The Newsletter, vol. 8 no. 373

SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE SPECIAL CONFERENCE MANIFESTO The full old age pension increase at once! No conscription! MAKE THE TORIES PAY! vol. 8, No 373 December 5, 1964 Price 6d.

The Newstetter WEEKIY JOURNAL OF THE SOCIALIST LABOR LEAGUE SLL holds special delegate conference THE National Conference of the Socialist Labour League, which was held towards the end of March 1964 decided that in view of the important political situation in Britain and the possibility of the election of a Labour 'government that a special national delegate conference should be held towards the end of the year.

This took place in London on November 28 and 29 and was attended by delegates from every branch of the SLL, the outgoing National Committee and full-time professional workers.

For some weeks prior to the conference, discussion had been taking place in the branches and in aggregate meetings around two resolutions dealing with the role of the Labour government and the task before the youth in the building of the revolutionary party.

Those who attended the conference had participated in all the main struggles of the working class since the March conference and were fully conversant with the nolitical issues TVLENE TreLA deN prereleas dUGeNO embodied in the resolution. This faot alone provided the conference with an air of political seriousness unknown in other organisations.

AVOID

Not only do these organisations avoid preparation of a conference, they never under any circumstances consider organising two conferences in one year.

Only the Socialist Labour League as a Marxist organisation, which understands the absolute necessity Next week writes on Ceylon MICHAEL BANDA, Editor of The Newsletter, has just returned from Ceylon after spending two weeks investigating political developments on the island. He will outline his conclusions in a series of two articles in The Newsletter. old age pension freezing!

By a Newsletter for training its rank and file to be leaders in the movement, can undertake such an important programme.

As soon as the main reports were given, delegate after delegate took the floor to develop the political issues which were raised. There has never been in the history of the British movement such a lively and thoughtful discussion. A special feature of the debates was the number of young people who spoke about their experiences in the fight against racialism in the industrial towns of the north.

Young delegates took the floor to show how, in the course of organising demonstrations, they were able to establish unity between many young people previously affected by racialism, and their immigrant brothers.

FULLY AWARE

The conference was fully aware of the responsibilities which the SLL has for providing leadership for the developing left movement inside the Labour Party and the trade unions. Far from being separated from the struggle inside the Labour Party the SLL is, in fact, preparing to intervene in the fight against the right-wing Wilson leadership with considerably increased forces in the next period.

The Manifesto, published opposite, was unanimously approved. This will be circulated widely throughout the movement as the answer of the SLL to the sell-out of the Labour leaders in the face of pressure from international bankers. YOUNG SOCIALISTS NATIONAL COMMITTEE (MAJORITY) ISSUES A PRESS STATEMENT National Committee the law, insisting that Wilso of 'Labour Cares' and then pro- show that. they • will not tolerate business.

ZOSL FILE Permeating the discussion was the constant emphasis of delegate after delegate on the necessity to develop an all-round offensive against Pabloite revisionism and the role of the so-called Paris Unified Secretariat. This revisionism was seen as one of the major stumbling blocks to the development of revolutionary parties internationally.

RESOLUTION ON VICTIMS OF INTERNATIONAL CLASS WAR CONFERENCE unanimously demanded the release of De Leonard Victor Allen, Sidi Kayam, Jonas Kiomasekenagh and Oleshengun Adebayo.

It pledged itself to organise nationally the widest possible campaign to expose the fraudulent nature of the charges against these four class victims of imperialist justice and not to let up until they were released.

Conference also sent revolutionary greetings to Dr.

Neville Alexander and his colleagues, who are at present languishing in Robbens Island and awaiting appeal against their brutal frame-up.

Conference delegates pledged themselves to do everything in their power to raise as much money as possible to help with the defence.

The new National Committee which was elected at the conference is now entrusted with the circulation of a draft resolution on international perspectives, which, it is hoped, will greatly assist in political clarification of impontant issues before the labour movement. This will be submitted for dis(cussion for the 1965 national conference of the Socialist Labour League and it will then be published and circulated throughout the international movement. No arms or Buccaneer aircraft for South Africa! A socialist policy of nationalization and full employment! Gerry Healy national secretary of the Socialist Labour League, speaking at last week-end's conference. Seated is chairman of the conference, Jack Gale.

Conference revealed that the SLL is now enjoying an unprecendented growth in membership from young people. Never in the history of the Trotskyist movement in Great Britain have so many young people applied for membership.

The delegates discussed a number of problems which arise from this influx of members. Plans regarding the training and political assimilation of fresh cadres were approved.

Our organisation faces 1965 with a political confidence never known at any time in the past. Delegates returned home determined to continue the discussion around the decisions of the conference inside the branches and to combine an active political internal life with the maximum praotical struggle to build the party.

Due to pressure of space in this week's Newsletter with the report of the Socialist Labour League's special national delegate conference, the articles on racialism in Smethwick and Germany will be published next week.

THE FOLLOWING MANIFESTO WAS UNANIMOUSLY ADOPTED BY THE NATIONAL DELEGATE CONFERENCE OF THE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE, HELD ON NOVEMBER 28 AND 29 "HE working people elected the Labour government but the bankers dictate its policies. That is clear only six weeks after the election.

Already the government has refused to pay the increase in pensions before March. This was demanded by hard-faced bankers in Europe and America. They insist that the Labour government give up all idea of granting social reforms and benefits.

Big business and the banks are demanding that in return the Labour government presses ahead with wage freezing and cutting the standards of the working class.

Old age pensioners, the homeless, overcrowded workers and trade unionists supported Labour in the election expecting a government that would serve their interests. 'Labour cares' they were told.

Old age pensions were to be increased, house purchase to be made easier, burdens on the poor were to be lifted.

WHO IS THE LABOUR GOVERNMENT CARING FOR?

The salaries of Members of Parliament have been raised by $25 a week. The City of London has been assured that the coming Corporation Tax will not cost them any more than they already pay in taxes. While Mr. Wilson is not going to make the capitalists pay, he is preparing to attack the workers' wage packet.

Labour leaders certainly care for Callaghan to the bankers and Stock November 11:

'If you have criticisms to make of our actions, come and tell us. We shall listen to what you have to say with an open mind and see if we can meet your difficulties. If we cannot do so it will not be because of prejudice against you?

For 13 years under the Tories old age pensioners have been cold and hungry every Christmas. Each year Labour M.P.s called for higher pensions. Now, under a Labour government, pensioners will be colder and hungrier as prices rocket. More of them will die.

The increase in the bank rate, the higher national insurance charges and the increase in the price of petrol means that the cost of living is going to soar. The old people face another winter with a cut in the real value of their pensions. Does the Labour government care for them?

The Ministry of Pensions first gave the miserable excuse that it would not pay increased pensions because of the paper work involved. But on November 25, "The Guardian' revealed that many M.P.s who discussed the pensions increase 'gained the impression that the government was under orders from the financial interests which are lending Britain large sums of money'.

Trade unionists, Young Socialists, Labour supporters: you did not elect a Labour government to carry out the bankers' policies! VAL MUST DEMAND PLACE THE MURDENS ON THE RICH, NOT THE OLD AGE PENSIONERS' Wilson obeys the orders of big business. He guarantees there will be no big attack on profit. He cancels the decision to stop sending Buccaneer aircraft to South Africa for attacks on the African people. He proposes to spend £2,000 million on H-bombs and armaments in order to maintain the enslavement of colonial peoples toiling to produce massive profits for big business and the City of London. Prominent right-wing Labour M.P.s are openly speaking of the necessity to introduce conscription.

The Labour government will press ahead with an attack on workers' wages. Even those who gave a lifetime of labour will be made to suffer to save capitalism. The entire labour movement must support the old people and insist that Wilson grant the full increases immediately.

The increase in the bank rate to 7 per cent will mean a rapid growth in unemployment. There will be sackings early in the New Year in the motor industry and other trades. Adult workers, the old age pensioners and young people are all under attack as the Labour government obeys every crack of the whip from big business.

Because the present policies of Wilson, Brown and Co. are tied to big business they are bound to carry out capitalist policies. This means an attack on the workers from the very beginning.

The bosses and their Tory servants prepared this crisis.

Why should they crack the whip and make the workers pay for an economic crisis for which the previous Tory government is responsible?

Why should the working used for this purpose?

Almost twelve million workers voted Labour on October 15. This is a mighty force for a socialist change. Close the ranks, unite in action and victory can be ours. This is mot 1931. Tell Wilson, Callaghan and Co. that we are finished with MacDonaldism for ever. We voted Labour, now let us force them to carry out policies in the interests of the labour movement.

All workers, young and old, must start this fight now the factories, trade unions and focal Labour parties.

big business. Said Mr.

Exchange speculators on class allow a Labour government to be business.

Split

developing in N. Ireland Labour Party A MAJOR split is threatenLed in the Northern Ireland Labour Party following the expulsions of Alderman William Boyd MP, and councillors John Black and David Walsh.

The three voted in the Belfast City Council against the Sunday opening of children's playcentres. The executive of the Labour Party, which was looking for scapegoats for the disastrous General Election results, threatened expulsions if they did not sign an undertaking to immediately reverse their vote.

Boyd and the others refused to sign this. However, the Northern Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions intervened and put pressure on Sam Napier, the right-wing Labour Panty secretary, to draw up a compromise document.

BACKED DOWN

In the face of this trade urie Iner chion and the mally re~ tests from rank and file members, the executive backed down and withdrew the first ultimatum.

A crisis seemed to have been averted as the three 'rebels' had only to affirm a statement agreeing to accept party policy, save on the grounds of conscience.

But Boyd and his two colleagues were not prepared to do this.

The Woodvale Divisional Party has expressed 'complete confidence' in the three councillors and faces disaffiliation.

The Northern Ireland Labour Panty has shown itself to be incapable of uniting the workers and is a rump of a Party resting mainly on the support of small sections of the Protestant working class.

These expulsions and the threatened split are signs of a cracking up before the worsening economic situation. Unemployment in Northern Ireland will rise sharply because of the increased bank rate.

All rank and file members and divisional parties must demand a special conference of the Nonthern Ireland Labour Party. This conference should not only debate the expulsions, but should inquire into the General Election failure and thrash out a socialist programme.

for the present rightward swing. for the present rightwa

The first will deal with the experiences of the Ceylon labour movement after six months of the coalition government. Michael Banda had ample opportunity to speak with rank and file trade unionists as well as important personalities who lead the unions. He also spent some time speaking with members of the Lanka Sama Samaja Revolutionary Section, Members of Parliament and university students.

The second article will deal with the struggle against revisionism and the decisive stage which this has now reached in Ceylon. A study of these articles are a must for all serious Marxists.

The first will appear in our next issue of December 12. Make sure that you not only order your copy now, but you have a supply of copies to send to your friends. THE National Committee (Majority) of the Young Socialists have issued the following statement following the adoption of a declaration at their meeting on November 29. 6 Millions of old age pensioners face their first Christmas under a Labour government with the same miserable pittance as they had under the Tories. All those millions of workers and their wives who voted Labour are shocked by this retreat from Wilson's election promises.

Why cannot the pensioners nave ineir increase now: 1 1c titaniu im. •The first excuse given by the Minister, Mrs. Herbison, was that there was 'too much paper work'. When some Labour MPs pressed for an immediate payment, however, they were told that the government's economic difficulties did not permit it.

In other words, the big international bankers have laid down the law, insisting that Wilson ives guarantees of toughness i reed to ignore the urgent needs canitulation to big business on We say a Labour government The National Commi gives guarantees of toughness in return for the billions of dollars lent to the government. Is it to be another betrayal like MacDonald's in 1931?

By March, when the increases are finally granted, the cost of living will have risen as a result of the 15 per cent import surcharges and increase in petrol tax. This cynical disregard of the old people, who face a winter of cold, sickness, even starvation, is part of the Labour government's evident intention to make the working people pay for a crisis "hinh him hanimone and tha Tanisa wain vig vusless duu we lories produced.

This state of affairs cannot be tolerated in the labour movement. It will not be tolerated by the Young Socialists.

Workers did not vote for Wilson to carry out policies dictated by the banks and monopolies. It is sheer hypocrisy to fight an election on the theme of 'Labour Cares' and then proceed to ignore the urgent needs of old people at the behest of millionaires and profiteers.

It is a violation of Labour's programme and principles.

Those Labour MPs were right who signed a petition demanding the backdating of the pension increases. A sustained fight by these MPs, backed by the massive public sympathy which exists for the old people, can win the pensions increase before Christmas.

But the fight must be carried through to the end and not dropped at Wilson's word.

The Antinenl Cammittoo of tha ine all columne us wo Young Socialists calls upon all trade unionists and Labour Party members to make their voices heard on this question.

On December 12 and 13, the Labour Party is to hold its postponed annual conference. This gathering will provide a great opportunity for the labour movement, including Labour MPs, to show that. they will capitulation to big this vital issue.

In the first four weeks of the Wilson administration, retreat after retreat has been made. Whilst MPs and Ministers' salaries have been handsomely increased—and backdated—almost every election pledge has been broken or shelved.

The National Committee of the Young Socialists denounces the decision to send Buccaneer aircraft to the Verwoerd government; it is a gross violation of election pledges.

We condemn Callaghan's assurances to the City that the Corporation Tax will bring no increase in profits tax. The rise in the Bank Rate, after all the attacks on 'stop-go', will quickly bring unemployment, as in the past.

Under a Labour government, the workers are being forced to pay for the crisis facing big We say a Labour government must make the Tories pay.

In the first place, the Wilson government must be forced to carry out its election promises. Any demand but this at the Labour Party conference Brighton on December 12 will be a betrayal of the aspirations of all those who voted Labour only two months before.

In the past year, the right-wing Labour leaders have carried through a vicious witch-hunt against the Young Socialists because they insisted on socialist policies at their annual Easter conference.

At the December conference, the Labour leaders will seek endorsement of their witch-hunt as well as of their capitulation to the bankers. Indeed, their attempt to silence and separate the youth from the adult movement by expulsions and suspensions was a definite preparation The National Committee (Majority) of the Young Socialists therefore calls upon all its members and on all in the labour movement to organise the maximum protest campaign leading up to the December 12 conference of the Party which must be forced to demand:

IMMEDIATE INCREASES FOR OLD AGE PENSIONERS; NO ARMS OF ANY KIND FOR SOUTH AFRICA; A GOVERNMENT FOR THE WORKERS AND NOT FOR THE BANKS; STOP THE WITCH-HUNT OF YOUNG SOCIALISTS; MAKE ALL EVICTIONS ILLEGAL NOW; THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY TO SOLVE THE CRISISTHE SOCIALIST WAY. 9 National Committee of the Young Socialists (Majority) Leeds 30.11.64.

December

capitalism, crises, wars and revolutions have All the objective preconditions for socialism exist, and for social-democratic and Stalinist leadership of the international working class.

In Britain, the leaders of the Labour Party and the trade unions have always remainea faithful to this role of classical collaboration; the election of a Labour government in 1964 the latest example of their adaptation to the needs of capitalism at every stage. This government is a government of capitalism.

It does not challenge in any way, on the contrary, it is orientated to the more efficient management of, the growing concentration of power in the hands of the finance-capitalists and the monopolies with the support of the state apparatus.

Character of imperialism All the characteristic features of the latest stage of imperialism are accepted by the Labour government: the need for more efficient state intervention and support for the economy; the need for a stronger apparatus of repression in the state machine; the necessity for automation and accompanying high level of accumulation of profit for investment; the need to fight desperately to compete in world markets, especially in relation to the dominance of the United States and the recent rapid of Western Errancin antomies; the need in every country for a drive against wage increases in order to accumulate sufficient capital for investment in new techniques and research thus preserving competitive ability on the world market; the need to fit in with the intensification of investment at a high level of technique in countries with a developed economic substructure rather than in backward countries (particularly by U.S. capital).

In Britain all these features combine to produce extreme contradictions because of the historical priority and consequent obsolescence of British capitalist industry and economic structure. The law of uneven development in imperialism now turns viciously against those who were first in the field, but who now fall farther and farther behind the dominant sectors of world capital in automation and international finance. Britain constitutes 'the weakest link in the chain' at the latest stage of development of capitalism.

Programme

for attack The grave balance of payments crisis in Britain, caused by the backwardness of British industry in a situation where the previous advantages (imperial preferences, sterling balances, "invisible exports' of all kinds) of British imperialism have been severely eroded or are static, places a great and immediate problem before the ruling class.

They need a lengthy period of control over the movement ieldeath agonyo capitalism andatte RSKSKO 4th Intermational SINCE the onset of the imperialist stage of become 'normal'. Millions of workers are killed or starved to death all over the world because capitalist property relations distort and twist the mighty development of productive forces now made possible by science and technology.

50 years the social and political crises arising from this economic development have provided revolutionary opportunities for a working class which many times—in Spain, Germany, China and many other countries-has shown its fighting capacity; yet capitalism retains state power in the advanced countries. The reason lies not in the strength of the capitalist economy but in the treacherous role of the This is the basic programmatic document of the world movement founded by Leon Trotsky and his comrades. By 1938 the revolutionary Marxists had found it necessary to lay the foundations of the Fourth International in order to restore working class leadership after the defeats prepared by the Stalinist bureaucracy in control of the Third (Communist) International. The defeat of the German Revolution in 1923, of the British General Strike in 1926, and of the Chinese Revolution in 1927, followed by Hitler's victory over the German working class in 1933, finally ruled out the perspective of transforming the Communist International by internal opposition.

60 pages, Price 1/- from Publications Ltd., 186A Clapham - RESOLUTION The role of the of wages and over all resistance to their plans for modernisation; they hope to follow this immediately with a political and industrial attack on the working class, necessary to their aim of re-entering the circle of great capitalist powers. Sections of big business supported the election of a Labour government in the conviction that only in this way could the workers be disciplined for this phase of the class struggle.

This is not a unique phenomenon. Capitalist governments, including those called socialist, have carried through programmes of this kind against the working class. Even nationalizations have been carried out by such governments.

All planning, centralisation of the state, central control over trade unions, even nationalization, has an anti-working class character if it is carried out within the context of confirming the grip of international finance capital through credit arrangements, alongside the growing concentration of the repressive forces of state and the further integration of Britain into the camp of imperialism on a world scale, economically, politically militarily.

In this situation, which exists in Britain today, measures of nationalization will only be taken by a capitalist government, Labour or not, if certain sectors of basic industry require overall control and rationalisation in the interests of the more profitable private sectors. Even if the Wilson government does not give up its bill for steel nationalization, the measures will be taken in full collaboration with the owners, subsidising generously the transfer of their capital holdings to more profitable industries, and leaving in private hands in any case the vertical monopolies like Guest, Keen and Nettlefold, which have large engineering as well as steelmaking interests.

Wilson serves capitalism The measures taken and anticipated by the Wilson government are unmistakably those of a government in the direct service of monopoly capitalism. No changes are made in the leading permanent personnel of the civilian and military apparatus of government and state let alone the abolition of this secret and bureaucratic class rule. Advisers are appointed whose loyalty to the capitalist establishment is unquestioned thoroughly tested in peace and war.

Wilson supports colonial repression and makes no move of support for the colonial masses, any more than he did in opposition, when he voiced full support for imperialism in South Arabia and Cyprus.

The import-export problem is tackled along these lines which receive full Tory treatment: charges on imports will increase the price of thousands of goods, and employers will receive special bounties for their exports. Labour Government Reform measures such as pension increases are a cynical fraud: by the time they are in operation the cost of living will have inevitably increased. Promises of 400,000 houses a year are made alongside a 15 per cent increase in the price of several vital building materials including imported timber.

At the same time the government, sustained by the inclusion of the 'Left' in the persons of Cousins, Castle, Greenwood and the others, insists that the workers accept a wage freeze. Trade union leaders, with Cannon of the Electrical Trades Union to the fore, witch-hunt militants in order to smooth the path for these plans. They negotiate long-term contracts and 'package deals' which give guarantees to the employers about their labour costs and "industrial relations' for a number of years.

Callaghan, Chancellor of the Exchequer, seeks relief from the crisis by massive borrowing from the central banks and the International Monetary Fund, fully conscious that through these institutions world finance capital will insist upon close scrutiny of all the economic and 'The difference lies in this, that the Social-Democrats obstruct the actual development of the revolution by rendering, whether as members of the administration or as members of the opposition, all possible assistance in restoring the equilibrium of the bourgeois state, whereas the Communists are exploiting every means, every method, every possibility for the purpose of overthrowing and abolishing the bourgeois state through the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat' social measures government.

All these measures, which attempt to control rationally the maturing crisis of British capitalism, represent the class interests of the capitalists. They can only be implemented against the interests of the workers in Britain and throughout the world. Only socialist nationalization of the basic industries can meet the interests of the working class. Contradictory policies But the policies of Wilson are contradictory and unable to solve the crisis. Import charges have already upset the attempts of capitalism to iron out through the European Free Trade Association and the European Common Market the contradiction between modern productive developments and the nation-state.

These import charges, by reducing competition from abroad, will in fact encourage British industrialists to turn to the home market unless they get even bigger concessions for exports.

These temporary measures can have no impact on the real problems. Big foreign loans, with the consequent retrenchment in taxation and 'income polioy' to meet the requirements of the creditors, and possible devaluation, are necessary, together with direct suppression of the workers' insistence on pushing forward demands for improved wages and conditions.

Reforms and the working class Revisionists and centrists characterise the Wilson government as "left social-democratic', explaining that it results from working-class pressure; they advocate support for this government in so far as it takes 'progressive' measures. But there is nothing progressive about the Wilson government except the fact that its accession provides an opportunity for the defeat of social-democracy and its replacement by a communist leadership.

The Wilson government takes the side of the employers on all vital questions. The presence of Cousins in the government alongside Gunter is a sign, not of the progress of the lefts but of a final step by a lett opportunist to play his role in serving capitalism, in this case by collaborating in the deception of the workers about the character of the Labour government.

Millions of workers believed that a Labour government would help solve at least some of their problems. The Socialist Labour League marched alongside these workers in insisting that it would not do any such thing and at the same time on the need to expose the treacherous role of the Labour Party leadership. The Socialist Labour League supported the election of the Labour government in order to expose in practice the opportunist and counter-revolutionary (Theses of the Third Communist nature of such government.

No reform of any importance can be won by the working class, except through militant class action under the leadership of the revolutionary party. In these cincumstances such reforms cannot be maintained except through the struggle for transitional demands leading to the taking of power. The Labour government taik about 'reforms' in order to betray the masses through the use of left phrases. We see the struggle for reforms as inseparable from the struggle to apply transitional demands, such as the socialist nationalization of the basic industries, in order to take the power.

We start off not from what the government says it will do, but from the strength and ability of the organised working class to expose this treacherous government in action. Today we fight for the unity of all sections of the working class in action around all demands, minimal (i.e., reformist) and transitional, which will expose the Labour leadership. Now that it has become the governmenit we redouble our efforts to continue this exposure.

Wilson's measures will conflict at every point with the refusal of the workers to make the "sacrifices' demanded of them by the employers. The working class has experienced a long period of relative full employment and it demands a higher standard of living, which stands in stark contradiction to the objective possibilities of British capitalism.

This Labour government takes office, not because working class pressure can win a few reforms which capitalism is prepared to give in order to ensure the continued existence of the system. That was the situation with the Labour and 'Left bloc' governments Britain and France in 1924.

After the failure of the exhausting struggles of a revolutionary character in the crisis years following the 1st World War, the bourgeoisie was prepared to buy ' a year oi two of peaceful business through reform' governments including working class parties. There was a relative economic upturn within a general period of crisis and decline, and capitalism took advantage of this by admitting to 'government' reformist representatives of the working class.

Today the situation is very different. It is the very depth of the crisis which required a Labour government. There are no measures which can be taken within the maintenance of capitalism without giving great new impulses to the class struggle.

Every major economic measure will provoke big struggles over the division of the national income. Long-term plans to chain the unions to the state will heighten the contradiction between rank and file and trade union bureaucracy. The necessary intensification of the exploitation of labour will bring the capitalists into more and more direct conflict with those young workers who form the spearhead of class-conscious action today all over the world, both politically and industrially.

The only real possibility of increasing exports is to lower production costs, particularly real wages, and this at the same time as price inflation goes on. The question of whether British capitalism can overcome its present crisis is not just a question of the cleverness of Wilson but of the struggle ibetween living forces: the working class, struggling to build its own organisation and leadership and the capitalist class, using the Labour government as its instrument.

Nor is it a question of supporting Wilson's 'progressive' measures. These are impossible. Such talk is, in fact, betrayal. Instead of fighting to provide Bolshevik leadership for the workers in struggle, those who mouth such phrases are adapting themselves to the mood of complacency with which Wilson and Cousins hope to disarm the working class. This is the classical role of revisionism today.

Allying with centrist forces of all kinds, 'left' social-democrats, Stalinists, national liberation leaders-they go along with these in covering up for and preparing the more blatant betrayals of the working class; they acquiesce in the degeneration of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party in Ceylon, they provide uncritical cover for Ben Bella, they explain how Khrushchev "could do no other' in the Cuba crisis, and in Britain they come up as apologists for the leftovers of ... the Second International!

Where to begin In complete opposition to these revisionists, who provide theoretical dress for the dangerous mood among some workers of 'give Wilson a chance' we must instead direct all our attention to the deeper and deeper penetration of the working class and particularly the youth.

Always, we start as Marxists, from the objective needs of the class and not at all from secondary features of the mood of those closest to the official Labour apparatus. The latter procedure typifies the centrists and opportunists. We can be confident that a policy based on these objective needs will enable us to make big gains in the recruitment and consolidation of the revolutionary Marxist party.

Only the building of this strength of the revolutionary party will enable us to attract any allies from the left wing in the trade unions and Labour Party as the crisis gathers in intensity. It will be a matter of alliances for a struggle and the character of the alliance will be determined by the correctness of our own programme and the strength of our own cadres.

The strength of the working class in a number of disputes, the response to our policies among working-class youth, the witch-hunts of the Labour bureaucracy-these have enabled us to begin the construction of a considerable revolutionary cadre from the youth, a cadre which is receiving its education in the necessity • to combat ruthlessly the centrists and revisionists and smash them before they have the opportunity of misleading large numbers of youth and adult workers in the coming class battles.

The characterisation of this Wilson government as 'Left' and 'progressive' by the Pabloite revisionists is part of an international trend of revisionism to colour the needs of state monopoly capitalism with progressive formulae. In France, Belgium and Italy the Pabloites have gone along with the left opportunists, Social-Democratic and Stallinist, in hailing "structural reforms' as inroads into capitalism. In fact they are part of the destruction of socialism in the interests of imperialism.

This programme is even dressed up with the language of the Transitional Programme as "workers' control, 'open the books', etc., while the essence of that programme, the construction of independent revolutionary parties in opposition to all the bureaucratic apparatuses, is revised out of existence. The Belgian General Strike is the prime example of the consequences of this revisionism. In Britain it is exemplified in the theory of 'deep entry' in the Labour Party and the notion that the Marxists must wait their turn after some left centrist movement emerges. Then again it must be emphasised that there is not at all a historical sequence —opportunism, centrism, revolutionism - through which the workers must go.

For a small revolutionary party, many of its forces very young, without the backing of experienced international revolutionaries, to start from a strategy of providing support for "progressive forces is political suicide.

Such suicide would have been the fate of our followers in the youth movement if at any time we had accepted the tactical recommendations of the centrists and revisionists.

It is a question of developing our own forces as the leadership of those workers who will be forced into struggle against the employers and against Wilson government. This requires that we prepare all the time the destruction of centrists. Least of all, at this period of the necessity of sonscious leadership, must we a lapt our forces to bureaucrats ard centrists.

Role Instead, we turn all our autention to the extension, and strengthening of the youth movement, and take definite steps to build this political force into every trade union and industry. lit is with this force, trained in Bolshevism, that we will create the unity in struggle of the working class.

Eariy in 1964 our struggle within the social-democracy reached an important qualitative stage when We successfully fought for a 'United Front from within' on the question of youth unemployment. The turn outwards to unemployed youth, together with the pre-election hesitation of the Wilson leadership after Gaitskell's death enabled us to achieve this result despite the witchhunt, which we even turned to our advantage in the development of our own forces.

In the struggle in the youth movement notice was served on. the right wing that only socialist policies would be acceptable to the youth. Preparing to occupy the seats of capitalist government, the Labour leaders inevitably decided to dispense with the youth movement. At this point it was absolutely necessary for us to prepare the transition through a struggle against Wilson and against the centrists, to a strengthening of revolutionary youth.

The first need of the working class, as Wilson prepares to fulfil the needs of capitalism is that the young workers who are being drawn towards socialist politics become the basis of a revolutionary leadership. Without this, major working-class defeats are inevitable. Wilson serves the monopolies, whose interest in intensified exploitation, discipline, and 'softening the youth, inevitably provokes radicalisation of the young workers.

The maturing of the economic and political crisis under the Wilson government guarantee the most favourable conditions for a new stage in the entry tactic, based on a large trained fighting force of revolutionary youth.

Make Tories pay The measures adopted and proposed by the Wilson government raise directly the question 'Who is to pay for the crisis?' Wilson insists on placing the burden on the backs of the workers, while trying to obscure this with one or two minor concessions which will be wiped out in a few short months. Within this programme, the banks and monopolies hope to consolidate their strength while the trade unions help them to discipline the working class.

Our revolutionary party will be built, with this youth in the vanguard, around the policy 'Make the Tories Pay!' Without a programme of socialist o de all big business in the lationanzanon, 1.c country, a national plan to use all the resources of the country, smashing of the bureaucratic and military state machine and its replacement by Workers Councils' and Workers' government, then the only alternative is to allow the capitalists to establish a new equilibrium on the bones of the working class.

The task of the , Labour government is precisely to prepare this defeat for the workers. But the historical outcome will be determined by the profound seriousness of British capitalism's crisis on the one hand and our ability to develop the Marxist party on the other. Our attitude to the Labour government is entirely conditioned by the need of the British working class to reject sociall-democracy through their own experience, a rejection which can only be achieved by our construction of the Fourth International in Britain.

WORLD NEWS ROUND-UP December 964

of capitalist production.' of land and herd the local population into ghettoes.

Belgian colonialists claimed the Congo, dismembered tribe communities and created a powerful rubber, copper and diamond empire.

Those who rebelled met with swift death. Many had their hands chopped off. The blood dripped into the resin of the rubber bark and the words 'red rubber' became a colloquial expression.

The employer class expanded, commodity export hrived and the gun boats pro ected the traffic routes of rav material to the metropolitar factory. In the crisis of overproduction and unemployment, capitalist sodiety relapsed into momentary spells of barbanism in 1914 and 1939.

War means profit. The process of monopolization and the growth of profit saw a dwindling of commodity export.

Method changed

Correspondingly, gun boat rule was replaced by the rule through native, indigenous bourgeoisie. This national bourgeoisie was forged in the heat of political independence.

The monopoly capitalist class, afiter - receiving admonishing lessons from Lord Attlee (who gave India independence), changed their methods to maintain the status quo of exploitathon.

Patrice Lumumba, who became first Premier of the Congo, was formerly imprisoned on November 1959 for leading workers against Belgian rule. In January 1960, he was released and flown to Brussels for a round-table parley with his jailers.

Independence was granted on June 30, 1960, but Lumumba turned tables and attacked the Belgian ruling class.

SLL Conference We INTRODUCING the reWe have experienced contempit, insults and blows, endured morning and night; we knew law was never the same for the whites and the blacks. The fate of political prisoners was "really worse than death" • • who could forget the hangings and shootings in which perished so many of our bretheren?' he said.

Conspiracy

This speech sparked off a conspiracy of capitalist powers. In the Congo, the rich mining veins of the Katanga and Kasai were at stake.

The conspiracy led to the murder of Lumumba and the Congo nerve centre of rebellion passed an impulse to the Belgian workers.

Riots broke out in Brussels and other cities. The trade unions jerked into life. Swinging their swords, the police ruthlessly charged on horseback into the ranks of workers. The Belgian working class, dumbstruck by pseudo-socialist betrayals, staggered back.

The capture of Lumumba was carried out with irregular political manoeuvring. The intention to destroy Lumumba, however, remained constant. Tshombe and Kalonge were supported by the Belgians. When their initial strategy failed, another variable, in the guise of Kasavubu and Mobutu was introduced. They were backed by American big business.

On September 7, 1960, Lumumba won a parliamentary majority over Kasavubu. This goaded the sorely divided imperialists to utilise their world organ —the United Nations Organisation.

This body is the offspring of the League of Nations, once described by Lenin as being a 'den of thieves'.

The United Nations Lumumba under arrest neutral body. All organs of power, national and international stem from material class interests and vigilate over these interests.

The move of Khrushchev, Nkrumah and the whole Stalinist movement to support the UN intervention in the Congo reflected a basic negation of socialist principle.

The UN ignored the Congolese parliament, ordered Lumumba's arrest, donated £1,750,000 to the Kasavubu clique, handed Lumumba to the Tshombe group for a price and finally expunged this living spark of the Congolese people.

In the background of the Ishombe: in business deal with France Security Council the Russian delegate was heard whimpering like an alleycat about the wrongs ot the UN. In stark contrast, the American delegate, Adiai stevenson, ignored the tate ot 14 million Congolese and questioned the fidelity of the UN as an organ of world capitalism by saying: "The issue here is whether the UNO shall survive' Bloody role When one asks 'survive in whose interests?' the issue becomes clearer. It cannot be for the whole of mankind, since mankind is divided into the propertied and the propertyless classes at various levels of social production. And surely it is those social relationships that diotate the behaviour and consciousness of the UNO delegates.

The bloody role of the secretary - general of the UN, Hammarskjold, his mysterious plane crash, the events leading to the n nurder of Lumumba and the connivance of world capitalism were, for the Western press, salad days of lying. Many issues were blotted out.

About the conditions of the Congolese people, a UNESCO report (1959) states: 'Many children know hunger very early?

• At the age of six the African child learns to fend for himself and probably to 'have learned to fast for up to 24 hours'. The proportion of undernourished children in "better off' Leopoldville is about half. Because of their plight, children of the Bacongo tribe form a peka, a system by which a dozen children pool together and share their food.

About 46 per cent of the workers in the Katanga form a stable community. There is no trade union organisation.

There has been no attempt to form a revolutionary socialist base among workers.

Facts to the contrary have proved that the Chinese Stalinists, true to their teachings, of the 'storm centre of world revolution' being in the colonies, have indulged in military adventurism.

It is thought that they have supported the Congolese rebels.

Their action over the support of Indonesian paratroops being dropped in Malaysia is an open flouting of the Marxist-Leninist line of developing a revolutionary workers? vanguard in Malaysia in preparaion for socialist rule.

Carnage

The Chinese tactics have led to misadventure for the Indonesians and open race conflict in the Congo.

The shooting of holpless white and coloured women and children, in the past week in the Congo cannot be condoned.

Firstly, the avarice of world capitalism is held responsible.

Secondly, Stalinist tactics stain the hands of the Peking clique, gory with the carnage of helpless children.

Alter the first World War, German capitalism emerged puny and exhausted. The 192932 depression was a violent convulsion in world imperialism.

The regurgitation blew to the surface alt the weak spotGermany. Unemployment, repression and the drive for profit led to the rise of Hitler, the leadership with what the Socialist Labour League had said earlier in the year, when there had also been a struggle against other tendencies and against revisionism —a fight which has been carried on since the end of the Second World War.

This fight would enable the League, through its conception of theory and practice, to lead the struggle now coming up in Britain. The crisis in Ceylon (where revisionists had Joined a bourgeois government) is interconnected with crisis in Britain, said Slaughter, because the struggle against capitalism also becomes an international responsibility to answer the betrayals of other tendencies throughout the world.

The rescue operation of massive support for the f was the biggest operation of its kind ever carried out. How do the apologists for Labour in the Trotskyist ranks explain this? asked Slaughter. They can only explain it on the grounds that the Labour government is expected to carry out a programme for monopoly capitalism.

The economists had explained that the stability of the £ is needed to bolster up other currencies. This characterised the international character of the economy, Slaughter said.

£3,000 million had been paid over to the Labour Chancellor without any guarantee of it (Cont. p. 4, col. 1)

by P. DESAI conditioning of the Germa working class and anti-simitist The present stormy weather of world capitalism, the raising of the bank rate in Britain and the general shiver running through the London Stock Exchange has created an atmosphere conducive to racialism.

Smethwick is the product.

Goldwaterism and the Congo are similar racist expressions of imperialist crisis.

Sections of the world proletariat are in danger of being consumed in an imbroglio of racialist madness.

The British working class must take warning.. No white worker is ever free when a black wonker is in chains.

The enemies of the international working class are choking in their greed for profit in their bureaucratic madness for power. Tshombe has arrived in Paris to do a business deal with French capitalism. It is fitting that after the race killings, the vultures swarm in for their share. 16 bombers to be IN agreeing to continue the Buccaneer bombers, Wilsor South African workers and p labour movement.

As yet another of Labour's election pledges is broken, Wilson shows that every aspect of his policy is dominated by the needs of imperialism.

Verwoerd, who had earlier threatened to end British use of the Simonstown naval base if the Buccaneer contract was cancelled, has expressed his conthat Wilson had climbed down and given the South African government all it wanted.

These bombers are made at Brough, near Hull, by Hawker Siddeley. They are capable of sustained flight at very low levels and can carry a variety of bombs, rockets or missiles.

Although designed as a naval strike aircraft they will certainly be used by the South African government to maintain the oppression of the African population.

Tanks smash workers

As long ago as 1922, Smuts employed aircraft in smashing the strike of miners. At that time the victims were mainly white workers. In the Sharpeville massacre of 1960 and also the Transkei peasant movement, Saracen tanks made in Britain were used against unarmed crowds.

it was in 1962, soon after he took over as leader or the Labour Party that Wilson first promised to stop all arms shipments to South Africa. The 'lefts' of the "Tribune' variety were able to use this to demonstrate how radical their new hero was. for Dr Alexander appeal donations to the Secretary of the Defence Committee:

Mrs. C. Kirkby, 27 Thursley House, Holmewood Gardens, London, S.W.2.

So as to refresh readers the facts behind this case are submitting , the followi information.

of On July 13, 1963, on the same day that 18 members of the African National Congress were arrested at Rivonia, Johannesburg, among them the leader Walter Sisulu, 12 militants of the National Liberation Front, including Dr. Neville Alexander, were arrested in the Cape by the South African police, on the basis of the 90-day law.

Dr. Alexander was the first South African Negro to receive a scholarship to study in Germany. He was awarded the 'Alexander von HumboldtSitiftung' for his brilliant work, and completed his studies in Germanic language and literature at the university of Tubingen in 1959-61. He was awarded the degree of Doctor, on his thesis on the work of Gerhart Hauptmann.

He turned down offens of university lectureships in the USA, Britain and Tanganyika in order to return to South Africa. There, he turned down the job of lecturer in a university that the government had set up for Negroes and worked as a grammar school teacher until the day of his arrest.

On the initiative of the students of Tubingen and of some personalities linked with

solution on the Labour government at the special delegate conference of the Socialist Labour League last week-end, Cliff Slaughter said that the only political document which had stood up in relation to the Labour government was the resolution presented to the Socialist Labour League conference earlier this year. • It was said then that there would not be just a simple choice between a Conservative government and a Labour government which, in its traditional manner, would be able to come to power when capitalism wanted to make a few reforms by giving concessions to workers and, in this way, give the capitalists a breathing space.

These days are over, said Slaughter.

• Capitalism' could no longer afford a period of readjustment. The election of Labour this year was something entirely different from the need for Labour governments at other stages of imperialism.

Under these conditions, the present Labour government would serve the monopolies against the working class.

All talk of reforms and concessions would be nothing more than window dressing to enable the Labour government to carry out this attack.

says Cliff But this would not be an easy task for Labour. The deepening political crisis will radicalise new sections of the working class putting us in a position of making a big battle against capitalism, said Slaughter.

He reiterated a point from the resolution: 'But the historical outcome will be determined by the profound seriousness of British capitalism's crisis on the one hand and our ability to develop the Marxist Party on the other.' There were, at intervals, enormous critical situations for capitalism, when the capitalists found it difficult to harness the political force to overcome the stage of crisis. Whether capitalism overcame the present crisis depended upon whether the Marxist party can overthrow capitalism or not.

The League was accused of exaggerating, by revisionists who now say the Transitional Programme is out of date, because it said the Labour government had the same fault as the MacDonald government of 1931—it would be dictated to by international finance capital; unless Wilson attacks the working class, he will receive no financial aid.

Yet when several MPs had got together to demand that the old age pensions, promised for March, be paid out earlier, Wilson dealt with them very brutally.

The banks had threatened to foreclose to such an extent that the Labour government was almost faced with resignation and a national government. Wilson then took steps to raise the bank rate on Monday instead of the traditional Thursday.

His Corporation Tax was also threatened - by the Citv, who told him: "Business will stop unless you call it off.' So Wilson made a speech the same day reassuring big business that they will not have to pay any more under the Corporation Tax than they pay at present under the profits tax (35 per cent of gross profits).

On no question, said Slaughter, has the Labour government succumbed to the 'pressure from the working class', , which the Pabloites talk about.

Even the budget, which was an attempt to buy an incomes policy, alarmed finance capital Zurich called the concessions in the budget 'doctrinaire' and made it obvious Wilson must obtain an incomes policy without such reforms by attacking directly the working class.

"The Times' had re-enforced this demand by calling, in one of its editorials, for more totalitarian politics; more discipline imposed by the state. This goes hand in hand with talking about the 'national interest' and 'morality, commented Slaughter.

All these events

Bus workers , for four weeks' annual paid holiday and the abolition of compulsory night work for apprentices December

sale to South Africa of 16 has betrayed not only the sasants, but also the British He reaffirmed this pledge on November 17, but explained that the Buccaneer contract was 'under review'. Ait the same time, he stressed that the American government was karrying out the policy of allowing existing contracts for arms sales to South Africa to run out.

Many suppliers But last week, he told Parliament that the 16 Buccaneers would be shipped out, that deliveries would go on until 1966, and that the supply of spare parts would be guaranteed.

Many countries have supplied arms to help stabillise Verwoerd's regime. Aircraft have come from the USA, rifles from Belgium and troop carriers from West Germany. The French have recently set up a rocket factory in South Africa.

Wilson has now joined these backers of apartheid.

All the pious platitudes about the evils of racialism are exposed as pure humbug. To assure the international bankers that the Labour government is a safe recipient I Joans , Wilson sends the planes which will be used to terrorise the Africans.

Every section of the labour and trades union movement must protest against this move and demand its reversal. All those MPs who have assured us of their opposition to Verwoerd's policy should be forced to end their shameful silence on this issue.

The working class movement is strong enough to make Wilson eat his words. the "Humboldt-Stiftung', the national organisation of students in Federal Germany and some of the Tubingen university lecturers signed a guarantee to cover the costs of Dr. Alexander's defence.

A collection was organised throughout Federal Germany. In Japan, too, where he had some friends, demonstrations and collections were organised.

Even before the trial began, Dr. Alexander, together with his comrades, was transterred to the prison of Robben island, which is a real concentration camp. One of those detained was released, as he had testified against Dr. Alexander.

INTERROGATION

Some of the prisoners were kept in complete isolation for days on end, after which they were handed over for interrogation.

As the statements obtained an this way were used by the public prosecutor, Dr. Alexander and others refused to take the oath in the trial, which limited their possibilities of defence and laid them open to savage reprisals.

Before and during the trial, the South African government tried to put pressure on German public opinion, especially on the Christian, and liberal organisaitions which were supporting Dr. Alexander's cause, by having published in the Nazi press, which is restricted but which nonetheless managed to give the news big publicity, some anticles which presented Dr. Alexander as a terrorist, a commumist, enemy of the whites, etc.

The leading German papers contented themselves with representing him as a nice idealist with somewhat mad ideas. They even published a statement according to which Dr. Alexander was supposed to have pronounced against revolution and violent change in South Africa.

On April 15, the accused, against whom it had been impossible to prove anything except reading forbidden books like Marx, Lenin, Mao, etc., and the distribution of leaflets, were condemned to imprison(Cont. p. 4, col. 7)

By Our Industrial Correspondent Our Industrial AS the final stages of discussions for the deal on pay and conditions for three workers draw near it becomes obvious that from this 'deal' will be the employers.

Early in October The Newsletter warned that both the employers and the union leadership of the engineering unions would prepare an 'unholy deal'.

In spite of the fact that the employers have stated that they will not go beyond 2d. an hour increase and that there must be a standstill on increases negotiated at local level, the three-year deal was not discussed at the AEU executive when it met on Tuesday.

NO FUSS Why should the matter not be taken up by the ABU? The union leadership, who so far have shown a willingness to fall in with the employers plans, no doubt want as little fuss as possible from militants inside the union before the monthly meeting of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions next week in York.

The engineering employers are relying on their allies, the trade union officials, to carry the plan through.

Above all the engineering employers want increased produation and it is for this reason that they have called for a stop to the negotiation of increases alt local level.

DISCIPLINE

Workers in the engineering industry have, in many cases, only gained their rises at local level by waging a hard struggle, involving stoppages, against the employers.

The bosses, fearing that, with the increasing introducSocialist Labour League Conference being repaid. Original loans made by the Labour government were to pay debts, but the recent loan was aimed at buying an incomes policy to increase the rate of exploitation of the working class.

This was a means of getting the trade unions to sign away the movement over wages, and was also the reason for attacks on Young Socialists, shop stewards and other militants and a move towards illegalisation of strikes.

In such a period, we must expect a number of treacherous revisionist elements to flourish, Slaughter commented.

Lenin said social democracy was essential to imperialism. This was the reason for the rise at this time of social democracy in Britain, Germany, even in the United States where there is no social democratic party.

Cannon (leader of the Socialist Workers Party of America said the SWP did not have to go through the stage of a fight with the social democrats or the Stalinists. It could go straight to the masses.

Yet the Americans succumbed to revisionism more than any other tendency in Europe. This showed the roots and depth of revisionism, said Slaughter.

This reflected itself in their criticisms of the Socialist Labour League in saying it went on a 'sectarian binge' in attacking the Labour Party before the election, yet urging people to vote for a Labour government.

The revisionists now supported people who give succour to the Labour government.

The fact that the Labour government, under orders from international finance, would carry out attacks on the working class, guaranteed the possibility of success for the Socialist Labour League.

three-year package million engineering the ones to benefit ill: failed to expose implications tion of automation and higher competition abroad, any stoppages will seriously affect profits, want the union leadership to fall in with a national wages plan. In the future militants will no doubt be disciplined if they try to take local action.

In fact, in the interests of profit, the employers and their servants, the trade union leadership, want to control rank and file organisation and although Ted Hill leader of the Boilermakers' Union was heard to make militant noises when he said the employers' proposals were 'a load of tripe' he has not exposed the full implications of the package deal.

NEWS IN BRIEF AFTER a Wolverhampton bus river was suspended for a day ellow busmen staged a token strike.

BRITISH European Airways cabin staff have been offered new proposals in a pay and allowances dispute after they threatened to take industrial action.

Whole sections of workers would be faced with a Labour government which cannot give them any more than the Tories could give. In such conditions, it was possible to make precise demands and campaigning points to bring youth and others close to the programme of the Fourth International.

At the same time papers like 'The Times' said the unions must demand that earnings go below the market rate and George Woodcock, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, said workers may have to accept a fall in wages.

This was because of the minute reserves in Britain due to the calamitous decline in exports of 1 per cent per year since 1951. Imports of machine tools (for the automation of Britain's industries) have gone up by 30 per cent since 1951, while the present export is 1 per cent.

Automation, said Slaughter, was not just a small step forward. It was a vast qualita tive change in the history of mankind, he said. IBM, the American company now makes 80 per cent of the world's computer equipment-vital to automated industries. It has recently bought a 50 per cent share • in the largest French computer firm which does work on government armament—so much for the "independent' nuclear deterrent.

In order to use such equipment, a different type of work force is needed. That was the reason why every set of negotiations included talk : about mobility of labour—it was now clear what Wilson meant by his reference to finding 10 million new jobs by 1974 at the Labour Party conference last year, said Slaughter.

In package deals, too, in the last 15 months, were clauses including wage increases within the 'guiding light' except certain sections like the power workers, postal workers and dockers. at a meeting on Tuesday.

This comes after an abortive strike This was why the Socialist Labour League stressed 'no wage freezing' and a struggle for the independence of the unions from the state, commented Slaughter.

Ex-union leader Frank Cousins was a natural Minister of Labour but he was made Minister of Technology. This implies that the government needed a rapid change in technology through the discipline of labour by the unions or through the threat of a totalitarian government or fascist state.

From this point of view one should consider Smethwick, said Slaughter.

Racialist tendencies arose from the critcial conditions of imperialism when there is an attempt to instil in workers the idea that they are not part of a class.

British capitalism had lasted for a long time. But the Socialist Labour League have a more favourable objective situation for leading a mass movement in a period of capitalist crisis.

In discussion, Gerry Healy, national secretary of the Socialist Labour League said the Labour Party had fought the election under the slogan of 'Labour Cares', but had followed this by raising the bank rate, which would lead speedily to unemployment, and budget proposals which would cause a real reduction in the wages of every worker. Everyone was being exploited including old age pensioners who were told by Wilson they would not receive the increase in pensions before the Christmas season.

All these moves were a "devastating blow to reformist policies, said Healy.

Labour were running a 'weak and tottering' government of 'weak inept people' which was an embarrassment to big business. Tories were seen prominently sitting by their sides.

Healy said the passing of a law against racialism would be BUA stoppage - management attack unofficial INTENT on keeping up -profits so that the industry would not be affected by a token stoppage senior executives at the British United Airways Gatwick Airport carried out strike-breaking activities when they unloaded luggage from aircraft on Tuesday this week.

as ineffective in places • like Smethwick as the imprisonment of Hitler in the 1920's.

Alex McLarty, a well-known Scottish engineering : worker, said that last week a meeting had been called in Scotland under the auspices of the Socialist Labour League and attended by many workers from the motor industry.

Only the Socialist Labour League was striving to build a unity of the working class, not the trade union leaders, not the Communist Party, not the revisionists, said McLarty.

The significance of the meeting was that it was attended by workers from all the major motor car plants after the election of the Labour government, 'which signifies they are looking for another solution to their problems.

Almost all the people at the meeting were fresh forces who had not contacted the League before. This signified that the crisis of capitalism is penetrating deeper into the the thinking of the working class. It is the beginnings of the construction of the revolutionary party in the motor industry,' MeLarty.

All other fake elements were prostrate before this crisis"they are paralysed with a fear of the working class'. This sprang from their attachment to the capitalists who were also frightened of the power of the organised working class.

The Communist Party had members in places like the BMC factory where they could not even get a meeting with the workers.

The revisionists held positions in Trades Councils and Constituency Labour Parties but were pinning all their hopes in the Labour government.

'We can have a political field day if we realise it, said McLarty. "This working class is going to fight. We should not be taken in by superficial talk of some workers.' strikes A Newsletter Correspondent Five hundred of the BUA ground staff staged a 24-hour strike in support of the claim for an 81 per cent interim pay rise before negotiations for the same wages, hours and conditions as men employed by the nationalized airlines, are concluded.

DELAYS

It was decided to stage the stoppage because of delays in the negotiations.

Engineers and maintenance men on the afternoon shift clocked in but 15 minutes later they walked out.

In a statement issued on Tuesday evening by the management it was declared that all services would continue. In an attack on the workers involved in the walk-out the statement salid:

This stoppage is unofficial.

From a meeting held this morning between the management and the local representatives of the employees it is evident that the dispute is not between the employees and the company but between the trade unions and their members who are dissatisfied with the way their trade union representatives are processing their case for wage increases.

"The employees have been offered an increase of 5 per cent which compares favourably with wage increases agreed in other trades of the air transport industry — including the supervisory staff which was agreed this very day.' RED HERRING The attempt to place the blame for the strike on the differences between the rank and file and their union officials can only be seen as a red herring to draw attention away from the management's role in the negotiations.

Those involved in the strike may well be dissatisfied with the way their representatives have carried on in the negotiations, but the fact remains that the workers are demanding an 8t per cent interim pay rise whereas they have only been offered an increase of 5 per cent.

In the face of such attacks from the BUA management the engineers and maintenance men face the task of getting support from other sections of workers both in BUA and in other parts of the air transport industry. Alexander appeal

in Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow adventure by • the Stalinists and Pabloites.

The 'Financial Times' of Wednesday, December 2, reports that 'the unions and the employers in the engineering industry are moving towards agreement on the recognition of full union negotiating rights for apprentices'.

Nowhere did the report give the impression that the trade union leaders were conducting any kind of real struggle to get one of the basic trade union rights of every worker.

The Stalinist 'Daily Worker', which has in the past month given a great amount of coverage to the strike led by Communist Party members, relegated the news of the employers decision to a couple of paragraphs.

Both the Stalinists and the Pabloites have shown consistently during the November 2 strike that they are not prepared to fight to organise apprențices nationally or to call on the solid support of the mass of engineering workers in the trade union movement.

Attacks

Because of the economic crisis in Britain any section of workers that calls for a wage increase can expect attacks from both the bosses and the press.

In order not to give way to these pressures, apprentices need a strong organisation. It has been the Manchester Direct Action Committee, set up by apprentices in the city, which has given a lead in the preparation for a strike on March 29.

This committee called a conference in Manchester where it was unanimously decided that direct action committees should be set up in towns and cities throughout the country. A Newsletter Reporter in which apprentices were led on a wild campaign for a national strike fund was launched and an appeal made for support from trade unionists.

Denounced

Apprentices who led this fight to set up Direct Action Committees were denounced by Stalinists as splitting the movement.

But who is splitting the apprentice movement? It is the Stalinists and their Pabloite friends who have viciously sabotaged organisation of young workers.

The engineering employers have shown by their adamant stand this week that only through a politically prepared movement can they be defeated to win apprentices' demands.

Building

workers put in for rise THE Amalgamated Union of Building Trades Workers have proposed an amendment to the long-term pay and hours agreement-to give a higher wage increase next November.

This proposal is being put to a meeting of the central council of the National Federation of Building Trades Employers on December 15.

Craftsmen would get an increase of 24d. an hour under the present agreement which would bring their pay up to 6s. 7d. The AUBTW want the craitsmen to get an additional 1ld. and the labourers to have seven-eighths of the craftsman's rate, which would mean an additional ls.

Whilst the building employers may possibly agree to a rise, craftsmen and labourers should have no illusions as to the sacrifices they will be expected to make in return for a rise in wages.

conditions GLASGOW'S 6,000 bus workers have remained solidly in • support of the overtime ban and work-to-rule, now in its second week.

This action of the bus workers, which has spread to many other areas throughout Scotland, has been taken in protest against the protracted delay in negotiations at national level on better wages and conditions for provincial bus crews.

Glasgow busmen have now put in a claim to the Glasgow Corporation Transport Department for an increase in the 'good attendance' bonus which at present amounts to 16s. per week.

Nottingham

busmen vote to ban overtime FOLLOWING the example of busmen in Scotland, crews in Nottingham voted to ban overtime for one week at two mass meetings held earlier this week.

This action was decided upon after a busman received 250 names on a petition calling for a mass meeting to discuss what action should be taken on the working conditions of Nottingham busmen.

Three other resolutions calling for token stoppages on Saturdays were put forward but they were ruled out of order by the chairman, who claimed that this would be breaking a union agreemajority to continue the ban for a second week. In Dundee, Kilsyth and Milngavie bus workers staged a one-day strike last Saturday.

RESPONSE

The 24-hour stoppage called for last Friday in Edinburgh received a tremendous response. Only two buses were reported to be running, and those for only a short period.

Although a decision was taken not to continue the Friday strikes, pending the resumption of national negotiations on December 14, there is no doubt that the Edinburgh bus workers are incensed by the delay in negotiations and fully in support of action being taken to secure their demands.

What is now required for the successful outcome of the bus workers' struggle is the building of rank and file committees in all the towns, depots and garages affected by the dispute which will organise all bus workers in a united struggle against the attempts of the employers to worsen their conditions.

ment made with the employers.

These workers are determined to fight for the immediate introduction of the 40-hour week, and pay increases of not less than 16s. per week to bring them in line with London bus workers operating in country areas.

INFLUENCE

Union officials, whilst claiming to be in full support of the bus workers' demands, are exerting all their influence and pressure to get the bus crews to resume normal working unțil December 14.

This is the date on which national negotiations are to be resumed, and the union officials have promised that if no progress is made by then, they will seek powers to call an official strike of Scotland's 26,000 bus workers.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Labour, Mr. Ray Gunter, has intervened in the dispute: Meetings have been arranged between the Ministry of Labour's chief conciliation officer, the employers and the union.

It is understood that the employers claim they cannot make any offer on the question of pay until they know the results of the deliberations of two other committees on the question of conditions.

PAYMENT

These two committees are considering the payment of bonus for the operation of large capacity buses, and a proposal by the employers for the introduction of large and one-man operated buses.

In Scotland, the Glasgow crews have taken the lead in the fight for better wages and conditions for bus workers. They have the support of other bus workers in many parts of Scotland.

During last week, bus workers in Motherwell, Hamilton, Kirkintilloch agreed to operate the overtime ban and workers in Greenock agreed by a 2-1 ment for 'sabotage' and preparing a violent struggle against the South African state: to 10 years imprisonment:

Dr. Neville Alexander Don John William Davis, preacher Marcus Solomon, teacher Elisabeth van der Heyden, teacher Fikele Charles Bam, law student to 7 years imprisonment:

Lionel Basil Davids, employee to 5 years imprisonment:

Jan Leslie van der Heyden, teacher Dulcie Evon September, teacher Dorothy Alexander, teacher Doris van der Heyden, library assistant Another of the detainees did not appear before the court. He had been taken to a mental home, having undergone such torture after refusing to testify that it appears that be went mad.

CATEGORY D

The condemned were placed in category D, that of the worst criminals. At the end of July, Dr. Alexander and his friends Fikele Bam and Don Davis were assaulted.

They had refused to dance the "Tauza-dance', which is performed naked in front of the guards. Dr. Alexander was seriously injured in the inner ear. He made a complaint against his guard.

As from the beginning of the sentence, the defence have demanded an appeal because of the 'irregularities' at the first trial. The Cape supreme court has allowed this appeal which should have taken place some time during November 1964 but has now been postponed until early 1965.

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