 Yarmouth, Mr. Gaitskell said:

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‘In present conditions the Labour Party must continue to stand for the idea of adequate defence and protection of the country, and deterrence of any possible aggressor.’

It will be recalled that last year at this conference a resolution was carried calling for the Labour movement to campaign against the manufacture of the H-bomb. Whilst it is true that the tricky gentlemen who lead the MGWU had this resolution shelved in the months that followed, nevertheless it was a powerful moral victory for the forces opposing war preparations. This year Mr. Gaitskell’s policy was accepted by a five to one majority. Here are the fruits of the confusion by the Communist Party and the Labour lefts that summit talks could resolve the problem of war. The Paris talks have strengthened the Right-wing and Mr. Gaitskell.

More terrible weapons In the United States, Dr. Freeman Dyson of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, has emphasized the speech in which Senator Dodd of Connecticut declared that a neutron bomb was a theoretical possibility. According to Dr. Dyson :

“Such a bomb can theoretically be produced by tailoring the energy of a fusion explosion so that, instead of heat and blast, what is primarily produced is a burst of neutrons.

‘Such a burst would do negligible physical damage, but it would immediately destroy all life in the target area. It would, in short, operate as a kind of death ray.’

The magazine in which Dr. Dyson wrote these words quoted :

an unnamed correspondent as saying:

‘Such a weapon would be of great tactical advantage on the battle field. It could be used to knock out an enemy division without contaminating friendly forces.

‘It would also be used to defeat a country without damaging its resources. Because there would be so little fall-out the area would be inhabitable almost immediately.’

There is no doubt that appalling new weapons are being prepared by all sides and that these preparations will now be stepped up in the coming months.

Meanwhile the vicious circle grows tighter. The American statesmen blame the Russians and the Russians blame the Americans. Mr. Macmillan, like an aged executioner who has lost the use of both hands since the Blue Streak Rocket bubble burst, is hailed by Gaitskell as a great peacelover.

Surely the time has now come for the Labour movement to seriously rethink its entire policy in relation to foreign affairs and in particular to fight to prevent the third world war.

Victory for socialism and Mr. Gaitskell The people who are most confused on the Left today are those Members of Parliament who support Victory for Socialism. The Stalinists at King Street can at least resort to their old policy of supporting Russia, right or wrong, but Sydney Silverman and his colleagues simply follow in the wake of Gaitskell, who in turn insults them almost openly.

‘No one’, says a statement from VFS, ‘really believes that either the Soviet Union and its allies or the United States and its allies have any aggressive intentions towards each other.” Well, well, well. There’s none so blind as those who will not see! Just read this.

‘Had NATO not been formed’, says Mr. Gaitskell at Great Yarmouth, ‘the Soviet Union would long since have dominated Europe, including Britain.’

Mr. Gaitskell is at least consistent. Long ago he nailed his colours to the Tory mast. Like the Gollans and Pollitts in their blind attitude towards the USSR he intends to follow Macmillan just as blindly.

Here is why Left confusion strengthens Gaitskell. Instead of seriously rethinking the whole problem of war and the way to fight it, the Labour Lefts look for ways and means to effect an unprincipled compromise with the Right-wing. This is, of course, in the order of things. Just as Mr. Gaitskell draws closer to the Tories, so the fake Lefts are dragged closer to the heels of Gaitskell. That is why they find no difficulty in talking about opposition to all bans and proscriptions and at the same time support Gaitskell’s ban on The Newsletter and the Socialist Labour League. If there is one thing Swingler, Silverman and Zilliacus will not do, it is to base the struggle against war upon the ability of the working class to take the power and establish socialism.

The Left-wing of the Labour Party must break sharply from all forms of Right-wing compromise in the struggle against war, whether it comes from Gaitskell or from the leaders of Victory for Socialism.

The Socialist Labour League and the Summit The most difficult problem before socialists in the fight against war is how to convince the Labour movement that the only real force capable of ridding the world of war is the working class. This is understandable. The Stalinists and the reformists constantly sow the illusion that war can be prevented by discussion between the diplomats. What follows is a further illusion that it is not necessary to struggle to overthrow capitalist society and replace it with socialism in order to avoid the danger of war. The advocates of summit talks and peaceful co-existence immobilize and disarm the working class at the very time when the class should be mobilized for action against the capitalist enemy. The professional pacifists oppose class action against the imperialists; that is why Marxism is in principle opposed to pacifism.

These worthy gentlemen are the most ruthless opponents of the class struggle and generally wind up in a situation where the imperialists embark on a war whilst they reside in jail for the duration. We are here referring to the leaders of the pacifist movement and not to the many sincere and misguided people who follow them.

The unprincipled alliance of Stalinists; pacifists and Labour fakers who led the Aldermaston March came together on the idea that the summit diplomats could resolve the H-bomb crisis. The Socialist Labour League on the other hand, insisted that all the summit would do would be to sow further illusions which in fact, in the long run, would strengthen the drive to war. We were proved correct more quickly than we anticipated. Our policy is derived from a Marxist attitude towards imperialist war. When the Chinese spokesmen declare that forty years ago Lenin pointed out the correct way to fight war, they are merely emphasizing the position which the Trotskyist movement has held ever since Lenin died.

On the brink The dangers of a third world war arise from the basic economic contradictions of capitalism. The imperialist powers have embarked upon a suicidal arms race because of the inability of the world to provide new markets and fresh sources of colonial exploitation in a way that will enable the super millionaires to maintain and increase their colossal profits. The unplanned nature of capitalism means that the development of the preductive forces constantly conflicts with the private ownership of the means of production. The crisis of the imperialist powers is now much greater than at any time in history, especially since the Soviet Union, China and the countries of Eastern Europe are no longer part of the capitalist world market. This market has rapidly shrunk in size, thereby aggravating the contradiction between the development of the productive forces and private ownership. Only a socialist planned economy can release mankind from this terrible situation. Because of this, mankind is poised on the brink of a third world war and there is no way out except through the struggle to take the power from the capitalists and replace private ownership with socialist control and planning. That’ is the great lesson from the collapse of the summit talks. It doesn’t matter how many prayers are said by Canon Collins or how many speeches are made by Hugh Gaitskell or Sydney Silverman, so long as the economic system of capitalism remains, then we are faced with a third world war. If we do not end this system in the next period then war will become a reality, which theoretically speaking can end all of us.

The difference between the Socialist Labour League and those who believe that the diplomats can get rid of war is that we believe that instead of turning towards the diplomats who in fact have steadily helped prepare this dangerous world situation, we should look towards the working class and its struggle against the capitalists in Britain and throughout the world. Here is the real power which disrupted the summit talks.

The Wall Street imperialists were drawn towards the summit because they felt that a temporary deal with Khrushchev might be possible in a way that would slow down the development of the class struggle both in the colonies and in the imperialist countries themselves. Khrushchev would have been prepared to do such a deal if it meant peaceful co-existence for even a temporary period, but the Chinese who are dominated by the implications of the great Asian revolution much more than the Soviet leaders, refused to support Khrushchev. Behind that refusal also was the development of the great revolutionary struggles of the South African people and the considerable resistance which the working class in Britain has displayed towards all the attempts of the Tories to reduce their standard of living.

The Russian people There is, however, another factor of considerable significance. It is the attitude of the Russian people themselves. Everyone now knows that the 20th Congress speech of Khrushchev denouncing Stalin had to be made in order to placate the growing tide of opposition to Stalinism which was manifesting itself inside Russia. But this speech. could not by itself stop the opposition to Stalinism. It could only _blunt that opposition. The political climate in which it was nourished has not only remained, it has grown stronger.

The strength of the colonial peoples and the corresponding weakness of imperialism coinciding with the struggle of the working class in the imperialist countries is reflected in the ranks of the Soviet people. This is the real deterrent which Wall Street fears most.

Furthermore, the considerable scientific achievements of the Soviet Union have strengthened the morale of the Soviet working class in a most remarkable way. The interconnection between these forces was the real reason why the summit talks collapsed. Khrushchev could not do a deal. Wall Street, with its U-2 spy raid, was revealed in its true colours and the political puppets of imperialism, De Gaulle and Macmillan, could only act as messenger boys between the great ones.

Far from the summit collapse being a disaster, a real approach to peace must now begin with an examination of the forces responsible for the failure.

The next steps All those who seriously want peace must now turn towards the struggle of the working class against the Tories in Britain and their imperialist supporters in the United States. Every effort made by the colonial peoples to weaken imperialism is a blow for peace. Every strike against the employers is a blow for peace. Every effort made by trade unions and Labour Parties in their struggle for a socialist policy in the Labour Party and for the defence and strengthening of Clause Four is a blow for peace.

The real peace forces are all those who in one way or another fight the class enemy and urge policies that will strengthen such a fight. If we consider that in reality the only peace front is the international struggle of the working class against the imperialists, then we shall be in a position to evaluate the powerful allies who are ranged on our side in this great fight. We will try to enumerate these allies.

First, there are the people of the Soviet Union, whose bitter Opposition to Stalinism arises from the fact that the economy of their country rests on the nationalized property relations established by the Revolution of 1917.

Second, there are the people of Eastern Europe whose nationalized economy, like that of the Soviet Union, is based upon the overthrow of capitalist property relations. Although the majority of these still suffer under the yoke of bureaucracy, nevertheless there is ample evidence that the workers of these countries are determined to fight and overthrow this bureaucracy and go forward to socialism.

Third, there is the vast country of China with its population of 650 million people, which in spite of the Stalinist training of its leaders pursues a policy which is forced to take into account the requirements of the Asian revolution.

Fourth, there are the working people of. the United States whose steel strike some months ago was a symbol of the power and the determination of the American working class to maintain a decent standard of living.

The struggle of the Negroes in the southern states of America will, in the days ihat lie ahead, merge more and more with the battle of the American working class against Wall Street imperialism.

Fifth, the crisis on the American continent is aggravated by the struggles of the Cuban people who, although they face almost insurmountable difficulties, remain defiant against alk the attempts of the imperialists to crush them.

Sixth, there is the revolutionary situation in the Middle East which is now being joined by the beginning of a mass revolutionary struggle in South Africa.

Finally, there is the position in Britain itself, where the working class, with their powerful Labour movement, stubbornly resists all attempts by the Tory government to attack their standards of living.

These forces are not isolated, they are the international ingredients of the coming British revolution. The British Labour movement stands at the crossroads of history. The fate of the world in the next period may well be in their hands. A determined effort to kick the Right-wing from the Labour Party and bring down the Tory government would create a situation where the struggle for socialism could make a spectacular advance.

The Socialist Labour League therefore calls upon. all fighters against war to join its ranks and fight to:

1. Bring down the Tory government of Macmillan and replace it with a Labour government pledged to nationalize all the basic industries (including the armaments industry) without compensation and under workers’

2. Stop the manufacture of the H-bomb and the testing of nuclear weapons Abandon NATO and seek an alliance with the Soviet and colonial peoples and all those who are fighting against imperialism.

nnd The Socialist Labour League is pleased to announce the publication on June 10, of Where is Britain Going ?

Including an introduction, a preface for America, and the preface to the German edition Price: Seven Shillings and Sixpence Enquiries from: Socialist Labour League 186 Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 nanan A Pamphlet on Clause Four From MacDonald to Gaitskell By ALASDAIR MacINTY RE Price 3d. from 186 Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 a

By P. KERRIGAN DEMANDS for a rise in pay and a 41-hour week have been voiced more and more strongly on the docks in the last few months.

Dockers had their last meagre wage increase in autumn, 1958. Branch after branch of the Transport and General Workers’ Union in London and the northern ports have now passed resolutions demanding a pay rise. Up and down Liverpool docks strong feelings are expressed about the need for a £10 a week minimum wage and Saturday morning off.

Last week, Mr. Tim O'Leary, national docks officer of the TGWU, addressed three meetings of Liverpool dockers. Those who expected to hear something positive about wages were sorely disappointed. As at Birkenhead, a few weeks before, his main theme was: ‘If you want more money then you'll have to work harder for it.’

This means, that in order to get more wages, dockers must will be interested most in an increase in piece-work rates, become scurrying ants with an increasingly maddening tempo while the northern ports will be more interested in an inof work that will leave old men helpless and rapidly turn crease in basic pay. young men into old. But the solution would be simple for leaders who really On the excuse that dockers must make up their minds wanted to fight for what dockers need. Leaders who were whether they want an increase in basic pay or in piece-work serious in anything but trying to hold back the discontent earnings, union leaders have held back from even formulating on wages would quickly suggest a claim that would mean an a pay demand. The tactic is clear: Cause confusion in the increase in basic wages and a pro rata increase in piece-work union, set one section against the other, so that week after earnings. week will go by before the pay claim even goes into the long- What to do now? That is the big question which dockers drawn-out machinery of negotiation. on Merseyside are asking. The longer the docker has to wait The leaders have circulated the union asking branches for his increase the less it will be worth. Prices are now whether there should be a demand for an increase in piece- beginning to rise more rapidly with the new boom in industry. work rates or an increase in basic wages. That’s a loaded And every docker knows how the long-awaited increase of question, meant to give the appearance of a split among 1958 was not sufficient to meet even the rent rises that had dockers because the answers to this artificial choice will be already taken place. equally divided.

It is time now for the rank-and-file docker to have a positive These leaders know that London, being a piece-work port plan of action. In 1945 our solidarity won us the biggest

By W. HUNTER, Secretary, Merseyside Area, Socialist Labour League Mr. Joseph Hancock, a Liverpool dredgerman, one-time munist Party (perhaps, now he has embraced the ‘absolute editor of the ‘Harbour Workers’ Voice’ and ex-member of honesty’ of the MRA he will tell us his real past history) the Socialist Labour League, is now a tout for Moral and in the League, can kelp him to help the bosses. Rearmament. He is now threatening to add his little mite to the witchHancock was expelled from the Liverpool branch of the hunt against Marxism. He has declared he is writing a Socialist Labour League at the end of March. After nine play on a ‘Communist cell’ in industry. months’ membership, he suddenly and without any warn- His current sales-talk to workers he is visiting is an ing sent us a letter declaring he ao longer accepted the illustration of the nature of this MRA cancer. Sanctiphilosophy and programme of the League He refused moniously he says that the ideology of MRA removes the discussion. He declared he had been eight years making lust for power from militants. Of course, it ‘strengthens’ a decision to break from Marxism. (According to his own the power of the employers—that is its purpose. stories he had been a member of the American Com- Hancock boasts how he has met the leather manufacmunist Party for a number of years.) This alleged pro- turer, a member of MRA, who avoids trouble when he cess of thought must surely have been the best-kept secret has redundancy. Instead of sacking men in a lump, he of the year. sacks them a few at a time.

In informing him of his expulsion I wrote to him as Hancock mixes with the officials of the Mersey Docks secretary of the Liverpool branch : and Harbour Board and discusses how the non-militant “Your phrasing smacks of MRA. Is that where you're sector on the waterfront is played off against the militant. going—to this anti-communist ideology; this naked agency And Hancock’s fellow workers should note particularly of American Imperialism; to this organization which takes the following outlook which he expresses in describing hold of ex-militants and sets them to preach class colla MRA’s contribution to industrial relations :— boration in return for trips abroad? Workers aren’t difficult to handle. Give them their ‘I hope got. There is nobody more despised around the small wants—for example, wash basins—and _ they’ll waterfront than the person who leaves the fight and then forget what they think are their big wants. covers up policies which assist the employers with the On the job, in the trade union branch, in the general nauseating hypocrisy of MRA.’ labour movement, this man can only speak for the emThere was no reply. Now, after a period of schooling— ployers. That is what MRA is for. mixing with MRA employers, attending MRA get-to- We give this report and this warning so that friends gethers—he has emerged as an open worker for this move- _of the Socialist Labour League and The Newsletter among ment and is seeking to influence others in the way he him- dockers in Hull and Liverpool, and in the Liverpool self has been influenced. labour movement, will know Hancock’s renegade proEvidently he thinks that what he learned in the Com- gress and be on their guard.

a eee single pay award for nearly 50 years—three shillings a day.

In 1951 it was the threat of action by the National Portworkers’ Committee which forced Deakin to move on wages.

The portworkers’ committees now existing in Liverpool and Hull have to do some sharp thinking about their next steps. It is over five weeks since a petition for a wage increase bearing the signatures of 5,000 Liverpool men was taken to Transport House, the London headquarters of the TWGU. It has been treated with contempt.

The job of the portworkers’ committee is to clear a way through the morass created by trade union leaders and to make it plain that dockers see through the delaying and ‘splitting tactics. A national portworkers’ committee is absoItutely necessary to overcome the attempts to split port from Pera portworkers’ committee cannot be just a collecting rt.

machine for signatures, or a propaganda body organizing dockers to hear a spiel from union leaders. © I say that particularly to militant Communist Party members on the docks, who have been under the illusion—and have tried to convince others in Liverpool—that a great victory would be won by the rank and file if only they could get Tim O’Leary to speak to them. Well, O'Leary has been and gone. And in his going has made it clear that the only way to get the leaders to move is by organizing the docker on the job.

A portworkers’ committee must be a committee of action determined to fight on justified demands and in defence of The next steps The next steps for the Liverpool portworkers’ committee is to begin a thorough campaign to get representatives from every control and to contact every port to build a National Portworkers’ Committee, holding mass meetings in every port in the next few weeks.

Here in Liverpool, the result will be more confusion and frustration on the docks if the Portworkers’ Committee were to call meetings just to tell dockers how much they need an increase, but giving them no positive programme of action. “Waiting for Tim’ is no substitute for organizing the rank and file.

The situation today is more in favour of the dockers than jt was in 1945. A national issue like wages needs national preparation. But if 60,000 young lads—engineering apprentices—can perform the difficult job of organizing in thousands of shops throughout the country, it should be a great deal easier for dockers to link together nationally in a fight for wages.

Not long ago Craps sacked a whole department without consulting the union. Just before the threatened national rail strike (February 15) he gave all the staff a week’s notice. Once he even sacked a department for joining the union ‘without his permission’!

The National Union of Tailor and Garment Workers has declared the strike official, but Craps won’t even meet the union officials. This makes the pickets particularly angry. Bro. O’Brien said he couldn’t understand what Craps expected to gain. ‘He tried to introduce annual holidays for two weeks in May instead of the traditional fortnight around bank holiday. Not satisfied with this he has just sacked us to tide him over the slack period. But if he doesn’t start production soon he will miss the next season’s orders as well’, he went on. ‘I am not an exhibitionist but a trade unionist on strike until our just demands are met—Craps must recognise 100 per cent. unionism.’

‘If we stick out another week or so we will have him beaten’ a woman picket told me outside the head office of Craysons Models, trade name for the activities of H. Craps and Sons, a clothing manufacturer in the West End of London.

This view was seconded by another picket, Bro. O’Brien, a worker from Craps’ costume department. These pickets are two out of the 350 workers sacked by Craps in an attempt to smash 100 per cent. trade unionism in his’ factories.

The dispute is absolutely solid, confidence of victory is high and picketing of the three factories and showrooms is continuous. A lift mechanic from Otis Elevators arrived while we were talking, to fix Craps’s broken-down lift, he refused to cross the picket line and walked off leaving Craps and Co. to walk up the stairs until the dispute is settled!

Craps has a record of arrogant dismissals without any concern for the livelihood of the workers he employs. Among the 350 just sacked are workers with over 25 years’ service in the firm.

‘CLOTHING WORKERS STRIKE IN DEFENCE By Our Industrial Correspondent

PENNY PENSIONS

An old age, free from want whilst living under a capitalist system. Does the new State Pension scheme which comes into operation in April next year provide this for us? On the contrary, poverty in old age is the implication of these new proposals.

Little publicity has been given to this scheme which was devised as an answer to the Labour Party’s pension plan. The scheme is a compulsory one, but employers may ‘contract out’ provided they instal a private insurance pension fund approved by the government. Because of its restrictive character and because the government does not invest the State pension funds, the private scheme is able to compete and provide much higher benefits.

Generally speaking, so far as the State scheme is concerned, the workers’ contribution will be greater than his present National Insurance contributions if his wage is over £11 weekly, and slightly less if under that figure. Because of this the tendency will be for employers to operate a _ private pension fund administered by an insurance company for the higher wage earner and the State scheme for the lower-paid worker.

What will be the effect of such a policy? Since there will be no subsidies from direct taxation the State pension fund has to rely on contributions. In other words the workers

@ 100,000 in anti-bomb -demonstration—American spyplanes over Russia—But GAITSKELL says ‘Strengthen NATO’.

@ Summit talks fiasco—But GOLLAN says ‘Work for another Summit’.

@ 60,000 striking apprentices—huge losses in the local elections—but the RIGHT-WING say ‘Less Socialism’.

Hear the SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE case:

WHICH WAY FOR LABOUR?—Speaker: Jack Gale ROOM C, TRADES HALL, UPPER FOUNTAIN STREET Sunday, May 29th, at 7.30 p.m.

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eee must pay for their own pensions, and because the salaried employee will usually be enrolled in a private scheme, the poor will have to support the aged poor.

This is completely contrary to the original conception of Beveridge’s Welfare State. Not only that, but provision for increases in contributions is included in the regulations without any comparative increase in benefits.

In money terms, for every £15 contributed to the fund, a weekly pension of 6d. will accrue to the worker. If a man earns £15 weekly from the time he enters the scheme at age 18, he will be entitled at age 65 to the magnificent weekly pension of £2 1s. over and above the present basic pension. So that in 2007, as a married man, he will be able to look forward to a pension of about £6 weekly. This is the maximum possible pension after:a life-time of work, and very few will qualify for this. In that 47 years the worker would have paid some £2,000 in National Insurance and graduated pension contributions. No account is taken of the falling value of money.

Individual employers at this moment are considering whether to contract in or out of the State scheme. Some will enrol part of their workers in the State scheme and part in private schemes. Their main concern will be the cost involved. One thing is certain. The big insurance companies are going to have an immense fillip to their already huge pension business. The State. scheme, which is for second-class citizens, will encourage the bosses to instal private pension schemes, very often at less cost.

The cost of pensions to the capitalists will substantially increase their overheads. But they will pass on the cost either by attempting to peg wages or increase prices. Either way, indirectly, it is we who will have to pay their share. people who cannot disarm by agreement among themselves will be prepared to do so unilaterally. The CND can no longer attempt to remain above politics. It must unite with Labour’s Left to get rid of the Tories and secure the return of a Labour government pledged to end the manufacture of nuclear weapons as part of a socialist policy.

Alan Stanley.

The summit talk fiasco has been a bitter blow to many supporters of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Egged on by the Communist Party, their leaders marched them, full of illusions and high hopes, to the top of the hill. They are now reeling back in confusion.

Once again it is seen that to subordinate a progressive movement to the whims of Soviet diplomacy can lead only to disaster.

The sell-out did not occur, however, when Khrushchev used the spy-plane incident as an excuse for refusing negotiations. On the contrary, the betrayal took place when the Kremlin bureaucrats and their British boot-lickers. spread the idea that peace could be ensured by talks between the Soviet leaders and representatives of world imperialism.

Those political Bourbons, ihe leaders of the British Communist Party, learn nothing from this. Gollan in the Daily Worker (May 21) calls for a ‘Summit that works’. These policies simply spread further disillusion. One might as well try to persuade a group of starving tigers to turn vegetarian.

In turn the Right-wing try to make capital. Gaitskell hopes that the unilateralists ‘ may have second thoughts after what happened at the summit.’ The Guardian (May 21) states that in questioning Macmillan on his return from Paris he came ‘closer to a bipartisan approach than for some time’.

It would be a mistake, however, to regard the anti-war movement as smashed. To do this it would be necessary for the capitalists to defeat decisively the colonial revolution and. their own working class. This has not happened.

In the long run the experience of the Paris talks will be a valuable one. No longer will it be easy to persuade the CND rank and file to place their trust in talks between capitalist and bureaucratic politicians. Peggy Duff, secretary of the CND has already been reported as saying that the collapse of the summit talks strengthens the case for unilateral disarmament. Thousands will endorse her position.

This is good. But it is nonsense to imagine that the same

Be TROTSKY often used the analogy of a trade union when discussing the Soviet state. Just as militant workers fighting against bureaucracy in their union nevertheless fight to defend their union against the capitalists (and indeed there is really no ‘nevertheless’

about it, for the purpose of combating bureaucracy is to strengthen the unions as anti-capitalist weapons), so Trotsky and his followers were at once the sharpest critics of the rulers of the USSR, as regards their relations to the Soviet and other workers, and the most consistent defenders of the USSR against the imperialist foes. (Some of those who ‘deplore‘ the fact that there have been numerous splits in the history of the Trotskyist movement prefer to cover up the fact that the most important single issue on which such splits have occurred has been the defence of the USSR as in 1940 over Finland and in 1950 over Korea.)

This analogy from the day-to-day life of, the working-class movement applies also the other way round, though. It was once in both aspects a commonplace in the Communist movement. I wonder how many present members of the British Communist Party have read Trotsky’s lucid analysis of the principles of a sound Soviet foreign policy which appeared in the (London) Communist Review for December, 1922? This article was written in the first place for the clarification of some French Communists who had alleged that there were certain ‘contradictions’ between the policy of the Soviet government and that of the Communist International, and in replying Trotsky took a simple example from the current activity of Communist trade unionists in the Renault works. . The critics had claimed to see a contradiction between the conduct of the Soviet authorities in receiving in Moscow Herriot, leader of the French Radical Party, and that of the Comintern in expelling a French Communist who advocated political support by the Communist Party to the Radicals. Trotsky wrote: ‘We might compare our negotiations with Monsieur Herriot, a prominent representative of the country which during five years opposed us with arms and blockaded us, to the negotiations carried on by locked-out workmen with the representatives of that section of the capitalists willing to discuss terms. Such negotiations between the workers and capitalist magnates are only an episode in the class struggle, just as any strike or lock-out is... .

‘Of the individual Communist working at the Renault works we should demand that in his dealings with the capitalists he shall not undermine the solidarity of the working class, shall not act as a strikebreaker, but on the contrary that he combat all forms of strikebreaking. The same is required of the Soviet government in :ts dealings with the bourgeois governments.’ It would be scandalous if the fact that the Soviet government needed to have dealings with a Radical politician were to be used by anybody to justify changes in the policy of the French Communists; and while the USSR continued to negotiate with bourgeois statesmen in order to secure diplomatic recognitions ‘at the same time the Comintern will as heretofore expel from its rank every renegade who attempts to preach Left-Bloc-ism to the French workers’.

A precedent for Malinovsky?

When the USSR won diplomatic recognition from France, Britain and Italy, this at first made no difference in the attitude of Soviet statesmen to liberation movements in the outside world. So long as Trotsky remained Commissar for War he combined secret practical arrangements with such bodies as the German Reichswehr with open political encouragement to such forces as the Chinese national revolution. Though the USSR had signed in May, 1924, a treaty with the Chinese Government of warlords and shyster politi-cos linked with various imperialist interests, the following could appear in the Comintern journal Internal Press Corres. pondence for October 9 of the same year, under the heading ‘The Soviet Union Supports Suppressed China :

‘Comrade Trotsky in reply to a request from the Chinese Society for Combating Imperialism has sent the following telegram :

*““To the Chinese Society for Combating Imperialism, Peking.

*“T subscribe wholeheartedly to the programme of the fight against world imperialism, which is aiming at the complete subjection of China. In your fight, the development of which will depend upon the growth of class-consciousness, upon the degree of organization of the working masses of China and upon those elements among the Chinese intellectuals who are devoted to the cause of the people, you can, on the one hand, rely on the conscious help of the proletariat of the whole world, and on the other hand, upon the unavoidable antagonisms between the imperialist world robbers.

*“The Soviet Union, true to the principles of its founder, stands wholly and entirely on the side of the oppressed against the oppressor.

*““By their insolent acts of violence the imperialists are tending to make the Chinese people hate all foreigners and everything foreign. The task of the Chinese revolutionaries consists in preserving the Chinese people from all chauvinism, and in teaching them to distinguish in every capitalist nation between two chief classes: the imperialist bourgeoisie and the revolutionary proletariat.

*““Only in alliance with the proletariat of the whole world will the Chinese bourgeoisie repel the new attack of the bourgeois barbarians organized by Mr. Hughes (American Secretary of State) upon the independence of the Chinese people. It is the duty of every revolutionary, and much more of every Communist to support the emancipatory struggle of the working people of China—L. Trotsky.” ’

As is well remembered, Soviet help to revolutionary China in that period was not confined to telegrams, either, useful as they were. Marshal Malinovsky could find plenty of scope for imitating his great predecessor—in Algeria, in South Africa and elsewhere.

The Russian Troops in France There has already been occasion to refer in this column to Khrushchev’s habit of speaking about the First World War as though it were some sort of clash between progressive and reactionary forces; he seems to have decided to ‘rehabilitate’ it for the sake of his diplomacy, even though this involves putting the Lenin of 1914-1917 and the October Revolution in a rather queer light.

The question arises again with the demonstrative visit paid by Malinovsky and Khrushchev to the village where the former was billeted during the First World War, and Khrushchev’s reference at his famous May 1 press conference to Malinovsky as ‘a magnificent soldier who fought like a hero with the French against German Imperialism’.

I wonder if members of the British Communist Party and Young Communist League will read the book ‘Mutiny’, a survey of mutinies ‘from Spartacus to Invergordon’, which was written by Tom Wintringham, then a leading Communist, and published in 1936? It contains the true story of the Russian soldiers in France.

There were two brigades of them. After the February, 1917, Revolution in Russia, some of the men in one of these brigades voiced the demand to go back home. Their commanding officer literally fainted, and the brigade was at once transferred to a sector where a big offensive was about to start. In hopeless frontal assaults the brigade soon lost 6.000 out of its 9,000 men. Winston Churchill himself wrote (in ‘The World Crisis, 1916-1918’) that the Russians ‘were used by the French in a ruthless manner’.

After this affair, Soviets began to be formed in the two Russian brigades. They were withdrawn and sent to an isolated camp in the interior of France, near a place called La Courtine. There they were surrounded and bombarded by French artillery for five days. The shells began to fall

In the article ‘Summit Talks Collapse’ (Newsletter, May 21), Gerry Healy refers to the Communist Party as an organization of political paupers.

I think Gerry, in talking about political paupers, intended this description to apply only to the Gollans and Pollitts.

It is important that we define our attitude most clearly to the rank and file of the Communist Party, many of whom are fine militants and are becoming more and more critical of the absolute subservience of their leadership to the bankrupt policies of Summitry and all that claptrap.

LETTERS James Baker’s article (Newsletter, May 14). raises crucial questions on the nature and direction of the liberation struggle in South Africa. His contentions on the efficacy of the Pan-Africanists and ‘that only in the course of the struggle will specifically proletarian demands be presented’, indicate, I believe, an incorrect estimate of the tasks in a colonial or semi-colonial country. Who is to raise the demands, and how?

Implicitly James Baker submits that the Pan-Africanists do not have a Marxist leadership, but this is irrelevant. Nor, it would appear, would it appreciably alter his position if it were to be admitted that the Pan-Africanists are ideologically tied to the Liberal Party of South Africa.

A national movement in South Africa has, in this period, to raise the demand for the full franchise, redistribution of the land and its ownership by the peasantry, trade union rights, etc.; i.e. ‘democratic’ demands. But the leadership of a national movement must see the working-class movement as the spearhead of the struggle. The need for proletarian demands will arise in the course of the struggle; but if and how they are to be presented will depend on the leadership. And only a leadership equipped with a scientific method will be able to pose such demands and to lead the struggle for them in a correct fashion. Moreover, only such a leadership will recognize the fluidity of the present situation, and will see the need to win from the movement at large, members to be trained as cadre. In South Africa there is a growing black proletariat and there are Africans and other NonEuropeans hungry for Marxist literature. And there is a tradition which stems from the early days of the left opposition.

Temporary Exhaustion Spontaneous mass action, now ‘led’ by the African National Congress, now by the Pan-Africanists, will act as a solvent of present social relations in South Africa. But while ripening the conditions for revolution, this can also lead to abortive struggles which can temporarily exhaust the people. Moreover, the passion of the people can be abused by a leadership who are in the business in order to bargain for concessions. National movements led by non-Marxists in India and Ghana have guided the countries back into the octopus grip of imperialism.

The matter of ‘setting up a provisional government in Britain, Ghana and elsewhere . . .’ puzzles me. A government consisting of whom? But, what is more important, why?

Benita Teper.

as the soldiers were assembled to listen to a band concert. Hundreds were killed and many hundreds more were wounded. After the surrender of the survivors, over 200 were shot in cold blood. The rest were sent to Africa. Thas was in September, 1917. After the October Revolution, the French Army authorities shipped some of them to the Black Sea as recruits for the White Army. There a number of these men were executed by the Tsarist officers under French imperialist ‘protection’ for insubordination and attempted desertion to the Reds.

That is the true story of the Russian soldiers in France during the First World War. Clearly, only a Trotskyist would contemplate recalling such a story in the France of De Gaulle. But was it necessary for Khrushchev to invent this legend of Russian soldiers gladly serving French Imperialism?

Perhaps it should also be mentioned that when the French authorities began their moves against the Russian brigades in the Spring of 1917, they suppressed a Russian Socialist paper, Nashe Slovo, published in Paris, which they said had got into the soldiers’ hands and corrupted their military morals. The editor was deported to Spain. His name was L. D. Trotsky, and it would be surprising if either Malinovsky or Khrushchev has forgotten the role hé played in those stirring times.

By A LONDON BUSMAN Staff shortage on London Transport continues to grow weekly and stands at present at 4,352 vacancies. This staff shortage is the greatest single factor in the ever-worsening working .conditions. The LTE apparently is unable to recruit and hold staff with a turnover of 200-300 crews a week. At no time in London Transport’s history has any management been so discredited and its policies sc hopelessly exposed to everybody connected with it.

But in this situation the dis-satisfaction (desperation?) of the crews is not finding direct expression through packed Union meetings and militant action. Indeed a lot of the dissatisfaction is being turned on to the Union, not without reason. But to point to apathy amidst anger and conclude that nothing can be done yet, only leads those busmen who want to do something about it, backwards, not forwards. What is needed is a discussion on what to do now.

For instance a closer look at the staff shortage is needed in order to see if there is more in it than meets the eye. The figure of 4,352 is about the highest for over two years. If the service cuts of 1958 had not taken place it would have stood at over 7,000. Does 55 Broadway (headquarters of the LPTB) really care about staff shortage? It would seem not, in spite of the large-scale advertising campaign on the Tubes (next to adverts for Tube staff!). Incidents of potential recruits being turned down and told ‘No Vacancies’ are becoming too numerous to be ignored.

It is time that the Union took up the question of control of recruitment by the Union as in other industries (Docks, Printing, etc.). If the LTE cannot or won’t find the staff then the Union should investigate why. If the LTE is seriously concerned about this it will co-operate, if it isn’t then the 40,000 drivers and conductors who have to put up with the results of understaffing—gaps in service, long queues —should be told why.

Crews work overtime for living wage It is an understandable fact that it is very difficult for busmen to live on their flat earnings (5s. an hour for 42 hours less tax and stamps). Hence most crews work either overtime or on their restday, while some work both. With the staff shortage plenty of overtime is available. In some garages there was, up to a few weeks ago, no limit on what hours drivers and conductors worked—this, with 100 per cent. Union organization!

In four weeks last month, 42,000 rest days and an equivalent of 29,000 rest days in overtime were worked, a total of 71,000 rest days. No wonder that Transport boss Burnell said he couldn’t see that this was the time to sign the ‘Overtime Agreement’, which he had already agreed to, and make it operative. The Trade Group Committee through the Delegate Conference has brought it into effect without Burnell’s signature.

This means that only 12 hours’ overtime can be worked in Published by Socialist Labour League, 186 Clapham High St., London, SW4 Registered at the GPO as a newspaper any payroll week. That no overtime can be worked on spreadover duties over 94 hours long, on night buses, on staff or bank buses, or on rest days. This is a long overdue working condition that is to be backed up by disciplinary measures against any member breaking it. Not only is it in the interests of all crews and the passengers but in the long-term must compel the LTE to open its doors a little and let some staff on to the job.

But why, might you ask, is the LTE in favour of keeping a staff shortage? The answer to that is not too far away in the future. We are in the midst of a £10 million conversion scheme of trolleybuses to diesels. At the same time the new’ wonder bus’ the 68-seater ‘Routemaster’ is being gradually introduced as the bus to replace the trolleybus.

Routemasters mean capacity loads There is no doubt this is a tremendous technical improvement over the standard 56-seater, as far as comfort for passengers and crew go. But it is after all, a 68-seater, with 5 standing makes 73, that is 12 more than the standard ‘RT’. Of course the converted trolley crews have a net gain of two,’ because trolleys carry 70 with 5 standing.

This is the idea! Get the Routemasters running in Central London on the converted trolley routes. Then when the central busmen suddenly realise that ‘RMs’ mean larger capacity buses and start demanding ‘No standing’ the LTE can turn round and point to the ex-trolley crews from whom they have had no complaints.

This is where the staff shortage comes in. If the ‘RMs’ are to replace 56 seaters they will do so on a proportional basis which will mean cutting out staff. If there is a large staff shortage this can be done without provoking a redundancy struggle. The fact that the passengers have been suffering under the effects of staff shortage for several years will not make them sympathetic to action by the busmen. In other words the staff shorage is a conspiracy against the busmen and the passengers aimed at increasing the work and takings and avoiding anything like what happened in Sheffield last year.

In Sheffield the Labour Council introduced large capacity buses and planned a 3 for 4 conversion, i.e. one crew in four redundant. A lock-out ensued because the crews refused standing passengers. London Transport hopes to achieve the same without a strike by having a staff shortage.

Demand ‘No standing’

Thus busmen must start preparing now. The trolley men should demand ‘No standing’ passengers on ‘Routemasters’

and take this to the Central Delegate Conference to get unity with the diesel crews now. This must become the central demand of London busmen in 1960 and a campaign to explain why to the Trade Union and Labour movement should be carried out right up to 1962, when RMs will replace 56 seaters.

Printed by Plough Press Ltd. (TU), r.o. 180 Clapham High St, London SW4