The Newsletter, vol. 8 no. 364

Vol. 8, No. 364 October tiettee At the head of the march at Hyde Park four Young Socialists proudly bear the portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky.

Welcome to Trafalgar Sq.

YOUMS SOCIALISTS LBOUR GOVERNMEIT want A BANNED BY WE CON /POSE CONSCRIPTION BUT READ SING TROOPS PAME 10.00 LEASE ING aliate Dave Longley, publisher of Keep Left, welcomes the marchers to the rallying point. Over 4,000 at meeting -EDS Over 4,000 people congregated in Trafalgar Square to listen to the National Committee speakers. 8/0SL FILE Price Public l After the Election, what next? Meeting After the Election, Sunday, October 11, 7.30 p.m. Speakers: CLIFF SLAUGHTER, PETER (NAS&D) and G. HEALY SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE ABERDEENI Admission:

By Robert James so came under fire. march began at Hyde The police attempted to break up the procession into Park where six members of sections, but by the time the the National Committee of the National Committee had Young Socialists: Chairman turned into Bond Street, the Dave Ashby, Vice-chairman, procession stretched back to Sheila Torrance, and Mike Hyde Park where the last of the marchers were just Farley, Barrie Evans, Wal leaving.

Hobson and Bob Hamilton, took the head of the demon- The whole of narrow Bond Street reverberated to the stration followed by the four slogan-shouting as red banner portraits of Marx, Engels, after red banner with its chantLenin and Trotsky and their ing followers turned the corner. own banner. A seventh NC At one stage the whole length of the street became a mass of red. member could not appear Into Piccadilly and down to because of illness. Piccadilly Circus where Eros In brilliant sunshine as the took second place: hundreds of procession wended its way into sightseers turned to gasp at the Oxford Street, the marchers spectacle which seemed even immediately began shouting more impressive when the their slogans "Tories Out! marchers entered Trafaigar Labour In!' Square from all directions to Unemployment, police viol- mass in front of the plinth. ence, conscription and racialism Cont. page 2, col. 1 → Wales and from London right down to the new industrial centre of Crawley.

There were Mods and there were Rockers, who are now rapidly learning how to turn their energies to a real ald effective fight against capitalism instead of fighting amongst themselves. In this demonstration they were united.

The contingent in the lead was, of course, the majority of the National Committee of the Young Socialists whose average age is 22 years. Immediately behind them were the portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, telling the world at large that the youth movement in Britain rejects Stalinism, Khrushchevism, Maoism and Wilsonism.

We ask all those 'dothering' old men of the revisionist and centrists camps a simple question.

How did it happen, in Britain of all places, the heart of social-democracy?

You have been busy telling everybody that it could not

Page October 964 October

By Th A CCORDING to 'The Sun', one of the daily newspapers owned by the world's most powerful press baron, Cecil King, nearly 3,000 young demonstrators marched under the banner of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square last Sunday. According to police estimates, there were over 4,000 gathered in the Square after the demonstration arrived.

We are sure that tens of thousands of labour militants all over the country will join with The Newsletter in saying 'Well done' to this splendid gather-; ing of socialist youth. happen.

The demonstration was as The Stalinist 'Daily Worker' political as it was exciting. refused an advertisement for the Over 30,000 Manifestos con- demonstration and "Tribune' taining the full policy of the found a convenient but shabby Young Socialists were sold in excuse to follow suit. advance during the weeks of preparation in the towns and great industrial centres of Britain.

It was not just a demonstration bringing youth to gether on some urgent specific issue such as the H-bomb or youth unemployment. It was a demonstration based on a full socialist programme which included a call for action on these burning issues, but which related this call to the urgent need for the labour movement to fight on a full socialist policy.

Exciting

This was the feature which made it unique in the turbulent movements of youth which have been taking place since the late 1950s. It was a march for socialist policy.

The demonstration was exciting because it embraced a majority of young people, many of whom had never been on a demonstration before. There were contingents of apprentices from various factories, including Harland & Wolff Belfast, AEI Manchester, and others from factories whose names are household words, on Tyneside, the Midlands and Scotland.

Marching in step with the apprentices were young students, Young Communists and certainly the most colourful and powerful array of Young Socialists branches that has been seen since the movement was founded in 1960.

United fight

They came from as far north as Aberdeen, as far West as le Editor Militant policies The Pabloite and State Capitalist revisionists organised an indoor counter - demonstration the previous Sunday, around the slogan 'Save the Young Socialists' and all they could muster was an audience of 200, who, if the truth was known, have no principled agreem at excent that thev hate the militant nolicies nf hate the militant policies of the thousands of Young Socialists who support the youth paper 'Keep Left' Significantly enough, the 'Daily Worker' and "Tribune' displayed prominent advertisements for this meeting.

The demonstration, in effect, heralds the break-up of the old bastions of bureaucracy, Stalinism and social-democracy, in the labour movements of western europe.

That it should take place in Procession stretches length of Bond Street The silence of Bond Street is shattered by the noise of the The silence of Bond Street shattered by the noise of the massive demonstration which, led by the Naitonal Committee, stretches the N the world of monopoly capital, the role of that liberal - minded newspaper, 'The Guardian' becomes increasingly difficult.

Occasionally, it gets agitated over such issues as individual freedom, just as if it was living 100 years ago. Then suddenly its editorial staff wake up to the requirements of the capitalist world and hit out viciously, not against bureaucracy but against those whose rights are really being taken away by such agencies of monopoly. This is the meaning of the illtempered, peevish report in "The Guardian' of last Monday concerning the Young Socialists demonstration.

One Young Socialist after another has been expelled from the Labour Party without charges or rights of appeal. Indeed the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party are notorious for their violation of natural justice. Chairman of the National Committee of Young Socialists, Dave Ashby, addressing the rally. Britain is, for two reasons, noi an accident. Firstly, the economic crisis of world imperialism is at its sharpest point in Britain. Secondly, the consistent struggle of the Socialist Labour League and The Newsletter against revisionism has assisted in the education of hundreds of new cadres to the revolutionary movement, although at no time have these Young Socialists Joined the Socialist Labour League.

This development in the Young Socialists is of a qualitative character. The youth are today potentially the most powerful force in the working class movement. Those who snigger over their 'tactlessness' in the fight against social-democracy will eat their words before very . long.

1 hese three thousand marchers can, must and will whole length of the street. TROTTING AFTER THOMPSON Che Guardian' knows this very well, but what it does not like about the youth is that they pursue a policy politically independent from that of the Tory, Liberal and Labour Party leaders, that is, hostile to monopoly.

such circumsances, as happened last Sunday, "The Guardian' reporter was either near-sighted or almost totally blind. He could only find 1,000 young people around on the march. Even the 'Daily Worker', notorious for its political blindness on such questions, actually arrived at the figure of 2,000. These, our 'Guardian' man airily dismisses as young people who were 'trotting after Trotsky. Now, all this 'trotting after Trotsky' might not be such a bad idea as 'The Guardian' seems to make out. After all, the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky have done more to progressively change the world and the destinies of YOUNG BARNS AND POCIALISIS!

SOLU ON build the most powerful revolutionary party the world has ever seen.

The tired old centrists of the United Secretariat in Paris will scratch their heads and say that surely to march behind the banners of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky is sectarianism. Think again, gentlemen.

Politically advanced Tha their ine youn, even in ineir immaturity, are a thousand times more advanced politically than you are. Because they are young they have time to learn. In the next year or so they will be playing a more and more important part in the trade unions and in the adult movement. They already know all about centrism and fake lefts.

They have their own trained leadership in whose hands the red banners of the communist future are already firmly held.

man than all the verbiage of the capitalist and liberal newspapers since the industrial revolution.:

1 matters of advice, "The Guardian' in particular, is in poor shape. The growth of monopoly is perhaps greater in the newspaper world than anywhere else. "The Guardian' is printed in London on the presses owned by Lord Thompson, who, in fairness to him, does not claim to be anything more than a money changer in the best capitalist sense.

:cently, he appeared like a fairy godfather to the beleaguered 'Guardian' (some 'Guardian' employees even say that he was too much of a fairy). He closed down his Manchester evening paper in order to enable the evening paper owned by "The Guardian' to increase its circulation and thereby subsidise 'The Guardian' so that it could regularly pay its printing bills to him, for work FIFIREAR They reject the theory that is first necessary to build a centrist movement within social-democracy before the revolutionary party can be built. They can bring 3,000 on to the streets.

We wonder, in spite of all your subtle disguises as editors of right centrist papers, could you muster 30, under the same conditions?

An eng Soralists are tot isolated trom the mass of the Lime amlabour movement, In their fight against the right wing today they will be joined by hundreds of thousands of adult workers tomorrow. For every one who is expelled from the Labour Party today, they will train ten to replace them in the coming period. When the left wing develops inside the Labour Party they will be organised and ready to do final battle to expose and defeat the right and their centrist allies. done on presses which would otherwise be idle.

In turn, he acquired without paying a penny piece a substantial number of shares in the 'Manchester Evening News'. So today 'The Guardian' is printed on presses which it does not own, by a man who has already got a firm holding in the only substantial asset which it has for subsidising the paper itself. irtainly, trotting after Lord Thompson does not appear to have done "The Guardian' much good, especially since it is rumoured that the next change may be 'all change' when the noble Lord takes over 'The Guardian', lock, stock, and the reporter who dislikes counting beyond a thousand. le Young Socialists, therefore, are on to a much better thing so far as change is concerned when they follow the policies of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky.

Cont. from page 1 Each contingent was welcomed by Dave Longley, publisher of the Young Socialists paper, 'Keep Left'.

Dave Ashby then addressed the 4,000 people crowded in the Square, on the balustrade at the rear and even on the steps of the National Gallery across the road.

He explained how the National Committee had fought for the socialist policies passed at the Young Socialists Annual Conference at Easter and how it had been forced, because of attacks from Transport House, to call its own meeting, issue a Manifesto outlining the policies of the Young Socialists, and call the rally.

"The working class is sick of Toryism,' he said. 'That is why we have organised this rally?

Because there was no lead from Wilson, the Young Socialists had the responsibility to build an alternative leadership so they could go to the working class and tell them the truth about automation, incomes policies, NATO, etc.

Socialist future

The National Committee had been elected by Young Socialists and would continue to operate. It would not accept any expulsions or suspensions.

'What is involved here is the future of socialism in Britain,' he said.

Sheila Torrance asked for the whole labour movement to join the YS in its fight for socialism.

She added that the majority of Young Socialists had refused to accept the proscription of 'Keep Left'.

'We have fought for its policies, she said. This had helped to build the YS into a mass movement despite attacks from the right, a refusal from the 'left' in "Tribune' to help the YS by putting an advertisement in their paper, and the cynicism of other left sections towards a mass movement.

Workers' unity

"There is no unity with such people, only unity with these Young Socialists and adult workers,' she said.

Mike Farley dealt with unemployment and automation, two factors leading to misery for the working class in his area in the north-west. There had been tremendous attacks on Young Socialist branches fighting against these problems but, he warned: If Young Socialist branches are closed down, we will open them again,' A Belfast Young Socialist, Jackie Vance, also spoke of extremely hard conditions in Northern Ireland and of attempts by the right wing to prevent the YS mobilising youth. But, he assured the audience, 'We will work to return Labour candidates to help the fight in this country for the workers.' Candidate support Prospective Labour Parliamentary candidate for South Paddington, Bill Dow, outlined the fight in his area, against 'rapacious and grasping landlords' This was not just a battle with thugs and racketeers, but a battle against the Tory system, he said.

He believed the Young Socialists were carrying on this fight and said he supported their policies. He appealed for help in his constituency to assure a Labour victory.

to Barry Evans of the East Midlands said the Young Socialists associated themselves with the socialists and revolutionary leaders, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky because it is in their tradition that we have carried through this rally today.' Second march The marchers, some of them weary from overnight trips to London and the walk from N the 1964 General Election campaign, all the real problems which the next government will have to tackle are hidden under a thick blanket of empty verbiage.

But while the politicians chatter on about the 'New Britain', the economic crisis of the old Britain looms up behind them.

The problems facing British imperialism boil down to the main question of disciplining the workers. British industry has to re-equip itself to meet foreign competition. All the vague talk about 'planning' really refers to the need of the monopolies to use the state to tame organised labour.

Key role

The trade unions have a key role to play at this stage. Their right-wing leaders have shuwn themselves eager to co-operate with big business in carrying out their programme of planning —i.e. installation of vast automated processes, redundancy, wage freeze, etc.

A quarter of a century ago, Trotsky analysed this tendency within the unions. In his last, unfinished article, "Trade Unions in the Epoch of Imperialist Decay', he wrote:

'Monopoly capitalism is less and less willing to reconcile Trotsky: analysed tendency in unions itself to the independence of trade unions. It demands of the reformist bureaucracy and the labour aristocracy, who pick the crumbs from its banquet table, that they become transformed into its political police before the eyes of the working class. If that is not achieved, the labour bureaucracy is driven away and replaced by the Trade unions in the epoch of imperialist decay short, masterly and topical analysis of vitalism and the prospects for the trade rd and advanced capitalist countries. fascists. Incidentally, all the efforts of the labour aristocracy in the service of imperialism cannot, in the long run, save them from destruction.' The British union bosses have startlingly confirmed this description in recent years. Not only have they collaborated on the bodies like the National Economic Development Council with the Tories and the employers, but they have also moved more and more towards integration with the state machine in their attacks on militants and left-wingers in their own ranks.

In the Electrical Trades Union, for example, the right wing took office with the aid of the law courts and a big campaign in the capitalist press.

Woodcock's plans to amalgamate unions into larger The third of our General Election articles organisations, so highly approved by the Communist Party, are designed to enable the bureaucrats and the government to control the union members more closely.

Ray Gunter, soon to be Minister of Labour under Wilson, showed the line of thought of the Labour Party leaders in his infamous article last April. Writing in 'Socialist Commentary' he hinted at the possibility of state control of the unions if they did not adapt themselves to the automation era.

Together with his speeches attacking shop stewards, this idea should be remembered when considering the policies of the Wilson government.

The Labour Party leaders see themselves especially fitted to supervise the transition through which British capitalism is now passing.

Wilson's speeches about the great possibilities of automation and computers assumes that the unions are to be coaxed into "partnership' with the employers, under the benevolent eye of the state.

trends in mono] unions in the bi Price This is a reactionary and dangerous dream. Far from bringing an era of peacefully rising living standards, automation under capitalist control will mean mass unemployment for some sections of the working class and intensified exploitation of others.

Independence This critical period for British imperialism will see bitter struggles throughout industry. Only through a fight for the independence of the unions from state intervention can the bosses be stopped from cutting into the conditions of the working class.

Even the meagre reforms offered by Wilson must be seen as the bait with which the workers' movement is to be enticed into the trap.

Wilson's statement at the Trades Union Congress pledging the Labour Party to amend the legal position of the unions received much applause.

But it should be regarded with suspicion.

It is likely to result in legal backing being given to control of the bureaucrats over the rank and file of the unions.

However, the most craven treachery of the labour and trades union leaders will not be enough to solve the crisis of British capital. In the coming period, every atom of independent organisation of the workers is a potential threat to the monopolies.

New and more open forms of state authority will arise to Wilson admits election victor faces economic IN his TV broadcast on Monday, Harold Wilson referred to the approaching economic crisis for the first time in his election campaign.

'Whoever wins this election is going to be faced with very grave economic difficulties right away,' he said.

According to last Sunday's 'Observer', Wilson had been arguing against other Labour Party chiefs who wanted to bring this issue into the open.

Despite all the signs of the past few months, he has avoided using the balance of payments figures to attack Tory policies. Only a month ago. he had specifically denied the existence of a crisis.

NOT 1961 CRISIS On Saturday he mentioned the danger that the Tories would once again introduce measures to halt economic expansion. But he added: "This does not means that a financial crisis in the sense that we had them in 1957 and 1961 is impending or imminent."

As The Newsletter has been pointing out for several months, the Tories have timed the replace the union chiefs as the instruments of regimentation of the workers.

Independent trades unions will become a luxury that capital will no longer be able to afford. The labour leaders will be discarded by the monopolies after use.

rhe trade union movement grew up in the period when British capital dominated the world market. Later, in the hey-day of the British Empire the unions set up the Labour Party as their political voice.

There were always two sides to this process.

On the one hand labour leaders saw themselves as achieving improvements in the position of their members within the framework of capitalist exploitation. On the basis of the huge profits extracted from their colonial investments, the ruling class could afford to grant concessions of this kind in order to secure the smooth continuation of the system.

On the other hand, for millions of workers, the labour movement on which the leaders rested, represented an instrument through which they could unite their strength, so as to begin to control their own lives. The unions and the Labour Party were potential levers of working class power.

After the 1914-18 war, the decline of Britain as a world power began to undermine the relationship between the labour movement and imperialism. The labour leaders became less and less capable of securing even bread and butter improvements for the workers. Today, crisis From Our Special Correspondent election so that the boom would end just when Labour took office. They had deliberately avoided taking measures to deal with the balance of payments problems, so that the crisis would land in Wilson's lap at the end of the year.

BRAKE ON In practice the payments deficit and the consequent drop in gold reserves have grown faster than they expected. Cuts in government spending and other brakes on consumption will have to be applied very soon.

Wilson will explain his hesitation about raising these questions openly by saying that he had no wish to endanger the pound on the world market. This very patriotic excuse is not, however, the true one.

The veil of silence drawn over the real economic problems during the election campaign is to be explained by the absence of socialist policy in Labour's this decline become collapse.

The Wilson administration faces (with tight-shut eyes) problems which will tear apart the relations between the unions and the Labour Party.

Woodcock, already showing signs of indifference as to who wins the election, wants to remodel the movement on American, non-political lines.

On the other hand, the former Gaitskell-ite group of rightwingers in the Labour Party also wait for a chance to break away from the trades unions.

Political power As the postmen and dockers have shown, the workers will not accept Wilson's 'incomes policy' without a fight. Whatever the plans of the monopolies and their errand boys, the union rank and file will not be fitted into such a policy peacefully.

But much more is posed by Wilson's and Woodcock's treachery than militant industrial struggle. To prevent the smashing of the labour movement, the question of political power has to be faced.

The unions must be transformed under Marxist leadership into instruments of power.

Prepare

Wilson's refusal to extend the nationalization of industry will leave the Labour government at the mercy of the monopolies and the banks. Trade unionists must be prepared to fight, not only on questions of wages and conditions, but on the whole policy of the Wilson leadership.

This means the building of a Marxist leadership which prepares the working class to take the power and end capitalism throughout the world.

(Next week No. 4 in our election series: 'Socialists and Loyalty to Labour by Cliff Slaughter.) programme. Since Wilson is pledged to try to make monopoly capitalism work, he is afraid of letting anyone know that this will inevitably involve attacks on workers' living standards.

That is why the Labour Party's election campaign is a sham, not a real fight against the Tories.

The admission that the financial crisis is on the way shows just what pernicious nonsense was the argument of the Foot's, Mikardo's and the other 'Tribune'-ites — that all socialists should keep their mouths shut on policy questions until the Labour government was elected.

BROWN'S PROMISE

It also makes nonsense of George Brown's promise of cheaper interest rates for buying houses.

The labour movement must prepare now for these attacks, which will start almost immediately after October 15. The Labour Party leaders must not be allowed to get away with the excuse that they did not know how bad the situation was.

CEYLON | DEADLOCK O 'STATELESS INDIANS' IN CEYLON ATTEMPTS to 'solve' the problem of the 1,200,000 'stateless' Indians in Ceylon have reached a deadlock as a result of the refusal of the Indian government to be blackmailed by the Ceylon representatives at the informal talks held recently between India and Ceylon. Indians, Problem of The 'stateless indians only arose after the United National Party government in 1947 decided to change the citizenship laws and substitute the principle of 'descent' in place of the principle of 'birth and residence' as the criterion of aitizenship.

This gigantic political manoeuvre was designed to strike the 800,000 Indian plantation workers off the electoral register and consolidate the position of the capitalist government.

Since then, every government whether 'left' or night wing has adhered to these complex and infamous laws. Now, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party - Lanka Sama Samaja Party coalition is trying to draw a communal redherring across the path of the advancing working class movement by proposing to repatriate the Indian workers as a partial solution to the unemployment problem in Ceylon.

The Ceylon government states it is prepared to register a certain number (unspecified) of 'stateless Indians' as Ceylon citizens provided the Indian government absorbs the rest.

The talks bogged down when the Ceylon representatives attempted to pressurise the Indian government by stating that they (the Indians) had agreed to absorb the 'unassimilated' Indians as far back as 1947 and that this should be the stanting point of the discussions.

The Indian representatives rejected this as a baseless assumption and the talks ended abruptly.

Velona strikers defy Council THE three month old strike of the Velona Textile mill workers has entered a violent and bitter stage with no prospect of settlement in the foreseeable future.

Recently, the strikers, led by Merryl Fernando--a leader of the Lanka Sama Samaja (Revolutionary) defied a ban enforced by the local Urban District Council and entered a council-owned park to hold a meeting.

The gates of the park, which were padlocked, were lifted off their hinges. In the same week, a hand bomb was flung at a scab-driven car leaving the Velona factory.

21 demands struggle planned THE Demooratic Workers' Congress - embracing a substantial minonity of Indian Estate workers—has agreed to attend a conference called by the Ceylon Trade Union Federation to discuss the presentation of the 21 demands.

The Congress statement welcomes the convening of the conference and adds: 'In fact, for the plantation workers the urgency is all the greater because of the immediate need to secure the demand of the special living allowance of 17 rupees 50 cents (about 30 shillings a month) which enjoyed by most of the other workeis.' ALGERIA BOUDIAF CONDEMNS BEN BELLA M TOHAMMED Boudiat, one of the leaders of the underground opposition to Ben Bella, told the French press why he did not believe that there was socialism in Algeria, last week.

"To set up a real socialist regime, he said,' 'presupposes the creation of a vanguard party, of workers' and peasants' unions and of an administration which would correspond to the needs of these. Yet none of these elements exist in Algeria.' The present system, he continued, involved the lack of any political or economic control by the masses. Ben Bella's 'socialism' boiled down to bringing under state control ever greater sectors of the economy, or in other words, placing the economy in the hands of a petty-bourgeoisie that is eager for private gain, that is individualistic and reactionary' UNIFICATION 'This petty-bourgeoisie is the backbone of the bureaucracy, both in the party and in the administration,' he said.

Boudiaf went on to speak of the unification of the various elements that make up the opposition into the 'National Committee for the Defence of the Revolution'. • This included Chaabani, who was executed by Ben Bella recently.)

The aim of the opposition was to organise and give consciousness to the spontaneous movements of the rural masses.

'We do not consider that armed activity is the only kind that we should carry out; nonetheless, it is an indispensable adjunct to our political action.' Boudiaf stated that the opposition conceived of a socialist policy in Algeria, but that this was impossible without effective participation of the disinherited masses.

'NATIONAL INTEREST The opposition would not form any alliance with any organisations representing 'those who exploit either politically or economically'. It was not tied to any foreign power, or to any economic interests. The 'national interest' alone, guided its actions.

Asked where the opposition stronghold was, Boudiaf replied that it carried out partisan activity in the Kabyle, in North Constantine, in the Aures mountains, and in the South. 'Our partisans are strongest in the poorest regions, where the population is poorest,' he said. Algerians killed by mercenaries claim ARMED confrontation between the Ben Bella government and the opposition in Algeria has spread to Algerian workers in France.

Early in September, four Algerians armed with revolvers entered a cafe in Aulnay sous Bois in France and opened fire on a group of fellow countrymen. Three people were killed and five were wounded.

A statement made later by the Front of Socialist Forces (one of the opposition groups led by Ait Ahmet) claimed that the assassins were mercenaries of the Ben Bella government.

The statement also appealed to Algerian workers in France not to yield to provocations of this kind.

leade THE violent attac Negro workers North American been accompanied b witch-hunting and ment of several Neg Earlier this year, rent strikes and the s cotts showed the seri the Negro mover. American press began "public opinion' for 1 police attacks that follow.

Reports appeared papers, notably in York Times, of Negi and terrorism suppose a gang called th brothers'.

Reports of crimes t were deliberately pla the press and those were played down, wh it all was supposed t terrifying blood brot HYSTERIA It has never been F such an organisation fact, the gang has br dropped by the presssufficient hysteria whipped up.

But six unemploye teenagers were arre without bail, denied of their own lawye: now up for trial on of murdering a wl keeper.

The main 'eviden‹ the six seems to be were 'members' of brothers'-an organis no one now is prepa ever existed!

Likewise, Bill Eptc leader of the Progress Movement has been i charges of sedition ar anarchy.

Epton's group wi one prepared to ce fight of the Negroe city government of attempted to bu!

Negro leaders. Fr the compromise t other so-called mi cepted, Epton is ne WITCH-HUN For taking this sti has been witch-hunte by the bosses' press 1 the 'leaders' of th Negro organisations.

Roy Wilkins, the le National Associatio Advancement of People, and James the Congress of Raci have both asked the General, Robert K start an inquiry into of rioting in norther According to thes these riots must instigated by som underground organis foul housing conditio conditions and poli to which the Negro the United States ar not apparently being the minds of these of the Negro cause, 1 rioting of the last fer MALCOLM X:

Significantly, tor X, the black raci:

of the Socialist Party, the man y interview with thi Evening Post', sa would prefer Go Johnson for pre!

praised Goldwate personal courage gence, has not ber to speak up in Epton.

Paul Boutelle, of ti ow Party, has rested for trying ection rally in Harl

Hyde Park, then picked up their banners and en bloc marched out of Trafalgar Square behind the 'Keep Left' banner to a meeting at St. Pancras Town Hall called by the paper.

There, the National Committee members joined 'Keep Left' editor, Aileen Jennings, John Robertson, the expelled chairman of last year's Young Socialists National Committee and chairman of the Manchester Apprentices Direct Action Committee, Mike Hughes, and Dave Longley on the platform. oncise history of the growth of trade union bureaucracy and struggles against it. The shop stewards' movement of 1915the Minority Movement and the Third Period experiences analysed thoroughly. Price 1/NEW PARK CLAPHAM movements PUBLICATIONS LTD., HIGH ST, LONDON, S.W.4

On all the main isuits othe stalinist 1030s, the Trotskyist criticisms of Stalinist policies, Union Congress, speaking this year's Congress then, were correct.

Mrs. Reid, and the other party apologists, can only deny the tragic consequences of Stalinism by either skating over the history of the workThe attacks by the Communist Party on the Trotskyist movement for fighting the right wing in the Labour movement, means that they, in practice, accept the right of the capitalists to control existence in the face of all evidence and by branding those them out as 'capipresent fight against Wilson and his like in the Young

on chiefs as the regimentation of rades unions will ury that capital se able to afford. ders will be dismonopolies after inion movement he period when dominated the Later, in the : British Empire up the Labour political voice. always two sides e hand labour themselves as ovements in the r members within k of capitalist On the basis of s extracted from investments, the could afford to al ns of this kind in the smooth cone system. ther hand, for rkers, the labour which the leaders ted an instrument they could unite so as to begin to own lives. The le Labour Party levers of working 914-18 war, the tain as a world o undermine the tween the labour id imperialism. ders became less uble of securing I butter improveworkers. Today, isis ur Special spondent the boom would n Labour took had deliberately measures to deal ace of payments that the crisis Wilson's lap at year.

KE ON the payments consequent drop ves have grown y expected. Cuts t spending and on consumption be applied very explain his hesitaising these quesy saying that he to endanger the : world market. stic excuse is not, ue one. ilence drawn over nomic problems tion campaign is 1 by the absence ilicy in Labour's this decline become collapse.

The Wilson - administration faces (with tight-shut eyes) problems which will tear apart the relations between the unions and the Labour Party.

Woodcock, already showing signs of indifference as to who wins the election, wants to remodel the movement on American, non-political lines.

On the other hand, the former Gaitskell-ite group of rightwingers in the Labour Party also wait for a chance to break away from the trades unions. Political power As the postmen and dockers have shown, the workers will not accept Wilson's 'incomes policy' without a fight. Whatever the plans of the monopolies and their errand boys, the union rank and file will not be fitted into such a policy peacefully.

But much more is posed by Wilson's and Woodcock's treachery than militant industrial struggle, To prevent the smashing of the labour movement, the question of political power has to be faced.

The unions must be "transformed under Marxist leadership into instruments of power.

Prepare

Wilson's refusal to extend the nationalization of industry will leave the Labour government at the mercy of the monopolies and the banks. Trade unionists must be prepared to fight, not only on questions of wages and conditions, but on the whole policy of the Wilson leadership.

This means the building of a Marxist leadership which prepares the working class to take the power and end capitalism throughout the world.

(Next week No. 4 in our election series: 'Socialists and Loyalty to Labour" by Cliff Slaughter.)

is economic programme. Since Wilson is pledged to try to make monopoly capitalism work, he is afraid of letting anyone know that this will inevitably involve attacks on workers' living standards.

That is why the Labour Party's election campaign is a sham, not a real fight against the Tories.

The admission that the financial crisis is on the way shows just what pernicious nonsense was the argument of the Foot's, Mikardo's and the other "Tribune'-ites — that all socialists should keep their mouths shut on policy questions until the Labour government was elected.

BROWN'S PROMISE

It also makes nonsense of George Brown's promise of cheaper interest rates for buying houses.

The labour movement must prepare now for these attacks, which will start almost immediately after October 15. The Labour Party leaders must not be allowed to get away with the excuse that they did not know how bad the situation was. | CEYLON DEADLOCK O • STATELESS INDIANS' IN CEYLON ATTEMPTS to 'solve' the problem of the 1,200,000 "stateless' Indians in Ceylon have reached a deadlock as a result of the refusal of the Indian government to be blackmailed by the Ceylon representatives at the informal talks held recently between India and Ceylon. Indians, Problem of The "stateless oniv arose atter the United National Party government in 1947 decided to change the citizenship laws and substitute the principle of 'descent' in place of the principle of "birth and residence' as the criterion of citizenship.

This gigantic political manoeuvre was designed to strike the 800,000 Indian plantation workers off the electoral register and consolidate the position of the capitalist government.

Since then, every government whether 'left' or night wing has adhered to these complex and infamous laws. Now, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party - Lanka Sama Samaja Party coalition is trying to draw a communal redherring across the path of the advancing working class movement by proposing to repatriate the Indian workers as a partial solution to the unemployment problem in Ceylon.

The Ceylon government states it is prepared to register a certain number (unspecified) of 'stateless Indians' as Ceylon citizens provided the Indian government absorbs the rest.

The talks bogged down when the Ceylon representatives attempted to pressurise the Indian government by stating that they the Indians) had agreed to absonb the 'unassimilated' Indians as far back as 1947 and that this should be the starting point of the discussions.

The Indian representatives rejected • this as a baseless assumption and the talks ended abruptly.

Velona strikers defy Council THE three month old strike of the Velona Textile mill workers has entered a violent and bitter stage with no prospect of settlement in the foreseeable future.

Recently, the strikers, led by Merryl Fernando--a leader of the Lanka Sama Samaja (Revolutionary) defied a ban enforced by the local Urban District Council and entered a council-owned park to hold a meeting.

The gates of the park, which were padlocked, were lifted off their hinges. In the same week, a hand bomb was flung at a scab-driven car leaving the Velona factory.

21 demands struggle planned THE Democratic Workers' Congress — embracing a substantial minority of Indian Estate workers—has agreed to attend a conference called by the Ceylon Trade Union Federation to discuss the presentation of the 21 demands.

The Congress statement welcomes the convening of the conference and adds: 'In fact, for the plantation workers the urgency is all the greater because of the immediate need to secure the demand of the special living allowance nf 17 rupees 50 cents (about 30 shillings a month which is enjoyed by most of the other workers?

ALGERIA BOUDIAF CONDEMNS MI TOHAMMED Boudiaf, one of the leaders of the underground opposition to Ben Bella, told the French press why he did not believe that there was socialism in Algeria, last week.

"To set up a real socialist regime, he said,' 'presupposes the creation of a vanguard party, of workers' and peasants' unions and of an administration which would correspond to the needs of these. Yet none of these elements exist in Algeria.' The present system, he continued, involved the lack of any political or economic control by the masses. Ben Bella's 'socialism' boiled down to bringing under state control ever greater sectors of the economy, or in other words, placing the economy in the hands of a petty-bourgeoisie that is eager for private gain, that is individualistic and reactionary.

UNIFICATION

*This petty-bourgeoisie is the backbone of the bureaucracy, both in the party and in the administration,' he said.

Boudiaf went on to speak of the unification of the various elements that make up the opposition into the 'National Committee for the Defence of the Revolution'. (This included Chaabani, who was executed by Ben Bella recently.)

The aim of the opposition was to organise and give consciousness to the spontaneous movements of the rural masses.

'We do not consider that armed activity is the only kind that we should carry out; nonetheless, it is an indispensable adjunct to our political action.' Bondia stated that the opposition conceived of a socialist policy in Algeria, but that this was impossible without effective participation of the disinherited masses.

'NATIONAL INTEREST The opposition would not form any alliance with any organisations representing 'those who exploit either politically or economically'. It was not tied to any foreign power, or to any economic interests. The 'national interest' alone, guided its actions.

Asked where the opposition stronghold was, Boudiaf replied that it carried out partisan activity in the Kabyle, in North Constantine, in the Aures mountains, and in the South. 'Our partisans are strongest in the poorest regions, where the population is poorest,' he said.

Algerians killed by mercenaries claim ARMED confrontation between the Ben Bella government and the opposition in Algeria has spread to Algerian workers in France.

Early in September, four Algerians armed with revolvers entered a cafe in Aulnay sous Bois in France and opened fire on a group of fellow countrymen. Three people were killed and five were wounded.

A statement made later by the Front of Socialist Forces (one of the opposition groups led by Ait Ahmet) claimed that the assassins were mercenaries of the Ben Bella government.

The statement also appealed to Algerian workers in France not to yield to provocations of this kind.

Negro workers in the North American cities has been accompanied by political witch-hunting and imprisonment of several Negro leaders.

Earlier this year, when the rent strikes and the school boycotts showed the seriousness of the Negro movement, the American press began to prepare 'public opinion' for the vicious police attacks that were to follow.

Reports appeared in leading papers, notably in the "New York Times', of Negro violence and terrorism supposedly led by a gang called the 'blood brothers'.

Reports of crimes by Negroes were deliberately played up in the press and those by whites were played down, whilst behind it all was supposed to lurk the terrifying 'blood brothers' HYSTERIA It has never been proved that such an organisation exists. In fact, the gang has been quietly dropped by the press-now that sufficient hysteria has been whipped up.

But six unemployed Harlem teenagers were arrested, held without bail, denied the choice of their own lawyer and are now up for trial on the charge of murdering a white shopkeeper.

The main 'evidence' against the six seems to be that they were 'members' of the 'blood brothers'-an organisation that no one now is prepared to say ever existed!

Likewise, Bill Epton, Harlem leader of the Progressive Labour Movement has been indicted on charges of sedition and criminal anarchy.

Epton's group was the only one prepared to continue the fight of the Negroes, after the city government of New York attempted to buy off the Negro leaders. For refusing the compromise that all the other so-called militants accepted, Epton is now in gaol.

WITCH-HUNTED

For taking this stand, Epton has been witch-hunted not only by the bosses' press but also by the leaders' of the racialist Negro organisations.

Roy Wilkins, the leader of the •National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, and James Farmer of the Congress of Racial Equality have both asked the AttorneyGeneral, Robert Kennedy, to start an inquiry into the pattern of rioting in northern cities.

According to these 'leaders', these riots must have been instigated by some sinister underground organisation — the foul housing conditions, working conditions and police violence to which the Negro workers in the United States are subjected, not apparently being enough, in the minds of these 'champions' of the Negro cause, to cause the rioting of the last few months.

MALCOLM X SILENT Significantly, too, Malcolm X, the black racialist darling of the Socialist Workers' Party, the man who, in an interview with the Saturday Evening Post', said that he would prefer Goldwater to Johnson for president, and praised Goldwater for his personal courage and intelligence, has not been prepared to speak up in defence of Epton.

Paul Boutelle, of the Freedom ow Party, has also been rested for trying to hold an action rally in Harlem. ing class since the First World War, or consciously falsifying this history. Stalinist historians have done both and Mrs. Reid is merely the most recent example of a skater.

Yet it is posible for a serious member of the Communist Party to recognise the crimes of Stalinism, and yet be worried and confused by Mrs. Reid's gibes at the efforts of the Trotskyists to build a revolutionary party.

It is the question of the problems of building the revolutionary party that we intend to take up in this last article.

Powerful organisations In the advanced metropolitan countries of the West, where capitalism has existed for century or more, the working class has built large and powerful organisations in its fight with the capitalist class.

The creation of these working class organisations is an inevitalble product of the struggle between the workers and the employers.

They arise from the awareness of the working class that nothing whatever can be gained in this struggle without organisation. The creation of these mass organisations reflects the strength of the working class in these countries.

The strength of the capitalist class, on the other hand, is reflected in the way in which they have been able to control the working-class organisations.

It is only by examining these movements in this way, seeing their present leaders and policies as reflecting the differing strengths of the two classes in struggle, that policies can be formulated for the working class.

Trotskyist assessment In all its struggles in the Labour movement, the Trotskyist movement assesses its actions in the light of what will strengthen and what will weaken the working-class movement. This was the theoretical and practical contribution of the Transitional Programme, adopted at the founding Congress of the Fourth International, in 1938.

The Trotskyists, therefore, defended the Communist leadership of the Electrical Trades Union against the attacks of the right wing.

It was not that we believed that Haxell and Foulkes were champions of the working class. On the contrary, we had consistently pointed out in our press that the activities of these Stalinist 'leaders' would lead to strengthening of the right wing.

We defended Foulkes and Haxell because we recog nised that the right wing were merely using the rottenness and corruption of a section of the labour movement in order to who pointed talist agents'.

On the other hand, once the Stalinist leadership of the union was under attack from the right wing, and through this attack the entire membership of the union was laid open to further incursions by the bosses, the Trotskyists threw open the columns of their press to the Stalinist "leaders" to defend themselves.

They had ibeen denied this privilege even by their own press, the Daily Worker'. Foulkes' statement appeared in The Newsletter, not in the 'Daily Worker' ETU leaders defended Instead of standing up for the electricians under attack, the Communist Party expelled Haxell and Foulkes and crawled under a stone, leaving the rank and file to the mercies of the right wing.

The Newsletter defended these men although it was this very leadership that had broken the South Bank strike, which had been influenced by the Trotskyists, at Shell Mex, by refusing to call out the electricians working on the site.

These two positions on the ETU follow from the positions taken up by the two movements throughout their history.

For the Communist Party, strengthening the working-class organisations means strengthening the bureaucracy.

Socialists; from the fight for the recognition of the Blue' union in 1954 to the present fight against the 'new deal' in the docks.

Where has the workers' movement been weakened and where strengthened, in Ford's and the ETU or in the docks and the Young Socialists? Where has the struggle been based on the workers' aspirations?

False charges

Is Brother Haxell's right to build himself a garage and install central heating at the expense of the rank and file of his union a working-class demand (all of which escaped the notice of Mrs. Reid who was too busy spying on militants), or is f15 a week fall-back pay for the dockers and an end to the dole queues and police violence against the youth?

And who are the leftsectarians and wreckers? Those (Stalinist-led)

pletely unprepared, for October 2 because their leadership has been rejected by the apprentices committee, or those apprentices who are to meet on October 8 to prepare for a national apprentice strike?

How well all your charges against the Trotskyists apply to the Stalinist movement, Mrs. Reid.

Yet, there is more involved here than a series of claims and counter-claims. What is really neec Vial shoul kers' again niks pensi of th Les extre woul fact discu What Done Lenir docul Bu does cussi exper

these organisations, through the representatives of privileged strata of the working class.

The role of the Marxist Party is to transform this balance of class forces, to replace the reformist leaders of the working class.

These leaders accept the system of capitalism and confine themselves merely to obtaining concessions for the working class from the employers, to defending those that the working class has gained in the past, or even, in periods in which the capitalist class is very hard pressed, to aiding the capitalists in whittling away these concessions.

Conflict

In its fight against capitalism, therefore, the Marxist Party will come head-on in conflict with the reformist leaders. If it is to defeat capitalism, the working class must defeat these leaders, who are the representatives of capitalism in the labour movement.

As these reformist leaders represent the power of the capitalist class in the working class organisations, the Marxist Party is obliged from time to time to fight this leadership from within these organisations.

There can be no question of 'underhand' methods, as Mrs. Reid implies, in this fight. Working-class organisations are not the property of the right wing. On the contrary, the grip of the right wing, the rules and the restrictions, the compromises and sell-outs that they impose upon these organisations are nothing else but the grip of the ruling class upon the working class.

CP evasions

Not to recognise this, to state that the Marxist Party should accept the bans of the right wing, should refrain from attacking the right wing, is to state that the Marxist Party and Marxism are alien to the working class, whereas the representatives of capitalism somehow have a right to be present in working class organisations and to impose the wishes of the ruling class upon them.

Its failure to understand the role of the right-wing leadership of the Labour Party and the trade unions, or, indeed, to understand the importance of the Labour Party and the trade unions has led the Communist Party consistently to evade the fight with the ruling class for the leadership of the working class.

strengthen the grip of the capitalist class in that movement.

The Newsletter said on ecember 14, 1957:

"The capitalist press attack on the Electrical Trades Union is part of the general offensive by the employing class and its Tory government against the workers' living standards, conditions and organisations.

'... But the defence of the ETU as a trade union by no means implies the defence of its present leaders or of their corrupt Stalinist policies and practices.

... In their fight against Cannon, the ETU leaders have abandoned socialist principles. There was never any attempt to conduct a political struggle against him, to combat his ideas or answer his arguments.

'... Speedy action is imperative. If Frank Haxell and Frank Foulkes go on "defending" the union in the way they are doing, and the rank and file do not intervene, then the ETU will fall like a ripe plum into the hands of the right wing' Sharp differentiation The Newsletter called for three acts:

1. The election of a Committee of Enquiry from the rank and file of the union to investigate the charges. 2. Paid officials of the union to out their salaries to that of a skilled electrician, plus reasonaible expenses. 3. Hold the election between Cannon and Fraser again.

Why did the Stalinist leadership ignore this call?

The ETU case sharply differentiates the political methods of the Trotskyists and the Stalinists in this country. We attacked the corruption in the leadership, the vote fiddling and the embezzlement, together with the (stifling of democracy in the union.

The Stalinists defended all these practices by denying their (part III)

For the Trotskyist movement, it means fighting the bureaucracy.

Hence the Communist Party's slogans: from its support of the TUC at the time of the General Strike in 1926, to its support for a 'progressive' government in 1945 (Pollitt in 'How to Win the Peace' calls for a united front of all progressive forces of the country, whatever their party, class or social connections. p. 73)..

Hence the Communist Party's support for the Transport and General Workers' Union bureaucracy against the dockers who had left that union to join the National Association of Stevedores and Dackers in 1954.

Other sell-outs Hence Berridge's failure to support the Ford workers in struggle in 1962, and Paynter's collaboration with the National Coal Board against the miners in 1964.

Hence too, the Communist Party giving Ron Smith a full page in the 'Daily Worker' to put forward his views just a few days before the Mount Pleasant postal workers showed how little he represented them— the same Ron Smith who has just expelled seven leading militants, including two Communist Party members, from the Union of Postal Workers.

All these actions consolidate the bureaucracy in the Labour movement, thus weakening the working class and strengthening the employers.

Compare this with the Trotskyist movement's record:

Proud record The imprisonment of six of its leading members in 1945 under the infamous Trades Disputes Act for defending trade union rights (whereas the capitalists saw fit to throw the support of their press behind Pollitt and the Communist Party in their attack on the imprisoned men because of the great work the Communist Party was doing for the war effort!); from the struggle in the Labour Party for socialist policies after the war to the at stake is the development of Marxist theory, the indispensible weapon of the working class.

Marxist theory is not and cannot be a series of fixed and sterile formulae, once learned never forgotten. It must constantly be developed and be enriched as the experience of the working class is enriched at every development of the class struggle, and as man's consciousness is developed with the development of the means of production.

As Marxist theory is the conscious reflection of the unconscious process of struggle between the classes as man struggles to conquer nature, it follows that the development of this consciousness must itself come through struggle.

Theory To develop the theory, without which it cannot overthrow capitalism, the Marxist Party must contain within it a theoretical struggle. Without the development of theory, the party merely adapts itself to bourgeois thought-and becomes as much an adjunct of the ruling class as the labour bureaucrats.

But Marxism cannot be developed and revisionism cannot be fought by organisational methods, by the banning of 'revisionist factions' or by the executioners' bullets. It is necessary fully to understand and to fight revisionism theoreJUST OUT: A SOCIALIST LABOUR CEYLON: The great betray; Containing: • Two reports from Ceylon by G. dealing with the background and devel behind the Lanka Sama Samaja Party C and the role that the United Secretariat in played in this betrayal. • A reply by the SLL to an attack mac by the magazine World Outlook' • A statement by the International Col of the Fourth International. • Complete resolutions submitted by ti tendencies represented by the LSSP Cont June 1964. • Correspondence from the Inten Secretariat to the LSSP.

Price 1/-. Obtainable from 186a Claphan differ ship, leade An abun Reid 'Or to i reser WI cratic come not ( agree rules, seen expel the and disco deve work para:

task class be t level

the Trotskyist criticisms of Stalinist policies, October 1964 October then, were correct.

Mrs. Reid, and the other party apologists, can only The attacks by the Communist Party on the Trotskyist moveThree

Sr's Congress become Idministration it-shut eyes) rill tear apart en the unions unty. ady showing ce as to who wants to re)ement on itical lines. id, the former ip of rightjabour Party ance to break des unions.

power stmen and shown, the not accept nes policy Whatever the monoeir errand 1 rank and : fitted into acefully. ore is posed Woodcock's militant indus• prevent the labour moven of political aced. ust be translarxist leader'nts of power.

to extend the industry will government at le monopolies rade unionists to fight, not of wages and in the whole ion leadership. building of a p which pre; class to take ind capitalism orld. ‹ No. 4 in series: d Loyalty by Cliff ce Wilson is • make monowork, he is anyone know vitably involve rs' living stanthe Labour campaign is a I fight against that the finanhe way shows ious nonsense of the Foot's, the other lat all socialtheir mouths questions until rernment was 'ROMISE nonsense of promise of ites for buying ovement must these attacks, almost immeober 15. The ders must not away with the did not know ation was. I CEYLON DEADLOCK 'STATELESS INDIANS' IN CEYLON ATTEMPTS to 'solve' the problem of the 1,200,000 'stateless' Indians in Ceylon have reached a deadlock as a result of the refusal of the Indian government to be blackmailed by the Ceylon representatives at the informal talks held recently between India and Ceylon. Indians: roblem of The 'stateless only arose after the United National Party government in 1947 decided to change the citizenship laws and substitute the principle of 'descent' in place of the principle of 'birth and residence' as the criterion of citizenship.

This gigantic political manoeuvre was designed to strike the 800,000 Indian plantation workers off the electoral register and consolidate the position of the capitalist government.

Since then, every government, whether 'left' or right wing has adhered to these complex and infamous laws. Now, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party - Lanka Sama Samaja Party coalition is trying to draw a communal redherring across the path of the advancing working class movement by proposing to repatriate the Indian workers as a partial solution to the unemployment problem in Ceylon.

The Ceylon government states it is prepared to register a certain number (unspecified) of "stateless Indians' as Ceylon citizens provided the Indian government absorbs the rest.

The talks bogged down when the Ceylon representatives attempted to pressurise the Indian government by stating that they the Indians) had agreed to absorb the 'unassimilated' Indians as far back as 1947 and that this should be the starting point of the discussions.

The Indian representatives rejected this as a baseless assumption and the talks ended abruptly.

Velona strikers defy Council THE three month old strike of the Velona Textile mill workers has entered a violent and bitter stage with no prospect of settlement in the foreseeable future.

Recently, the strikers, led by Merryl Fernando-a leader of the Lanka Sama Samaja (Revolutionary) defied a ban enforced by the local Urban District Council and entered a council-owned park to hold a meeting.

The gates of the park, which were padlocked, were lifted off their hinges. In the same week, a hand bomb was flung at a scab-driven car leaving the Velona factory.

21 demands struggle planned THE Democratic Workers' Congress - embracing a substantial minority of Indian Estate workers—has agreed to attend a conference called by the Ceylon Trade Union Federation to disouss the presentation of the 21 demands.

The Congress statement welcomes the convening of the conference and adds: 'In fact, for the plantation workers the urgency is all the greater because of the immediate need to secure the demand of the special living allowance nf 17 rupees 50 cents (about :30 shillings a month) which is enjoyed by most of the other workers.' ALGERIA | BOUDIAF CONDEMNS TOHAMMED Boudiat, one of the leaders of the underground opposition to Ben Bella, told the French press why he did not believe that there was socialism in Algeria, last week.

"To set up a real socialist regime,' he said,' 'presupposes the creation of a vanguard party, of workers' and peasants' unions and of an administration which would correspond to the needs of these. Yet none of these elements exist in Algeria.' The present system, he continued, involved the lack of any political or economic control by the masses. Ben Bella's 'socialism' boiled down to bringing under state control ever greater sectors of the economy, or in other words, placing the economy in the hands of a petty-bourgeoisie that is eager for private gain, that is individualistic and reactionary'.

UNIFICATION

"This petty-bourgeoisie is the backbone of the bureaucracy, both in the party and in the administration,' he said.

Boudiaf went on to speak of the unification of the various elements that make up the opposition into the 'National Committee for the Defence of the Revolution'. (This included Chaabani, who was executed by Ben Bella recently.)

The aim of the opposition was to organise and give consciousness to the spontaneous movements of the rural masses.

'We do not consider that armed activity is the only kind that we should carry out; nonetheless, it is an indispensable adjunct to our political action.' Boudiaf stated that the opposition conceived of a socialist policy in Algeria, but that this was impossible without effective participation of the disinherited masses.

NATIONAL INTEREST The opposition would not form any alliance with any organisations representing 'those who exploit either politically or economically. It was not tied to any foreign power, or to any economic interests. The 'national interest' alone, guided its actions.

Asked where the opposition stronghold was, Boudiaf replied that it carried out partisan activity in the Kabyle, in North Constantine, in the Aures mountains, and in the South. 'Our partisans are strongest in the poorest regions, where the population is poorest, he said. Algerians killed by mercenaries claim ARMED confrontation between the Ben Bella government and the opposition in Algeria has spread to Algerian workers in France.

Early in September, four Algerians armed with revolvers entered a cafe in Aulnay sous Bois in France and opened fire on a group of fellow countrymen. Three people were killed and five were wounded.

A statement made later by the Front of Socialist Forces (one of the opposition groups led by Ait Ahmet) claimed that the assassins were mercenaries of the Ben Bella government.

The statement also appealed to Algerian workers in France not to yield to provocations of this kind. HE violent attacks on the Negro workers in the North American cities has been accompanied by political witch-hunting and imprisonment of several Negro leaders.

Earlier this year, when the rent strikes and the school boycotts showed the seriousness of the Negro movement, the American press began to prepare "public opinion' for the vicious police attacks that were to follow.

Reports appeared in leading papers, notably in the 'New York Times', of Negro violence and terrorism supposedly led by gang called the "blood brothers' Reports of crimes by Negroes were deliberately played up in the press and those by whites were played down, whilst behind it all was supposed to lurk the terrifying 'blood brothers'.

HYSTERIA

It has never been proved that such an organisation exists. In fact, the gang has been quietly dropped by the press-now that sufficient hysteria has been whipped up.

But six unemployed Harlem teenagers were arrested, hald without bail, denied the choice of their own lawyer and are now up for trial on the charge of murdering a white shopkeeper.

The main 'evidence' against the six seems to be that they were 'members' of the "blood brothers'- organisation that no one now is prepared to say ever existed!

Likewise, Bill Epton, Harlem leader of the Progressive Labour Movement has been indicted on charges of sedition and criminal anarchy.

Epton's group was the only one prepared to continue the fight of the Negroes, after the city government of New York attempted to buy off the Negro leaders. For refusing the compromise that all the other so-called militants accepted, Epton is now in gaol.

WITCH-HUNTED

For taking this stand, Epton has been witch-hunted not only by the bosses' press but also by the 'leaders' of the racialist Negro organisations.

Roy Wilkins, the leader of the •National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, and James Farmer of the Congress of Racial Equality have both asked the AttorneyGeneral, Robert Kennedy, to start an inquiry into the pattern of rioting in northern cities.

According to these 'leaders', these riots must have been instigated by some sinister underground organisation — the foul housing conditions, working conditions and police violence to which the Negro workers in the United States are subjected, not apparently being enough, in the minds of these 'champions' of the Negro cause, to cause the rioting of the last few months.

MALCOLM X SILENT Significantly, too, Malcolm X, the black racialist darling of the Socialist Workers' Party, the man who, in an interview with the Saturday Evening Post', said that he would prefer Goldwater to Johnson for president, and praised Goldwater for his personal courage and intelligence, has not been prepared to speak up in defence • of Epton.

Paul Boutelle, of the Freedom Now Party, has also been arrested for trying to hold an election rally in Harlem.

Industrial Page Fo LETTER

deny the tragic consequences of Stalinism by either skating over the history of the working class since the First World War, or consciously falsifying this history. Stalinist historians have done both and Mrs. Reid is merely the most recent example of a skater.

Yet it is posible for a serious member of the Communist Party to recognise the crimes of Stalinism, and yet be worried and confused by Mrs. Reid's gibes at the efforts of the Trotskyists to build a revolutionary party.

It is the question of the problems of building the revolutionary party that we intend to take up in this last article.

Powerful organisations In the advanced metropolitan countries of the West, where capitalism has existed for a century or more, the working class has built large and powerful organisations in its fight with the capitalist class.

The creation of these working class organisations is an inevitable product of the struggle between the workers and the employers.

They arise from the awareness of the working class that nothing whatever can be gained in this struggle without organisation. The creation of these mass organisations reflects the strength of the working class in these countries.

The strength of the capitalist class, on the other hand, is reflected in the way in which they have been able to control these organisations, through the representatives of privileged strata of the working class.

The role of the Marxist Party is to transform this balance of class forces, to replace the reformist leaders of the working class.

These leaders accept the system of capitalism and confine themselves merely to obtaining concessions for the working class from the employers, to defending those that the working class has gained in the past, or even, in periods in which the capitalist class is very hard pressed, to aiding the capitalists in whittling away these concessions.

Conflict

In its fight against capitalism, therefore, the Marxist Party will come head-on in conflict with the reformist leaders. If it is to defeat capitalism, the working class must defeat these leaders, who are the representatives of capitalism in the labour movement.

As these reformist leaders represent the power of the capitalist class in the working class organisations, the Marxist Party is obliged from time to time to fight this leadership from within these organisations.

There can be no question of 'underhand' methods, as Mrs. Reid implies, in this fight. Working-class organisations are not the property of the right wing. On the contrary, the grip of the right wing, the rules and the restrictions, the compromises and sell-outs that they impose upon these organisations are nothing else but the grip of the ruling class upon the working class.

CP evasions

Not to recognise this, to state that the Marxist Party should accept the bans of the right wing, should refrain from attacking the right wing, is to state that the Marxist Party and Marxism are alien to the working class, whereas the representatives of capitalism somehow have a right to be present in working class organisations and to impose the wishes of the ruling class upon them.

Its failure to understand the role of the right-wing leadership of the Labour Party and the trade unions, or, indeed, to understand the importance of the Labour Party and the trade unions has led the Communist Party consistently to evade the fight with the ruling class for the leadership of the working class. ment for fighting the right wing in the Labour movement, means that they, in practice, accept the right of the capitalists to control the working-class organisations.

It is only by examining these movements in this way, seeing their present leaders and policies reflecting the differing strengths of the two classes in struggle, that policies can be formulated for the working class.

Trotskyist assessment In all its struggles in the Labour movement, the Trotskyist movement assesses its actions in the light of what will strengthen and what will weaken the working-class movement. This was the theoretical and practical contribution of the Transitional Programme, adopted at the founding Congress of the Fourth International, in 1938.

The Trotskyists, therefore, defended the Communist leadership of the Electrical Trades Union against the attacks of the right wing.

It was not that we believed that Haxell and Foulkes were champions of the working class. On the contrary, we had consistently pointed out in our press that the activities of these Stalinist 'leaders' would lead to strengthening of the right wing.

We defended Foulkes and Haxell because we recognised that the right wing were merely using the rottenness and corruption of a section of the labour movement in order to A reply to Betty Reid the grip of the capitalist class in that movement.

The Newsletter said on ecember 14, 1957:

"The capitalist press attack on the Electrical Trades Union is part of the general offensive by the employing class and its Tory government against the workers' living standards, conditions and organisations.

•... But the defence of the ETU as a trade union by no means implies the defence of its present leaders or of their corrupt Stalinist policies and practices.

•... In their fight against Cannon, the ETU leaders have abandoned socialist principles. There was never any attempt to conduct a political struggle against him, to combat his ideas or answer his arguments.

'... Speedy action is imperative. If Frank Haxell and Frank Foulkes go on "defending" the union in the way they are doing, and the rank and file do not intervene, then the ETU will fall like a ripe plum into the hands of the right wing.' Sharp differentiation The Newsletter called for three acts: 1. The election of a Committee of Enquiry from the rank and file of the union to investigate the charges. 2. Paid officials of the union to out their salaries to that of a skilled electrician, plus reasonable expenses. 3. Hold the election between Cannon and Fraser again.

Why did the Stalinist leadership ignore this call?

The ETU case sharply differentiates the political methods of the Trotskyists and the Stalinists in this country. We attacked the corruption in the leadership, the vote fiddling and the embezzlement, together with the istifling of democracy in the union.

The Stalinists defended all these practices by denying their existence in the face of all evidence and by branding those who pointed them out as 'capitalist agents'.

On the other hand, once the Stalinist leadership of the union was under attack from the right wing, and through this attack the entire membership of the union was laid open to further incursions by the bosses, the Trotskyists threw open the columns of their press to the Stalinist leaders' to defend themselves.

They had been denied this privilege even by their own press, the Daily Worker'. Foulkes' statement appeared in The Newsletter, not in the 'Daily Worker' ETU leaders defended Instead of standing up for the electricians under attack, the Communist Party expelled Haxell and Foulkes and crawled under a stone, leaving the rank and file to the mercies of the right wing.

The Newsletter defended these men although it was this very leadership that had broken the South Bank strike, which had been influenced by the Trotskyists, at Shell Mex, by refusing to call out the electricians working on the site.

These two positions on the ETU follow from the positions taken up by the two movements throughout their history.

For the Communist Party, strengthening the working-class organisations means strengthening the bureaucracy.

(part III)

For the Trotskyist movement, it means fighting the bureaucracy.

Hence the Communist Party's slogans: from its support of the TUC at the time of the General Strike in 1926, to its support for • 'progressive' government in 1945 (Pollitt in 'How to Win the Peace' calls for a united front of 'all progressive forces of the country, whatever their party, class or social connections'. p. 73).

Hence the Communist Party's support for the Transport and General Workers' Union bureaucracy against the dockers who had left that union to join the National Association of Stevedores and Dackers in 1954.

Other sell-outs Hence Berridge's failure to support the Ford workers in struggle in 1962, and Paynter's collaboration with the National Coal Board against the miners in 1964.

Hence too, the Communist Party giving Ron Smith a full page in the 'Daily Worker' to put forward his views just a few days before the Mount Pleasant postal workers showed how little he represented them— the same Ron Smith who has just expelled seven leading militants, including two Communist Party members, from the Union of Postal Workers.

All these actions consolidate the bureaucracy in the Labour movement, thus weakening the working class and strengthening the employers.

Compare this with the Trotskyist movement's record:

Proud record The imprisonment of six of its leading members in 1945 under the infamous Trades Disputes Act for defending trade union rights (whereas the capitalists saw fit to throw the support of their press behind Pollitt and the Communist Party in their attack on the imprisoned men because of the great work the Communist Party was doing for the war effort!); from the struggle in the Labour Party for socialist policies after the war to the present fight against Wilson and his like in the Young Socialists; from the fight for the recognition of the 'Blue' union in 1954 to the present fight against the 'new deal' in the docks.

Where has 'the workers' movement been weakened and where strengthened, in Ford's and the ETU or in the docks and the Young Socialists? Where has the struggle been based on the workers' aspirations?

False charges -Is Brother Haxell's right to build himself a garage and install central heating at the expense of the rank and file of his union a working-class demand (all of which escaped the notice of Mrs. Reid who was too busy spying on militants), or is f15 a week fall-back pay for the dockers and an end to the dole queues and police violence against the youth?

And who are the leftsectarians and wreckers? Those (Stalinist-led) apprentices who call for a national strike, completely unprepared, for October 2 because their leadership has been rejected by the apprentices committee, or those apprentices who are to meet on October 8 to prepare for a national apprentice strike?

How well all your charges against the Trotskyists apply to the Stalinist movement, Mrs. Reid.

Yet, there is more involved here than a series of claims and counter-claims. What is really at stake is the development of Marxist theory, the indispensible weapon of the working class.

Marxist theory is not and cannot be a series of fixed and sterile formulae, once learned never forgotten. It must constantly be developed and "be enriched as the experience of the working class is enriched at every development of the class struggle, and as man's consciousness is developed with the development of the means of production.

As Marxist theory is the conscious reflection of the unconscious process of struggle between the classes as man struggles to conquer nature, it follows that the development of this consciousness must itself come through struggle.

Theory

To develop the theory, without which it cannot overthrow capitalism, the Marxist Party must contain within it a theoretical struggle. Without the development of theory, the party merely adapts itself to bourgeois thought-and becomes as much an adjunct of the ruling class as the labour bureaucrats.

But Marxism cannot be developed and revisionism cannot be fought by organisational methods, by the banning of 'revisionist factions' or by the executioners' bullets. It is necessary fully to understand and to fight revisionism theoreJUST OUT: A SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE CEYLON: The great betrayal Containing:

Two reports from Ceylon by G. Healy dealing with the background and developments behind the Lanka Sama Samaja Party Coalition and the role that the United Secretariat in Europe played in this betrayal.

A reply by the SLL to an attack made on it by the magazine 'World Outlook'.

A statement by the International Committee of the Fourth International. • Complete resolutions submitted by the three tendencies represented by the LSSP Congress of June 1964.

Correspondence from Secretariat to the LSSP. Price 1/-. Obtainable from tically. Our fight against the Pabloites, at which Mrs.

Reid sneers, is just such a theoretical fight.

This theoretical fight inside a party requires factions from time to time. This is why Lenin and Trotsky and why the Trotskyists today insist on the need for factions inside the Marxist Party.

Mrs. Reid and her friends should remember that the Bolshevik Party began as the Bolshevik faction inside the Rusisan Social-Democratic Workers' Party and that the fight against the Mensheviks, Narodniks and Bundists was an indispensible part of the preparation of that party for the revolution.

Even at the time of the 10th Congress, when the Bolshevik Party banned factions temporarily because of the exceptional circumstances following Kronstadt, Lenin defended this right in the party generally and opposed Riazanov's amendment condemning factionalism.

Factionalism

Lenin banned them under extreme circumstances, but would not condemn them. In fact his writing abounds with discussion on the need for them. What else are 'What is to be Done', "The April Theses' and Lenin's Testament, but factional documents, Mrs. Reid?

But the Communist Party does not tolerate any such discussion, any examination of past experiences, any opinions that differ from those of the leadership, and consequently from the leadership in the Kremlin.

And in case this was not abundantly clear to all, Mrs. Reid reiterates the point:

'Our rules guarantee the right to raise differences and to reserve opinion,' she states.

What could be more democratic than that? Yet the sting comes in the very next sentence:

'Membership of our Party is not open to those who do not agree with our programme, our rules, our present policy?

- Stalinist betrayals The only right, therefore, seems to be the right to be expelled-as the members of the Young Communist League and the Communist students discovered.

In the Stalinist movement, the subservience to Stalin and his successors replaces the fight for Marxist theory and the fight to build a movement based upon the aspirations of the working class. Hence the biggest betrayals of Haxell and Paynter, and of countless others like them, are tolerated and even justified, so long as the betrayers continue to praise Stalin, or whichever bureaucrat currently holds his position.

The education of cadres, the development of layers of the working class through conscious struggle are both abandoned for the slavish praise for a group of parasites.

Underlying all the Stalinist crimes and betrayals is this contempt for the working class and the abandonment of the task of. .. building the working class party.

How strange that these should be the very charges that they level at the Trotskyists.

CEYLON The great betrayal Two reports froar Coyian by G, Healy the International 186a Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4.

FRANK Cousins, general secretary of the General Workers' Union, should come off conduct on the dockers' wage claim is a shabby The decision of the Executive Committee of the union last week to defer a decision on the question of dockers' pay must fill the hearts of the port employers and the Tory government with joy.

These people know that the narer Uhristmas they get, th. better chance they have of avoiding or defeating a national docks strike.

They probably also count on a Labour government being elected on October 15 that will persuade the dockers to accept the port employers' terms.

In April this year the Transport and General Workers' Union presented a claim for a substantial wage increase to the port employers for the first time in two years.

Now five months, and several joint meetings later, the employers have stuck fast to a miserable offer of 12s. 6d. a week.

They have twice declared that this is their final offer. Before that they insulted dock workers on three separate occasions.

At the Trades Union Congress in Blackpool a few weeks ago Frank Cousins heard of the last wage offer and remarked that the situation on the docks was now serious.

The situation for the dockers has been serious for years!

INCREASE

Cousins should go to the Merseyside and hear how a docker takes his wage packet home to his wife on Thursday with only f9 in it. To draw this amount he has probably been up at 6 a.m. each morning for six days, stood in "the pen' wondering if he will be allocated work.

'Record', the journal of the Transport and General Workers' Union said, in 1962, that £15 a week was not a claim to be laughed at. Yet the officials of that union now consider 25s. a week to be a substantial increase.

Even the well-tamed delegates to 'the Transport and General Workers' Union docks conference asked for Transport and the fence-his sell-out. Expelled fight reinstatement NOW!

THE expulsion by the Executive Council of the Union of Post Office Workers of the seven militant leaders of the London District Council is causing deep resentment amongst postmen.

Behind this decision lies the preparation of the right-wing dominated Executive to accept the Tory proposals for part-time postmen.

Rank and file members feel that this step would greatly undermine the new found militancy of the union, by creating an unnecessary division in their ranks. They have become more and more critical of their leadership, especially since the role that people such as Ron Smith played in the strike last July.

The expelled members are all opposed to the policy of part-time postmen. Their reluctance so far to appeal against the expulsions is that they are waiting for Ron Smith and the right wing to come to an agreement over part-time postmen, because they think this will provide for them a more powertul support inside the union.

The danger with this policy is that it can well lead to a breakaway which will be a very dangerous thing inside the union at present. Any kind of breakaway now would and could lead to a serious weakening of the union and most certainly the isolation of the militants.

These seven who are expelled should therefore avail themselves of the appeals machinery and carry their fight for reinstatement into the union between now and the conference next May. By then, the full disastrous effects of the right-wing policies will become much clearer.

ban EWCASTLE dockers decided FROM

£12. They gave the executive committee powers to call a national strike if the port employers' offer was not satisfactory.

But the union officials went back for humiliating discussions with the employers.

At the Trades Union Congress Cousins spoke big words about asking dockers to refuse to handle South African goods.

But if he can ask them to strike on the issue of South African goods why lick the boots of thé bosses on the wages question?

It is rumoured that Cousins favours an impartial investigator. Mr» Wilson perhaps?

The patience of the dockers is wearing thin. They will not take much more of the fancy ideas and schemes that the leaders of the TGWU care to cook up, like the one circulating from the Tilbury dock-a work-to-rule.

It is obvious that neither Cousins nor the Executive of the TGWU nor the Stalinists, have any intention of fighting the port employers.

But other dockers have sO COME OFF THE FENCE!

INENANIS of Kailway L Street, Hebburn, Tyneside, have been up in arms about their living conditions. This time, as a result of their protests to the local council, something has been done.

Railway Street runs alongside a shipyard. One end of the street, in fact, is joined to the shipyard wall.

Cranes run up and down a line at the back of the street and tower over the houses. There is a railway line at the front which runs over the road and round the end of the street into the shipyard.

The street is next to a prefabrication shop and there is the banging of ship construction night and day.

'It's like living right inside a factory, said Mr. Routledge, By BILL electrician and member of Labour Party.

It is a dangerous street for the 30 children who live there —five years ago, one of the cranes fell over, smashing a wall and narrowly missing some children. As a result of this there was publicity about the street in the press.

But the bad housing conditions did not change.

AGITATE

Rats run through the houses. Floorboards are rotten. One tenant, over 70 years of age, had gaping holes in her floor and had to prop her gas stove up with a shovel to prevent it from toppling over.

At the end of August this year, the tenants began to agitate. Mrs. Ethel Routledge HUNTER wrote to the local press: 'We are run alive with rats and mice and any other vermin you can name, even the cats and dogs are afraid of them.' PETITIONS After this letter appeared, a tenants' association was formed. Letters and petitions were sent to the local Labour council. Delegations visited councillors and also saw the local Labour MP—Mi. Ernest Fearneyhough.

Floors were mended. In a back lane a drain was cleared— there had been complaints about it for months. Councillors declared the tenants would be rehoused in six months.

"Things were done that had been left for years, said Mrs. Routledge. 'For five years we got nothing, but now we've got hing done in five weeks, once we started moving.' Of course, all this activity on the part of the council is just before a general election.

Hebburn tenants must hold the council to its promise to rehouse everyone in six months, after the election has taken place. It is not enough just to patch up a few houses and leave it at that.

EXAMPLE

The thousands of other tenants in Tyneside who live in conditions similar to those of Railway Street can follow the example set by Hebburn Tenants' Association and organise together, seek the support of trade unionists and fight the timid complacency of Labour councillors.

SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE PAMPHLET Price 3d.

The to continue finishing work at ›'clock and banning overtime a mass meeting last week. The decision was taken after : employers once again reted the dockers' claim for mpensation for gangs of men it home early.

Secretary of the Tyne Port nployers' Association, Mr. S. Wright, said that because of = action of Newcastle's 400 ckers, the employers were nsidering re-routing ships due the Tyne.

this is done then Mr. right will get a swift response om dockers in other ports. ith traditional solidarity they n be expected to "black' the ewcastle cargoes.

GLASGOW

DOCKERS BAN WEEK-END WORK \ MEETING last week attended by over ackers passed a two-to-one ajority decision to carry on a an on all week-end work. The ban was originally fought ir by rank and file dockers at le KE5 control and was evenlally operated by all the conols in Glasgow. Only after a ng period of time did the nion officials call the mass leeting to endorse the ban. Port employers are now aving difficulty in manning rips. Last week there were 13 lips waiting to be unloaded and number were undermanned. Overtime is being worked uring the week but the dockers fuse to budge from their acision to ban week-end work ntil the employers agree to leir demands for the operation f the 40-hour week.

Dockers should be on the okout for treachery from their wn union leaders. These ureaucrats are under strong ressure from the employers to et week-end working restarted nd they will try to seek out any akness in the dockers' solidarity › that they can push through le demands of the employers.

NOW OUT The Dockers' Wage Clalm A reply to the Coamunist Party lyng fury Dockers' Wage Claim reply to the Communist Party by Reg Perry Obtainable from: 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4. •BI MERSEYSIDE DOCKER SIX weeks ago a docks delegate conference in London passed a resolution giving the negotiating committee on wages their support to go into strike action.

Two weeks later at a mass meeting of dockers at the Pier Head, Liverpool, called by an 'official' Transport and General Workers' Union docks action committee, another resolution was put to the meeting: "That the employers be given one more chance. This, after six months! However, the resolution was passed.

But—and this is typical of the TGWU-a further meeting was called the following week and a resolution put that they should seek plenary powers from the four unions.

We now have the latest report to hand: The TGWU is expected to agree to the delegate conference request and use its power to call a national docks strike.

There have already been three conferences and the last two voted unanimously for strike action.

The Executive Committee of the TGWU, with Frank Cousins at the head, has met to give plenary powers to O'Leary (secretary of the docks section) for strike action...

So why the constant passing of plenary powers and delegate conferences?

Because they do not want to lead the dockers against the employers for a decent wage such action would destroy the present collaboration with the employers.

The only other alternative is to lead the dockers into strike action a few weeks before Christmas—our most difficult time-in order to defeat the strike and establish some form of permanent peace for the bureaucracy.

Meanwhile, the TGWU Docks Executive Committee have agreed to meet the employers to discuss differences on the implementation of the New Deal' for Merseyside.

This, after it has been completely rejected by every docker.

According to the rule book, the Executive Committee of the Docks Section and National Executive Committee should be expelled forthwith for anti-trade union activity and the abandonment of trade union democratic practice.

Merseyside From Our Midlands Correspondent XACTLY 24 hours after returning to work on Monday, unofficial strike, men in the inspection department at | Limited, Erdington, Birmingham, came out on strike after the refused to give them a wage rise.

The men have firmly rejected the management's offer to go to arbitration and the three unions involved-the Amalgamated Engineering Union, the Transport and General Workers' Union and the National Society of Metal Mechanicsare understood to be considering making the dispute official.

These men are out on strike for the second time in support of a claim, first made nearly a year ago, for 9d. an hour increase in pay. They rejected the management's offer of 3d. an hour.

The Rover factory at Solihull and the BMC Tractors and Transmission will be immediately affected.

Last week, by the narrow margin of seven votes, the men decided to call off the unofficial strike, which was described as 'the most serious stoppage the car industry has faced for years.

It involved 250 men in the inspection department of the factory which produces 80 per cent of the propeller shafts used by the British car industry.

Usual pleas

Strong pressure was put on the inspectors at the meeting to return to work by senior shop stewards and by officials of the three unions involved.

The usual pleas were made for 'responsible' behaviour; strikers were reminded that 'all disputes depend ultimately on the climate of opinion you create'.

Officials, were told: 'You want to listen to our side more, and not so much to the gaffers' side', and 'Now we're out we shall stay out'.

It was clear throughout thé meeting that strikers had few illusions that much would result from the reopening of talks with the management, following a resumption of work.

When the vote was taken on a show of hands cheers greeted the hands raised in favour of continuing the strike, not only from the inspectors themselves but from a large number of workers from other departments in the factory who were standing on the outside of the meeting listening to the proceedings.

Closed down

BMC, Rovers, Fords and Vauxhall are all supplied with components by Hardy Spicer, who also supply the Lancia car firm of Italy and the Swedish Volvo and Saab companies. As a result of the walk-out last week Hardy Spicer's • closed down, sending home 3,000 workers.

Among many there was considerable resentment and dissatisfaction. One of them, Mr. Edward Kirby, said: "This has been dragging on for 12 months and it's absolutely ridiculous the way the union officials are going on.' He spoke with bitterness of press misrepresentation of the average earnings of the inspectors.

Living wage

'The fact is they are grossly underpaid. Most of them are working 55 hours a week, and some as much as 63 hours a week. They've got to, to earn a living wage,' he declared.

A woman inspector showed me her pay packet;

£9 8s. 7d. for 42 hours work. A feature of the vote was the large number of women in favour of continuing the strike.

Mr. Kirby said: 'We want to see the women getting the same pay as the men. They have supported us in this strike; they do the same work as the men.' Red dust Dangers Durham tenants wives in Consett, Co. Durham, are angrily protesting against the red dust which has been pouring from the Consett Iron Company's oxygen steel plant during the past few months.

The dust has become known as the 'red menace'. It covers everything. The roofs of the streets in the shadow of the works are tinted red.

Mrs. Davies, together with other housewives in Eltringham Street, is organising a petition. • Tenants in Eltringham Street complain that their children have coughs and their hair turns red with the dust.

GENUINE

The managing director of Consett Iron Company has admitted that the complaints are genuine. But he has stated that special equipment which was to filter the smoke from the new steel plant has never worked correctly.

He said that a solution was expected within four to five weeks.

People in Eltringham Street are sceptical about promises. 'It's all right them promising,' they said, 'they are not eating or living in it.' Mr. Pearson, the managing director, ended his statement declaring his concern by saying: 'Paramount in our minds, however, is the maintenance of full employment in the area.' NEW EQUIPMENT But did Consett Iron Company build its new plant to provide jobs for men in the area?

Before long its new equipment may be putting men out of work.

The purpose of production at Consett is ... profit. That is what the belching fumes represent. Clean housing comes second to profit.

The tenants are considering holding a protest meeting and a march to lobby the Labour MP.

following an tardy Spicer management Morgan refuse pay talks UNION officials are still pressing for negotiations with the management of Morgan Crucible, a Battersea, London, graphite - producing company, following a one-day strike over pay at the firm, two weeks ago. It was the first strike held at the factory for a number of years.

In spite of a 'tradition' of non-militancy at the factory, 1,000 of the 2,000 workers attended a meeting this Tuesday to hear from Assistant Divisional Organiser of the Amal. gamated Engineering Union, Vic Parker, what stage had been reached in negotiations.

The management had refused to discuss pay because of the one-day strike and the negotiating committee was giving the bosses one more chance.

The management say they will negotiate with the unions-there are 11 at Crucible's—in January at the end of a two-year bonus plan and package deal, introduced in 1962.

Parker quoted figures to illustrate that the plan had meant a reduction in the pay packet of every worker.

Call for action on Baildon rent increases COUNCIL house tenants in the town of Baildon, near Bradford, packed a meeting called by the recently-formed tenants' association on Tuesday night and bombarded members and officials of the urban council with questions.

Councillor H. Chapman and seven other councillors, together with the treasurer and housing manager, were left in no doubt as to the complete opposition of the tenants to the rent increases and rent rebate scheme which are due to come into operation next week.

Rent rebate

Mr. F. Underwood, a member of the committee of the tenants' association stated that the rent for his two-bedroomed house is to increase by 17s. Ild. a wak to a total of £2 19s. 1d. The rent of some of the threebedroomed houses are to rise by 25s.

The council, which is Liberalcontrolled, with only two Labour members, originally favoured a straight rise of 35 per cent, but the idea of a rent rebate scheme was pressed for by the Labour councillors and accepted by the majority.

One tenant shouted that 450 tenants present at the meeting should be asked whether or not they were going to pay the increases and said that they must all stick together.