The Newsletter, vol. 8 no. 360

EDITORIAL Once again, the SWI and Ceylor DURING the latter years of his life, Leon Trotsky de voted a great deal of attention towards the development of Socialist Workers Party in the United States. Under his guidance it became the largest and most influential section of the world Trotskyist movement.

That was 24 years ago-years which have ALOWH many difficult periods for the international movement which he • founded.

Perhaps the greatest of all of these tragedies has been the political degeneration of the Socialist Workers Party itself. It is no secret that in the early years of the development of the movement in Britain, the leaders of that Party played an important role in the training of the present cadre which the leadership of the Socialist Labour League. ur organisation, which is now rapidly increasing its influence and numocis. will always remember the warm and sincere support we received during those difficult years from the Socialist Workers Party. we have to make extremely sharp criticisms today, we do sa in order to trotoyolit ally save Trotskyism comrades we can, who are at present members of that Party. e ask them once again to turn turn their attention to the appalling development of recent weeks. Well over 650 members of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party of Ceylon, comprising the right and centre groups, support and participate In E capitalist coalition government, which is crashing into ruins, in what promises to be one the biggest scandals of all time in the history of the island.

Only a socialist solution can bring relief to the impoverished masses of Ceylon. Towards the end of June handful of young people led by Tim Wolforth" requested the leaders of the SWP for a discussion about these events. Instead of this discussion they were immediately suspended without being even allowed the right to appear before their branch. all us, Messrs. Dobbs, Cannon, Kerry and the rest who support you, wherever did Trotsky advocate carry out such a bureaucratic action as this-just give us one example please. i the same time as you bureaucratically throw 11m Wohlforth and his small group out of your ranks, you give the fullesise United see aria led Paris which to this day refuses to expel Leslie Goonewardene and Colvin Silva who assisted and supported Dr. N. M. Perera when he became Finance Minister in Mrs. Bandaranaike's government. astead of expelling these traitors you suspend the people who want to discuss their treacherous role. Is this biggest confirmation of your political degeneration since Trotsky's death? le Socialist Labour League as an integral part of the International Committee of the Fourth International stands completely opposed the revisionism of Trotsky's theory which you are today advocating and defending in the United States. e will fight continuously for the rights minorities who oppose such revisionism. Tim Wohlforth and his comrades can rely on the Socialist Labour League stand four-square with them in the struggle for Trotskyist policies in The United States in the years ahead. is the present leadership of the SWP which is on trial not these young members. There enjoy the same generous stat is no doubt that they would port from Trotsky as tnat which he gave J. P. Cannon in the early years, were he alive today. By Our Political Correspondent N an interview with 'The Observer' on August 30, Mr. Harold Wilson stated that he 'does not believe that Britain is heading for a financial crisis'. Two days later the Treasury announced that the gold reserves had dropped by 33,000,000.

If we take away the £10,000,000 paid to Germany, to settle debts under the European Pavments Union. and £4.000.000 to Portugal, the drop amounts to €19,000,000, which is the largest this year.

A few weeks ago, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research claimed that this year's balance of payments would disclose a gap of approximately t₺500,000,000. The Tory government now admits the possibility of this gap.

As the general election draws nearer, the Tory Chancellor has been busy patching up the economic crisis by short-term loans from foreign banks and the utilisation of foreign sterling balances which have been building up on behalf of the Commonwealth countries.

Had it not been for these batances there is little doutt that the plight of sterling would be much worse and the crisis more acute.

But what will happen when the countries who have been accumulating these sterling reserves decide to spend them, as they may well do during the early days of a Labour government?

Face crisis

Then, the basic gold reserves, now on the decline, will have to finance both the gap in the balance of payments and the monies which the Tories have taken from the sterling reserves in their possession.

Is it not perfectly clear that the government of Harold Wilson will face an enormous economic crisis and the so-called leader of the Labour Party is simply engaging in the advocacy of irresponsible electioneering promises?

Instead of going all out to expose Tory capitalism and propose in its place a full socialist programme for taking it out of the hands of the great monopolies, he sets himself up as a super-optimist on behalf of a crumbling capitalist system.

In the same interview he says:

'One thing to emphasise is that our economic problem is a physical, not a financial one.

It is a problem of increasing capacity by modernising the processes of production in the industries which export, and in those which could provide substitutes for what we now import.' Inferior The recent trade figures show that Britain is trying to carry out a programme of automation on the basis of exporting goods that are technically inferior to those of other countries. The parasitic role of British capitalists is today everywhere making itself felt, especially in the export trade.

Wilson talks about the importance of automation but forgets to explain how the bankrupt British capitalist system can carry it out.

Automation in Britain can only come through the application of socialist economic planning. Such interviews as those granted by Wilson to The Observer', , do the labour movement a great disservice, because they obscure the serious nature of the Tory economic crisis.

If we are to prepare for socialist planning and automation then the most important task is to nationalize the basic industries without compensation and under workers' control.

Nothing less than this suffice.

Dockers reject final pay offer National strike to follow?

TAs nal offer of 12s, 6d. a week by the Association to the dockers' wage claim a delegate conference on Thursday.

Usually reliable sources reported offered another 1s. 8d. a week on their on the basic wage, together with a piecework rates and a vague promise to consider an increase at a later date.

This would bring the basic weekly wage up to fI0 Is. 6d., well below the £10 14s. demand of the Transport and General Workers Union and the more realistic demand of £15 a week put forward by mass meetings of dockers in the northern ports and London.

Sir Andrew Crichton, Chairman of the Port Employers' Association emphatically stated after the meeting with the unions that the offer was final. The employers are obviously determined to defend their profits, and are prepared if necessary to precipitate a national dock strike.

They are clearly now relying on trade union leaders performing their usual role of holding the dockers back from struggle.

STRIKE POWER

The fact that the TGWU leaders kept the offer a secret looked ominous. They were given 'plenary powers' by the last delegate conference to call for strike action if the offer was unsatisfactory.

The only conclusion that can be drawn from their latest moves is that all their talk about 'winning a substantial increase', and 'not being put off this time with shillings' ? was demagogy designed to mislead the dockers while they prepared to retreat.

Is the new offer really a substantial increase? The national press have made much of the fact that the increase would be about 5 per cent, much more than the Tories 'guiding light'.

Such percentages mean nothing when the basic wage is at present so deplorably low.

What really counts statistically is whether the basic wage is one on which a worker can live and maintain a family comfortably. No docker, and in fact no worker can do that on the present wage of £9 9s. or on a proposed wage of £10 1s. 6d.

The Merseyside delegates have already declared to a mass meetAmerican cops armed with batons beat a fallen Negro during riots in Philadelphia (see report page 3). strike to Port Employers' was rejected by that the employers had original offer of 10s. 10d. few bits and pieces on ing two weeks ago that if the new offer was not satisfactory they would press for an official national strike. Many of these delegates have been mandated by their branches to accept nothing short of f12 a week.

Vague promises of a future increase will not be acceptable. The employers have always shown an aptitude for proving that they can give no more, or that they are on hard times. The time to call a halt to this masquerade is now.

NO RETREAT The TGWU officials must be told emphatically - no retreat. Dockers should also keep a sharp eye on the activity of the Communist Party in the London ports in particular.

The two-hour demonstration in the Royal Group and in Tilbury last Friday, while it showed the ready response of London dockers to take action in the fight for the wage increase, was an empty gesture organised by Jack Dash and the Liaison Committee to mislead the dockers in the London docks.

As the 'Financial Times' remarked the following day, it was 'much less impressive than the stoppage in the ports of Liverpool, Hull and London on the day of the first delegate conference, in July.

Dockers in Liverpool are critical of the London Liaison Committee for not notifying them so that the stoppage could have been national.

They are also suspicious and quite opposed to the statement by the Liaison Committee that if no satisfactory increase is granted then there will be no increase this year in productivity.

Such a statement shows only a desire to evade a fight for wages.

The dockers' wage struggle is now right in the laps of all the trade union leaders with members on the docks. The dockworker is tired of promises and militant noises. That stage is now past. Now is the time for decisions and action.

mere manoeuvres to Page

WEEKLY JOURNA WEEKLY JOURNAL Vol. September B/OSL FILE LEAGUE BEING only six weeks away from the general election Labour government, this year's Trades Union Congress, Blackpool on September 7, may well appear a tame affair.

But, behind the facade of unity and camaraderie, the Congress will carry out a vicious ROLLS' CORPSE DISMEMBERED WHEN Rolls Razor went into liquidation the press depicted John Bloom as a heroic figure, overtaken by fate In" form of Mr. Kenneth Cork, the liquidator. The creditors and shareholders were informed that the firm had an estimated deficit of £4 million.

Nearly half of this is owed to Barclays Bank, Pressed Steel and Tallant Engineering. Until the Stock Exchange cancelled dealings in them, Rolls Razor shares were one of the few objects on which one penny could be spent.

Cork explained that undercapitalisation of the company was the main reason for its collapse. The second was the failure to meet competition when automatic washing machines were marketed by rival firms.

Expenditure

Rolls' sales had dropped from 17,000 a month in January to 7,000 in June this year.

Some small shareholders at the meeting had opposed liquidation, and, in fact, the motion for it was defeated at first by 74-72 on hand vote. However, when shareholdings were counted, this was reversed by nearly two million to 41,030.

Cork gave some information on recent expenditure by the company. A financial adviser had been engaged at £25,000 a year.

Bloom himself got £15,000 plus a Park Lane flat and a Rolls Royce. The company also had a £6,000 yacht and a converted motor-torpedo boat.

Crumbled

Whatever the immediate repercussions of the Rolls Razor collapse it is symptomatic of the changing economic climate, based on the consumer goods boom of the MacMillan era. The Bloom empire crumbled when the established monopolies decided to estroy it.

The dismemberment of the Rolls corpse is now in progress. A final post-mortem will be conducted by a Board of Trade inquiry appointed in July.

An Election Series Newsletter correspondent will be on the spot to report the Trades Union Congress at Blackpool all next week.

Look out for his despatches which will be of vital interest to all trade unionists.

Between now and the General Election a series of articles are being prepared on problems facing the labour movement.

They are as opposite -Robert James CEYLON BALA TAMPOE CRITICISES PRESS BILL BALA TAMPOE, a leader of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Revolutionary wing) in Ceylon made a trenchant criticism of the Press Bill (another report on page three) when he said:

"The entire policy of the present Government should put the working class and the socialist mass movement on guard against any attempt on its part to interefere with the freedom of the Press under the pretext of breaking up existing Press monopolies.

The trade union movement and the revolutionary mass movement no doubt suffers from the control of the big daily newspapers by capitalist companies. But it suffers also at the hands of the capitalist State in all kinds of ways.

Any attempt therefore on the part of the capitalist State to substitute itself as the arbiter of what shall be the ownership and control of the Press must be fought tooth and nail by the working class movement and all those who value democratic liberties.

The trade union movement in particular should seck to establish its own Press instead of allowing itself to be deceived by any move which will involve or result in control of the Press by the capitalist State.

The Government that is to the demand for the takeover of Velona and that refuses to take over the property of the capispheres, clearly has no socialist intentions in regard to the take-over of this or that capitalist Press. real aims are reactionary and sinister and must be defeated if necessary by direct mass action.

This is a question that will be taken up by union movement and by the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Revolutionary) as a major issue for the masses to face and resist.' SEPTEMBER 12*** Socialist Policy for Labour by G. Healy SEPTEMBER 19 Economic Policy SEPTEMBER 26 Labour and the Trade Unions by John Crawford OCTOBER 3 Socialists and Loyalty to Labour by Cliff Slaughter OCTOBER 10 The Left and the General Election by J. Gale and a possible which opens at • attack upon the wages and conditions of rank and file workers by guaranteeing Harold Wilson full support as prime minister of a capitalist Britain.

Since taking over from Gaitskell, Wilson has made it clearer as the election nears that he will uphold capitalism by what he called in his book, 'The Relevance of British Socialism', 'economic dynamism'.

An integral part of a 'dynamic' Wilsonian Britain, which will safeguard the interests of his capitalist friends in monopolies like ICI, is the National Economic Development Council. To facilitate profit-making this body suggests bigger investments in industry, automation and wage restraint.

In the present balance of payments crisis these policies become more significant.

STABILITY

The report of the General Council of the TUC says that to overcome the balance of payments crisis and retain a 'broad stability of costs and prices: "the employer members of NEDC would indicate the importance of reducing prices wherever possible and increasing prices only where unavoidable; and the trade union representatives would declare that those responsible for putting forward wage claims should take into account the vital necessity for keeping down costs and prices and the likely eflects of particular wage claims'.

To avoid inflation, says the report, the NEDC discussed adopting: 'a formula which toreynecised the nod io avoid inflation and the importance of keeping wages and salaries in line with productivity through a prices commission, and lif profits rose more than wages, the balance should be redressed by taxation'.

BOSS TALK

The so-called 'trade unionists' of the TUC (Woodcock, Cousins and company on the NEDC talk in the same terms as the bosses they sit with.

To talk of 'redressing' profits by taxation is farcical considering the $72,000,000 credited to the National Coal Board.

The report couldn't make a clearer statement of the TUC's role in aiding Wilson to run capitalist Britain than when it states: "The NEDC's proper function, they urged, was to aim at as high a growth rate as possible, to identify the obstacles to growth and to act in such a way as to resolve the problems that stood in the way of the programme?

The only obstacle to capitalist development under Wilson will be the demands of workers like the postmen, dockers, building workers, etc., for a decent living wage.

HARNESS UNIONS

To 'resolve the problems' it is obvious that people like Woodcock hope to harness the unions by tying them even tighter to the capitalist state through a more powertul bureaucratic strata by 'amalgamation'.

The only sharp discussion at the Congress will be over the legal position of the unions following the Rookes v. Barnard and Stratford v. Lindley cases.

Rank and file trade unionists must completely disregard any calls for 'unity' at this late stage and take up the demands of resolutions to the Congress from unions like the Sheet Metal Workers, the Electrical Trades Union and the National Union of Printing, Bookbinding and Paper Workers, which reject any form of wage restraint and call for the nationalization of the monopolies.

Only by fighting for these socialist demands at the Congress and in the labour movement generally, will rank and file trade unionists be able to forge a Marxist leadership to crush capitalism and its rightwing friends in the Labour and trade union movement.

AFTER the Rookes v.

• Barnard case, the capitalist press, noting the judgment with quiet satisfaction, began to campaign for a reform of the law affecting trade unions.

Then, at the end of July, the House of Lords delivered a judgement against the Watermen's Union in the Stratford v. Lindley case. The clamour has, therefore, been renewed and every industrial correspondent, hand on heart, has been complaining of the uncertainty which surrounds the trade unions' legal position.

Leaders of the trade union movement itself, especially on the left wing, have been agitating for a swift amendment of the law by Parliament, that is, by the Tory government. This government, whilst refusing this demand, has proposed, with a tirelessness which even their own supporters find irksome, an inquiry.

Their probable successors, the Labour leadership, have maintained a discreet, but nonetheless conspicuous silence.

Strike threat

The Rookes case concerned a certain Mr. Rookes. Rookes was a draughtsman employed by BOAC in a drawing office with a registered 100 per cent trade union membership and until November 1955 was a member of the Association of Engineering and Shipbuilding Draughtsmen (AESD).

He resigned from the AESD over an internal AESD policy decision affecting British Overseas Airways draughtsmen and as a result the other members passed unanimously a resolution indicating that unless_ Rookes was lemoved from the drawing office a withdrawal of labour by AESD members would take place.

BOAC at first suspended him and subsequently dismissed him —quite legally within the contract between them.

He then sued the Union for damages (loss of wages and prospects, damage to reputation and the like), and eventually after a long battle in the courts, the House of Lords found in his favour.

The general opinion of the capitalist press was that, although the case raised the whole question of the future of trade unionism in the 20th century, the decision had no far-reaching consequences.

In this they were joined by the Tory government and, it is said, by Silkin QC of the well-known Labour family (he was Rookes' leading counsel).

Trade Act A leading official of the Union, however, commented that the judgment had driven 'a coach and four through the 1906 Trade Disputes Act which afforded the trade union movement considerable legal status.

The Judges had said that because the union had a 'no strike' agreement with the employers, the three officials concerned were acting unlawfully in threatening to induce their members to break their contracts of employment.

One of their Lordships, however, pointed out that workers broke these contracts every time they struck. They did not give notice of their intention to leave their jobs altogether, but only to withdraw their labour until such

Editorials-Ceylon and British Labour youth Crisis of Post-War Capitalism-Peter Jeffries Through What Stage Are We Passing?-1924 speech Germany 1921: 'The March Action'—Pierre Broué 40 pages. Illus. Price 2/6. Available from: New Park Publications, time as restore it.

This was recognised, he added, by many firms which threaten to send strikers their cards and so terminate their employment. (Vickers Armstrongs at Barrow tried this two or three weeks ago.)

So one question left unanswered by the judgment is whether it is relevant only to the particular circumstances of the case, or whether it had widespread effect.

Contract broken Are union officials who threaten a strike always threatening to induce an unlawful breach of the prospective strikers' contracts of employment?

Many trade unionists fear that if it is left to the judiciary to work out the answer by trying yet more anti-union actions, a position will be reached where ill industrial action is illega ind can be penalised The Judges have already shown some enterprise in this respect by their handling of the Stratford v. Lindley case.

Stratford's a firm of barge hirers and repairers have a subsidiary called Bowker and King. This firm employed a majority of Transport and General Workers' Union members, but also a few belonging to the Watermen, Lightermen and Bargees' Union.

When Bowkers came to a separate agreement with the Transport and General Workers' Union on union conditions, after refusing at least two joint approaches by both unions, the Watermen declared Stratford's work 'black'.

Mr. and Mrs. Stratford, the real controllers of the two businesses then started legal action against the union claiming that the embargo was unlawful and was costing them €1,000 a week.

Pending the trial they successfully sought a High Court injunction to restrain the union from executing its ban; although the Court of Appeal reversed that decision, the House of Lords this July upheld it.

The Union's defence was that it had acted in 'contemplation of or in furtherance of' a trade dispute. No dispute The 1906 Act protected unions from claims arising out of actions which would otherwise be unlawful if they did not arise out of a trade dispute.

The Judges pretty well agreed that if there had been a trade dispute, the defence would have been sound; but by a process which defies intelligence, they held that there was no such

dispute.

In other words they unde mined the protection of the A by skating round it.

The effect of these two cases could be to open the gates to anybody who considers that a strike has caused or will cause him damage.

Even the right-wing leaderships in the unions will not be exempt from bankruptcy and prison, and that is why Woodcock, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress has asked for immediate law reform.

Woodcock, of course, represents a bureaucratic layer whose whole way of life depends on the continued existence of a trade union movement.

To a certain extent these people will defend the unions and their own vested interests.

Whether they want socialist militant trade unionism, however, is quite another matter. The danger in the present situation is that some sort of deal will be made between all the right-wing bureaucratic elements in the trade unions and the capitalist class (with the next Labour government acting the

honest broker), which will allow certain types of industrial action on clearly defined, yet limited bases, but which will restrict just as definitively, the real fighting power of the working class.

Labour voters have the right to know at this stage exactly what the next Labour government intends to do. Appeals for quiet unity until after October will not do.

Since Gunter's statement on the trade unions, the Labour leaders have remained so silent on this question that even George Woodcock cannot fathom their attitude which should be one of complete support for the entire trade union movement.

Medical and Veterinary Workers LETTER

•SPAIN is moving towards the elimination of the fascist forms of the dictatorship of monopoly capital, linked with the personality of Franco and the survivals of the war in which Spaniards fought against each other in 1936-1939', states the Spanish Communist Party's latest programme.

It seeks to prepare the succession to Franco by offering itself, as in the past, as part of a broad coalition to establish a bourgeois democratic republic.

The programmatic demands it puts forward are not intended to sharpen the struggle against capitalism, which Asturian miners and others sections of the working class have been waging in recent months.

Democrat revolution Instead, it seeks a democratic revolution, to be carried out by 'all democratic elements', including sections of the army and church.

The new statement is merely a continuation of a well-established line. The Communist leaders fear above all a revolutionary upheaval in Spain. They offer themselves as eager partners, able to control part of the working class, to all those politicians, including former supporters of Franco, who wish to see a smooth transition to a more liberal regime.

According to the French paper, 'Le Monde', the statement even contains a reference to the 'positive aspects' of changes recently carried out by the Franco regime. For its part, the Communist 'L'Humanité does not reproduce the statement in full, perhaps because some sections would be too much for some of its readers to stomach.

Demagogic demands In any case, the true character of the policy of the Spanish CP is plain . for all to see. It puts forward demagogic demands of a general kind— agrarian reform, better living standards, progressive taxation and the nationalization of the banks.

These can be supported by many middle class Spaniards who have become dissatisfied with Franco. Even the demand for self-determination for Catalonia, the Basque country and Galicia takes on, in this context, the character of a conciliation with the middle class nationalist groups in those regions.

The appeal to sections of the army and the church—the very institutions which brought Franco to power-shows how far the Communist leaders have to go in their search for allies.

Learned nothing

It reveals clearly, too, that they are not out to smash the state, but to prepare a smooth transition to a new form of 'democratic' bourgeois rule. From the agony of the civil war they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.

It is evident, moreover, that the new statement is not really directed to the Spanish workers and peasants at all.

It is intended by the Khrushchevites to establish the position of the Soviet Union in relation to coming changes in Spain and to show that Franco's successors have nothing to fear from a revolution under Communist Party leadership.

To underline this aspect and assure maximum international publicity, the statement was distributed by post to the foreign press in Madrid.

Bitter attack

The Spanish Communist Party reserves its bitterest words, not for the corrupt hangers-on of Franco, not for the landlords and bosses who have sucked the blood of the Spanish workers and peasants for centuries, nor even for the big new monopoly interests who are reorganising the Spanish economy on modern lines, but for those 'adventuristic and unstable elements' who have attacked the official policy of the party.

Reporting the Spanish statement the French newspaper, 'Le Monde' says the CP 'has little new to offer but the condemnation of the "Italian line"!

The statement attempts to project a middle way to steer between the alternative of proletarian revolution on one side and the complete opportunism of the right-wing Amendola line of the Italian CP.

On guard After pointing out that the central committee of the Spanish CP is against the Chinese position of the extreme left, the statement adds: "The party is also on its guard against the infiltration of neo-capitalist and revisionist elements seeking to make it deviate to a reformist position."

The line of the 'deviationists, supported by two members of the executive committee who were later thrown out, is that the fall of Franco could not lead to to a revolutionary democratic development in Spain.

These opportunists' believe that the Spanish CP should resign itself to follow the wake of 'liberalisation' but not adapt itself to a situation where workers and bosses can enjoy what the statement calls. 'the benefits of modern neo-capitalism'.

Rejects position

The Spanish CP categorically rejects 'this opportunist social-democratic position' and will fight 'against these right-wing deviations as strongly as against the extreme left, the statement says.

After pointing out that when a party is forced to work underground, central control must be more than democracy, declaration calls for respect for the official line of the Spanish CP, emphasising the fact that 'today a group or militant in the party cannot be allowed, on the pretext of autonomy, to contradict its political line and oppose its discipline' (!)

It is known that in a number of countries Spanish exiles have been profoundly disturbed by the conciliatory policy of the party. Some have found in the Peking break an occasion to crystallize their opposition, but it is not the desire of the Chinese to split the party which is at the root of the trouble.

In Belgium a group of Spanish exiles publish 'Proletario' in which there are permanent attacks on the 'revisionists' Carrillo, Pasionaria, Lister and other Spanish Communist leaders under the influence of Moscow.

Spanish Marxists will have to find a road to regroupment through an implacable criticism of the role and record of the Spanish Communist Party and an understanding of why it can produce such statements as the last one.

Call to army

A recent example of the complete revisionist policies of the Spanish CP which have held back the working class of Spain for many years is given in the magazine 'Revolution' This quotes the secretary-general of the party, Carrillo, speaking over Radio Espana Independiente in May 1962 during a period of militant strikes by workers in northern Spain-in particular, the miners of the Asturias.

In calling on the armed forces to fraternise with the people, he says that the workers' cause is a noble one "because they desire a regime of liberty, where all ideas and beliefs, all respectable interests, will be respected.

But he goes on to say that instead of joining the ranks of the workers, the armed forces 'must remain outside this conflict.

Franco disappear

To support this he says that 'Franco and his regime will disappear in the near future, but the Army and Forces of Order will remain.

'And if they can maintain a worthy position in this moment, they will remain surrounded by the respect of the people and the

invite arrest in September 1964 Three

WOULD like to enlarge on the events surrounding the expulsion of Angelo Tasca fi 'om the Italian Communist Pa rty, mentioned in the article on Togliatti that you published last week.

When Tasca, in 1929, demanded a stand against the 'Third Period', Togliatti agreed with him and encouraged him to organise a faction on Bukharinist lines. Togliatti later withdrew all support for Tasca and the members of the faction were expelled.

This has been produced as evidence that Togliatti was a Bukharinist, genuinely perplexed and, for some while unable to choose between Bukharinism and Stalinism., Although it is true that be had been a supporter and close collaborator of Bukharin, by 1929-30 he was firmly a Stalinist. Yet he still had to manoeuvre to maintain his position in the party.

Bukharin's alliance with Stalin had been, at least from the Bukharinist side, an alliance on policy: that of the construction of socialism in one country 'at a snail's pace, involving a period of 'controlled capitalism'. Thus, when Stalin's policies changed and the Left Opposition was defeated, Bukharin was deposed.

Stalin, on the other hand, was prepared to adopt 'left' or "right' policies and ally with any group that was willing to do so, in order to build up the power of the bureaucracy. Policy was secondary to this. Hence the zig-zag course of the bureaucratic policies from the United Front, to the Third Period, to the Popular Front and so on.

Togliatti's method was that of Stalin, not of Bukharin. After some initial hesitations, he decided to go where the power lay.

Hence in 1927, he refused to carry the discussion from the Comintern into the Italian Party: the issues at stake were less important to him than not alienating Stalin and risking his position as leader of the Italian party.

He valued his own position as Stalin's lieutenant more than the task of building a revolutionary party to fight capitalism which, in Italy, existed in its most brutal form fascism.

It was this decision of 1921, taken with full consciousness of what was involved and shrugged off with the justification that he was not responsible for the events in the USSR and just had to make the best of it, that revealed him as a Stalinist.

From 1921, Togliatti had decided to "follow the majority" and to do this he fought both left and right, both Trotskyist and Bukharinist factions. Similarly, when adopted both 'left' and policies, as the bureaucracy demanded.

His 'Bukharinism' in 1929-30, was just a tactic carried out to consolidate the bureaucracy, and led to the destruction of the Bukharinist faction in the Italian Party• London.

MADE Franco: "A squat and decrepit figure?

new institutions they will create democratically?

The reason they should desert Franco is because 'despite all his pompous phrases and declarations, Franco cares little if the Army loses its prestige, if the armed forces of the State lose their honour; he even little cares if the honour of Spain itself is sold for dollars or marks.

Squat figure

"The only thing that matters to him is to remain in power, to continue to reign over Spain and see each day his squat and decrepit figure on the front pages of the newspapers. It little matters to Franco if the army disappears, if the state disappears, so long as he remains.

So, without any real basis, the secretary-general makes a passionate speech to the armed forces-the same armed forces who have been arresting, torturing and killing generations of Spanish workers—to remain out of things until Franco is dead; until the CP can fit itself into a democratic bourgeois state that is 'bound' to follow.

Only then will the forces have the sympathy and friendship of the working class.

Crush

Actually the leadership of the Spanish CP hopes, by such speeches, to win the support of the armed forces only to enable the Party to play its historical role of betraying and crushing any move by the 'noble' workers towards revolution.

Carrillo makes even more disgusting overtures. In an interview, also reported in 'Revolution', he claims there have been positive actions by Catholic forces.

He also hints that the Catholic hierarchies can find a way to draw closer to the people who, as 'Revolution' sarcastically puts it, 'cruelly feel the absence of a pastoral letter concerning the latest events [the strikes in northern Spain]'.

• and Yemeni ground forces, the Royalist rabble, led by the Imam El Badr, were decisively defeated and driven out of the north-west Yemen. The Imam, a direct descendent of the Prophet, is reported to be hiding in Saudi Arabia with the remnants of his army.

The war between the Royalist and Republican forces, which began more than two years ago, is now at an end and President Nasser can now claim the most significant (and the only) military victory secured by his army.

This will undoubtedly strengthen his bargaining position when the Arab summit meeting opens on September 5.

TURKEY CYPrULEBANON, SYRIA Beirut, Damascus виря.

ISRAEL Tel Aviv Alexandr JORDAN Aqaba Nile * MEMBER STATES OF ANDIDATE MEMBE ETHIOPIA OF U.A.R. Aden King Hussein of Jordan has recently recognised the Republican regime in Yemen in return for Soviet-made Egyptian military hardware and technical assistance.

ROAD OPEN Now the road is open for Nasser to put increased pressure on the anachronistic regime of Prince Faisal in Saudi Arabia to drop its support of the rebels and recognise the Sanaa regime of President Sallal. tribes have kept the Egyptian army of 42,000 at bay in the north and east.' ('Sunday Times', , May 17, 1964.)

Already secessionist trends are visible in many of the 14 Sultanates that comprise the Federation. In Beihan in the north, secession was avoided only by a massive demonstration of British power.

British imperialism is now faced with the prospect of re° Aléppo •Mosul •Teheran Baghdad Amman R A SKUWAIT Riyadh _ADEN Sana newed attacks from outside and insurrection from within the Federation.

It is not only Sir Alec Douglas-Home who is discredited by these events, but Harold Wilson, too.

Any attempt by a Labour government to continue the policies of Sandys and Home in South Arabia must be ruthlessly resisted by the labour movement.

If this happens-and it must sooner or later-Nasser and the Yemeni government (with the connivance of the USA) would have their hands free to tackle the South Arabian Federation.

British imperialism's days in this inhospitable land are now well and truly numbered, regardless of what Lord Kilbracken writes in the 'Evening Standard' or what Mr. Sandys might say in the House of Commons.

PRETENCE

Until now, Britain has attempted to maintain a pretence that it was defending the Adenis against the Protectorate Sheikhs and the Sheikhs against the scourge of Nasserism.

Now all this is no more. Even the vaunted policy of trying to reconcile the Shafeiist tribes of the south with the Zaid-ist tribes of the north and east Yemen against the Egyptians has disappeared like desert trail in a dust storm.

APPREHENSION

Tom Stacey a 'Sunday Times' reporter expressed the fears and apprehensions of the Tories when he wrote:

'The fate of this Federation is going to depend on the success or failure of the Egyptian campaign in the Yemen. Complete and secure Egyptian victory would so dazzle the populaceAdenis and tribesmen alike-that tribes and territories would begin flaking away at once.

'What has prevented this so far is the fact that the Zaidi Acting premier GOVERNMENT forces and officials in Vietnam are deserting their posts following the crisis in the puppet regime's leadership and rioting by students and religious bodies last week.

There is talk of an imminent, gigantic offensive by Vietcong forces whose persistent attacks in South Vietnam, especially around Saigon, have thrown the country and its U.S. military caretakers into utter confusion.

Mentally ill

Following General Khanh's short term as president and then member of a military triumvirate, it is now reported by the newly-appointed acting Prime Minister, Nguyen Xuan Oanh (a Harvard educated economist known to the Americans as 'Jack Owen), that Khanh is mentally ill and needs 'a long period of medical treatment' During a two month provisional government Oanh hopes to arrange elections.

There are two factors which will decide this: the advance of the Vietcong in this war-torn land; and the feeling of the people for the two other members of the triumvirate, General a Harvard economist Duong Van 'Big' Minh and General Tran Thien Khiem, whose supporters (Buddhists and nationalists) have been behind the rioting.

At the moment anythingincluding a coup, which was rumoured last week - could happen.

Canvassing

Meanwhile Cabot Lodge, former U.S. Ambassador in South Vietnam has been desperately canvassing for physical and moral support in NATO countries.

Apparently President Johnson was anxious to explain to his allies the Bay of Tonkin affair.

But President Johnson is anxious anyway. The war in south-east Asia is a permanent headache which even the sweet pill of success at the Democratic Convention cannot dispel.

The war is becoming less and less popular as he pours more and more money-now two million dollars a day-into South Vietnam, all for the sake of imperialism.

Being a U.S.-trained economist, Oanh appreciates this and will, therefore, prove an even more perfect puppet than Khanh-if the Vietcong do not cut the strings first.

Industrial CP and Press HE latest report by the National Coal Board September 964

World News. Round-up party always claim that the coalition with the • HE reformists in the Lanka Sama Samaja Sri Lanka Freedom Party would give Ceylon a clean, honest and incorruptible administration for LAST weck ufter a short and fierce offensive by Egyptian the first time in its history.

It did not take long for this claim-like so many others-to be disproved in a rather dramatic way.

For some time, rumours have lice in la Peoples Bank ac Ceylon and when the chairman resigned after Dr. N. M. Perera became Finance was widespread speculation about large loans being freely given to MPs by the manager of the bank, Mr. Solomon.

Dr. Perera attempted to placate public curiosity and criticism by requesting that an inquiry be conducted by the Central bank into the People's Bank.

Contracts

Everything seemed fine until Robert Gunawardene —left-wing MP - accused Dr. Perera of owning ricepaddy mills which had contracts with the government.

Rumour also indicates that the resignation of the chairman of the bank came as a consequence of his refusal to grant a loan for £10,000 to Dr. Perera to purchase this particular mill in November last year.

Dr. Perera, it appears, could not provide sufficient security.

It has also been revealed that Perera had already borrowed $4,000 from the bank while he was leader of the LSSP in the opposition.

Inquiry

The extreme right-wing in Parliament and outside are making capital out of this scandal and are demanding a Select Committee inquiry into the running of the People's Bank.

The curious behaviour of the Finance Minister in this episode has led many people to believe that many of those who joined the coalition from the LSSP did so not so much out of any desire to serve Mrs. Bandaranaike, but out of a determination to serve themselves.

Thus, more scandals can confidently expected. accused by Gunawardene

COALITION

ATTACKED BY THONDAMAN - Member of Parliament and Memner of carnament and leader of the Ceylon Workers' Congress, made a sustained attack against Dr. N. M. Perera, Finance Minister for his (Perera's) betrayal of the Indian Estate Workers.

Until he accepted office, Dr. Perera had fought for a special living allowance of 17 rupees 50 cents per month (30s. approx.) for Indian estate workers, but now he had abandoned the struggle.

Forced to leave

Thondaman also attacked the United National Party and other racialist leaders who were now suggesting that the Ceylon Indians should be forced to leave the island by denying them rice rations and medical facilities.

The wealth of the country, said Thondaman, was largely based on the sweat and blood of the Indian workers.

Those who set out to harrass and intimidate the Indian workers would soon have to eat sand in place of rice, he concluded ominously.

tood riots IN true Ghandi-style menbers of the Indian Communist Party were busy getting themselves arrested last week during demonstrations against the country's food crisis.

Like Ghandi, who during India's fight for independence from British Empire rule followed a line of passive resistance, the Communist Party leadership allowed police to arrest thousands of their members during demonstrations which achieved virtually nothing in terms of organising the workers and peasants into a movement.

STARVATION LEVEL Whilst millions of Indians live at near starvation level this leadership refused to lead a struggle to force Shastri's government to implement policies of nationalizing the land, wheat mills, banks and credit companies.

Those peasants and workers who want to put up a fight against the government's chaotic handling of the food crisis would hardly follow the Communist Party if the only prospect for them was one of being thrown in jail.

In Lucknow last week after 1,300 demonstrators had been arrested by the police, several party leaders actually attempted to join those already in the police vans by clambering onto the vehicles! They were 'politely turned aside', says "The Times' of August 26.

Now, with most of the leadership, including Dange, the party's chairman, finally arrested, the Communist Party has an excuse for not organising a general strike to force the government to do something about the food crisis.

Meanwhile the Indian government makes urgent pleas for wheat from Australia.

Whilst this poverty-stricken country depends on every ship£100 a month for Tshombe's mercenaries AS more and more white - South Africans and Southern Rhodesians enlist as mercenaries in the Congolese government army, fighting in the country intensifies.

Prime Minister Tshombe, whose position earlier last month was seriously threatened by the proximity of the rebel forces to the capital, has marle sure that his power will be strengthened by the use of what are probably white racialist forces.

Mercenaries are being offered over £100 a month with another £100 expenses. Some have been told that if they are killed, their next of kin will receive £7,000.

In addition to the armed forces being poured into the Congo, America has also provided Tshombe with planes.

Mean business

The imperialists mean business in the Congo. Tshombe is their supporter and they are making sure that his power is not usurped by the rebels who control large areas of the country.

Under the command of British-born Major Mike Hoare the mercenaries have now taken Albertville after a previous attack had failed.

Tshombe has been carrying out the most vicious reprisals against those people who originally moved from Brazzaville (ex-French Congo) to Leopoldville. He ordered that they should all be deported unless Brazzaville's President Alphonse Masamba-Debat stopped supporting the Congolese rebels.

This threat resulted in thousands of Brazzavillians being shipped out of Leopoldville. load of wheat it can get, the Indian government has ordered two to three squadrons of MiG-21s which are certainly going to cost a lot of money.

It is true, as "The Times' has pointed out that there is not enough fertiliser or advanced machinery for the peasants to use, the root of the problem lies in the fact that so-called socialists such as Nehru and now Shastri fail to implement policies that will take food production out of the hands of the corrupt, money-grabbing land and mill owners.

In this, both men were, and are, aided by the policy of the Communist Party. Unless a strong leadership is given in this country the workers and peasants will continue to starve as they have always done.

It is clear that Shastri cannot be pushed into patching up the economic crisis by the Communist Party since much more than a mere patching up is needed.

The Indian government could not hope to get anything more than a respite by asking grain ships from America to Britain to be diverted to India.

Conscious socialist planning is what is needed and only the organisation of the Indian working class can win it.

grows JUNIOR ministers, Bhikkus, Chief Justices and trade unionists are all up in arms against the proposed take-over of the Press in Ceylon.

In an attempt to allay fears about the Press Bill, the Prime Minister, Mrs. Sirimavo. Bandaranaike said in a broadcast last Sunday that agitation was unnecessary. It was a tentative draft of a Bill which she said 'ould ultimately be acceptable Lo all.

What ostensibly seemed an anti-capitalist act by the Coalition government could still, in fact, turn out to be a reactionary, anti-democratic action and part of a conspiracy to foist a virtual dictatorship over the dissemination of news and the propogation of all views which are not consonant with the pet prejudices of the Prime Minister.

For example, 18 Health Department Trade Unions have decided to protest against this obnoxious Bill because it would, in their opinion, effectively stifle all criticisms and the revelation of deficiencies in the Health Service.

The Government Hospital Attendants' Union statement read in part:

"This Bill is designed to prevent trade unions from putting across their viewpoint on national problems through the media of newspapers.' Scathing attack Robert Gunawardene, independent left-wing MP, foundermember of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party and a legendary figure in Ceylonese politics made a scathing attack on the Press Bill in Parliament. He accused the government of attempting to muzzle the freedom of expression and the liberties of the people by the use of emergency decrees and through its projected control of the press.

Radio Ceylon, he claimed, has been converted into a propaganda service for the government - and for the Voice of America.

A number of prominent Buddhist monks have also protested against the Press Bill and called on the people to frustrate the government's attempts to establish a dictatorship.

From all reports it seems that if the Press Bill in its present form is passed it could prove to be the Achilles Heel of the Coalition.

Menzhinsky death:

natural causes 'Izvestia' announced on Monday that Vyacheslay Menzhinsky, security chief in the Soviet Union from 1926 until his death in 1934 died from natural causes—paralysis of the heart. At the time of his death it was said he had been murdered by "counter-revolutionaries'.

ALLEN, the 41-year-old Leeds University lecturer on trial in Nigeria for subversion told the court in Lagos that a seven-page statement that he signed for the police was false.

He stated that Assistant Superintendent Ceulemans had promised him he could go free if he signed a document incriminating the three Nigerians (Sidi Khayam, Jonas Kiomasekenagh and Olushegun Adebayo) in the case.

In addition to promising him a quiet departure from Lagos and an arrival in London without publicity, Allen said, Cuelemans had stated that the Nigerian government only wanted to prosecute the Nigerians.

HUNGER STRIKE

After signing the false statement Allen said he realised that Culemans was not going to keep his promise so he went on a hunger strike for a week until he was granted bail.

During a week's interrogation by the police he was confined in a small, badly ventilated room with the electric light continuously on.

Allen said he was told by Culemans not to associate with Nigerians, 'because they were only one stage removed from savages.

Culemans, he claimed, had said: "They still eat human flesh and what's more they like it fresh' This court case is now in its ninth week and Dr. Allen needs the support of all trade unionists and Labour Party members in Britain.

BEING USED

He and the other three defendants are being used by Sir Abubakar's government as a warning to all other trade unionists in Nigeria who are fighting for better wages and conditions.

The Newsletter calls upon all its readers to send in donations to help Dr. Allen during this trial. Send your money to Dr. Allen Fund, Amnesty International, 1 Mitre Court Buildings, Temple, London, E.C.4.

Send in resolutions from your trade union branch or local Labour Party protesting against the trial of Dr. Allen and the three trade unionists to the Nigerian Embassy, Nigeria House, 9 Northumberland Avenue, W.C.2. Negro-cop

ONCE again America's cops:

have shown how sadistic and brutal such a reactionary force can be when Negroes pent up in a north Philadelphia ghetto clashed with them last week-end.

There were no shooting incidents during the running battles, but, as can i be seen from the picture on page one, they can do just as much damage with well-aimed truncheons.

Other police arrived — they were later reinforced to 1,500and the usual battle began. One hundred and ninety-seven people were arrested and 341 injured (67 police).

The clashes occurred in a section of Philadelphia labelled "The Jungle' where hundreds of Negroes are cooped up in tall, decaying tenements previously owned by wealthier people who moved to the suburbs.

Like many similar areas throughout the United States, this, ghetto will have its slumlords and other racketeers who calmly make their dirty dollars through super-exploitation of the Negroes.

Frustration

It is these conditions that grind the Negroes into the ground and produce the tremendous frustration — especially amongst youth-which finds its outlet in throwing a rock or bottle at a cop car ... or a cop.

Reports that the extreme faction of the Black Muslims, the 'Blood Brothers', had entered the city to plan racial trouble were denied.

In fact, the first policeman attacked when the trouble began was a Negro. The people in the slums know that cops, whether white or Negro, stand for state power and they react against them.

A spokesman of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People said the trouble was a spontaneous outburst of pent-up resentment against wretched living conditions.

To a certain extent that is correct, but the_NAACP and similar do-gooding organisations in the U.S. have no programme to overcome any of the problems facing Negro workers, who must now link up their fight for better living and working conditions with that of white workers in a labour party based on the trade unions and pledged to overthrow American capitalism.

UPTON Colliery near Doncaster, which employs 1,09t. Colliery near Doncaster, which employs 1,091 men and is one of the most militant pits in Yorkshire, one of the most militant nits in Yorkshire. has been scheduled for closure by the Coal Board.

A National Coal Board statement declares that this decision was precipitated by an explosion in the Barnsley seam on May 20 which has made working on that area unsate.

It is understood that there is till 20 years supply of coal il he pit but the Coal Boar claims it would be 'uneconomical' to mechanise that part of the colliery which could still be worked.

At a mass meeting in Upton Shire NCB SPokesman appealki to the men not to treat the closure 'emotionally'.

Coal Board official Mr. Sales —well aware of the miners suspicions about reasons for the closure-pronounced that he would never "stoop so low' as to make an explosion an excuse to close a pit.

NOT CONVINCED A National Union of Miners official told the meeting that the Union's own experts agreed that the pit would have to close.

But many Upton miners are not convinced. They claim that the Coal Board wants to close the pit because of its militant record and has seized on the explosion as an excuse.

Previously the Coal Board threatened to close Upton Sulliary because of its record of strike action. This threat was intensified following the allYorkshire strike of 1961.

Recently Upton was the only pit in the Doncaster panel to strike in support of the Glasshoughton men and other miners in the Number 8 Area when they struck work for 70s. fallback rate for men replaced by mechanisation and for £1 a week rise for day-wage men.

The Coal Board clearly has an interest in breaking up such centres of militancy in order to clear the way for their policy of investing huge Yorkshire correspondent pits.' A Coal Board official said at the Upton meeting that jobs would be found at other pits "wherever possible'.

What is needed now is united action by all Yorkshire miners to prevent any closure at Upton until there is a thorough examination of the pit acceptable to REMAIN OPEN the men who work there.

Even if such an investigation bears out that the Barnsley seam cannot be worked, the rest of the pit should remain open. Arguments that this would be uneconomic should be rejected, especially since the NCB paid out f52.9 million in interest payments in the 15 months ending last March.

If some transfers have to take place there must be united action to see that every man gets a job and loses no money. addition he should be paid a travelling allowance.

This will also bring miners up against the Coal Board's 'divide and rule' policy. Many collieries in the area pay less than the Upton men receive for the same work. The managements hope that this will set the miners against each other.

What is required is unity between the pits so that miners know what is being paid everywhere else and can fight for the highest rate.

This Involves a strugge against the union officials who connive with the management in keeping such information behind closed doors.

The big lesson of the closure threat at Upton is the need for the unity of all miners against

sums in mechanising the Yorkshire coalfield.

Officials of the Yorkshire NUM, shaken by the Glasshoughton strike and by their defeat on the day-wage question, would also not be averse to seeing such militants dispersed.

The Newsletter says that no pit should be closed without the agreement of committees of miners working in the pit, acting in association with trained mining technicians sympathetic to them.

SUSPICION

If such committees decide that the case for closure is genuine, then this should be carried out under the control of a committee to prevent 'any unemployment and to ensure that no worker will lose money by being transferred.

In the case of Upton there is clearly considerable suspicion that this closure is not justified. The militant miners have no confidence in either the Coal Board or the NUM area officials.

This is not just a matter for Upton men alone. Coal Board policy is to divide the miners pit from pit and area from area in order to carry out the Robens' plan on the basis of a divided working class.

It is clear that the Coal Board is planning the dismissa and alspersal tants in such a way that onl a minority of miners are affected at any one fime.

Union officials, of course, are putting up no opposition to this.

Without doubt, if the Coal Board has its way, the most outstanding militants at Upton will find themselves either without a job at all or sent away to remote, small collieries.

'It is likely. said the NCB statement, 'that many can be placed in jobs at neighbouring attacks staydown miners Newsletter Reporter NATIONAL Union of Mineworkers officials joined with the National Coal Board in condemning the two stay-down miners, Gershon Jones and Jim Pearce, on Thursday.

Jones and Pearce decided to stay down the Coventry Colliery in Warwickshire after the management refused to pay a bonus to the men.

Earlier the two miners had refused to be transferred onto different work from their normal jobs.

By doing so, the management claim, they must forefeit their bonuses, in accordance with the five-day agreement.

The joint statement by the Board and the Midland area representatives of the NUM said it was the third time men had stopped down the Coventry colliery, and the second time these two had been involved.

While this statement was being made a local NUM committee was working to get the men's dismissal notices withdrawn; earlier the management had decided their action warranted immediate dismissal.

A leadership which is prepared to join with the management in making these two out to be just troublemakers' is not the sort of leadership that can carry on a fight for better conditions.

There should be an immediate campaign for the withdrawal of the dismissal notices and an enquiry into the running of the pit by representatives of the pit committee.

shows once more that the present nationalized industries are completely dominated by the needs of monopoly capital in this country.

Figures reveal that the miners produced a profit of £72,000,000 for the NCB in the last 15 months. But by the time huge interest payments (of nearly f42,000,000) on money borrowed by the NCB had been made and charges had been paid to meet capital lost through closures and 'obsolescence'. , this had been whittled down to £100,000.

Interest

Huge interest payments, which ultimately find their way into the pockets of the capitalist class, are a reflection of the Board's past policy of holding down the price of coal to provide a cheap source of fuel for the monopolists and therefore being forced to borrow large sums from the money lenders to cover their apparent "losses' The fact that the Board only showed a small surplus of £100,000 enabled them to justify the rejection of the miners full wage demand.

During this period (1963-64) output per manshift rose overall from 31 cwts. to 33 cwts. and on the face from 91 cwts. to 99 cwts. This was a reflection of Robens' continuing drive towards mechanisation: nearly 70 per cent of all coal now comes from mechanised faces.

Connected with this drive has been the sharp rise of multishift workings on these mechanised faces.

Placed second

Now 14 per cent of machines working on the face are on a three or four shift basis. Again the safety, convenience and social life of the miner is placed second to the need for profit and 'efficiency' by the Board Over the last 12 months the accident rate has continued to shoot upwards: a fact given little prominence by the Board.

Injuries in the coal mines last year were the highest recorded per 1,000 workers, since records were started on their present basis in 1924.

Last year there was a total of 202,916 injuries with 254 deaths and 1,400 serious or reportable injuries.

Report

In his latest report for 1963 Mr. H. S. Stephenson, Chief Inspector of Mines and Quarries, says that it appears that "far too many people hold the view that high rates of production cannot be obtained if the requirements of the rules and regulations are always observed'.

In other words, men are being driven along by the break-neck speed of mechanisation and must ignore the safety regulations in order to obtain a living wage.

This latest report of the NCB once again poses sharply the relationship of the nationalized sector to the monopolies in our "mixed' economy. Only when interest payments are suspended and nationalization extended to the rich areas of the economy can there be any real advance for the miners. Robens: to close one -third of mines No week-end work on Clyde DOCKERS on the Clyde continue to refuse to work ships on Saturdays and Sundays unless given notice of such work by 7.45 a.m. on Friday in the case of ships in Glasgow and by 7.55 a.m. for ships outside the port.

This stand was taken originally by rank and file dockers at the KG5 and Princes Dock call points but has now been endorsed by the Scottish Transport and General Workers' Union.

A move which was taken by some officials of the union in Glasgow to try and discipline individual dockers for leading the fight against week-end work, which was being given out in the late morning or early afternoon, has been called off. The 'leaders' have, for the time being, been forced to follow the rank and file.

Rejection

At the same meeting of the Scottish TGWU the rejection of the increased employers offer of 10s. 10d. per week was endorsed. This is as far as the leadership have gone, however, on the wage question. workers A BOUT half of the workers at the Remington Rand typewriter factory, Hillington, Scotland, will not support the call by the Paisley District Committee of the Amalgamated Engineering Union for strike action on September 30.

The strike was to have been called in support of the demand for the reinstatement of Calum McKay, the factory • convenor who was sacked last March.

The secretary of the District committee, Mr. William McQuilkin, stated that Friday's meeting of workers at the factory was unofficial. It has subsequently been reported that 24 workers are to attend a meeting of the district committee which will 'investigate the unconstitutional and unofficial steps which were taken at the factory.

On Sunday the District Committee proceeded with their meeting to discuss the strike which had already been announced.

Only 92 of the 650 Remington workers attended this meeting and no vote was taken on the question of strike action. Meanwhile talks are to take place between National Executive representatives and the employers.

PRESS

Mr. McQuilkin said that reports in the Scottish 'Daily Express' and the operation of a 'fifth column' inside the factory were responsible for the small attendance at Sunday's meeting.

The capitalist press has' certainly been very active in leading the witch-hunting of militants and for the breaking of strikes by sowing confusion amongst workers.

But this does not sufficiently explain the confused state of affairs which now exists amongst Remington workers; a situation which the right wing will seek to turn to their advantage to secure control of the union organisation in the factory.

The sacking of Calum McKay was a deliberate act of provocation by the employers. The Remington workers were 100 per cent in opposition to the victimisation of their convenor. For five weeks the strike in support of his reinstatement remained completely solid.

Remington workers recognised that what was at stake was an attempt by the employers to break trade union organisation inside the factory.

To defeat the aims of the employers it was necessary, as The Newsletter pointed out throughout this dispute, to extend the fight through the Hillington industrial estate and the Paisley district. This demand was also put forward from the floor at meetings of the Clyde shop stewards called to discuss the strike.

NO LEADERSHIP But no leadership for such action was given by the Communist-controlled District Committee.

No official levy was imposed in the Paisley district-factory collections were taken only on a voluntary individual basis. The National Executive of the AEU did not officially recognise the strike and pay dispute benefit until July.

Many workers in factories on the Clyde recognised that if the Remington management got away with the sacking of McKay, other bosses would try it too.

A clear lead from the Paisley District Committee would have brought a big response from these workers in support of the Remington strikers. But, except for a half-day token stoppage by other factories, the Remington Rand workers were left to fight it out on their own.

Workers now view with doubt and hesitation the outcome of further strike action. They know that Remington can, and will, if need be, close the Hillington factory and transfer production elsewhere.

Over a year ago redundancies took place at the factory when nationalization measures were introduced and work was transferred to the Remington factory in Holland. At that time, the action taken by the Stalinist leadership was to send a telegram to the late General MacArthur in America appealing to him to intervene to prevent sackings.

FURTHER ATTACK

No fight was put up against redundancy at that time and as a result factory organisation was weakened, preparing the way for a further attack by the employers which has begun by removing the convenor.

The fight at Remington, however, cannot be considered as just a fight around the sacking of one man. A struggle for the strengthening of the workers' organisation in the factory and the rebuilding of leadership can only be successfully conducted as part of the fight in the whole area between employers and workers.

The fight of the Remington workers is part of the class struggle which is taking place in the drive by capitalism to maintain its position in an intensively competitive market by introducing automation and reducing its labour force.

The situation which now exists at Remington Rand rests squarely on the shoulders of the leading Communist Party trade union officials in the area. Remington workers hesitate now because they have no confidence in this leadership.

Union officials in the District Committee have played the same role at Remingtons as in other fights between workers and employers in the area. In the Rootes factory, for instance, when 270 assembly line inen were laid off recently, AEU members from other parts of the factory were allowed to replace the men dismissed from the track without protest from the district officials.

LAID OFF

When the Emerson Plan was introduced into the Pressed Steel, although the District Committee expressed opposition to the plan, no campaign was undertaken to explain it to the workers and to get it rejected.

When workers at Simons Lobnitz came out on strike against the closure of this shipyard, they were got back to work so that procedure could be carried out. The result was that the firm was able to complete its contracts and the men were laid off piecemeal.

The record of the Stalinist leadership in the Paisley District is a black one.

What is now required is a fight to remove the present leadership and to replace it with militant fighters. This means that the Remington workers need to link their struggle with the Pressed Steel workers to throw out the Emerson Plan and join with the Rootes workers against the speed-up and shorttime working.

It means taking up the fight within the union for the 40-hour week and for the nationalization of the engineering industry under workers' control.

Around such policies support could be won amongst engineering workers throughout the Paisley district. In the struggle for such demands a new leadership will be built capable of defeating the attacks of the employers.

Registered at the G.P.O. as a newspaper 180 Clapham Mish Street, London. S. W.4 Published by The Newsletter, 186A Clapham Hish Street, London, S.W.4

the plans of the Coal Board.

Resistance to these plans raises the whole question of workers' control of nationalized industries, not as an abstract 'left' slogan but as a living development of the struggles of the working class. LORD Robens intends te close one-third of the mines in Britain by 1970. The biggest threat is to the small, Forest of Dean coalfield which is to be closed down completely, throwing 730 men out of work. But the larger coalfields will not be immune.

The 5,200 miners in the Kent coalfield - who produce 1,500,000 tons of coal a year —have been told that their pits must close unless they make a profit within two years.

NO NEW PITS No more new pits are to be sunk and instead, the Coal Board is to concentrate on mechanisation of 16 large pits, mainly in Yorkshire and the Midlands.

The strategy is clear. As The Newsletter has repeatedly pointed out, the Robens' plan consists of rapid mechanisation of a few pits and wholesale closures elsewhere. This must inevitably mean attacks on militants in order to pave the way for these developments.

This announcement by Robens closely follows publication of the National Coal Board accounts which showed that, without interest payments, this nationalized industry would have made a profit of almost £53 million.

NOT FAR ENOUGH But even now representatives of powerful sections of the capitalist class do not think that Robens is going far enough. On August 28, "The Times' carried an editorial entitled 'Cases For Less Coal, in which Robens' declared aim of maintaining production at 200 million tons a year was denounced as a 'dangerous fallacy'.

The Times' demanded that the industry be "trimmed' to 160-180 million tons a year. Clearly the next few years will see a real threat to the jobs of Britain's 505,000 miners.

NATURAL RESOURCES While huge sums are being invested in mechanisation the Coal Board is seeking a return on this investment at the expense of the miners. At the same time, private enterprise is sinking vast sums of money in the exploitation of oil and natural gas resources and is ready to see the Coal Industry go to the wall.

Robens agrees that it would be more profitable to reduce production to 160 million tons but says 'the immediate social consequences and the long-term industrial results of such a policy would be adverse.

But if the Robens plan were allowed to get under way and militants in the industry were dispersed or driven out, this will soon change. There is no likelihood of Robens standing out against the wishes of big business as soon as he feels strong enough to take on the miners.

GRADUALLY

At the moment he wants to be allowed to carry out his closures gradually—about 40 pits a year-until the miners are really weakened.

Neither the right wing nor the Communist Party leaders in the National Union of Miners have shown any sign that they can stand out against this policy.

Miners now must begin united action against closures, against attacks on militants and against the Coal Board's attempts to set the miners against each other. The only organisation to put forward a programme for such unity is the Socialist Labour League.

They appear to let the Transport and General Workers' Union make the running and refrain from fixing any targets for the Scottish dockers.

No efforts seem to have been made for a real fight over the wages issue and to link it with the refusal to accept the employers' conditions for the agreement on the 40-hour week. Many dockers on the Clyde are worried that nothing is being done about the deteriorating position of workers in the port— the fact that a lot of concealed casual labour is being used; that there is no preparation to meet the changing conditions which will be created by the increased use of machinery and modernising of the port and the complete absence of any proper training scheme for dockers to meet the changing conditions.

Suspended

For the time being the weekly 'scramble' for the week-end work has been suspended at the call points.

But without a substantial increase in wages and the provision for dockers of regular guaranteed employment, then it will be resumed.

An increasing number of dockers think that the £15 minimum target fixed by the 'Blue' union is what must he aimed for.

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