The Newsletter, vol. 8 no. 357

how Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner, the three civil rights workers, whose crushed bullet-ridden bodies were recently recovered in Eastern Mississippi, died.

Only the wind sighing its lament as it caresses the groves of mimosa and scrub pine around Bogue Chitto swamp bears eternal, but mute, witness to this barbaric crime from which even the rattlesnakes and water-moccasins that infest this area must surely have recoiled with shame and disgust. nese three martyrs in the struggle for Negro equalitytwo white and one coloured —paid the ultimate price for having dared to register Negro voters in an area whose medieval laws and customs have not changed since the last century. ombings, lynchings and judicial inurders of Negrues continue with monotonous regularitydespite the so-called Civil Rights Bill, despite a swarming army of Federal agents and despite the plaintive (and utterly useless) appeals of Martin Luther King, Roy Wilkins and the Socialist Workers Party for • Federal action in the deep South. lose who ask Negroes to place their faith in the Federal government and the Supreme Court are betraying the cause of the Negro people and are stabbing the civil rights struggle in the back. onsider the evidence. In the town of Birmingham, Alabama, where recently •four Negro children were killed in a bomb blast, not a single one out of the 50 major bomb explosions in the last two decades has been solved. le murderers of William Moore (a white civil rights worker), Medgar Evers and innumerable other Negrces on both sides of the MasonDixon line continue to go scot free. Yet the FBI is unable to secure a conviction.

Will yo NWENTY - year - old Jean Kerrigan, sociology student at Sheffield University, has joined the Socialist Labour League. She is one of hundreds who are now entering our organisation. In the period ahead she will become one of thousands. le Marxist interpretation of the class struggle is proving a much more useful occupation for study than participation in the pernicious activities of the Stalinist and social-democratic bureaucracies. ie coming of automation in the sixties has pushed the problem of revolutionary consciousness decades ahead m the slow tempo of develes. or deveroDment during the fifties. Behind the attraction of the Socialist Labour League for young people is the urge to learn and practise Marxist theory in history, programme and struggle. ur organisation is the only one with a clean history. We have never betrayed the working class. Yet our history is one of flexibility in approaching other tendencies. The more we insist on the struggle for Lt. Gilligan, who killed 15-yearold James Powell in cold blood, continues to hold his policeman's badge in the New York police force-like many other trigger-happy, killer cops. ill the FBI does nothing. this issue of The Newsletter we publish two articles from our co-thinkers in the United States precisely on the question of the Negro conflict with the interests of monopoly capitalism and its executive agency, the Federal government. e do this not out of any altruistic desire but because the struggle for Negro equality is very much a part of the anti-capitalist struggle in the United States-and an integral part of the struggle against world imperialism. he desertion of the Socialist Workers' Party from revolutionary principles at a time when the Negro movement is beset by false prophets and utopian megalomaniacs makes the intervention of Marxists, on both sides of the Atlantic, unpostponably urgent.

O1 We e think that clarity on the policy and perspectives of the Negro struggle is essential to an understanding of the American Socialist Revolution. le first condition for such a victorious struggle is to tear the Negro people away from the Democratic Party and towards independent political action in alliance with the labour and trade union movement of the United States four The le struggle for Negro equality leads inexorably towards a socialist party based on the trade unions. The task of Marxists is to facilitate and expedite the achievement of such an aim and not—as the SWP does-to divert it into reformist and Black Nationalist channels.

Only when this is done can we say that Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner have not died in vain.

u join?

the principles of Marxism, the more support we enjoy inside the Labour and trade union movement, The better our members understand the theory behind this struggle for principles, the more flexible we can afford to be in our work within the labour movement. 'e are implacable in our hostility towards sectarianism no less than opportunism. Young people who want to be communists understand that there can be no real development of Marxism outside the ranks of the Socialist Labour League. rotskyism is the Marxism of the 20th century, and the Socialist Labour League is the only organisation in Britain today which fights day in and day out for the principle of Trotsky's Fourth International. 'e are asking you as a reader to consider joining us. If you want more information or you would like to meet one of our organisers, please telephone or write to us at once or fill in the form on page four and send it to us.

/ILSON'S complete agreement with on the Cyprus situation, and his silen U.S. intervention in Vietnam, are betrayals international working class.

While the actions of imperialism cause slavement, the Labour leaders give support Britain's traditional 'divide and rule' policy now threatens to explode into a major war in the Mediterranean. The British imperialists, lately concerned with persuading Washington to underwrite their hold on the Cyprus base, have built up national antagonisms between Greeks and Turks over many years.

This has reached the stage where the Greek and Turkish ruling classes, anxious to divert attention from the bankruptcy of their own regimes, have been drawn into open armed struggle. The British and U.S. governments are now both trying to end this split inside NATO.

Withdraw forces

Calls for 'negotiations to end the conflict' and for 'United Nations intervention', so beloved by the Labour leaders, are designed to maintain the same imperialist rule which led to the present trouble.

Labour must demand the immediate withdrawal of British forces. Only this could give a lead to the Greek and Turkish workers and peasants and help to unite them against imperialism.

In South-East Asia, the Americans have been forced to intervene openly to prevent the disintegration of their puppet regimes. With Home's blessing, and without a word of protest from Wilson, Johnson ordered the bombing of North Vietnam targets.

The corrupt politicians who run South Vietnam on behalf of the Americans are rapidly losing control to the Vietcong guerrillas.

CP role

Khrushchev demonstrates the meaning of peaceful co-existence when he avoids commitment to back the fight of the Vietnamese people. The Chinese leaders, despite all their wordy rhetoric, do little more.

It is the working class movement which must act to stop imperialist attacks against the Vietnam workers and peasants.

Wilson and Brown work to prevent such action.

When they take office as Her Majesty's ministers, they will be in charge of carrying out the needs of dock industry.

the imperialists. The reintroduction of conscription is but one of the likely results of their policies.

The fight against the rightwing Labour leaders and for socialist policies at home and abroad is essential if the war port House. plans of imperialism are to be stopped.

PHOTOGRAPHS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT THE pictures of the brutal New York police on this page and on page three were taken by Orlando Velasquez, photographer of the Progressive Labour Movement's weekly paper, "Challenge', during the demonstrations by Negroes and Puerto Ricans in Harlem.

Home ie over of the murder and ento Tory policies.

THE U.S. NEGRO STRUGGLE (See page 3 for two reports direct from correspondents in America A posse of the world's toughest policemen chase along a Harlem street with guns and truncheons drawn ready to fire at or club anyone in sight. One of their victims lies injured on the pavement. This is just one of many similar pictures that have come out of the United States in the last few weeks since the Negroes of Harlem began protesting at the murder of 15-year-old schoolboy James Powell by a police lieutenant.

One of the latest moves by the police is the arrest of Bill Epton, chairman of the Harlem Progressive Labour Movement (PLM). The PLM is a pro-Chinese breakaway movement from the Communist Party which has taken a bold and courageous stand in the recent fight by minority sections in New York against police brutality. Epton was arrested for disorderly conduct after ignoring a ban imposed on demonstrations by police chief Murphy. Since then he has been charged with planning a riot. At a Supreme Court hearing where Corporation officials applied for an injunction against any Harlem demonstration or gathering it was alleged that Epton said people should arm themselves 'to kill cops and judges' and smash the state. In a press statement Epton has said that the police had invented the story. 'What I said was that we must fight back when the cops attack us. They-the judges, the cops, the slumlords, the bosses—are the ones who institute violence and murder against the people. I called-openly and publicly-for revolutionary struggle by the people to defeat that reign of terror! Secret pay offer PORT bosses, intent on passing of the lowes.

the most underhand way to Britain's dockers, secret offer to the unions this week.

Realising that dockers really mean business in the fight for a basic wage of £15 a week, the employers are trying to negotiate a further deal with the union leaders in an attempt to stave off a major crisis in the Three weeks ago (on July 17), over 22,000 dockers came out on strike in Merseyside, Hull, Manchester and London and coachloads of men travelled to London to lobby the national delegate conference at Trans10s. offer rejected This conference rejected the port employers measly 10s.

offer and there is little doubt that but for the immense show of militancy and solidarity between TGWU and National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers (Blue' Union) rank and filers dis played in London, the offer would have been pushed through by the union leaders. to dockers wage rise in made a new The action has worried TGWU officials and the bosses.

As 'The Guardian' said on August 12: 'Both sides are eager to see that any such unofficial action is not repeated.' This adequately sums up the attitude of the 'two sides' who can be expected to work in close collaboration over the £15 a week issue.

Both will unite against the 'Blue' Union which has given a lead to those dockers in the TGWU frustrated by their own union leadership's refusal to fight the port employers.

It is small wonder that these leaders have described the situation as 'very delicate' The only way dockers can win their wage increase is to stand as firm as they did on July 17 and show that no quarter will be given. • See page 4 for Reg article on Communist action in the docks. Jean Kerrigan joins the SLL T's reported that is l' of Augus 8 reported Jean Kerrigan, daughter of Mr. Peter Kerrigan, industrial organiser of the Communist Party has joined the Socialist Labour League. In a press statement issued on Friday, August 7, she said:

My resignation from the Communist Party was announced in the "Daily Worker" of August 7 in the form of a statement from the Yorkshire District of the Party.

This statement referred to "discussions about (my) connections with Trotskyist organisations". The Yorkshire District Secretary knows very well that my connections were only with the Socialist Labour League and not with "Trotskyist organisations". Further, the discussions referred to were never brought before the District Committee and involved only the District Secretary, Bert Ramelson. He was unable to answer any of the political criticisms I made. The failure of the Party to face up to its Stalinist past as revealed in these discussions in my opinion inevitably has led to an abandonment of Communist politics and of Marxist theory by the Party.

While I was a member of the Communist Party my work was within the student and youth sections. The youth and students have remained completely isolated from the main political struggles of youth which have been conducted by the Young Socialists in the face of conținuous witch-hunting by the Labour Party official machine....

In my opinion, the principles of Marx and Lenin were defended and developed by Trotsky and are embodied in the programme and organisation of the Socialist Labour League which I have now joined.

JEAN KERRIGAN, August 7,1964.

Page "HE Lanka Sama I Samaja Party (Revolutionary) held a special conference on July 18 and 19. Below we print the full text of decisions issued by the party secretary, Edmund Samarakoddy, following the conference.

(The LSSP Revolutionary is the minority section which split from the reformist LSSP, Bandaranaike Government is the salvaging of capitalism through whatever industrial development is possible in the present situation of Ceylon's Capitalism. With this perspective the Sirimavo Government resolved on drastic measures.

One aspect of the results of the drastic steps taken by the Sirimavo Government to sustain capitalism is the further rise of prices of essential commodities and the increasing scarcity of goods. Workers, the Lower middle class and the rural poor have been worst hit. Severe import restrictions have resulted army and emergency powers to deal with the workers and peasants was a marked feature of SLFP rule. During this period the opportunism and reformist outlook of a section of the working class leadership helped in a large way the bourgeois SLFP Government to keep the mass movement under control. But throughout the last year (1963) the organised working class were taking determined steps to close their ranks for a struggle to win their urgent demands and to break the wage freeze. The proposed action around the 21 demands under class movement and when these leaders were ready to go much further and accept a share of the responsibility of office, the Sirimavo Government agreed to grant them portfolios-hence the SLFP-LSSP Coalition.

The entry of the LSSP (Reformist) into the SLFP Government on a so-called 14-point programme has not changed the class character of the SLFP Government which remains capitalist as before.

However, the influence the LSSP (Reformist) on the Government and its direct intervention in administration means that the capitalist Coalition Government is exposed to considerable pressures from the working class, the radical petty-bourgeois and the rural poor.

The LSSP (Revolutionary) defines its attitude to the present bourgeois Coalition SLFP-LSSP Government as one of opposition.

The Coalition Government has created a new political situation. The imperialist interests and class conscious and developed sections of the capitalist class have already expressed their cautious approval of this development as they see no threat to their fundamental property rights and interests. The middle classes and the ‚working class generally have •welcomed the new set-up as they believe in the possibility of an improvement of their conditions. However, whilst class collaboration has commenced openly, sections of the wage earners could without being antagonistic to the Government, well take to struggle to win their demands as they could interpret the new situation as favourable to struggle. But despite the general approval of the working class, the class conscious and ideologically developed sections of the working class already regard the Coalition as a historic betrayal of the working class and toiling masses by some of their erstwhile leaders. As for the minorities (the Ceylon Tamils and other linguistic and religious groups and the Plantation Workers)-they are able to recognise that the LSSP (Reformist) has capitulated to the SLFP on August 15, 19<4 19<4 August Language, Citizenship, Religion and Minority Rights.

The present prevailing mass moods will soon change from one of sympathy to one of criticism and opposition. The toiling masses generally have received nothing except promises. Despite the efforts of the Reformists to promote class collaboration, even now, the class struggle has broken out. (Police arrests of strikers and police baton charges against the Velona strikers have already compromised the Coalition Government.)

With the widespread talk of achieving Socialism through the Coalition Government and the stimulation of a new interest in Workers' and Peoples' power, the Party will pose the need for real Socialism as opposed to fake Socialism.

To concentrate the future realisation of the burning needs of the working masses and the toiling people the LSSP (R) declares:

Not a Coalition Government with the bourgeoisie in Parliament but a Coalition of the workers, wage earners and rural masses. Forward to a Workers' and Peasants' Government."

JOURNAL Vol. 8, No. 357 EDITORIAL Civil Rights, B/0SL LEAGUE Price MEMBERS of the National Committee of the Young Socialists last weekend issued a statement 'Forward with the Young Socialists' aimed at rallying thousands of young workers, school-leavers, students, Young Communists, Youth CND and unemployed to a massive anti-Tory demonstration on September 27.

The Committee was convened by its chairman, Dave ing a series of attacks on the Young Socialists since their right-wing officials of the Labour Party.

Eight members attended, seven voting for the statement with one, Roger Rosewall (Southern Region), abstaining. John Packer (South-West Region), Janet Dugdale (Eastern Region) and John Charlton (West Midlands) did not attend.

The majority, which voted for the adoption of the statement— an eight-page Manifesto--was Ashby, Sheila Torrance (London and Middlesex), Peter MacCullum (Wales), Mike Farley (North-West Region), Barrie Evans (East Midlands), Bob Hamilton (Scotland), and Wal Hobson (Northern Region).

'DELETED'

At a press conference on Sunday, Ashby said he had received a letter from the Yorkshire Regional Youth Organiser of the Labour Party, Mr. Harold Sims, saying that his YS branch, North-West Leeds, had been disbanded and 'accordingly your name has been deleted from our address records on all matters concerning the Young Socialists'.

TOO BUSY

He had gone to Labour Party headquarters at Transport House to demand an immediate meeting of the National Committee, but was told by the National Youth Officer, Mr. Reg Underhill's secretary that everyone was too busy electioneering.

So he convened the meeting himself.

The Manifesto, he felt, represented the political views of 'an overwhelming majority of Young Socialist branches who would support it. Ashby (North-East Region), followEaster conference at Brighton by In the document he says:

•We are firmly convinced that if we allowed the Young Socialists to be closed down without a struggle, it would be a betrayal not only of the Young Socialists movement, but of the socialist aspirations of thousands of young workers. We were elected to lead and we intend to do just that.' The Manifesto immediately points out that there is no solution to the problems of youth and the working class without a fight to abolish capitalism. The Young Socialists are carrying on this fight through their conference decisions, despite the witch-hunting of right-wing officials, and are united with the labour and trade union movement.

SIMPLE ANSWER

The answer to the bureaucrats who expelled John Robertson, last year's NC chairman, and disband branches of the Young Socialists turning out to youth who are pushed around by the police, palmed off with dead-end jobs or forced to live on apprenticeship wages, is simple and categorical, says the Manifesto. 'We will not tolerate them.' For four years the Young Socialists have fought for youth and they will continue to do so, it adds.

The 400,000 youth that had just school wunid join thousands of others faced with increased speed-up and exploitation caused by automation.

The Brighton conference called on the next Labour government to institute socialist planning to eradicate unemployment and all the problems forced on to the working class through monopolisation and automation.

The Manifesto also takes up the problems of housing, the concentrated attacks by the police and courts on the youth, the witch-hunt against the Young Socialists and the complete inadequacy of Labour Party policy which will lead to disillusionment and destruction of the working class unless socialist measures are adopted by a Wilson government.

In supporting the struggles of all workers for higher wages and shorter hours the Manifesto welcomes the programme of Manchester engineering apprentices:

The rate for the job!

Adequate training facilities!

65% of the skilled man's rate at 16, 90% at 20.

A 35-hour week with month's paid holiday.

FIGHT WAGE FREEZE It links this programme with a fight in the unions against the wagé freeze policies of the National Economic Development Council and the National Incomes Commission.

Following the decisions of the Brighton conference, the Manifesto also comes out against the United Nations, Conscription, the H-bomb and Racialism.

*Because Young Socialists fight for these policies, agreed at their conference, for the third year in succession, they are witch-hunted, closed down and "disowned" in one area after another,' says the Manifesto.

"We are fighting back! We are for a real fight of the working class against the Tories' The Manifesto then call: on all sections of youth to be:. LL OUT in a demonstration for socialist policies before the election on September 27.

led by Dr. N. M. Perera, just before it formed a coalition government with Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike's capitalist Sri Lanka Freedom Party.)

'Pursuant to the decision of the conference of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Revolutionary Section) held on June 7, 1964, at the Workmen's Resort, Slave Island, a special conference of the party was held in Colombo on Saturday the 18th and Sunday the 19th. This conference was attended by members and candidates from all over the island. Only members had voting rights who had voting rights prior to the split of June 7.

Three resolutions were discussed and approved: on the question of affiliation to the Fourth International; on the national political situation, and on organisational tasks.

With regard to the Fourth International the conference decided to accept the recognition granted to the LSSP (RS) and will hereafter function as the Ceylon Unit of the Fourth International, and will call itself LANKA SAMA SAMAJA PARTY (REVOLUTIONARY) Ceylon Unit of the Fourth International.

The conference further decided to request the United Secretariat of the Fourth International to expressly declare that the entire membership of the Reformist LSSP are no longer regarded as members of the Fourth International and that Colvin R. de Silva and Leslie Goonewardene be expressly expelled by name in so far as they were members of the International Executive Committee of the Fourth International and are now serving as advisers to the Ministers of a bourgeois Government.

The resolution on the National Political Situation is as follows:

In the context of the decline and decay of world capitalism Ceylon's capitalist class cannot hope to develop the economy with any degree of success. However, the only road for the Ceylon bourgeoisie that can help them with increasing difficulties to sustain capitalism is the road leading to industrial development. The role of the Sirimavo OUT NOW-Order your Fourth International (Summer issue) Editorials-Ceylon and British Labour youth Crisis of Post-War Capitalism—Peter Jeffries Through What Stage Are We Passing?-1924 speech Medical and Veterinary Workers Germany 1921: "The March Action'—Pierre Broué 40 pages. Illus. Price 2/6. Available from: New Park Publications, in the closing of trading concerns and the restriction of business causing an increase in unemployment and the enforcement of the wage freeze has meant a virtual wage cut on wage earners.

The resulting mass situation was that workers (wage earners, rural poor and the middle classes) moved away from the Government and developed opposition to it. The organised working class launched on strike action of a very determined nature. Prolonged strikes involving wide sections of wage earners, even of better paid categories took place. The mounting dissatisfaction of the rural masses was also evident Since July 1960 the Government utilised the organs and apparatus of the bourgeois state to suppress and deal with the developing mass movement. The frequent use of police, OUR picture shows Bala Tampoe and other leading members of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Revolutionary) entering the historic conference of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party held at the New Town Hall, Colombo, Ceylon on June 6 and 7, at which the majority, led by Dr. N. M. Perera, voted to form a coalition government with Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike's Sri Lanka Freedom Party.

The Newsletter followed closely the events in Ceylon and the complete betrayal by the Perera clique in leading a Trotskyist Party, which once claimed to be the largest in the world, into the coalition.

We sent Comrade Gerry copy incorporating LABOUR REVIEW Contents include:

Trotsky 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4. the leadership of the Joint Committee of Trade Union Organisations was a challenge to the SLFP Government and the capitalist class.

An open assault on organised labour was extremely risky in a situation of general mass unrest. If the SLFP Government was to continue in power it was imperative that the mass situation, particularly the relations with the organised working class, be changed in its favour-to secure this objective an alliance with Rightist Parties (UNP) was of no purpose as working class mass support was gathered around the Left Parties: The Government required nothing less than a guarantee against the intervention of the organised working class for the achievement of their pressing demands and the pacification of the masses generally. When this guarantee was forthcoming frem some leaders of the working Healy, national secretary of the Socialist Labour League, to Ceylon to cover the LSSP Congress.

Healy was refused entry to the proceedings. When his request went to the conference presidium, Pierre Frank, the representative of the Pabloite International Centre in Paris, joined hands with the coalition renegades and urged that Healy's application be rejected.

Since then The Newsletter has exposed the role of Frank and the Pabloites. These enemies of the working class aided the betrayal of thousands of Ceylonese and Indian workers and peasants by refusing completely to discuss the role of the LSSP leaders when the Unified Secretariat' was formed last year.

The Minority in the LSSP walked out of the conference and named itself the LSSP (Revolutionary Section).

It has already participated in mass struggles by Ceylonese workers and has led several strikes, including the recent Velona mill strike.

As can be seen from the resolutions passed at its own conference, the LSSP (Revolutionary) will continue to support and aid the struggles of the Ceylon workers and peasants against the coalition government, which can solve none of the tremendous problems facing the people of Ceylon. No end to suffering of workers and peasants THE balance sheet of the first half year of Uhuru (freedom) in Kenya shows a large credit on the income side of imperialism, particularly of British imperialism.

Imperialism has also entrenched itself in Tanganyika and Uganda as a result of the device of 'granted' independence and has suffered a setback only in Zanzibar, thanks to the heroic, anti-feudal revolt of January, which toppled the British puppet, the Sultan, from his throne and converted the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba into a republic.

Even here imperialism has partially recovered lost ground, thanks to the work of its most valuable agency in Africa, the 'independent' governments and the middle class which they represent.

These classes are entirely subordinate to and dependent upon the imperialist powers. The result of this relationship is starkly evident in the case of Kenya.

For the vast majority of its people, independence has brought only a legal, nominal and potential change, but has not altered in any way the real conditions of living.

Super exploitation

A colony is a country which is subjected to super-exploitation by a foreign country. Independence has in no way altered this basic situation. Foreign, imperialist, superexploitation has increased since independence. Among the investing powers are Britain, America, Germany and Japan.

The recent British 'aid' of £60,000,000 has been described in the Nairobi Legislature this month as amounting to 'nothing' for Kenya.

But it amounts to a great deal for British settlers and other expatriate interests in this country. Nearly the whole of this 'aid' is to go directly into the pockets of the racialist 'white' settlers as compensation or farming subsidy and to pensions and compensation and peripheral benefits for British personnel on contract service in Kenya.

Settlers protected

Meanwhile, the Kenya government is protecting the settlers' property, evicting 'squatters, including Mau Mau peasants who are trying to recover their stolen land, and is at present devising a law to protect foreign investments in Kenya (as has already been done in Uganda).

The only 'aid' programmes which are not going to cripple the economy (e.g., through massive interest repayments) and which develop the nationalized sector and undermine the private capitalist sector are, naturally, those from Eastern From our Kenya Europe, the Soviet Union and China whose loan conditions have been particularly favourable to the economy).

Furthermore, the American, British, Western European and Japanese 'aid' goes mainly into the retarding sector of agriculture.

Commenting on the foreign capital issue, the Vice-President of Zanzibar and Tanganyika, Karume was compelled to say that Zanzibar did not want any foreign investment, because this only took away the people's wealth.

Fat Salaries Zanzibar, he said, was not interested in loans from foreign countries which would only "bring in their own people on fat salaries' to run the businesses, leaving the local people no better off. (Speech at Rasnungwi, reported in 'East African Standard', May 11, 1964.)

Even Odinga, who, as Home Minister of Kenya was responsible for mass evictions of African peasants from European farms, said (when speaking with the Chinese Foreign Minister, Chen Yi, in Peking on May 4, this year): "The imperialists have a strong grip on Kenya through economic domination' and he asked China 'to work together to help us break the backbone of this worst kind of imperialist domination of our country.

This, of course, was sheer demagogy, since Odinga belongs to a government which serves only the interests of the imperialists he condemned.

The purpose of such demagogy as in the case of the occasional anti - apartheid rallies in Nairobi and Dares-Salaam and Kampala, is to divert the attention of the people oppressed by the quisling governments from their struggle against these regimes which are agents of imperialism.

Meetings ban

Taking advantage of the January army revolts, the Kenya government imposed a total ban on meetings. This ban covered even May Day, when all union meetings were prohibited. The ban was lifted only last month, after a long struggle, by the unions in particular.

The ban which extended from 'Nairobi, Ukambani and Kiambu districts to all Kenya until further notice' on April 12, actually banned even the 'issue of licences for public meetings'. At present public meetings can only be held on licence.

One of the first acts of the government was the Tripartite Agreement whereby the government, employers and labour bureaucrats agreed to a standstill on strikes and wages for one year. The employers, of course, were the sole beneficiaries of this agreement. In return they were supposed to take on an extra 1 per cent of staff to help solve unemployment.

This 'solution' has succeeded in shunting large numbers of young people into the Kenya African National Union (KANU) and other youth labour battalions and away from further education and trades, but has in no way relieved the unemployment problem.

The number of unemployed has risen as a result of evictions by "settlers', aided by the government and the courts. Employers have dismissed militant workers (e.g., in Mombassa) and wages have remained at starvation level (average wages range from £l a month on the farms to £8 a month in the towns).

Despite laws against racial discrimination, the ratio of 'white' to 'black' wages remains as high as under direct British rule (notorious for racial discrimination, especially in Kenya) and stands at over 20:1 in most industries and occupations today under "independence' Grim struggle The workers, both agricultural and urban, have continued their grim struggle for survival. The East African Standard', leading open imperialist paper in Kenya (which still advertises South African apartheid places, interests and jobs in Kenya for 'Europeans only')

admitted on July 9, 1964, that in the first six months since the Tripartite Agreement there have been no fewer than 150 strikes in Kenya.

The ban on public meetings, begun on January 19, flowed from the government's antagonism to the unemployed and its support for foreign investors. This ban came after unemployment demonstrations which, Kenyatta said, created lack of confidence in foreign investors'.

Likewise the government's war against the Rift Valley squatters on 'European farms' showed clearly on what side the government stood. On January 22, for example, 20,000 squatters were reported in the Nakuru area to be 'bringing farming to a halt' by means of a go-slow movement.

Help profits!

On the same day the Minister, Mckenzie, himself a big settlerfarmer, went out for a £100 million foreign loan to help coffee, sisal and cotton farmers -i.e., to preserve the industrial retardation of the country for the sake of the monopoly farming interests.

A week later, the parliamentary secretary to the Ministry of Labour, M. F.

Kubai, speaking at Naivasha after farmers had complained of 6a deliberate attempt by farm employees to drive European farmers from the area, advised farm workers 'to work hard for the European farmers and so help the government to make a profit' (!)

And Oginga Odinga blamed both KANU and the Kenya -Afnica Democratic Union (KADU) elements for dissatisfaction in the Rift Valley where 60,000 were reported unemploy.

On January 29 the Minister of Labour Mr. Mwendwa, said the unions must help the government to attract foreign investors to Kenya.

If the unions 'abused' the freedom to strike, this would be removed. (At precisely this time Nyerere of Tanganyika was arresting union officials in Dares-Salaam and, in February, the Tanganyika National Workers' Union was formed with the Minister of Labour as its head.)

Murderous attacks The most obvious evidence of the real position of the 'independent' government of Kenya is its action regarding the land: i.e., its total failure to dispossess the settlers and re-divide the land.

This has gone together with mass evictions, arrests and trials of 'forest fighters' and with murderous attacks by the police on the peasants.

In February, two Mau Mau generals were arrested and on March 12 Field - Marshal Mwariama, 'the first top-level Mau Mau to surrender to the government after Uhuru' , was sentenced to five years gaol by a 'European' magistrate at Meru for 'carrying an offensive weapon' (a sword stick) 'and obstructing the police' in these 'critical times'.

On April 2, in the Machakos area, magistrate Gould (also a 'European') sentenced Mr. Ndiso of the organisation Kyame Kyu Nyumba (a 'Land and Freedom' body) to 12 years for 'oathgiving' (to 1,000 people). Gould said it was the heaviest sentence he had imposed for four and a half years.

Wambu incident

On April 29 two forest fighters were reported killed in Meru after a fight between the police and 200 peasants.

Finally, on June 6 the police shot and killed seven peasants at the Wambu trading centre, after ordering an 'illegal' meeting of 300 peasants (so-called Samburu "tribesmen') to disperse. Ten others were injured.

The meeting was held to protest against payment of graduated personal tax. In Parliament, later (June 12) the M.P. for Korossi, Mr. P. Rurumban (KANU) said: 'I would urge the government not to overlook or condone the Wambu incident because we know for certain that the police were in the wrong for shoo ing people at will without the slightest provocation.'

August 1964 5 KKK NAMED IN CIVIL RIGHTS MURDER THE bodies of the three young civil rights workers who disappeared on June 21

THE events which look place in the Negro shettos of New York and Rochester in late July are of great importance in the development of the Negro struggle and the entire class struggle in the United States.

-- -00The struggle of the Negro in the northern industrial areas, centred more and more on the class issues of jobs, housing and schools, has taken an increasingly militant character in the past year.

The spontaneous street demonstrations and violence in Harlem and Rochester follow job demonstrations, rent strikes and school boycotts in practically all of the urban centres.

Demonstrations and boycotts have achieved not even the most minor alleviation in the plight of the Negro slum dweller. Justifiable frustration and desperation, given the absence of a revolutionary leadership, led to unorganised demonstrations and riots.

Needless to say, the trustration and desperation exist not only in New York and Rochester. An incident of police brutality, common enough in the ghetto, was in this case enough to spark off the pent-up outrage of the Negro masses. Anger The main participants in the demonstrations were the unemployed youth. Their anger was directed primarily against the state and its armed representatives, and is in this sense wholly progressive. Although the danger of riots between black and white workers is certainly very great, so far the emphasis has been against the state, representing the bosses and landlords, and not against whites as such.

Negro youth are turning away from gang warfare among themselves and towards struggle against their oppressors, as the sharp decline in the number of fighting gangs in Harlem indicates. In the struggle these youth are not held back by nonviolent dogma or religious scruples. They have exhibited bravery, determination, and fearlessness worthy of the best proletarian revolutionists.

Over and over again, the social workers, middle-class Negro spokesmen, and even the police, point out that this new generation is not afraid to face death, that they have absolutely no stake in the present social order.

The events in Harlem were one further indication of the tremendous crisis of leadership facing the entire working class.

Capitulation A United Council of Harlem Organisations, set up during the riots, promptly moved to contain the struggle. The unity organisation, including both Elijah Muhammad's Black Muslims and Malcolm X's new nationalist organisation, the Organisation of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), called for a halt in demonstrations. Under tremendous pressure, practically all of the 'leaders' capitulated instead of trying to organise and lead the masses.

Only the Progressive Labour Movement (PLM), a small grouping consisting largely of former Communist Party memibers with strong pro-Chinese sympathies in the Sino-Soviet dispute, attempted through its Harlem branch to intervene and provide some leadership to the Harlem masses.

A march on the police precinct headquarters was scheduled. The police banned the march, the United Council denounced both the ban and the demonstration and PLM announced it would defy the ban. However, this small group was weak and by this time quite isolated. The march failed to take place, and several of the organisers were arrested.

The betrayal of the unity group goes further than simply opposing the march. The 'New York Times' reports: In a meeting with Mayor Wagner, the council was able to persuade the city to obtain a court injunction banning the demonstration.' Thus, the established leaderships and even most of the dissidents in the Negro movement must share responsibility for prompting, at least in part, the court injunctions preventing not only the specific demonstration at the police precinct, but also all meetings and activities by the Progressive Labour group and the rent strike organisation (Community Council on Housing) in Harlem. No leadership Militant groupings inside the integration movement, such as the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) chapters, did not offer any leadership. They were a part of the unity group and must share responsibility for its actions.

It is also significant that the nationalist groupings failed completely to offer leadership. Malcolm X himself issued a short statement in Cairo, where he was attending the Organisation of African Unity meeting. He did not return to the US nor did he or his organisation attempt to offer any leadership in any form.

Presumably Malcolm lays greater importance upon his diplomatic activity with the African bourgeois nationalist leaders than upon leading the proletarian masses at home.

The Socialist Workers Party, which calls itself a Trotskyist organisation, abstained entirely from the Harlem events. This organisation, politically allied to the revisionist United Secretariat', has banked entirely on Malcolm X and the nationalists as the developing revolutionary leadership of the Negroes.

The SWP has abdicated any role for itself in the Negro movement, limiting itself to encouraging Malcolm:

SWP tail-end A policy of consciously tail-ending the movement has been followed. The result of this policy was that the SWP also could not and would not fill, even in part, the leadership vacuum.

Martin Luther King, Jr. came to New York, as he visited other "trouble spots', to lend his services to the capitalist state. This was, however, the first time it was necessary for King to contain the struggle in this way in the North.

King, appointing himself as spokesman for New York's Negro population, and even pointing to a 'New York Times' survey on attitudes of the Negro in New York as justification for this self-appointment, was unable to wring any concessions from New York's Mayor Wagner.

Wagner turned down the demand for a civilian review board of police brutality, at least for the present. Actually, as experience in other cities shows, this civilian board means next to nothing in solving the grievances of the Negro, even in relation to police brutality.

Demands refused But Wagner was unwilling under the present circumstances to show any signs of weakness, and turned down even the most minimal demand.

This development is also indicative of the fact that the ruling class is becoming less interested in negotiation with the established leaders, since King and those like him cannot control the situation as completely as they once were able to.

Harlem's United Council at first expressed annoyance at King's unilateral initiative in negotiations with the Mayor. This attitude on the part of middle-class leaders somewhat closer to the masses showed that these leaders expected a certain degree of difficulty in 'pacifying' the community.

The central aim of both Rev. King and the established leaderships in Harlem was and is to their batons at a prostrate victim on contain the struggle, not to lead There is, of course, a wide community of interest between these leaders and the liberal capitalist politicians. The pressure on the ruling class, however, is getting so great that it must prepare not simply to contain but to beat back the Negro masses.

The pressure on the Negro leadership from both sides is so great that their role is fast becoming an almost untenable one as they begin to outlive their usefulness as far as the ruling class is concerned.

With the co-operation of the established leaderships the capitalist rulers have attempted to isolate radical working-class organisations from the Negro masses at a time when linking up between these forces is becoming a real possibility.

March ban It is extremely significant that James Lawson's African Nationalist organisation has been given a permit to hold a rally in honour of Marcus Garvey, while the Progressive Labour Movement was forbidden to march to the police precinct and both the PLM and the Community Council on Housing are enjoined from any meetings and demonstrations whatsoever in Harlem.

It would appear that at least while working near Philadelphia, Mississippi, were found buried under a 20foot high mud dam last week.

ven men—members of the Ku Klux Klan-have been named by a Philadelphia man, Buford Posey, as being concerned with the murder of the three workers, Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman. The seven named include a sheriff, a chief deputy sheriff, a bootlegger, a used-car dealer and preacher.

pathologist brought in by Chaney's parents said, after examining the body: I have never witnessed bones so severely shattered except in tremendously high speed accidents such as airplane crashes.' President Johnson announced last Saturday that arrests would be made by the FBI very soon.

Posey has told reporters: "The blood of those boys is on the hands of the FBI?

He claims that he had asked the FBI to arrest the three youths on a charge of "speeding', but the police had failed to turn up.

Presumably he hoped they would be put in jail and, therefore, out of the hands of the Ku Klux Klan.

In New York, James Farmer, national director of the Congress of Racial Equality, said no demonstrations about the deaths were planned.

Obviously, the present climate in the northern ghettoes is too explosive,' he said (!) some of the nationalist organisations are not quite the enemy of the capitalist 'power structure' that they are supposed to be.

By means of court injunctions and bans on demonstrations, the city government is seeking to 'solve' the present crisis. So far no section of the Negro movement has sought to challenge this 'sulution'. This is the immediate task facing the Harlem masses. Response Following the banning of the march in Harlem, several small radical organisations held a street corner rally in the centre of the garment industry in downtown New York. Negro and Puerto Rican workers responded enthusiastically at this rally, expressing their solidarity with the struggle in Harlem. To its shame, the SWP refrained from supporting this action.

Pressure in the Negro movement is building up to support President Johnson for reelection. The petty-bourgeois leaderships, who would have enthusiastically supported Johnson in any case, have seized upon the Goldwater candidacy as the means to turn over as many of the Negro workers' votes to Johnson as possible.

The differences between (Cont. page 4, col. 6)

PROTEL WITH THE LAI Classmates of 15-year-old James Powell demonstrate against police violence opposite the school where the boy was shot dead by Lt. Gilligan.

Monday, July 20 MONDAY morning driving through Harlem was the same as driving through an armed camp. After two successive nights of rioting the streets were lined with hundreds of helmeted policemen who walked amongst a litter of crushed bricks, broken bottles, and garbage that had been hurled at them from the roof-tops and windows of Harlem's tenements in protest of their presence.

Here and there small groups of Negro youths sat on front steps and warily eyed the cops. Occasionally a police car, red light flashing, would race by on its way to the point of possible further disturbances. In the course of the rioting one Negro died from police inflicted gunshot wounds, over a hundred were injured and more than another hundred were arrested.

Knife attack?

The immediate cause of the rioting was a protest against the killing of a 15-year-old Negro boy shot to death by a police lieutenant who alleged that the boy had attacked him with knife. Witnesses to the shooting allege that the boy did not have a knife.

On Saturday afternoon a meeting was held in Harlem to protest the shooting by the lieutenant and to demand that he be immediately suspended from duty and indicted by a grand jury.

After the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) meeting was over, a group of people several hundred strong went to the Harlem police precinct station to continue their demonstration. When they gathered in front of the station they were asked to disperse by the precinct captain.

It is reported that when they refused to do so the captain ordered his men to 'clear them nigggers out of here. This immediately resulted in police violence against the demonstrators and disorder spread throughout a large area of Harlem.

Quick action

Police action was quicker here in the north than it has ever been against white racist hooligans in the south.

Hundreds of helmeted police officers were poured into Harlem. Thousands of rounds of ammunition were fired against Negroes venting their rage and frustration against the whole host of injustices to which they are daily submitted by the police, whose brutality against New York's minority groupings is well known.

It is a wonder that only one was killed and so few others injured. It must be noted that southern racist cops have used gentler means, such as water A discussion article hoses and tear gas against demonstrating Negroes.

While white liberals and official leaders of the civil rights movement were warning of the white backlash and of the white votes that would go to Goldwater as the result of the rioting. Negro anger was underlined by the spread of disorder to the ghetto in Brooklyn's Bedford Stuyvesant section and to ghettos in other cities.

Frustration

The appeals of the civil rights leaders only point out that their policies have so far led only to such feelings of deep frustration on the part of the Negro masses that they could only burst forth in uncontrolled rioting.

If anybody is really responsible for the riots it is these leaders who have consistently helped to lead the Negro people up the blind alley of political impotence engendered by support to the 'liberal' wing of the Democratic Party, to support of the Kennedys and the Johnsons.

What these leaders fail to understand is that the "liberal' representatives of the capitalist class, faced with a shrinking rate of profit and a growing economic crisis, cannot possibly grant the demands or satisfy the needs of the minority peoples in the country.

They cannot create jobs for the unemployed. Negro unemployment runs two and a half to three times that of whites.

They cannot get them employment without discrimination. This is one of the devices they use to depress wages, both Negro and white.

Cut throats

They cannot put an end to the criminally decrepit and filthy housing in which Negroes and Puerto Ricans are forced to live. This' would take enormous funds that could only be obtained by taxing big business. Such a move on the part of big business would be tantamount to asking them to cut their own throats.

Nor do the present civil rights leaders understand that it is not only the Negro people that suffer from these abuses.

They do not understand that it is possible to win allies in the white communities and trade union organisations through developing a political party and movement based on a programme to eradicate these problems. As long as they continue to tie the civil rights movement to the Democratic Party they will fail to build a movement that can solve these problems.

Only the independent organisation of the Negro people in their own political party can achieve this. Such a party should be based on a programme which includes the following:

• Thirty hours work for 40 hours pay. The party should call upon rank and file trade unionists to demand that their leadership make 30 for 40 a strike issue. This party should promise its support on picket lines that may result in the struggle for the 30-hour week. By reducing the work day more jobs will be created offering job opportunities to both Negro and white unemployed.

Nationalization of all slum housing. It is quite apparent from the attempts made by such organisations as CORE and the Harlem Rent Strike Committee that only a centrally organised effort can achieve a real solution to this problem. Once again support can be obtained for such a demand amongst the poor white working class since many of them also live in sub-standard housing.

Massive Federal public works project. Such a project could concern itself with the construction of new public housing to replace the present slums... It could build schools and hospitals, parks and other badly needed public facilities. In the course of such a project thousands of jobs would be created and those who are now unemployed could obtain jobs and training in the various crafts from which they are now barred by discrimination.

Above all such a party should leave certain positions on its slate of candidates open and invite the trade union organisations to nominate candidates to run on the party's platform. In this way, as the pressure of a failing economy begins to cut back the conditions of the white working class, the civil rights movement will serve as a spark to revitalise members of the American labour movement who will prove to be valuable and indeed necessary allies in their struggle for equality.

Political fight

All militants in the civil rights movement must understand that direct action by itself is not sufficient to the tasks at hand and that a move into the political arena is now indicated. They must recognise that the present 'leaders' of the civil rights movement have held to direct action alone because they are inextricably tied to the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.

Fighting on the basis of a working class programme as outlined above they must seek to replace this old leadership with their own.

The first of two articles by REG PERRY Page Fou ugust 15, 964

Hold back wage demands STEEL employers face the possibility of a full-scale wages row of the kind that led to the six-week strike of workers at the Steel Company of Wales earlier this year.

At a meeting this week, officials of the Amalgamated Engineering Union met with steel employers and failed to agree over the question of craftsmen's pay in the industry.

The union men want an increase in the basic weekly rate of 30s. plus allowances worth 6d. to 1s. Gd. an hour for skill, responsibility and working in abnormal conditions.

On the other hand, the employers want to increase pay on the basis of technical qualifications and length of service.

The working party which was set up to look into this whole question of craftsmen's wages has now been disbanded.

And Boyd, an AEU official, dares to ask the union rank and file to 'keep their powder dry', saying that he has 'grave fears for the future peace of the industry'.

SHAMEFUL

Boyd, and the rest of the AEU leadership, who so shamefully sold out the SCOW workers in February, know that the steel craftsmen have been raising the question of a pay rise in accordance with the wages of skilled workers in other industries, for a long time.

Along with Carron, this Loscoe tenants to lobby council Make demands through Association people in Loscoe, Yorkshire, have decided that the only way to fight for their demands for better homes is to organise a Tenants' Association.

As we described in many previous articles about Loscoe, tenants are forced to live in one or two damp rooms.

The fault of such bad housing must rest fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the Tory government which has done absolutely nothing to alleviate the misery of families living in crumbling dwellings.

Link struggles

In forming their own Tenants' Association, Loscoe workers must link this question of housing and the fight for better - homes with the struggles that are now going on in the labour and trade union movement.

They must, along with thousands of other workers in Britain, demand that the Labour leadership carries out socialist policies if it is elected to power.

One of the first actions of the Loscoe Tenants' Association will Join the Socialist Labour League AS a member of the Socialist Labour League you can fight in the Labour and trade union movements for a real socialist policy. If you would like to join, or to know more about us, fill in the attached form and post it to:

The Socialist Labour League, 186a Clapham High St., London, Name Address leadership has held back and sabotaged the struggles of the steel workers-at SCOW they accomplished the demoralisation of the AEU rank and file by dividing them off from workers in other unions in the same industry.

The role of Carron and his colleagues has been to play into the hands of the steel monopolists in preparation for speedup.

COMMITTEES

On July 25, The Newsletter reported that SCOW workers should form inter-union committees to fight the redundancies that are now taking place there.

This call stands for all steel workers throughout Britain who should not rely on the machinations of Carron and Boyd.

These men will attempt to confine any struggle to the AEU without involving other workers in the industry.

All steel workers must unite in order to fight the worsening conditions which are bound to be produced by the introduction of automation and, in the case of SCOW, profit boosting 'efficiency schemes like that introduced in the motor industry in Scotland. be to lobby the local council meeting to present a petition of the needs of the people in the village.

Petition

The petition was drawn up stating: 'We the undersigned, petition the council health department to send their sanitary officials to Loscoe to inspect the appalling toilet and drainage conditions.

'As there us no settled site yet for re-housing the tenants of Loscoe, their living conditions must be improved. The council must use all their powers to improve the houses.

'We draw particular attention to the house of Mr. and Mrs. Stead who have no toilet, no electricity, gas downstairs only, and a cellar full of stinking water due to a faulty drainpipe.' Mr. Stead told a meeting of tenants that he took the house at a rent of 15s. When the rent man called he was expected to pay 22s. He had already put slates on the roof himself and installed a gas oven.

All the tenants at the meeting agreed that if the Featherstone council has not finalised a site for re-housing, repairs must be done to their homes.

Transfer

Loscoe is on the border of Normanton, but comes under Featherstone housing authority. Most of the people work in Normanton pits and cannot afford both the council house rents and the bus fares that would result if they moved into better houses in Featherstone.

The proposed Tenants' Association would have to enquire whether they could transfer to the Normanton housing list which has a six months' waiting list. starts with a round of applause for the TGWU for 'the breakthrough on the 40-hour week front'. Even more enthusiastically it congratulates the national delegates to the recent docks conference of the TGWU for rejecting the employers' offer of 10s. a week. "In doing so they acted as militant trade unionists,' it says.

It begins to spread the illusion that the TGWU officials and the national delegates are capable of making advances and acting in the interests of the dockers.

Later on in the article the author declares: 'Yet in the TGWU while many weaknesses remain, there are signs of a more realistic approach to dockers needs than there was in Deakin's day.' With thousands of dockers in all the major ports taking action against the 40-hour agreement, tied up, as The Newsletter warned it would be in April, with strings on Saturday morning working, full mobility of labour and flexibility in manning scales, where has the major breakthrough been?

Doubtful privilege

The truth is that once again the TGWU officials have sold working conditions of dockers to the employers in exchange for the doubtful privilege of two hours' work on Saturday at overtime rates.

Was the TGWU 'more realistic' than in Deakin's day when it accepted a few years ago the changes in the Dock Labour Scheme which gave more disciplinary powers to the port employers?

Has it been 'more realistic' in the scandalous agreements it reached with the employers over the 'new deal' in Merseyside and decasualisation in London behind the backs of its members?

Has the union been any more progressive in fighting against the use of unregistered labour in Tooley Street (London) or Manchester?

Not one single docker could be convinced of this argument and it is doubtful if Communist Party docker members believe it themselves.

In order to discredit the efforts of dockers in the northern ports in recent months #TER the employers at - Rover 2000 "factory,

Industrial The first of two articles by REG PERRY THE determination shown over recent months by dockers throughout the major ports to resist the constant attempts of the port employers to undermine their working conditions and to fight for an adequate basic wage of £15 a week, is in danger of being sabotaged by the right-wing union leaders and by the downright treachery of the Communist Party.

During the last few months, while the Transport and General Workers' Union has manoeuvred behind the scenes on 'decasualisation', wages and the 40-hour week with strings, the 'Daily Worker' has been almost silent.

Now as the fight over the 40-hour week agreement and over the wage claim has broken out into action in many ports, they rush into print with a desperate defence of the TGWU leadership and a scurrilous attack on the militant dockers in the northern ports.

To many older dockers and to those active socialists and trade unionists who have seen the Communist Party perform this role with monotonous regularity in docks struggles for many years, this will come as no surprise.

But for the many young dockers who have recently entered the industry and are not conversant with the treacherous activity of the CP in the trade unions, it is necessary to put the record straight and expose their activity in the present struggle of dock workers.

Distortions

In Tuesday's 'Daily Worker' under the heading, 'The Dockers Big Opportunity', they attempted to destroy the unity established in the ports of Manchester, Hall and on the Merseyside, with a series of lies, half-truths and historical distortions, and an attack on the 'Blue' Union, which has never been surpassed even by the employers or the vitriolic diatribes of the late Sir Arthur Deakin.

True to form, the article to set up a national rank and file leadership to defend and improve working conditions, the 'Daily Worker' article then proceeds to present a thoroughly distorted account of the struggles during the 1950s of dockers in the nonthern ports to join the union of their choice, the National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers Union ('Blue' Union).

I intend to deal with this 'history' next week more fully, and show how the Communist Party, acting as strike-breakers, played a major role in sabotaging the fight for democracy on the docks and how they have remained ever since the main prop of the bureaucracy in the TGWU.

What is important at this stage is to show how a crude attempt is made to draw attention of dockers away from the fight against the 40-hour week sellout and the struggle to achieve a basic rate of £15.

The 'Daily Worker' author does this by bringing in the uld red herring of 'non-trade unionism' in the northern ports. He declares: Now a call and a campaign is on to wipe out nonunionism in the North. What is needed on the Merseyside, the Humber, the Thames; the Solent, the Avon and the Clyde is 100 per cent trade union unity.

'And if both unions jointly declared their agreement to a united campaign to wipe out non-unionism, then the heart of every docker and portworker would beat faster.' Old bogy This is the old bogey which the Stalinists have dug up so many times-linked as it always is with the claim that nonunionism exists only because of the existence of the "Blue' Union.

They ignore the fact that these same workers are non-unionists because they have left the TGWU in frustration and disgust at the class collaboration practised by the leaders of that union. Many of the dockers left after bitter years of fighting for the illusionary ideal of democratising that union's docks section.

The Stalinists also ignore the fact that every worker entering the docks industry in the northern ports has to join the TGWU under compulsion and that many who leave are hesitant to join the 'Blue' Union because, having no place on the local or national docks boards, it cannot serve them.

But dockers in the northern ports have shown time and time again, that, regardless of whether they are in a union or not, they fight as one class in the struggle against the employers.

Solidarity

They demonstrated this in 1962 when 11,000 struck to a man on Merseyside to defend the right of those who chose to be members of the 'Blue' Union.

More recently in the struggle against the 'new deal', during the national lobby on July 17 and on many other occasions, the greatest unity between dockers has been seen.

In June, 7,000 dockers marched through the streets of Liverpool in the biggest display of solidarity seen in the port since 1945.

The issue of 'nons' is not the issue which confronts the docker in the northern ports and the Communist Party uses this only as a cover for trying to tie the dock worker to the bureaucratic machinery of the TGWU and as part of its consistent efforts to destroy the NASD.

The NASD for part several times written to the TGWU calling for a joint campaign to clean up the nonunionists. They have never received a reply. To call, as the 'Daily Worker' does now on the TGWU to lead a campaign on this issue is a complete distraction.

It is fabricated in order to cover up the role of CP docker members over recent weeks who have striven desperately to destroy the movement amongst dockers for a fight on wages.

Hostility

When dockers in Merseyside, and Hull struck work on July 17 and several coaches travelled to London to lobby the TGWU docks delegate conference, they were met with open hostility by leading CP members of the London Docks Liaison Committee.

At the Royal Group of Docks, the two speakers from Merseyside were harrassed by these Party members who urged them, in front of the crowd, not to put a resolution calling for a one-day token strike in support of the action taken by the northern men. They claimed that the dockers in the Royal did not want to fight.

But when the resolution was put it was carried unanimously and the whole area of 8,000 dockers struck work and 3,000 more came out in the Surrey docks.

Alarmed by the strength and determination of dockers in the north to fight, the Stalinists have since fought to sabotage it.

At the two National Rank and File Committees held in the last two weeks, the delegates from the London Liaison Committee have opposed every suggestion for extending the unity won so far and against any form of action. The speakers from this committee have declared their confidence in the TGWU Reg Perry (left) with Bill Johnson (right, area organiser NADU and kanda (editor of ine Newsletter) at a meering. of Stalinism throughout the world since the Communist Imiernadona was bludgeoned into accepting the theory of Socialism in One Country by the bureaucratic clique around Stalin in 1925. The theory, which today is continued by Khrushchev, is the theory of "peaceful co-existence'.

It is this theory, which in national politics becomes translated into class collaboration, which has been the die in which the defeats at Ford, Standard, Shell Mex, the ETU and on the docks have been cast.

Today the CP are the running dogs of the TGWU docks section, and the main vehicle for splitting the rank and file unity of 'Blue' and 'White', and of port with port.

It is clear that a reckoning the order paper between dockers in London with this sham 'leadership' which has paraded for too long as the London Docks Liaison Committee.

It is, in fact, a committee for controlling the rank and file on behalf of the TGWU.

Unless a leadership is built now of rank and file of both unions the plans of the port employers and the ruling class to reorganise the docks industry for higher profits will be that much easier to implement.

In the meantime, the struggle of dockers, being led by those in the northern ports against the 40-hour week agreement and for £15 basic wage must continue.

struggle Rover men return after closure threat Solihull, Birmingham, attempted to introduce a speedup on the production lines, 700 workers called for a ban on overtime recently.

There have already been 44 disputes in the factory this year and workers claim that there have been threatened sackings as a result of strikes.

In spite of the threats, Rover workers have shown that they will not allow the bosses' problems to be solved at their expense.

Contrary to reports in the national and local newspapers, this latest dispute was not the result of a reduction in overtime-the following Saturday morning the tracks could not run as planned owing to a lack of volunteers.

The dispute began when the bosses attempted to impose a speed-up without allowing an increase in piecework earnings.

Workers fear that the new labour plan is being used to undermine the already low piecework rates existing in the factory.

RETREAT

A ban on overtime and the restriction of production to 50 cars a day was called after demands for a more favourable 'set-up' were rejected by the employers.

Union officials, whose records are ones of retreat on the question of speed-up, instructed the men to return to normal working. The workers replied by reducing the production to 40 cars a day.

The management issued notices in which they described the situation as chaotic and stated that unless the 'advice' of the union officials and convenors was accepted by the following morning, the factory would be shut down.

At a mass meeting the convenors played on the threat of mass sackings saying that the same would happen at Rover as took place at Rootes, Linwood, Scotland recently, when 270 men were laid off following a strike over speed-up.

With a number of men voting against, a decision was carried to return to work for a month to see how much money each man would lose as result of the new production speed-up.

obtaining a decent basic wage.

Contradiction

They have declared that dockers in London would be delighted if the union can negotiate a rise of 12s. a week, but that they would like themselves to see a rise of 25s. They claim to speak on behalf of London dockers who they have never consulted at mass meetings, and also contradict their own call in a leaflet issued in February demanding a basic wage now of f15.

Faced with the solid ranks of delegates on the National Committee from the northern ports who have refused to budge from their demands, these CP members and right-wing supporters have declared their inability to vote, or even worse threatened that there will be no support from London dockers if decisions are taken.

To cap it all they stated in Hull on Sunday (repeating the threat made recently by Frank Cousins) that a dock strike now would greatly damage the chances of the Labour Party in the elections.

So all the classical pessimism of Stalinism of the ability of the working class to fight, coupled with rightwing arguments about class struggle and the image of Labour, leads in the last resort to blackmail threats that they will again openly scab in the event of dockers taking action.

This article should act as a warning to all dockers on the role of the Communist Party in the docks. It is in essence no different from the reformist conceptions of political struggle which have been the backbune Johnson and Goldwater have been exaggerated, and the Stalinists and others have even cited the supposed fascist nature of the Goldwater candidacy and of the Republican party under his control.

Established civil rights organisations, excluding CORE and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) nave now called for a halt to demonstrations order to defeat Goldwater at all costs. It is significant that the two leaders who represent the groups most active in the civil rights struggle, CORE and SNCC, were forced differentiate themselves from this blatant sell-out of the Negro masses.

The agents of capitalism in the Negro movement react to the "white backlash' by trying to prove their moderation. They react to the mobilisation of frustrated petty-bourgeois layers of the population and certain privileged sections of the working class behind the reactionaryracist coalition represented by Goldwater by refusing to mobilise the Negro masses independently.

The Goldwater candidacy, though by no means a fascist one, does show the inability of the liberal capitalist regime to deal with the developing social crisis.

The developing polarisation is reflected in the growth of Goldwater sentiment and in the new militancy of the Negro movement as well more limited but significant developments in the labour movement. The Negro movement must see itself as participants and not merely spectators in this polarisation. The only way to really fight Goldwater is to fight Johnson also, to get at the root causes of the crisis.

Negro masses and their allies must be mobilised in struggle as aggressively as the right wing and racist forces are being mobilised. This is the only way to answer Goldwater and any nascent fascist elements who are supporting him.

Capitalist automation is hitting all workers. By putting forward a fighting working class programme, linking up the struggle for jobs and against unemployment with the Negro struggle for jobs and equality and by breaking with capitalist politics in favour of independent class political and industrial actioni, the Negro movement can lead the way to the only progressive solution of the capitalist crisis-the socialist solution. • The middle class Negro leadership, as well as the Communist Party, the Social-Democracy, and the labour bureaucracy, are showing once again through their bankrupt policy of support for Johnson, that they are interested above all in containing the class struggle within the framework of capitalism.

Only through the struggle to build a revolutionary leadership can the Negro movement take any steps forward. Only by a conscious struggle against the reformist leaderships can this take place.

Registered at the G.P.O. as a newspaper Printed Plough Press Ltd. (TU). t.O. 180 Clapham High Street, London, S. W.4 Published by The Newsletter, 186л Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4