The Newsletter, vol. 4 no. 162

By E. YAMANISHI The great struggles of the Japanese students and workers involving almost the whole nation in May and June, forced the cancellation of Eisenhower’s visit and the resignation of the Kishi govenment. The following report is a full account of these events and also an assessment of the role played by the political parties. The report is sent exclusively to The Newsletter by E. Yamanishi, a Japanese socialist.

THE struggle of the Japanese people against the U.S.-Japanese Security Pact, which began in the early part of 1959, steadily gained in mass support as the negotiations for the Pact neared completion and the discussions in Parliament became more and more bitter. But in May, 1960, there began an entirely new stage of development of the mass movement, At midnight on May 15, the ruling Liberal-Democratic Party ensured the passing of the Pact by sheer physical force: opposition deputies were dragged from the House, all rules of procedure were broken, and the vote was taken in a matter of seconds. Henceforth the struggle against the pact took on a new tempo and rapidly extended in scope.

From May 15 till June 23, when Foreign Minister Fujiyama and American Ambassador MacArthur exchanged ratifications, the Anti-Pact struggle threw the Japanese people into a melting pot of excitement and anger. The whole area of the Houses of Parliament and the residence of Premier Kishi were completely surrounded by hundreds of thousands of workers, students, university teachers, intellectuals, Christians, Buddhists, housewives, shopkeepers, indeed every section of the population, all in furious protest against the Treaty.

The imminent prospect was that the Treaty would be Kishi said, to most humbly listen to the ‘voiceless voice automatically approved in the Upper House on June 18 of the nation’. (any bill which is passed by the Lower House is auto- Delegates from trade union and student organizations matically approved by the Upper House without any rushed to Tokyo from all over the country. The excitediscussion by the latter after 30 days). ment and indignation of the people grew in intensity Faced with this threat and the scheduled visit of Eisen- from one hour to the next. Hardly a single university or hower on June 19, the demonstrators were roused to new college could continue to function. Housewives, their heights of anger by the high-handed attitude of Kishi, who babies on their backs, no longer able to sit in front of declared that the demonstrators were nothing but a mob their radios and television sets, rushed to the Houses of of the lowest classes, dancing to the tune of a mere hand- Parliament and joined the demonstration. One girl from ful of agents of international ‘communism’. He wanted, (Continued on page 234)

By G. HEALY Once again Morgan Phillips staggers from the fast- up and down the country where young socialists were ness of Transport House in a last-ditch effort to save guilty of such crimes as the production of duplicated the Right wing from certain defeat at Scarborough. broadsheets airing their opinions. So severe is the crisis inside the party and so discredited His latest statement rambles on about bureaucracy on are Mr. Gaitskell and his immediate supporters that it Labour-controlled councils, but only a few weeks ago he is now left to the non-representative Phillips to fight proposed that the Parliamentary Labour Party should be what can only be for him a tiring rearguard action. independent of the party, in other words, a bureaucratic Mr. Phillips was not elected by anybody to the post of elite responsible to nobody. general secretary. He is an appointed, paid official of the He is very careful to avoid stating his position on party. The first and only time, to our knowledge, that Clause Four and the H-bomb. This is deliberate. He he decided to sample the democratic process in public was supported Morrison’s retreat from nationalization in 1948 when he stood for adoption as prospective Parliamentary and he has carried out the policy supporting the H-bomb candidate in a Derbyshire constituency. On that occasion adopted at the Brighton conference in 1957. In all he was decisively rejected. respects he is just as responsible and as guilty as the RightHe has, of course, remained silent during all those years wing Gaitskell clique. when the Right wing, step by step, moved further away This statement is an effort to sow some last minute from socialist policy. Whilst he now feels that young confusion in the constituencies. It will not be successsocialists should have their own organization, he readily ful. The Left have scored important victories on the Hacquiesced to the 1955 Margate decisions which were bomb and Clause Four. It should be possible without responsible for the party turning its back on youth. much difficulty to find another general secretary for the Phillips encouraged the full-time officials under his con- Labour Party who will be more responsive to these new trol to wage a series of witch-hunts in constituency parties policy changes than Mr. Phillips.

JAPAN (continued from front page) a Tokyo suburb, who had never demonstrated before, went to the demonstration with her friend carrying a placard ‘Let’s Demonstrate Too’. Soon they were joined by another thousand citizens, members of no organization, one of them the wife of a factory owner who had just fought against a strike of his employees.

Police brutally murder girl student On June 15, when student demonstrators tried to hold a protest rally in the Parliament grounds, armed police dispersed them with tear gas and batons (some were armed with steel batons). Hundreds of students and university teachers who had been anxiously watching their students and warning them against the Rightists’ brutal assault were seriously injured. A girl student of Tokyo University, daughter of a professor of Chuo University, was brutally murdered in this bloodiest attack by the frenzied armed police against a defenceless student group. The desperate and daring broadcast of announcer Shima of this bloody June 15 night, while he himself was gripped at the neck by the hand of one of the murderous police, lent great drama to the whole incident.

Alongside these demonstrations, organized workers independently proceeded to demonstrate their strength in strikes at their workshops and factories. The pressure of this upsurge of fighting spirit among the rank-and-file workers compelled the organization of several official strikes by the leaders of Sohyo (trade union federation).

On June 4, the members of the 350,000-strong National Railway Workers’ Union and other Sohyo-affiliated unions, together with members of the Zengakuren Students’ Federation, occupied the nation’s key stations from the preceding night to block railway traffic. In Tokyo, the railway traffic was completely stopped from 4 a.m. to 7 am. Train timetables were disrupted throughout the nation. Transport workers’. unions (comprising the workers on private railways, buses and street-cars) and Government and municipal workers in the capital were included in 57 unions of 5,600,000 workers who joined in ‘a general strike of two hours.

The biggest strike in Japanese history The National Federation of Coal Miners’ Unions, National Federation of Miners’ Unions, All-Japan Motor Car Industry Workers’ Unions, Amalgamated ° Printers’ Unions, National Federation of General Workers’ Unions etc., proclaimed a 24-hour strike while other unions in private industry also resorted to strike action. general strike of June 4 ended with success, backed by the sympathy of the whole people.

On June 18, Government and Municipal Workers’ Unions throughout the country held protest rallies within their working hours at their workplaces. On June 22, 111 unions of 6,000,000 members affiliated to Sohyo and other netural federations, entered the biggest strike in the whole history of Japan. That day, National Railway Workers’ Unions completely stopped trains throughout the whole country till 7 am. Sixty unions of workers on private railways stopped cars until 6 or 6.30 a.m. In the big cities like Tokyo and Osaka, city transport workers’ unions joined the general strike with a stoppage of buses and tramcars till 5 or 7 a.m.

Government and Municipal Workers’ Unions held protest rallies at their workplaces for up to two hours. Postal Service Workers’ Unions, Telephone and Telegraph Workers’ Unions did the same. The Teachers’ Union of - Aucust 13, 1960 Japan, one of the biggest unions in Japan, cancelled two hours of lessons to join the united protest rallies. Tanro (the National Federation of Coal Miners’ Unions, six biggest unions of National Miners’ Federation) stopped work for 24 hours. All unions affiliated to the Amalgamated Chemical Workers’ Federation struck for 12 to 24 hours. Other chemical workers’ leagues, All-Japan Transport Workers’ Unions, National Harbour Workers’ Union, National Federation of Printers’ Unions, All-Japan Motor Car Industry Workers’ Union, National Federation of Paper Pulp Workers’ Unions, Newspaper Workers’ Federation, All-Japan Red Cross Employees’ Union, all went on a limited one-hour strike or held protest rallies within work hours at their workplaces.

Eisenhower trip is cancelled The Anti-Treaty struggle and the movement against Eisenhower’s visit became intertwined. When Press Secretary Hagerty wanted to force his way to Tokyo from Haneda Airport on June 10 by car instead of by means of the helicopter which was kept ready to take him off, he was surrounded by an angry demonstration of some 4,500 workers and students for about an hour, and finally had to be rescued by his helicopter. Still Hagerty and Kishi declared there would be no change in their plan to go through with Eisenhower’s visit to Japan. On June 11, Japanese workers and students answered this challenge with a demonstration of 200,000 outside the Parliament, the Premier’s residence and the American Embassy. On June 16, the arrogant United States and Japanese govern‘ments were finally forced to give up the plan in deference to the anger of the whole nation, further aroused by the bloody events of the night of June 15, described above.

The capitalists counter-attack As a’ result of the tremendous struggle the Kishi: cabinet was forced to resign. However, despite the tremendous upheaval caused by the workers’ and students’ struggle, and the large number of middle-class people aroused to political action, the Japanese capitalists retain complete control of the government and continue to direct its policy unswervingly in their own interests. They recognize the political confusion resulting from the enforced ratification of the Security Pact and open suppression of Parliamentarism, and hope to ride the storm by putting all the blame on Kishi himself, replacing him with another man of their choice.

When Kishi announced his intention of resigning on June 23, immediately after the ratification, there emerged into the open the factional struggle within the Liberal-Democratic Party, with five separate groupings nominating candidates for the succession. Very soon these resolved into two main factions: first, the old ruling group of Ikeda, Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade, backed by Kishi and his brother Sato, Minister of Finance; second, the faction led by Ishii, Chairman of the Party’s Executive, and supported by the lower ranks in the Party. Ikeda won the vote for President, 302 against 194. Like Kishi, he is a pro-American spokesman, heavily committed to the current line of Japanese big business, which is a straightforward line up with American imperialism in Eastern Asia and to establish their own leadership in that area. Ikeda has no popular following; he is notorious for a recent insolent declaration in the Diet that the unemployed and the poor should eat barley if they could not get rice, and that it did not concern him at all if a few small and medium businesses went bankrupt.

Capitalists try to terrorize workers Objectively, the strength of the colonial revolution, together with the threatened consequences of intensified international business competition, impels the imperialists to press forward their plans with a dangerous hastiness, as their methods of imposing the Security Pact on the Japanese people have clearly shown. Nonetheless, the same incident poses for us mercilessly the problem that despite the great struggles against the Pact, no lasting blow has really been struck against the power of the bourgeoisie. Indeed, the ruling class, while trying to stabilise the situation by a change of Prime Minister, is preparing savage blows against the labour movement. Militant workers who were prominent in the recent strikes and demonstrations are coming in for punitive measures on a large scale.

Working class support miners The Telegraph and Telephone Corporation announced in July its measures against 2,160 workers, including the top le:ders of the union. Immediately afterwards, The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry published measures against 26 union leaders. At the Miike Coal Mine in Fukuoka Prefecture in Kyushu, where 9,000 miners have been struggling ever since January this year against the terrorism of armed police, Rightist gangsters and 5,000 company-union men, the government is now (July 10) mobilizing more than 10,000 armed police from other various prefectures to drive the mass pickets out of their occupied positions.

Armoured cars are being rushed from Tokyo to Omuta City, where the Miike Mine is situated. Police mobilization will be completed by July 17. Sohyo, the Socialist Party and other democratic organizations (including Zengakuren) are rushing their organizers to the spot. Sohyo and Tanro are mobilizing 10,000 organizers to defend the Miike miners. The most bloody clash will occur in a few days’ time as the result of this determined offensive by the government.* And there is no doubt that further attacks are on the way.

The organization of the workers to defend themselves against the counter-attack of the bourgeoisie is seriously lagging behind. The purely Parliamentary policies of the Socialist Party, Communist Party and Sohyo leaderships, completely lacking in fight and perspective, are allowing the bourgeoisie every chance to organize its counter-offensive. All of them are turning the workers’ attention from the organized struggles of the workers at their places of work towards the dissolution of the Diet and a general election. In the repression of the militant elements within the labour movement, the bourgeoisie fully expects the cooperation of the top bureaucrats of Sohyo and other unions; after all, the same militants threaten their own bureaucratic rule inside the unions AucGustT 13, 1960 The recent struggles clearly exposed once again that neither Sohyo, the Socialist Party nor the Communist. Party leaders are capable of putting first the strategic question of the defeat of the capitalists and the conquest of working class power. No matter how high a pitch the workers’ struggle reaches, and even though vital questions of class power are more and more obviously posed, it remains a fact that without a determined and principled revolutionary leadership there can be no victory for the working class.

Right wing Social Democrats suffer defeat The struggle against the new Security Pact was formally led by the People’s Council Against the Revision of the Security Treaty. This was formed at the beginning of 1959 by all the organizations and groups in opposition to the revision of the Treaty, in order to co-ordinate their actions. In reality, it is an amalgamation of the leaders of all kinds of democratic and peace-loving organizations and trade unions, under the leadership of the Socialist -Party and Sohyo; at the peak of the upheaval it had al- , most no authority among the masses. At the beginning of its activity, the Right-wing Social Democrats of the Nishio group, now in the Democratic-Socialist Party, but then still with the Socialist. Party, tried to drive out the Communist Party and Zengakuren from the Council, but this proved impossible as mass support grew, and eventually they themselves practically turned their backs on the _ Later, the Stalinists and the main faction of Sohyo tried to oust Zengakuren from the People’s Council, but again the development of the movement barred their attempts. Through the activities of its rank-and-file members, the Communist Party had a certain influence in the local cémmittees for joint struggle. On this basis, they gradually gained some influence in the centre of the Council, though without clear differentiation from the Sohyo faction.. :

The revision of the treaty expressed the class needs of the capitalists in Japan and the United States, and therefore effective struggles against it had to be led and organized from a specific and direct class point of view. Especially it had to be closely tied up with the struggle against rationalization and speed-up in industry, which the bourgeoisie is using aS a weapon against the workers. This is part of an attempt to consolidate its national economic foundation in preparation for imperialist advance into South-East Asia. Since the revision of the security treaty was a class attack allowing no room for compromise, the ‘struggle against it also could be nothing other than the real struggle of the working class at the factories and _ pits; only this could really threaten the bourgeoisie. For this, the organization of genuine strikes in the basic industries was an absolute necessity.

Workers are held back However, the Socialist Party, Communist Party and

How can it be that, despite the unprecedented wave of mass struggle in recent months, the bourgeoisie remains capable of such strength against the workers? The answer lies with the whole question of the absence of a strong revolutionary leadership of the working class.

*On Saturday, July 23, the British press reported armed clashes at this mining centre; hundreds were injured as students and miners united to fight the police. Sohyo leaders used every means to prevent the development of the mass movement in this direction. The Socialist Party acted as if everything should and could be done through Parliament alone. Sohyo confined the workers to endless street demonstrations of a broad character, preventing them from using their only effective weapon. The Communist Party, which consistently advocates the formation of a ‘broad national-democratic front’, tagged obediently behind these policies of the Socialist Party and Sohyo. They desperately tried to restrain the workers from actions which might ‘frighten off’ those middle-class

elements who were attracted to the movement precisely by its strength.

However, as the struggle increasingly involved the broader masses of the workers, and the upheaval from the bottom spontaneously began to turn towards strike action at the workshops, the leaders of Sohyo, in order not to lose their position within the labour movement, tried to * organize, from the top, struggles at the point of production. They turned this energy of the workers into the channel of token strikes, reducing the growing expression of fighting spirit to mere formal protest, with the aim of keeping the struggle within the framework of their own bureaucratic control.

Stalinists join hands with Right wing While all petty-bourgeois ‘public opinion’, led by the capitalist press, concealed the real nature of the situation, determined to channel all the moral anger of the masses against the ‘insolent stubbornness’ of the individual Kishi rather than against the capitalist class, what was the role of the ‘Socialist’ and Stalinist leaders? It was to subordinate the struggle of the workers, who alone had the strength to resolve the situation, to this ‘public opinion’, by helping to reduce the struggle in the factories to a bare minimum, preventing a genuine development of the workers’ struggle. To a great extent the working class could not burst out of the framework of this ‘leadership’. The organs of ‘public opinion’ appraised the demonstrations and strikes of June 4 and June 22 as ‘orderly’, and this was a good index of the limitations of the struggle.

Socialist Party of Japan If we examine the policies of the existing leaderships during the upheaval of the struggle in June, their treacherous character will become clearer. On June 6, under the pressure, on the one hand, of the anger of middle-class opinion against the outrageous violation of bourgeois parliamentarism by the ruling classes, and on the other, of the upsurge of the working class, the Socialist Party decided at its extraordinary conference on the resignation of all its MPs. But not one of them went to his con- -Stituency to fight for the extension of the struggle. Rather, the Right-wing group of the Socialist Party advocated this wholesale resignation to turn all the attention of the struggling workers into the framework of parliamentarism.

As soon as they sensed a brief lull in the tempestuous rise of mass feeling, and at the same time foresaw the automatic ratification of the Pact in the Upper House, the Socialist leaders regretted their ‘boldness’. On June 19th their decision to resign was withdrawn; at the same time the workers were preparing for the General Strike struggle of June 22nd.

Social Democrats turn to Parliament The purpose of the Socialists was to turn all the interest of the workers to elections and Parliaments by votes. They then timidly proposed the idea of a fair and just ‘Cabinet to Supervise the Election’ in coalition with the opposition sections inside the Liberal-Democratic Party, which had never shown the slightest opposition to the approval of the revision of the treaty. In this way, the Socialist Party, in practice, did the work of the bourgeoisie. The Communist Party did just the same service.

AucGustT 13, 1960 On June 14, Kishi set about preparing a provocation of Zengakuren. His aim was to find the excuse for a savage act of repression to clear the decks for Eisenhower’s visit. In this way he hoped to rouse ‘public opinion’ against the ‘extremists’ as a base for the counter-offensive. The whole of the press joined in to support Kishi in this aim, but at the same time the enthusiasm of the workers and students for a massive demonstration against the U.S. President’s visit mounted hour by hour. At this central point, the leadership of SOHYO decided to call off the demonstration, capitulating to the pressure of the bourgeoisie, and no doubt itself frightened by the potentialities of the mass movement. From June 15 they had more or less decided to halt the movement, as far as they were able.

Unfortunately for them, the murder of a girl student by the police prevented the situation from developing just as the bourgeoisie and the leaders of SOHYO hoped. After June 22, the leaders of SOHYO showed practically no policy. The mass punishments of militant elements in the anti-treaty struggle found them showing no serious intention of fighting the dismissals, arrests and repressions that have developed.

The worst role was played by the leaders of the Communist Party. They advocated what the reformist leaders dared not, owing to the pressure from below. Ever since May 19 the Stalinist leaders have raised, in advance of anyone else, the slogan of ‘Smash the Kishi Faction by Public Opinion’, and have demanded ‘a Cabinet supervising the Election’, a provisional coalition government of all Parliamentary forces, including the factions within the Liberal-Democratic Party, with the single'exception of the Kishi faction.

, Japanese CP is divided They opposed the decision of the Socialist Party to resign on the grounds that they should not give up the right of Parliamentary activity. They cleared the road for the Socialist Party to retreat. In the very midst of the greatest clash in Japanese history, as the result of one year of the anti-treaty struggle of workers and students, the leaders of the Stalinist Communist Party suddenly appealed for a coalition with the very bosses of the government party who had been and were pushing the treaty forward together with Kishi. They called for unity ‘to defend democracy’ from Kishi’s violation; they argued for ‘not offending public opinion’; for national independence, national liberation and national-democratic revolution, all the time obscuring the basic class issue. Without the Stalinist betrayal of the poorer-paid militant workers, the reformist leaders of the Socialist Party and SOHYO would not have been able to retreat so easily.

However, we must not overlook some important changes in Stalinist policy connected with the recent moves of the Peking bureaucrats. As the anti-treaty struggle grew, militant workers turned to the Communist Party, which enjoys the authority of the Soviet Union and China. From the beginning of this year, the Stalinists intensified their public activity in the anti-treaty campaign, increasing its strength of mobilization. Apparently in response to the Left turn of the Peking bureaucrats in their attitude to the struggle against American imperialism (in the article

el _ “Long Live Leninism’ in the Red Flag of April 22) the Akahata (Red Flag), daily organ of the Communist Party of Japan, became more and more sharp in the tone of its anti-treaty agitation.

In the anti-Hagerty demonstration of June 10, about 4,500 students and workers, under the leadership of the Communist Party, played a positive role and this must not be overlooked. Needless to say this does not at all mean that the Communist Party has turned revolutionary. By putting emphasis upon ‘Anti-America’ they neglect in practice the struggle against the Japanese bourgeoisie and they encourage the illusions of workers in the ‘national bourgeoisie’. The Communist Party leaders always kowtow before the international authority of the Stalinist bureaucracy—in the final analysis, before the Kremlin, but there is a strong faction in conflict with the leading faction of Miyamoto, general secretary of the Communist Party. This is the faction of Hakamada and S. Kasuga, chairman of the Tokyo Bureau, who are more closely connected with Peking.

A danger of ultra-Leftism But all of them more and more energetically reject the significance of the struggle in Japan as that of an advanced capitalist country, clinging to the Stalinist scholastic dogma of ‘the liberation struggle in a semi-colonial, semi-dependent country’. Thus they try to reduce the Anti-Treaty campaign to the level of a petty-bourgeois nationalist Struggle. At the same time, in connection with the new Left turn of Peking, there is a possibility that they will push ‘the National Liberation Struggle’ in Japan in an ultra-Left direction.

True to their character as centrists, the Stalinists are at present mixing inconsistently ‘violent struggles’ with the “moderate struggles’ of unconditionally following the Socialist Party and other petty-bourgeois elements. But we can see the possibility of a strengthening of a Left tendency among rank-and-file members, whose militancy has long been suppressed, and who often run to ultraLeft actions within the general Rightist strategy. During this period the Communist Party made an energetic attempt to reconstruct their Japanese Democratic Youth League, a Stalinist youth organization, and achieved a certain measure of success organizationally.

We must now consider the role played by Zengakuren. The unprecedented upheaval of mass activity clearly re‘vealed the tremendous militancy of the masses and the complete inability of the proletarian leadership. In this Situation, young militant students wanted to stand in the forefront of the struggle. Not fearing dangers, the best of the young intellectuals were ready to fight with great heroism. The great achievements of Soviet science and industry, the construction of China, despite the fact that these countries are seriously hindered by the Stalinist bureaucracy, and the advance of the colonial revolution on every front, these are the most dynamic indications that we are now on the threshold of a great historical change.

Even if not yet fully politically conscious, students cannot help but sense this fact. They cannot help but feel anachronisms in all their daily life and they react against the absurdity of all efforts to continue the present order of things. The glaring contrast between the development of the USSR and China—despite their genuine distrust and hatred of the Stalinist bureaucracy—and the impasse of a capitalist world, is bound to be sensed more and more keenly first of all by the student masses. A chain reaction will begin from them as the forerunners of great revolutionary actions of the working class. The radicalization of the student masses is a world phenomenon now: it is the clear indication of the approaching gigantic storm of the world revolution. In this phenomenon, Zengakuren is most outstanding in its experience of mass struggles, in its organization, its ideological struggles and in its leaders who are semi-professional revolutionaries, and also in the fact that strong factions within it definitely include the socialist revolution in their programmes.

At the same time, the fact that radical students’ organizations had to, and did, assume the role of vanguard, was added proof that the proletarian leadership was mortally lagging behind.

Role of centrism The Communist League (a centrist organization) led the activities of the so-called major faction of Zengakuren. During this period, their activities were given a great deal of attention by the press, and their influence on the development of the actual struggle cannot be overlooked. Depending on its leadership of Zengakuren, this group is aiming at the formation of a new revolutionary leadership, and is being attacked by the Stalinists as Trotskyists. Despite its militant appearance, this group represents fundamentally only the moral indignation of the petty bourgeoisie against the outrages perpetrated by big capital. This gains added force from the discontent of the masses with this bureaucratic strangling of their struggle by their existing leadership. The League cannot shake itself free of the framework of petty-bourgeois Parliamentarism, yet falls easily into the cheap heroism which results from petty bourgeois impatience, recklessly plunging into the line of police, armed to the teeth.

With such a leadership, the great energy of the Japanese students has been repeatedly wasted, for it is not tied to the revolutionary development of the labour movement. Naturally, it cannot be denied that to a certain degree the fierce action of the students is giving a positive impulse to the development of the labour movement, but we must appraise the students’ movement politically.

We must resolutely denounce the attitude of the Communist Party leaders, who label them as Trotskyists and agents of American Imperialism, enemies of the Soviet Union and of the revolution, etc., who on these grounds refuse to defend the students from police suppression. (Stalinist lawyers refused to give a hand in the defence of the students who were arrested at the January 16 demonstration at Haneda Airport when Kishi started for America to sign the Security Treaty, but later Hakamada and Kasuga led the demonstration of June 10 against Hagerty.)

But that does not mean at all that the policy of the Communist League who led the students could or did take the movement a single step nearer to victory. Like

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the Communist Party and the Socialist Party the Communist League leaders also were limited by the tempo of events in Parliament; the only difference was that they wanted to push the situation forward by dealing a ‘direct blow’. They, too, neglected in practice the struggle in the factories, only shouting ‘Proletarian dictatorship’, but providing no practical policy to bring the workers nearer to power.

AuGustT 13, 1960 forward. We also called upon the workers to establish organizations to defend themselves by force against police repression.

However, though these policies of our League won the sympathy of many militant workers, our influence was as yet too small to materially improve the situation. Thus the mass of the workers were left to their own spontaneous actions and could not yet succeed in surmounting the ‘leadership’ of the existing leaders.

In this situation, our Japanese Revolutionary Communist League, the only Trotskyist organization in Japan, energetically fought for the victory of the working class, through its organ “World Revolution’ and many other papers of its district committees, and also directly through the work of its cells and groups within the student movement, and to some extent in workers’ organizations. The League saw the revision of the Security Treaty as an attempt to re-organize the counter-revolutionary, military Strategy of imperialism against the workers’ states and the colonial revolution in Asia, the attempt of U.S.Japanese capitalists to establish their imperialist hegemony in South-East Asia, co-operating in the re-organization of the capitalist world market, which is now proceeding.

Thus the League, clarifying the position of Japanese capitalism within international imperialism, exposed the real class nature of the revision of the security treaty, emphasizing the standpoint which sees the anti-revision struggle as an important link in the whole class struggle to change the relation of forces between proletariat and bourgeoisie on the whole front of political, economic and social relations.

We consistently pointed out the absolute necessity of connecting this struggle with the present struggles against rationalization, especially with the struggles of Tanro (National Federation of Coal Miners’ Unions) with the struggle of the miners of Miike as its centre. From the very first we insisted that only the industrial strength of the workers could decide the issue. We emphasized the urgent necessity, with the leaders of the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, and the trade unions politically and ideologically rotten and bureaucratized, of building up fighting organizations from below among the rank-and-file workers, as a way of overcoming these bureaucratized leaderships.

Marxist policy When the industrial struggle of the workers spread on a gigantic scale, we recognized the necessity of giving the workers a clear perspective for the taking of power, although the workers were not yet in a position to move into a revolutionary offensive. We put forward the slogan:

‘DOWN WITH THE CAPITALIST GOVERNMENT.

FORWARD FOR A WORKERS’ GOVERNMENT?’

We called upon the workers to strengthen their combat organizations, to go beyond the framework of the trade unions and aim at forming workers’ Soviets as the military organization of the proletariat, democratically elected at every factory and workshop, in every district, all over the country. This was the only correct way to draw upon the workers’ energy, which was rapidly gathering into one gigantic solid mass, to prevent its canalization into Parliamentarism and reformism, and to clear the way to march Workers gain confidence Unfortunately, the working class could not take the leadership in the situation. But that does not mean that this mammoth movement against the revision of the security treaty has not given the workers anything at all. There is no doubt that the masses of workers have gained great confidence in their own strength to organize struggles as a result of their own experience and initative.

The struggle of the Miike miners, the Waterloo of the class struggle in Japan today, which had been driven to a critically dangerous position, regained its fighting strength in the midst of the rising tide of workers throughout the country in the anti-treaty struggle.

This fighting energy must not be allowed to evaporate and must be consolidated into organizational form as the struggle in every workshop to undermine the new treaty from below develops. For that purpose we must intensify, on every front, beginning with the Miike struggle, against capitalist rationalization, for shorter working hours and the improvement of working conditions, for big wage increases—a general offensive struggle.

Time is short - Above all, we must hurry, at this very moment, to get absolutely ready to defend the militant workers from bourgeois repressions. For that, we must lose no time in establishing fighting organizations from below which will not permit new betrayals by the bureaucratic leaders. To _the repressions of the bourgeoisie we must answer with the weapon of industrial action. When we succeed in organizing such struggles, the parliamentary policy of the bureaucratic leaders of the Socialist Party, the Communist Party and the trade unions will be really smashed.

We are fully convinced that during this period of struggle many militant workers will shed their illusions in the old leadership and will rally under the banner of Trotskyism, the only genuine revolutionary Marxism of today, and our League will make great strides with the aim of becoming a genuine revolutionary vanguard. We are also fully convinced that the development of the revolutionary struggle in Japan is bound to have immediate and tremendous repercussions in the other countries of Asia and of the whole world.

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WE are definitely living in 1960 and not in 1950. Of this fact I am now doubly sure after reading R. P. Dutt’s tribute to Harry Pollitt in the August Labour Monthly. Mentioning with scorn the capitalist press obituaries which remarked on Pollitt’s sense of humour as though this were something not to be. expected in such a man, Dutt demands: ‘Have-they never realised the Olympian laughter of Marx, the lightning play of the smiling wit of Lenin, or the boisterous gale of a Khrushchev?’

What has become here of genial Joe Stalin? It does seem ungrateful of Dutt not to list him—as he certainly would have done ten years ago—among the great laughers of working-class history. After all, didn’t Stalin in 1929 engineer the ascent of Dutt, in close alliance with Pollitt, to domination of the British Communist Party, as a sideshow in his fight against Bukharin?

But proof that Dutt still holds his old master’s ideas in respect, even if he is too discreet to name their source, is given in his report to the executive committee of the Communist Party, printed in the weekly World News for July 23.

‘The Labour Party,’ Dutt tells us, ‘has been described in Marxist terms as a two-class party, based on an alliance of the petty bourgeoisie and the economic mass organizations of the working class, with the petty bourgeoisie in the dominant leadership and the trade. unions providing the mass basis. It is obvious that there has been throughout a latent contradiction in this structure, expressing itself in continuous battles between Left-wing and Rightwing policy, that is, between working-class and capitalist policy. The understanding of this contradiction has been a key to Communist Party strategy and tactics.’

A bloc of two classes Now some of my readers who fancy themselves wellread in the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin may wonder just what Dutt has in mind in that first sentence of his from which the rest follows. The answer will be found in Stalin’s Works, Volume 9, on pages 253 and 254. In May, 1927, Stalin was desperately striving to justify his policy of making the Communist Party of China stay in the Kuomintang, the party headed by the Chinese bourgeoisie, a policy which had just come most bloodily unstuck. It’s not what the Kuomintang is that matters, he explains, it’s what it can become. And here he resorts to a truly fanciful analogy with the British Labour Party. ‘Can it be said that it is actually the party of one class, the working class, and not a party of two classes? No, it cannot. Actually, the Labour Party in Britain is the party of a bloc of the workers and the urban petty bourgeoisie. And... it must be said that the influence of the petty bourgeoisie predominates in this party.’ But people insist, and rightly, in regarding the Labour Party in the light of its potentialities, as a ‘workers’ party’, Stalin points out. (Not long after, of course, this became frightful heresy; the Labour Party was ‘social-fascist’, and Dutt knew how to rap the knuckles of anyone tactless enough to quote Stalin’s May, 1927, formulation!)

Surely this bit of . . . pragmatism could have been left to rot with its author? If ever a description was thought up to fit a preconceived purpose, this was it. How can anybody with knowledge of the reality talk of the Labour Party being a bloc of the working class with ‘the petty bourgeoisie’? The Labour Party has been singularly -unsuccessful throughout its history in winning substantial support among the lower middle class. The 1945 general election is the only exception I can think of, and that proved a flash in the pan. How does it help anyone in working out strategy and tactics to repeat such rubbish? (Zinoviev shot it down when it was first uttered.)

The real struggle That there are some petty-bourgeois elements in the Labour Party is well-known. But these have at times shown themselves, through the constituency parties, more to the Left than the trade unions, as represented by their officials, as Dutt cannot but remember—in the days of the fight against non-intervention in Spain, for instance. That there are elements of petty-bourgeois origin in the leadership of the Labour Party is also well-known. (This is true, I should say, of every other political organization in the country, except perhaps the Tory Party.) These are, of couse, in general very definitely non-Left—and everyone knows that they hold their positions by grace and favour of the trade union bureaucracy. The latter constitute the main channel through which Right-wing ideas become powerful in the Labour Party. And they rely mainly on confused and backward sections of the working class.

It will be when the Labour Party starts to fight the monopolists on the basis of a socialist progamme, and draws the whole working class into the fight through its ~ trade union links, that we shall see for the first time a winning of the lower middle class, on a large-scale and stable basis, as allies of the working class—certainly not before!

The Turnover Tax But my old associate Sam Russell, now foreign editor of the Daily Worker—he doesn’t know it’s 1960. With magnificent tactlessness he rushed into print in the Daily Worker on July 27. The paper had published a Reuter message about Khrushchev’s song-and-dance regarding the. ‘abolition of taxation’. Reuter had pointed out in a note at the end, quite accurately, that the chief tax falling on the mass of the population in Russia is the turnover tax, comparable to our own purchase tax; and that isn’t being abolished. It used to be the rule for the Daily Worker to follow the official Soviet line in denying that the turnover tax is a tax falling on the consumer at all, so publication of this Reuter message in full was an interesting departure.

Russell solemnly ‘corrected’ Reuter, asserting that the turnover tax is not comparable to purchase tax; in other words he insists on the old line on this question being maintained. Well, let him sort it out with his comrade Maurice Dobb, who wrote in his book ‘Soviet Economic Development Since 1917’ (second edition, 1951, pages 360361) about the turnover tax as being ‘analogous to the British purchase tax’; and added that ‘the rates of this tax are high, and the extent to which they have the effect of stepping up selling prices to retail prices is accordingly high.” When Dobb wrote this it was regarded as rather daring and naughty in Stalinist circles, and only permissible because in a book not likely to be read by ‘the masses’.

By W. HUNTER SEAMEN are again walking off their ships, a month after their two weeks’ strike for a 44-hour week and £4-a month increase. Their immediate and widespread reaction to an agreement between leaders of the National Union of Seamen and the Shipping Federation is clear proof of how strongly they feel about their demands. Their union leaders have accepted an employers’ offer of a 44-hour week in port, and £2 10s.

increases in wages. Sir Thomas Yates, general secretary of the union, has described the agreement as a ‘new charter for seafarers’.

But Liverpool seamen at their mass meeting last on the ships and regular union branch meetings at fixed Wednesday, were angry at what they described as a times. sell-out. They voted unanimously to strike. ‘Mr. ‘We are not a breakaway, we are out to clean up the Yates should know that ships spend most of their time National Union of Seamen,’ declared a spokesman of the on the water, said Vic Liley, speaking to the meeting. national committee of the movement. ‘But this agreement means a 52-hour week while we Sir Thomas Yates has denounced the movement and are at sea, only four hours less than at present.’ declared that some of its leaders are not even seamen.

Vic Liley is the organizer of the National Seamen’s At the meeting last Wednesday, Vic Liley waved a bunch Reform Movement which was set up at the end of the of blue seamen’s books. ‘Every member of our commitstrike of last month. tee is a seaman.” he said. ‘Here are their books.’

The Executive Committee of the union accepted the The response to the strike is sufficient answer to this employers’ offer by 34 votes to 7. The National Comnonsense. mittee of the Reform Movement, however, has declared it to be ‘totally unsatisfactory’. It is the Reform Movement which has called the present strike, which is rapidly By Our Industrial Correspondent

spreading.

Feeling has been running high in the power stations As well as its National Committee the Reform Movearound the threat of a national stoppage on August 15 ment has regional committees in all ports. Seamen on the to win the workers’ demand for a £10 minimum wage. majority of the Cunard and Canadian Pacific boats have In Birmingham, workers at Hams Hall power station already organized committees of six representatives. Two who did not join Nechells in the winter stoppage have of the aims of the movement are to have shop stewards now declared 100 per cent. for the national walkout.

At Croydon power station the day workers were 100. per cent. behind the strike threat and the shift workers were just as determined.

By Newsletter Reporter: =

The power workers’ claim quoting official statistics that, Tenants in London’s East End have been told by since vesting day productivity has increased by 80 per cent.

company director landlord Mr. Benedikt that they and £11 millions have been saved in fuel costs. The City must quit on August 29 for refusing to pay rent of London financiers received £60 million in interest last increases.

year, leaving a surplus of £27 million.

Before the increases a small two-roomed flat in In an interview with our industrial reporter, Fred SherDunstan’s Buildings, built in 1862, had a rent of Block, well-known militant at Croydon power station and 14s... Donaldsons, as agents, were now asking for until recently convenor, voiced the determination and £2 2s. 6d. A one-roomed flat which has previously indignation of the men in the station.

been 6s. 8d. is to be raised to 25s., and a three‘How can you exist on less than £10 a week?’ he asked.

roomed flat from 28s. to £3 5s.

“The men have had enough this time.

In an attempt to get the tenants to accept the new ‘Unless we get the 16s. to take us up to the £10 minimum contract Donaldsons offered to withdraw a clause we shall be out. Over the last three years we have had requiring the tenants to provide dustbins and other only 23d. an hour increase, the management claiming that services. They also agreed to delete the clause the recent reduction in hours from 44 to 42 is our increase.

making the tenant responsible for repairs and decoraClerks got increases ranging up to £4 per week, and techtions to the buildings, which latter are already done nicians were awarded increases from about £2 to over £4 by the tenants, anyway.

La week, the same day that our claim was rejected. What These suggestions the tenants rejected in favour you call rubbing salt into the wound.

of a general rent increase of 2s. per room per week, Furthermore, the skilled craftsmen got 8d. an hour three but this was flatly rejected by the landlord, who weeks ago. Evidently the intention is to split the nonresponded by demanding a further 10s. per week inmanual and craft workers from the manual workers—an crease in rent. objective of the government—but it won’t work.’

A suggestion has already been made that groups of Stewards in the Midlands were to circularize all trades dockers should stage a one-day strike each week in councils for support. They warn in their statement: ‘If support of the tenants. we cannot win an increase, there is not much chance for others.’

20th Anniversary of the Assassination of Leon Trotsky by the Stalinist GPU FRIDAY, AUGUST 19th Caxton Hall, Victoria Street London, S.W.1 7 p.m. Chair: G. HEALY. Speakers: BRIAN PEARCE. BENITA PARRY, TED KNIGHT, HARRY WICKS. Tape recordings of Trotsky in the Revolution of 1917. Tickets — 6d. each gn Published by Socialist Labour League, 186 Clapham High St.. Loadon, SW4 Printed by Plough Press Ltd. (TU), r.0. 180 Clapham High St, London SW4 Registered at the “PO as a newspaper