The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 380

YS CONFERENCE WILL BE A SUCCESS National Committee SuPPORT for next Thurs. for next Thursby the Young Socialists National Committee Majority, is mounting minute by minute in Britain's major industrial centres.

Thousands of trade unionists, Young Socialists, students, apprentices ... and old people ... will travel to Parliament on February 4 to answer Labour's retreat at Leyton with a demand for the immediate rise and backdating of old age pensions.

This is the only reply that a large, strong, militant and representative body of rank and file members of the labour movement must make to the retreat by Wilson and the right wing over the increases. The demand must be: Make the bosses pay. Stop the return of the Tories. Newsletter reporters throughout Britain are continually sending reports of growing, massive support for the lobby.

Shop stewards' committees, trade union branches, factories and workers in clubs and pubs have poured in large sums of money and promised support and delegations to make the lobby a success.

Old people, from clubs and homes, are clamouring to make this their lobby- in Sheffield WHERE TO GO ON February 4, there will be a march starting at 1.30 p.m. from Marble Arch, Hyde Park, via Oxford Street and Kingsway to the Embankment near Temple tube station. The lobby will begin at 3 p.m. at St. Stephen's Entrance, House of Commons, followed by a meeting at 6 p.m. in Central Hall, Westminster.

they are so enthusiastic that one group has drawn tickets out of a hat for seats on a coach.

In London, as reported two weeks ago, the ENV factory at Willesden supports the lobby and will send a delegation in a coach. Others who have given support include the North and Souih London District Committees of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, Woolwich Arsenal and Rotax (Acton).

Before the lobby many more factories in Enfield, Hounslow, Dartford, Wimbledon and Willesden, will be leafleted. The lobby has also been received enthusiastically by many old people in London. On February 4, demand an increase for pensioners like these. electricians in the Droylesden branch of the Communist Party.

Most of these workers have donated money to the lobby funds, and are passing round petitions to be signed.

The Newsletter is pleased to report the action of the CP branch. We have for some time been convinced that in this period more and more members of the Communist Party and Young Communist League would unite in action with the Young Socialists.

Busmen at Tynemouth in the North-east are sending a delegate to the lobby and have donated money. Support has come from South Shields boilermakers, and plasterers in Sunderland have given money. Youth are campaigning around building sites and shipyards in the area and expect more support.

Pub campaign

Publicans have allowed the campaigners to speak in the public houses before making collections.

Work on Merseyside on building sites and housing estates has produced large collections. The Plumbers No. 1 Lodge and the Arundel Ward Labour Party in Liverpool have backed the lobby and visits to factories may produce support this week-end from English Electric and Bemrose, a printing firm, as will visits to NUM branches in Bolton and Farnworth.

Wigan Tenants' Association, which was set up by the Young Socialists, has given support and will hold a jumble sale to raise money.

One woman, the mother of six, (Cont. p. 4, col. 7) Manchester Transport Strike difficulties for British capitalism on the economic field.

political reflection of these developments reached its high point during the Profumo crisis when the top leadership of the Tory Party split into different segments, and for the first time attacked each other in public. This was overcome temporarily through the astute behind-the-scenes stage management of the Tory Party and the collaboration of Wilson who refused to exploit the crisis and bring the government down. le Tories, therefore, got almost a whole year's grace to prepare the General Election. During that time they deliberately obscured the real nature of the economic crisis. As the balance of payments between exports and imports got worse, thes borrowed from foreign banks while at the same time encouraging an inflationary boom on the home front in order to preserve full employment. lly the Socialist Labour League and our paper warned that the bill would have to be paid Labour became the government. We insisted over and again on the high price Labour would have to pay for the opportunism of Wilson and the right-wing leadership of the Party. This is exactly what has happened, only it has taken a far shorter time because of the gravity of the crisis, than even we considered it would. rstly, the Labour government has placed the burdens of the crisis on the backs of its own supporters,; the working class. The cost of living has steadily risen. Taxation burdens have increased. The old age pensioners found that their pensions bought less during this winter than they did during last winter. They will receive their increase, which will be very much dwindled, by the end of March.

Secondly, the armaments bill goes up and the Labour leadership London, only to find that the day after the election, more money was made by speculation on the Stock Exchange than at any time over the last Thisas lis is what the Labour govern- year. ment's retreat to the right, supported by the centrists and "Tribune', really means. The Tory Party puts on a big show of electoral optimism, but if they won the General Election they would have had to face the same kind of crisis. ith a similar electoral swing in the constituencies they would be confronted with full wrath of the working class and the possibility a head-on collision with the unions. They are jeering at the Labour Party in public but in private they are extremely worried about the future.

Eter the election, the former Tory Chancellor, Mr. Maudling, made an extremely restrained speech in which he said that he agreed with several of Labour's measures, such as the import duty.

this period of growing econoand political Crisis, growth of racialism must be anticipated. It will in fact get much worse and it undoubtedly played a role in Leyton. The only way to rally the working class against the racialists, and the fascists who want to destroy class consciousness is tithin vid wackers modement leadershil within the workers movemen on the issues affecting the class. e can anticipate the extreme right wing of the Labour Party going further to the right and the beginnings of a more opposition within the unions and the party.

Inside the Conservative Party we can expect a strengthening of the ultra-right and a discreet use of racialism which in turn will encourage the fascists. The real lesson from Leyton poses the building of the revolutionary party as the urgent need of the hour for the stormy days ahead. This is the policy

RESPONSE to the Morecambe conference, called by the mittee Majority, from branches all over Britain has been tremendous, says a statement issued by the committee following their meeting last week-end. The statement says the conference will be an overwhelming success and will demonstrate quite clearly how correct the Young Socialists were to fight for socialist policies at their last conference in Brighton.

'Over 100 resolutions have already been received from Young Socialists branches, including dozens still in the Labour Party,' the statement continues.

'Applications for delegates' and visitors' tickets are flowing in thick and fast even at this early date.' ONLY ANSWER The National Committee Majority had organised a pre-election rally on September 27 when many people said they were 'rocking the boat'. 'But only our policies can solve the problems of redundancy, wage restraint and bad housing. Leyton and Nuneaton have proved us right,' the statement says.

The socialist programme of the Young Socialists had proved victorious. Wilson and the right wing had not an ounce of support. Their only answer had been bans, proscriptions, expulsions and shutdowns.

"They have tried to drive the socialist youth of Britain out of the Labour Party and the working-class movement. They will never do that!

'On the contrary, we are successfully fighting for support throughout the adult movement.' MEETINGS Labour Must Stop Retreating!

No Wage Freezing!

Backdate the Old Age Pension Increase Now! Full Support for the Dockers!

Leeds

City Museum Sunday, January 31, 7.30 p.m. day, January 31, 7.30 Speaker: G. Healy Leicester Co-op Hall, 168 Belgrave Gate ay, February 7, 7.30 ipeaker: C. Slaughte Glasgow Partick Burgh Hah (Lesser Hall)

near Merkland Street underground station)

Sunday, February 14, 7.30 p.m.

Speaker: G. Healy

WEEKLY JONRINAL OF THE SOCIALIST LABOR LEAGUIEVol. 9, No. 380 Saturday, January 30, 1965 Price lis Week Building the Revolutionary Party The opportunism of After the Leyton and Nuneator by-elections Nat results of the Leyto • and Nuneaton by-election shocked the rank and file of the labour and trade union movement. Yet there is nothing very mysterious about these results. ir several years the Tory government staggered from one crisis to another as a result of the enormous and growing Saturday, January, 30 1965 are becoming hostile over the inability of the Labour leaders to take effective action against the capitalists. According to Sorenson, the ex-Labour MP for Leyton, there are 16,000 old age pensioners in the constituency, and he insists that the majority of them did not vote. Meanwhile, the Labour government has made retreat after retreat before the City of

In Belfast apprentices are carrying out most of the work and are preparing for their own lobby next Tuesday of the Northern Ireland Parliament (Stormont). A coachload of old people and Young Socialists will lobby MPs.

OAP support

The Northern Ireland District Committee of DATA and the secretary of the Old Aged Pensioners Federation are supporting the lobbies, but youth have been prevented from putting the old people's case before the Belfast and District Trades Council and workers at Short and Harland.

Youth have also leafleted factories including ICT and the Sirocco works.

The report that two Manchester branches of the AEU-Gorton and Clayton No. 7-have backed the lobby has been followed up by news of support by engineers at AEI Openshaw and Security Rock-Bits, Gorton, foundry workers at Crossley's, Gorton, miners at Bradford Colliery, Manchester, railwaymen in the Manchester No. 1 branch of the NUR, and THE atmosphere of uncertainty hanging over the heads of Dr. Neville Alexander and 10 other non-white South Africans, owing to their not knowing the date of their appeal, has now been lifted. It will take place on March 2.

The Alexander Eleven, as they have come to be known, were sentenced last year to terms of imprisonment ranging from five to 10 years for allegedly committing 'acts of sabotage' against Verwoerd's police state.

It was anticipated that their appeal would take place last November, but it was postponed because defence lawyers were refused permission by government authorities to visit the seven men on Robbens Island where they are detained, in order to get their signatures and discuss legal matters relevant to the appeal.

An appeal was lodged because a number of irregularities took place during the trial, e.g., defendants' instructions to their counsel were opened and read by secret policemen.

Not much is known about the personal conditions of the prisoners although it is reported that most of the seven men are in solitary confinement and that the four women held in a mainland jail are packed two to a cell and without work or opportunity to study.

The British Alexander Defence Committee has planned a number of activities between now and The Newsletter asks readers to aid the Alexander Defence Committee by completing collection sheets (obtainable from Connie Kirkby, secretary of the committee, 27 Thursley House, Holmewood Gardens, London, S.W.2) by February 27, taking collections in factories and offices, participating in the work of the committee and making a personal donation.

Money orders and cheques March 2 in order to raise further amounts of money to help pay the cost of the appeal.

A demonstration outside South Africa House will take place on Friday, February 26 at 5.30 p.m. sharp, followed by a march to a central London, meeting hall where a public meeting will be held. Details will be announced later.

A further distribution of collection sheets is being made to student organisations, Labour should be made out to Defence and Aid (Alexander Appeal) and sent to Christian Action, Defence and Aid, 2 Amen Court, London, E.C.4.

The Committee is also holding a dance to raise money at the Greenwich Town Hall on February 5, 7.30-11.30 p.m. Tickets can be obtained from Connie Kirkby, who also sent the above information about the Alexander Eleven. Party, trade union and Young Socialists branches as well as to other sympathetic organisations and individuals.

Supporters of the committee have found that good results can be got by making use of collection sheets. It not only brings in money, it also presents an opportunity to talk about the current situation in South Africa, the policies of British imperialism towards it and the ways in which socialists can assist in the fight against apartheid and imperialism.

An anonymous donator recently sent in a cheque for £100 making the total amount turned over to Defence and Aid £415. Money continues to come in from individuals, anti-apartheid groups, students, political organisations, Labour_Party, trade union and Young Socialist supporters.

Our committee still has a lot of work to do to ensure that the Alexander Eleven are not denied legal aid because of financial reasons.

Page E Unified Secretariat RNEST GERMAIN denouncing the Socialist 'ultra left' and sectarian. and his friends in the in Paris are constantly Labour League for being moment the forces who will do it are mainly in the youth movement.

By joining the trade unions and working in the Labour Party they will learn, as they learned 30, Trotskyist movement, who had been expelled on a motion from Germain at their Third World Congress in 1951, answered the advertisement and was immediately reinstated and appointed

HOPES For a joint one-day strike of bus and railmen in the Manchester area on Thursday were dashed in an 11thhour intervention by National Union of Railwaymen officials. The decision not to strike was taken by a small majority.

This follows a move at a meeting of rank and file from 17 NUR branches on Sunday to approach bus with a view to co-ordinating their actions to win pay claims.

After Sunday's meeting Brian Arundel, secretary of the strike committee set up by NUR members, told The Newsletter: "The response from NUR members and trom busmen, to whom we have spoken, for an alliance of all transport workers is tremendous.' This demonstration for unity by all transport workers would have had a big effect on the negotiations which are now in progress at national level on both the claims of the municipal busmen and the train crews and signalmen.

The busmen's claim is for an increase award of 14s. 3d. a week for working split-shifts and for work before 5 a.m., which railmen workers is separate from the national claim now being negotiated.

BACK CLAIM

Manchester busmen have emphasised that they still gave solid backing to the national claim when it finally came to the conference table on Wednesday and Thursday.

The rail workers' dispute is a long-standing problem dating back to 1957. It mainly concerns train crews, drivers, firemen, guards and signalmen.

These grades are enraged by the refusal of the Railway Board to pay them an equivalent bonus and incentive bonus paid lo other railway workers.

(Cont. p. 4, col. staggers from one day to the most, confusing and splitting the working class over such issues as the TSR2. It firmly refuses to nationalize the aircraft industry. The Leyton and Nuneaton results are the political outcome of this policy. The Labour-voting working class LEEDS of ibe Socialist Labour League. e easing you as a reader to cor. der seriously joining and working build Marxist alternative within the trade unions and Labour Party to the present disastrous polithe right-wing centrist leaders.

iLL Meeting Wilson DESPITE a foggy night, a

LABOUR PARTY BACKS IMMIGRATION ACT THE City of Leeds Labour Party has played into the hands of racialists and reactionaries by overwhelmingly accepting a resolution supporting immigration control, though claiming that this should not be bastd on 'race or colour' The City Party executive tabled the motion, although it had for months resisted discussing a resolution from the East Leeds Constituency Party calling for the immediate repeal of the Tory Immigration Act.

An attempt was made to cover up this capitulation to Tory racialist policy by including a number of proposals for improving housing, education and health facilities in cities where immigrant workers live in large numbers.

successful Newsletter meeting, attended by a large number of young people, was held last Sunday at the Liverpool Walker Art Gallery.

Cliff Slaughter said it took the Leyton by-election to drive Churchill off the front page of the press. Labour spokesmen received the result by saying that Labour voters were apathetic.

This was just speculation. The danger was that they were ex-Labour voters.

The significant thing was that the Tories were not cock-a-hoop about the result. Their press expressed sympathy with Gordon Walker and concern as to how the Labour Party could get over the result.

The Tories needed to discipline the workers in industry and this was easier with the Labour leaders in power.

Cliff Slaughter said that the cost of living had gone up more than at any time for four years.

He said there was a need to nationalize coal distribution. The cost was £3 10s. Od. at the pit head and f10 12s. to the consumer.

He mentioned 'The Militant' a Pabloite paper, as calling Wilson's government a left social-democratic government.

'What is so left about Gunter?' he asked. 'Cousins ducked out of the docks struggle. This is a right-wing Labour governmeit, he stated.

Peter Kerrigan, a member of the NASD, spoke of terrible conditions on the docks in the past and how the port employers wanted to impose conditions on the dockers that would have them running around like bees in order to maintain the profit rate.

The rank and file were the only barrier to imposing these conditions. He said a lobby of parliament should be organised to campaign for nationalization of the docks under workers' control and for the books to be opened to see what profits were made.

They charge us with continually isolating ourselves from the working class because we adopt too sharp a political attitude towards the right wing of the Labour Party and the trade unions. This is an understandable criticism from their point of view. What is involved are two different conceptions of building the party. sations, we insist that they must be thoroughly educated about the revisionist politics of the leaderships. We make it clear that the struggle inside such organisations is and must be related to the class struggle which only indirectly affects the apparatus.

Thus we constantly campaign on issues affecting the working class such as high rents, nationalization, more wages and so on. We relate the struggle around minimum demands with the transitional demands which help the working class to see the need for taking power.

Those who undertake entry on this basis have to be trained to think and act as Marxists. In their work they must constantly recruit new members into the revolutionary party.

If there is a danger that they are falling victim to the centrist political atmosphere of these organisations, then they must be removed from such work, retained and replaced by others.

To maintain and organise a faction is not a question of asking people to keep their mouths shut over political issues. They must know how to express themselves on the concrete developments of the class struggle in order to expose their opponents.

A left-centrist movement can never transform itself automatically into a Marxist movement. This only achieved through the conscious activities of Marxists.

In order to convince centrists moving to the left of the necessity for Marxism, we have to struggle against them in theory and practice in order to prove the value and strength of our movement.

It is very easy for a small number of self-styled Trotskyists to sometimes occupy positions of influence in social-democratic organisations. This, as in the case of Germain and company, can lead to dangerous illusions.

He believes that he can manoeuvre a centrist movement into becoming a Marxist party, without the independent work of training leaders and building a party.

The Record of the Socialist Labour League The existence of the Socialist Labour League played a powerful role in the political growth over the past four years, that their most decisive task is to build a revolutionary party and leadership, which involves, from time to time, working in mass reformist organisations.

We have repeatedly challenged Germain and the rest of them to discuss these issues objectively. There is not the slightest taint of ultra-leftism or sectarianism about the struggles of the Socialist Labour League in Britain.

The circulation of the The Newsletter is now very close to 15,000 a • week. We have branches in all the main industrial centres. Our members participate in all important struggles of the working class.

We challenge Germain and the Unified Secretariat to show us another section in any part of the world that has made the same progress as that of the Socialist Labour League.

These are the facts, now well known to many people all over the world.

The Record of the Unified Secretariat in Britain Now let us look at the record of the Unified Secretariat. In 1953 after the split they launched a section in Britain, led by John Lawrence. This man supported their policy of conciliation to Stalinism because he was, in fact, preparing to leave the Trotskyist movement and join the Stalinists.

Their new section began its work in January 1954 and wound up in the autumn of the same year. Most of its members joined the Communist Party.

Between then and 1956. Germain had no section of his movement in England.

Early in 1956 they advertised in "Tribune' for people interested in forming a section. A man who was once prominent in the Ridley Road, Dalston, 1962, police viciously attack anti-fascists who finally rout Mosley and his supporters. leader of their section.

This man is today a close collaborator of S. Mani, who recently supported the right wing in calling in the police to expel alleged supporters of the Socialist Labour League. When in 1954 a prominent member of the League associated with the 'Socialist Outlook' was being expelled from the Labour Party this same man abstained on the motion for expulsion.

Small wonder the Pabloite organisation in Britain has never been able to function. Recently it was joined by a small number of people, some of whom for various reasons dropped away from membership of the Socialist Labour League some time ago They have now split away from the so-called official group and significantly one of the reasons given is that they are opposed to the actions of S. Mani and those who support him.

Before Ernest Germain starts criticising the Socialist Labour League and denouncing us as ultra-left, we ask him to explain politically the fate of the organisation he has been supporting in this country since 1956.

It is little use mouthing phrases. Explain what has happened to those who support the Unified Secretariat? They have been following the line of the Unified Secretariat. Look what happened to them practice.

In September 1964, you had a unification between the groups who supported the Unified Secretariat and another group. Now they have split, only three months later.

our first section formed i y lomed the Stalist: Your second section has never been able to get started apart from some of its members giving support to the right wing against the Socialist Labour League. Here is a record of opportunism that would be hard to equal.

You use the word 'ultra-left' When it refused to repeal the Tory Immigration Act, it strengthened the racialists.

Racialist ideas, and the rise of fascist organisations which exploit them, are inevitable products of the decay of imperialism.

While automation makes possible a tremendous rise in living standards, its capitalist organisation turns it into a threat to millions of workers.

At the same time as unemployment drives workers from colonial countries to Britain, the employers prepare for a showdown with the labour movement and use every means to disunite the working class. - Without a determined struggle against these tendencies, a fascist movement will grow in Britain.

Only a clear socialist lead can provide an answer to racialism. By uniting all workers in struggle against capitalism, a Marxist leadership can expose the racialists as the bosses agents that they are.

Those do-gooders who advi to ignore the questions because you are anxious to up your own failures.

Now look at their international record. Posadas, Pablo's lieutenant in his Latin American group, split in the 1960s on an ultra-left basis.

You are now expelling Pablo, whose politics are drawing him closer and closer to the Soviet bureaucracy on opportunist grounds. Last year, the overwhelming majority of your Ceylon section, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party joined up with a capitalist coalition government.

All these trends from your movement are to the right and in an opportunist direction. That is the reason why your conception of entry into social democracy leads to liquidation.

The Socialist Labour League stands for the training and development of revolutionary leadership based on participation in the class struggle.

In order to carry this out we fight continuously inside the mass reformist organisations of the working class, but we do not liquidate ourselves within these organisations.

We are in principle occupied with the building of the revolutionary party and the training of its leadership. We are concerned with the building of our press and the education of our youth movement.

This, we believe, is the way that Trotsky wanted parties of the Fourth International lo function. Your way is not the Trotskyist, but the revisionist way. Volga Germans rehabilitated THE Soviet press announced recently [nat Volga Germans had been rehabilitated.

The Volga German Autonomous Republic, one of the constituent republics of the Sovfet Union was dissolved by Stalin after the Nazi invasion. The reason given for this was that, as these Soviet citizens were of German origin (they had emigrated to Russia in the 18th century), they must have been in collusion with Hitler!

The Volga Germans-over half a million of them—were dispersed throughout Siberia and other remote parts of the Soviet Union. The same fate was meted out to other Soviet minorities like the Chechens, Kalmuks, Ingushi and the Crimea Tartars.

The rehabilitation notice admitted that the Volga Germans had not been responsible for Hitler's invasion. However, they are still forbidden to return to their homes on the Volga. who preach against racial discrimination on moral grounds, or call for legislation to stop it, help to prevent a real class fight being developed.

These issues are nothing new for the Socialist Labour League and The Newsletter.

For all In 1958, when fascist groups stirred up racial disturbances in Notting Hill, we issued a pamphlet, 'Sweep the Racialists off the Streets' in which we said:

'Socialists are neither problack, nor pro-white. They stand for jobs for all, better housing for all, the tearing down of slums, the ending of the social system which gives rise to unemployment and overcrowding.

"These aims ... can be achieved only through the united action of white workers and black workers against the common enemy-the employing class.' We called for the labour ovement in each area . to set › defence squads to meet the tacks of fascist thugs. We THE letter 1 bourgeois jo Ceylon Univ Lanka Sama on the Unifi revisionist Si formed he r resist the gre Fourth Inte campaign of rest of his n the reformis [it was the si of the LSSP Jayaratne's i the previou: Secretariat s. Bernard Sos Germain - H advocating c stand why ti on the politi the coalition coalitionists. they gave i describing i arguments oj Since the Un R. de Silva Jayaratne wi despite, or 1 leaders of th latest deserti in Brussels, International HAVI to pu to Dr. ( ratne's art Life to C ness' whit a recent Sathiya' bourgeois cause 1 1 well that that pa tolerate ideas and not publis It is cl Jayaratne 1 skyism in fa Until recer with respect Trotsky, W Fourth Inter world social for which hi warned that not be relied In May 19. were only tc when a you Kelso Cochra in Notting Hi To this day never been fo derful police.

"The Guar Telegraph' I warnings thal not and woul for us.

'The Econo wanting to military nuc makers'.

In a pa Defence Squ Hill', Gerry F 'Can the and its pol fascist men:

'Never ir The Tory agency by businessmer London rul 'When th inadequate, can no loi Parliament, millions of building ments' In 1961, re: threat to the The Newsle series of artiol reprinted in a ism, a Danger These exar demand for tr gration and s really a racial articles in' examples of r labour moven Some at ticular was wick. Fou Immigration mittee was there. Bac Tories, it

They believe that work inside the Labour and social-dernocratic parties should consist in the main of building a broad centrist movement.

In order to do this, they believe it is necessary to concentrate on building up alliances with centrist members of parliament and publications such as "Tribune'.

They believe that it is wrong to engage in Marxist criticism of the centrists when they capitulate to the reformists. Instead we should try to build up an alliance on the issues where 'we agree, leaving our disagreements until later.

This theory seems plausible, but is, in fact, revisionist in practice. In the end it does not, as we shall see, teach the centrists anything. Those small groups of Trotskyists who entered social-democratic and Labour parties in the late 1940s and carly 1950s have, in tact, liquidated themselves into leftwing social democracy.

Years and years have gone by, during which time they have engaged in forming alliances, whilst at the same time the membership of their own organisation has remained pitiably weak.

In theory, it would appear that these alliances car" produce substantial results, such as the editorship of papers with a circulation of several thousand amongst lefts and centrists.

In practice, however, they have led to a political softening up of many sections of the movement without any numerical gains.

Their young members have been frightened to recruit, lest they antagonise the 'lefts'. They have been told not to push their differences too sharply lest they frighten the centrists away. Gradually they have been drawn into an atmosphere of wishy-washy, • middle - of - the - road politics.

Direct intervention in the class struggle is replaced by work in the Labour and social-democratic party apparatus. Discussions and struggles around Marxist theory are the exception and not the rule.

Therefore, it is not possible to educate cadres who have experience in the class struggle and who, as a result, have learned to combine such experience with the fight inside the Labour parties and the building of the revolutionary party.

The Trotskyist attitude towards Entry The Socialist Labour League is entirely in agreement with the point of view that under certain circumstances it is necessary to send its cadres into the social-democratic and Stalinist parties to organise and lead the rank and file against their treacherous leaderships.

We do not believe that these parties can become revolutionary parties, since we hold firmly to the policies of the Fourth International at its founding conference, that it is our task to build such parties.

We are also in favour of temporary alliances with the centrists against the right wing, provided this enables us to criticise them where we think necessary.

We regard the building oi revolutionary parties as a principle, whereas entry into the Labour and social-democratic parties is a tactic.

When we encourage our members to enter these organ

This greatly strengthened the dockers' fight and assisted in creating a sympathetic feeling for them throughout the labour movement. When in the latter part of 1955 10,000 dockers were expelled by the Trades Union Congress they won their case in the High Court in the spring of 1956 for reinstatement.

On the eve of the 1955 General Election Attlee was replaced by Gaitskell, and Bevan climbed back on the right-wing bandwagon. This led to him supporting the H-bomb policy of Gaitskell at the Labour Party conference conference in the autumn of We did everything possible to integrate ourselves into the ranks of those Bevanites who were brought into open criticism of Bevan on the issue of the bomb, but when it came down to planning a real struggle inside the Labour Party they refused to organise against Bevan and the right wing.

This showed very clearly the limitations of such centrists, in spite of the agreement to fight bans and proscriptions which we had with them at an earlier period.

We paid a high price for this alliance since we had to close down our paper, the 'Socialist Outlook'.

Simultaneously with these developments, also in 1956, came the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. - We turned our attention towards clarifying the issue of Trotskyism versus Stalinism for large numbers of dissident members of the Communist Party.

"Tribune' adopted a 'couldn't care less', cynical attitude towards these members. The English contempt for theory came constantly to the fore in their articles at that time. Yet By refusing to deal with the problems facing the working class, the right-wing Labourites prepare the way for racialist poison and fascism. we persisted with this clarification and, as a result, won a very important number of cadres to our movement. We were, in fact, the only section of the international Trotskyist movement which did this.

In the temporary trade recession of 1959 these cadres were in the forefront of many of the important struggles of that period.

We launched The Newsletter in 1957 and it has continued as a weekly ever since. We supported the bus strike of 1958 and our members led the Norton motor cycle strike in Birmingham.

Then the Labour Party, under Gaitskell's leadership, began to witch-hunt leading members of the League.

They first of all prevented us from standing as parliamentary candidates. Here and there they sorted out members on trivial issues and expelled them. In all this they enjoyed behind-the-scenes support of "Tribune'ites who at that time were once more clinging to Bevan's coat-tails.

We were faced with an impossible situation where leading members were unable to play a role inside the Labour Party becausé of the witch-bunt. We were accused of being an illegal faction when, in fact, we wanted to have the same rights as those enjoyed by the Fabians and the "Tribune'ites inside the Party.

In March 1959 we launched the Socialist Labour League as an organisation which would openly fight on a Marxist policy within the Labour Party and the trade unions.

We wrote to the Labour Party National Executive Committee and asked them for affiliation to the Party. They refused, and instead, expelled us.

Germain and company denounced our activity as ultraleft, but anyone familiar with the situation in Britain will know that this is just phrase mongering.

When Brian Behan and others proposed an ultra-left course and suggested that the League become an open party in 1960, they were rejected by the overwhelming majority of our membership after a political struggle, which took place over several months.

During the same period, when the Labour Party started up its youth section, supporters of the Socialist Labour League became the most prominent fighters within that organisation for the rights of youth. Over the past four years, as is well known, they achieved the leadership by a substantial majority.

During these four years (19601964), the right wing constantly witch-hunted the Young Socialists. In the summer of 1964, they expelled a number of its leaders.

Germain would have had us retreat then, as he wanted us to do in 1959, but this would have led to confusion and defeat for the youth. The action which they have since taken resulted in the formation of what promises to be the only mass socialist youth movement to be built in Britain since the war.

We believe that in the next périod substantial numbers of young members and cadres will join the Socialist Labour League from the Young Socialists.

These developments have not in any way altered our conception that it is necessary to build up a strong movement in the Labour Party to fight the right wing We believe that this movement can only be built under Marxist leadership and at the WHO prepared the of the Tories at Leyton? Was it the Socialist Labour League, which warned constantly of the coming treachery of Wilson? Was it its paper, The Newsletter, which fought every week against the illusion that electing a Labour majority would in itself resolve the problems of the working class?

Or was it those 'left' gentlemen, like the producers of "Tribune', who denounced us for 'rocking the boat' when we attacked Wilson and Brown?

Or the Communist Party, preaching the possibility of a "parliamentary' way to overthrow capitalism?

Or even the Pabloites, telling anyone who was listening that Wilson was really a 'left social democrat'?

The Labour leaders pretend that racialism had nothing to do with Leyton. This is rubbish and they know it.

The direct intervention of fascist groups was nationally reported. Even more significant is the growing volume of 'background' racialism put out by many national newspapers, According to "The Observer', 40 per cent of the Labour voters in Leyton thought that racialism was responsible for the swing in votes.

The policies of Wilson and company, carrying out the needs of the banks and monopolies, lead to divisions and demoralisation in the working class.

Pernicious ideas

A section of workers rejects these policies, but, without a clear socialist alternative, they fall victim to the most pernicious and anti-working class ideas put out by the extreme right.

When Labour leadership, in the name of the labour movement, allows prices to rise while holding down pensions and introducing a wage freeze, it prepares the ground for racialist poison to spread and split working-class solidarity.

Its policy repels the midd iss from the labour movemer a time when it has lost co lence in the Tories.

of the Young Socialists in membership. Because we provided leadership at each stage of the struggle, many centristmoving workers were won over to Marxism as a result of the strength of such leadership.

Germain and company, in practice, adapt themselves to the centrists. We struggle to convince them and in doing so we have had much more successes in the field of practice.

When Germain and the Unified Secretariat denounce us as 'ultra-lefts' they are using this phrase in order to cover up their own opportunism.

Let us look a little mors closely at the political record of the Socialist Labour League since the split from the Pabloite revisionists in 1953.

Six months after the split the right wing of the Labour Party proscribed our paper, the 'Socialist Outlook' At that time the Bevanites were moving leftwards. We fought to establish the widest possible unity in action between us and them against bans and proscriptions. This resulted at the 1954 conference of the Labour Party in the Bevanites' defending the right of the 'Socialist Outlook' to appear, irrespective of whether it was called Trotskyist or not.

During the dock strike of the same period, we convinced the Bevanites to support the dockers and the formation of the National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers ('Blue' union). Ridley Road, Dalston, 1962, Mosley's meeting begins way for the victory

THE letter below was written in reply to an article in a Sinhalese bourgeois journal by Dr. Osmund Jayaratne, a professor in the Ceylon University (Peradeniya) and until recently a member of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Revolutionary) and its representative on the Unified Secretariat. For more than two years he served the revisionist Secretariat in Europe loyally. After the coalition was formed he returned to Ceylon, not to fight the reformists, but 10 resist the growing influence of the International Committee of the Fourth International within the ranks of the LSSP (R). His campaign of lies and innuendo failed. He then carried out the rest of his mandate by deserting the LSSP (R) openly and joining 30, 30, because you are anxious up your own failures.

Now look at their international record. Posadas, Pablo's Pa a 81 Th.

of young intellectuals from the university some weeks ago in the humble little room from which I address this letter.

Forces who will do in the youth the trade unions i the Labour Party I, as they learned four years, that cisive task is to tionary party and ich involves, from working in mass nisations. eatedly challenged the rest of them ese issues objecis not the slightest leftism or sectarthe struggles of abour League in tion of the The low very close to eek. We have ill the main ins. Our members • all important le working class. enge Germain fied Secretariat another section of the world ade the same that of the bour League. he facts, now to many people vorld.

ecord of Inified ariat in tain ook at the record Secretariat. In the split they ction in Britain, Lawrence. This • their policy of Stalinism because ct, preparing to skyist movement alinists. ection began its uary 1954 and le autumn of the lost of its memthe Communist en and 1956. 10 section of his ngland. 5 they advertised people interested section. A man prominent in the newspapers, , "The Observer', the Labour voters ght that racialism : for the swing in of Wilson and ing out the needs and monopolies, as and demoraliorking class.

sus ideas : workers rejects but, without a alternative, they the most periti-working class by the extreme our leadership, of the labour llows prices to holding down introducing a it prepares the acialist poison split workingpels the midd ibour movemen it has lost col ories. Trotskyist movement, who had been expelled on a motion from Germain at their Third World Congress in 1951, answered the advertisement and was immediately reinstated and appointed leader of their section.

This man is today a close collaborator of S. Mani, who recently supported the right wing in calling in the police to expel alleged supporters of the Socialist Labour League. When in 1954 a prominent member of the League associated with the 'Socialist Outlook was being expelled from the Labour Party this same man abstained on the motion for expulsion.

Small wonder the Pabloite organisation in Britain has never been able to function. Recently it was joined by a small number of people, some of whom for various reasons dropped away from membership of the Socialist Labour League some time ago They have now split away from the so-called official group and significantly one of the reasons given is that they are opposed to the actions of S. Mani and those who support him.

Before Ernest Germain starts criticising the Socialist Labour League and denouncing us as ultra-left, we ask him to explain politically the fate of the organisation he has been supporting in this country since 1956.

It is little use mouthing Explain what has happened to those who support the Unified Secretariat? They have been following the line of the Unified Secretariat. Look what happened to them practice.

In September 1964, you had a unification between the groups who supported the Unified Secretariat and another group. Now they have split, only three months later.

Your first section formed in 1953 joined the Stalinists. Your second section has never been able to get started apart from some of its members giving support to the right wing against the Socialist Labour League. Here is a record of opportunism that would be hard to equal.

You use the word 'ultra-left' When it refused to repeal the Tory Immigration Act, it strengthened the racialists.

Racialist ideas, and the rise of fascist organisations which exploit them, are inevitable products of the decay of imperialism.

While automation makes possible a tremendous rise in living standards, its capitalist organisation turns it into a threat to millions of workers.

At the same time as unemployment drives workers from colonial countries to Britain, the employers prepare for a showdown with the labour movement and use every means to disunite the working class. - Without a determined struggle against these tendencies, a fascist movement will grow in Britain.

Only a clear socialist lead can provide an answer to racialism. By uniting all workers in struggle against capitalism, a Marxist leadership can expose the racialists as the bosses agents that they are.

Those do-gooders who advise to ignore the questions or lieutenant in his Latin American group, split in the 1960s on an ultra-left basis.

You are now expelling Pablo, whose politics are drawing him closer and closer to the Soviet bureaucracy On opportunist grounds. Last year, the overwhelming maJority of your Ceylon section, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party joined up with a capitalist coalition government.

All these trends from your movement are to the right and in an opportunist direction. That is the reason why your conception of entry into social democracy leads to liquidation.

The Socialist Labour League stands for the training and development of revolutionary leadership based on participation in the class struggle.

In order to carry this out we fight continuously inside the mass reformist organisations of the working class, but we do not liquidate ourselves within these organisations.

We are in principle occupied with the building of the revolutionary party and the training of its leadership. We are concerned with the building of our press and the education of our youth movement.

This, we believe, is the way that Trotsky wanted parties of the Fourth International lo function. Your way is not the Trotskyist, but the revisionist way. of the LSSP (R). arguments of the LSSP (R) as "sectarian'. International Committee. Editor.

There is nothing new in reminding us that the primary task of the LSSP (R) is to prevent the establishment of a UNP administration.

We know very well that only we can, and must, shoulder the responsibility for creating a leadership that will win the confidence of the working class and lead them in the struggle to liberate themselves from the bondage of capitalism.

We know, too, now that on this tortuous road we shall have to keep a vigilant eye for the snares and pitfalls made by traitors such as you, Dr. Jayaratne.

At this moment, the Ceylonese working class have not forgotten their capacity to fight.

Dalston, 1962, police viciously attack anti-fascists who finally rout Mosley and his supporters. THE Soviet press announced recently that the Volga Germans had been rehabilitated The Volga German Autonomous. Republic, one of the constituent republics of the Sovlet Union was dissolved by Stalin after the Nazi invasion. The reason given for this was that, as these Soviet citizens were of German origin (they had emigrated to Russia in the 18th century), they must have been in collusion with Hitler!

The Volga Germans-over half a million of them—were dispersed throughout Siberia and other remote parts of the Soviet Union. The same fate was meted out to other Soviet minorities like the Chechens, Kalmuks, Ingushi and the Crimea Tartars.

The rehabilitation notice admitted that the Volga Germans had not been responsible for Hitler's invasion. However, they are still forbidden to return to their homes on the Volga. who preach against racial discrimination on moral grounds, or call for legislation to stop it, help to prevent a real class fight being developed.

These issues are nothing new for the Socialist Labour League and The Newsletter.

For all In 1958, when fascist groups stirred up racial disturbances in Notting Hill, we issued a pamphlet, 'Sweep the Racialists off the Streets' in which we said:

'Socialists are neither problack, nor pro-white. They stand for jobs for all, better housing for all, the tearing down of slums, the ending of the social system which gives rise to unemployment and overcrowding.

"These aims ... can be achieved only through the united action of white workers and black workers against the common enemy-the employing class.' We called for the labour movement in each area to set up defence squads to meet the attacks of fascist thugs. We PRICE STABILISATION' LEADS TO SACKINGS

(Translated from the Sinhalese journal 'Sama Samajaya', weekly organ of the LSSP (R).

HAVE asked you to publish this reply to Dr. Osmund Jayaratne's article 'On Giving Life to Class Consciousness' which appeared in a recent issue of 'Jana Sathiya' [a Sinhalese bourgeois weekly] because I know only too well that the Editors of that paper do not tolerate oppositional ideas and therefore will not publish this reply.

It is clear that Doctor Jayaratne has rejected Trotskyism in favour of Stalinism.

Until recently, he would recall with respect the name of Leon Trotsky, who founded the Fourth International to lead the world socialist revolution, and for which he was slandered by warned that the police should not be relied on to "keep order'.

In May 1959, our arguments were only too well confirmed when a young West Indian, Kelso Cochrane, was murdered in Notting Hill.

To this day, his murderer has never been found by our wonderful police.

'The Guardian' and 'Daily Telegraph' protested at our warnings that the police could not and would not beat fascism for us.

"The Economist' accused us of wanting to set up 'a paramilitary nucleus of troublemakers'.

In a pamphlet Workers' Defence Squads for Notting Hill', Gerry Healy wrote:

'Can the Tory government and its police force fight the fascist menace?

'Never in a million years.

The Tory government is the agency by which the big businessmen of the City of London rule this country.

'When this agency becomes inadequate, and the employers can no longer rule through Parliament, they will pour millions of pounds into the building of fascist movements.' Control In 1961, realising the growing threat to the labour movement, The Newsletter published a series of articles by James Baker, reprinted in a pamphlet 'Racialism, a Danger to Labour'.

These examined the growing demand for the control of immigration and showed that it was really a racialist campaign. The articles investigated many examples of racialism within the labour movement itself.

Some attention in particular was paid to Smeth-.

wick. Four years ago an Immigration Control Committee was already active there. Backed by prominent Tories, it put out antiThe author is a worker member of the Central Committee)

the Comintern, which has a large and important section of the working class in its ranks.

Does he now call this sectarian?

Is it not a fact that the Reformist LSSP is now going the way of the defunct Comintern which also degenerated under imperialist pressure?

The majority of the Ceylonese workers are class-conscious but at present this consciousness has not risen above a trade union level. In order to raise this consciousness it is necessary that the vanguard of the class be trained theoretically.

This has not been done. The main responsibility for this omission rests on the shoulders of the leaders of the Reformist LSSP whom Jayaratne still continues to venerate.

These people did little or nothing to train and educate advanced workers in the theory and practice of Marxism. The amount of Marxist literature that they translated and pubcolour propaganda substantial scale.

Baker wrote:

'During all these months there has never been any public statement by Smethwick's Labour MP on this issue.... It is reported, however, that he attended a meeting of the Smethwick Committee of the Control Association on June 2 last and that he had promised to speak at a meeting they are organising in September.

'One may ask what a Labour MP is doing in such company. But Mr. Gordon Walker has also agreed, it is said, to speak at a meeting organised in Smethwick by the Co-ordinating Committee against Racial Discrimination.

"Those who are interested in political prestidigitation will make a special point uf attending both meetings.' Evasion This is how the defeats of Labour at both Smethwick and Leyton were prepared. By a combination of evasion and adaptation, the right - wing leaders hope that they can escape from the racialists.

Then, during 1962, The Newsletter continued the fight against Mosley and Jordan in many articles between July and November when Young Socialists and members of the Young Communist League joined together in the streets to fight Mosleyites, anti-fascist leagues were set up, and the police showed their true colours in defending Mosley in Trafalgar Square, Dalston and Bethnal Green by brutally attacking and arresting anti-fascists.

The working class came nearer to the 'defence squads advocated by the Socialist Labour League in earlier struggles, the same "squads' that the do-gooders and centrists had attacked.

lished in the native language was disappointingly small and negligible.

After 1956, these leaders thought that there was no necessity to educate or to train any leaders in the party. Consequently, any understanding of the fundamentals of Marxism was confined to a small number of English-educated intellectuals.

Dr. Jayaratne will agree, albeit reluctantly, that not more than one out of a hundred advanced class-conscious workers would know how to analyse the condition for a socialist administration.

Dr. Jayaratne laments the fact that the two LSSP MPs last December used their vote in Parliament to bring down the coalition government.

He does not have the honesty to admit that the coalition collapsed because the leaders of the government did not understand, and moreover, refused to solve, the crisis which confronted them.

Dr. Jayaratne must realise that our comrades did not vote In the same year these people along with the 'Daily Worker' were appealing for a law to be enacted preventing fascists from expressing race-hatred.

As The Newsletter had forewarned, the then Home Secretary Henry Brooke amended the Public Order Act to give stiffer penalties to any person who 'speaks words or publishes malter calculated to provoke a breach of the peace with the intention of stirring up hatred or hostility 'between different classes of the Queen's subjects, which could apply just as easily to the working class as to the Jordans and Mosleys.

If the Wilsons and Gordon Walkers lose their ability to keep the workers quiet, the employing class will have to look around for someone else to do the job iby other means.

All those political trends which begin from the eternal stability of capitalism and the two-party parliamentary political system are astounded 1. by Leyton.

Understand

Only Marxists, who begin with the power of the working class and its ability to smash capitalism, can understand what has happened and how to act.

In this period of decline and crisis of British imperialism, the opportunist leaders and those who cover up for them, open the door for the racialists and fascists.

Everyone who opposes the building of a revolutionary socialist leadership to displace opportunism is aiding in the confusion and disorientation of the labour movement.

The Socialist Labour League has worked to prepare the whole labour movement for this situation. If we can build a Marxist leadership we can break the stranglehold of the Wilsons and Browns and smash capitalism and its fascist agents. for an anti-socialist administration (which was what the other opposition parties wanted), but because they recognised the formation of the coalition as a betrayal of socialism.

It is obvious that no honest socialist, no worker with an atom of class - consciousness would endorse or defend the three principal objectives of government policy outlined in the second Throne speech, namely, the creation of a government press dictatorship, the penalising of religious minorities by making Buddhism a state religion and the exclusion from political life of a large section of the working class from Ceylon under the IndoCeylon agreement.

He points out that after the defeat of the coalition, only two alternatives are probable in the next General Election: either the election of the United National Party or the victory of the LSSP-SLFP coalition.

Dr. Colvin de Silva, speaking at the mass rally at Galle Face Green on December 9, put it in a different way.

He stated that the choice facing the Ceylonese people was the same as that which the American people had faced recently when they were asked to vote either for Goldwater or Johnson.

Your leader accepts the fact that the differences between the UNP and the LSSP-SLFP are as narrow as those which distinguish the Republican from the Democrats.

Then why do you indulge in all this gabbling rubbish?

Didn't your leaders tell the workers at the mass rally on December 9 to go home quietly and use their vote to return a coalition government?

But did your leaders promise to reward the working class by enhancing their political power and influence?

'You give us your votes and we will govern'. Is this not your idea? Is it towards this end that you hope to persuade revolutionaries like ourselves?

Did not the leaders of the coalition send armed police and troops to guard 'Lake House' on December 9? Whom were they protecting and against who?

Were they not defending 'Lake House' against those sections of militant workers who came to the defence of the 'egalitarian policies of the coalition government?

Isn't it a disgraceful insult to the consideration shown to the coalition by militant sections of the workers?

Generally speaking, it is true that the workers have two sides to choose from in the next election. The popular enthusiasm generated by a General Election is not a bad thing.

Nevertheless, is it not true that those people who try to show, falsely, that the whole nation is pulsating with militancy in anticipation of a General Election, do so only in order to prove that the ballot box is the only way to socialism?

The low level of consciousness amongst the workers prevents them from seeing that real enthusiasm and militancy will arise only when the working class recognises the class nature of parliament as a weapon to defend the power and property of the capitalist class, smashes the rotten parliamentary system and establishes democratically, the organs of proletarian dictatorship.

When Dr. Jayaratne was in the United Kingdom at the time of the split in the LSSP, he did not move around in the environment of the party leadership and cultivate these connections.

But when he came back to Peradeniya and fell into the company of the Party leaders, his attitude began to change considerably.

Marxism teaches us that consciousness is a product of being and environment.

It is with some regret that I must now reveal how Dr. Jayaratne has made clear his two-faced nature and his positive hostility to the very same ideas which he elucidated to a group At the time of writing I know that many work places have become the scene of bitter struggles.

The treachery of the coalition government and its attempts to blunt the fighting capacity of the working class today evokes the memory of Goonesinghe* and the same feeling of revulsion which he generated in the working class.

It is very clear now how the LSSP leaders got to power on the basis of the 21 demands and then contemptuously kicked them aside.

Before long the workers, after a few more such experiences, will abandon their leaders. Then they will understand that the only revolutionary party ready to lead them is the LSSP (R).

Dr. Jayaratne and the rest of his kind, because of their treacherous leadership, have forfeited the confidence of the working class.

(P.V.P. Kulatilleke)

* Goonesinghe was a labour leader who took up an antiIndian position and got a porfolio in the 1947 UNP government-the first labour • leader to do so.

NUMEROUS factories in the French textile, rubber, leather, paper box and metal industries have been shut down over the past few months. This is accompanied by a severe reduction of working hours in those industries and arbitrary sackings of hundreds of militants.

The rise in unemployment, which threatens to increase sharply, is the means by which the government plans to stabilize prices.

NO COMPENSATION Once again, workers have to pay with their jobs and wages for the instability of capitalism.

Several hundreds of thousands of workers are already suffering from partial unemployment. There is absolutely no compensation available to make up for wages lost through reduction of hours.

The 'plan' of price stabilization was introduced a year ago as an attempt to cool off the overheated French economy.

But this has led to a degree of stagnation which • now threatens to develop into a OUT NOW-Order your copy—double issue Fourth International incorvorating (Autumn/Winter issue) REVIEW Contents include:

Editorials The Struggle for Marxism in the United States The Strategy of Betrayal-Wilfred Pereira The Intelligentsia and Socialism-Leon Trotsky Trends in Soviet Literature (2)—Jean Simon Book Reviews Communications Documents 68 pages (double issue). Illus. Price 4s. Available from: NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD. 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4. general recession. The deficit on the balance of payments has increased by 26 per cent since 1963.

If the working class were to force the government to halt the rising unemployment, the attempt to hold prices down would be wiped out.

That is why the policy of unemployment is implemented by chasing militants out of the factories.

An important section of the British ruling class is prepared to adopt the same policy.

The deep-rooted crisis of capitalism, which is beginning to reveal its depth and scope across Europe, marks the end of the post-war boom, and with it, the old political parties and political compromises.

• PARIS STRIKE For the second time in recent months the many municipal workers in and around Paris plan to strike on Wednesday and Thursday bringing the city to a walking pace.

Once again the government will intervene and use troops to transport commuters to and from work.

Transport workers will strike on Wednesday and gas and electricity workers will not operate on Thursday.

LABOUR

Page January 30,1964

over From BILL HUNTER I depot in the North-eas • into anv bus garage 0 and you will find discontent about the wages and conditions of busmen.

The union leaders have refused to organise a real national fight for the wages demands of municipal busmen and those bus crews employed by private companies.

A result of this refusal has been that the men have resorted to isolated action and the mounting frustration has been expressed in other issues.

For example, Newcastle busmen say that recent action against a ban on drinking in uniform was a result of the general discontent.

OVERTIME BAN

Likewise the overtime ban imposed by Northern Company employees over the Christmas period was ostensibly against 'hooliganism'.

In fact it was the result of frustration over wages and conditions and the failure of the unions to take speedy action.

In all the big towns of the North-east the busmen have made demands for local increases.

Middlesbrough busmen recently ended a three-week overtime ban, which began as a protest against the national offer of a 7s. increase. During this ban they raised the demand for a local bonus.

Like all the busmen in the North-east they complain that new and longer buses have been introduced with no extra payment for crews.

Busmen employed in the private companies were offered 8s. 6d. increase last week. The rank-and-file busmen are overwhelmingly rejecting this paltry offer.

CRITICAL

Bus workers generally are bitterly critical of the rightwing union leadership. The strength of the union could have ensured an increase weeks ago.

Instead the delays have meant that busmen, like other workers, are suffering a cut in wages as the cost of living rises.

Union leaders are at one with the employers in opposition to militancy. They try to use the union machinery to cage that militancy in isolated garages.

The lesson of isolated action is clear. There is a big need to break down the isolation of need to build a link-up of militants in bus garages, to develop united action amongst all busmen and to struggle in the union against the betrayal of the leadership.

Aberdeen dockers win pay dispute ABERDEEN dockers won an important victory last week when they came out on strike after being laid off for half a day.

Fourteen dockers working on a cargo ship were informed that they would not be required for work on Friday afternoon. The men stated that they were not given notice before 11.30 a.m. and therefore claimed that they should be' paid for an afternoon's work.

Support for the men in dispute came from 180 dockers and 16 ships were affected.

Work was resumed on Wednesday morning when the employers agreed that in future, notice of non-availability of work in the afternoon would be given before 11.30 a.m. and that the money claimed by 14 dockers would be paid.

Registered at the G.P.O. as a newspaper 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 Midland 'Red' bus services.

Saturday strikes but also lightning strikes on surprise dates.

Oldbury bus workers received prompt support from all Black Country garages. Meetings were held in other centres in the Midiands, and workers decided to strike in 24 of the company's 34 garages.

At towns as widely separated as Leicester, Hereford, Nuneaton, Worcester, Sutton Coldfield, Stafford, Evesham and Ludlow, the strike was 100 per cent effective.

1,200 of the company's 1,786 buses were off the road.

The union claim for provincial busmen, applied for last September, was for a substantial wage increase, à sick pay scheme, a cut in the working week to 40 hours without loss of pay, additional pay for two weeks' holiday and an incentive bonus scheme.

The employers' offer was 8s. 6d. a week in full settlement of all the claims. Busmen were indignant at receiving such a wretched offer.

Backdated As compared with Birmingham Corporation drivers, who earn a basic £15 a week, topgrade Midland 'Red' drivers get £11 11s. 5d. for a 42-hour week. They want a satisfactory offer from the employers, and they intend to get it backdated.

Mr. A. Silcox, district organiser of the TGWU, described the strike as spontaneous, unofficial action, due to the fact that the men consider themselves to be badly treated. London busmen have had a substantial increase' There was some indignation at the attitude of the Digbeth, Birmingham, garage-the biggest of the Midland 'Red' garageswhich worked as usual on Saturday, running buses down the Warwick, Coventry and Stratford roads of the city.

Officials here stuck by a statement that Digbeth garage was to hold no meeting till February 7, though there was a report on the day of the strike that in fact there had been a mass meeting the previous night.

A garage committee official at Digbeth, asked on Friday if the garage meant to support the strike, deelared: I'm not interested in this strike. We stand by a recent resolution to carry on working, and personally when I'm working I'm not interested in a strike' Support Eleven months ago there was a single Saturday strike involving most of the Midland 'Red' garages. Feeling then ran high and the call for strike action received tremendous support and solidarity on the part of the workers. A settlement was then reached for a 14s. increase for drivers and 10s. 6d. for other bus workers.

Busmen's pay and conditions have worsened seriously compared with those of other workers and speed-up is increasing rapidly. Responsibility for these poor conditions rests with bad trade union leadership.

Midlands bus strikers must learn the lesson of earlier sell-outs. However strong their solidarity, they will face repeated defeats unless they prepare a new leadership which will fight more resolutely in their interests.

IN LEICESTER, the union secretary of the TGWU branch refused to comment on the strike, but pickets claimed he was against the strike.

At another Midland Red garage in Leicester men worked on Saturday, because they were not adequately informed about the strike. Many of them said that if they had known the strike was on, they would have supported it.

They have pledged their support for any further action.

Strikers at the Southgate Street station said they were determined to continue one-day strikes if a meeting of branch secretaries in Birmingham did not produce results.

The local Tory press attacked the busmen, saying they showed a nasty streak of meanness by inconveniencing the public who should not show any sympathy to the busmen.

This is an attempt to isolate the strike the busmen should reply by organising a rank-and-file committee, with representatives from all garages, which will be able to call a 100 per cent strike in all garages in the area.

MINERS

CONFRONT ROBENS OVER PIT CLOSURE ANGRY miners from the - Lambton D pit, scheduled for closure, in Durham in the North-east confronted Lord Robens, Chairman of the National Coal Board, when he arrived in Seaham to open a training centre this week.

Lord Robens stated that 'uneconomic pits' had to be closed. But in answer to this statement the miners at Lambton say that they had previously warned that when recent projects, involving heavy expenditure had been carried out at the pit, they would be a waste of capital.

It is obvious that more than just lobbying Robens is needed if the miners are to safeguard their jobs.

PROFITS

The employers are only interested in those pits which make the most profits in the shortest time.

Trade unionists in the mining industry must fight to see that the introduction of automation in the pits does not mean that thousands of them will end up on the dole queues. With socialist planning this need not happen.

Two hundred and fifteen men at the Harraton Colliery, County Durham, are to be given notice of the possibility of transfer to other local collieries.

Men at the Clara Vale pit Ryton-on-Tyne have also been threatened with the closure of their pit. fight Secretary, Streatham Tenants' SEVERAL trade union branches are supporting the campaign to keep Mr. and Mrs. Swole and their two children in their flat at 104 Sternhold Avenue, Streatham, London, after the family downstairs were evicted. Signatures are coming in for the petition to Wandsworth Borough Council, asking them to buy the house.

Devoted practical help in picketing has been given also by • workers who have been evicted in the past, and know how it feels.

During the campaign two members asked us to their 'homes' in Leigham Vale.

DAMPNESS

On the first floor we met Mrs. Scott and the three children (playing quietly on the bed) in a small 'furnished' room with kitchenette. For this and another room which was out of use through dampness, the family pays f6 5s. a week.

Upstairs we met Mrs.

Belmour and her three children, in a 'furnished' attic room with kitchenette, for which she pays f4 a week. and Residents' Association These members are factory workers, and both families come from India.

Last autumn the gas supply began to leak, so the gas was cut off and the tenants used their own oil heaters. Then the landlord objected to these and removed one belonging to Mr. Belmour. The only heating now is by electricity. The meter consumes a great number of shillings in a week.

Both families received notices to quit, which expired on December 14, but rent was accepted after that date. With the new Act the landlord will still have to apply to a court for possession.

REASSURANCE

The mere existence of a Tenants' Association gave some reassurance to the families. The landlord referred the matter to his solicitor, the Sanitary Inspector went over the place, and Mrs. Belmour and Mrs. Scott went to the Rent Tribunal.

The Tribunal was evasive so we wrote to Richard Crossman, Labour's Housing Minister, for clarification, and are going back to the Tribunal.

Sometimes the wives wonder whether they would be better ofi in a residential centre.

In two months' time this part of Streatham will be transferred from Wandsworth to the Borough of Lambeth, where there are enormous housing problems already.

We do not know what will happen to these families. But they illustrate a point. Landlords, employers and manufacturers between them are putting an impossible three-way bind on workers, especially those from abroad, who have no 'in-laws' to fall back on.

In the unions there is some defensive organisation; in the homes and shops there is none.

We feel that unity of workers, as tenants and ratepayers, will have to be built in every street and estate, in the union branches and trades councils, and every case taken up and fought through. MASS SUPPOR FOR LOBBY

THE Scottish Division of the National Coal Board reported recently that steady progress had been made in the Scottish area during 1964. Output per man shift increased to a record figure of 28.8 cwt. Compared with 1963, productivity increased by 5 per cent.

The improved production figures, however, did not spell out any benefit for the miners. Eleven pits were closed during the year and although the Coal Board claim that all except 220 of the men affected had been placed in other jobs, the fact remains that there was a drop of 41,000 in the number of men employed, compared with 1963.

FUTURE

In a statement on the problems facing the coal industry Lord Robens said that on the decision of the Minister of Fuel may rest the future of 43 Scottish pits employing 25,000 miners.

On the same day, Will Paynter, General Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers also made a lengthy statement in the 'Daily Worker' in which he said 'miners were demonstrating with their From BOB SHAW feet their lack of confidence policies that have created uncertain future for them'.

Presumably here Paynter is referring to the policies of the National Coal Board. Elsewhere he refers to the policy of the National Union of Mineworkers being firmly opposed to closures.

He did not cite one single example where this policy has been seriously fought for by the leadership of the union. Neither does he state by what means, under his leadership, the union will fight against the new phase of pit closures with which he says the miners are now faced.

He states that many miners are critical of the union's attitude to closures; that they believe the more militant stand taken by the rail unions has resulted in the decision that closures will be decided by the government and not railway management.

This development, says Paynter, 'increases the likelihood of fiercer resistance to pit closures, particularly at local level'. Of his own fierce resistance he remains silent. He makes no mention of any intention to mobilise the powerful mineworkers' union in organised resistance to further attacks on the miners. His statement is a complete abdication of leadership.

Whilst calling for the immediate writing off of capital to reduce interest payments, Paynter says nothing about stopping the payment of compensation to the ex-owners and shareholders.

He completes his statement by saying: 'Our strong hope, [and as an afterthought adds] 'our demand, is that the problems of industry will be tackled by the government quickly, boldly and decisively' NO SOLUTION Miners cannot place any confidence in strong hopes. Hopes will not bring a solution to their problems.

They must demand that the organised strength of the National Union of Mineworkers is mobilised in an all-out fight to stop pit closures; that the Labour government immediately suspend all interest payments to exshareholders; that the oil industry be nationalized and the resources of coal and oil planned in such a way that not a single miner suffers any hardship as the result of the introduction of larger supplies of oil as a cheap source of fuel.

This is the only kind of fuel policy which will benefit the miners and the working class as a whole.

FEATHERSTONE, Yorkshire, Council have denied a report in the 'Pontefract Express? that the council has 20 new council houses (at 50s. a week) in Loscoe which they cannot find tenants for. The denial came when Loscoe people visited the council.

There, they were told by one councillor that they had let him down by not fighting hard enough for houses.

He said that if 50 people left the village, temants would be given council houses. But people who live in the terrible conditions of private houses in the A Newsletter Correspondent village are compelled to do so through different circumstances, and as soon as houses become vacant, they are quickly re-let.

The Jackson family took their present house because they were assured they would get a council house within a year. That was years ago! A councillor has made a similar promise. Now he says it is 'points' that count, not time.

The Jacksons are refusing to pay rent until repairs to the roof, promised a long time ago, are carried out.

They have now received eviction notice.

REPAIRS

Loscoe tenants have asked the council for forms requesting landlords to do repairs. This is the first legal step in forcing the landlord to do repairs. One tenant has brought a successful action of this kind into court.

But Featherstone Council have only two forms, and say they do not want to get any more printed. They claim they can do repairs quicker.

Meanwhile the damp weather is bringing more ceilings down. Mr. and Mrs. Stead now have a hole on either side of their bed which let in the rain.

At a recent meeting of the Leeds Federation of Tenants' Associations, a resolution of support for the Loscoe housing struggles was passed and reported to the 'Yorkshire Post, who interviewed both councillors and villagers and took photographs of the houses. This appeared to anger some Featherstone officials.

Several Loscoe tenants are to attend the public meeting advertised on page one of this week's Newsletter. They say no one else seems to want to improve their conditions.

A scheme, which includes provisions for single manning of trains and the delegation of firemen and any other grades, for whom there is no work available, to jobs like sweeping and cleaning is being formulated by union and Board representatives.

Unity which has been forged at rank-and-file level this week between busmen and railwaymen in Manchester is a significant omen for the future.

The division which has been created in the past by employers and by trade union officials between different sections of workers employed on the transport industry is being broken down in struggle.

If this unity can be extended on a national scale and given the support of all bus workers and railwaymen it can add real strength to the demand for a national transport plan along socialist lines.

LATE NEWS—Perry reports that NUR District organiser, Turnock, swayed the railmen to vote 49-46 against striking, following attack on strike committee in Manchester Evening News'. Men say they were confused, but further meeting retused. their pensions, but with the recent increase in costs, found it hard to make ends meet.

The Newsletter once more applauds and supports wholeheartedly the youth who have worked for this campaign.

The lobby was called by the Young Socialists National Committee Majority who, in a press statement following their meeting in Newcastle last week-end, said the defeat of Gordon Walker at Leyton and Cousins' reduced majority at Nuneaton are 'urgent danger signals for the British labour movement'.

Lost votes The steep rise in the cost of living and other intermediate increases 'and above all the refusal of the Labour government to pay the miserable 12s. 6d. pensions increase before the end of the winter-all these things cost thousands of votes on January 21', the statement says.

The 'lost' Labour votes at Leyton were not a result of 'apathy' and 'irresponsibility' by workers but, 'a very deliberate expression of dissatisfaction with the Labour government. The problem is to find a socialist alternative'.

The lobby was 'only the beginning of our campaign to build support for our socialist policies throughout the organised working class.

The Newsletter makes a further appeal to all those so-called 'apathetic' voters and so-called "irresponsible' workers from all over Britain to join the hundreds who are already planning to join the youth in demanding the pensions rise now.

By SYLVIA said at a recent meeting: 'Only now that the cost of living is going up so much and I find how difficult it is for us to manage do I appreciate even more the plight of old people' In Scotland the Linwood and Albion Motor AEU branches have supported the lobby and sent their resolutions to the Paisley District Committee.

Edinburgh busmen allowed a Young Socialist speaker to attend a shop stewards' meeting and there is a large amount of support in the area.

Collections have been made in public houses and at factories in Glasgow, at Sternes, a washing machine company and J. and P. Coates, the cotton manufacturers, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and further support is expected this week-end from the Old Aged Pensioners in Lanarkshire.

AEU backing The Sheffield, Yorkshire, district committee of the AEU was one of the first union branches to pledge support for the lobby. They have been followed by branches Nos. 2, 3, 35, Parsons Cross and Rotherham. The No. 9 branch will send a delegate.

George Darling, MP and the Hillsborough, Sheffield, Labour Party refused support, but the response elsewhere, among old people and in public houses, has been immense. Working men's clubs have also given financial support and the Walkley Club is sending several old people to lobby MPs.

Leeds campaigners will be sending three coaches to the lobby with youth and several pensioners. They have approached chemical, garment and electrical workers for support.

Ward resolutions In the Midlands, the Leicester 287 TGWU branch and Indian Workers' Association have supported the lobby and resolutions have been passed at the Spinney Hill and Wycliffe Wards of the S.E. Leicester constituency Labour Party. • Leicester AEU, ETU, NUR and Fire Brigades Union have agreed to have Young Socialists to speak on the lobby at their branch meetings.

The Ilkeston, Derbyshire, Trades Council have also backed the lobby. Support is expected from electricians, motor workers and engineers in Coventry and Birmingham and in Northampton, apprentices have been taking collections.

Several Lambeth, London, pensioners interviewed by The Newsletter welcomed the campaign by youth to increase the pensions. All agreed they could not live on their pensions and three women told how they worked five days a week, getting up at 5 a.m. every morning, to do cleaning work to supplement their pension.

Heroes waiting A 71-year-old man told our reporter: 'I've fought hard all my life only to make those blokes up there prosperous. We were told after the 1914-18 war we would return to a home for heroes ... but we're still waiting.' Most old people he said had to visit the 'bung house' (National Assistance Board) to supplement