The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 404

MARCH WITH THE YOUNG SOCIALISTS AGAINST IMPERIALIST AGGRESSION IN VIETNAM WEEKLY ORGAN OF-THE CENTRAL_COMMITTEE-OF-THE-SOCIAL SIT LABOURELEAGUE Vol. 9, No. 404 17, AFTER ANNOUNCEMENT ( CRISIS TRADE FIGURES nearer EveN the Beard ofe ade ouradeot disguise the VEN the Board of Trade could not disguise thi £30 million fall in imports was less than expected, since the May imports had been inflated by the surcharge cut.

The f3 million drop in exports shows that sharpening competition on the world market is hitting British capitalism very hard. The implications for sterling are clear. When the autumn crisis develops, devaluation, or its equivalent, is now almost certain.

callaghan will now tighten ne detiationary squeeze still further.

ince his previous measures.

re already begınnıng to stov Saturday, down the economy, this means From Britain that unemployment is bound to rise later in the year.

Meanwhile, the monetary the working problems of world capitalism denress _ intema- THE pessimists among the fake tional trade generally. lefts of the Labour Party have been dealt another shattering which in other blow this week. have aided the British imports The strike at Foyle's has been bill, will now mean a falling brought to a victorious conclusion. Not all of the deoff in trade with primary pre ducing countries. Exports to mands have been mei, but the Commonwealth fell in sufficient has been achieved to open the way for further imJune. provements.

For African and Latin The importance of this strike American countries, terms of consists of the faot that it was trade are in some cases as bad led entirely by young people. as in the thirties. Brazilian For approximately six weeks coffee is, once again, being they held their ground under destroyed to stop the slide in the most difficult conditions sar 165 road at a half o price. Sugar sells at under and refused to give an inch so far as the employers were concerned. their 1905 prices. the capitalist system leir struggle is an inspiration to threatens to seize up, Wilson young people all over the country who are today being take exploited on wage rates which for It. are a scandal. The Foyle's ne Die scruggies betwee strike has shown that the employers and the labour youth of today fight in the movement which are clearly best traditions of their fathers indicated by these develop- and forefathers of the past in ments, make the ejection of defending and extending trade the Labour leaders and their union conditions. policies a vital necessity. ow take this strike together with the magnificent demon(U.S. seeking new defences stration of the Standard for dollar-see page 2) Triumph workers who refused to allow the employer to RAIL DRIVERS TO dictate the terms for their STRIKE holidays. As workers, they Late on Thursday it was re- wanted these holidays on ported that 50 rail drivers in weeks when they could join so on tea oil ode day Ramsgate and Margate depots other workers from their native city for a well-earned rest.

here was also speculation tha ley refused to allow the emCommemoration h Anniversary of the Assassination B/OSL FILE "You may shoot me, but others will come Last words of 20-year-old Tran van Dang, Saigon, June 22 SUMMER BREAK Next week's issue of The Newsletter July 24) will be the last before our printer's summer break. The first issue after the 'break will

Price

against you"

Solidarity with Revolution SUNDAY JULY 18-MARBLE ARCH 1.30 THE DAVIES MISSION Solidarity with the Vietcong

ployer to deprive them of this intervene in the go-slow important aspect of human relationship. After all, they over a weekly bonus.

appear on August 14. to Vietnam class in action themselves together? So they walked out and left the employers to work the machines by themselves with just a handful of their favourite stooges.

their own way they gave a small Sut significant daman stration of workers' control in action. Trade unionists, whether they are young or old, are prepared to fight, contrary to those people who imply that the working class are a lot of sheep. ich people advise the Vietnamese workers and peasants to make peace with the Americans, but the truth is that these workers can militarily defeat the Americans. Why should they not have the support of British Labour in doing this? 1e Newsletter is in the forefront of all the struggles of the working class. We repeat what we have said many times before, the working class, given leadership in any country in the world, can and will, achieve victory. is demonstrated in a modest way in Britain and we are confident it will be demonstrated in North and South Vietnam, in a really spectacular way, in the not too distant future.

Death of Sam For the defeat of U.S. imperialism Statement by the International Committee of the Fourth International-July 12, 1965 U.S. imperialism is in severe crisis, not least because of the indomitable struggle of the workers and peasants of Vietnam. In response, the imperialists are prepared to carry out the most ruthless and wholesale destruction of the people of Vietnam, using the opportunity to test the most horrible weapons of modern wat.

U.S. imperialism can be defeated in Victua and a defeat must be the aim of the working class in every country. The workers of the USA, Britain and every other country must act for the defeat of the U.S. government forces and their supporters.

International Stalinism, together with the Social Demo crats, is the greatest obstacle to the necessary working class action. Instead, they collaborate to misdirect the opposition of the masses to the Vietnam war into the channels of the so-called 'peace movement.

It is an abandonment of international working-class solidarity to press the capitalist governments to a negotiated peace through a reconvention of the Geneva Conference of 1954.

The aim of this fraudulent 'peace' campaign is to hand over the Vietnamese people to For a Vietcong victory against U.S. imperialism! Against secret diplomacy! Against the phoney 'peace' campaign? For independent working-class action against the governments supporting U.S. intervention! Black all transit of arms and men to South-East Asia from the U.S. and the British Commonweath! Down with U.S. imperialism and its lackeys in the labour movement!

Motor men NIGHT workers at Leyland Motors have continued their ban on working the Friday night 'mini shift' this week, against the advice of their shop stewards.

They refused to accept the decision of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions, taken last Thursday, to ban the four-day week of 10 hours each.

Instead, they sent a telegram to Sir William Carron, President of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, demanding that the union executive negotiate a satisfactory settlement on their behalf.

About 800 of the day-shift workers at the five factories walked out again in sympathy on Friday afternoon, and all the workers decided on a one-day token strike on August 2 in support of their demands.

KEY ISSUE

Night workers at the Goss printing machinery works in nearby Preston have also been boycotting the mini shift.

It is clear that this issue, which arises from the introduction of the 40-hour week in the engineering industry, is a key one for night workers.

It is also clear that the employers are very determined not to concede anything on this question. Some Leyland workers (Cont. p. 4, col. 1) the secret diplomacy of the imperialists and the Stalinist bureaucracy.

The present war is a consequence of a conspiracy in 1954, which robbed the people of South Vietnam of the fruits of victory of Dien Bien Phu, and onened the donre for ILS. imperialism after the defeat of the French imperialists.

The International Committee of the Fourth International calls upon the labour movement in every country to break from this policy of subservenice to imperialuin. tu pendent working-class action is the only way to support the people of Vietnam.

Protests and demonstrations of all kinds, and above all, strikes, following the example of the Australian dockers, to prevent the imperialists from waging their war, are necessary. The workers must withdraw support for all parties and governments who are in the pay of U.S. imperialism, such as the Wilson government in Britain.

In fighting against these traitorous leaders of the labour movement, the militant workers will strike heavy blows against imperialism and for the Vietnam revolution. We must develop a working-class leadership which will supply arms and international solidarity action to the Vietcong, and against the imperialists.

mini shift Shootings in tion Commission' of the Organisation of American States deliberates in Santo Domingo, the slaughter of innocent unarmed civilians continues without respite.

On May 26 the 'New York Times' reported that already 'about 3,000 persons have been arrested' by the pro-American Imbert junta.

Subsequent to the arrests there have been a series of reports of executions and indiscriminate killings by the Imbert forces.

As a result of public clamour and indignation throughout Latin America, the Organisation of American States was forced to ask the United Nations to send human rights commission to Santo Domingo to prevent further executions of the constitutionalists.

One U.S. correspondent By THE EDITOR IT is characteristic of the British ruling class that when it is in a tight corner it invariably calls on the Labour leaders to do what it considers to be beneath its dignity and station to do itself.

'Each man to his trade' is its motto, and when it comes to a really degrading and filthy job, like try.ng to persuade the Vietnamese people to surrender their independence and freedom (and their arms) for an illusory "peace, what better choice than a so-called left Labourite like Harold Davies.

For full story on the go-siou work together in the same city, see page why should not they enjoy Meeting 'The importance of Trotskyism for the Young Socialists' Friday, August 20, 1965, 7.30 p.m. GREAT HALL, CAXTON HALL, VICTORIA, LONDON, S.W.1 (nearest tube: St. James Park) SAM GOLDBERG was one of a large number of young people, who, at the end of the war, left the forces to join the socialist movement. He first came into contact with the Trotskyists when he was attached to Air Transport Command at Croydon Airport in 1945.

He decided almost immediately to join the Revolutionary Communist Party, which was the main Trotskyist organisation in Britain at the time.

Sam Goldberg was a keen student of Marxist theory and, after having been in the Revolutionary Communist Party for a few weeks, he joined the minority which was fighting for a tum of the Trotskyists towards the mass movement in Britain on the basis of the revolutionary programme. He played a leading role in the fight against Jock Haston, who is at present the educational director for the Chapple, Cannon, Byrne right-wing clique in the Electrical Trades Union.

After his demobilisation from the forces, he went to work in Birmingham under the instruction of the RCP minority tendency.

Apart from an active political life, he continued his study of electronics and won some brilliant (Cont. p. 4, col. 1)

Page

march YOUNG Socialists marched through the streets of Newcastle last Saturday behind a huge bamner bearing the slogan 'For a Vietcong Victory'.

As the demonstration wound its way through the busy streets crowded with shoppers, the walls echoed the shouts of Vietcong inAmerican imperialism out, *Workers of the World Unite, 'Wilson peace mission out. Several people joined it and afterwards applied to join the Young Socialists.

The police constantly intervened, halting the march on several occasions and one Young Socialist had her name taken and was told she would be summonsed for taking a photograph, without prior permission, of the police stopping the march.

At a meeting afterwards members of the Regional Committee of the YS explained the meaning of U.S. imperialist aggression in Vietnam and why the YS stood firmly by the Vietcong.

CLEAR LEAD

The YS gave a clear lead to all workers who opposed the war. The YS did not stand for neutrality and not supporting either side, like Brockway and the Communist Party, but for taking a class stand in support of a Vietcong victory, the speakers said.

At the meeting plans were laid for another demonstration on Vietnam on Saturday August 21, support for which would be sought from the trade unions and in the factories, calling on apprentices and all young workers to come out on the streets in support of the peasants and workers of Vietnam and to drive out Wilson who supports American imperialism.

S. Domingo reported from Santo Domingo how witnesses testified to the senseless and barbaric murder of four workers in a public street by Imbert's troops.

At the same time large-scale attacks were made by the so-called 'peace-keeping' forces of the OAS against Camaano's rebels which claimed at least 70 dead (66 of them rebels and civilians) and the capture of part of the town by the OAS.

The Mediation Commission consists of one American (State Department agent Ellesworth Bunker) and two U.S. puppets from El Salvador and Brazil.

Predictably, the Mediation Commission produced a plan which fulfilled all the requirements of U.S. foreign policy. It called for OAS-supervised elections in six to nine months and the surrender of all arms to the state and the scrapping of (Cont. p. 3, col. 1)

Mr. Davies' trip to Hanoi was, strangely enough, preceded by John Gollan's junket in North Vietnam. The question then arises: Did Gollan go to Vietnam to prepare the ground for Mr. Davies, and possibly Mr. Wilson?

Let us remember that while he was in Vietnam, Gollan had no difficulty echoing the opinions of the Hanoi regime, but when he got back to London he gave unequivocal support to Lord Brockway's lobby, which was obliquely aimed against the Vietcong!

The 'Daily Worker' has so far made no comment on Davies' trip and has not once raised the demand that Wilson recognise the National Liberation Front as the legitimate government of South Vietnam.

Nor, for that matter, has Mr. Gollan.

The fact is that neither the fake lefts in the Labour Party, nor the leaders of the CPGB, really desire to see U.s.

imperialism defeated and destroyed in South-East Asia.

If they were, they wouldr't be going round the country talking out of both sides of their mouths at the same time.

Mr. Davies got the treatment he deserved.

No sympathy We have no sympathy for him, or for any of those 128 Labour MPs who welcomed his departure to Hanoi.

Davies, as was admitted in Parliament, went to Hanoi with the knowledge and sanction of Wilson's cabinet. In other words he went as a representative of the government and in this capacity he tried, unsuccessfully, to sell Wilson's rotten plan to Hanoi.

There is little or no difference between Davies' cynical diplomacy and the attempts of the British ruling class to (Cont. p. 4, col. I)

JOINI memorandum has been sent to the Anti-Apartheid Movement by the Pan African Congress and the South African Coloured People's Congress in Britain, This criticises the approach of Anti-Apartheid on a number of questions, particularly the attitude to the South African revolution.

The Movement is at present engaged in a postal campaign, designed to persuade white South Africans to 'see reason'.

The memorandum calls this "a futile activity' and relates it to the question of armed revolt against the South African government.

"The view has been allowed to spread that South Africa's looming war • of liberation is something which the people of Britain cannot support in that country, and generally spell disaster. Either directly or criticisec indirectly, the AAM has encouraged this fallacious notion about the South African revolution; it has certainly done nothing to counter it. A constructive programme for the AAM must take off from the premise that a South African armed revolt is inevitable. To act as if this were not so is to close one's eyes to the facts of life in South Africa and is irresponsible.' The memorandum also conlers the question of a boycott South African goods.

'If such boycotts are intended to be effective the only possible way of putting them into effect would be to concentrate our efforts on organising dockers to refuse to unload South African ships. This will entail long, patient work in the unions by the AAM.

Therefore this line of action is a long-term objective.' In its final point, the document refers to the Wilson government's decision to send Buccaneer aircraft to South Africa.

"The government's failure to adhere to the arms embargo against South Africa must be exposed,' it states.

Socialists should support the main points raised by the Pan-African Congress and South African Coloured People's Congress. They bring to the fore the contradiction between those who oppose apartheid because it will lead to revolution and those who see that revolution as part of a worldwide struggle against imperialism.

The first of two articles by P. DESAI on developments in the Middle East July 1 THE ranks of Arab chauvinism have been swelled by the support of Pabloite reviNasser celebrating the setting up of the UAR with Syrian politicians Page Th

HE monetary basis of world capitalism has been coming under increasing strain in recent years and it has become clear that it is due for an overhaul. On this question there are serious differences between the main capitalist countries because any reform of the existing system is going to worsen the situation of some currencies. Sterling is the most obvious victim.

Behind the proposal of Johnson's Secretary of the Treasury, Henry H. Fowler, for a new international conference lies the desire to build new defences for the tries during the war as well as from the continued importance of the City of London as a centre for the finance of international trade.

Sterling was thus able to assume, alongside the dollar, the status of a 'key currency' for the settlement of international payments.

Imbalance

In the years after the Second World War, continuous outflows of dollars from the USA served to re-float the world capitalist economy. As a result, some correction was made in the enormous imbalance which had existed between the USA and the rest of the capitalist world.

With the restoration and expansion of the West European economies, a strengthening of their currencies took place.

The consequences of this continuous and massive outflow of dollars were manifold. It conditioned the whole course of capitalist development both in the USA and in the world as a whole during the past 20 years.

That is, it made possible continued expansion in the USA and provided a stream of purchasing power for the world market enabling an increase in production and trade to take place.

But the obverse side of this was the emergence of a U.S. balance of payments deficit and the steady fall in U.S. gold reserves. From about 26,000 million dollars in 1954 they are now down to some 14,000 million.

At the same time there h: been a corresponding increa: in the gold and currency r seems to be an inflationary dollar. Hence de Gaulle's threat, partially carried out, to exchange dollar holdings for gold.

From the point of view of the general stability of U.S. capitalism, it is clearly necessary to strengthen the dollar. But it is equally evident that the cessation of dollar outflows would squeeze the word market and precipitate a world trade crisis. In the same way with the British balance of payments deficit, the cutting down of credit to Britain by the International Monetary Fund and the international bankers would have serious consequences for world trade.

Seize up

This, in short, •constitutes what is known as the international liquidity problem. It can be seen monetary authorities and financial institutions of the capitalist states. No reform can take place without someone getting hurt.

Fowler's latest proposals come when the U.S. balance of payments is in temporary equilibrium and with the continued pressure on sterling leaving Britain nothing to bargain with.

Even the French, who have been talking tough on the basis of large reserves built up in the last five years, are not really in a position to stand up to the Americans.

While talking of 'flexibility' in the American approach, Fowler makes it quite clear, as reported in the 'Financial Times', "that the changes should be built upon the existing system without affecting the present status of the dollar'. In other words, any

dollar, itself weakened by the running down of U.S. gold stocks.

To understand what is at stake it is necessary first of all to examine the international monetary set-up produced by the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944. Currency fixed At that time the world monetary system was in ruins. The depression of the 1930s had destroyed any hope of restoring the gold standard. The war had produced a glaring disproportion between U.S. productive power and the war - shattered and rundown economies of the other main capitalist countries.

Consequently, while taking into account the need to restore the world market, the U.S. government, at Bretton Woods, was virtually able to impose its own terms.

Under the International Monetary Fund set up there, the values of the currencies of the other member countries were fixed in dollar terms, the dollar alone being freely convertible into gold.

World starved At this time the bulk of the world's monetary gold was held in Fort Knox and the rest of the world was starved of dollars since the U.S. was the main or only source of many commodities in short supply.

Despite the greatly

weakened position of British capitalism at this time, however, sterling was able to maintain a relatively privileged position in relation to other currencies.

This arose from the role which sterling played as a backing for other countries in the sterling area and the big sterling balances which had been built up by such counThen, by the end of the 1950s, the previously unheard of took place: the dollar began to weaken as big gaps appeared in the U.S. balance of payments.

The drain of dollars from the USA had a number of causes. Some were directly attributable to the process of capitalist reproduction. That is to say, the continued process of capital accumulation by U.S. business could not be confined to the United States itself without bearing down severely on the rate of profit.

To a growing extent, therefore, the big monopolies, and many lesser firms as well, established or expanded their overseas branches and subsidiaries. Financial groups took interests in firms abroad which remained under their old names and portfolio investment in foreign shares increased.

Military aid

At the same time, the U.S. remained the main strategic support of capitalism as a world system. This meant continued huge military expenditures overseas as well as various kinds of 'aid' to satellites like South Korea, Formosa and South Vietnam and to newly independent governments which had to be kept within the orbit of 'the Free World'. serves of other main the countries.

Despite the efforts of the U.S. administration and the claim that a balance of payments surplus was achieved in the second quarter of this year, the dollar is now at risk.

As has been said, the U.S. dollar is convertible into gold and is, also, the hinge on which other world currencies turn.

Dollar "threat' The now relatively stronger capitalist governments of Europe see their economies penetrated by American capitalism with the help of what height in another way as being the problem of pumping money and credit into the world capitalist system to enable the productive capacity built up during the boom to continue to be profitably employed.

With signs of strain in several countries, the possibility of the world market seizing up for lack of liquidity, as a machine seizes up for lack of oil, now comes up for consideration.

However, to devise means of pumping in additional supplies of purchasing power arouses all manner of conflicts of interest between the sacrifices will have by somebody else.

Presumably the idea will be to supplement existing international means of payment by the creation of an artificial currency unit to be handled through the International Monetary Fund in which the influence of the USA will remain determinant.

Instability

Obviously a lot more is going to be heard about this question in the coming months because it sums up the present problems of world capitalism • and reveals its inherent instability.

ng

THE recent report of the machine tools industry's 'Little Neddy sheds important light on the nature of Britain's balance of payments crisis.

There has been a payments deficit since June 1963. While this has lessened somewhat, imports reached a record high of f501 million in May.

What is significant is not the amount by which the deficit varies each month, but the type of goods being imported by British employers.

Imported machine tools amounted to £33 million in 1964, compared with f19 million in 1960 and accounted for an increased share of the £117 million British market in these products.

HARSH COMPETITION At the same time, while 90 per cent of these imports came from advanced capitalist countries, only 23 per cent of British machine tool exports went to advanced countries.

In other sections of industry Britain faces harsh competition from other capitalist countries.

For example American technology is already eclipsing the British aircraft industry, and the same fate now threatens British computers.

IBM & ICT

The American firm, International Business Machines, made over £7 million profit and took 40 per cent of the British computer market in 1964. British International Computers and Tabulators' profit for a similar share of the same market was under half a million pounds.

ICT's problem the enormous cost of research and development while still delivering handsome profits to shareholders. In the USA, the huge space programme, and big orders from government departments, provide superior research facilities and a guaranteed home market for IBM.

RUTHLESS

But the permanent revolution in the sphere of technology will, in particular, deal ruthlessly with British capitalism, which was able to ride the crises of the twenties and thirties by virtue of its supremacy in world markets, gained at an earlier stage of capitalist development.

Supremacy in world markets flows from supremacy in machine tools and computers (what Marx called Department I).

PARASITISM

As" Britain's share in world markets of manufactured goods continues to drop, so the British bosses must invest enormous sums in automated equipment, to reduce their prices and reverse the trend.

The parasitism of British imperialism has given the initiative to German, Japanese and American capitalism in these vital spheres. So most of the required equipment is foreign. This leads the British bosses into a balance of payments crisis and the threatened collapse of sterling as a reserve currency.

We will now see an epoch of intense international competition, heralded by the virtual collapse of the European Common Market, of big takeovers and the elimination of marginal firms, financial institutions and retailers.

This will coincide with price-cutting to secure dwindling markets, for which Hoover have given the green light.

RETURNS DROP

But, even more important, the rate of return on capital must fall in such a period, spurring the capitalists on to attack the trades unions more openly, to force wages down, create unemployment and increase productivity of those left with jobs.

These developments, with their revolutionary implications, have been maturing in the post-war period. The gradual technological discoveries have led to automation. The expansion of the consumer goods market has led to massive capital accumulation which must be invested.

'GRADUALISM'

The New Left', which flourished towards the end of the fifties grasped only

ONCE more the role of the Roman Catho st Cherd in capitalist society is expressed by the statement, in Australia, of Archbishop Young, of Hobart, Tasmania, supporting aggression in Vietnam.

Archbishop Young issued his statement soon after a further battalion of Australian troops was despatched for South-East Asia, to bring the force in Vietnam up to 1,000 troops.

Australia has a moral duty to fight Communism in South Vietnam, he said.

'Better future'

'Peking and Hanoi have rejected all proposals by the United States, the United Nations and neutrals for negotiations on Vietnam. They believe they can win in South Vietnam.

'Our choice is either to show they can't, or abandon the area and the people whose chances of progress to a better future we are pledged to maintain.

"To surrender in South Vietnam reduces our credibility and increases our difficulty of any commitment in Thailand, Malaysia and so on until India is isolated and Australia is immediately under pressure.' Archbishop Young is correct in saying the Vietcong think they can win. They can, will and are winning in a struggle to throw the American imperialists out of Vietnam.

Real future

They are fighting for a real future and not the 'better future we are pledged to maintain' that the Archbishop talks of.

If the spiritual guidance of people like President Diem, who was overthrown last year, is anything to go by, then the Archbishop's promise of a "better future' is as big a fraud as that other promise of life after death'.

The Catholic Diem carried out organised oppression against the Vietnamese workers and peasants on behalf of world imperialism.

Therefore, for Archbishop Young to talk of a surrender in Vietnam reducing the credibility of the Catholic Church and its commitments International Business Machines made £7 million profit from computers like this one in 1964 in Thailand and Malaysia, shows that its 'commitments' are closely linked with bolstering imperialism and the oppression of the peoples of South-East Asia.

In the same issue of "The Universe and Catholic Times' which quoted Archbishop Young, Pope Paul was reported as saying that the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Defence College indicated by its name 'that it is not a school of war and aggression'.

'Precious possessions' Receiving members of the college in the Vatican he added that they had worked "to defend possessions among the most precious in the world— peace and liberty.

'One must educate souls to love and to practice peace and liberty. This, evidently, cannot be done by imposing force from outside.' Perhaps the Pope should have a word in the Archbishop's ear, or vice versa.

The Archbishop is quite open in posing the class issues at stake while the Pope tries to cover up the real role of NATO by passing it off as a 'force of peace.

Douglas Hyde, ex-news editor of the 'Daily Worker', and a Catholic convert, in his column in The Universe and Catholic Times' reports the fact that Catholic publications are now circulating freely in Yugoslavia.

CP printed

The Catholic fortnightly 'Voice of the Council' was able to sell 150,000 of its Christmas issue and 115,000 copies of a more recent issue dealing with the Vatican Council.

The most interesting fact he brings out is that these newspapers are being printed on the machines of the Party newspaper 'Borba'.

ROBE D donogs 7500N one side of these 'gradual' developments, and that superficially.

They did not see the postwar period dialectically. The 'affluence', of which they spoke, has also its revolutionary side. The slightest attempt of the employers to depress living standards will be met with a violent onslaught on the bosses, sweeping away with it the high priests of 'gradualism' in the labour movement.

It is on these objective considerations that the Marxists' confidence in the working Case I noce ic foundlad Marxist works which answer the burning problems of the Communist movement Writings of Leon Trotsky Permanent Revolution (with Results and Prospects) 15/The New Course The First Five Years of the Communist International Where is Britain Going?

Platform of the Left Opposition (1927)

Available from:

New Park Publication 186a Clapham High St

the 1963 Constitution.

(The 1963 Constitutioncalled the Bosch Constitution -called for democratic rights, nationalization of Trujillo's wealth and limits on foreign control of Dominica's economy.)

This would mean the virtual surrender of the rebel forces.

The rebels, so far, have rejected these proposals, but it is now believed in official circles that the U.S. is toying with the idea of using its 20,000 troops in Dominicia to 'persuade' the Dominicans to accept dictatorship.

U.S. plans for Dominica, however, seem to have been fouled up in a row between the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department.

STORY LEAKED

The latter wanted to patch up a coalition between militarists and Constitutionalists led by Antonio Guzman, a wealthy landowner, and in that way attempt to usurp the power of the rebels under the cloak of the Mediation Commission's plan.

But the CIA had other, more reactionary, ideas. It wanted a showdown now.

So it leaked a story to the press that Guzman was a shady speculator who had been involved in a mult-million dollar bank swindle. Thus the coalition idea was spiked—for the time being.

So long as U.S. troops remain in Dominica, the threat of new massacres will continue.

• CARED by the petty anger of some of London's Page July 17, 1965 Foyle's workers

sionists who have claimed Syria and Egypt be workers' states.

Simultaneously from the Stalinists come salutary gestures towards the Egyptian bourgeois ruler Nasser, proclaiming him to be the champion of 'socialism and anti-imperialism'. These are choice lies and betrayals.

At the junction of Turkey, Iraq and Persia lie mountain ranges within which the Kurds live in daily fear of liquidation from the Iraqi Baathist regime. Extending from this point are the desert plains of the Middle East, situated at the junction of Africa, Asia and Europe.

Arteries of oil and petroleum traverse the desert area. In contrast to this we see the shrivelled-up tracts of poverty-stricken land, plagued by the shackles of military dictatorship.

Different philosophies The Egyptian spokesman of Arab nationalism, Nasser, stands in opposition to the trend of Baathism, prevalent in Syria and Iraq.

Different economic

levels of capitalist development have produced different political and state forms of rule with correspondingly dissimilar philosophies of Arab nationalism.

The joint exploitation by British and French colonialism has created a desert of economic. backwardness, with Nasser's Egyptian bourgeois state standing out like an oasis of relative economic maturity.

Amidst the mud-thatched hovels of Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran, backward autocratic regimes live graciously on royalties from oil.

Alongside each other there are semi-feudal monarchies; emerging bourgeois states, and the established bourgeois state of Egypt.

Workers' movement Behind all this there is a powerfully expanding workers' and peasants' movement.

Egyptian bourgeois social life, built upon definite internal economic foundations, has always been under pressure from external political developments.

During the rule of British colonialism, dominant Egyptian economic groups, as they arose, strove to utilise the monarchical state to consolidate their interests in the form of privileges of rank.

The landowning aristocracy adapted itself to the demands of the capitalist world market. A new bourgeoisie, imitating the richest foreigner in Egypt, launched into financial ventures. Their interests and the interest of the British capitalist class were interlaced.

The historical form assumed by this new bourgeois aristocracy was the Misr group, COnstituted by the 25 subsidiary companies of the Misr Bank, founded in 1920 by Jalaat Harb.

From its inception, the bank was the limited corporation of Egyptian mercantile capitalism. Big landowners and high officials such as Ali Yehlia and Farghaly profited by their collaboration with the British bourgeoisie.

Family rule They were the founders and sole shareholders with a voice. Hence a few ruling families controlled the life-line of the Egyptian economy, and its machinery, the Misr Bank, regulated contact with the leading lights of the bourgeois world-Salvago, Benacho, Chorenci, Huri, etc.

This world was altered by the emergence of a stunted middle class.

The overthrow of King Farouk in 1952, and the subsequent rise of Nasser, marked a new quality of development-the rise of a factorv hourgenisie and the elimination of a few created industries, Nasser has The Stalinist leader Bakdash plutocrats who retarded realised the displacement of left the country, now that the the overall growth of the old, its fusion with the Egyptian law banning the Khrushcher junketting at the opening of the Aswan Dam with Nasser, Aref of Iraq and Sallal of Yemen Negroes fight back with arms Negroes in the deep south which they use to patrol the of America have been resort- neighbourhood of these local ing to armed self-defence At present the main task of against the attacks of white the Maarone ic tha nantantion racist hoodlums and Klansmen. • The defence militia calls itself 'The Deacons for Defence and Justice' and, though originally centred in Louisiana, now has 50 to 55 chapters in Mississippi and Alabama as well.

The Deacons are well armed with rifles, pistols and shotEgyptian capitalism.

The Stalinists regard this elimination as a form of 'socialist measure', and call it "immensely progressive'.

The Nasser state, in assuming a military form, could ably safeguard the interests of the ruling class against a rapidly emerging proletariat.

The state restricts land ownership to a 100 feddans, has encouraged capitalism to stabilise agricultural producSalah Bitar: co-founder of the Baath Socialist Party base for its cotton production.

Officials of the Nasser regime sit on the Boards of Directors of all firms, and run their affairs.

Nasser is the personification of this class, and the conscious expression of its yearnings.

Having driven the old men of the Micr Rank intn stataUL LIE DallA In LU sLalC Pip towns.

we wedtuls is tue prulecuun and defence of civil rights workers in the South.

Ironically, the apostles of non-violence in the civil rights front are only too glad to avail themselves of the help of the Deacons.

Richard Haley, Southern director of the Congress of Racial Equality, for example, uses the Deacons while mainnew and the creation of the state sector of capitalism. His bureaucracy rests on this base.

The octopus of Egyptian capitalism, having sharpened its appetite, turned towards the Suez Canal and claimed the waters for itself in 1956.

This process of absorption culminated in the nationalization of the Misr Bank in 1960, and the November 1960 law to take over French, British and Levantine business interests.

The graph of economic expansion is paralleled by a rising curve of workers' militancy and the savage repression of this movement.

Egyptian capital now reached out for the arteries of the Syrian economy. Under the pretext of an impending Israeli invasion, Syria and Egypt united, and on February 1, 1958, the . United Arab Republic came into being.

Turned on workers We recall that during the 1956 British invasion of Suez, the Bahrein workers -had demonstrated against the visit of Selwyn Lloyd. The Syrian workers had damaged oil pipelines as a gesture of protest.

After taking an anti-imperialist stand over Suez, the Egyptian bourgeoisie turned upon the workers.

A member of the Syrian government party, El Helou, was kidnapped and brought into Egypt by Nasser's secret police. His body was mutilated and thrown in the muttore of roirn bysaefseess2essseedt taining his 'non-violent' philosophy.

His defence is that 'protected non-violence is apt to be more popular with the participants than unprotected'. (!)

The formation and spread of the Deacons is a serious but healthy sign of the growing disenchantment of Negro workers and farmers with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and so-called law-enforcement agencies, and their readiness to fight back against the bombings and lynchings of white racists. Communist Party applied to Syria. The Stalinists' policy of a united front with the petty-bourgeoisie had left the flanks of the working class wide open, and brought tragic consequences to the workers' movement.

Islamic doctrine became the ideology imposed on the workers' movement, and a process of political brainwashing was begun. Nasser brought the Moslem 'Crescent and Star' down to earth, a step closer to the bourgeoisie, with the tag of 'Arab Unity' and plus U.S. agricultural produce, deter these governments from maintaining a false and unprincipled alliance with them.

CP AND PAKISTAN

This policy has led to anomalous and sometimes ludicrous results.

Pakistan — a member of Central European Nations Treaty Organisation and the South - East Asia Treaty Organisation--was, and still is, being touted around by Peking as some sort of anti-imperialist, non-aligned power because she happens to have a frontier agreement with China! ' Arab Socialism'.

The Draft Charter of the United Arab Republic stated:

*The revolutionary rights obtained by the working class as part of the July 1961 laws ... made machinery a property of workmen. ... The workman became a master of the machine and not a cog in the production set-up' The state was stated to be above the class struggle rather than its product.

In October 1959 Nasser delegated full powers to an Egyptian Marshal, Amer, A the governor of Syria. 'national union' was formed, a body tying the two states together and acting as an agent of Egyptian economic penetration.

In 1960, all Syrian newspapers and publishing houses were placed under its control.

Syrian secession This attempt to transplant Egyptian capital on to Syrian soil stifled the local middlebourgeoisie. The direct result was the political uprising of September 1961, in which Kuwatli was overthrown and replaced by Kuzbari.

This secession of Syria from the United Arab Repric paved the way for the emergence of Baathism once again as a political force.

Next week P. Desai deals in detail with the Baath Socialist Party.

Dominica THe bomb that blew up • the Afro-Asian conference hall at Algiers did more than that. It also blew skyhigh the myth that a thirdforce of Afro-Asian nations could interpose itself between imperialism and the socialist states of the East.

Ever since the Bandung Conference of 1954 this pernicious myth has been pedalled around the colonial and semi-colonial world, not only by the bourgeois regimes of Sukarno and Nasser, but particularly by the Peking and Belgrade bureaucracies.

I say pernicious advisedly because the Communist Parties of many, if not all, the colonial and semi-colonial countries deceived and betrayed their working classes by asking them to support all kinds of reactionary capitalist regimes because they were either diplomatically 'non-aligned' or 'neutral'.

CP AND NEHRU

This was particularly true of the foreign policy of the late Pandit Nehru, who had the fulsome support of Peking and the Indian Communist Party until the Sino-Indian frontier dispute broke out.

The fact that the most {disparate regimes, from the medieval autocracy of Emperor Haile Selassie to the anti-communist dictatorship of Nasser all claim to be 'nonaligned' did not prevent Peking and Belgrade from wooing them.

Nor did the conclusive evidence that the stability of all these regimes were, and are, completely dependent on investment of imperialist capital and hand-outs of surmyth Thus when Ben Bella was toppled and the fate of the second Afro-Asian Solidarity Conference was still in the balance, all the contradictions of Mao's and Chou En - lai's opportunistic foreign policy became embarrassingly obvious.

China, with a massive delegation of 500 (l), led by Chou En-lai, was so determined to make the conference a success that it recognised the Boumedienne regime immediately, warts and all, without the slightest trace of remorse or regret.

Marshal Chen Yi, Vice-premier and Foreign Minister of China, even went so far as to express confidence that the Algerian revolution would continue to advance and that the Algerian people 'will surely overcome all the obstacles in their march forward'. (!)

Boumedienne, and his big Muslim landlord and bourgeois supporters, were, no doubt, BY MICHAEL B ANDA extremely grateful for -this gesture which came just when the military junta felt most insecure.

In the same way that the Peking bureaucracy helped Khrushchev and Kadar suppress the workers' councils of Budapest in 1956, so today they help prop up reaction in Algiers.

The recognition of Boumedienne was followed by days of intense lobbying by the Chinese delegation in Cairo, Algiers and London.

Their cajoling was so crude that many Commonwealth delegations were alienated— many reluctantly agreed to go to the Algiers trough, but few agreed to drink.

Most of the participating delegations were so offended by the odious regime in Algiers that they demanded that this conference be postponed. The alternative was a general walk-out.

Faced with such a prospect, the Chinese had no choice but to abandon their forward positions and make a strategic retreat. The retreat, however, turned into a rout when the Standing Committee of the Foreign Ministers Conference met to discuss the draft of the resolution on the postponement.

All the pro-Chinese arguments, particularly their insistence on excluding Malaysia and the USSR from the reconvened conference, were defeated.

Thus, the conference, or rather pre-conference, turned out in the end to be a victory for imperialism-and the myth of non-alignment was surely and everlastingly laid to rest.

But the Chinese leaders have learned nothing from this diplomatic debacle.

The editorial in 'Renmin Ribao' ', a leading Chinese government paper, for example, continues to cherish the same illusions as before:

'INTERNAL AFFAIR' "The common desire of more than 2,000 million Asian and African people is that the conference will hold still higher the banner of opposing imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism, carry forward the Bandung spirit [sic!] and enhance Afro-Asian solidarity!

then goes on to say:

'What happened in Algeria on June 19 was entirely its internal affair?

But the same reasoning can surely also be applied to South Vietnam or the Congo, and when the editorial boasts that the re-convening of the conference in Algiers in November will be a "telling blow to imperialism and its agents', we can only reply by asking the editors to stop whistling in the dark and playing into imperialism's hands.

BANKRUPTCY

Those who uncritically support Peking would do well to ponder on the lessons of the Algiers farce.

It contains a salutary lesson in the bankruptey of powerpolitics and reliance on bourgeois - landlord regimes as a substitute for supporting working - class and peasant struggles throughout the world.

For this reason, the Chinese Communist Party leaders cannot give any kind of leadership to the international working class.

with their brand of social-democratic duplicity they are gravely mistaken.

They seriously underestimate the profound determination of the Vietnamese people to unify and free their country. (If Mr. Davies learnt nothing else from his fruitless mission, he should at least have learnt that.).

Mr. Bottomley, too, will soon learn that the leaders of the Vietcong, unlike the chicken - livered traitors at the head of the Labour Party, will not capitulate to imperialism even when the Monsoon does finish.

No, Mr. Bottomley, the Vietnamese people will never surrender, even if shrimps do learn to sing!

victory Unlike the Labour and Stalinist leaders, the Socialist Labour League stands for the complete military and political victory of the Vietcong as the only condition for the independence and unification of this crucified nation.

The war will continue. It will be escalated by U.S. imperialism. It will probably involve China as well. No matter!

The task that faces all of us is to see that the day of Vietnam's liberation is advanced and that the imperialists' plans are frustrated.

Let imperialism drown in own blood! Answer middle-class commuters by extending action middle-class commuters, a Southern Region rail official made a desperate attempt on Wednesday to end the go-slow of train drivers.

But the railmen, who are demanding £3 35. a week bonus, gave a very firm answer to the official and told him he had not 'a cat in hell's chance' of getting a return to normal working.

And on Wednesday night men at King's Cross threatened a one-day strike on August 2 if the bonus was not paid by July 31.

A decision had also been taken to call for an extension of the go-slow to the whole of the region, and there are reports that men in the South-west will give supporting action on Monday.

The drivers were to ask Archie Manuel, Labour MP for Central Aryshire, and an exloco man to press for a government inquiry into their pay and conditions.

But the railmen should not place too much faith in either their own union leaders or the MPs in the Labour government. If they are to win their bonus fight they must call on rank-and-file trade unionists for support and extend the action they have already taken. After all, if the middle-class really want something to be angry about, why not make them walk?

Vicious campaign

Already the capitalist press is whipping up the most vicious campaign against the go-slow.

Most of the national press on Thursday morning featured photographs of the 'cityslickers' with rolled umbrellas, and hard-faced Tory women waiting for trains out of London. One paper suggested that the passengers might want to 'roast a railwayman alive'.

The answer of the railmen to these attacks by the Tory press on the right of workers to fight for better conditions must be clear and firm.

There can be little doubt that at some stage in this dispute the trade union leadership will intervene to halt the goslow. After all Wilson and the Labour government have proved themselves to have far more in common with the 'City' gents than with the working class, and are, no doubt, anxious to break the militancy of the Southern railmen.

However, the rank and file of the labour movement must show their solidarity with these rail drivers. A fight by any section of the working class against the wage freeze is a challenge to the crawling subservience of Wilson and company to the monopolists.

Hairdressers strike in Oxford ON Wednesday, girls at the three Michael Andrew hairdressing salons in Oxford came out on official strike against the refusal of the American owner, Mr. J.

McGrath, to recognise their right to join the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers.

The girls recently joined the union after a dispute in which they claimed the management had been making deductions from their commission, and had refused to allow them to investigate the accounts.

This incident was the culmination of grievances which had been building up for some time.

The entire staff joined the union.

The strikers picketing the salons have turned away many customers who have been disgusted at the management's attitude.

Many of the girls were aware of the fight put up by the Foyle's strikers, and of the assistance given to the strike by the Young Socialists.

return- to organise THE young Foyle's workers Whe returned to work on Monday after their successful six-week • strike found that the promised 'change of heart' by the management had not materialised. Throughout last week's negotiations strikers had warned the shopworkers' union officials that one of the most important points in any agreement should be an undertaking from the management that strikers would return to their old jobs.

This was one of the points said to be 'understood' between the union and Foyle's management, but on Monday, the workers allege, they were given jobs they did not want.

Only half-a-dozen strikers returned to selling books, the rest were sent to the post department, mail order office, receiving department, etc., it was reported.

Feeling is high and it has been made plain to union organisers

deputise Henderson in 1917 to persuade the Provisional Government to continue the war against Germany.

If Davies and Wilson think they can fool 30 million people

think that this is because the employers have in mind the introduction of a three-shift system.

Sir Donald Stokes, managing director of Leyland, announced last week that his firm intends to spend f60 million in the next four years on expansion.

In order to reap adequate returns on this vast investment, Leyland must try to keep their machinery running 24 hours a day.

To have the factories closed on Friday nights through the actions of workers fighting for better conditions, would be a severe set-back to these plans.

awards, the results of which helped finance the work of the Trotskyist movement, especially during the years of 1950 and 1951.

Sam Goldberg was a close friend of John Lawrence, who came under the influence of Pablo, the revisionist renegade of the Fourth International. Under his instructions, they broke from the Trotskyist movement and, in the case of Lawrence, went to work in the Communist Party, although Goldberg himself continued to work in the Labour Party.

It was approximately at this time that he became active in the Electrical Trades Union and was quickly snatched up by the Stalinist leadership of Haxell and Foulkes. With their support he was elected to the Executive Council of the ETU.

Pablo opened the door to his final degeneration. He was one of the defendants named in the ETU ballot rigging case, but there was absolutely no evidence lo show that he had anything to do with it.

At that time he resumed a limited collaboration with the Trotskyists, but it was clear that Pabloism had finally finished him off, so far as his political development was concerned. A fitting political epitaph for Sam Goldberg can be summed up in the phrase 'Pabloism in action'.

Nevertheless, we shall always remember him for the great work which he did in the years immediately following the war. His name is written into the history of the greatest of all movements, the struggle of the international Trotskyist movement "for world socialism.

Registered at the G.P.O. as a newspaper Published by The Newsletter.

Goldberg National Press attacks dockers' the port employers, an attack on Merseyside dockers began in the press last week.

The Daily Mail' declared: 'One of Britain's worst dockland manpower scandals is to be tackled by the employers.' The 'manpower scandal' is what is known locally as 'the welt'-a rota system worked within a gang, ensuring an hour's break.

According to the 'Mail' article, Harry Wall, Regional Secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union, attacked this system when he gave evidence a few weeks ago to the Devlin inquiry into the port transport industry.

Early in the 1950s the employers made an attempt to end the 'welt' system, which system began in the conditions of war-time bombing, but because of working conditions and completely inadequate canteen facilities, the result was chaos.

Dockers declare that without the 'welt' system they could not work the long hours continuously at the pace demanded.

Clearly planned

What is the purpose of this attack on the dockers at this time? It is clearly planned. The employers are setting the atmosphere before the outcome of the Devlin inquiry report as part of their battle to reorganise and streamline the docks.

It is highly likely that Devlin report will call adership By a Dublin Correspondent SINCE July 2, 1,700 Dubhn printers, members of the Irish Graphical Society • have been on strike for a 33% percent wage increase.

The strike has stopped the printing of all three national newspapers of the Irish Republic. In addition, about 50 commercial printing firms are affected.

This strike is significant in that the demand for a 33% per cent increase challenges the principle agreed on between the government and the Irish Congress of Trades Unions 18 months ago that wage demands be limited to a 12 per cent increase.

Having got the trade union movement to agree to this figure, the government then proceeded to permit a sharp rise in prices, thus leaving even those workers who obtained a 12 per cent increase, worse off than before.

BAIT

As stated previously in The Newsletter, the government of the Irish Republic, using cheap labour as a bait, is seeking to lure foreign industrialists into the country.

It can, therefore, ill afford to see its wages policy challenged.

It is essential that the printers see that their fight against the employers is also a political fight against the government.

They must also see the necessity of linking their fight with that of other sections of the workers, such as the busmen, who are also putting forward wage claims. lower manning scales and other proposals, similar to those in the 'new deal', which Merseyside dockers rejected some months ago.

In a recent report the 'Daily Mail' stated that the port employers had asked the union for their advice on how to tackle the 'welt' and the union was considering the matter.

The warning for the dockers is that there will be a wholesale attack all along the line. At present, the employers are not in the most favourable position. There is a shortage of labour and the port is crammed with ships. But the employers are attempting to set the stage for a full-scale battle.

THE statement Mr.

Frederick Lee, Wilson's Minister of Power, speaking at the conference of the National Union of Mineworkers, that the government is to press forward with plans which will mean the closure of pits at present producing more than one-third of Britain's coal output, dropped like a bombshell before the leaders of the NUM.

COLLABORATE

Having collaborated with the National Coal Board to boost output, to crush all militant opposition to pit closures and to welcome all the modern techniques, including work-study for increasing productivity, Ford, Paynter and Moffat are now faced with new demands from the big business interests which Wilson's government serves.

Lee has yet to override the opposition of Lord Robens and other chiefs of the National Coal Board, who express the financial interests in coal and coal-mining equipment.

But his plans will run into major trouble in the coalfields where discontent over the wage rates and the driving of the production pace at all costs is at its highest since the war.

The timid opposition of the NUM leaders to the plan to cut coal output to 180 million tons per year was put forward by Alex Moffat, President of the Scottish area.

HEAD OFF

He moved an emergency resolution clearly intended to head off much more vigorously worded resolutions from area delegates, condemning Lee's policy.

Moffat pleaded that the miners would no longer trust the union (leaders), if Lee's policy was allowed to go through. He knows that in Scotland, as in South Wales and Durham, closures will throw thousands of miners on to the dole during the coming winter.

In Scotland alone the closures will mean that only 30 out of the present 70 pits will remain. New jobs will have to be found for over 20,000 redundant miners.

There can be absolutely no hope that new jobs can be created in other pits in the coalfield or in other coalfields since the National Coal Board intends to conduct a rapid introduction of automated machinery. There will be no fig leaf behind which even Moffat can hide.

AUTOMATED

Pits which will be left in Scotland will be of the same pattern as that at Long Gannet.

This plan will co-ordinate the production of four pits operated by automatic machinery, controlled from the surface by electronic devices.

Coal will be fed from the coal face to a 24,000 megawatt power station which is to be built at Long Gannet.

Moffat fears that the Scottish miner will remember the role played by the Scottish NUM leaders three years ago when a wave of closures forced the miners to take strike action.

When 5,000 miners took action against the closures, which included two new pits Rothes and Glenochil, they were denounced by Alex Moffat as "inresponsible'.

The unofficial leaders of the strike, including members of the Communist Party, to which Paynter and Moffat give 'support', were denounced at a meeting of the Scottish area delegates as 'Himmlers'.

Paynter and Moffat fear that the miners will take strike action against the plans of a Labour Minister of Power. So Paynter feebly tries to head off such a necessary collision by faint pleas to the miners 'not to rock the boat'.

'DIRECTION'

At least the miners in Scotland and elsewhere now know the meaning of all such anti-working-class policies as 'direction of labour' (favoure d by Moffat), and Wilson's boas it that the Labour government would modernise industry.

In Scotland the rate of output has increased in the pits to such an extent that productivity has risen by 29 per cent in four years dragging the division out of the red financially.

Robens and the employing class have a lot to praise the right-wing and Stalinist leaders of the NUM for, since it is they who urged the miners to boost production and have fought to hold back wages.

ORGANISE

Miners must organise to fight against the policies of Robens and Lee. They should organise to throw out all those leaders who hand over their union to the employing class so that the bosses can use it as a stick with which to drive for more output and thus more profit.

Above all they must turn to other sections of workers in struggle against the policies of the right-wing leadership of the Labour Party and demand that policies of modernisation be implemented only when all the fuel and all other major industries, including the banks, are nationalized. maintain the basic principle of trade unionism?

The treachery of the BISAKTA officials lies in creating a division between the craftsmen and other workers, which can only benefit the management and enable the employers to use one section of workers against another.

EXPECT SUPPORT

Strikers have every right to expect support from the whole trade union and labour movement on this issue. Four hundred and fifty craftsmen should not be left to take on Colvilles on their own.

But the main question for all steel workers is to carry on a fight inside the unions to stop Wilson and the Labour government from retreating on the nationalization of steel.

Only the nationalization of the whole of the steel industry, without the proposed f60 million handout to the present owners, and the operation of the industry under workers' control, can ensure adequate wages had working conditions for all steel workers and safeguard trade union rights.

Mini shift BEHIND two industrial disputes in • issue of workers 'control.

Both are about hours of work; not the number of be worked, but the arrangement of working hours the men may enjoy the benefit of maximum leisure.

One dispute is at the giant Austin car factory at Longbridge. Here night shift workers have declared that from now on they will not work on Friday nights - 10,000 night workers did not report at the factory last Friday.

Other Birmingham factories at which workers failed to report last Friday night were Fisher and Ludlow, Erdington, Tractor and Transmission, Washwood Heath, and Joseph Lucas. It is expected that action on the same lines will spread rapidly throughout the Midlands car industry.

EFFICIENT BAN

Nightworkers themselves decided to ban the Friday shift. Officials of the union involved appear not to have been consulted, but the ban is efficiently organised.

There have been recurring disputes at Longbridge during the past five years over the Friday night shift.

In the early weeks of this year workers staged a series of Friday night strikes, which were called off to enable shop stewards and management to discuss the abolition of the shift. No agreement was reached.

Night workers were then pressing for a 38-hour week, to be operated in four 10-hour shifts, the last half-hour each night being paid at overtime rates.

IN LINE This would have brought their working hours into line with those of 4,000 other workers at Austin's, who have worked a 38-hour week for the last eight years.

At the recent annual conference of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions, it was decided that, with the introduction of 40-hour working last week, night working hours should be spread over four and a half nights— four nights at nine hours and a four-hour shift on Fridays.

In spite of this decision, in Birmingham lies the hours to so that ever, night workers say: 'We have been fighting this battle too long to back out now?

BMC management maintains that if the Friday shift was abolished and the other four shifts lengthened, the result would be tiredness and bad workmanship.

Notices were put up throughout the Austin factory to the effect that working hours would be four nights at nine hours and a 4-hour shift on Fridays.

RAISE BAN

BMC management say they have taken up the matter with the Engineering Employers' Federation who are to raise the night shift ban with the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions.

The second dispute is between the Midlands Electricity Board and 1,350 manual workers who have been on unofficial strike for three weeks over the implementation of the 40-hour week.

MEB wants the strikers to work from 8.30 a.m. to 5 p.m.workers insist on a day beginning at 8 am. and finishing at 4.30 p.m.

Len Pickersgill, chairman of the strike committee, declared: 'At least 90 per cent of the consumers welcome collectors before 8.30 a.m., before they themselves leave for work. Otherwise it can mean people rushing home at lunch time, missing their own meal, to be there when the collector calls.' He also says that the clerical staff would welcome starting at 8 a.m. and leaving earlier, to enjoy more leisure in the evening.

WORTH FIVE

Leisure is meaningless, say the strikers, unless it is at the end of the day. The half-hour which the management wants to set free in the morning would be worth only five minutes to workers facing rush-hour traffic as they travelled to work for 8.30 a.m.

The strikers returned to work on Tuesday pending negotiations. In the meantime they will operate an overtime ban. that the result of a meeting with the management on Wednesday morning must be a guarantee of original jobs within a week.

Recruitment amongst new workers at the bookshop has already begun with nearly a dozen recruits on the first day.

AT a mass meeting held in Motherwell Town Hall on Sunday, 'July 11, it was unanimously agreed to continue the strike involving 570 craftsmen employed by. Colvilles.

Now in its third week, the strike began at the Ravenscraig steel works in Motherwell, where 450 craftsmen were unable to gain any satisfaction in their claim for increased bonus and plant payment.

The management, of course, stated that the strike was 'irresponsible' and that the workers' demands were 'excessive. They promptly acted to break the strike by employing staff men on maintenance work.

This only strengthened the determination of the strikers and brought equally prompt action from 120 craftsmen at Colvilles Gartcosh works, who came out on strike in support of the Ravenscraig men and in protest against the use of 'blacklegs' by the company.

RESUME

At their meeting last Sunday the strikers issued a statement that they were prepared to resume work 'when scab labour is withdrawn and negotiations afforded at works level to resolve the cause of the initial dispute'.

The statement also condemned the actions of officials of the British Iron, Steel and Kindred Trades Association, who had instructed their members to continue at work, which meant BISAKTA men working alongside scab labour.

Strikers declared: It should be clearly understood that scab labour is not going to be tolerated. We are completely opposed to and regard with contempt the apparent official attitude of the BISAKTA in aiding and abetting the management in our struggle to