Speak!

FIDEL CASTRO's attack on 'sectarianism' among leaders of the former Cuban Communist Party has now received backing • from i Moscow. A 'Pravda' editorial on April I1 said that this criticism the strength of the Cuban revolution'.

Castro, in a speech on March 26, had selected for special mention Anibal Escalante, a founder of the Cuban CP. He was blamed for a large number of mistakes and 'an incorrect and disdainful attitude to the young cadres of the revolution, disbelief in their forces' Escalante had been appointed acting secretary of the new Integrated Revolution Organisation, formed by Castro's July 26 movement and the Cuban CP. However, at the time of Castro's attack, he was in Prague, having been removed from his post 'by unanimous decision of the leadership'.

So far, nothing has been published of his point of view. No one knows just what 'sectarian and dogmatic' views he has expressed. No congress of the IRO has yet been held to discuss these, or any other questions.

All friends of the Cuban Revolution must be disturbed at these developments. The issues under dispute must be brought into the open, so that decisions can be reached which will best serve the interests of the Cuban workers and peasants. and company-do not tell you, is that to meet this problem a colossal proportion of the national resources would have to be mobilised.

At dispersed points throughout the country, depots containing food, drugs, raw materials, machines, blueprints, text books and supplies of all kinds would have to be established in radiation-proof shelters. The survivors would be able to open up these stocks to begin to rebuild something like the life of an advanced society.

But no government has seriously considered providing for the survival of civilization as the necessary complement to weapons of offence. Heavy taxes, controls, industrial mobilisation, in short a veritable siege economy would be required now. The conclusion must be that the British and American governments have not seriously prepared to survive the nuclear war for which they arm.

Such men are irresponsible hypocrites with no right to control the destiny of mankind.

The real problem is how to put them out of harm's way. That can only be done by eliminating the system which has produced them.

Nuclear war has social roots. Its possibility today arises from the world - wide challenge to capitalism, which cannot afford to see its field of operation further reduced by successes of the colonial liberation movement or the working class.

In this situation the possesThese men, the bureaucracy, cannot defend the Soviet Union in the only real way, by the mobilization of the international working class.

Peace, and the struggle against the H-bomb, are political questions. They mean contesting the right to rule of the ruling class in the capitalist countries and calling on the Russian working class to unseat the bureaucracy.

Political struggles are essentially struggles of classes. That is why an effective struggle against the bomb can only be carried through when the working class is brought in.

On the other hand, the political struggle against the bomb is far from being devoid of human and moral significance, since what is at stake is nothing less than the lives of hundreds of millions of people, perhaps the fate of mankind as a whole.

We must expose the H-bomb sham, expose the lack of provision for civilians in a nuclear war and hammer the H-bomb hypocrites. We must expose the system which produces, and can only be defended by, weapons of massacre and genocide.

The growing revulsion against the H-bomb must be linked with the need to bring the working class into action against capitalism on an international scale.

At the same time he contacted the steel manufacturers and asked them not to raise prices and to begin their 1962 wage negotiations early. In this way, he hoped, they could reach a 'non-inflationary, wage settlement.' When talks started in February, he persuaded the union leaders to agree to a settlement involving a 21 per cent wage rise, mainly in the form of 'fringe benefit'. They had already been talked into dropping the claim for a shorter working week for steelworkers.

Enlisted Union Support Kennedy's Labour Secretary, Arthur Goldberg, played a big part in these activities. He had previously been legal adviser to the steel union bosses. Thus Kennedy, like Selwyn Lloyd, was enlisting the support of union leaders to impose the pay pause.

The sudden announcement that US Steel and the other major companies were going to raise steel prices by 34 per cent was a blow to his attempts to hold down costs. He replied by public denunciation of the steel barons, and the threat of legal action.

The price rise was cancelled. Far from being an attack on the interests of US capital, Kennedy's action was directed to safeguarding them. Just as Roosevelt did in the 1930s, the government was defending the needs of Big Business as a whole against the particular requiredoubtedly related to the rearrest of Milovan Djilas. Gromyko was welcomed at the airport by all the diplomats of the East European countries, except those of Albania.

This is the first official visit by a Soviet leader since 1958, when the dispute between the Russians and Yugoslavs broke out anew.

Djilas' arrest was intended to forestall the American publication of his book 'Conversations with Stalin'. The publishers have now announced their intention of continuing with the production of the book.

It contains a picture of Stalin as a cruel autocrat, based on meetings with the author between 1944 and 1948, when Djilas was a leader of the Yugoslav CP and government. No doubt some of his reminiscences would be somewhat embarrassing at this particular moment.

For example, Stalin is reported in January 1948 to have supported a scheme for Tito to move troops into Albania.

'You ought to swallow up Albania, the sooner the better' he said. A few days later he changed his mind. A few months later he broke with the Yugoslavs.

Djilas' right-ward political development is no excuse for Tito's attempt to silence him by police action. Socialists should press for his immediate release and the maintenance of his right to express his views.

URING the last few weeks Scottish industry has lurched into the red with a series of sackings, try, then the engineering workers are beginning to realise that the ready and under way by the end of the year, when Britain enters the Common Market.

There are nine resolutions opposing the Common Market