The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 397

Brown: cynical promise

WHEN the Wise 'HEN the Wilson government treated on old age pensions immediately after assuming office last autumn, they openly entered the service of the banks and big business.

In explaining the deferment of the pensions increase to March, Wilson hypocritically announced that it was because of 'too much paper work.

The real reason was that the bankers insisted and the Labour government toed the line.

Now the same retreat has overtaken every single aspect of government policy, and the same fraud is being perpetrated on an even larger scale.

The very name 'Labour government' is an insult to the labour movement and the working class so long as present policies continue and the present leaders remain in office.

Emergency

An emergency Labour Party Conference is urgently necessary • to dismiss them and carry socialist policies.

In fact this is a national government, except that the Tories have the advantage of not carrying the public responsibility for its policies. They have the political advantage of appearing to organise parliamentary opposition.

They use the parliamentary debates to force the government even farther to the right on every single question. Even the Bill to abolish hanging was Youth and the Unions THE strike at Foyle's book shop, which has now been won, demonstrated once again two important facts. Firstly, that despite all the talk about wage increases, there are millions of people living on wages which are entirely inadequate for human needs. Secondly, the people who are hit most are young people and in particular those who are trying to study at universities but, through being unable to live on their grants, are forced to take temporary work. lese working-class students are forced to seek employment in department stores, tea shops, restaurants, book shops and a host of other unorganised trades. It is high time that the trade union movement did something to protect these young workers. le workers who went on strike at Foyle's were predominantly teenagers and in their early 20s. Their action showed that youth want Wilson and Brown openly serve big busi Retreat Retreat Retreat Labour Executive's full support for U.S. Vietnam policy • Labour government supports U.S. intervention in Dominica • Credit squeeze "just beginning'-Callaghan Cost of living goes up and up amended by the House of Commons, on a motion by that well-known humanitarian, exTory Home Secretary Mr. Henry Brooke.

Not even on the Bill to amend the archaic and barbarous law on homosexuality could the parliamentary Labour Party push aside the opposition of Tory backwoodsmen like Sir Cyril Osborne.

Innocuous

The much-trumpeted Bill against racialist discrimination has been castrated at birth. Even this piece of legislation, which got nowhere near the real causes and cure of racialism, was hammered by the Tories and has now become completely innocuous. It does not, in fact, make discrimination a criminal offence.

These are but small indications compared with the major issues on which Wilson, Brown and Co.

have gone into full retreat before the Tories.

Brown and Wilson engineered a situation in the steel debate where the steel bosses are now in a position to insist on all the concessions in the book, in addition to the lavish compensation proposed.

In the debate on the Finance Bill, where the government majority was three times and are prepared to fight militantly for an improvement in their wages and working conditions.

hat is now needed is an intensive recruiting drive to bring young people engaged in similar trades into action, particularly within the trade unions.

Here the Young Socialists have an excellent opportunity to pave the way in their coming summer recruitment campaign.

They must see to it that all youth who join them are also encouraged to become members of their appropriate trade union.

he Young Socialists should take an active interest in organising movements for unionising such places as laundries, department stores, hotel and catering services, as well, of course, as factories engaged in light engineering work.

lere is plenty of room for improvement, as the Foyle's strike has shown. Retreat on capital gains tax capital gains Retreat on hanging bill hanging bill steel nationa anti-racialist housing and reduced to only one vote, Callaghan handed out millions of pounds in concessions to holders of certain gilt-edged stock. He argued that to tax gains on these would be a breach of trust.

Workers everywhere will judge this for what it is-an insistence on keeping promises to the capitalists while betraying every election promise to the working class who put Wilson and Callaghan where they are.

Mr. Richard Crossman, Minister of Housing, is the most redundant member of the government. Every promise about cheaper housing to ease the situation of millions of young people has been put of to the non-existent future.

Mr. Brown's cynical promise of 3 per cent loans for houses is just laughed off.

Gunter and Brown are busy telling trade unionists that their job is to help the emcrisis. The pound is no nearer stability than last October.

Industrial production makes no expansion, and is threatened by the investment restrictions following on the Budget. Car production this year is down some 15 per cent on last year, are many employers are looking forward to a period when they can put an end to full employment and high earnings in this industry.

Devaluation comes nearer and nearer as the only possibility for this government. Their utter failure to provide any alternative to capitalism has landed them with all capitalism's problems.

It is time for the labour movement to remove them, and take the political initiative out of the hands of the employing class, who are now using the Labour government as well as the Tory party to impose their own politics on the working class. asking for a special rate of 2s. 6d. per hour with pro rata rates tor overtime. The employers, after discussion, offered 15s. a day plus fl on completion of the job.

For a job which would probably have been completed in three days the extra payments involved would have cost the employers little more than their own offer.

PATIENCE

Yet for this small sum they were prepared to stop the whole of Merseyside docks for a week and lose many thousands of pounds.

Every attempt was made by the dockers to avoid the strike. For three days they strove to restart negotiations before they reluctantly but firmly accepted the support offered by other dockers in their control.

For a further 24 hours they confined the dispute to Gladstone docks and attempted to persuade officials of the Transport and General Workers' Union to seek a further inspection of the job.

Their efforts and patience were met by the combined hostility and stubbornness of employers and union officials alike.

VILIFICATION

While TGWU district secretary, Lew Lloyd, insisted that the employers' award was fair, 9,000 of his members demonstrated outside his office that it was not.

This concerted attack on Liverpool dockers was clearly a preparation for the bigger struggles expected over the decasualisation and docks reorganisation scheme being prepared by the Lord Devlin Committee.

The dockers' emphatic rejection last year of the 'new deal' proposed in Merseyside by the port employers and the late district secretary of the TGWU, P. J. O'Hare, was a bitter defeat which the em### DEMAGOGY The china clay dispute last week was an attempt to challenge and smash the rank-and-file leadership on Merseyside preparatory to introducing whatever findings the Devlin report recommends.

Dockers know that this report will be prepared with the sole interest of profitability and efficiency for the employers and the big monopolies.

But despite the demagogy and evasions of the TGWU officials, dockers gave overwhelming support on Monday for the strike committee when 9,000 remained on strike.

The return to work vote was taken on Tuesday only after Lloyd had given the assurance

ETU leaders

open way to employers' attack reporter NO one should be fooled by the almost parochial atmosphere of the Electrical Trades Union rules revision conference at Douglas, Isle of Man. It is a warning signal to the whole of the working class.

While union president Leslie Cannon carried on a one-man show', bantering with the more outspoken delegates, the executive council pushed through the most reactionary reorganisation programme of any British union.

The rank and file is now bound to a highly bureaucratised union machine and is laid open to all the attacks on wages and working conditions by the ruling class and their servants in the Labour government.

AMENDMENTS

Carried by narrow majorities -often card votes-were amendments which set up a full-time, paid executive council; a new branch structure of industrial, rather than area sections, which will be administered by full-time, paid secretaries; larger, therefore fewer, branches; annual industrial conferences of shop stewards to replace area committees; and increased subscriptions.

Without any discussion, conference also voted to change the appeals machinery of the union. Members can now only appeal if they are expelled, but not if they are simply disciplined or fined.

An amendment to change the name of the union to the Electrical, Electronics and Communications Trade Association was rejected after only one speaker—Arthur Spear of Willesden, London, who received a tremendous cheer when he said there was nothing wrong with the word 'union'.

UNDERCURRENT

This does not mean, of course, that the object of the amendment will be defeated-Cannon and the executive council will continue to look to broader sections of the electrical industry (i.e., less 'union'-conscious sections who will readily accept the dictates of Cannon and his rightwing cronies on the executive).

Certainly, the executive didn't have it all its own way-the idea of an EC committee to 'vet' applicants for full-time posts was also defeated-but the undercurrent of opposition, if not antagonism, to the platform felt during the first three days had no voice from the rostrum.

The majority of delegates were very old, many had not been to ETU conferences before (one is known to have been a Tory election agent, another a foreman, another self-employed and yet another a small business owner). The spattering of cenReport. Already national newspapers have stated that the Labour government intends to enforce its recommendations regardless of opposition by dock workers.

BETRAYALS

The struggle of dockers to defend their conditions from further attacks is from the beginning a political struggle.

The fight of other workers against the betrayals of the Labour government is something which directly concerns all dockers.

Dock workers who ignore this are only seriously weakening the preparations of a rank-and-file leadership which will be able to fight in the coming months against the employers' attacks.

James

Douglas, trists were dispirited and disillusioned and the very few supporters of the Communist Party had no platform.

This is the real crime of the way the ETU rank and file has been handed on a plate to the wage-freezers in the Wilson government.

The Communist Party had complete control of this union just five years ago.

Through the degeneration of the Party internationally and through the opportunistic and revisionist policies of its union and Party leaders in Britain, it laid the CP leadership of the ETU open to attack in the courts and laid the membership open to a ruthless witch-hunt.

DANGEROUS

This year's rules revision conconference is the culmination of this blatant betrayal. The consequences of this betrayal in 1965 under a social-democratic government striving to uphold the capitalist system are a thousand times more dangerous than at any other time.

George Brown paid a special visit to the conference on Wednesday and duly received a vote for his 'incomes policy'. His and assistant general secretary Frank Chapple's speeches made crystal clear the pro-capitalist policies of the government and the rightwing union leaders.

Brown insisted that the unions had the job of helping the employers to make their profits more efficiently. Unions must 'push and prod' business to adopt new methods.

Chapple, like a man in blinkers but knowing exactly where he is going, said that the government were moving forward in the right direction (no pun was intended). The trade union movement, he said, should support them not with platitudes or tongue-incheek, but conscious of the government's dependence on their strength.

PATTERN

In this statement Chapple emphasises the role of the present ETU leadership in making the running for all the most reactionary aspects of the Labour government's policies.

The capitalist class look to this conference as a pattern for the future. It is a pattern which must be fought against by all trade unionists through a fight for socialist policies against all the Cannons, Wilsons and other so-called leaders of the Labour id trade union movement.

ployers to make their profits more efficiently and put up with low wages.

Foreign Minister Stewart is Callaghan: 'just beginning' the most complete servant of U.S. monopoly capitalism ever to occupy that position.

His whole-hearted endorsement of the U.S. intervention in Dominica, on the grounds of protecting the free world from 'communism', is still in the parliamentary record without any withdrawal even though the U.S. government is now discussing a coalition government with these same so-called communists under Caamano.

In Vietnam the U.S.

continue to enjoy the full support of the Labour government for their bloody war of repression, and this week the Labour Party National Executive voted full support.

In the background, ominsly threatening even more vere attacks on the workers, the unresolved economic A REPORTED split in the Labour Party is the latest development in Smethwick's political crisis. After the loss to the Tories, first of control of the local council, then of Patrick Gordon Walker's seat in Parliament, and this spring of further council seats, it is reported that about ten former Labour councillors are intent upon forming a new, breakaway Labour Party in the borough.

They are said to be considering holding a meeting to form this party, and to ask Transport House to hold an enquiry into the wavering fortunes over the last 18 months'.

Councillor Ernest Lowry, Labour leader in Smethwick, expresses the prevailing pessimism. He is reported as saying: 'We have reached rock bottom and we cannot sink any lower. I think there has got to be an enquiry' STRAITJACKET Last week Councillor Lowry wrote a letter to the local press describing Labour as an aging party and making an appeal for the recruitment of as many young people to the party as possible.

This, of course, is precisely what the Labour Party nationally has failed to do. Though Councillor Lowry is correct to stress the need to turn to the youth, he will make no headway if all he has to offer them is membership of a party of reaction which has no solution whatever for the problems of working-class youth.

He will find the young resistant to a party which tries to force them into a strait-jacket and only seeks them when it wants doorstep canvassers at election time.

A young Smethwick worker says: 'None of the political parties here is able to attract the young. The fact is that in local youth clubs (except for the "whites only Sandwell Youth Club) there has been quite a marked swing away from racialism lately. They take a critical attitude to the colour-bar Labour Club.

PETITION

He went on to describe a sinister move inside Smethwick Labour Club. Two people reputed to belong to extreme rightwing groups had moved into positions in the club.

A petition has been launched declaring support for the club's colour bar, and this was reported to have been circulated a member of an organisation calling itself the Argus Britons' Rights Association.

This man stood as a candidate in the municipal elections of 1962 on behalf of Oswald Mosley's Union Movement in the Sandwell Ward of Birmingham (adjacent to Smethwick).

The anti-working-class policies of the Labour government have been the prime cause of workers abstaining from voting, and the government's cowardly bending before racialist pressures has confused many of the more backward of its supporters and pushed them into the Tory camp.

A North Vietnamese anti-aircraft unit in action. Page. Iwo of 'minimising' the" assistance given by Russia and Eastern Europe to the colonial liberation movement and to the states of Cuba, Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, etc.' In fact, of course, the Kremlin's strategy is to subordinate these movements to its overall plan for peaceful co-existence'. It can only do this if it leaves unchallenged the bourgeois leadership of May 29, 1965 May

International, founded by Leon Trotsky in 1938, has been split in two since the years 1951-53. At that time, the International Committee, to which the Socialist Labour League is affiliated, was set up to defend the theory and programme of the Fourth International against the group led by Michel Pablo, calling itself the International Secretariat with its headquarters in Paris.

Pablo was the inspirer of the basic ideas of this revisionist centre in Paris. He claimed that a new situation existed in the world, making it possible for the power ot capitalism to be removed without the working class first having built a new, Trotskyist leadership.

So strong were the objective forces pressing forward to socialism that the Stalinist bureaucracy would be forced to carry through the struggle to establish workers' states. There would ensue a period of 'centuries of degenerated workers' states'.

Forced by events Along with this went a theory of the inevitability of a Third World War ('warrevolution') which would force the pace of these events.

Pablo also developed the theory that the Stalinist bureaucracy would itself reform the political structure of the degenerated and deformed workers' states. Later he also came to the conclusion that the nationalist middle-class leaders of the colonial struggles for liberation from imperialism could be forced by events to take up the position of Marxist revolutionaries.

With these theories Pablo disorientated almost a whole generation of Trotskyists. . The essence of his revisionism i was to deny the indispensable role of the revolutionary party and the Fourth. International, insisting instead that the leadership of the socialist revolution could could be taken by bureaucratic or middle-class elements.

In the advanced . countries, the same liquidationism is contained in the idea of 'deep entry' into the traditional workers' parties, which became a means of capitulating to the official social-democratic and Stalinist leaderships.

It is interesting to see where Pablo himself has now arrived in pursuit of these 'principles'. Always the most consistent of the 'Pabloite' revisionists, he has now decided that Germain, Frank, Maitan and the other and without embarrassment the colonial bourgeoisie and the Stalinist bureaucracy.

This is the meaning of his statement: 'Never will the Marxist revolutionary tendency (i.e., Pablo's own group) of the Fourth International, which groups together a large number of organisations, cadres and militants, permit itself to be confused with such a line (i.e., the line of the United Secretariat) ...

What are Pablo's reasons for dismissing his erstwhile comrades? They remained together for ten years in the defence of revisionism against the really revolutionary sections of the International Committee.

Their present divisions highlight the advanced stage of disintegration which has been reached by the spurious revisionist international.

The causes of this are twofold: the accelerated crisis of the Soviet bureaucracy, linked with the deepening crisis of imperialism; and the growth of the forces of the International Committee in its implacable struggle against revisionism in the last 14 years.

'Lagging behind' In effect Pablo castigates Germain, Frank and Co. for lagging behind the Stalinists in the development of Marxism! For example:

'The whole of the world communist movement going through a profound crisis at present.

'This is caused by the need to adapt itself to a complex and more dynamic reality than ever. a reality in constant and rapid evolution.

"There is always a danger that theory will fall behind life, behind reality.

present stage of the world revolution to work within the colonial revolution, and the process of "de-Stalinisation" in the Workers' States and Communist Parties. Combine, in the advanced capitalist coun tries, entrist work within the mass workers' organisations with the open defence of the integral programme of revolutionary Marxism.' Decisive sector In effect, the decisive sectors of the international class struggle, the advanced capitalist countries, are abandoned. Pablo insists that the Fourth International shall simply become a support for the leaderships which at present dominate in the national liberation movements and for the 'liberalising' bureaucrats of the Kremlin and Eastern Europe.

He rejects the basic ideas of Lenin and Trotsky: imperialism will only be decisively broken when the revolution is successful in the advanced countries, and the struggle for such a victory is the only effective way for the workers in the advanced countries to aid those in the rest of the world; in the degenerated and deformed workers' states, the bureaucracy is a counterrevolutionary force and must be overthrown by a political revolution, led by parties of the Fourth International; in the colonial and semi-colonial countries, independent parties of the working class, sections of the Fourth International, must lead the working class at the head of the peasant masses, defeating the nationalist leaderships on the road to workers' power.

Instead of this, Pablo accuses the United Secretariat Abandonment Ill Trotskyists will reject Pablo's complete abanconment of the basic programme of the movement founded by Lenin and Trotsky. Revisionism has its own logic: it inevitably leads to the acceptance of ideas which directly serve the elass enemy and undermine the foundations of the revolutionary movement.

The International Committee has continually warned against the disastrous course undertaken by Pablo, Germain, Frank, Maitan and the others since the early 1950s. There is no doubt that the revisionists are now in an advanced state of decay, politically speaking.

But it must now become apparent to many of those who refused discussion with the International Committee that our attacks were not misplaced or exaggerated.

The reunification' of 1963, carried through without discussion, was an unprincipled compromise:

the participants knew very well how far Pablo had gone, and that a split with him was inevitable, but this was preferred to a real discussion of the differences with the International Committee.

The un-Marxist and dangerous character of this course is now plain for all to see. The necessity to defeat the ideas and programme of Pablo, to drive them out of the Marxist movement, can only be met by a return to the Trotskyist programme and the Marxist method.

This is the prospect which must be faced by the supporters of the United Secretariat.

leaders of the International Secretariat (now called 'United Secretariat', since their agreement in 1963 with the leaders of the Socialist Workers' Party of the USA) have failed to keep up with him.

He complains that they remain shackled to ideas of a past era; but his real complaint is that they retain even a semblance of Trotskyism.

A warning light Perhaps the latest writings of Pablo will provide a warning light to some followers of the United Secretariat about the dangers of their revisionist course, so that they will be able to return to the Marxist path, even at this late stage.

Pablo and his faction were recently suspended from the 'United Secretariat' for publicly presenting an opposition line in the columns of 'Sous le Drapeau de Socialisme' ('Under the Banner of Socialism'), the organ of his own 'African Bureau of the Fourth International'.

In the latest issue of this journal, Pablo more or less makes a complete break with the official leaders of the United Secretariat, calling them, 'supporters of a dead past without a future'.

But Pablo's own conception of the future of the revolutionary movement brings home the real nature of the criticism.

He is anxious to sever all connections with the past of the Trotskyist movement, because he wants to serve directly It is not only the official communist movement, Stalinist-educated, which recognises the failure of the dogmatic and vulgar schemas to which the Soviet bureaucracy reduced the flexibility, the richness of critical thought of revolutionary Marxism.

It is equally all the other tendencies of the international communist movement which must rid themselves of numerous schematic, sectarian and opportunist residues and show in creative thought and purposeful action together their truly Marxist revolutionary character.

'The historical movement known as the "Fourth International" is no exception to this rule So far has Pablo gone that he speaks of the world communist movement as something which includes Stalinists. But one of the founding principles of Trotskyism, of modern revolutionary Marxism, is that Stalinism is a counter-revolutionary force. That is why a new, Fourth International had to be built.

Pablo then outlines the incipal ideas upon which he s divided his group from e Paris revisionist centre:

• "De-Europeanise" and "De - North Americanise" the international organisation of the Marxist-revolutionary current and make it truly international.

'Accord priority CCORDING to Edward Crankshaw in last Sunday's 'Observer', a letter written by Bukharin shortly before his execution in 1938 has now been 'leaked' from Moscow.

This comrade of Lenin addresses himself to a future generation of Party leaders. He declares his complete innocence of the fantastic crimes to which he 'confessed' in the third of the Moscow show trials.

Bukharin (if this letter is genuine), contrasts the Cheka of Lenin's time with the NKVD, secret police, under Stalin. Of the former he says: "The idea of revolution directed all its actions, justified harshness towards the enemy' OUTRAGEOUS FARCE Stalin's NKVD he descrihes as 'a resurrected organisation of unscrupulous, debased, well-fed officials'.

At the public hearing of his 1938 ' trial, Bukharin had 'admitted' all the charges of conspiring with Trotsky to overthrow the Soviet regime CRAWFORD with the aid of Hitler. At the same time, he argued and even joked with his prosecutor, Vyshinsky, making it clear that the proceedings. were an outrageous farce.

At times during the trial, he, Rykov and Krestinsky partially withdrew their 'confessions', only to reaffirm them at later sessions.

Bukharin held several important posts, including the editorship of 'Pravda' and presidency of the Communist International.

LEFT TO RIGHT

After being the leader of an extreme left group in the Bolshevik Party, he became the leader of the Party's right wing in the middle twenties.

Stalin allied himself with this group, which advocated granting concessions to the rich peasants, when he was fiohtino noainct Trately and ugung agama deucony aLIu Left Opposition. In 1929, after Trotsky's exile, he broke with Bukharin.

In 1962, there were reports that Bukharin had been officially cleared of the crimes for which he was executed, and that his son, who had been

May 2 96

the movements.

For a similar reason it gives aid to the bourgeois nationalist governments of newly 'independent' countries, in fact helping to stabilise their rule. BRITAIN's leading coun ter-insurgency expert, Mr. R. G. K. Thompson, who master-minded the suppression of the 1948 insurrection in Malaya and who advised the U.S. occupation authorities in South Vietnam for the last 34 years, has admitted publicly that the U.S. and its puppet regime have to all intents and purposes lost the guerrilla phase of the war'.

As if to confirm the point made by Thompson, the Vietcong last week-end staged three large and successful ambushes around Saigon, cut two of the four main roads leading to Saigon, virtually severed the four-lane highway leading to the Bien Hoa air base and completely isolated Da Nang air base by blowing up three railway bridges on the main North-South railway link between Da Nang, Hue and Saigon.

Mr. Thompson has good reason to be worried. After all it was he who was supposed to supply the infallible masterplan that was to help the Diem regime defeat the Vietcong.

This plan was the 'strategic hamlets' scheme which was an adaptation of the 'resettlement camps' set up in Malaya by the British in order to cut off food supplies and recruits to the Malayan Communist Party.

In Malaya the scheme Bukharin: once president of the Communist International deported when a child, was allowed to return to Moscow.

Earlier this year, it was announced that the republication of "The ABC of Communism', by Bukharin and Preobrazhensky was being considered. (See Newsletter, Crankshaw speculates about the leaking of this letter to the West being a defensive action by some Communist Party members in Russia against a possible rehabilitation of Stalin.

Far more likely is that it indicates the nraccure to hrima still more into the open the truth about the trials of the old Bolsheviks.

How much longer can Stalin's present successors hide the truth about the role of the chief defendant in those trials-Leon Trotsky?

by Mike Banda worked, not because of any administrative brilliance on the part of Thompson and his friends,. but largely because the insurrection was an illtimed, badly prepared adventure, which had little support from the Malayan working class and peasantry.

In Vietnam, however, Mr. Thompson reckoned without his host: a Communist Party with a long history of struggle against imperialism, with extensive support amongst the working class and peasantry, with a considerable knowledge of guerrilla war and a social programme far superior to anything that Thompson could ever dream of.

What wrecked the 'strategic hamlets', so carefully planned and executed by Thompson and his supporters, was not so much the military successes of the Vietcong but the land reform policy of the Vietnamese communists begun in 1952-53 before Dien Bien Phu.

Land reform

Millions of debt-ridden, heavily taxed landless peasants in Vietnam responded immediately and enthusiastically to the slogan of 'Land to the Tillers'-belatedly proclaimed by the Vietnam communists.

It was the pre-condition of every military success of the Vietnamese army. General Giap observed the importance of this policy, confirmed by the Chinese Revolution, when he wrote:

In 1952-53 our Party decided to mobilize the masses for a drastic reduction of land rent and to carry out land reform, implementing the slogan land to the tiller'. Hence, the resistance spirit of millions of peasants was strongly roused, the peasant-worker alliance strengthened, the United Front made firmer, the administration and army consolidated and resistance activities intensified.' ('People's War People's Army', Hanoi 1961)

This policy had particular relevance| to South • Vietnam where, as a result of absentee landlordism and military depredations carried out by the Diem clique against the peasants, almost 24 million acres of tilled land went into disuse and average per capita output of paddy (rice) dropped from 1,117 Ibs. per annum to 577 Ibs.

Today, as a result of this drastic decrease in tood production and mounting infiation, unemployment is rampant and the spectre of famine stalks the land.

In such a situation it is no wonder that the 'strategic hamlets' — not to mention a hundred and one other devices and projects-lost all strategic significance and were riddled with Vietcong agents.

Commenting on this Thompson ruefully admitted that the "strategic hamlets' had not worked either as a social or military project.

'Local leadership was slaughtered. More than 6,000 loyal [read counter-revolutionary] South Vietnamese were murdered each year. ? he says.

The defeat of the 'strategic hamlets' policy has irrevocably sealed the fate of the puppet regime in Saigon. The Vietcong are now undisputed masters of the countryside.

The South Vietnamese army and police, according to Thompson (and we don't need his word for it) are demoralised by successive defeats and recurrent purges.

•... the police force was almost destroyed by witch-hunts with the result that there is now a disastrous lack of intelligence information' Living in hopes Having lost his 'hamlets' Mr. Thompson now lives on hope. He believes that a repetition of Dien Bien Phu is not possible because American air power can prevent large assault forces from concentrating for more than one attack.

But he is uncertain as to whether the Vietcong can win by guerrilla war, terrorism and internal subversion'.

While the South Vietnamese forces are depleted by heavy casualties and desertions the strength of the Vietcong grows unabatedly.

Its techniques are being perfected and its standard of armament has risen considerably with the supply of modern weapons.

The bombing of North Vietnam, designed to bring the Ho government to its knees, has failed lamentably. Nor has the bombing of bridges stopped the flow of men and arms to the Vietcong.

All it has done is to increase the vigilance and determination of the Tonkinese to resist to the end. Says Thompson:

• even if Hanoi, their capital, were bombed the government would be quite ready to rule from the hills— they would not give a damn.' A continuation of the bombing policy and particularly the bombing of Hanoi itself could have unforeseen consequences for U.S. imperialism.

The bombing of Hanoi, like the crossing the 38th parallel in Korea could easily provoke Chinese suport for North Vietnam with similar disastrous results for the U.S. army.

Already large troop movements in South China and the Yunnan-Tonkin frontier have been reported. Marshal Chen Yi's statement pledging Chinese arms and men to Vietnam whenever called upon by Vietnam indicates a possible departure from previous policy.

At the same time Asian papers report that Soviet missiles have now been allowed to go through China.

The statement of Thompson shows the utterly reactionary character of this bloody war against the entire Vietnamese people. also condemns implicitly the whole of Wilson's foreign policy in relation to South-east Asia.

The labour movement in Britain must demand an end to this policy NOW! Wilson and Stewart must go!

Newsletter reporter Peter Arnold has just returned of two articles explaining the significance of the voters rejection of the 'Socialists' of the Belgian elections, which took place last week, show a clear rejection of the government's policies both by the workers and by the middle class, and have led to the resignation of the government.

Both of the parties that had formed the government coalition, the Belgian Socialist Party and the Catholic SocialChristian Party, lost heavily, with the Belgian Socialist Party as the main loser.

Rivals Wilson This move away from the Belgian Socialist Party is not surprising, as its record in government rivals Wilson's for anti-working-class legislation.

The Socialist-ChristianDemocratic coalition government passed the 'antistrike laws' last year, issued the police force spent May the and Christian Democrats with light tanks, and is accused of manipulating the official price index in its attempts to freeze wages.

It was the Socialist Party which provided this government with its Economics Minister, who was responsible for 'planning' Belgian capitalism over the last four years.

Gains for right This has given rise to a small but marked swing towards the Communist Party throughout Belgium. In Liege, for example, they now poll nearly 13 per cent of the total vote, as against 8} per cent in 1961, and in Seraing, a working-class area of the town, they polled 22 per cent.

In the Borinage they now poll 17 per cent, in Charleroi 10 per cent. In Brussels and Antwerp there was a smaller swing to the Communists, bringing their percentage up to nearly 4 per cent in each case.

But although the increased Communist Party vote accounts for some of the Socialist Party's losses, it does not account for them all. The other coalition governmen of beneficiaries of four years of betrayal by the Social-Democracy are the extremist Nationalist parties.

The most spectacular advance by the parties of this kind was in Flanders where the Flemish nationalist party, the Volksunie, more than doubled its vote. It now polls 15 per cent of the votes in this area of the country, which includes more than half of the population of Belgium. In some parts of Flanders, the 'Volksunie' polled up to 20 per cent of the vote. It will have 12 MPs in the new Parliament.

As well as the Volksunie in Flanders, the 'French-speaking Democratic Front' in Brussels won three seats, the 'Walloon Front' gained a seat in Charleroi and Francois Perin, the nationalist chairman of the Walloon Workers' Party in Liege, was elected to the Chamber.

Nationalist

These parties all combine radical appeals to the working class and poorer sections of the middle class with extreme nationalist demands.

The middle class has switched its vote massively towards the Liberal Party, which has emerged from the elections as the third force in Parliament, with 48MPs, against 20 in the last Parliament. This vote, too, is a protest against the rapid rise in the cost of living and the ruination which an ever-increasing number of the small proprietors are suffering as the 'modernisation' of the Belgian economy is carried through.

Centrist policies The elections are the first clear expression of the very acute contradictions within Belgian capitalism. As we analysed last February in a series of articles, the introduction of automation into Belgian industry is causing great social upheavals.

But the despair expressed in the large nationalist and Liberal votes, is also the responsibility of the 'Socialist Left' around the paper 'La Gauche', who split from the Socialist Party early this year.

The history of the 'Walloon Workers' Party' and the Brussels 'Union of the Socialist Left' is a case study in the futility of centrist politics in this period of sharpening class conflict.

Their opportunist adoption of Walloon nationalism has only led to a strengthening of the reactionary right-wing groups like the Volksunie and the Walloon Front. Also, it has clearly not won the 'Socialist Left' any footing among the working class: in those areas where they had an OF

OLIVIA, Guatemala, • Colombia, Brazil. From an increasing number of Latin American capitals panic reports were rushed into the White House in the course of the last week.

While a patched-up settlement between the U.S. imperialists and the 'rebel' leader together in the Dominican Caamano was being copernel sominical Republic, the political opposition to U.S. intervention there was reverberating in almost every other Latin American country, giving a new lease of life to the mass struggles which have been battering at the walls of the U.S. puppet regimes for at least 20 years.

In Bolivia, the miners' strike (reported in last week's Newsletter) spread to almost the whole country and was described by government spokesmen this week as having reached the proportions of "civil war'.

On May 24 at least 39 deaths and 259 wounded were officially announced, and the actual figures are known to be far higher.

FOREIGN CAPITAL

The government decreed all mining centres military areas, subject to occupation by the armed forces, and rejected a proposal by the armed miners for a cease-fire. General Alfredo Ovando Candia, C-in -C of the armed forces, said there would be no truce 'until the miners free the 70 hostages'.

These hostages were management representatives captured by the miners when they struck in protest for the return from exile of their union leader, Lechin.

Later, miners' leaders agreed to a cease-fire, exchanging calling off the strike for withdrawal of troops. But the miners themselves were fighting on in many areas.

Besides direct military confrontations, the miners have blown up railway bridges which serve the BoliviaArgentina route.

There seems little doubt that the government is prepared to risk a blood-bath to break the resistance of the miners to the rationalisation plan in the Bolivian tin mines, which is being carried out on the basis of capital raised in Western Germany and the United States.

On Sunday, the leader of the military government, General Barrientos, had a narrow escape when ambushed near his home. One of his escorts was killed and three were taken hostage. On the same day a further 19 strike leaders were arrested and deported. Brazilian workers demonstrate against military rule NEILSON The government is still faced with the prospect of an all-out struggle with 25,000 armed miners. Ten radio stations controlled by the miners were issuing calls to revolt, and it is certain that their only prospect of eventual victory is to bring to their support the workers in other industries and the peasants in the countryside, from whom they have been divided for so long.

In Guatemala, where the popular regime of Arbenz was overthrown by U.S. intervention in 1954, the state of siege announced two months ago has clearly failed to stem the tide of revolt.

MINISTER SHOT

Last Friday night Colonel Ernesto Molina Arreaga, Deputy Minister of Defence, was shot. dead outside his house.

This is only one reflection of the steady growth in strength of the guerrillas in NEGRO the countryside in the recent period, as the military junta has turned its face against even the mildest of social reforms and banned all constitutional forms of political life.

In Brazil last week-end a large number of people, mainly students and civil servants, were placed under arrest, and the Army was called in to help the police maintain order.

MANIFESTO

The main concern of the security forces was to trace the distributors of a recent manifesto which urged the overthrow of the government of President Castelo Branco.

This manifesto had a wide circulation, and called for militant protests against the despatch of Brazilian troops to participate in the intervention in the Dominican Republic.

For some weeks reports of armed clashes and arrests have been flooding out of Colombia, another country completely dominated by U.S. capital.

Many American pressmen have expressed the opinion that here is the next target for the despatch of the marines, but after the experience of Dominica, there is no doubt that the Johnson administration is going to be faced with some agonising decisions.

Abroad as well as at home, the government of even the strongest capitalist power, the USA, finds itself swamped with all the problems of an international social system in decay.

In America as everywhere else, everything depends on the working class being able to build a new leadership and reject the opportunists, whether nationalists, social-democrats or Stalinists.

Instead of leading to the creation of a movement that would draw the workers away from reformism towards revolutionary politics, the policy of the Socialist Left' since the split from the Belgian Socialist Party has merely led to a reinforcement of right-wing forces towards which the working class is driven by despair. These can only open up the road to fascist movements in Belgium.

Perin, the nationalist, was, and remains after all, chairman of the Liege section of the Walloon Workers' Party, the new party created by the 'Socialist Left' after the split.

The election of Legreve in Brussels does give the 'Socialist Left' a voice in Parliament. But it should not be forgotten that this seat does not signify any firm support for the new party among the working class.

Miscalculation Legreve, in fact, owes his seat to a miscalculation by the Communist Party leadership, who, estimating that the electoral alliance would gain two MPs and one senator in Brussels, gave the 'Socialist Left' top of the list of candidates for the Chambre, so that they could have the one senator and the second MP.

In fact, only one MP and no senator was elected, and Legreve's election is at the expense of the one Stalinist who is usually elected. The vote for the alliance was only one half of 1 per cent higher than the Communist Party polled on its own in the 1961 election!

The results of the Belgian general election, then, make the political developments in Belgian capitalism much clearer. Next week, we will analyse the actions of the new party and the struggle that must be undertaken to build a revolutionary party in that country.

BETTE

electoral alliance with the Communist Party (Charleroi, Mons, Brussels) the swing to the Communist Party was at best the same (and in Brussels and Charleroi considerably smaller) as in Liege where the Communist Party stood alone!

In fact, the new party will have two MPs, Francois Perin in Liege and Pierre Legreve in Brussels. But neither of these seats can be counted as a victory for the 'Socialist Left' Unlike Brussels, Charleroi and the Borinage, the Liege Federation of the Walloon Workers' Party did not enter into an electoral alliance with the Communist Party. Instead, its chairman Francois Perin independently concluded an aliance with the Walloon Front' (a nationalist organisation) in what was called 'Walloon Common Action'.

Walloon Front This gave rise to the paradoxical situation in which the Liege section of the Walloon Workers' Party was in alliance with a party that was opposing the Walloon Workers' Party in Charleroi. In fact, the electoral material of the Liege Walloon Workers Party called upon the Charleroi workers to vote Walloon Front and not Walloon Workers' Party!

Perin's electoral propaganda was entirely nationalist. Posters showed closed-down factories 'ruined by Unitary Belgium' and new, prosperous factories that Federal Belgium' would bring.

Leaflets called upon the Walloons to 'defend themselves' against the Flemish and Brussels majority in Parliament and in the traditional parties. LEADING members of the french secret service in Western France have been arrested as agents of the extreme right wing Secret Army Organisation (OAS). According to reports this occasioned 'no surprise' in official circles. In other words, de granted that men pledged to seize power by a military coup granted that men pledged to should be at the head of the arm of state concerned with security.

Coming seven years after the assumption of power by de Gaulle, with the aging and opinionated president still unable to secure the successor, it raises the, question: how stable is the Fifth Republic?

On May 13, 1958, tension in Algiers suddenly exploded into an activist putsch led by a coalition of Gaullists and colonists whose aim was to keep Algeria out of the hands of the Algerian nationalists.

Before the threat of a military take-over the discredited politicians of the Fourth Republic quickly turned to de Gaulle as the saviour. Only a strong leader, backed by police and military power, could prevent the disintegration of the state.

In May 1958 the French bourgeoisie was plunged into a deep crisis. Great opportunities were therefore presented for the intervention of the working class. However, the combined efforts of the Communist and Socialist parties effectively blocked working-class action.

Referendum

The Communist Party raised the cry of 'defence of the republic'-i.e., bourgeois parliamentary institutions, already discredited in the eyes of many workers and lower middle-class people. The Socialist party, through Guy Mollet, helped to open the doors for de Gaulle's assumption of power.

With the coming on the scene of de Gaulle the parliaDe Gaulle: aging and opinionated president mentary regime was quietly buried. A new constitution vested wide powers in the president, and de Gaulle himself was elected to that office for seven years. In the Referendum of September 1958 this constitution secured an 80 per cent vote.

Through the next few years some bitter struggles took place within the French ruling class which went almost to the point of civil war at the time of the attempted putsch of January 1960.

Green light

The main issue was the settlement of the Algerian war, which had to be imposed on the 'ultras' and a section of the army.

De Gaulle had been virtually brought to power by the activists and ultras of Algeria. At first he gave the green light to those generals who still hoped to win the war by a military strike.

It became clear, however, that a military solution of the conflict was impossible. The war was not only a drain on French resources which weakened her position among the states of Europe, but it also threatened to spread to other French colonies and to revive class struggles in France.

De Gaulle therefore decided to seek a solution of the Algerian question in such a way as to safeguard the main investment interests of French capital at the expense of the European settlers in Algeria.

This led to a bitter conflict with the OAS from which the Gaullist regime emerged triumphant.

As a corollary to his Algerian policy de Gaulle built up a strong state and sought to regain the unquestioned obedience of the army. This was necesary in order to Gaulle's henchmen take it for eize power by a military coup improve the prospects for French capitalism by domesticating the trade unions and holding back the growth of real wages.

However, it has not been necessary for de Gaulle to destroy the working-class unions and political parties as had been done in Nazi Germany. These organisations had already divided and confused the working class in the period since 1944 and cooperated in one way or another in maintaining the stability of French capitalism.

De Gaulle was thus able to use these organisations as a counter-weight to his enemies of the extreme right while they, in effect, disciplined the working class to the needs of the bourgeois state.

Compromises

Whenever a section of the class showed a will to fight, its own organisations succeeded in confining the struggle to a narrow front, preparing the way for compromises which amounted to defeats.

At the same time, with a strengthened state apparatus and administrative or legislative means available to cripple or destroy working-class rights, de Gaulle has been able to preserve some liberal appearances.

Over the last seven years, in return for some modest improvements in real wages, the working class has been harnessed to the needs of capital with the minimum of resistance.

High rates of investment, continued concentration of industry and large profits ensured through state support have been characteristic of French capitalism under de Gaulle. Big business thus has a great deal to thank him for, and its direct representatives hold leading positions in the government.

However, this situation is inherently unstable for both political and economic reasons. In the first place the working class, despite the extent of the set-back suffered in 1958, has not been defeated and its organisations, however treacherous, have not been destroyed. It thus still remains possible, under conditions of legality, to begin to construct an alternative leadership.

Succession

Secondly, the expansion and prosperity of the past seven years have not solved some of the specific problems of French capitalism, which still contains an inflated agrarian sector and backward industries.

Nor, despite de Gaulle's strong talk, is it able to be independent of U.S. capitalism. And, like the rest of the capitalist world economy, it is still prone to recession and crisis which could upset the present social balance. Meanwhile, prices continue their upward course.

Thirdly, despite appearances, the de Gaulle regime is essentially a transitory political formation bound up, as it is, with the personality and prestige of one man.

No doubt his re-election as president is assured, but this in itself is ominous. The bourgeoisie has no alternative to rule by a strong man, but there is no alternative strong man in sight.

The question of the succession is thus more than one of personalities. It poses the question of what is to succeed de Gaulle. The divisions within the bourgeoisie, the hatreds and tensions pushed below the surface in recent years, are bound to re-emerge with his eventual departure.

The present class struggles in France, still sectional in extent, offer the ground for preparing the working class to take the initiative under a new leadership in the period ahead.

FOUR hundred apprentices in James Mackie were sacked on Thursday, May 20, after strike since the previous Tuesday.

Mackie's is a huge engineering firm famous for its practice of emploving a very high proportion of apprentices. Out of a va • - г total labour force of 5,000, approximately 1,100 are apprentices.

The apprentices, all from the Albert Foundry factory, first came out on strike on May 10 in protest against the introduction of a new bonus scheme.

Under this scheme apprentice machinists of 18 years of age and over working a man's machine, were to receive a man's bonus rate. Third, fourth and fifth-year apprentice fitters who are doing a journeyman's job were to receive a man's bonus rate.

The boys claim that this would allow foremen to discriminate in choosing apprentices to work machines.

They also state that it is an attempt to extend the cheap labour system. Apprentices would replace the tradesmen on the machines.

NEGOTIATIONS

They are demanding that boys of 18 should receive a tradesman's bonus rate regardless of machine. The management claim that the scheme will only operate in cases of illness or emergency but the boys have proof that apprentices have worked on'men's machines for as long as six months.

After returning to work for 48 hours on Monday, 17th, the apprentices negotiated with & Sons, Belfast, having been on the management, who told them they had no claims.

On Tuesday a foreman told seven boys from the milling shop that they were being sacked. Some apprentices immediately called for a strike and were physically thrown own of other factories when visiting them to inform apprentices of what was happening.

TELEGRAMS

All apprentices in the Albert Foundry factory were on strike the next day.

On Thursday afternoon and Friday morning the dismissal notices were sent out by messenger and telegram.

The management claim that the boys were striking for no apparent reason yet the AEU had told the apprentices that they were in touch with the management.

A leaflet produced by the strike committee called upon the adult workers to unite with the apprentices and come out on strike. It pointed out that the right to strike had been taken from the apprentices and the future of trade unionism in the firm was at stake.

Apprentices must fight any victimisation attempts by building up their organisation and joining the Young Socialists , who are the only ones fighting against the exploitation of youth. deputy -and miner be transferred to other parts of the pit.

This was followed by a strike of the National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers in the area. They maintain that the National Coal Board is making it difficult to maintain safety and discipline, while at the same time repeatedly criticising the under-officials for not being 'firm' enough.

Brutal clarity

The eagerness with which the press has taken up this story, embellishing it with hoary old tales about the responsibility of the mineworkers for the breaches of safety regulations, is in sharp contrast to their alacrity in dropping the story of last week's Tonypandy disaster.

The two events are not unconnected. When the 31 miners were killed in last week's explosion, this exposed with brutal clarity the consequences of the ruthless drive for production from mines which the NCB fully intends to close down in a few years.

When thousands of miners struck work after the disaster and shuffled silently through the town they expressed the profound bitterness and class consciousness which is suppressed under the surface among the mineworkers. Not a single Labour politician or union leader could give expression to these feelings and needs.

The exchange of a few swear-words is not the issue in the South Wales strike. Last week's disaster provided the tenseness over safety, discipline, authority, control and speed-up which are now the overriding questions in this dispute.

Discipline

An incident of the kind vhich happened at Deep Duffryn would earlier have been settled in a matter of days at pit level. But now the officials feel more than ever before the extent to Which they are crushed between the NCB's drive for production and the resistance of the mineworkers, particularly the youth, to the bureaucratically imposed discipline and norms which this involves.

The miners themselves, as pointed out in last week's Newsletter, are driven to speed up production to keep the pits open. Instead of their work being part of an overall plan, with safety precautions included, it remains, in this nationalized industry, a matter of exploitation, with workers' lives at stake every day in the search for profit.

Insofar as the deputies and overmen have been used as disciplinarians by the old coalowners and by the NCB, they have been treated with justifiable hostility by the miners.

But if either section thinks that any of the problems of the coalfield can be solved except by a struggle against the Coal Board and against the government and the employers who stand behind them, they will make a big mistake.

Court of Enquiry on

TENED Taledon Shipbuilding and Enlee, last week threatened to 900 men by closing the yard.

management claimed that the company have incurred a heavy loss, estimated at about £350,000, for the year ended The statement also says:

'All our present contracts have been taken at keen prices and leave no margin for any lost time or inefficiency?

Faced with fierce competition from abroad and the inability to modernise and re-equip their yards, shipbuilding firms operating on narrow profit margins or incurring actual loss either close down or are swallowed up by larger yards. Betting clerks recognition strike ing clerks, fighting for - 160 dismissed labour' THE strike of South Wales® strike of South Wales' batting clerks, fighting for union recognition, entered its second week without any sign of weakening, despite the vicious attacks of their employers.

Nine months ago the clerks, who include betting shop managers, organised a branch of the Clerical and Administrative Workers' Union in the Sherman Racing Organisation in the Cardiff area and also in their subsidiary, Arthur Parker Ltd., of Merthyr Tydfil. Within a short time the firm was 90 per cent organised.

The firm's immediate reaction was to give a 1/- in the £ pay increase—only a few weeks after claiming that they could not afford any increase in wages!

Shermans refused recognition unless it was agreed by the bookmakers' own employers' organisation—which has refused to recognise the CAWU.

The present strike started when a number of Merthyr clerks were sacked after, a one-day strike on Saturday, May 15. This led to the continuation of the strike, and its spread to Cardiff by Wednesday.

On Monday, May 24, 70 Cardiff clerks received notice of dismissal, while some 90 are now reported sacked in the two areas. The dismissed clerks received forms of application for reemployment: they did not receive holiday or superannuation payments.

CAN'T PAY

A spokesman for the company said: 'We can't pay the holiday superannuation payments until we know if the clerks will return: if they do not, their contributions and holiday money will be paid to them.' These 'suspended affecting about half the strikers, are a clear attempt to threaten and confuse them, and to split their unity in order to undermine the strike.

So far this, too, has been a complete failure. The CAWU claim that only seven of 40 betting shops in the Cardiff area were open on Monday.

The secretary of the strike committee told The Newsletter that the wages of male clerks are below the average for the trade. Girls in their teens and early twenties, who form the majority of the strikers, complain of the meagre increase in pay from 16 to 21.

The basic wage at 15 is f4 15s., at 19 £7 10s. and at 21 £8 for a female clerk. As well as wages the girls complain of the pace and conditions of work.

Shermans frequently lay off large numbers of workers during the winter. As one worker told affairs that Shermans are fighting so hard against the union. The firm is prepared to accept a big temporary loss to avoid paying for improved wages and conditions in the future.

This is important to betting firms who fear that the effect of wage freezing, higher taxes and an increasing cost of living on the working class will lead to big cuts in their profits in any case.

The strike has been declared official by the CAWU and has the support of the Merthyr Trades Council. Shop stewards at Cardiff's Rover works have refused to allow Shermans' agents to collect bets in the factory.

Right-wing officials of the Post Office Workers' Union have refused to 'black' Shermans, on the frivolous grounds that they would always be on strike if they supported other trade unionists. This action is in line with the betrayal of their own members by these same officials. nounce the war of oppression being waged by the U.S. government.

The amendment was narrowly defeated on a second show of cards, and the original resolution was passed.

The influence of the Communist Party was apparent from the motion calling on the United Nations to initiate large-scale projects in the finderdeveloped countries through international agreement, and another for disarmament and peace.

There was a complete absence from these resolutions of any attempt to fight for an understanding that the only way to obtain peace and to help the underdeveloped countries is through a resolute struggle by workers in this country to overthrow capitalism, and for this a new leadership must be built.

The struggle for this new leadership is the only guarantee of any progress towards implementing the many excellent" resolutions carried at this conference.

THE management of thuk gineering Company, Dunc terminate the employment ot This was the management's answer to the 110 welders who work in the yard and who had been on strike for two weeks over a wage dispute.

An ultimatum was issued-either the strikers returned to work by the beginning of this week or the yard would close. Faced with this situation the welders returned to work on Monday, May 24.

There has been discontent over wages at the Caledon yard for some months. March the platers called a strike in support of a wages claim.

Soon after this strike began the welders were suspended. A settlement was reached with the platers two weeks ago on the basis of graded increases, but the welders refused to resume work until certain modifications to their own wages structure had been made.

Like several shipyards on the lower reaches of the Clyde, the Caledon yard had previously negotiated an agreement with the unions to grant certain wage increases on condition that there were no labour disputes for two years. This agreement expires next February.

THREATENING

Since the unions were party to the agreement the strikers have not been give official recognition by the Boilermakers' Society, even though the Scottish delegate has said that the management were largely to blame and that the union have been trying for some time to reach an agreement without success.

In a statement issued to the shipyard workers threatening the closure of the yard, the

Bv Our Industrial Correspondent THE South-western Area Conference of the National Union of Miners a week ago witnessed the death agonies of the old Stalinist leadership in this coalfield.

Will Whitehead, NUM area president, attempted to confuse the real nature of the problems facing miners in order to undermine the struggle against pit closures and redundancy. . Declaring that with the present rate of closures (140 South Wales pits shut since 1947) there would be no coal mining industry in South Wales in ten years, he proceeded to treat the problem as one of too many miners leaving the industry.

Thus he gave support to the 'shortage of manpower' excuse given by the National Coal Board in several recent closures.

While there is a shortage of labour, this is a purely temporary feature of the industry, caused by men leaving the mines, largely for light engineering work, because of the fear of closures, and also because of the role of the NUM leadership.

COLLABORATION

Whitehead's talk about attracting more people into the industry merely plays the game of the Coal Board: without a fight against the policy of pit closures and rationalisation of the industry at the expense of the mineworkers, new recruits to the pits will face redundancy within a short period of time.

Whitehead declared: 'There is a need for men with more imagination than some of those now holding the seats of power in Hobart House [NCB headquarters] to consider with the mining trade unions a new charter for miners.' In this way. Whitehead pares the way for full-scale class collaboration.

However, the dissatisfaction of miners with the role of the union leaders came out in conference demands for more militant policies and greater union democlacy.

A resolution from Parc and Dare lodge in the Rhondda called for strike action to fight closures, while a motion from Mountain Ash called for a coalfield conference to discuss any proposed closures and for the conference, not the Executive, to decide on the form of opposition.

Though this motion was defeated, it received I some 40 per cent of delegates' votes and support for it was probahly wider. Miners protest on rents THE feelings of the miners and their wives on the Widnes Estate of National Coal Board houses continue at boiling point over the rent increases of between Ils. and 14s. 6d. due to take effect on June 12.

With the steady rise in the cost of living, the rent increase appears all the more clearly as a wage cut since the rent is taken out of the miners wage packet at the pit.

The branches of the National Union of Mineworkers from the pits where the men work have sent resolutions of protest to the Lancashire Area Executive, who, in turn, have protested to the Coal Board.

However, the Executive's protest weakly complains that, instead of the increase being spaced out over a period, the increase has been imposed in one lump.

The Newsletter: "They tr The Newsletter: "They treat their labour as more or less casual labour as more or • les: labour.' It is to continue this state of

of 1926. NEWSLETTER REPORTER TWO hundred and fifty delegates attended the 48th Annual Council of the Association of Scientific Workers last weekend and the following motion was passed on incomes , policy and wage restraint: "That Council views with concern the rapid rise in the cost of living over the last year and realises that the working population of this country have never known a situation when an incomes policy has not been applied to them.

'Since the basic reason for the existence of the Trade Union movement is the continual defence and improvement of their living standards, Council instructs the Executive Committee to inform H.M. government that the Association will continue to oppose an incomes policy, no matter who advocates this policy.

'Further, Council reaffirms the Association's policy of opposition to wage restraint and long-term salary agreements...

This resolution dealt a resounding blow against the Labour government's incomes policy, which, as delegates pointed out, is a policy of wage freeze.

Council also expressed its complete rejection of the attempt by the engineering employers to impose a package deal on members in the engineering industry, and several suggestions were made for industrial action to be taken together with other staff unions, such as DATA and CAWU, in order to press for a substantial increase for all scientific workers in the engineering industry.

NATIONALIZATION

A motion was passed which stated that the only way in which advances can be made through the introduction of automation was if all industries were placed under public ownership, thus making planned development possible.

A special resolution insisted on nationalization of the aircraft industry.

Council also called for full pay for workers who were displaced by automation, together with re-training re-settlement grants.

A considerable fight had to be put up for an emergency motion on Vietnam to be discussed.

A move by Standing Orders to effectively exclude the motion was defeated after two votes in favour of its being heard, one 90-89 and another 89-84.

The motion urged the government to use its power to obtain a peaceful settlement in Vietnam through negotiation.

An amendment was tabled calling on the Labour government to withdraw its support for the policies of the U.S. government in Vietnam.

NEW LEADERSHIP The delegate moving the amendment said that Council must state quite categorically that it gave full support to the Vietnamese people, and. de-

AFTER all the militant talk from the leaders of the Draughtsmen's and Allied Technicians' Association they have bowed down to the threat of united action from the shipbuilding employers and put their claim for a substantial wage increase for all members in the shipbuilding industry to a Court of Enquiry.

This decision was agreed by the DATA conference which met from May 3-7. It is against previous DATA policy of opposition to any government interference in the union's negotiating rights.

Draughtsmen in five shipbuilding firms had been on official strike since April 26 in support of the claim. In retaliation, the Shipbuilding Employers' Federation had imposed a lock-out, giving all draughtsmen employed in shipbuilding one week's notice of dismissal.

BIG MAJORITIES

By going to the Court of Enquiry DATA have followed the other unions in allowing the state to intervene. The enquiry may well award a substantial increase but more important is that independent action by the members to obtain their demands has been stopped.

At the DATA conference resolutions against wagefreezing and calling for workers' control were passed with big majorities as was a resolution against a package deal which would tie down wages.

A campaign to better the wages and conditions of young draughtsmen and give them negotiating rights was called for.

Support for the old age pensioners was given in a resolutions calling for a substantial increase in pensions. A motion of opposition to the high compensation proposed to be paid in the steel take-over was passed.

The DATA conference showed a high level of class-consciousness among the delegates. This consciousness has been raised during the struggles of the past period but the present leadership of DATA is preparing to smash it. NUGMW goes into business FOR many years the National Union of General and Municipal Workers has been dominated by a leadership of the far right in the labour movement. It therefore occasioned no surprise when the NUGMW conference at Aberdeen endorsed the Labour government's 'incomes policy'.

What is of more importance is the complete collapse at the conference of any opposition to the government's policy. Every single resolution of criticism was withdrawn. When the chairman called for anyone opposed to the incomes policy to come to the rostrum, not one delegate came forward.

What is the real situation, therefore? This union has among its members some of the very lowest-paid workers in Britain. Many of the branches submitted resolutions opposed to the incomes policy.

Explosions

The conference decision only conceals the real problems and opposition of these workers. This is why Cooper, general secretary, qualified his speech by referring to many of his members as low-paid 'exceptional cases' to the incomes policy.

Like some other conference votes, this NUGMW endorsement of Brown's policy cannot be taken as any indication of the real interests and opinions of union members. Such votes only prepare bigger explosions later.

At the begining of the conference, the Executive tried to conceal its retreat by announcing a new discount trading scheme for its members. As a substitute for fighting on wages, the Executive goes into business with the age-old deception that competition will bring down the level of prices.

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