The Newsletter, vol. 4 no. 158

By OUR INDUSTRIAL CORRESPONDENT PORTWORKERS in Liverpool and Manchester are now leading the fight for the 40-hour week and increases in wages. Their struggle, which has temporarily come to an end, resulted in the best-supported strike seen on the Merseyside in years. Only supervisory and administrative staff remained at work. Spokesmen of the Dock Labour Board declared: ‘We have had strikes before but the port has never been brought to a standstill in four days.’

in 1955, the Communist Party split the unity in the ports Mr. Tim O’Leary, national docks secretary of the and as a result it has not been possible to get united action Transport and General Workers’ Union, condemned the on a national scale since that time. strike as ‘Communist inspired’. So did his local The press would have us believe ‘hat the strike was the official, Mr. O’Hare. If either of these gentlemen were result of an inter-union war. It was nothing of the sort. seriously seeking the real cause of the strike, they Blue and white card holders struck work together and needed only to attend any of the strike meetings and returned together as a disciplined body. The Financial listen to the talk ‘of those who were present.

Times on June 29 described the strike as one which ‘arose They would have learned that the strike in every way out of an issue which is likely to become all too familiar reflected the feelings of the men, who are thoroughly disin the coming months—a wage claim’. They are quite contented with the wages they are getting. But to this right. It shows at least that the employing class are not type of trade union official, more wages and 40-hours taken in by the Red bogey. are just simply Red propaganda. All eyes in dockland are now turned to the wage One of the weaknesses of the strike was the fact that negotiations between the unions and the Dock Labour it was not planned in advance in conjunction with repre- Board on July 12. A national portworkers’ liaison comsentatives from other ports. That is why there was diffi- mittee should be set up immediately. This committee culty in winning the support of the London men whose would have as its immediate objective the preparation of discontent with their wages is not so great as those in a national struggle in the event of the men’s demands not the northern ports. being met. It would also begin a rea! struggle against ‘This is where the policy of the Communist Party over victimization and for the reinstatement of Bro. McKechnie, the past five years has continuously weakened portworkers. the Liverpool portworker who has been victimized as a By failing to support the recognition strike of the NASD result of his militant activity.

By OUR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT GAITSKELL has won a hollow victory. The vote of confidence of the Parliamentary Labour Party is in no sense a victory for Right-wing policy. It was simply an attempt by the stage managers at Transport House to gain some favourable press publicity for the leader. It reminds one of the great ovation given to Herbert Morrison at the 1952 Morecambe conference almost immediately after the conference had thrown him off the National Executive Committee.

The decision of the Victory for Socialism group of Crosland and George Brown are heading for a split, unMPs to vote against Gaitskell was correct. It follows less they get their own way. This is the real state of their timely statement calling for him to resign. This affairs which VFS must measure up to. firmness will bring good results but it must not be the At the same time as the Parliamentary Labour Party means of inducing complacency in the critical days that were voting their pious resolution on Gaitskell, Frank lie ahead. The Right wing are going to fight in every Cousins made one of the most forthright speeches he has way possible to maintain their tight bureaucratic grip yet made on the future of the Labour Party. Speaking on the Labour Party. to the Scottish conference of his union he said in effect They will expel Left Labour MPs and proscribe Victory that Gaitskell was not a socialist. for Socialism. The annual conference in October will Cousins denounced the compromise on Clause Four as therefore be a dress rehearsal for what is a life and death ‘watered-down Tory policy’. Speaking about the new issue for the Labour Party. The real decisions will be Right-wing defence policy he declared: ‘We do not believe made afterwards. Gaitskell, Sir Thomas Williamson, (Continued on back page)

JULY 2, 1960

(2) What Led up to the ‘Emergency’

MUCH still remains obscure about the events in Kenya leading up to the ‘emergency’ of 1952. What is clear, however, is that ‘Mau-Mau’ was a myth invented by the settlers and the Government in order to justify a policy of repression—this does not, of course, rule out the possibility that some of the ruling class really believed in this myth. It ‘s clear, too, that the ‘Mau-Mau Myth’ is being used today in Kenya in order to justify the continued detention of Jomo Kenyatta and other leaders, and to restrict the development of the political parties and trade unions. (There can be no doubt that this has been effective to some extent. Contrast the agitation which has gone on in Britain for the release of Hastings Banda with that in support of Kenyatta. But then, Banda is known as a Christian and, it is hoped he is, a conciliator; Kenyatta has the reputation of being a Marxist and is known as a determined opponent of the ruling class in Kenya!)

There are at the moment disagreements between the ‘moderate’ and ‘extremist’ sections of the ruling class in Kenya. Blundell and the New Kenya Group stand for a policy of concessions to the Right-wing of the National Movement; Cavendish-Bentick and Briggs are opposed to any constitutional changes. Both are now prepared to consider, however, the establishment of so-called African ‘yeoman-farmers’ on the land of the White Highlands. They see the need to create a strata of middle-class farmers with an interest, like themselves, in the private ownership of land. Both, too, are resolutely opposed to the campaign being waged by the main parties and groups representing the workers and peasants for the release of Kenyatta.

What is there behind the ‘Mau-Mau myth’; and why does Jomo Kenyatta enjoy such universal support among Africans and universal execration among the British in Kenya? These are the problems which we will try to examine in the present article and the one which follows.

Ever since 1952 the racialists have run a continuous campaign of vilification against the main political organizations of the African people. The Corfield Report is the latest in this series. There is, however, one book which provides an antidote to all of these. It is a vividly written, first-hand account of what really happened in Kenya during the ‘emergency’! In this article we have relied partly on this book, partly on official reports and also on the experiences which one of us actually underwent.

The Corfield Report a deeply ‘racialist? document The first point to be made is that the Corfield Report is as deeply racialist as anything that ever came out of Verwoerd’s South Africa or Hitler’s Germany. It contains such phrases as: ‘Mau-Mau was a violent and wholly evil manifestation of . . . nationalism’, and ‘there is a fundamental difference between the European and the African social system’. It maintains that ‘the African’ suffers from ‘social and mental stagnation’, that there is a fundamental ‘schizophrenic tendency in the African mind’, that ‘he’ is ‘unconstrained and violent’.

1 Muga Gicaru, Land of Sunshine. Lawrence & Wishart. 1958. 16s. By JAMES BAKER AND MASINDE MOTO There is no such person as ‘the African’; there are only peasants, farmers, workers, teachers, scientists and engine drivers, who differ widely among themselves, and who also resemble their counterparts in other countries. All are united in demanding the end of colonial oppression.

The Corfield Report is based on the ‘big lie’

The Corfield Report is not a historical document—although this is what it claims to be. Corfield is an acknowledged supporter of colonialism. He has set out to justify the policy of the Kenya Administration, of which he was a:member. He has used evidence mainly derived, he claims, from the secret reports uf ‘informers’ in the files of Government House, Nairobi. Some of these are from government officials and missionaries.2, Others are from paid informants in the employ of the Special Branch. This is a tangle of lies, distortions, special pleading, sophistries and bloody ignorance. From the point of view of history it is not worth even the paltry sums which were doubtless paid out to ‘Henry’ and the other narks who are quoted in the report.

The struggle of the people of Kenya against their oppressors has, finally, involved the whole population. But in the beginning it was mainly the Kikuyu and later the Luo peoples who were concerned: for this reason they have been among the most militant and best organized. The aim of the ruling class has always been to maintain so-called ‘tribal’ divisions and to play one group off against another by making small concessions. One of the purposes of the Corfield Report is to establish that the resistance movement of the people of Kenya has been purely a Kikuyu phenomenon. Thus an attempt is made to establish connections between the Kikuyu Association (1920-22), the Kikuyu Central Association (1925-40), the Kenya African Study Union (1944-46) and the Kenya African Union (1946-52). Each of these organizations was proscribed, and later another under a different name was set up to continue the struggle. Each organization was stronger and more inclusive than the one which preceded it In 1952, just before it was proscribed, the Kenya African Union, under the leadership of Kenyatta, had a paid-up membership of about 100,000. This was the . Strongest organization of the Kenya people which had ever existed. It was a clear threat to settler domination.

The campaign against Kenyatta and the K AU The Kenya African Union was campaigning for a series of limited democratic demands: for freedom of speech and essembly, for democratic elections on a single roll, for the end of racial discrimination in employment, education and housing, for the enactment of minimum wage legislation and for universal, free and compulsory education. As far as land questions were concerned KAU asked, not for the dispossession of European land owners, but for ‘the distribution of all unoccupied land’.

2 Corfield pays a warm tribute to the valuable work done by missionaries who exercise the art of ‘keeping their ears close to the ground’, and who accept guidance on what ‘intelligence’ to seek. Doubtless the missionaries will be annoyed with Corfield for blowing the gaff in this way!

The relative moderation of this programme did not prevent the settlers, and their tools the Kenya Government, from regarding KAU as a subversive organization. The organ of the settlers, the Kenya Electors’ Union ‘Newsietter’, stated in its issue of November, 1952 (i.e., just after the declaration of the “emergency’):

*. . . the Electors’ Union has been watching Kenyatta for some time . .. he is cunningly blending Marxist propaganda with the evocation of Kikuyu ‘“Nationalistic” aspirations. Lee Already in 1948, it stated, the Electors’ Union had represented to the Government that:

‘, . . the evidence of subversive propaganda is sufficient to justify this Committee in wanting action against Kenyatta and others under the Deportation Ordinance, and that this Committee urges the Member for Law and Order to take such action forthwith.’

Thus the settlers had been demanding action against Kenyatta and KAU for more than four years before the actual declaration of the ‘emergency’. By 1952 there had developed a combination of circumstances which led the Kenya Government to accede to this demand.

Since the end of the war, in 1946, the African Revolution had been gathering momentum all over the Continent. Some of Kenya’s workers and peasants had travelled abroad in the forces during the war; they had experienced the ‘greater freedom and equality of Europe and the Middle East. The post-war years had seen the development of militant trade unions; there had been strikes among workers in Mombasa and in Nairobi in which the police were called out; there were strikes, too, for higher wages among workers on the European-owned coffee plantations. There were riots among peasant stockowners, also; who objected to the compulsory sales and inoculation of ther cattle, a boycott of European brewed beer was inaugurated.

This was a situation of rapid deterioration from the settlers’ point of view. Something had to be done to halt this process. So far there had been no hint in public of any terrorist activity, or a secret society, although Corfield alleges that the secret reports of the time were full of such information. We do know, however, that in August, 1952, the European Elected Members of the Kenya Assembly, led by the ‘moderate’ Michael Blundell, had threatened that the Europeans ‘might take matters into their own hands if the forces of law and order did not deal immediately with the present lawlessness throughout the country.’ There followed, apparently, attempts by the police to indict various political leaders on charges of sedition, but this proved impossible. Again the European Elected Members issued demands: this time there be a Declaration of a State of Emergency in certain areas and that the leaders of KAU be dealt with under the Emergency regulations.

The declaration of the ‘emergency’

Finally, the Government in London acceded to the representations of the settlers; a State of Emergency was declared on October 20, 1952. All the main political leaders were arrested; there was at tirst no reaction from the people; they were, apparently, bewildered by this sudden move. They did not know what was to come next. They were not left long in doubt. The processes of arrests, screening, deportations, concentration camps and tortures began.

We will deal with the consequences of these actions in our next article.

Another round in the two-year-old debate betweeen Moscow and Peking was disclosed in a June 12 article in Pravda labelling as ‘Left sectarian’ the position of ‘some persons’ who ‘mistakenly consider the course of achievement of peaceful co-existence of countries with different political systems, the struggle to halt the arms race and to strengthen peace and friendship among peoples and talks between leaders »f socialist and capitalist countries as some kind of deviation from the position of Marxism-Leninism.’

The ‘some persons’ referred to, are without doubt the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, who have been conducting a vigorous campaign, particularly since Khrushchev’s visit to the U.S., debunking the build-up of Eisenhower as a ‘man of peace’ and deriding as ‘the height of naivety’ the ‘illusions of certain Communists’ that Eisenhower was doing anything more than covering up the imperialist war drive with seace phrases.

The Pravda article is ostensibly devoted to a discussion of Lenin’s book, ‘Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder’, published in 1920. Pravda pays ritual obeisance to Lenin, then goes on to do a typical Stalinist hatchet job on the Chinese ‘sectarians’. The opinions of these critics of the ruling group in the Soviet bureaucracy are misrepresented, lumped together with vastly different opinions and summarily denounced. Khrushchev and the Khrushchev-sponsored 20th and 21st congresses of the Soviet Communist Party are repeatedly quoted as the latest Leninist authority.

(This, incidentally, lays to rest the widespread speculations in the capitalist press following the Summit collapse that an alliance of Chinese CP leaders and a ‘Left’ faction of ‘old-line Stalinists’ in the Soviet Union had deprived Khrushchey of any real power and had taken over the reins in the Kremlin.)

Pravda’s representation of the Chinese CP’s position on foreign policy is false and dishonest in every way— and not only because it fails to mention the Chinese directly or to quote from any resolution, speech or article of theirs.

For example, Pravda says: “The desire to build socialism on the basis of imperialist handouts (intended as a reference to Yugoslavia) or attempts to skip entire historic stages (intended as a reference to China) serve only the enemies of the working class interested in weakening This is a characteristic Stalinist amalgam. It joins under one blanket condemnation the Chinese CP leaders who have been attacking the Kremlin’s conciliation to imperialism and the Yugoslav CP leaders, who as ‘neutralists’ have been promoting ‘co-existence’ even more

ardently than Khrushchev himself.

Moreover, this passage of the article contains a threat to the Chinese, since in the language of the Soviet bureaucracy, the phrase, ‘serving the enemies of the working class’, is usually reserved for those the Kremlin wants to destroy. Inside the USSR it has been applied, as during the Moscow Trials, to victims of a purge.

Furthermore, Pravda’s allegation that the Chinese have opposed: Khrushchev’s policy of ‘peaceful co-existence’ is untrue. The Chinese CP leaders 1re’ pursuing far more limited objectives than the repudiation of the Stalinist policy of ‘peaceful co-existence’. Nor are they interested in relating their criticisms of the Kremlin’s foreign policy to an attack on its basic source—the bureaucratic dogma of building ‘socialism in one country’—for they themselves adhere to that dogma. Thus it would be a bad mistake to read more in the statements than is really there.

It is true that the Chinese quote voluminously from Lenin in their arguments against Khrushchev—and this is all to the good as far as it goes.

The Chinese CP leaders, particularly since the Camp David meeting, have sharply attacked Krushchev’s statements that Eisenhower ‘is genuinely in favour of peace’ or that Eisenhower has split from the forces in Washington that are conducting the war drive. (It should be noted ‘that the Communist Party in the U.S. has parroted every one of these statements.)

The Chinese, on the other hand, have said that the war drive grows out of the organic laws of the capitalist system in its imperialist stage; that the threat of war will continue so long as capitalism exists; that Lenin’s concept of the struggle against war being synonymous with the revolutionary struggle against capitalism holds good today; and, that Eisenhower, far from being a ‘man of peace’ was conducting a fake peace campaign in the interests of the imperialists ‘who would never lay down their butcher knives’ unless forced to do so by the revolutionary masses.

‘Peaceful transformation’

The Chinese CP leaders also appeared to be challenging another ‘theoretical’ revelation of the 20th congress of the Soviet CP, in addition to the one that declared Lenin’s theory of the inevitability of war .mder capitalism to be outmoded. The Chinese have spoken against the Khrushchev pronouncement that in view of the growing might of ‘socialism’ in the Soviet orbit the working class can now come to power ‘peacefully’, that is, with the capitalist class relinquishing state power in recognition of the superior strength of socialism. Against this the Chinese have restated Lenin’s conception shat the working class must be prepared for capitalist violence aimed at preventing a peaceful socialist transformation—and they have cited numerous current examples to demonstrate its continued validity.

It is understandable, therefore, that an informed observer like Richard Lowenthal should write in the New Republic, May 30, that: “The Chinese documents, with their stress on “uninterrupted revolution”

and their primacy of international revolutionary solidarity over diplomatic manoeuvring are remarkable for a Trotskyite rather than a Stalinist flavour.’

Much as Trotskyists would like to believe that the leaders of the Chinese CP have embraced their outlook, to think the Chinese have become Trotksyists would be an illusion. The fact that Chinese Trotskyism has been and continues to be subjected to bureaucratic persecution by the Mao regime is not the whole story. What is crucial to an understanding of the Peking-Moscow struggle is that contradictory interests of two bureaucracies and not Leninist principles are really involved.

The terminology of Marxism and Leninism acts merely as a sort of code-language in which these bureaucratic entities clothe their material and political interests. Such a hideous perversion of Marxism-Leninism serves primarily the purpose of refraining from frankly expressing what each side wants for fear of opening the door to the working people to express their interests in unmistakable terms. .

All this is in sharp contrast to the tradition and practice of Bolshevism in the first years of the Soviet state, when all differences were openly debated before the masses and the ranks of the party participated in the shaping of every major decision.

(To be continued next week.)

(Reprinted from the Militant, June 27, the American socialist weekly.)

‘ JNDUSTRY

We here reproduce part of the verbatim report of the evidence given on May 23, 1935, before the Royal Commission on the Private Manufacture of and Trade in Arms, by the late Harry Pollitt, on behalf of the Communist Party.

What is it that we propose? We propose the prohibition of private manufacture and sale of armaments and munitions, and we do not do it on the ground that this will be a lesser evil of the working masses, but that by the prohibition of private manufacture the whole of the trade could be concentrated, the whole of the fight against war could be concentrated against the Government, which would then be fully responsible for whatever production , was taking place in the armaments industries. In that connection we give very great importance to our proposals of full publicity for all state construction of armaments and munitions.

No doubt, Sir, you will have read Mr. Baldwin’ S speech in the House last night, where he says: ‘If only we knew what was going on behind the scenes!’ We are in hearty sympathy with that, and especially if we only knew what went on behind the armament scenes. If every contract had to be tabled, if we knew exactly what it was for, then the whole of the people who are against war would be in a more effective position to fight it. We are proposing the complete abolition of the export licensing system and a complete ban on the export of all armaments and munitions.

Finally, we are proposing heavy penalties for any default on the above provisions, and the establishment of elected workers’ control committees in the armament factories, and a central workers’ control commission elected from the working-class organizations, with full powers of inspection and calling for documents, to check the operation of these provisions and issue periodical reports. We believe, Sir, that this trade is so terrible that there are no penalties that are too drastic; and for our part we would welcome a recommendation on the part of the Commission that no penalty could be too drastic for those who violate the provisions which are finally agreed upon.

Now, Sir, I should like to draw your attention—it is

ee eee a rough analogy, but we find it, I believe, to give an important: clue to how this proposal practically could be operated. In the coalfields of this country there is a custom for men in a pit to have the right to elect what is called a pit inspector. This system functions better in Fifeshire than in any other part of the British coalfields. The men elect this pit inspector. He then has the task of examining a particular group of mines, going into the whole question of their safety and making recommendations to! the management, which must be carried out. After each inspection he must report to the miners in that pit on what he has found and what he has proposed. Now, it is only rough, but it is some such principle that we believe could be applied to an armaments industry under workers’ control. I make it clear that the control we have in mind is not a control exercised by the trade union leaders associated with the Trades Union Congress, that these workers’ control representatives are elected persons actually working in the factories, and elected by their mates in the factories, and their election subsequently endorsed by the trade union branches to which they belong. These committees would naturally have to have the fullest facility for going into the source of every order, for findout where the order was, for full examination of the books in order that there should be no opportunity of pulling wool over the eyes of this Commission protest. Failure to organize practical means of resistance and support led to demoralization of tenants and a steady decline of opposition to the increases.

In the November 14 issue of The Newsletter, the Socialist Labour League said: ‘The urgent task now is to ensure that the St. Pancras tenants are aot left to fight alone. The Central Committee should take every step to. mobilize the support of the entire London Labour movement behind the St. Pancras: tenants. They should convene an all-London Conference to which they should invite all tenants’ organizations, shop stewards’ committees, trade union branches and Labour Parties.

‘The Conference should aim at organizing mass pickets to resist evictions. It should also try to get jobs and factories to pledge industrial action if the Tories try evictions or insist on going ahead with their scheme to increase rents.’

Instead of this positive and practical way of fighting, the Central Committee, with a large Communist Party influence, used demagogic phrases and prestige-winning demonstrations which frittered away the genuine desire of the tenants to fight.

John Lawrence, prominent CP leader in St. Pancras, . turned up at the court on Tuesday ringing a large hand bell. Speaking at the meeting in Fitzroy Square he said: ‘The Tories have claimed to be £340,000 in debt but they have lied. And now Don Cook and his fellow heroes have said “No” to the Tories, and when you get some people to say “No”, you must back. them up. We are

RENTS cil Tenants’ Committee in St. Pancras has been ordered by the Court to pay his rent arrears and quit his house within two months.

The St. Pancras tenants have stubbornly resisted the increases since they were notified of them last September. These increases, ranging from 16s. to £3, are a continuation of Tory attacks working-class on rents started in 1955 by the slashing of subsidies to local councils, councils, by the derequsitioning acts of 1956 and by the Rent Act in 1957. These Tory policies have given to the rentiers and financiers over £150 million extra income, at the expense of working-class living standards.

The increases are now being forced home under the threat of evictions in St. Pancras and elsewhere, at a time when the Tories apply a credit squeeze because of economic difficulties and plan to create a bigger army of unemployed. Rent increases, sackings and higher mortgage rates are all aimed at ‘disciplining’ workers to accept the ‘cut the costs’ offensive of the employers.

Two hundred demonstrators outside Bloomsbury Court were told by Mr. Peter Richards, chairman of the meeting: “This court case is a crucial stage in the fight, and we must bring as much public pressure as possible on the Housing Management Committee.’ But the ‘crucial stage’ of the fight had already passed.

The most critical stage of the fight was when 4,000 out of 4,350 failed to return the means test forms in November last year. With the vast majority of tenants behind them, the Central Tenants’ Committee should have begun to mobilize the labour movement in St. Pancras behind the tenants, but they failed to do so. Instead of working-class action the St. Pancras Central Committee relied on marches, petitions to Tory Councillors, and meetings of men of peace, we are not in favour of using bamboo poles. We must make a pledge that we will not pry any rent until these eviction notices are withdrawn by these stinking, dirty, terrible Tories.’ The chairman then concluded the meeting by demanding that the Tories must negotiate with the ‘tenants!

CAMPAIGN

Over the week-end of June 26, area conferences of the Socialist Labour League were held in Manchester and London. These conferences’ had as their keynote the preparation of the Labour movement to meet the great crisis created by the Gaitskell leadership.

The two most important decisions were the turn towards recruitment of youth and trade unionists.

A thorough examination of the possibilities of the League in industry were made and a lively discussion took place on the Marxist education of potential trade union recruits and those who are already members of the Socialist Labour League.

The conferences noted the great expansion of the Labour Party Young Socialists in the important cities. It was decided to see to it that all young members of the League were active members of the Young Socialists and to discuss regularly the progress of this work on the leading committees of the League.

The educational background for the activity amongst the youth and in industry is to be provided by the organization of a special summer school which will be held at the League’s centre starting on Sunday, July 13. This school will deal with the history, policy and organizational method of the Socialist Labour League. The lecturers will be drawn from leading members of the League.

JuLyY 2, 1960:

SIX summers ago at Geneva, the Great Powers presided over a cease-fire agreement between French imperialism and the Indo-Chinese Communist Party of Viet-Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh.

General elections were to be held by July, 1956, in both North and South Indo-China. They have not yet taken place, at any rate in the South. The U'S.backed French rulers there say that the Communists cannot meet the stipulated standards of free baHoting, but they are in no position to face free elections.

The New York Times wrote in 1954 of the French puppet regime of Bao Dai (saved by the Geneva agreement), ‘a barren dictatorship—barren because there is no effective dictator. . . . Bao is an evil venial man... an imperial abomination.’ Just like Franco, Chiang Kai-shek and Syngman Rhee, in fact.

This Geneva meeting of 1954 did produce other results. It found U.S. imperialism in a tight spot. Soviet Russia had recovered from the war-time destruction. Two-thirds of the world’s population was already moving into anti-imperialist struggles. The U.S. ‘police-action’ in Korea had broken down and U.S. was hated as an aggressor throughout the colonial world. China was defending her southern border by massing forces to help Viet Minh, whose peasant army had stormed the French stronghold of Dien Bien Phu.

World-wide revulsion followed the Pentagon’s threat to use the H-bomb, but at Geneva Eisenhower beamed his ‘peace’ smile and Bulganin proclaimed the smile to. be genuine. Indo-China was divided up and the Asian Revolution embodied in the Viet Minh armies was halted in its tracks. U.S. imperialism received absolutions for its sins, ten years of nuclear war preparations. At Geneva Bulganin enabled Eisenhower to parry the anti-imperialist onslaught.

The Bandung Conference The Bandung Conference of Afro-Asian states in spring, 1955, showed what the Russian and Chinese leaders paid for the Geneva ‘deal’. The Conference represented leaders claiming to represent no more than 35 millions of the 200 millions of Africa. No invitations were sent to Kenyatta or the African National Congress.

The Conference itself bore witness to the forces bearing down on imperialism, but the symptoms of these forces are not the same as their effective action. The delegations of the Philippines, Pakistan, Thailand, Turkey, Iran and Liberia represented regimes directly subsidized by Wall Street. They were without doubt briefed how to act by State Department officials.

In a speech Chou En-Lai said that he was against such Western imperialist military alliances as NATO and SEATO, but in the voting he went along with a clause giving ambiguous approval to these alliances which Wall Street has been building since 1945 for the attack on the Soviet bloc.

The New York Times, voice of Wall Street, commented on the day after the Conference: ‘it was an experiment to begin with. In our judgment the experiment succeeded beyond what we had a right to hope.’ That newspaper welcomed the statement of the Conference condemning colonialism, since it proposed no action to end colonialism.

Filled with the ‘Geneva spirit’, the New York Daily Worker wrote on April 26, 1955, ‘The Bandung Conference proved that countries with differing economic: systems and political ideas can achieve peaceful co-existence.’ It quoted with approval Premier U Nu of Burma: ‘The Chinese played their part well at Bandung. They refrained from making disparaging remarks against theUnited States. They could have engaged in them if they had wanted to, just as some Western nations attacked Communism.’

Bandung paraded forces under leaders who refused to. prepare for battle. The Geneva spirit was only a tempor-. ary stalemate in the epoch of wars and revolutions. Nothing at Geneva obliged the Russians or Chinese: leaders to be silent about the crimes of imperialism. Nothing forced them to make a virtue of the necessity to. draw back in face of the Pentagon’s H-bomb threats.. - Nothing had, or still has, changed in the underlying an-. tagonism between the imperialists 1nd those whom they have made or hope to make their victims.

Later in 1955 the 10th Assembly of the United Nations found the facial expressions and deportment of Dulles. and Molotov quite ‘correct’, much more replete with ‘Geneva spirit’ than those of Eisenhower and Khrushchev in Paris this year.

Delegates of 14 Afro-Asian states, headed by India,,. tried to get discussed the appeal >»f France’s oppressed. colony, Algeria. The majority of delegates, from USA, Britain, France, Holland and the stooge votes they con-. trolled, voted to rule the appeal off the agenda. So much. for the ‘Geneva spirit’.

These experiences show that the aims and interests of imperialism cannot be reconciled with those of their colonial slaves. On ‘neaceful co-existence’, Lenin wrote: in November, 1920: ‘We have now passed from the arena. of war to the arena of peace, and we have not forgotten that war will come again. As long as capitalism andsocialism remain side by side we canaot live peacefully—. the one or the other will be the victim in the end.’

This does not at all mean that war is inevitable. It means that lasting peace can be obtained by the socialist programme of organizing and strengthening the working-. class and the anti-imperialist forces throughout the world. in the struggle against imperialism. There need be no, question of ‘waiting for the war’.

But preaching ‘peaceful co-existence’ disarms the op-. pressed peoples and classes in the world, without satisfying the imperialists. They need concrete performance, they require, as their side of the bargain, that the preachers of ‘peaceful co-existence’ can bring it about, by getting the oppressed colonial peoples to co-exist peacefully with their oppressors. This is the real reason why it cannot work.

SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE BIRMINGHAM BRANCH announces ....

A series of Four Public Lectures and Discussions to be held in the ‘HOPE AND ANCHOR’ (Edmund St.), upstairs room Second Talk—WEDNESDAY, JULY 5, at 7.45 p.m.

The Apprentice Movement; Labour Youth Organization; Youth’s Place in the Fight for Socialism Speaker: BARRY JONES (an active Young Socialist)

ALL NEWSLETTER READERS INVITED

WHENEVER Khrushchev says something more or less sensible, a little investigation often shows he is paraphrasing Trotsky. The latest example of this occurs in his remarks at Bucharest in reply to the dubious Leninism put out from China. In this case the ‘source’ could well be Trotsky’s article in the News ‘Chronicle of March 25, 1940, where he wrote: ‘By anticipation it is possible to establish the following law. The more countries in which the capitalist system is broken, the weaker will be the resistance offered by the ruling class in other countries, the less sharp a character the socialist revolution will assume, the less violent forms the proletarian dictatorship will have.’

This was in flat contradiction to Stalin’s 1937 doctrine that ‘the closer we are to socialism the more enemies we shall have’, that ‘as we march towards socialism class ‘war must grow sharper’, which Khrushchev repudiated in his 20th Congress secret-session speech but which apparently remains orthodoxy in Peking.

Khrushchev rightly claims that his rocket threat played a major role in stopping the Suez war in 1956. (He might have acknowledged the contribution made by American policy, too; and perhaps mentioned the demonstration in Whitehall, though this ought not to be seen out of proportion.) But why was it necessary, through holding back the Iraqi Communists in 1958-59, to offset by political means what had been gained by military means in 1956? Why are there still U2 bases in the Middle East? * What Tito Did John Archer’s argument that the political concessions made by the world Communist movement during the second world war, under Soviet direction, were not necessitated by the military alliance between the Soviet Union and the Western Allies is confirmed by what happened in Yugoslavia. For a long time the Soviet Government refused not merely to send help to Tito’s partisans but even to give them recognition, or at the very least to stop supporting the ‘Royal Yugoslav’ government of King Peter and General Mikhailovich, who collaborated with the invaders. The Soviet leaders urged the Yugoslav Communists to remove references to the Communist Party from their proclamations (including, on one occasion, the slogan: ‘Long live Comrade Stalin!’). The Tito policy of combining the national struggle with the class struggle was condemned as hurtful to ‘Allied unity’.

Yet in May, 1943, a military mission was sent to the Yugoslav partisan headquarters by Allied HQ, Middle East, and a limited amount of aid from that quarter began to come through to the partisans. The British imperialists needed the help the Yugoslavs could give them in connection with the campaign in Italy, and were prepared to go further than the Soviet leaders believed (or pretended to believe?), for the sake of getting this help. In the autumn of the same year, learning of the meeting to be held in Moscow between the foreign ministers of the Allied states, Tito warned the Soviet Government that the Yugoslavs would on no account recognize the ‘Royal’ . government; and what was in effect an independent Yugoslay government was set up by the partisans. This was treated by the Russians as a stab in the back, a spanner thrown into the works of Allied unity, etc. But no one in the West seemed terribly upset; and at last, in February, 1944, a Soviet military mission was sent to Tito— months after the British officers had begun working with him.

The Yugoslav ‘Communists called the bluff of both the Western imperialists and the Moscow bureaucrats during the second world war. By so doing they ensured both the national and the secial liberation of their people. A sorry contrast was provided by what happened in the same period in Greece, where the Communist Party blindly followed Stalin’s disastrous directives. There is an illuminating pamphlet in which the Greek experience is examined comparatively with that of Yugoslavia—How And Why The People’s Liberation Struggle of Greece Met With Defeat’, by S. Vukmanovic, published by the Yugoslav Embassy in London in 1950. Though the title is not exactly snappy by our standards, this little work is well worth asking for through the public library service.

Japan, Russia and Germany _ Gerry Healy made the point in these pages last week that events in Japan are of exceptional world importance because Japan is an imperialist country, and revolution there would therefore have especially deep repercussions. The Russia of 1917 was, of course, also an imperialist country, and one which had much in common with Japan—the interweaving of mediaeval relations with modern, the intimate connections with Asia, etc. Trotsky forecast that the first imperialist country to take the path of revolution as a result of the second world war would be Japan, and it looks as though his prophecy may now be in sight of coming true. _ There was a phase a few years after the war when it was official Stalinist doctrine that Japan, through having lost her colonies and being occupied by foreign troops, had ceased to be an imperialist country and become a colony. This was, of course, to provide ‘theoretical’ justification for some projected manoeuvre in Japanese politics. It was disturbingly reminiscent of the trend which appeared in Comintern policy in the 1920s to consider Germany as a ‘colonial country’ as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. Discussing certain moves made at the time of the French invasion of the Ruhr in 1923, a speaker at the Fifth Congress of the Comintern (1924) could comment that ‘Comrade Thalheimer appeared to base the tactical lines for the Communist Party on the assumption that all class contradictions had disappeared in Germany, and that in connection with the occupation of the Ruhr Germany had reverted to the economic primitivism of social conditions in Morocco’. Everyone knew that behind Thalheimer stood Radek and Bukharin, influential figures in the Soviet Communist Party who favoured a wager on the revenge-seeking element in the German capitalist class rather than on the German But in today’s very different conditions the most jingo sections in Japanese politics appear to be lined up with American imperialism, and room for wilful misunderstanding of the nature of the struggle in Japan is therefore much smaller.

In It .

It is to be hoped that current discussions about whether Marx has been proved wrong by recent history will lead to closer attention to what Marx actually wrote. other day a friend told me Marx said that the workers had nothing to lose but their chains— whereas, he triumphantly pointed out, the workers (or anyway, quite

a lot of them) have cars, houses, washing-machines, TV sets, etc.

Fortunately he was a reasonable type who agreed that the Communist Manifesto was originally written in German, and he could read that language. So I was able to JuLty 2, 1960 show him that the passage in question actually runs: ‘Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. In it the proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.’

Which is not the same idea at all.

BRIAN PEARCE

By W. HUNTER IN all important respects the new defence policy presented by the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party is the same as the old, with secondary adjustments to meet the present crisis in the Party. Labour’s Right-wing leaders are still determined to keep the party tied to a ‘nuclear strategy’ and military alliances directed against the Soviet Union and China. They feel, however, that Britain can no longer afford. to make its-own nuclear weapons. So they prefer to have them made in America.

‘A country of our size cannot remain’ an ‘independent nuclear power’ they tell us.

In 1957 it was said, Britain had to have the H-bomb, otherwise Mr. Aneurin Bevan or some other Foreign Minister would be going naked into the council chamber. ‘Without the bomb, how van we have control over America?’ Labour Party Right wingers were asking.

Now, the NEC declares, we must base our strategy on ‘military and not on prestige considerations’.

There is one thing certain—this NEC will never base its strategy on considerations of socialist internationalism.

The document makes no bones about its support for NATO. It announces not only support, but ‘loyal’ sup° And as America is to provide the “Western strategic ort.

deterrent’ the NEC says: ‘We must seek to obtain from the United States an undertaking that -hey will not use their strategic deterrent without the agreement of NATO. A comforting proposition! The representatives of America’s rulers will be asked not to press the button without the agreement of an alliance they dominate.

‘In Liverpool last Saturday, Michael Foot said that the new NEC statement represented a move toward a better policy, it had adopted some of the proposals of the unilateralists. Such an idea is dangerous. It cuts across a forthright opposition to the NEC.

A sop to the Left What kind of move toward a better policy is really made when the NEC declares that the West must never be the first to use the H-bomb? The NEC accepts that those who at present control the H-bomb in their interests are going to continue to control it. They, and not the NEC will decide when and where the bomb is used.

How much further have we progressed when the NEC states it is opposed to Thor missile bases in this country? It is merely repeating a declaration it has made previously —while doing absolutely nothing about it.

The Right wing are certainly not moving closer to the unilateralist programme. On the cortrary, the statement has no other purpose but to defend Gaitskell and the Right-wing against the growing support for unilateralism.

For one thing, it is meant to give assistance to Mr. William Carron and other leaders whose unions have gone on record for unilateralism.

These leaders will hope to use their unions’ votes in support of the NEC at the Labour Party conference, on the basis that the new declaration comes close to what their own conferences decided.

Anything but downright and clear opposition to this declaration of the NEC can only assist the Right wing just as the failure of Left leaders to fight clearly and sharply on policies has assisted it in the past.

— Nssn Published by Socialist Labour League, 186 Clapham High St., London, SW4 Printed by Plough Press Ltd. (TU), r.o. 180 Clapham High St, London SW4 Registered at the GPO as a newspaper Tongue-in-cheek policies led Left-wing MPs to kill any fight against the foreign policy which the NEC issued at the last full conference of the Labour Party in 1958. These Left wingers declared then that the NEC was making a progressive move. All the Right wing had done was to fling a little bone in the direction of the Left —they opposed the building of missile bases before a fresh attempt to negotiate with Russia, and they criticized the H-bomb flights. But these declarations, and a phrase or two about easing tensions between East and West, were enough for Sydney Silverman to say that \the leaders had now adopted many ideas he and others Shad been pressing for many years.

When pressed, Michael Foot declared to the, Liverpool meeting that he, personally, thought that the néw defence document should be rejected. It is to be‘ hoped that this week’s Tribune will follow such a policy with no ambiguity.

GAITSKELL—(Continued from front page) defence depends on the greatest accumulation of weapons:

of destruction. The fallacy of that has been proved too cd often. . . . We do not want nuclear weapons either for defence or for attack. We believe we should create a. world where no one is going to attack us and we are not. going to attack them.’

Cousins stressed that his union had never been more popular on the basis of its advocacy of these policies. ‘Never,’ he said, ‘had the union’s policy brought so much public support from the ordinary people of Britain.’

The most urgent task in front of Victory for Socialism is to prepare for the Scarborough conference. A national conference of unions and organizations affiliated to the Labour Party should be called immediately after the TUC meets in September. This conference would pave the way for co-ordinated action at Scarborough. It could lay: down a policy which would assist delegates in concentrating their attention on the main points of the agenda. It could begin a discussion of a socialist policy for the future work of the Left wing of the Labour Party. It would demonstrate in.no uncertain manner to ihe Right wing that the Left is determined now to have a socialist change inside’ the Labour Party. We are not going to drift to the next election with a revised edition of the Gaitskell policy which lost the last election.

This is the time for urgent preparation. The Socialist Labour League calls upon all its supporters in the trade unions, Labour Parties, young socialists and CND to do everything in their power to strengthen the Left in the Labour Party by discussion and common action in preparation for the conference in October.