The Newsletter, vol. 8 no. 332

Lumumba was murdered by UNO THREE years after the murder of Lumumba by forces under the control of the United Nations, new evidence has been brought to light by Moise Tshombe, ex-head of the government of Katanga. ais was published by the Belgian paper 'Pourquoi Pas', copies of which were immediately seized by the Belgian police from the bookstands and news stalls. mumba went to New York in 1960 to appeal to the United Nations to intervene in the Congo. As soon as the UN arrived, it set about strengthening all the pro-imperialist agents outside and inside the revolutionary government of Lumumba.

LOT strengthened, in particular, people such as Kasavubu, Adoula and Bomboko, who were already working closely with the Belgian imperialists. le plot began, according to Tshombe, on September 5, 1960, when the Belgian consulate at Brazzaville paid over the sum of £200,000 and gave the go-ahead to Kasavubu. Lumumba was then captured by the forces of the United Nations and imprisoned under its auspices. • November 28, 1960, Kasavubu, Adoula and Bomboko met Tshombe at Brazzaville and said, 'We will send you Patrice, and you finish him off... hombe now says that he refused this invitation. He was further approached on January 9, 1961, in Elizabethville by Adoula, but he again claims that he refused.

EATEN' len on January 17, in a United Nations plane and with a United Nations escort, Lumumba, Okito and Mpolo were transported to Elizabethville. Tshombe says that he rushed to the airport but the three were already 'in very bad shape' le Belgian pilot told him they had been "beaten with unimaginable brutality by Kasadi, general commissioner of the national defence, and by eight soldiers. asadi, according to Tshombe, displayed with unconscionable pride and cruelty the moustache, the beard and the glasses of Patrice Lumumba'. 'DYING' "They [the three men] were already dying,' Tshombe says. Kasavubu has denied all these charges with the statement: "All the inquiries on this subject establish, if not the responsibility, at least the complicity of Mr. Tshombe in the murder of Lumumba : that as it may, there is no denying the role of the United Nations. We wonder why the parliamentary champions of UNO, Fenner Brockway and company, who are constantly calling for the strengthening of the organisation, remain silent over these new revelations. Port Talbot: thumbs up for next time For a full account of the end of the steel strike see page 4 full of the the steel strike weekly newspaper in Britain.

It is a great step forward for the Socialist Labour League and the working-class movement in the battle for world socialism.

Years of conscious struggle by this movement against capitalism prepared the way for the advance.

In the last year, the biggest fight has been for money from our readers and supporters to finance our resources.

Appeals have produced large sums of money. But the Socialist Labour League and its press is to confidently intervene in the battle for socialism, it must be armed with even more.

Our readers must recognise the need for this intervention and, theretore, the need for the Socialist Labour League to take an even greater step towards a daily press.

THAT is Labour going to do when it becomes the government in a few months time?

No socialist expected the Tories to do anything other than they have done over the past 13 years. They represent big business and have little interest in the future of the working class, apart from exploiting them for profit.

The Labour Party represents the working class and its organised section within the trade union movement. problems facing the movement are very real.

Working people need more houses, reductions in rents, full employment, control of industry and planning, in short, a socialist society. To get more houses would mean nationalizing the building industry and the land. To reduce rents would mean not only getting rid of the Tory Rent Act, but legislative measures to put an end to landlordism altogether.

Grabbed

There are over half a million unemployed and the Tory election boom is fast fading out: Industry after industry is being grabbed by the monopolists, a handful of whom hold the country to ransom.

Planning is impossible unless a Labour government nationalizes the basic industries and legislates for a system of workers' control, to operate a socialist plan in the interests of the nation as a whole.

Wilson will have none of these policies. He hedges on the question of nationalization, but everybody knows that he has no intention of extending it to any major industry.

Explosions

The Tory crisis at home is rapidly leading to explosions in the former colonial countries. Regiments of troops are now being flown to distant parts of Africa to suppress the struggle for freedom and independence which is gaining momentum as each day goes by. It used to be known as gunboat diplomacy in the old days. Nowadays is it known as 'aircraft carrier diplomacy.

It is well known that the Service Chiefs are preparing for conscription after the election, but, of course, neither the Tory nor the Labour Party will talk about it before the election. Wilson again evades this vital question.

Rejects

most The

He knows that a Labour government will most likely introduce conscription—after all, the Labour government of Attlee did it. He rejects all demands for freedom for the colonial peoples and the withdrawal of British troops.

In a word, Wilson stands for the defence by force of Britain's imperialist possessions.

Not only is the Labour Party running away from its responsibilities to introduce real socialist measures, it is already giving real concessions to the monopolists, even before the election has taken place.

The unfortunate 'shadow Cont. 2, 1 WORKERS at seven Sheffield engineering firms decided to financially support girls sacked from Truline Bras for forming a union.

This was agreed after the seven girls involved attended a District Committee meeting of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions.

After their case was put it was agreed that seven firms would collect f5 each week until the dispute was settled.

OWN EFFORTS

Since they were dismissed—a week after the union was formed-the girls have received money varying from a few shillings to about three pounds.

Most of its has been obtained by their own efforts in circularising trade unions in the area and visiting factories.

Payments from the Garment Worker's Union have been for neither strike or victimisation pay, but 'out of charity'.

RELUCTANCE

The GWU officials are showing great reluctance to meet other young members of the union who are working at the firm.

They sent a telegram on the day such a meeting was arranged saying an emergency prevented them from attending.

Over a week. has gone by and they still do not seem to find the time to hold a meeting.

• back page, col. 3 AID OUR NEWSPAPER crease steadily—-without advertising many would cost a shilling each.

The Newsletter has no advertising. This issue as you can see, is vastly different from the old one. But, in spite of the changes we have made, it still costs only 4d.

Without advertising, the twocolour Newsletter would have to be sold at 9d. for us to break even. By selling it at 4d. we are actually spending 5d. a copy in order to increase our sales.

The last time we put up the price of the paper was in late 1960 from 3d. to 4d. a week. Since then costs in the printing trade have risen by approxiK HI

ERSEYSIDE dockers reEjected the Liverpool Port Employers' 'New Deal' at a 4,500-strong meeting last Sunday.

Closing the meeting, Mr. Dick Barrett, general secretary of the National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers Union said: 'For too long you have been waiting for the port employers to give you something. Now we have our own programme, with our own demands. Let's fight for it. It's time we got on the attack.' Dockers packed the St. George's Hall, spilling out into an overflow hail, to hear speakers from Manchester, Hull and Merseyside give their views on the Liverpool Port Employers' 'decasualisation' scheme. The meeting was organised by the Merseyside Area Committee of the NASD.

Mr. Barrett began his speech with 'a, greeting to the 150 members of our union present tonight'-a sarcastic reference to the estimate of his union's FIGHTING FUN mately 15 per cent. But with your support we can meet the rising costs of production and keep the paper at its present price.

We rely on funds from you and other supporters to help make up this weekly loss. By pledging your support and sending us money you can help us cover the cost of producing The Newsletter. Keeping the price of the paper down at 4d. a copy will help to build up a really big circulation.

The Newsletter needs £200 a month. We urge you to subscribe to the paper monthly. There are two ways in which you can help us to raise money, either by taking out a banker's order or a fighting fund card. From Reg Perry strength in the port made recently by the Liverpool Port Employers' Association and Mr. P. J. O'Hare, Regional Secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union.

Dealing briefly with the 'New Deal' he said how surprised his union had been when, two weeks before, the chairman of NASD's 1 Merseyside Committee had sent them a copy of the employers' proposals.

'Already rejected'

'We realised then,' said Mr. Barrett, 'that what we thought was dead had been enlivened in a worse form. These proposals are the ones we have already rejected.

'So far as we as a union are concerned the existing working rules have taken a lifetime of struggle to build up. We paid the price of two world wars to get the conditions we have and we do not intend to see them 1 - NOW!

These can be supplied on application. • a If you already send subscriptions for the paper we ask you to find us another guarantor.

We shall be giving regular reports on how money is coming in from the areas.

We want to extend our circulation by 4,000 extra readers. The Newsletter can play a very effective role in all the struggles of the labour movement and we ask our readers and supporters to step up sales in the factories, building sites and on the docks.

Please make a big effort in this fight, which is an important step towards a Marxist daily newspaper in Britain. destroyed. by this latest manoeuvre of the employers.' He went on to warn the meeting: 'You must remember brothers just who you are fighting. Last year the Port Employers were prepared to stop shipping in all British ports over a difference of only 1s. 6d. between our wage claim and what they were offering.

'Don't be fooled'

'These are the same people who are hypocritically proposing a 'New Deal' for dockers. Don't be fooled by it. The employers are having a game with you.

Reminding members of the TGWU link with the employers two years ago in an attack on NASD for opposing a similar scheme then under discussion, he said: 'We were accused of misleading dockworkers. Now you can see who was misleading who. Then they tried together to destroy us. In Liverpool they tried to set you fighting one another for jobs by demanding you should all produce white cards. But with real solidarity you told them forcefully, in the words of the song, "You can't have one without the other"

'Stalemated'

'Now they are trying again with the "package-deal mentality". London dockworkers have already rejected a better scheme. Their latest move is to offer a 40-hour week, providing we concede some of the demands they were making under the decasualisation scheme proposals.

'If they can't get in one door they try to come in another.

'But in London we are stalemated. Our union will go no further on decasualisation until we are finished with wages and hours. We are asking for £15 a week basic wage.

'You have been offered 11 back page, col. 4

are being threatened and victimised by Aref's so-called socialist regime for joining the Iraqi Students' Society.

Nine have lost their scholarships and some private students have had money, being sent from home, stopped, the Society claims.

None of these and other actions achieved the aim of the Embassy 'to frighten students out of any activity.

The society has recently heard of more drastic steps being taken by the Iraqi government, including the withdrawal of passports. This means students will be deported, forcing them out of their studies and probably into Iraqi prisons.

When the Society secretary approached the Embassy in Britain about passports, he was told the Minister of the Interior had sent a secret list of people whose credentials will be confiscated.

This clamp-down on Iraqi students, many of whom are taking an interest in left-wing politics, shows the right-wing nature of Aref, a 'class-mate' of Nasser who is well known for his attitude to militants.

A THREE-WEEK-OLD strike of 300 craftsmen in the toolroom of the Raleigh Industry, Nottingham, is now beginning to spread to other parts of the factory.

Forty more men in the millwright department stayed away from work last Monday in response to a call from their union, the AEU. The strike is likely to affect other factories soon.

There is hostility among some other workers to the strike. They say that the craftsmen made no protest last year when 850 employees from all departments were made redundant.

The blame for this must lie with the union who made no fight for its official policy of work-sharing instead of redundancy when the sackings began.

In fact they have only been stirred to action in the present dispute—over the firm's decision to sack 25 men from the toolroom-by the men themselves.

NEARLY six years after MASSIVE This five-column paper, which

chancellor' Mr. Callaghan, recently talked about 'a new and permanent tax on wealth'. He is now openly rebuked by a more senior member of Wilson's 'shadow cabinet', Mr. Douglas Houghton, who condemned the idea in an article in the rightwing magazine 'Socialist Commentary'.

The City correspondent of the 'Sunday Telegraph' of February 2, sneeringly remarks that he "would not be surprised' if Wilson has second thoughts about his dividend tax because "it is bad capitalism'.

He, as well as the rest of his City friends, have no fear but that the main aim of Wilson's government will be to operate capitalism.

• The Steel Company of Wales fought a five-week pitched battle with the trade unions over the wages of craftsmen. The trade union leaders retreated and the men returned to work with their savings spent and without a penny piece extra in their pockets.

It is no secret that the Steel Company of Wales were warning a future Labour government that they would fight its policy of re-nationalizing steel.

Steel is no longer the same proposition that it was when it was nationalized after the Second World War. Vast sums of capital have been invested in a few giant installations, whose owners will fight to the bitter end against nationalization.

Frighten

They remember how it was possible for Mr. Cube of the Tate & Lyle sugar combine to frighten Labour against nationalizing sugar in the early '50s. They remember how the insurance companies were able to defeat a proposed Labour policy for nationalizing them.

If the Labour Party leaders are retreating now before the election, how much more will they retreat when the party comes under full fire after the election? The government of Wilson will then become a government of retreat and demoralisation for the labour movement.

Millions of people will vote it was first published, The Newsletter appears in its new format.

Behind this great advance lies the history of the world revolutionary movement and, in particular, that of the Socialist Labour League.

Without such a movement it would not have been possible to bring the paper to you this week.

Only through a constant fight and struggle for socialist policies has the Socialist Labour League been able to build up its resources.

Only through such a paper, reflecting these struggles, has the movement in Britain been able to progress.

Just compare the early issues of The Newsletter (an example of which is reproduced above), the first of which appeared on May 10, 1957, with the copy you are now reading.

Gigantic Nice Fonger * PACE- THALLPANCE The Newsletter Labour Party News p.4 Cousins Replies BITALY JOURNAL OF IS SOCIALITY LABOES IFACEN ever 39. 4940 sur. 1, Na. 172 Labour Rejects Il-Bomb Dy XENSET* REPORTER NATIONALIZE DEFENCE INDUSTRIES SAYS WILSON ucinunstrate Against U.S. Aggression FROM MASTE STRi - Tati CLARINE: CRENS RO WEEKLY JOURNAL OF THE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE TG WU conference cool on Wilson's THRE Ths Newsletter 'WAGE FRETZE' Central Africa p.2 tenants still fight landlord's thugs POLICE GUARD FOR ODEDERIKA by ., Toler 1, 114 Nealetter exclusive 1%: Blaste Dinet a • man, t: bang Trai Stole milk By Peter Arantd Kepaced Das increased its circulation gradually, served the organisation until last week.

In the summer last year, at the height of the Profumo and Rachman affairs, the League was able to give a foretaste of the larger Newsletter.

For four weeks the paper

A brilliant analysis of the politics of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War which has long been a rarity in Britain, Morrow's book is one of the few serious Marxist works of our time. Hammered out in time with the dramatic events it describes, it penetrates the conflicts within the Republican camp, from the Liberals and Stalinists to the Anarchists and Hard cover 25s. Paperback 220 pps, maps the POUM.

NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4

Februar NEWSLETTE Three

Labour in the interests of class unity against Toryism. • It is necessary to start preparing an alternative socialist leadership to that of Wilson within the trade unions and the Labour Party, which will consolidate and provide leadership to the power behind the vote.

This leadership can only be undertaken by Marxists, that is, people who are dedicated to the struggles of the working class against capitalism.

Struggle

Real power for the working class will not only be achieved by the return of a socialist majority in parliament, but through a determined struggle to take the property out of the hands of the capitalists and place it under the control of the working class.

The Socialist Labour League is the only organisation in the labour movement fighting to build an alternative leadership within the movement and to provide the necessary leadership. 'policy briefing' meeting, ployed in the US, mig Anthony Wedgwood Benn told 600 party members how technologists would to beat the Tories. work!

His speech was full of gim- When further questioner micks. He began by removing asked whether any firm plans his jacket and, as he warmed up, had been made for nationalizamade quite a show of stripping tion, he said evasively that Mr. down to shirt and braces.

Such sentences as 'the Labour Party must use the energy and Benn went on to give his ability of all the people and we views of the Tories. When it should therefore take a micro- comes to the crunch, he said, phone instead of a megaphone they retire, take a back seat and to them when we tell them about wait for another day. policy' were used liberally.

He told the audience that the absence of revolutions in young, well-educated people in Britain. should replace the old guard on But workers at Ford's and boards of directors as part of Port Talbot have not found the the plan for modernising Britain. Tories or the bosses 'retiring'! A questioner asked whether such a programme, similar to Promises Kennedy's 'new frontier', which Benn felt strongly that not resulted in millions of unemht not lead to the same result in Britain.

Benn replied that not many be out of Wilson probably had some plans in his head.

This, he thought, explained only should the Labour Party make promises to the electorate but that the electorate should respond by making promises to the Party. The promises, presumably, would be to accept wage freezes, speed-up and redundancy while Wilson 'socialises Britain.

The electorate must forcibly tell Mr. Wedgwood Benn and his colleagues that they will only stand by Labour if it nationalizes the basic industry and stamps on all the evils of Tory society.

Then, and only then, will Mr. Benn's "technological revolution' come about.

CRISIS IN USSR

In next week's Newsletter Tom Kemp will begin an analysis of the economic and agricultural crisis in the USSR.

This comparison illustrates the gigantic political steps taken, in a very short period, by the Trotskyist movement since its printing presses were lost after a libel action concerning "Socialist Outlook', its magazine which was proscribed by the Labour Party.

Ironically, it was political events in the Soviet Union and Hungary that helped Trotskyists in Britain towards a weekly press.

Stalin died in March 1953. Later his chief terrorist, Beria, and other members of the ruling clique fell from power.

There was a general antiStalin movement in the Soviet Union culminating in Khrushchev's denunciation of the old leader at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Crushed

Yet the same year saw Khrushchev use brutal Stalinist tactics when he crushed the Hungarian Revolution with Soviet tanks and troops.

Out of these events came a clash between the Soviet Union and the international working-class movement.

The British Trotskyist movement, which vigorously denounced Khrushchev's tactics in Hungary, attracted to its ranks many Communist Party workers and intellectuals.

With this added strength the movement was able to begin its 'Service to Socialists' —a weekly Newsletter carrying articles on international and national struggles by the working class.

Since then, The Newsletter has become more than a "service'. It is the Socialist Labour League's vital weapon in the war against imperialism: the blade of the knife cutting deep into the rotteness of capitalism.

Like the first Newsletter, this issue is but a stage in the development of the Socialist Labour League. As the crisis of capitalism grows, the revolutionary leadership of which had the working class steps up its fight.

The next stage in this fight is a daily newspaper—a daily It would take more than the length of this page to itemise the number of struggles in which the Socialist Labour League and The Newsletter have fought, but on many vital issues they have taken the leading role.

Necessity

It is not as Peter Fryer, the paper's first editor, pointed out when reviewing the first three months of the paper, 'shrieking self-consciousness, or 'editorial egotism', that prompts this article.

It is the absoluté necessity Negroes KKK NEGROES demonstrated against racial discrimination when the extreme right-wing and anti-Negro movement Ku Klux Klan • held a conference in Atlanta, Georgia, last week.

Police quickly moved the demonstrators when they paraded outside a restaurant where members of the Klan were meeting.

Fifty Negroes were arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct. During the three days of demonstrations total of 134 were arrested.

A United Nations Commission in Atlanta to 'observe racial discrimination', having seen the brutal treatment of the demonstrators by the police, concluded that the | city was 'making progress' One member of the commission said that what he had seen had 'heartened' him.

STILL serving a sentence imposed by the East German regime is 54-year-old Heinz Brandt, a militant socialist kidnapped in Western Germany, where he was carrying on a struggle in the working-class movement.

A Communist Party member since the age of 20, Brandt served 11 years in Nazi concentration camps until 1945. He returned to the struggle after the war, becoming a leading member of the Secretariat of for the Socialist Labour League to continue its fight through a paper and to thank those who have been readers and subscribers over the years and to ask for more support in this difficult task.

During 1957 it was this fight by supporters that helped the Socialist Labour League to reduce the price of The Newsletter twice in the first six months.

In October 1960 the familiar newsheet that had taken the organisation through the actual participation in the Shell-Mex strike On the South Bank and a series of other strikes in 1958 and 1959, increased its size and had three columns.

A year later the width of the columns were decreased.

Lo much praise suren vod employers' press last week when the National Coal Board announced its interim revenue statement for January-September 1963.

By closing pits in most coalfields and by increasing mechanisation and speed-up, he has had more coal produced by 26,000 fewer workers. In 1962 Britain's miners moved 32.5 cwt. of coal per shift; in 1963 the average went up to 34 cwt.

As a result the Board showed a surplus of 7.9 million pounds for these nine months compared with a deficit of 2.8 million a year earlier.

Forty millions

Of course, these figures do not allow for nearly 32 million pounds which the government takes to cover interest charges on compensation payments to the coal owners.

The real situation is that an operating profit of nearly 40 million was • made before the the Communist Party in Berlin.

He strongly disapproved of the oppression and cruelty of Ulbricht and his henchmen when the Berliners openly expressed their dissatisfaction with the regime.

Brandt went to the West when 'revisionists were being persecuted in the GDR. He became editor of 'Metall', the metalworkers' union newspaper, and while attending a union conference in Berlin in June 1961 was kidnapped.

The 'trial' was held

Cor Bodies Workers say - to be later Visass D, OLE INOSTALL CORRAINT disguis Alrald he FIRST • and may be the LAST 222222 The made de wise Montren a sold ANY SINIST, MANFART UA Ted Tom deported LEADENS AEU and the start Monde SPLIT OPEN Company of Wars The agreed on a disagriel le REANTANCE ONE WEEK TO GO! no a ser in the wordies!

Karim dad pro was twice its normal size, and sales zoomed.

This week the paper is at an advantage to even those important copies-it has been printed on a machine that can print two colours at the same time, i.e., the title, The Newsletter, in red, and the black and white text.

It may be possible in the future to introduce a further colour.

Intervene

With these resources, along with a larger editorial staff and contributors up and down the country, the paper can go ahead with plans to intervene in many class struggles that will evolve from a Labour government led by Wilson.

This intervention will be on behalf of the only organisation of the international working class that has fought strenuously with workers in strikes and lock-outs and against witch-hunts, racialism, the H-bomb and revisionists.

Boasts

The Socialist Labour League boasts that it was the only organisation to fight against the treatment by the United Nations of Patrice Lumumba;

to have an exclusive interview with Frank Foulkes, when he was sacked from the ETU by the right wing;

to organise against Rachman, well before he came to light in the Profumo-Keeler affair;

to expose the Campaign for Democratic Socialism in the Labour Party;

to take up the real fight on the sacked 17 Ford shop l to be a 12-volumo official Hin hirst volume or waal 1 history of Russia has just been published. The remaining 11 volumes will be finished by 1967.

The present volume deals with the period from early Stone Age to the Tartar— Mongolian invasion.

Reviews in the Soviet press state that it is now known that the old town of Lubech was built of wood and not stone.

But neither this or any of the other enthralling items which the book includes seem to have resulted in riotous scenes at the bookshops as Soviet citizens clamoured to obtain a copy.

Of much greater interest will be the final volume which should deal with the period immediately prior to and since the Soviet revolution of 1917.

Following Khrushchev's secret report to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956, the official history of this period was completely discredited.

Dare the Soviet historians once more break the conspiracy of silence about the great frameups and purges? Dare they mention the unmentionable Leon Trotsky and the Left opposition?

Can they begin to explain the vacillations of Soviet foreign policy resulting in complete accommodation to world imperialism?

Marxists throughout the world await the publication of the later volumes with great interest.

stewards and unemployment;

and the only organisation to fight for the rehabilitation of Leon Trotsky and many of his Bolshevik comrades exiled or murdered by Stalin and his brutal accomplices.

Coal profits up -fewer miners Robens: Employers' praise money lenders got their cut.

Meanwhile plans for further mechanisation envisages the introduction of automatic mining methods and the sacking of many thousands more miners.

Far from making life easier down the pit, the use of more machinery has increased the danger of dust in this terrible way of earning a living.

But Lord Robens can smile. Nationalization, right-wing style, works with a vengeance.

closed doors. His sentence— 13 years hard labour-was announced a year later.

Brandt's case throws even more light on the Stalinist police methods used by the Ulbricht regime.

As there is no East German Embassy in London, The Newsletter urges its readers to send telegrams to John Peet, editor of the Democratic German Report, Krausenstrasse 9, Berlin W.8 demanding Brandt's release, and to send resolutions to him through their trade union branches and Labour parties. COPLE in Moscow are nocking to see a new mi which deals in an outspoken way with the terror of the Stalin regime.

Audiences have wept unashamedly at scenes depicting the dreaded night-time knock on the door which meant imprisonment or death.

The film, called Tishina (Calm), has brought back to those who have seen it vivid memories of their friends and relations being carted off to labour camps in the purges organised by Stalin and his cronies.

It runs for 34 hours and is based on a book by Yuri Bondarev. It is considered to be of equal importance to Alexander Solzhenitsin's shattering novel of labour-camp life 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich'.

ARREST

Tishina shows the arrest in 1948 of a victim of the 'cult of the personality'-that 'marxist' phrase used by Stalin's followers to explain away the terror of his reign.

Plainclothes police arrest a veteran communist revolutionary after a neighbour has accused him of being a Trotskyist. He tells his son and daughter the arrest is a mistake, but he is not seen again and is presumed dead.

His son, a student, is expelled from the party. Audiences have been shaken by the scenes at the party meeting which vividly recall all the threats and homage to the great leader which were the hallmark of the period.

The production of the film shows that de-Stalinisation presses on far beyond the boundaries. first envisaged by Khrushchev. Writers and artists, stirred on by the feelings of the broad mass of the Soviet people, are emerging from the long night and beginning to challenge the bureaucracy.

THE ANGLO - AMERICAN plan for keeping the 'péace' in Cyprus is the biggest fraud since the Trojan Horse.

If accepted it will mean extinction of every vestige Cypriot independence.

That the Turkish and Greek governments have accepted this plan in itself is not surprising.

Both governments are tottering on the cliff-edge of crisis and neither of them wants to involve itself: in a venture that could prove too costly and self-defeating in the end.

Both governments only wish to use Cyprus as a distraction from the growing discontent at home.

The British government is only too willing to rid itself of the Cypriot issue because of pressing difficulties abroad—in East Africa and Indonesia.

Unable to use a conscript arıny and wary of calling in the UN after the Congo experience, British imperialism has made Cyprus a NATO responsibility until a mutually agreed mediator achieves a political settlement.

Collaborate

The US have consented to the plan for strategic military reasons and not out of love and consideration for British interests in Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean. US imperialism is prepared to collaborate in the Mediterranean only in order that she might more effectively push Britain out of S.E. Asia.

For the Cypriots this is little or no consolation. Once again foreign troops will occupy their soil and the imperialist bayonet will remain poised menacingly, ready to partition Cyprus at the first provocation.

The 'independence' which Cyprus received under the Radcliffe: constitution and which was so sedulously and earnestly recommended by Bevan and Callaghan in 1958, will prove illusory. All effective decisions will remain in the hands of the committee of Ambassadors in London and Nicosia.

Anglo-US imperialism with the help of their Greek and Turkish cronies will be able to override Cypriot objections and frustrate the plans of President Makarios (if he has any).

Useless

President Makarios' appeal for a UN peace-keeping force will prove worse than useless. In any case the inaction of the UN on this issue is not to be wondered at.

It is in keeping with its imperialism. chariter as The sovereignly of Cyprus is of as little concern to the UN as the sovereignty of the Congo when the strategic, economic and political interests of imperialism are endangered.

Whatever happens in Cyprus, we can be sure that communal rioting will recur and that distrust and hostility between Turks and Greeks will continue to prevail so long as the capitalist government of Makarios continues to rule the island.

The British labour movement must demand the withdrawal of all NATO forces as the first condition for any settlement of the communal problem in Cyprus and the securing of real independence for Cyprus.

Page February 8,

This article is by a Kenyan correspondent who hopes to submit regular reports on East African affairs.

A VISIT to my home in Kenya convinced me that independence has not put an end to British imperialism.

The country is economically still a British colony, managed by an independent government on behalf of its masters—the British government and British investors who make their profits from the cheap labour of workers and peasants.

Throughout Nairobi there are British banks, insurance companies, chain-stores, car showrooms, oil and petrol company offices and travel agencies.

In the country British-owned plantations and British contractors and services are on the roads.

Britain has employed Asian salesmen, shop assistants and officials to act as a buifer and go-between and give the impression that Asians run the commerce of the country.

Cheap

American, Japanese and West European businessmen are attempting to enter the field, but they have not yet presented a serious challenge to the British economic domination of Kenya.

British imperialism runs cheap labour farms supplying raw materials to industrial Britain. Kenya's manufacturing areas are patheically small and, like that of Ben Bella in Algeria, the 'independent' government continuing this imperialist tradition.

Minister of Agriculture MacKenzie has announced a plan to borrow 100 million pounds from Britain and the United States to develop coffee, sisal, cotton and meat production. He and Gichuru, the Minister of Finance, are to tour the capitals of their masters in search of this loan.

Drain economy

The result will be that Kenya's economy will become even less industrial and more attractive to the parasitic imperialists living off her raw materials. Repayments on these ruinous loans will drain even further Kenya's economically starved body.

There are many British army bases in Kenya and troops from Gil-Gil were quickly called in to quell the army mutiny in the Nuhuru area. The army will remain in the control of British officers until Kenyan soldiers and police are highly trained in safeguarding British property and interests.

Kenyatta said on January 22 that KANU (Kenya African National Union) youth would be recruited into the police forcea move to divert their militancy, caused by unemployment, into anti-union and anti-Indian activities.

Banned marches

Coinciding with the rising in Zanzibar and the army mutiny in Dar-es-Salaam were demonstrations of unemployed in Nairobi and other districts. Now that British terror can no longer openly act against the unemployed, their militancy has come out into the open.

Kenyatta's reply to his workers: on January 19 he banned all gatherings in Nairobi.

Demonstrations against unemployment, his government declared, created a lack of confidence in foreign investors!

While government labour officers are trying to control trade unionism amongst communication and plantation workers, they have had to face another problem-the squatters of the Rift Valley.

These landless peasants have taken up the promise of Uhuru WE'RE IN CHARGE! In Dar-es-Salaam, President Nyerere greets the African generals who have replaced British officers after tha mutinw (Freedom) by demanding land and living wages.

In the Nakuru district, the East African Standard reported, the squatter movement is 'bringing farming to a halt'. Some 20,000 natives are squatting on European farms.

Trade union officials, the paper stated, tried to prevent any delay in production.

The government has openly taken the side of the European farmers against the African peasants.

Ninety squatters were recently evicted at Thika by court order and the leading daily newspaper congratulated the Minister of Labour, Mr. Mwendwa, for *ending the wave of unrest which nearly crippled large estates' (mainly coffee).

Private property

The land movement has shown signs of impatience with Kenyatta's government, which has preserved the basic strength of private property in the Highlands and distributed such a small amount of land (one million acres) that it has absorbed as many people as are born in one year in Kenya!

The result has been a rapid RESULTS OF the Transkei 'Bantustan' elections late last year, together with subsequent events in the territory, have demonstrated the inability of the Verwoerd regime to crush the spirit of resistance of the people.

Bantustans are part of the Nationalist government's plans to turn all the Africans into widely. separate areas from the white minority. 'Self-rule' cannot disguise the fact that the areas chosen are economically the most backward and will face the people with terrible poverty and unemployment.

The struggle of the Transkei masses began with the application of the Bantu Authorities Act of 1951, the purpose of which was to re-establish the tribal system broken up by the advent of capitalism towards the end of the last century.

VICIOUS

To make sure the vicious Act was carried out to the letter, chiefs and headmen were appointed to the various government-appointed institutions, in particular the Bunga Council.

This was the forerunner to the Transkei Legislative Assembly and was filled with stooge chieftains.

Opposition to the Quisling regime built up over the years and when the Africans boycotted the council the chiefs responded with violence.

The ferocity of the struggle was so intense that thousands of people died. When police failed Try.

gathering together, still in a limited and localised way, of the peasant guerillas—the 'forest fighters' of the Mau Mau-the KANU unemployed, the Kikuyu Central Association and the Land Freedom Army, who met in mid-January at Naivasha and Bahati to demand land in the Rift Valley region.. They complained that they had received no land although they had been in the front of the fight for independence.

Colour bar

The British policy of racial segregation and colour bars, though now unlawful, is still common practice in Kenya.

When • 1 arrived I was asked by an immigration officer to fill in a form asking me which race I was, if I was "non-European', and the names of my father and grandfather.

This is an official post-independence form, but is almost identical to the British one. Attitudes among settlers remain as racialist as ever, and the de facto colour bar is deep and widespread. It cannot be otherwise as long as Kenya remains a colony of imperialism.

From Our Special Correspondent to quell the riots, Verwoerd was forced to proclaim a state of emergency in 1961.

Troops were brought in to crush the rebellion. Under the Emergency Proclamation no opposition of any form was permitted against the regime.

In spite of this brutal intimidation, the overwhelming majority of the people rejected apartheid at the polls. They elected a majority of anti-apartheid candidates to the new Legislative Assembly.

STOOGES

But they did not stop proVerwoerd Chief Kaiser Matanzima from being elected Chief Minister. He, naturally, had the support of most of the 64 chiefs who were nominated direct by the government, without sanction from the electorate.

The 64 stooges were out of a total of 109 elected to the assembly. Chief Victor Poto, who had the support of the 35 elected members, lost the contest by 54 to 49.

Matanzima is now faced with seething discontent.

Chief Poto has formed an opposition Democratic Party in an attempt to mobilise this discontent. He is busily campaigning at present against the appointment of Matanzima's brother, George, as Minister of Justice.

Poto discovered

Kenya is still under the British thumb No peace in — By MIKE BANDA MOSLEY VISITS SOUTH AFRICA cabinet.

with the people.

SOUTH•

WEST AFRICA CAP Cape Town and local right wing steps up activity irom Our Special Correspondent THE PRESENCE in South Africa of Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union Movement, comes at a time when the various groups of the extreme right-wing in the country are stepping up their activities.

This latest visit is just one of a number which Mosley has made to the Republic in recent years. One of his henchmen, Webster, also made the trip last year in search of funds for the movement, but Sir Oswald is keeping his intentions secret.

But he is not remaining silent. "There is little difference between my party's policy and that of the [Verwoerd] Nationalist Party,' he declared on January 27.

He is directing special attention against the Oppenheimers and the Steytlers of the Progressive Party, who stand for the granting of qualified franchise to the non-whites, on the Southern Rhodesian model.

Worried

Also on a visit is A. K. Chesterton, leader of the League of Empire Loyalists. He has a branch of the organisation already set up in South Africa, led by a Miss Traille-Smith.

Chesterton is worried about the Bantustans becoming Ghanas or Kenyas and falling into the hands of 'Black Africa'.

Vile race-hate propaganda, believed to have emanated from Britain and the United States, brother was struck off the roll of attorneys last year for misappropriating funds as well as telling a lie in the law courts of the Cape provincial division.

The campaign for his removal is gaining momentum in the Transkei and outside the territory. Meetings are being held In Pondoland, in the district of Bizana, scene of ferocious resistance in 1960, the people have started a boycott of the business and transport service belonging to Columbus Madikizele, Minister of Agriculture and Forestry in Matanzima's Madikizele is a supporter of Verwoerd and highly unpopular BECHUANALAND Orange. Kimberley E PROVINCE • Bloemfonleins - BASUTOLAND, Self-Governing Bantustan Territorial Authorilies. ribal Authorities, etc.. egiona Authorities, Protectorates...... has been flooding the country. Anti-semitic slogans and swastikas are beginning to appear in increasing numbers on the walls in major cities.

Active locally are the South African Nazi Party, Miss Traille-Smith's branch of the Empire Loyalists and the Afrikaaner Broederbond.

Nazi leader Peter Willers declares that Verwoerd and Vorster are 'soft'. He says that all African women with more than one child should be sterilised and all Indians sent back to India.

Most newsworthy at the moment is the Broederbond, a secret society for the promotion of the Afrikaans' . culture, religion, commerce and industry, which is firmly in favour of apartheid.

Strength

Its strength and influence helped the Nationalist Party to power in 1948. Today most of the members of the cabinet, including Verwoerd himself, are avowed Broeders.

All leading positions in the state are held by Broeders. The chairman of the movement, P. J. Meyer, is head of the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

All news bulletins and broadcast political discussions or talks are in accord with government policy — which is Broederbond policy.

1,000 Broeders are in the civil service and 40 per cent of the clergy of the Dutch Reform Church are members. They preach the gospel in accordance with the Broederbond version.

Control

Through control of the state apparatus, the Broeders are also in virtual control of the minds of most of the Afrikaans population.

But from a Marxist viewpoint, this can hardly be termed a 'fascist' movement. Its support stems mainly from the farming community.

Big business, represented by Oppenheimer, knows that the Verwoerd policies will cause a violent flare-up in South Africa.

Hire rich capital preshe pand ana lic and is therefore prepared to offer better conditions to the enslaved masses.

Nevertheless, the British labour movement can expect an upsurge of right-wing activity when Mosley and Chesterton return, refreshed spiritually and, perhaps, financially.

S. RHODESÍA• A Piete MOZAMBYQUE TR •Pretoria y •Johannesbung r Vaal SWAZILANDI •Kroonstad ORANGE FREE STAT Durban RAM-SKEI East London rt Elizabeth his vote for a one-party state BACKED BY threats and intimidation against voters, President Nkrumah of Ghana has won his vote for a one-party state.

If this were not such a serious move, readers would find high amusement in reports of goingson during and after the referendum (in some polling stations, for example, boxes for "no's' were sealed so that votes could not be placed in them, but the over-riding consideration must be the effects this result will have on the struggle of the Ghanaean people.

Both colonialism and Nkrumah have found it convenient to let the people remain not only poor but ignorant. It is scarcely surprising, then, that large numbers can be encouraged to assemble from time to time to pledge their allegiance to the president and his policies.

But in spite of ignorance and a barrage of propaganda, opposition to the dictator has been expressed in a number of strikes, all brutally suppressed, and by attempts on his life.

Nkrumah is the example par excellence of the African nationalist leader who, behind a copious outpouring of socialist and even quasi-marxist phrases, rules his country at the behest of British imperialism.

TURN THE SCREW

Unable to solve the pressing social problems inherited from decades of colonial rule, he finds himself facing growing threats from the workers and peasants. His answer is to turn the screw a little tighter while his press busily polishes the halo of the self-styled 'saviour'.

As he embodies all the wisdom and brilliance of the African petty-bourgeois, it is hardly necessary for Nkrumah to have opposition parties. The one-party state is the new pattern of that strange animal "African socialism', the virtues of which have been extolled at length by social-democrats like Fenner Brockway.

And, in reality, how much easier it is to control the desires of the masses for a better way of life, to hamstring the trade unions and the working class, if he has complete control of the state apparatus, the judiciary, the police and the army.

Even so, it was not plain sailing in the referendum. 2,480 votes were officially cast against the president, compared to 2,682,095 for. How many thousands who wanted to say no were deterred or unable will never be known.

EXCELLENT EXAMPLE The 'Evening News' (founded surprise) had an excellent example of the kind of vituperative intimidation used to deter opposition.

'It is true,' it declared, when the results were announced, 'that an infinitesimal minority of misguided subversionists, confusionists and self-seeking neo-colonialist robots, whose warped mentality has been poisoned by the serpentine fangs of over-ambitious and powerseeking Judases who have sold their conscience for a capitalistimperialist mess of postage (sic)?

Other, more direct, methods were used. Workers were threatened with the sack, peasants with having their water supply cut off.

A worker who tore down a party poster was fined £50 or six months in jail.

In such a way, Nkrumah won his 'great (paper) victory It would be pointless to evade the obvious truth that the tightening of the reigns of power will make the struggle for socialism more difficult.

But, whatever the difficulties, it must come, and if Nkrumah has made sure that its coming will be violent, he has, of course, no one to blame but himself.

on ALTHOUGH a strike notice, affecting 20,000 road haulage workers in Scotland has been withdrawn, their fight with the employers for improved overtime rates has not been called off-merely postponed.

The Scottish Horse and Motormen's Association have decided to wait for a memorandum, being prepared by the Road Haulage Association. Strike notice has been extended until March 21.

Originally the SHMA notified 176 firms in Scotland that a series of guerilla strikes would begin on February 1.

REFUSED This decision was taken after the employers refused to discuss a claim for time-and-a-half overtime rates. Only time and a quarter is paid for the first six hours' overtime, except on Saturdays and Sundays.

Employers insist that all negotiations should take place with the government-appointed Road Haulage Wages Council. This council has twice turned down union claims for improved overtime rates during the past 12 months.

The union decided that only direct strike action would make the road haulage bosses pay up.

EXEMPT Alexander Kitson, general secretary of the Scottish Horse and Motormen's Association stated: 'We will not allow the Road Haulage Association . to dodge their responsibilities any longer. We want free negotiations.' Reports state that several firms have already agreed to the union's demand and will be exempt from the strike. a sell-out by union leaders.

Strikers met on Saturday in the Grand Cinema when Danny Lewis, executive member of the AEU, explained the 'advantages' of a return to work.

Making excuses for Wilson's statement that the men should return to work as soon as possible, he added: 'Wilson is under pressure to settle this dispute and that is the reason why he suggested a court of inquiry.' The first formula-a working party consisting of three union stewards, three management representatives and a mutually agreed independent chairman— had been turned down by the SCOW management.

'Not concerned'

The terms of reference of the present working party consisting of a union representative, a management spokesman and an independent industrialist, were to examine the work of SCOW craftsmen in relation to changes in the industry.

Local official Bob O'Neill said: Personally, I am not concerned who sits on the committee even if they are all employers. The real fight comes in three months time if the findings of the committee are unfavourable to us.

Surely O'Neill does not think the employers are going to solve the problems of the men.

When a vote was taken on the return to work 107 voted against.

• The parting words of wisdom from Lewis were: 'It has been a good meeting and we are breaking up friends.' Strutted Outside the cinema, as waiting processmen heard the news of the return, he strutted in front of television and press cameras the management were taken to steel workers' homes.

"They must have had them ready since Thursday,' was the view of one worker.

The role of union leaders in the last week is very clear. Every effort was made to get the men back to work and Sir William Carron, Governor of the richest institution in the country—the Bank of England— did not stick 'to his militant words for very long.

At the first sign of unity between the craft unions he hastily changed his role from "militant leader' to 'chief negotiator'.

Rank-and-file workers in the steel company must fight for unity between the craft unions and understand that the only way to solve the problems of wage increase and redundancy is to fight against the lies used by the management, the trade union leadership and the press, to disrupt the trade union movement. Industrial

SCOTTISH MINERS are putting up a firm resistance against the National Coal Board's drive to speed up production at their expense.

In five pits last week 5,000 miners were involved in disputes.

At the Polkemmet pit where the men accused the manager of deliberately aggravating bad conditions by forcing the pace for increased output, 1,800 miners struck. They came out in support of four men who had been sacked for alleged early finishing.

This pit has led the fight in Scotland against the NCB's policy of' 'make the pits pay at any cost, in spite of obstruction from Scottish NUM officials.

Warned

Kingshill No. 1 pit has been warned to expect closure should production fail to rise. Four hundred and twenty miners were on strike there over coal face conditions.

Ayrshire miners at Littlemill and Bank pit were also on strike against working conditions.

There are signs that the Scottish miners are refusing to be cowed by threats of closure from the NCB.

As one Polkemmet miner said: 'If they are going to close the pit then they will close it. You may as well strike anyway.' Registered at the G.P.O. as a newspaper Published by The Newsletter, 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 Printed by Plough Press Ltd. (TU), i80 Claphám High Street. London. S.W 4 posing as the 'leader' of the rank-and-file.

Throughout the strike AEU rank-and-file members have been up against strong opposition from members of other craft unions, whipped up deliberately by the management.

The union leadership has fallen in line by keeping the unions quite separate. They have been unable to show the craft unions that unless they unite against the management, when the time comes for redundancies, many workers will go straight out the door without a fight.

Joint meeting

strike AT A MEETING in Birmingham on • Sunday 800 delegates from all 33 garages of the Midland Red Bus Company decided to take strike action against the employer's rejection of a national claim for improved wages and conditions.

The first step will be a one-day token strike on Saturday, February 8.

It was obvious at the meeting that feeling among the busmen is running high and a call for strike action was given tremendous support.

There is hardly a job in the country which has deteriorated so much in pay and conditions as the busman's has. As in other sections of industry, speedup is increasing at a tremendous rate.

Much of the responsibility for the worsening conditions must be placed on bad trade union leadership. The busmen should learn from previous sell-outs by their trade union leaders and prepare an alternative leadership. Unless they do this, then however strong the strike is they will be left wide open for defeat.

Truline girls the cheek to accept. Yet in 1962, "Record', the TGWU magazine said that for dockers to claim £15 17s. was nothing to laugh at. What then is the £9 9s.? Is it half a week's pay?' In a hushed hall dockers heard Mr. Barrett trace the struggle of his union for recognition in the northern ports. / 'On the basis of the action you took in 1954, and as a result of the subsequent high court judgment, you know that it led to our union's expulsion from the TUC. Despite our constant efforts to be readmitted we have been kept out.

"Ultimatum'

'When I assumed the office of General Secretary I immediately approached the TUC and pointed out that before we had terminated negotiations over the problems, we had been issued an ultimatum from the TGWU we could not accept. We even said we were willing to stop recruiting in the northern ports. Still we had no success. Finally, I wrote to Mr. Frank Cousins, but his ultimatum was that we must give up our Liverpool members to the TGWU.

'Our Executive Committee then asked that we be allowed to sit in on the negotiations for the 40-hour week. Again we were told no. We could not service our members. The EC of the NASD could not accept these conditions. They were entirely unacceptable and undemocratic.

"Determined'

There must now be some deep hard thinking because we face an employing class which is determined to get what it wants. It is essential to build trade union unity on the docks. Whatever the feelings about the past there are today dockers walking about without a card. That is wrong brothers.

You may remember me saying in 1954 that if you make us the strongest docks union in the country we will dictate the terms. Now once again you are the key.' Force hand' Amidst tremendous applause he said: "Years ago I told you here in Liverpool that our union can promise you nothing except a fight. Now we say the same. Bill Johnson, Merseyside area secretary of the NASD, seen (far right))

'If you give us in Liverpool, waterfront. At mass meetings Hull and Manchester enough all along dock road last week strength then we can force even the hand of the Ministry of Labour. Don't waste your time. Come in. Go out and get your 10,000 to 11,000 members on Merseyside then we can promise the Port Employers a real fight.

'Let's tell them now that its time we had only one call a day; a sick scheme; an adequate pension scheme for the older lads and £15 a week regular pay and security for all dockers.' Scheme Earlier in the meeting Mr. Bill Johnson, Area Secretary of the NASD had outlined the Blue Union's alternative scheme for decasualisation. These proposals were circulated to thousands of dockers on Merseyside in a leaflet earlier in the week. (The main points were contained in the exclusive interview with Mr. Johnson in last week's Newsletter.)

He pointed out that the committee regarded the 'New Deal' as completely unacceptable.

'However, a mere rejection the scheme is not sufficient. real new deal for dockers long overdue.' 'United fight' He was loudly applauded when he said: 'We are not going to stand by and let the employers foist on Liverpool proposals that have already been rejected in London. In London the lads are asking for £15 a week. If that's good enough for them, we want it too.

'We must show the employer by a united fight and if necessary by a national one, that there is no possibility of getting these proposals through here in Liverpool?

The meeting unanimously rejected the 'New Deal' and voted in favour of the proposals presented by the Merseyside Area Committee of the NASD.

This was a reflection of the growing feeling on Merseyside's addressing dockers in Liverpool last week.

thousands of dockers voiced their opposition to the attempts of the employers to crash through the proposed scheme.

Already three branches of the TGWU have rejected it and the Regional Committee is said to be extremely concerned.

Not on' This feeling was best expressed at one meeting by a docker who said: 'We have now seen what they have to offer. They have given it to us in glossy pamphlets, on posters and a special colour film being shown daily at the Tatler Cinema. All I can say is that if the trailers are anything to go by, they will play to an empty house. As far as we are concerned the scheme's not on.' MEAT STRIKE OVER The week-old strike of meat workers in the Birmingham market ended on Wednesday. Leaders of the Union of Shop Distributive and Allied Workers are to discuss a further pay rise -the men have accepted a 12s. interim rise.

It was obvious the way the strike would go when area organiser, Mr. A. C. Tudball, said: I am doing my best to stop this strike from spreading. We don't want to extend it, and we are working for a settlement.' Calling GREET THE NEWSLETT • Sunday, March 1, 7.30 p.m. William Brown Street, Liverpool Healy-National Secretary, Socialist Labour

Last week a joint meeting of craft unions in the steel works— the first for some time-agreed that they all should support the wages claim.

But a few days later the AEU leaders, afraid that the strike might gather more support than they had bargained for, hastily came to their solution of the problem.

Local AEU members who who refused to give their names for fear of retribution by the union officials told The Newsletter that nothing had been gained through the strike.

'The management have always had a policy of divide and conquer with the craft unions,' an AEU fitter said.

The management have caused the rift between BISAKTA and the AEU by stating that the fitters could have a 10 shilling increase if 400 of their mates were dismissed.

'All we want is a fair share of the profits that the steel Girls in the union have signed a letter calling for the officials to meet them.

They also made a demand to be present at a meeting between the manager, supervisor and the union.

Earlier the manager complained to the press that the supervisor had been coldshouldered after the union was formed. The girls deny this and fear that their evidence will be disputed if they are not present at the meeting.

This could be an important turn in the dispute. If the girls are not represented, those sacked may be branded as 'troublemakers'.

Yet even the Garment Worker's officials have agreed that their only fault has been to form a union and try to obtain minimum rates of pay.

If the union leaders do not agree to their presence at the meeting it will become more clear than ever that they are not interested in winning the dispute.

But the fight six weeks of struggle against the Steel Company of Wales 1,600 members of the AEU went back to work on Monday alter over yet company is making. We don't want to take the money away from the process workers.' a worker commented after the strike meeting.

It is significant that as the news of the return to work was announced, official notices from Newsletter Reporter THE Amalgamated Engineering Union have finally brought out their members at William Denby's dyeworks, near Bradford, in support of the 240 locked-out workers.

And this Saturday, Denby strikers and shop stewards from other dyeworks are to lobby a meeting of the Dyers Union executive which will consider demands for banning overtime, spreading the strike and raising strike pay.

STILL SCABBING

The strikers, who are now in their third month of lock-out, will also be supported by a General and Municipal Worker brought out by his union. But maintenance joiners, members of the woodworker's union, have refused to strike and are still scabbing.

Attempts 1o prevent Denby's from receiving pieces for dying and materials needed for the various processes are being frustrated by black-leg lorry drivers.

Members of the Transport and General Workers are refusunder the "New Deal" and an officer of the TGWU has had ing to deliver to the works, but last week a load of rock salt was taken in by a coal wagon and cloth pieces are delivered and collected in furniture removal vans.

Last week an unemployed Pakistani went to the works looking for a job, but when the dispute was explained to him by pickets he agreed to leave. Immediately two policemen, who are on permanent guard at the works, grabbed hold of him, and frog-marched him through the picket line into the works.

NO MEETING A fortnight ago the Dyers Union executive agreed to convene a special meeting to discuss the three demands of the members. This meeting has not materialised and the executive will not discuss the proposals until their regular meeting this Saturday.

No doubt they hope their members will weaken before the meeting takes place and they will not be forced to take the measures necessary to ensure a victory for the Denby workers.

NGER amongst post once • point. Bitterly opposed to to deliver unfranked advertising post, they have found their oppos of Union of Post Office Workers' Many branches of the union have passed resolutions against delivery, and some have censured Smith for not giving a lead on the issue.

All along he has said that members should not take 'industrial action'.

He said that postmen should abide by parliament's decision, taken on Tuesday, that posting should go ahead.

WONT POST

LEAFLETS But the rank-and-file are against this. They lobbied MPs on Tuesday and made it quite clear they will not post Aims of Industry anti-nationalization leaflets.

They are in the unenviable position of being classed as Civil Servants. They are not allowed, by law, to take strike action.

Smith is exploiting this to the full and makes it quite plain that anyone taking action will receive no support from the union.

One wonders how Tory MPs, and perhaps Smith, would react if the leaflets advocated nationalization. workers is reaching boiling the Tory plan to force them material with the ordinary tion baulked by the activities secretary, Ron Smith.

Smith: "no action'

BACK - STABBING methods were used by the management of Spray and Burgass hosiery firm of Nottingham to get its 250 striking employees back to work.

After the management made promises that the strikers' jobs would remain vacant until they got back many were refused work at the beginning of the week. Others found themselves working for lower rates than before the strike.

Rumours in the factory allege that some directors feel that the strike has been useful in weeding out shop-floor militants.

Already negotiated

So far, half the 250 men and women-out on strike over a pay rise which they claim had already been negotiated by the union-went back to work.

The role of the union has been strongly criticised. Mr. Jack Charlsworth, secretary of the Hosiery Finishers' and Dyers' Association stated: 'We have written off the possibilities of any peace moves now. The men who are on strike are telling me in increasing numbers that they will never return to work.' Instead of forcing the management to honour the strikers' demands, the union has merely found them jobs elsewhere.

In a strike newsheet Charisworth stated that he did not think the dispute arose from class struggle.

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