The Newsletter, vol. 8 no. 374

Saturday, December 12, 1964 Call the Cops AS the Wilson government betrays every promise that it made to the electorate, the right-wing bureaucrats in local Labour parties become more and more vicious with the Young Socialists. ist week-end Coventry Labour Party denounced young people 'vandals' and said they were suspending the Young Socialists branches in the city pending 'investigation'. This continuous campaign of slander against the youth reflects the fear within the bureaucracy of the contempt which the young people have for their betrayal.

In Wandsworth Constituency Party in south-west London the police were called to intimidate a group of young people who wanted to join the Young Socialists.

A number of leading full-time officials of the Labour Party were massed to see that they were prevented from entering the building. At the same time plain clothes police did everything possible to provoke these young people so that they would be in a position to arrest them. le Socialist Labour League is the only organisation to which youth •Can in their struggle against the bureauthing young people can be sure ofthe SLL and its paper The Newsletter, will always fight and ahampion the cause of youth in the struggle for socialism. The right-wing Labour leaders are traitors to the working klass and bankrupt so far as policy is concerned, hence their hatred for youth. As the crisis of British imperialism gets worse, the Labour bureaucracy will grow weaker. The bureaucrats and their police will in the long run be rendered powerless in their efforts to slander and vilify youth. But victory over these reactionary forces will not be automatic. It involves the building of the revolutionary party. e say to all youth who are in struggle: Join us now and help to make the Socialist Labour League such a party.

Baron Brockway MENNER BROCKWAY has • been elevated to the peerage. This will come as no surprise to Trotskyists who have always exposed this unprincipled fake-left. Brockway's contempt for Marxist theory is well known in the labour movement. is ex-colleague, John McGovan, with whom he shared many, platfonms in the early years of the Second World War, is now a leading member of the Roman Catholic church and recently joined the Tory Party. › much for the leaders of the three and three-quarters international of 'squeezed lemons' as Trotsky described the Brockways. and McGovans in the 1930s. As he takes his seat on the Woulsack the cynical Tories may well sigh, 'Well done thuu good and faithful servant. of Ferranti's is amongst the greatest. After an exhaustive enquiry by the Lang Committee it was announced that the company should repay the four and a quarter million pounds extra profit which it made on the Bloodhound missile to the government. This was subsequently reduced to two and a quarter million pounds after taxation adjustments were made.

Now that the day of reckoning has arrived, Ferranti's blandly announce that they will not be able to make the refund. Mr. Sebastian de Ferranti, Company Chairman, says that they simply do not have the money in the bank.

He further announced that not only will they need ten years to repay it out of profits, but that such repayments would be impossible unless they are assured of regular work by the government.

'Pushed'

In other words, Ferranti proposes that they be allowed to make profits out of government contracts in order to repay the government the money that they owe it.

On top of this they had the impudence to suggest that they are being 'pushed around'.

Surely the time has come to take action against Ferranti's, It is such people who are partly responsible for the high cost of defence expenditure.

They make massive profits out of the exploitation of workers employed on safe government contracts. What clearer case could there be for the nationalization of this company?

Harold Wilson in a speech made at the 1960 Labour Party conference declared that he was in favour of the nationalization of the anms industry. Does not this cover Ferranti's?

If this company is dependent on government contracts then surely it must be nationalized.

Silence

On April 25, The Newsletter wrote: 'Why the strange silence of the Labour Party and trade union leaders over the Ferranti scandal?' We demanded its nationalization at that time, but not one Labour Member of Parliament did anything about it.

Mr. Cousins is now the Minister for Technology. It is his department which deals with Ferranti. He has also made many militant speeches in the past. What is his attitude to Ferranti's refusal to pay? Again, Mr.

Sebastian de Ferranti, a well-known Tory, implied that he has every hope of receiving a favourable response from Mr. Cousins!

The rank and file of the Labour and trade union movement should watch Ferranti's. The Newsletter is of the opinion that here again the Wilson leadership will sell out as it has been doing on every important election pledge which it made.

NEXT WEEK: Newsletter report of Labour Party Conference. Cousins: 'favourable response' to Ferranti Page cialism in Smethwick and Germany by R. James and This Week The first of Michael Banda's reports from Ceylon Page for whi Smethw in's pay

small poll By A Newsletter HE first official returns - for the left candidates in the recent American Presidential election reveal that They recolved unty a shalt percentage of the total votes.

In the results so far, the Socialist Workers' Party candidates for President and Vice-President, Clifton deBerry and Edward Shaw received only 8,503 votes. The total vote, when it is announced, may well be the lowest in the Party's history.

There is no doubt that these disappointing results will prompt many rank and file members to question seriously the present opportunist Pabloite policy of the leadership.

'The Militant' (weekly organ of the SWP) for December 7 tries to explain the thing away by saying that the reason for such poor results arose because 'the stampede to support Johnson out Candidate deBerry of fear of Goldwater influenced many people on the left'!

This is an evasion of what actually took place. The emergence of Goldwater emphasises the acute crisis which is now developing inside the United States. This crisis finds its reflection in the Negro struggles, Correspondent washy liberal type of organisation which in their opinion does not offer a serious alternative in the struggle against Goldwater. That is the real reason for the decline in the votes of the SWP Like all opportunists, the SWP, in fact, blames the American working class for its own isolation, but the reverse is true.

It is not a question of drawing up a policy that can mean all things to all men on the eve of an election. It is the struggle which has to take place inside the trade unions, factories and on the streets that counts.

Unless the Socialist Workers' Party participates in such day-to-day work and breaks away from its present disastrous course, then it will undoubtedly disintegrate.

This means breaking decisively from the Pabloite centre and returning to support the International Committee of the Fourth International, èven if for legal reasons it cannot be a member.

In New York alone the organisation of Progressive Labour (a breakaway from the Communist Party) is much more active in all fields than the Socialist Workers' Party.

NO NEGRO VOTE The small vote which the Party received in that city shows this to be the case. The claim that because Clifton deBerry (the SWP candidate for president) is a Negro that he would automatically win Negro votes is just the old kind of opportunist nonsense. We believe that very few Harlem Negroes voted on this basis. They also are looking for a Marxist alternative.

The lesson for SWP members is to change the present revisionist political course of its leadership. If the results of this election are dismissed in the way that "The Militant' intends them to be, then the Party is doomed to greater and greater isolation.

the growth of unemployment as a result of automation and the more militant swing which is now beginning inside the trade unions.

A reading of "The Militant' over the past year would show that these events have taken place without any serious intervention or struggle on the part of the SWP.

Since their last Congress in the summer of 1963, when they gave full support to the Pabloite Paris centre, they turned more and more towards the petty-bourgeeis, pacifist and liberal elements who hang around the fringes of the labour and Negro movements.

This opportunist orientation has produced absolutely nothing for the SWP. The more they have watered down their policies and engaged in broad alliances' with the revisionists, the more the Party has become isolated.

The American working class are not going to vote for a wishyFTER a series of late night attacks on conductors and drivers in Cardiff -four in the last month and two last Saturday—the Cardiff Transport and General Workers' Union platform staff branch decided to ban work on all services after 9.30 p.m. from this Friday.

Branch officials announced that bus workers were becoming terrified of going out on late night services and that they had to take action to protect themselves.

Behind this ban is a background of long hours of overtime put in to make up the bus workers' meagre wages, which Newsletter Reporter inevitably creates strained relations between workers and passengers.: Many busmen are working 14 hours a day regularly and 17 hours are not uncommon.

Mr. Thomas Phillips, branch secretary, said the ban will remain 'until the assaults cease, or until we get some sort of police protection'.

POLICE FLOOD

Cardiff's Chief Constable said he was considering putting plain clothes patrols on buses.

I would like to be in the position to flood the city with police at the week-ends, but I do not have enough men,' he said.

The Cardiff press, never friendly to workers demands for better ' conditions, has bad a field day reporting the 'hooliganism' of youth.

Bus workers must place the responsibility for the present situation fairly and squarely where it belongs — with the transport authorities.

The low wages they pay make the long overtime necessary.

This also makes it difficult to recruit staff, so that extra manning of late night services as a safety measure cannot be arranged. • For • further news on the busmen's struggle for better conditions see page 4. Board. Accordingly, on that technical ground the union's nominations were not properly considered.' In conclusion, Lord Parker, with the agreement of the other two judges, ruled that an Order of Mandamus should not be given only since such an order would be difficult to implement under the conditions where fresh nominations to the Hull and Goole local Board were due the following month.

In effect, therefore, the 'Blue' union dockers have. won the right for their nominations to appear on the ballot to take place this month for representatives on the local Board.

The union has now established in count the fact which it has contended since 1954; that it represented dockers of sub(Cont. p. 4, col. 2)

December 12, 196

by The Editor ICHAEL FOUl's article in last week's "Tribune' marks a new low in the decline of this former left' MP.

Writing about the government's actions in the financial crisis, he feebly attempts to continue his self-appointed job as Public Relations man for the Labour Party leaders.

Since his return to Parliament soon after the 1960 Labour Party Conference, Foot has increasingly avoided criticism of the Party's anti-socialist policies. When Gaitskell died, he and his friends systematically worked to sell Harold Wilson to the rank and file as a left-wing leader-Foot even stooped to writing a biography of Harold the Great.

They did all they could to smooth • the way for acceptance of the idea that the standards of the workers could be raised without the nationalization of the basic industries.

ABDICATION

Now we see the results of all staina mailvia af the election, the financial crisis broke. Against every promise made during the election, Wilson and Brown abdicated any pretence to control economic policy and did what the bankers told them.

If an election is held in the spring, Labour will be blamed for the Tory-prepared crisis.

Here is a sample of Foot's comment on these happenings: "The events of the past week justify more than ever the socialist case ... (they offer) an immensely strengthened reason for removing the wealth from such irresponsible hands, for vastly expended public ownership, for. socialism on a national and international scale. ...

MIXED ECONOMY

'But, alas, it is not within the power of a Labour government • • • even in Britain itself given the programme on which the election was fought and only just won?

Later he tries to clarify this great thought: Like it or not, the Labour Party programme on which we fought the election was one in which we envisaged working a mixed economy in a country involved in the Western alliance and in the predominantly capitalist Western world.' In other words, the policy which Foot and Co. urged the movement to accept has led to disaster. Now it must be continued and the pensioners and the working class have to accept the consequences.

In trying to justify such a line, this formerly trenchant writer (Cont. p. 4, col. I)

Said Can sit From REG PERRY A SIGNIFICANT breakthrough has occurred in the long, stubborn struggle of the National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers Union for recognition as the result of a decision awarded to Hull dockers in a recent court action against the National Dock Labour Board.

The court's decision, that representatives of the 'Blue' had been incorrectly excluded from the Hull and Goole Labour Board, could have far-reaching consequences for the union in all the major ports and its relation to the National Dock Labour Board.

The court ruling has been almost completely ignored by the national press.

The case which appeared in the Queen's Bench Divisional Court early in November before Lord Chief Justice Parker, Mr. Justice Ashworth and Justice Milma, concerned an application by the NASD, Mr. George Albert Teal, Mr. Charles Tindall and Mr. Herbert Leonard Ludders (Chairman), all members of the union's an Order of Mandamits direct all uraer ing the National Dock Labour Board to appoint two dock workers' representatives to the Hull and Goole Dock Labour Board.

The application was made on the grounds that the NDLB had purported to make such appointments otherwise than it accordance With the duty imposed upon them under the National Dock Labour Scheme (Regulation of Employment) Order, 1947.

FINDING

In his judgment, Lord Parker found that the Hull dockers had succeeded in proving their submission that 'no proper consideration had been given to the union's nominations which had been rejected by the National Dock Labour Board for an extraneous reason, namely, the regular praotice of accepting nominations only from the local joint committees'.

Mr. Neil Lawson, QC, appearing for the applicants told the court that the union's complaint was that the NDLB only appointed people nominated by the Joint Port Working Committees, The union conceded that the National Board had power to reject any nominations, but the practice was to limit consideration of nominations to those put forward by these committees:

In the port transport industry the National Joint Council for the Port Transport Industry existed by agreement between the National Association of Port Employers and the Transport and General Workers' Union which also represented other unions.

Because the 'Blue' union had, since 1954, been excluded from the National Joint Council machinery, the joint committee at the port of Hull and Goole had only the TGWU as representatives of the employees. Mr. Lawson said because of this situation, approximately one-third of the port workers at Hull and Goole had been deprived of representation on the joint committee.

The 'Blue' union had also been precluded from putting forward nominations to the National Dock Labour Board, for appointment to the Board for Hull and Goole.

EXCLUSION

That, said Mr. Lawson, 'was a serious matter because it meant that members of the union representing a very substantial body of port workers were excluded from the local board which performed an important function in the way in which the work of the port was carried out. The situation also gave rise to possible discrimination between workers belonging to one union who had no represembniou du ine luva board• Mr. Lawson said that the appellants had put forward nominations to the NDLB in 1957 and 1960, and in October 1963 the names of Mr. Ludders, Mr. Teal and Mr. Tindall were submitted. None of the men were appointed.

Mr. Ludders told the court that many members of the union were former members of the TGWU. As dock workers they had an interest in the appointment to the local Boards and, in faot, their rates of pay and conditions of service were agreed upon by the joint committee. Except by the grace of the TGWU, they were excluded from this body and were, therefore, unable to ascertain their own wages or conditions.

Counsel contended that the NDLB had a statutory duty to perform under Clause 5c of the regulations. That was to consider nominations by a body representative of either workers or employers. The NDLB had failed to do this.

The 'Blue' union submitted proof that it had a membership in the port equal to one-third the labour force.

NO CHALLENGE In his judgment Lord Parker said: It had now been conceded by Counsel for the NDLB that he could not challenge the union's contention that the 1963 nominations of Mr. Ludders, Mr. Teal and Mr. Tindall, together with a letter substantiating the union's right to put forward nominations, was not considered by the National on Dock Labour union Dock

Labour Party and other sections of the labour movement in Smethwick were doing nothing to combat the growing racialist feeling—fostered by the Tories-among the white working class in the town.

Finally, our reporter Robert James interviewed Mr. Cyril Short, secretary of the Smethwick Trades Council to see what action the Council intends to take in the town.

He said that following the decision of the Labour Party not to hold its meetings or use the office at the colour-bar Labour Club, the Trades Council asked to meet the executive of the club.

No reply was received by the time the Council was due to hold its meeting there, 'so rather than embarrass our Electrical Trades Union delegate, Mi. South (a West Indian), we met at the Bear Hotel,' said Mr. Short.

The club committee had since said that in view of 'threats' in the national press (that the Trades Council and Electrical Trades Union branch would press Transport and General Workers' Union men to ban beer deliveries to the club), they refused to meet the Trades Council.

TUC report

Of the so-called threats, Mr. Short commented: 'Such action was never discussed at either the ETU or the Trades Council. I do not believe in threats anyway? He added that the Trades Council could not order any union to take action.

He claimed he knew aud understood the problems of the area. The Trades Union Congress had asked for reports from areas where there was a concentration af inmigrants over a year ago. He had made the report after interviewing the Mayor of Smethwick, shop stewards, foremen and leaders of local social organisations.

Last year a conference had also been held in Smethwick attended by 50 people from several organisations, and another was proposed for the future.

'As far as social problems are concerned, it is not our place to do things which, to a certain extent, other organisations in the town could be doing,' he said.

'If we start poking our noses into things, we could be out of order.' The Trades Council was concerned with industrial matters, "but where they end and social problems begin is a line of demarcation which can't be put down.

The view taken at the Trades Council meeting was that 'we feel the town is being drawn through the mire. We would like to get our dignity back' The proposal for a further conference had been made at the meeting by Harry Baker, secretary of the Midlands TUC regional council and secretary of the Birmingham Trades Council. Churches, employers, trades unions and social organisations in the town should get together 'to form a committee with the idea of solving the social problems which have been created by immigrants in Smethwick' 'Friction' Mr. Short said the immigrants were invaluable workers. Nearly all were in the unions and several, especially West Indians, took active roles in trade union activities.

Immigrants were doing jobs in a town of high employment which white workers would not do.

In the factories there was a certain amount of 'friction', but there was no actual resentment against coloured workers.

In the Birmid factory, where he works, there were separate toilet facilities. 'But this is not a colour bar, he claimed. In fact, the Asiatic toilets were constructed differently from the European toilet, but no immigrant was barred from using a European toilet.

Mr. Short also that while carrying out interviews for his report to the TUC, several workers had expressed fears that their working standards might be undermined by the employment of coloured workers, and had welcomed the Immigration Act adding their own clauses about entry and work permits, means of support, etc.

Others did not object to coloured people being in the town 'as long as they don't interfere with us.

In fact, there was no exploitation of coloured workers. When there was full employment in the town, labour could not be found for the lower paid jobs. Immigrants had filled these vacancies. Shop stewards, said Mr. Short, had been vigilant and there had been no lowering of standards.

There had been claims about excessive hours being worked by coloured workers. But the overtime question is not a coloured question. White workers are doing it as well. It has to be looked into by the trade union movement, he commented.

Smethwick was attempting to do something positive about the immigration problem, 'but the press have done a lot of damage,' said Mr. Short who had suggested that the Mayor of the town should be member of the committee set up to discuss the question. The Bishop of Birmingham and the Smethwick United Nations Association would also be contacted, he said.

Automation / in Smethwick factories was "something we have got to watch', Mr. Short said. 'If we are to get efficient methods going we wilt get a certain amount of redundancy. If ever we hit a slump, trouble will develop?

Asked about fascist intervention in the town Mr. Short said: 'You always get a lunatic fringe who rant and rave without stopping to think.' Like many trade unionists, Mr. Short and his Trades Council colleagues recognise the repercussions of the persistent drive by British bosses to automate their industries.

But they must also see that in trying to put capitalist Britain back on its financial feet, the Labour government cannot allow any concessions where the working class—or even old age pensioners-are concerned. This means that in the near future workers will be struggling against unemployment and for better wages and conditions against a brick wall.

In the same situation racialist feeling encouraged and nurtured by the Tories and the refusal of Labourites to fight it in places like Smethwick, will be manipulated to split any united fight against capitalism. munist Party achieved no more for the German workers than the inactivity and parliamentary intrigue of the social-democrats. Both policies led the organised workers to utter

YOUR article on the rise of fascism in Germany contained a serious error which I think should be corrected. It is not true to assert, as does Peter Arnold, that Prince Max and the Social-Democrats calmly cooked up the November Revolution (of 1918).

As early as 1916 there had been strike actions in the larger industrial centres of Germany, notably in Berlin in support of the anti-war agitation of Karl Liebknecht.

In November of 1918, with the example of the Russian Revolution only a year old, the social-democracy was forced to take the lead in the mass movement in order to head it off and betray it. This mass movement against the war had been gathering momentum for some time, though admittedly with little or no revolutionary leadership—the prevailing tendency among the shop stewards was syndicalist.

Peter Arnold gives only one side of the picture in the November period, the class collaboration of the social-democrats and its manoeuvres behind the scenes with the military. He omits the necessary analysis of the fierce class conflicts that demanded the tying up of the working class, through its various apparatus, to the policies of the ruling class, if the German bourgeoisie was to continue ruling.

The price the ruling class had to pay for this tactic was the proclamation of the republicScheideman reveals in his memoirs that he proclaimed the republic against the wishes of Ebert, only doing so in order to forestall the impact of a mass meeting being simultaneously held in Berlin by Liebknecht, at which he, too, proclaimed end of the Kaiser's rule.

From the very beginning of the November events, the ruling class entrusted the political tasks of the day to the social-democracy only because the pressure of the The Tories are preparing the ground now for completely splitting the white and coloured workers who, in the near future, will be fighting for their livelihoods against growing unemployment in the densely industrialised part of the town which, day by day, becomes more automated.

It has been proved in struggles for better wages and conditions like that at the Woolf Rubber company in Southall, Middlesex, that only by uniting white and coloured workers behind socialist demands can there be a victory.

The labour movement …in Smethwick has that tremendous responsibility now -to answer the racialists and the Wilson government, not by joining clergymen and bosses on 'dogooding' committees, but with united demands for nationalization of the Smethwick firms that supply the motor industry and nationalization of land and the building industry to overcome the housing problem. The November Revolution in masses could be absorbed in no other way. Only the most advanced sections of the working class saw through these expedients, and these were dealt with in brutal fashion by the Free Corps.

Lenin always followed the developments in Germany very closely, and as early as October 3, 1918, he was able to write:

'A political crisis has broken out in Germany. The government and all the exploiting classes in general stand exposed to the entire people in their panic-striken dismay. . . . This crisis means either the beginning of a revolution or, at any rate, that the masses now see for themselves that it is inevitable and near.' The deepening of the crisis in Germany caused Lenin to add to this on the 22nd of the same month the following:

'And we see that a revolution has begun not only in Austria but in Germany-countries where the position seemed stable only a short time ago. . . . We know that military revolutionary committees are being formed in East Germany, that they are issuing revolutionary publications which are revolutionising the soldiers. It can be said quite definitely that the revolution is coming to a head at terrific speed....

It was surely this upsurge of the German working class, which rapidly broke through the old political barriers built up in the war-time period of class collaboration and patriotism, that produced its opposite, the opportunist use of pseudo-Marxism by the German ruling class.

It is against this background of a deepening crisis in the system that the tactics of the Kautsky's and Ebert's must be seen. This contradiction is not brought out sharply enough in the article. To characterise the The second of two articles by Peter Arnold Robert James on racialism in Germany and Britain.

Arnold deals with the betrayals by German social - democrats and Stalinists which led to the growth of anti-semitism and racialism during the 1930s. James reports another interview direct from Smethwick where growing racialist feeling threatens the labour movement.

LETTER Germany November revolution as a fraud is really to miss the point of the role of centrism in the labour movement. The betrayal of the social-democratic leaders at that time cannot be presented as simply a plot concocted behind the backs of the workers without there being any mass struggles to produce this development.

If we look at the role of the Kerensky government in the period up to the Russian Revolution, we can detect similar complicity between the, supposed leaders of the working class and the military. Yet Kerensky took over many of the outward features of Bolshevism, i.e., central committees, executive committees and the political vocabulary of socialism. In this way, Kerensky and his regime reflected the period of dual power that matured in this period up to the Bolshevik seizure of power in the November of that year (Western calender).

So also in Germany. This is surely the point about 'Peoples' Commissar' Ebert. From November to the January of 1919 Germany was in a state of flux, with no class being able to exercise complete authority. In this period of dual power, the right and centrist sections of social democracy, by cloaking themselves in the prestige of the November Revolution, were able to head off the drive of masses towards state power.

The German ruling class needed a ruling party dressed in revolutionary garb, as did the Russian bourgeoisie, precisely because of the closeness of the social overturn. In Russia, through the intervention of a trained communist leadership, Germany, polling over nine million votes in the 1928 elections.

At the same time, the German Communist Party grew steadily. In the last elections before Hitler took power, 100 Communist MPs were returned to the Reichstag.

The growth of these two organisations showed that the German workers wanted to fight. back and that, given decisive leadership, the German working class could have overthrown capitalism in Germany.

Yet it was the betrayals of the working class by the leadership of the nizanisations that they joined that led them not to victory, but to demoralisation and frustration. In turn, this led to racialism and defeat.

Instead of leading the working class, the social-democratic leaders co-operated with the employers in their policy of rationalising German industry, pursuing a policy of 'what is seasoned in ten or more years' struggle against opportunism, this last stage but one opened up the road to the taking of power.

In Germany, where such a leadership was lacking, it led to the isolation of the most advanced workers, five years of unco-ordinated and sporadic upheavals (firmly condemned by Lenin and Trotsky) and the division of the working class into Bolshevik and reformist camps.

That the German working class was feeling its way towards power, and that it hoped to emulate the Russian workers, is established by its experiments with the Soviet form. That these Soviets or workers' councils never became the organs of workers' rule that they had in Russia was not due to the passivity of the masses in the November of 1918. It was, as I have already indicated, the product of a lack of communist leadership.

Indeed, Kautsky, sensitive to the aspirations of the workers, attempted to incorporate the Soviets into a bourgeois constitution, thereby attempting to legalise a state of dual power. Centrism can go no further!

In the last quoted article of Lenin's, he refers to the workers' sympathy for the Russian Revolution-and this before November and the abdication of the Kaiser:

'Last Wednesday a demonstration of workers took place in Berlin, at which the workers voiced their indignation against the Kaiser and tried to march past his palace. But then they set off for the Russian embassy to express their solidarity with the actions of the Russian government. That is the situation in the fifth year of the war! And that is why we say that we have never been so near the world revolution.' Finally, in his were more workers in the Social - Democratic Party over the age of 65 than under 25.

Many of the young militant workers turned to the Communist Party. Yet here, too, their aspirations were to be led to frustration.

The Communist Party, with its line that the social-democrats were indistinguishable from the fiascists, merely led the more militant workers into action against the more conservative ones who still supported the social-democrats. At times, they even co-operated with the Nazis in their attacks on the social-democrats (as in the Red Referendum' in Prussia, and the Berlin transport strike).

This line of what the Communist Party called 'class against class, which was supported by the Communist parties throughout the world, and which was, in fact, nothing but worker against worker, could and did not lead to any decisive victories for the workers.

The policies of the Comworkers of Europe and America' Lenin completes the picture:

'The revolution in Germanywhich, being one of the most advanced capitalist countries, is particularly important and characteristic-at once assumed Soviet forms' We would be just as mistaken today to attribute the eagerness of the trade union leaders to tie their organisations to the state machine to the passivity of the working class. On the contrary, the frantic attempts of Gunter, Brown and company, given fresh urgency by the sterling crisis, to lay the basis for a wage freeze, indicates in a concrete way their fear of clashes with large sections of workers that will hit back at attempts to reduce their living standards.

Opportunism is not self-sufficient, the "Tribunites', Pabloites and other present-day Kautsky's do not operate in a vacuum. Their actions and theories reflect the needs of imperialism, which by corrupting a layer of the working class and its leaders, ties the class to policies of class collaboration.

In performing this service, the opportunists not only provide a cover for the right wing, but exhaust and confuse the working class in futile and ill-prepared battles without any perspective of power (as the Stalinists and Pabloites have done in the apprentices' strike) and prepare the soil of frustration for the sowing of non-class, racialist ideas by the fascist groups.

It is this failure to bring out the historical role of opportunism that weakens the article, as it presents a series of events without revealing the class forces that produced them. I hope you are able to find room to publish this letter and so help in the clarification of this vital question of opportunism, one that is bound up with the rebuilding of the Fourth International.

THE NEWSLETTE December mber

reported that the emd eit Mond? comn iad cit Sallur Sodicr nad Saltur-Erboller! Sejen Cir babe bie „Ditara", Biderei | ber Blonden und Pannrétedtfer!

9:29: sianr und duacte peltis mI 9 mic-H Cind Bie blond? Dann brobent Sbuen (Sefobren! Frica Gir Pahe Die, Ciant" Sildern be Eleteen ond slanitrarcatier Dir Blenbar alt Prist edipia Heber ben Simgang mir Cidenbalen.

Schr nevet «aleoc" 1 Seil.

Reo 3 Cna a Greafila Salelt Rslup nela Sebeade s Sir bane sel Ha tiSmkam ae Vid De Ridarale a ne Se. uniatidalt euta culpa , air le 5030 nn ht cptens her albenbaten (ois nebe tein, Baariden Sef 5445 hie 2ibaibslen fnten sur see silee Caie 9Sinet sor hoaeand Srinis na Pain Sajears um ted Raded ter simaliftenr sle Se Chat Hale ll Sicua salt ana Ficistanali in 2raniEation. Teneaen ant Baules, Mie Ituet sau lié agn TampMl-br 4 CBans lat maons mi JertagepeGiTE.

adese Bes alpes • Der böbctin Rafit.

German capitalism "HE re-equipment of in the early thirties, make it the most dynamic and powerful in the world, inflicted enormous misery on the German working class.

The German working class had a long history of organised struggle against the capitalist class, and the Social-Democratic Party, which was the first political expression of this, grew throughout the period, as the German workers attempted to fight back. It remained the largest party in good for German capitalism good for the workers'.

During the last years of the Republic, the social-democratic leaders, panic-stricken by the rapid rise of Nazism, were prepared to enter into alliances with any bourgeois party, accepting any conditions, in an attempt to defeat the Nazis by parliamentary manoeuvres and intrigue.

ineffectual action Unable to break from capitalism, the social-democratic leaders were unable to take on fascism, which was a development of capitalism. Their manoeuvres with the bourgeois parties, who in the last analysis all preferred Hitler to workers' power, merely led the social-democratic workers into one ineffectual action after another.

As a result of this, the support for the social - democratic leaders, although it support was based on class loyalty, in many cases going back to the actions of the Party before the First World War. By 1930, there frustration.

With their whole-hearted support for 'rationalised' capitalism, the social-democrats, obviously had nothing to offer the unemployed workers.

But the wild sectarianism of the Communist Party had nothing to offer them either and, in fact, the Communist Party was never able to gain any significant foothold amongst the unemployed — if, indeed, they saw the need to.

At that time in Germany, a very substantial section of the working class was unemployed. The official estimate for 1932 is over six million, and some estimates put it as high as nine million.

Such a large army of unemployed always gives rise to a danger of division in the working class between the employed and the unemployed. These latter can relatively easily become demoralised and open to all kinds of reactionary tendencies, especially if the unemployment is long-lasting and there is little prospect of it ending.

Demoralisation

The large-scale kartelisation and monopolisation of German industry that was carried out in the 1920s ruined large sections of the German middle class Like the unemployed workers, here was a section of the population that was open to demoralisation, unless firm leadership by the working-class parties could lead them to understand that their interests lay with the victory of the working class.

If the dispossessed middle class were. not won over to the side of the working class, where else could they turn to but the fanatical service of the monopolies, against the workers who had let them down?

In this case, too, neither working-class party had anything to offer. The social-democrats were the ardent propagandists of the very 'rationalisation' that had ruined the middle class. The Communist Party's sectarianism declared everyone who did not support them on all points to be the servants of the imperialists.

These policies left the door wide open for the racialist policies of the Nazis.

To the frustrated, organised workers, who had been betrayed and led into pointless action after pointless action against other workers, to the demoralised and despairing unemployed, and to the newly-impoverished petty-bourgeois they offered a clear enemy, responsible for all their misery-the Jew.

They also offered a clear solution to the problem-the extermination of the Jews.

It was the policies of the social-democrats and of the Communist Panty that opened the road for this racialist propaganda.

No solution The social-democrats followed their traditional policy of betrayal. The Communists, instead of taking up this betrayal, refused to reveal it for what it was and take up the real problems of the German workers and leading them into actions that would offer a real solution, that is actions that were directed against the ruling class of Germany.

Instead of uniting the working class and the petty-bourgeoisie, and entering into united fronts

out to ers hat rds the red red ing out lits, etc. to the on't loitaWhen nt in ot be jobs. these , said repercussions of the persistent drive by British bosses to automate their industries.

But they must also see that in trying to put capitalist Britain back on its financial feet, the Labour government cannot allow any concessions where the working class—or even old age pensioners—are concerned. This means that in the near future workers will be struggling against unemployment and for better wages and conditions against a brick wall.

In the same situation racialist feeling encouraged and nurtured by the Tories and the refusal of Labourites to fight it in places like Smethwick, will be manipülated to split any united fight against capitalism.

Eind Eit Hont? Eom fad Eit Hollar Edin md Salar-Erfolter! Beien Gir baber bie „Ditora", Sidere ber Slonben und Dannrötrditfet!

1070:

Stant and dußere Delitif Cind Gie blond? Dann Drobert Sbnen (ejabren! Beira Cir pahre Die Frant alidera her 2Mlintern nne Dir Blenden alf Suit ebepter Heber ben Elmgang mit Sitenbolen, die neuct „Sniege" L Bell.

anleit ala cipe, sir fit hat in he salens hie Eibontalen, patern zur seser sitee tater 0im ted Reded ta Simeildenr aller De Citime Derenen anb Derufe Bie [buer san die gegen ballpr Her boboren Rañt.

Documents claiming race, not class as the 'basis of civilisation' munist Party achieved no more for the German workers than the inactivity and parliamentary intrigue of the social-democrats. Both policies led the organised workers to utter

ting tive tion ave said of ttee uesBireth5SOonhwick } we Short ficient get a lancy. ouble interShort unatic withonists, Crades se the rise of ly conwhich I ted. It is does se Max mocrats ivember ere had e larger ermany, ›port of of Karl with the Revolu: socialtake the nent in I betray against athering , though no rehe prehe shop nly one Novemboration and its scenes mits the e fierce ided the g class, 'atus, to ig class, sie was lass had was the publicin his ned the shes of order to a mass ineously echt, at led the ning of e ruling al tasks nocracy : of the The Tories are preparing the ground now for completely splitting the white and coloured workers who, in the near future, will be fighting for their livelihoods against growing unemployment in the densely industrialised part of the town which, day by day, bécomes more automated.

It has been proved in struggles for better wages and conditions like that at the Woolf Rubber company in Southall, Middlesex, that only by uniting white and coloured workers behind socialist demands can there be a victory.

The labour movement in Smethwick has that tremendous responsibility now —to answer the racialists and the Wilson government, not by joining clergymen and bosses on 'dogooding' committees, but with united demands for nationalization of the Smethwick firms that supply the motor industry and nationalization of land and the building industry to overcome the housing problem. masses could be absorbed in no other way. Only the most advanced sections of the working class saw through these expedients, and these were dealt with in brutal fashion by the Free Corps.

Lenin always followed the developments in Germany very closely, and as early as October 3, 1918, he was able to write:

"A political crisis has broken out in Germany. The government and all the exploiting classes in general stand exposed to the entire people in their panic-striken dismay. . . • This crisis means either the beginning of a revolution or, at any rate, that the masses now see for themselves that it is inevitable and near.' The deepening of the crisis in Germany caused Lenin to add to this on the 22nd of the same month the following:

'And we see that a revolution has begun not only in Austria but in Germany-countries where the position seemed stable only a short time ago. . . . We know that military revolutionary committees are being formed in East Germany, that they are issuing revolutionary publications which are revolutionising the soldiers.

It can be said quite definitely that the revolution is coming to a head at terrific speed...

It was surely this upsurge of the German working class, which rapidly broke through the old political barriers built up in the war-time period of class collaboration and patriotism, that produced its opposite, the opportunist use of pseudo-Marxism by the German ruling class.

It is against this background of a deepening crisis in the system that the tactics of the Kautsky's and Ebert's must be seen. This contradiction is not brought out sharply enough in the article. To characterise the second of articles by Peter Arnold and Robert James racialism in Germany and Britain.

Arnold deals with the betrayals by German social - democrats and Stalinists which led to the growth of anti-semitism and racialism during the 1930s. James reports another interview direct from Smethwick where growing racialist feeling threatens the labour movement. Germany, polling over nine million votes in the 1928 elections.

At the same time, the German Communist Party grew steadily. In the last elections before Hitler took power, 100 Communist MPs were returned to the Reichstag.

The growth of these two organisations showed that the German workers wanted to fight back and that, given decisive leadership, the German working class could have overthrown capitalism in Germany.

Yet it was the betrayals of the working class by the leadership of the organisations that they joined that led them not to victory, but to demoralisation and frustration. In turn, this led to racialism and defeat.

Instead of leading the working class, the social-democratic leaders co-operated with the employers in their policy of 'rationalising' German industry, pursuing a policy of 'what is seasoned in ten or more years' struggle against opportunism, this last stage but one opened up the road to the taking of power.

November revolution as a fraud is really to miss the point of the role of centrism in the labour movement. The betrayal of the social-democratic leaders at that time cannot be presented as simply a plot concocted behind the backs of the workers without there being any mass struggles to produce this development.

If we look at the role of the Kerensky government in the period up to the Russian Revolution, we can detect similar complicity between the, supposed leaders of the working class and the military. Yet Kerensky took over many of the outward features of Bolshevism, i.e., central committees, executive committees and the political vocabulary of socialism. In this way, Kerensky and his regime reflected the period of dual power that matured in this period up to the Bolshevik seizure of power in the November of that year (Western calender).

So also in Germany. This is surely the point about 'Peoples' Commissar' Ebert. From November to the January of 1919 Germany was in a state of flux, with no class being able to exercise complete authority. In this period of dual power, the right and centrist sections of social democracy, by cloaking themselves in the prestige of the November Revolution, were able to head off the drive of masses towards state power.

The German ruling class needed a ruling party dressed in revolutionary garb, as did the Russian bourgeoisie, precisely because of the closeness of the social overturn. In Russia, through the intervention of trained communist leadership, Germany, where such a leadership was lacking, it led to the isolation the most advanced workers, five years of unco-ordinated and sporadic upheavals (firmly condemned by Lenin and Trotsky) and the division of the working class into Bolshevik and reformist camps.

That the German working class was feeling its way towards power, and that it hoped to emulate the Russian workers, is established by its experiments with the Soviet form. That these Soviets or workers' councils never became the organs of workers' rule that they had in Russia was not due to the passivity of the masses in the November of 1918. It was, as I have already indicated, the product of a lack of communist leadership.

Indeed, Kautsky, sensitive to the aspirations of the workers, attempted to incorporate the Soviets into a bourgeois constitution, thereby attempting to legalise a state of dual power. Centrism can go no further!

In the last quoted article of Lenin's, he refers to the workers' sympathy for the Russian Revolution-and this before November and the abdication of the Kaiser:

'Last Wednesday a demonstration of workers took place in Berlin, at which the workers voiced their indignation against the Kaiser and tried to march past his palace. But then they set off for the Russian embassy to express their solidarity with the actions of the Russian government. That is the situation in the fifth year of the war! And that is why we say that we have never been so near the world revolution.' Finally, in his workers of Europe and America' Lenin completes the picture:

'The revolution in Germanywhich, being one of the most advanced capitalist countries, is particularly important and characteristic-at once assumed Soviet forms' We would be just as mistaken today to attribute the eagerness of the trade union leaders to tie their organisations to the state machine to the passivity of the working class. On the contrary, the frantic attempts of Gunter, Brown and company, given fresh urgency by the sterling crisis, to lay the basis for a wage freeze, indicates in a concrete way their fear of clashes with large sections of workers that will hit back at attempts to reduce their living standards.

Opportunism is not self-sufficient, the "Tribunites', Pabloites and other present-day Kautsky's do not operate in a vacuum. Their actions and theories reflect the needs of imperialism, which by corrupting a layer of the working class and its leaders, ties the class to policies of class collaboration.

In performing this service, the opportunists not only provide a cover for the right wing, but exhaust and confuse the working class in futile and ill-prepared battles without any perspective of power (as the Stalinists and Pabloites have done in the apprentices' strike) and prepare the soil of frustration for the sowing of non-class, racialist ideas by the fascist groups.

It is this failure to bring out the historical role of opportunism that weakens the article, as it presents a series of events without revealing the class forces that produced them. I hope you are able to find room to publish this letter and so help in the clarification of this vital question of opportunism, one that is bound up with the rebuilding of the Fourth International.

Robin Black, London.

from a visit to Ceylon. In this. the first of two the collapse of the Coalition December government.

HE re-equipment of German capitalism in the early thirties, to make it the most dynamic and powerful in the world, inflicted enormous misery on the German working class.

The German working class had a long history of organised struggle against the capitalist class, and the Social-Democratic Party, which was the first political expression of this, grew throughout the period, as the German workers attempted to fight back. It remained the largest party in good for German capitalism good for the workers.

During the last years of the Republic, the social-democratic leaders, panic-stricken by the rapid rise of Nazism, were prepared to enter into alliances with any bourgeois party, accepting any conditions, in an attempt to defeat the Nazis by parliamentary manoeuvres and intrigue.

ineffectual action Unable to break from capitalism, the social-democratic leaders were unable to take on fascism, which was a development of capitalism. Their manoeuvres with the bourgeois parties, who in the last analysis all preferred Hitler to workers' power, merely led the social-democratic workers into • one ineffectual action after another.

As a result of this, the support for the social - democratic leaders, although it remained numerically large, was made up of older workers. Their support was based on class loyalty, in many cases going back to the actions of the Party before the First World War. By 1930, there were more workers in the Social - Democratic Party over the age of 65 than under 25.

Many of the young militant workers turned to the Communist Party. Yet here, too, their aspirations were to be led to frustration.

The Communist Party, with its line that the social-democrats were indistinguishable from the fascists, merely led the more militant workers into action against the more conservative ones who still supported the social-democrats. At times, they even co-operated with the Nazis in their attacks on the sooial-democrats (as in the 'Red Referendum' in Prussia, and the Berlin transport strike).

This line of what the Communist Party called 'class against class', which was supported by the Communist parties throughout the world, and which was, in fact, nothing but worker against worker, could and did not lead to any decisive victories for the workers.

The policies of the frustration.

With their whole-hearted support for rationalised' capitalism, the social-democrats, obviously had nothing to offer the unemployed workers.

But the wild sectarianism of the Communist Party had nothing to offer them either and, in fact, the Communist Party was never able to gain any significant foothold amongst the unemployed — if, indeed, they saw the need to.

At that time in Germany, a very substantial section of the working class was unemployed. The official estimate for 1932 is over six million, and some estimates put it as high as nine million.

Such a large army of unemployed ålways gives rise to a danger of division in the working class between the employed and the unemployed. These latter can relatively easily become demoralised and open to all kinds of reactionary tendencies, especially if the unemployment is long-lasting and there is little prospect of it ending.

Demoralisation

The large-scale kartelisation and monopolisation of German industry that was carried out in the 1920s ruined large sections of the German middle class Tile the snamalared maarano Like ine unemployed workers, here was a section of the population that was open to demoralisation, unless firm leadership by the working-class parties could lead them to understand that their interests lay with the victory of the working class.

If the dispossessed middle class were not won over to the side of the working class, where else could they turn to but the fanatical service of the minnanalise againct the workers monopones, agaust uic Lence cara who had let them down?

A social-democratic leader named In this case, too, neither working-class party had anything to offer. The social-democrats were the ardent propagandists of the very 'rationalisation' that had ruined the middle class. The Communist Party's sectarianism declared everyone who did not support them on all points to be the servants of the imperialists.

These policies left the door wide open for the racialist policies of the Nazis.

To the frustrated, organised workers, who had been betrayed and led into pointless action after pointless action against other workers, to the demoralised and despairing unemployed, and to the newly-impoverished petty-bourgeois they offered a clear enemy, responsible for all their misery-the Jew.

They also offered a clear solution to the problem-the extermination of the Jews.

It was the policies of the social-democrats and of the Communist Party that opened the road for this racialist propaganda.

No solution The social-democrats followed their traditional policy of betrayal. The Communists, instead of taking up this betrayal, refused to reveal it for what it was and take up the real problems of the German workers and leading them into actions that would offer a real solution, that is actions that were directed against the ruling class of Germany.

Instead of uniting the working with the social-democrats to expose the Nazis, they merely contributed to the demoralisation of the class by further dividing it.

Indeed, the policy stating that the social-democrats were responsible for the evils of the world even gave credence to the Nazi slogans that it was not capitalism but the Jews that caused the workers' misery.

It was from the frustrated workers, the demoralised unemployed and the dispossessed petty-bourgeois that the Nazis drew their support.

This was backed by the finance of heavy industry, which was to use the Nazis to break the working class to its own advantage.

The main 'scientific' basis for the anti-semitic doctrines of the Nazis came from the theories of Gobineau, a nineteenth century French aristocrat, and H. S. Chamberlain, the son of a British admiral.

These 'theorists' proclaimed that race, and not class, was the "basis of civilisation'. From their 'racial' studies they concluded that only the "Teutons' were worthy of inheriting man's culture.

All other races were inferior.

The use of such unscientific concepts as 'race' and 'Aryan' and so on, led these 'theorists' into many contradictions. Thus in order to fit Christianity in with his theory, Chamberlain proclaimed that Christ was certainly not a Jew-just as later, the Nazis leaders were to say, 'I decide who is a Jew' Jews blamed The Jew was put forward as being responsible for all the misery and suffering of capitalism. According to the Nazis, the Jews had caused the First World War and had also been responsible for the 'humiliating peace' of 1918.

The Jews had been responsible for the inflation and all the suffering that went with it. the impoverishment of the workers Kuhnt is carted off to jail by the Nazis and the ruination of the middle class.

Likewise, the Jews were held responsible for the unemployment that followed the crash on the New York Stock Exchange in 1929.

In a pamphlet, Goebbels sitated that 'the liberation of the German nation can only be carried out against the Jew, and a Nazi song had the lines, 'When Jewish blood spurts from under the knife, things will be twice as good as before.' Thus, in its propaganda aimed at the workers and the petty-bourgeoisie, the Nazi party used a combination of racialist and radical 'anti-capitalist' slogans. But it was only 'Jewish capitalism' that caused misery.

The racialism of the Nazis was not really a racial' question at all, but a class question. It enabled the German capitalists to blame Jewish workers and petty-bourgeois for the evils of capitalism, whilst at the same time, some Jewish businessmen and religious leaders supported Hitler.

Grateful Jews In Manch 1933, Oskar Wassermann, director of one of the largest German banks, the Deutsche Bank und Diskontogesellschaft, had a statement published in the "Berliner Tagblatt' that he had in no way been inconvenienced by the new regime.

In the 'Jewish Press' (of Wien, Bratislava, March 31, 1933)

Rabbi Weinberg writes, "The religious Jews know how particularly grateful they must be to Hitler for his energetic and thorough-going fight ainst Communism.' After their accession to power, the Nazis used antisemitism to cover up their systematic breaking up of organised labour as well as their continuation of the earlier process of dispossessing the petty-bourgeoisie.

In April 1933, a national boycott of Jewish shops was proclaimed. The Jews were held responsible for high prices and the 'Jewish' chain stores, like Woolworths, were held responsible for the ruination of the small shop keepers.

Yet by October 1937, Hitler himself decreed the dissolving of all businesses with capital smaller than 40,000 dollars and that no new ones should be founded with capital less than 200,000 dollars. In July 1938, cartels were made compulsóry and the Minister of Labour empowered forcibly to create new cartels where they did not exist, and to force firms to join those that already existed.

Unionists' offer

In the attacks on the working class, they were helped by the continued lack of policy of the workers' leaders.

Indeed, the social-democratic trade union leaders, Leipart and Grassmann, approached Ley, the Nazi minister of Labour, in 1933, to ofter their co-operation.

This offer merely confirmed to the Nazis that they were not going to lead the workers against them, and so the active help of the trade unionists became unnecessary.

Ley's reply made this clear: 'the Leiparts and Grassmanns devotion to the Fuehrer, as much as thev like-but it is oeuer that they should be in prison. And that is where he sent them.

In April 1933, Jews were excluded from many kinds of employment, officially because they had been responsible for the unemployment and other evils that had been the lot of the working class. By 1935, with 'the passing of the 'Nuremberg Laws', about one half of the Jews in Germany could find no job.

On May 1, 1933, the trade union leadership co-operated with Hitler to stage the most spectacular May Day procession the country had ever seen.

The next day, the Nazis seized the trade union headquarters and dissolved the unions. This opened up the way for the creation of the Labour Fronts in 1934, which included employers as well as workers.

In the words of Ley, the Labour Front was to 'see that every single individual shall be maximum of work Perform the Nazi propaganda had proclaimed that the Jews were responsible for low wages, yet under the Nazis wages fell drastically.

Although unemployment dropped from over six million in 1932 to one million in 1936, as the arms programme was pushed forward, the share of wages in the national income dropped from 56.9 per cent to 53.8 per cent and profits rose from 17.4 per cent to 26.6 per cent.

Feudal laws

In the same period, laws were passed tying the workers to the factories where they worked, giving the state exclusive control of employment leading up to labour conscription in 1938.

In the period 1933 to 1938, the German working class lost everything. Wages were forced down, labour was conscripted into the factories, where it was maintained by laws that resembled the feudal laws tying the peasants to the land. In the period that was to follow. German workers were to die by the million, in the attempt by German capitalism to oust its rivals.

The workers gained nothing from the extermination of the Jews, who were held responsible for all the evils that capitalism inflicts upon the working class.

Six million Jews were sent to the gas chambers, in the 'final solution' to all the problems of the German workers. Afterwards-exploitation remains as before, and will do so until the real enemy of the German workers is overthrown: capitalism. cor Sri Pa Sa Sir col wh led the to lon 14-1 secl tior of plar reli;

pler reSI the virt mer clas cha full con and Buc to 1 may par gra gov mir WOl

uhnt is carted off to jail by the Nazis and the ruination of the middle class.

Likewise, the Jews were held responsible for the unemployment that followed the crash on the New York Stock Exchange in 1929.

In a pamphlet, Goebbels stated that 'the liberation of the German nation can only be carried out against the Jew', and a Nazi song had the lines, 'When Jewish blood spurts from under the knife, things will be twice as good as before:' Thus, in its propaganda aimed at the workers and the petty-bourgeoisie, the Nazi party used a combination of racialist and radical 'anti-capitalist' slogans. But it was only 'Jewish capitalism' that caused misery.

The racialism of the Nazis was not really a racial' question at all, but a class question. It enabled the German capitalists to blame Jewish workers and petty-bourgeois for the evils of capitalism, whilst at the same time, some Jewish businessmen and religious leaders supported Hitler.

Grateful Jews In March 1933, Oskar Wassermann, director of one of the largest German banks, the Deutsche Bank und Diskontogesellschaft, had a statement published in the 'Berliner Tagblatt' that he had in no way been inconvenienced by the new regime.

In the "Jewish Press' (of Wien, Bratislava, March 31, 1933) Rabbi Weinberg writes, "The religious Jews know how particularly grateful they must be to Hitler for his energetic and union leadership co-operated with Hitler to stage the most spectacular May Day procession the country had ever seen.

The next day, the Nazis seized the trade union headquarters and dissolved the unions. This opened up the way for the creation of the Labour Fronts in 1934, which included employers as well as workers.

In the words of Ley, the Labour Front was to 'see that every single individual shall be maximum of work Perform the Nazi propaganda had proclaimed that the Jews were responsible for low wages, yet under the Nazis wages fell drastically.

Although unemployment dropped from over six million in 1932 to one million in 1936, as the arms programme was pushed forward, the share of wages in the national income dropped from 56.9 per cent to 53.8 per cent and profits rose from 17.4 per cent to 26.6 per cent.

Feudal laws

In the same period, laws were passed tying the workers to the factories where they worked, giving the state exclusive control of employment leading up to labour conscription in 1938.

In the period 1933 to 1938, the German working class lost everything. Wages were forced down, labour was conscripted into the factories, where it was maintained by laws that resembled the feudal laws tying the peasants to the land. In the period that was to follow. German workers were to die by the million, in the attempt by German capitalism to oust its rivals.

The workers gained nothing from the extermination of the Jews, who were held responsible for all the evils that capitalism inflicts upon the working class.

Six million Jews were sent to the gas chambers, in the "final solution' to all the problems of the German workers. Afterwards-exploitation remains as before, and will do so until the real enemy of the German workers is overthrown: capitalism.

Gerry Healy, national secre tary of the Socialist Labour League, who reported the LSSP conference and the subsequent split in the ranks of the party, showed then how the coalition issued from the revisionist politics of the Unified Secretariat in Paris and why the coalition, being a gross betrayal of the working class, could not succeed in implementing even its own 14-point programme on which it coalesced with the SLFP.

The truth of this prognosis could not be made clearer today.

Not a single proposal of the 14-point programme has been secured-that is with the exception of point three which spoke of giving 'Buddhism its proper place in the country as the religion of the majority. Implementation of this point has resulted in a theocratic state!

The coalition contained all the vices and lacked any of the virtues of a bourgeois government. Most of all it lacked class homogeneity.

Dootors C. R. de Silva and N. M. Perera, despite their belated conversion to Buddhism and their adulation of Sinhalese chauvinism, could not successfully endear themselves to the communally minded Sinhalese and least of all the reactionary Buddhist priests.

At the same time, by refusing to grant any of the 21 demands made by the trade unions and particularly in postponing the granting of political rights government servants, the LSSP ministers succeeded in alienating a large mass of organised workers.

Not content with all this, the LSSP wing of the coalition undermined its position irrevocably when it accepted, without reservation or criticism, the Shastri-Bandaranaike pact which proposes to send back 525,000 Indians, now living in Ceylon, and proposes to place all Indians on a separate electoral roll; a measure whose precedent can only be found in South Africa.

The Lanka Estate Workers' Union (a union dominated by LSSP reformists)

even went so far as to state that as a result of the Indodropped its proposal to introduce a toddy tax as an antidote to the illicit brewing of 'Kassippu" (moonshine). This was one of the few genuinely popular measures in Dr. Perera's July budget.

The most despicable action of the LSSP traitors, however, was their attitude to the Velona strike.

The history of this five-month old strike, which evokes the finest traditions of the Ceylonese working class, can be recounted only briefly.

In July 1964, a dispute began in the Velona textile factory over the question of the recognition of the Lanka Weaving Mills Workers' Union. (This union is led by members of the Revolutionary LSSP.)

Many of the 1,000 workers were subjected to organised attacks by thugs and harrassment and repeated baton charges by the police.

Many of the pickets I spoke to did not hesitate to show me their scars produced by police

Industrial Four

with the social-democrats to expose the Nazis, they merely contributed to the demoralisation of the class by further dividing it.

Indeed, the policy stating that the social-democrats were responsible for the evils of the world even gave credence to the Nazi slogans that it was not capitalism but the Jews that caused the workers' misery.

It was from the frustrated workers, the demoralised unemployed and the dispossessed petty-bourgeois that the Nazis drew their support.

This was backed by the finance of heavy industry, which was to use the Nazis to break the working class to its own advantage.

The main 'scientific' basis for the anti-semitic doctrines of the Nazis came from the theories of Gobineau, a nineteenth century French aristocrat, and H. S. Chamberlain, the son of a British admiral. - These 'theorists' proclaimed that race, and not class, was the 'basis of civilisation'. From their 'racial' studies they concluded that only the "Teutons' were worthy of inheriting man's culture.

All other races were inferior.

The use of such unscientific concepts as 'race' and 'Aryan' and so on, led these 'theorists' into many contradictions. Thus in order to fit Christianity in with his theory, Chamberlain proclaimed that Christ was certainly not a Jew-just as later, the Nazis leaders were to say, 'I decide who is a Jew'.

Jews blamed

The Jew was put forward as being responsible for all the misery and suffering of capitalism. According to the Nazis, the Jews had caused the First World War and had also been responsible for the 'humiliating peace' of 1918.

The Jews had been responsible for the inflation and all the suffering that went with it, the impoverishment of the workers thorough-going fight Communism.' After their accession to power, the Nazis used antisemitism to cover up their systematic breaking up of organised labour as well as their continuation of the earlier process of dispossessing the petty-bourgeoisie.

In April 1933, a national boycott of Jewish shops was proclaimed. The Jews were held responsible for high prices and the 'Jewish' chain stores, like Woolworths, were held responsible for the ruination of the small shop keepers.

Yet by October 1937, Hitler himself decreed the dissolving of all businesses with capital smaller than 40,000 dollars and that no new ones should be founded with capital less than 200,000 dollars. In July 1938, cartels were made compulsöry and the Minister of Labour empowered forcibly to create new cartels where they did not exist, and to force firms to join those that already existed.

Unionists' offer

In the attacks on the working class, they were helped by the continued lack of policy of the workers' leaders.

Indeed, the social-democratic trade union leaders, Leipart and Grassmann, approached Ley, the Nazi minister of Labour, in 1933, to offer their co-operation.

This offer merely confirmed to the Nazis that they were not going to lead the workers against them, and so the active help of the trade unionists became unnecessary.

Ley's reply made this clear: the Leiparts and Grassmanns may hypocritically declare their devotion to the Fuehrer, much as they like-but it is better that they should be in prison. And that is where he sent them.

In April 1933, Jews were excluded from many kinds of employment, officially because they had been responsible for the unemployment and other evils that had been the lot of the working class. By with the the 'Nuremberg Laws, about one half of the Jews in Germany could find no job.

On May 1, 1933, the trade The NIC Gloria Transit!

Only 24 weeks afte coming to power, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party - Lanka Sama Samaja Party coalition government of Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike collapsed ignominiously when a group of MPs, led by Minister of Lands, C. P. de Silva crossed the floor in Parliament to vote against the proposal, contained in the Throne Speech, to take over a section of the capitalist press of CeyIon.

The government was defeated by one vote-74 to 73 -and the Premier has dissolved Parliament until another general election is held.

By a curious and ironical coincidence, the English paper of the reformist LSSP proclaimed only two weeks before in a banner headline: 'Coalition Government Sets Up a Record' (!) and went on to declare that, despite the attacks of reaction, the coalition had existed for 22 weeks and that this was not only a record but a 'Victory of the People! Some victory, some record and some people!

What did the coalition achieve?

At the time it was formed, the leaders of the LSSP informed the country and the world generally that the coalition would mean the doom of capitalism and imperialism in Ceylon.

Mr. C. P. de Silva, however, demurred and pointed out at the time that in fact the LSSP leaders had capitulated totally and unconditionally to the SLFP. In the ultimate analysis it was C. P. de Silva and not Dr. N. M. Perera who was proved right (that is, if any proof was needed).

Ceylon agreement, 'the unemployment problem on estates will be reduced and as a result estate employers will be free to provide better facilities to the workers' and then went on to hope that those who obtained Indian citizenship would be provided with employment in India 'on better terms and conditions. (sic)

Nothing could. be calculated to insult the honour and dignity of the Indian worker more than this disgraceful statement. Even Mr. Thondamann, leader of the Ceylon Workers' Congress threw aside his customary caution and told the government and the LSSP supponters: 'I will see to it that not a single Indian will leave the shores of Ceylon as a repatriate or refugee: it is an affront to human dignity.' Then again, the government, scared by clerical opposition, Hundreds of pickets, most of them young girls, standing outside the Velona garment factory batons and bottles of goon squads.

Even members of the public were not immune from the police attacks.

Most of the strikers—as the photograph shows—are girls between 15 and 18 years of age.

The medieval conditions of employment in this mill are vividly outlined in some of the greivances of the workers:

Workers are hired and fired at the will and pleasure of the managing director; female workers are paid only one rupee (Is. 4d.) a day (!); if a female worker marries, she is discontinued and re-employed at a rupee a day, thus enabling the employer to evade the payment of maternity benefit; the workers do not enjoy a single paid holiday in the entire year; when workers are injured by machinery, they are fined instead of being compensated (!); there are only five lavatories (four without doors) for over 600 female employees.

Yet, during the entire five months of this bitter struggle, not a single LSSP minister even dared to ask a question in parliament about the issues involved in the strike.

When the strikers' union wrote to the LSSP (reformist)-dominated Federation of Labour asking them to press on the LSSP ministers to demand the nationalization of the mill, they were curtly informed that this inexpedient. Conse.

quently, one of the leaders of the reformists, Dr. C. R.

de Silva for the first time in his life was barracked and booed when he tried to address the strikers.

While the coalitionists succeeded in antagonising the working class, they did not sulceed to the same extent in winning the confidence of the native capitalists or their imperialist backers.

Two issues, the Newspaper Corporation Bill and Dr. N. M. Perera's mission to Britain, clearly illustrate this failure.

The government, having failed to evoke any of mass support with its July budget cast around for an issue on which it could crystallize some sort of mass support.

Take-over

It chose Lake House, the headquarters of the Associated Newspapers of Ceylon and ihe nerve centre of a powerful reactionary group of Sinhalese, Tamil and English dailies.

Previously, it had tried to set up a Press Council with the powers of a judicial tribunal— but after 14 drafts of the Bill had been réjected, the idea was shelved indefinitely. The idea of taking over Lake House seemed more attractive - alas fatally attractive.

Previous governments had taken over the Colombo Port, Insurance, Oil distribution and the bus transport system. So why not the press?

Here, however, it reckoned without its host.

The press set up a tremendous howl alleging that there was a plot to set up a Marxist dictatorship and that property, morality and religion were at Lake House: nerve centre of powerful group of Ceylon newspapers threatened with take-over by the coalition government stake. The allegation paid immediate dividends.

First, the right-wing opposition parties and then the powerful ubiquitous Sangha (the organisation of Buddhist priests) swung its support behind Lake House, whether for spiritual or more material motives I do not know.

If the government had only attempted to break the monopoly of the press it might, and probably would, have succeeded. But when it proposed to hand over Lake House to a government corporation, whose directors were to be chosen by the government, its goose was cooked.

The left-wing parties and trade unions attacked the measures rightly as a means to gag every kind of opinion and information. The right attacked it falsely as a step towards 'proletarian dictatorship'. Huge meetings and rallies were called all over the country, the biggest in Colombo, where over 20,000 people and 2,000 Bhikkhus (priests) threatened civil disobedience against the press take-over.

Technical hitch At the last moment a technical hitch in the Bill was discovered and parliament was prorogued. This did not add any lustre to the regime since parliament has been prorogued once already in the year when Mrs. Bandaranaike's majority became unworkable.

Lake House threatened to take the government to the Supreme Court on legal grounds and government spokesmen retorted that they would suspend the counts. This, too, did the government little or no good. The opposition challenged the government to go to the polls on the press take-over. There was no response.

Then the government, to allay suspicion amongst the Buddhists and to split the opposition, declared Buddhism to be the state religion and threatened to change the Constitution to give Buddhism a special and protected place in the country.

Lake House cleverly countered by threatening to turn over its property to the Sangha. The government climbed down, but the Buddhists were not impressed and, their appetites whetted, made more preposterous demands on the government, such as closing down state distilleries.

Confusion and controversy raged in the coalition. Government MPs began to resign and join the opposition. Others attacked the LSSP MPs for interfering in government policy. Rumours began circulating about further resignations. Allegations of corruption flew thick and fast.

When parliament re-convened to hear the Throne Speech, the opposition either boycotted it, or walked out at the opening session. Then the unexpected, yet inevitable happened. C. P. de Silva and his colleagues walked out and the curtain descended on the coalition farce.

The question remains as to why C. P. de Silva-a right-wing Minister and a shrewd politician who loyally served in the previous SLFP-MEP coalitionshould have walked out now.

The answer to this question is closely connected with Dr. N. M.

Perera's visit to Britain and the prevailing sterling crisis.

Ceylon is faced-like Britain -with a balance of payments deficit and a tremendous shortage of foreign exchange.

Coconut, tea and rubber exports are meeting with tough competition abroad. For capitalism to continue, foreign loans are essential and indispensable.

The coalition was based on the implicit assumption that the government could command sufficient support from British imperialism to obtain development loans. At first Dr. Perera, when he was in Tokyo for the International Monetary Fund meeting, looked to the World Bank. The Bank, however, looked the other way.

Then he came to Britain, but Mr. Wilson himself was just in the process of borrowing a few thousand million pounds from foreign sources to save a groggy pound.

No help The bankers turned a deaf ear to Dr. Perera because they had no confidence in his regime. So, for the first time in Ceylon's history, a Finance Minister was turned away with a polite, but firm, NO. It would seem legitimate to ask (and many people in Ceylon are asking) 'Was his journey really necessary?' It is apparent that the failure of his mission prompted C. P. de Silva and the right wing to scuttle the coalition and let the LSSP rats sink or swim.

The capitalist class now realises that if it is to obtain foreign aid, it must set up a government which will deal firmly and speedily with the working class.

This is the central issue facing the ruling class.

For the capitalists, however, the coalition was neither a menace nor a nuisance. It served a very definite purpose. It broke the offensive of the working class, pushed back the movement around the 21 demands and succeeded in confusing and demoralising sections of the working class.

Above all, it succeeded in compromising hopelessly and irretrievably, the leaders of the LSSP.

The task that confronts the working class in Ceylon today is not the replacement of one coalition by another but the construction of a revolutionary Marxist party capable of welding the urban and rural masses in a massive struggle to establish a workers' and peasants' anticapitalist government.

This responsibility falls entirely on the shoulders of the LSSP (Revolutionary). The downfall of the coalition government will signify a new epoch for Marxism only to the extent that the new leaders assimilate thoroughly the experiences of the International in the struggle against revisionism and liquidationism.

winter BEFORE thee had time for mecove from the bitter disappointment at the government's announcement that no extra payments would be made until April 1965, old age pensioners in Scotland received another big shock.

Last Tuesday coal prices were raised by Is. 3d. a bag. This increase does not mean just hardship for old people, they are literally faced with the prospect of starvation.

One Glasgow doctor described the increase in coal prices as, 'A real challenge to survival,' and went on to say, 'It is an economic impossibility for old age pensioners to meet this increased charge.' There are no concessions for the pensioners. Coal prices now range from 13s. 8d. for grade 1 coal, to 10s. 7d. for grade 5.

But old people cannot economise by buying the cheapest grade, which is just rubbish, from which they get no warmth.

The National Coal Board magnanimously states that prices will be reduced again by 30s. a ton next March, in accordance with the usual practice, to encourage people to lay in stocks during the summer months.

NOTICE

In an advance notice of the increase some weeks ago, it was announced that coal would rise by 1s. a bag.. Now the Coal Board state that an extra 1d. has had to be charged to cover increased freight charges.

In addition retailers are adding another 2d. to offset the increased petrol charges imposed by Labour's autumn budget.

To pile all these increases onto old age pensioners whilst maintaining the pension at a miserable pittance of £3 7s. 6d. is a criminal act, committed by the Labour government at the dictation of the banks at home and abroad, in the interests of maintaining the rule of monopoly capitalism.

The withholding of the pension increase by the government is a complete betrayal of Labour's promises to the old age pensioners. • An old lady of 73 who lives in a corporation flat, allocated specially to old people, has a total weekly income of £4 12s. 6d. which includes an allowance from the National Assistance Board of £1 5s.

She has given her weekly Newsletter Correspondent expenditure as follows: • Rent £l 10s. Eleciricity 15s. (includes all fuel). Stair cleaning 1s. Insuranke 4s. T.V. rental 7s. 6d. Milk 4s. 6d., making a total of f3 2s.

This leaves £1 Ils. 6d. for all items of food (except milk), clothing, papers, cleaning materials, fares, shoe repairs and all the other sundry items which are essential necessities.

Only because she has a married son who gives her assistance is this widow able to survive.

TRYING

Another elderly woman who has recently retired is now trying to exist on the old age pension of f3 7s. 6d.

Rent for a room and kitchen tenement flat is 14s. 9d. Electricity 4s. 2d. Gas 5s. Coal (1 bag a week) 10s. 9d. (at the old rate). Insurance 2s. 3d., leaving fl 10s. 7d. for food and all other necessities.

Since it is impossible to exist on such a pittance, this pensioner is now applying for National Assistance.

A widow, also in a room and kitchen tenement flat receives f4 2s. 6d. including National Assistance.

Rent 13s. 6d. Coal (1 bag La week at the old price) 10s.9d. Insurance 2s. Electricity 5s. Gas 4s. 6d. leaving f2 6s. 9d. for food and all other necessities. Glasgow Trades Council

squirms through nonsense.

He admits that the Labour government is 'in pawn to international finance capital' and later says: 'We just seek escape from such a perilous situation by all means open to us and over the months and years (Foot is dead against an early election) ways of escape can be found! (How, he doesn't say.)

To read this article one might imagine that the 1931 crisis never happened and that no one could have expected the present situation to arise.

It would be a mistake to consider that these people around 'Tribune' are so discredited that they are not worth bothering about. In the next few months, they may well swing into some kind of opposition to Wilson.

Role

Their role will be to head off any class action threatening to force changes in government policy, by making a few left noises. Already, on the question of the sale of Buccaneer bombers to South Africa, "Tribune' makes a slight whimpering sound.

It will be important to prevent these middle of the road politicians-and the union leaders— from holding the movement within the bounds of these formal protests.

stantial numbers in the out of London ports. The most important question now, therefore, is whether it will be afforded representation on the national Board and subsequently on the National Joint Committee for the Port Transport Industry The Hull decision will give a powerful impetus to those members who have fought so tenaciously to defend their right to join the union of their choice in the northern ports.

Undoubtedly, many dockers who have been reluctant to join a union which has no representation on local Boards can now be recruited.

The Hull members of the 'Blue' union have vindicated once again the heroic struggle of dockers in the northern ports during the 1954-55 recognition struggle. The very stubbornness of the struggle of these dockers against tremendous odds, from the employers, the press, the right-wing reactionaries of the TUC, the Labour Party and the Communist Party, is a testimony to the power of the working class to fight against the bureaucracy in the labour movement.

This victory can greatly strengthen the dockers' impending struggle against the 'new deal' reorganisation plans of the port employers.

Foot to have sent a resolution demanding the government pay the pensions increase immediately.

Coatbridge and Airdrie Labour Party have made a similar demand, so have the Central Glasgow Labour Party.

The campaign must now be extended throughout the whole of the labour movement and the trade unions to compel the Labour government to keep its pledge to ease the plight of the old age pensioners.

Dockers' T workers in Smethwick comes from the Tory- 'HE latest move to split coloured and white controlled town council who are to consider buying terraced houses in Marshall Street to prevent what Tory MP, Peter Griffiths, according to the national press, calls 'a coloured ghetto', being created.

Griffiths, who defeated Patrick Gordon Walker, the Labour government's foreign secretary, in the General Election, is an promises THE appalling housing conEditions in the village of Loscoe (Yorkshire) have taken their first toll of human life this winter.

A three-months-old baby has died of bronchitis. The roof of the house where this child lived is so bad that the upstairs rooms are not fit to use.

It is not long ago since a local doctor told tenants that he was tired of visiting Loscoe people made ill by their living conditions.

Meanwhile the Labour Council in Featherstone continues complacently on its way.

Their solemn undertakings of three months ago have been broken. They gave a definite pledge that the broken-down wall by a ratinfested beck would be repaired 'immediately.

It remains as it was. A few weeks ago a child fell in and broke his collar bone House repairs are not being carried out. A promise that houses would be pulled down as they became vacant has not been kept.

Landlords are still letting these slums to unfortunate people desperate for somewhere to live.

SCOW

unions accept package hE betrayal by union leaders of the steel Com pany of Wales workers in Port Talbot was taken a step further on Monday.

Officials of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, the Electrical Trades Union, the boilermakers, woodworkers, plumbers and painters unions agreed to the first part of the three-stage package deal proposed by the management earlier this year.

At that time the management offered 10s. backdated to last February, 10s. next year and 10s. at a later date, depending on the operation of the agreement.

STRINGS ATTACHED There are now strings attached to the wage rise. The union leaders have agreed to give the management a free hand in re-manning and reorganisation.

This would presumably follow the lines of the Emerson report brought out several months ago, which declared the works overmanned.

According to the Western Mail' this is 'the first step to industrial peace after more than two and a half years of dispute'.

The Port Talbot package deal is clearly a parallel case to the three-year package deal being negotiated between the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions, and the employers (reported in last week's alderman on the town council. He told the press on Monday:

"The local Conservative Party has agreed to ask the Council to buy up houses in Marshall Street as they become vacant and either resell or let them to people at the top of the housing list.

"As it happens, the people at the told thall part of gobite.

neighbours. We don't want Marshall Street to become a ghetto, but it would. if it became entirely coloured.

In answer to these proposals Alderman Ernest Lowrie, Labour leader on the Council, stated: 'It is not part of a Council's job to stant segregating people in streets.

It is quite wrong to interfere with people's lives in this way. We shall oppose this bitterly, although we haven't much chance of stopping it."

No answer But this is no answer Tories' actions.

Tory Councillor Donald Finney told a Newsletter reporter: "The proportion of white to coloured in Marshall Street is about 50-50; we want to buy up these houses and put white people in them to keep it at that level. Our aim is to keep the place as clean and hygienic as possible?

Like many more industrial towns in Britain Smethwick is overcrowded. People are not provided with new homes; they have to live in houses which are small and where rents or mortgages are high.

Some of the families have paid f2,700 for houses with only 2 bedrooms.

The local Labour leadership has not taken up the demand for a crash housing programme, nor has it gone to workers like the ones in Marshall Street to unite coloured and white sections of the working class behind a demand that the building industry be nationalized.

Instead the white workers, frustrated by overcrowded housing, are left to look for a scapegoat. They are open to all kinds of racialist propaganda-and there is no shortage of that in Smethwick. call a halt ban

Wilson's aid victory UMOURS are now circulating in Glasgow offices that a three-way deal is to be concluded which will share out the financial benefits from the recent take-over of Outram's Press by Fraser.

The latter has now been rewarded by his Tory leaders with a barony ... he successfully outbid Lord Thomson for Outrams Press and thus secured control of the 'Glasgow Herald' and the 'Glasgow Evening Times'.

The rumour has it that the 'Glasgow Herald' and the 'Scotsman' could merge. In exchange for this, shares in Scottish Television would cha inge hands. The Beaverbrook P Tess gain by a merger of the two Glasgow evening papers, the 'Evening Times' and the 'Evening Citizen', owned by Outrams.

The moves would undoubtedly mean unemployment and hardship for printing and newspaper workers, especially apprentices and other young workers.

A lot of nonsense is talked in Scotland about the 'national many jobless BOB SHAW interest, meaning that both workers and employers must stand together to fight for prosperity. This line is plugged by Labour politicians and the Communist Party as well as Scottish Nationalists.

STEADY FLOW

Adcording to the review of Mr. Macdonald, Chairman of the National Commercial Bank of Scotland, published last week, there is a steady flow of investment into Scotland, the rate of which is increasing. The pace, he says, is faster than at any time since the war.

On the other hand the banker Mr. Macdonald points to the continuing high rate of unemployment in Scotland which creeps upwards towards the 80,000 mark as Christmas approaches. He is, he says, opposed to palliatives and opts for a more 'positive' approach.

The pattern is that of a greater financial interest in industrial production in Scotland with some lush profits to be made. Colvilles, for instance, doubled their profits over the last year millions.

At the same time mergers and reorganisations threaten jobs even more than before and wages remain low. In contrast with the fortunes of Colvilles, that of the steel workers is a different story ... they have had no increase in wages since 1960.

The ground is being pre pared for a massive attack on wages as well as attacking all kinds of social benefits through rising prices. All talk of national, or regional, interests of all sections of the 'community' is a trap which workers should beware of.

The workers at Pressed Steel, Linwood, have paid heavily through being drawn into a scheme which presented the interests of the firm as being identical with that of the workers. As a result wages have been held back whilst a recovery is being made in profits.

Whatever the financial skirmishing of the press lords, the industrialists and landlords, they will all unite to condemn and fight against the Scottish worker. against the Scottish worker.

From Bill Hunter THERE is a black prospect before workers in the North-east.

Last week, the chairman of the North-east Regional Planning Joint Consultative Committee declared that the present situation in the region made him 'more despondent than ever'.

The committee had just discussed a report drawn up by planning officers which stated: • That unemployment rates in the region are above the national average, while the number of jobs continues to decline.

On the basis of current trends there is need for 10,000 more jobs every year. By 1981 the region will be 160,000 jobs short. • Weekly earnings are easily bettered elsewhere.

Mr. E. Milne, Labour MP for Blyth, a left' of long ago, immediately reacted to the report.

'From what I know the North-east has a bright future,' he said.

The report was based on 'current trends'-what is the future as the measures of the Labour government take effect? The rise in the bank rate will Vital election in SNUM A VITAL election is to take place next April for the position of General Secretary of the Scottish Union of Mineworkers. The election is caused by the fact that its present holder Mr: Woods will reach retirement age.

Woods is a member of the Communist Party as are a majority of the leadership of the SNUM.

For his position there is to be a straight fight between Stobbs of Ayrshire who is also a Combring unemployment which will hit the North-east harder than other areas.

(Unemployment is, in faot, due to go much higher than that prophesied in the report.)

'Current trends' are due to be speeded up as big business' derhands for the reorganisation of industry are met.

RATIONALISATION

A recent report of the Iron and Steel Board demanded rationalisation of the steel industry and a reduction in what it called 'overmanning' of plants.

If the employers can carry through the cuts in manning scales then there are going to be steelworkers out of work in Consett, South Durham and Teeside.

The National Coal Board results, this month, are expected to reveal a deficit of £20 million. That means a bigger drive to rationalise production and a speed-up of pit closures.

Shipbuilding and ship repairs face a crisis. Already there has been an increase in pay-offs in ship repair.

SOLUTION

What is the solution? Certainly not the setting up of more Regional Planning Boards to think up solutions like brightening the slag heaps or how best to bribe capitalist firms to come to the North-east and use cheap labour.

This is not just a problem of the North-east. The area shows most sharply the sickness of British capitalism because of the old, heavy industries which are centred here.

The solution can only finally be answered when the area and its industries are developed as part of a national plan based on the nationalization of the steel, shipbuilding, engineering and chemical industries. GLASGOW bus workers called off the overtime ban and work-to-rule and resumed normal services last Monday. This does not mean, however, that they have abandoned the fight for improved pay and working conditions.

Many of the bus crews feel that the ban on overtime was an inadequate means of forcing the National Joint Industrial Council on provincial bus workers' pay and conditions to speed up the negotiations.

There is a strong feeling that the bus workers will only win their demands for the immediate implementation of the 40-hour week, improved basic rates and bonus pay by resorting to strike action.

Union officials, however, are anxious to delay any such decision until after the NJIC has met again on December 14.

MEET AGAIN

The Distriot Committee of the Transport and General Workers' Union is to meet again this week to discuss what steps should be taken, now that the Glasgow Corporation has turned down the claim, made last week, for an increase in the 'good attendance' bonus.

At present the 'good attendance' bonus amounts to 16s. per week. If a worker is late for one shift the bonus is halved. If he or she is late twice in one week, the bonus is docked altogether.

The bonus is also docked for absence.

Bus crews are now demanding that this bonus should be raised to 30s. a week.

The Corporation Transport Department claim that they dannot raise the bonus until the results of the NJIC negotiations are known, since any local increase would have to be considered in conjunction with any national award which is made.

In Stirling, Bannockburn, Stepps, Kirkintilloch, Motherwell, Wishaw and other areas in Scotland the ban on overtime continues.

munist Party member and L. Daly of Fifeshire.

Daly left the CP in 1957 and, after a short period, during which he was around left groups such as the 'Forum' movement, he began his passage towards the right.

During the years of CP leadership the Scottish miner has suffered defeat after defeat. Such a leadership is not the alternative to the 'Dalys'. • A new militant leadership which can link its fight over wages and conditions with socialist policies must be built.

week, they unanimously agreed that this ban is actually helping W. C. Wake, the Transport Manager. Roughly the same amount of money is being collected for fares, but conductors are being worked off their feet.

At two meetings on Monday, December 7, the area District Secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union, R. Thorp, and Harold Ball, branch chairman, refused to accept calls for a strike on Saturday, December 12, saying that it was unconstitutional By Our Nottingham Correspondent - and contrary to national agreement.

A big majority of busmen voted for continuation of the ban on overtime. This, they said, was better than no action at all.

An ex-Labour Mayor of Nottingham and Chairman of the Transport Committee, Mr. Sidney Pearson Hill had attacked the busmen, saying that if the pay claim, was granted, the Corporation bus department would run at a loss and might as well pack up.

PREPARATIONS

Busmen at the evening meeting unanimously passed a resolution condemning Hill's statement, and made preparations to lobby the City Labour Party on Thursday.

There is no doubt that despite the attempt of the official union leadership to undermine the militancy of the busmen, many of them are prepared and may well take strike action on Saturday.

As in the case of the Glasgow busmen, the only way Nottingham busmen will be able to carry the fight forward is to build their own rank and file leadership that will not sell out and run a mile every time the boss growls.

Registered at the G.P.O. as a newspaper Princed by Push Pree London wei Published by The Newsletter. 1864 Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4