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The Socialist Labour League's press: The Newsletter, Workers Press, Labour Review and Fourth International, 1952–1973. A searchable archive of the scans

The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 407

21 August 1965 · 16 articles · about 13,474 words of machine-read text

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In this issue

  1. Who is kidding whom on the docks? · scan page 1
  2. 'The Importance of Trotskyism for the Young Socialists' · scan pages 1, 2, 5
  3. Growing protest against Wilson's immigration · scan page 1
  4. The second and concluding part of Cliff Slaughter's reply to an article by Joseph Hansen of the Socialist Workers Party (U.S.A.), which appeared in a recent issue of World Outlook' Class Party State in Algeria · scan page 2
  5. Histeachings grow more powerful By Frank Williams O" go, batten oh of ours of 20 and , 30, Lars · scan pages 2, 3
  6. AUGUST 20, 1965 · scan pages 3, 4
  7. International nternational · scan pages 4, 5
  8. Grave crisis and turmoil in India · By Michael Banda · scan page 4
  9. Greenwood upholds imperialism in Aden THE collapse of the · scan page 4
  10. West Indian workers hold conference on racialism · By Sylvia Pick · checked against the scan · scan page 5
  11. Leicester tenants form association · checked against the scan · scan page 5
  12. Tenants must win support of trade unions · checked against the scan · scan page 5
  13. T& GWU official attacks · scan page 5
  14. Girling workers defy lock-out ABOUT · scan page 5
  15. Not enough · scan page 5
  16. (continued from page 3) · scan page 5

Who is kidding whom on the docks?

Scan page 1

Saturday, August 21, 1965 Saving the 1 National Institute of Social REPORT from Research, which claims to be the most authoritative voice on Britain's economy, warns that the economy is heading for a period of stagnation with unemployment in the region of half a million. lus the policy of Wilson, Brown and Callaghan is revealed for all to see. It is no different from that of the Tories, since it seeks to solve the problems of capitalist Britain at the expense of the workers and not the capitalists. is the workers who will have to eat less whilst our well-fed Labour statesmen and Tories seek ways and means to save the pound. hat conference of me Labour Party decided upon this policy? Was it included in Labour's election manifesto? Did not Harold Wilson call for Britain to 'get moving again'? Everyone knows that the Tory policies, which the Labour government are operating, are the policies of stagnation. lere is, in fact, no future for the working class under capitalism — the present Labour government has proved this to the hilt for all to see.

Its leadership has betrayed the working class and even the handful of milk-and-water election promises have been swept aside.

Surely the time has come to draw serious conclusions from all this bitter experience. The Socialist Labour League warned the labour movement about the right-wing i role of Harold Wilson. We were right. We now say that the most urgent task before the Labour and trade union movement is to get rid of his leadership immediately. le movement must go all out in a struggle for socialist policies. Either the MacDonald - Wilson, traitors are turned out or Labour faces disaster. Commemoration ANNIVERSARY OF THE ASSASSINAT agreement has been arrived at on the docks? According to the newspaper stories about the Devlin Report everything is tied up, cut and dried.

Mr. Barratt of the National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers Union talks about 'minor disagreements' with the Transport and General Workers Union whilst the latter claims that all port workers now accept its leadership on the docks.

This is all part of a great publicity drive to swing a fast one on the port workers.

So far as they are concerned, they have decided nothing, because nobody has really consulted them.

Silent

Mr. Dash of the Liaison Committee and the Communist Party remain strangely silent over the Devlin Repsit. Only the Newsletter' has spoken out against it.

We are in favour of peace on the docks but we believe that this cannot be attained until the monopoly groups of capitalists who dominate the industry are expropriated. We believe that there can be no peace in dockland under capitalism.

That is why we have insisted upon the nationalization of the port industry and the establishment of workers' control by the port workers.

The responsibility for all the trouble in dockland rests on the employers and all those Meeting OF STEALING STILL FACES Over 200 dockers turned away from a dock-gate meeting in London and attended an unofficial meeting. Port workers at the London docks eagerly read the 'Newsletter'. trade union officials who in one way or another fail to carry out a real struggle on behalf of their members.

It is all very well for Mr. Barrett to rub shoulders with Mr. Jones of the TGWU but we would like to know what mass meeting of the Blue Union Mr. Barratt consulted for a decision to support the Devlin Report.

Old dockers

We would also like to know if Mr. Barrett is clear about what is in the Report. For example, what is to happen to the old dockers under this Report? Will not the employers have the right to hire and fire at will and concentrate on utilising a young labour force which they can recrui in any way they like?

Messrs. Barrett and Jones talk about nonunionism on the docks.

There is no difficulty in establishing responsibility for this.

In autumn, 1954, Mr. Barrett's executive recommended to a mass meeting of members of the union at Canning Town Hall that they start recruiting in the port of An uprising against unemployment, Angeles events as 'racial violence' is to fall victim to journalistic humbug or to racialism itsell. The young Negroes who took over a section of the city and fought 1,000 police and 15,000 troops, were leading a working-class insurrection against the capitalist state.

Their struggle is a historic action of the international working class which goes far beyond colour in its significance. By revolting, in however disorganised a way, against the conditions to which imperialism has condemned them, they illuminated brilliantly the social instability of the leading imperialist power and demonstrated once more the ability of the workers to smash that power.

Prosperous

Los Angeles is the third largest city in the USA. It is also one of the most prosperous. It has more cars per head of population than any other place in the world. Its lush apartments and swimming-pooled houses are an international legend.

But in Watts, the Negro ghetto, 100,000 people are herded into a few squalid blocks. Over half of these people are on relief. When they do find work it is only of the most menial and degrading kind. Many of them have migrated from the Eastern and Southern states in search of jobs. But there was no share in the West Coast boom for them.

Misery

In the midst of the most advanced electronics industry, the teenagers of Watts have no future but misery.

To maintain this kind of 'order' the police use the utmost brutality. In 1962, an incident near a Black Muslim temple led to a gun battle in which police shot indiscriminately. Eleven Negroes were later sentenced on the most flimsy evidence.

Many middle-class hunger and police brutality LOS ANGELES A Negro woman angrily shouts at Los Angeles police who tried to tarians will tell you all this. But what happened on Wednesday, August 11, was that some workers decided that they could not go on like this, and that it was better to die fighting than to endure such conditions.

Led by teenagers armed with shotguns, they drove the police out of Watts. Crowds fought and smashed and burned even after the National Guard was called in to suppress the rebellion.

This action is part of the world-wide struggle against imperialism. The workers were conscious that their oppressors were also fighting to oppress the Vietnamese people. InciHALT beat militant Negro workers into submission.

dentally, the government forces were equipped with anti-flak suits prepared for use in Vietnam.

The class nature of these events is underlined by the way in which they meant a clear break with traditional Negro leaders. These gentlemen, who represent the eftorts of the middle-class Negroes to find a place within capitalist society, have counselled moderation and non-violence in the struggle for 'civil rights'. Both the Rev. Martin Luther King and Roy Wilkins of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, have condemned riotKing, at the World Convention of Churches, said It was necessary that as powerful a police force as possible be brought in to check them, but police power can bring only a temporary halt.' These leaders have been left far behind and their devotion to capital is clearly exposed.

Wall Street The Los Angeles revolt has already led to actions in many other parts of the USA. It will have even wider repercussions on the international position of Wall Street.

The workers who fought in Watts cannot reach victory on their own. They must unite with other sections of the working class. What happened in Los Angeles is part of the history of the American revolution.

The same deep social crisis which is reflected in this action affects the whole American working class. The vital necessity is for a leadership which will base itself on the conscious understanding of this fact.

• Hours after the so-called restoration of law and order by armed police in Los Angeles, firing began again on Wednesday.

The police fired on Negroes outside a Black Muslim mosque after they alleged that arms were being smuggled into the building. (There have not, however, been any reports in the press that large numbers of weapons were found in the mosque.)

In this continuation of the vicious measures of the Los Angeles police force 10 Negroes were injured and 50 were taken away for questioning.

'The Importance of Trotskyism for the Young Socialists'

Scan pages 1, 2, 5

iday, August 20, 1965, 7.30 p.m. GREAT HALL, CAXTON HALL, VICTORIA, LONDON, S.W.1 (nearest tube: St. James Park) Hull. This proposal was later extended to • Liverpool and Manchester.

Monopoly

Then the TGWU, through the Bridlington Agreement, began to operate its monopoly rights. A strike for recognition of the Blue Union was defeated, largely through a combination of the TGWU and members of the Communist Party breaking it up on the London docks.

'A resolute struggle must be waged against the attempt to clothe the revolutionary liberation movements in the backward countries which are not genuinely communist in communist colours. The Communist International has the duty of supporting the revolutionary movement in the colonial and backward countries only with the object of rallying the constituent elements of the future proletarian parties—which will be truly communist and not only in name-in all the backward countries and educating them to a consciousness of their special task, namely, that of fighting against the bourgeois-democratic trend in their own nation. The Communist International should collaborate provisionally with the revolutionary Page SOCIALISM can only be built through the August 21,1965 Augus

on racialism As soon as the strike was over, the Trades Union Congress instructed Barrett and the NAS&DU to expel all the members they had gained, which they did.

A legal action was successfully brought against this undemocratic practice and the men were reinstated. This means that members in ports outside London have perfect right in accordance with law, to be members of the NAS&DU. The Bridlington Agreement is not recognised in law.

After the legal reinstatement of the NAS&DU members in the northern ports, the TUC then insisted that there be no organisation of the Blue Union in the northern docks and that the TGWU service these members. . It is this bureaucratic activity by the TUC which is responsible for non-unionism on the docks.

We are now back at that point. The executive of the Blue Union did not accept such a proposition at the time because the members were opposed.

Now apparently it forms the basis of an agreement between Mr. Barrett and Mr. Jones, All very well, but themembers have still to be consulted in both the London and northern ports.

Very little has therefore been been decided. We repeat, nothing so far has been decided by the membership of either union on the Devlin Report. All that has happened has been manoeuvering at the top.

Of course, those who manoeuvre would like to do so without having to consult their members, but we are confident that they will not be able to do this.

We have complete confidence in the rank-and-file port worker that he will demand to see that his rights are protected.

Greenwood

Growing protest against Wilson's immigration

Scan page 1

By The JUST exactly what Editor 21, 1965 B/OSL FILE THIS WEEK Class Party and in Algeria Crisis in page iverpool page officials policy THERE is now widespread opposition in some sections of the Labour Party to the government's policy on immigration. It includes protests by very respectable Party men that the recent White Paper is a racialist document.

Dr. David Pitt has resigned from the Executive of the London Labour Party. SKed Freeson, Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of Transport, 'threatened rather obscurely, to 'reconsider his position' when the question is discussed in Parliament. Even Lord Brockway writes in "Tribune' under the headline 'I Hang my Head in Shame'.

There can be no doubt that the. White Paper, which cuts immigrant work vouchers to 8,500 a year, is indeed a boost for the racialists. It is a clear attempt to outbid the Tories in an appeal to racial prejudice.

The issue of vouchers to unskilled workers without definite jobs to go to has already stopped. Now, very few of those with jobs will be allowed into Britain. 1,000 of the places have already been allocated to Maltese citizens, and most of the rest will be taken up by trained people.

THREAT

Even more dangerous is the threat to deport any Commonwealth immigrant the government wants to without any charge being made against him. All of these measures are directed against coloured workers.

Of course, Wilson's hypocrisy does not allow him to talk about such things openly. The White Paper refers instead to "immigrants from the Our Political Correspondent Commonwealth with different social and cultural backgrounds'.

Many Labour Party members Will be nauseated by these moves. But they should think very carefully about the way the Labour leaders arrived at their present position.

Everyone knew that the Immigration Act of 1962 was aimed at splitting the working class on racialist lines and diverting attention from the real causes of the housing shortage and unemployment. Even Hugh Gaitskell opposed the Act as a racialist measure.

But Wilson switched to a continuation of Tory policy without a murmur from Brockway and his friends. Although Freeson's own Labour Party, Willesden East, voted to oppose the Immigration Act last year, the election campaign was fought without mentioning this fact in public.

NO ACCIDENT The right-wing's aid to the racialists is not an accident. It flows logically from their whole policy of doing the dirty work for capitalism. Those who have avoided any struggle against the betrayal of the labour movement are incapable of opposing the acceptance of racialism.

The development of unemployment this winter and the worsening of the housing problem, make a real fight against racialism more vital than ever. But such a fight must be related to a struggle for socialism.

The racialist menace to the working-class movement can only be fought through the building of a revolutionary leadership and the rejection of Wilson and his policies. ing' and supported police action.

While the National Guard were shooting and beating hundreds of Negro workers, Wilkins said: 'Rioting and looting must be put down with whatever force is required.'

The second and concluding part of Cliff Slaughter's reply to an article by Joseph Hansen of the Socialist Workers Party (U.S.A.), which appeared in a recent issue of World Outlook' Class Party State in Algeria

Scan page 2

establishment of the workers' OWn state power, the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'. The revolution necessary for winning such power requires the leadership of a revolutionary party based on the theories of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky.

These were the founding principles of the Third International, and they are incorporated today in the Fourth International, which has the task of carrying them into practice in the epoch of the crisis of working-class leadership.

It is these basic principles which have been abandoned (or 'revised') by the revisionists close to Joseph Hansen, whose attack on the Socialist Labour League we began to examine in last week's 'Newsletter'.

Hansen complains that we concentrate all our fire, when writing on Algeria, against these revisionists. But we do not apologise for making especially sharp attacks in that direction. In fact, Pablo and others, who have only recently broken from Hansen, served Ben Bella's government directly.

Pablo

Hansen writes a 16-page article, purporting to defend the record of the revisionists ill Algeria, without once mentioning Pablo, who disappeared from the scene at precisely the same moment as Ben Bella!

A tendency like the United Secretariat supported by Hansen, which cannot even give an accounting of this extraordinary state of affairs, can hardly expect to avoid criticism from Marxists.

Hansen insists that Ben Bella's government in Algeria was a 'workers' and peasants' government, rather than a capitalist government. accuses the 'Newsletter' of Boumedienne: an end to concessions to masses 'sectarianism' when it called upon Marxists in Algeria to fight for a revolutionary workers' party and working-class power, supporting neither Ben Bella nor Boumedienne.

Ben Bella's government took upon itself the task of restoring relations with French imperialism, while at the same time trying to lean on sections of the peasantry.

Boumedienne, as the 'Newsletter' has already shown, represented a section of the ruling class which wanted an end to concessions to the masses and an early completion of the deal with de Gaulle and the US imperialists.

The basic question of land reform, and the ending of Algeria's equivocal relations with the Soviet bloc, were at stake when Boumedienne's men arrested Ben Bella.

A stage Trotsky, in the Transitional Programme, did raise the possibility 8f 'workers' and peasants' governments' coming into being, in which noncapitalist parties controlled the old state machine, as a stage prior to the actual establishment of the workers' own power. This he considers to be highly unlikely, and says:

'In any case one thing is not to be doubted: even if this highly improbable variant somewhere at some time becomes a reality and the 'workers' and farmers' government' in the above-mentioned sense is established in fact, it would represent merely a short episode on the road to the actual dictatorship of the proletariat'.

Even if therefore, Ben Bella's d been such a government, it ›uld have been the task of Marxists to carry out the revolutionary preparation of the workers' own power, a preparation to anticipate and defeat the inevitable counterrevolutionary actions of the bourgeois state machine and its supporters.

Hansen uses the slogan of 'workers' and peasants' government' in exactly the opposite sense, to capitulate to the bourgeois state, and to leave the workers exposed to rightwing coups of the Boumedienne type.

The Communist International developed the idea of a workers' (or workers' and peasants') government' as part of the tactic of the United Front, whose aim was to destroy the traitorous old working-class leadership through the posing of demands which united the masses in action.

Contortionist

In the documents of Lenin and Trotsky's International, the view taken of such a workers' government hardly looks like Ben Bella's Algeria, even if it were presented by such an expert contortionist as Joseph Hansen. The "Theses on Tactics', adopted in December 1922, contain the following passage:

"The overriding task of the workers government must be to arm the proletariat, to disarm bourgeois, counter-revolutionary organisations, to introduce the control of production, transfer main burden of taxation to the rich, and to break the resistance of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie.

'Such a government is only possible if it is born out of the struggle of the masses, is supported by workers' bodies which are capable of fighting, bodies created by the most oppressed sections of the working masses'.

Evian

In point of fact, in defence of their agreements with the French imperialists at Evian, Ben Bella and his government, backed above all by the professional army of Boumedienne, did the opposite of all these things, thus itself preparing the final army take-over. And the revisionists around Pablo gave vital assistance.

Their 'fraternal criticism' of individual actions like the banning of the Algerian Communist Party (and even here they published in full the 'explanation' given by the government spokesman) were only part of their role in lulling the masses into general reliance upon Ben Bella and the PLN.

Arm the proletariat? Ben Bella relied on the army of Boumedienne, trainea ana indoctrinated in isolation from the masses and from the long guerilla struggle against the French.

This army was used against the proletariat, against strikers, against the remaining armed fighters of the peasant regions, against the underprivileged people of Kabylie. This army disarmed whoever in the working class and the 'most oppressed sections of the masses' was armed.

Disarm the bourgeois organisations? Ben Bella, on the contrary, rested upon these organisations, thus preparing his own fall at the hands of Boumedienne.

Agreements

Introduce the control of production? Ben Bella struck firm agreements for the imperialists to retain control of their richest holdings in Algeria.

Even the landed estates taken over from French settlers and placed under 'workers' self-management' were the subject of agreements with the French government.

Within the context of bourgeois staTe Dowel ana nemalist domination. with the working ciass deprived of independent political organisation, Ben Bella: leant heavily on peasantry such 'self-management' is restricted in such ways that it in fact becomes part of the system of disciplining the workers and peasants.

Transfer the burdens to the rich? The foreign imperialists certainly had to cede part of their profits to the Algerian state bureaucracy which "manages' Algeria on their behalf; but the plight of millions of unemployed and landless Algerians remains absolutely unchanged.

As for workers' bodies capable of fighting, Ben Bella in fact disarmed the workers and peasants. The UGTA (Trade Union federation), which supported Ben Bella's accession to power on guarantee of the right to function independently and Ben Bella railed against all those who, he said, were guilty of too much stress on the working class, its organisation and rights. The peasants (les turbans) must dominate in the state and in the trade unions.

A street mob was imported into the trade union congress and voted to replace entirely the existing trade union leadership. All political parties, except the ruling FLN, have been banned.

Leaderless

Such was the character of the 'workers' and peasants government of Ahmed Ben Bella! Little wonder that the workers and poor peasants found themselves leaderless and powerless to give any immediate effective reply to the right-wing coup of Boumedienne.

Ben Bella's tardy attempts to lean once again on the trade unions early this year, and his promise of extended land reforms, were too late in their effort to find a popular support against the build-up of Boumedienne's power.

Throughout all these processes of the consolidation of bourgeois power, Hansen and his friends helped the course of reaction.

Another Castro Although he found himself veering uncertainly at times, and at others reduced to long silences, Hansen stressed above all the possibility, given sufficient "mass pressure', of Ben Bella's becoming another Castro.

He and his friends provided the theoretical justification for Ben Bella's anti-working-class actions with the theory that the peasantry was the really revolutionary force in backward countries, as against the 'privileged' proletariat.

In Britain and Western Europe, supporters of the Pabloite revisionists developed a new form of fake 'internationalism' in their 'support for the Algerian revolution'.

Pressure

Ben Bella, they said, was subject to pressure from both Right and Left. On the one hand, French and American imperialism would offer economic relations and hope to buy him off. On the other, the 'progressive' forces must provide the conditions for Ben Bella to evolve to the Left.

So they campaigned for technicians, medically-trained personnel, etc., to go and work in Algeria.

To such a level was reduced the Marxist theory of international working-class solidarity, once the central perspective of the building of revolutionary parties had been revised out of existence.

All these are the short stay in Europe. It is as if this member of the Socialist Workers' Party veterans' club arrived in Europe to preside over the liquidation and burial of the revisionists in Pablo's movement.

Three debacles He has already, in less than three years, sat through the debacles of Ceylon, Belgium and Algeria, as well as arriving at the split with Pablo almost before the ink was dry on 'reunification'!

This is no mean accomplishment. The more attacks the Socialist Labour League, the more his own position is dragged into the open and brutally exposed.

It is surely time for him to pack his bags and go home to preside over the last rites of the leadership of the Socialist Workers' Party.

Time is short.

ROWING United State capital investment i European industry has been one of the most significant developments in capitalism in recent years.

A large part of this investment is made directly by the big manufacturing corporations; 70 per cent of the 1,000 biggest firms now have manufacturing plants in Europe. So, also, do many of the smaller firms.

GREATER SCALE

In general, the American capitalist enterprise operates on a vastly greater scale than its European counterpart. Monopoly and concentration have proceeded much further. Thus, for example, the total profits of General Motors are twice the turnover of the French Renault motor firm.

The five largest Us corporations have a business turnover larger than the total national product of Italy. The twenty largest produce more than the whole economy of West Germany.

The vast size of these US corporations means that they face a rapidly diminshing rate of return on new investment at home.

25 YEARS BEHIND Their concentrated power, however, gives them a big advantage Europe, where business methods are often routine and techniques sometimes 25 years behind the US norm.

Thus, they have been able, without much difficulty, and generally with good financial results, to establish a place in the European market. The expansion of European capitalism has offered higher profits and taken the pressure off the rate of profit in the United States.

Holding key patents, possessing invaluable technical know-how, and backed by capital resources unavailable to all but a few European giants, US business has been able to establish a com25th anniversary the assassination

Histeachings grow more powerful By Frank Williams O" go, batten oh of ours of 20 and , 30, Lars

Scan pages 2, 3

and militarily.' (Theses without interference, was transformed forcibly agency by the crudest take-over by Ben Bella's supporters in January, 1963.

Drafted by V. I. Lenin)

questions avoided by Joseph Hansen, hidden behind the smokescreen of his attack on the 'sectarianism' of the SLL.

These questions have mounted up during Hansen's ago, between the hours of 5.20 and 5.30, Leon Trotsky was assassinated by an agent of Stalin's GPU.

This man, disguising himself as a friend of the American Trotskyist movement, was allowed to visit Trotsky in his study, where he presented him with an article that he claimed to have written, and about which he requested a political opinion.

As Trotsky sat in his chair reading the article, the agent drove an ice pick deep into his brain. He then removed the weapon and struck Trotsky seen here as Commissar for war Capital manding position in a number of fields.

The significance of the penetration of the dollar into European capitalism has lain not so much in its absolute amount as in the key sectors over which it has secured a hold.

GROWING STEADILY These include petroleum, hemicals, machine tools, ball earings and electronics, while the US stake in the motor car industry has been growing steadily.

Where US capital Two issues Fourth Inte Issues i for now out! 'A JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL MARXISM PUBLISHED BY THE INTE A JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL MARXISM PUBLI!

FOURTH INTERNATIONAL, the journal of international Marxism published by the International Committee of the Fourth International, is out in two new issues this month, as part of the preparation for the international conference, convened by the Committee for early 1966.

The Summer, 1965, issue consists of theoretical and political documents from the struggle of the International Committee against the revisionism of the leaders of the Socialist Workers' Party of the USA betwen 1961 and 1964.

These include, besides analyses of the basic political questions before the international revolutionary movement, an indispensable treatment of the underlying differences on philosophy and Marxist method. Dialectical materialism is counterposed to the essential pragmatism of the SWP leaders.

Through a thorough examination of current political questions like Cuba, Algeria, the reconstruction of the Fourth International, etc., the central role of revolutionary consciousness, as against the revisionist descent into 'objectivism', is hammered out in these documents.

This essential point is expressed concretely in the fight to build revolutionary parties in every country.

In the August, 1965, number, the lessons of this fight against revisionism, and its implications for the future of viciously once more. Hearing a loud cry from Trotsky, as he lay dying, the guards rushed in and disarmed the assailant.

During the next 26 hours, despite the most skilled medical attention, Trotsky's life ebbed slowly away and at 7.20 p.m. on August 21 he died.

Trotsky's death was not a surprise to his followers. The entire resources of one-sixth of the world were mobilised by Stalin and his secret police to destroy this one man whose Marxist ideas they feared most.

Many of his old comrades, members of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party with Lenin, who were unable to get out of the Soviet Union in time, had previously perished during the infamous Moscow Trials.

Framed

From the mouth of Khrushchev and the rest of Stalin's heirs today, has come the admission that they were framed up and murdered in the most cold-blooded fashion.

But, and we must insist on this, it was Trotsky's ideas which Stalin feared most and it is about these that we wish to speak on the 25th anniversary of his death.

Trotsky, the revolutionist is lead, but his Marxist ideas frow more powerful than ever.

brings new plants or takes over old ones it brings with it a whole gamut of new methods. Its aim is to earn profits and earn them quickly. Plants which don't pay their way are shut down or production is moved across national frontiers to where labour is more docile or taxes are less.

WELCOMED

This is not the only problem posed for European governments. In the past, most have welcomed US capital as a way of modernisising their economy and bringing in dollars to help with balance Fourth Much h written 1 ians abor was and by his fol Some the mo:

ever, an brilliant Some saj lay in th Army n during t perialist the first 1 Others a brilliar cause o was no n descriptir entirely i latter cas His gr the teac doubtedl up point of Stali period fo Despit witch-hu:

him and ers, he 1 and hun books, a cratic. de then dev leadershi He wi specialist him Sta tyrant, v for the Stalin w bureaucra destroyer party al 1924.

But pl RE The stri come fro pressure c on a sti family firr Recentl some mis many. At main con:

taking or industry t the mover Internation national Cr The fruit ment gives of Trotskyi:

John Ca tion', gives his party a It takes I and shows revolution which will Finally, : of the ass second ins in the Unite This is € building of invaluable Trotsky an World War.

Each iss Publication

ER August 21,1965 ILL had perished before 1938. So

AUGUST 20, 1965

Scan pages 3, 4

was the Ben lary, : all uilty the tion (les the ons. rted ¡ress irely derexbeen of ints' Ben the ants rless any • to imets to rade I his reheir sup, of proa of and urse uself mes, long Jove uffiBen ther prostifiintiwith intry nary ries, ged' tern the sped iterport subboth one ican onobuy provide Sella echpervork iced iterslidpecevoretical liff Slaughter's of the Socialist red in a recent mpt to clothe the revolutionary which are not genuinely comInternational has the duty of onial and backward countries nents of the future proletarian Ily in name-in all the backward of their special task, namely, trend in their own nation. The sionally with the revolutionary and even form an alliance with onditionally maintain the indeis only at an embryonic stage.

n to the widest masses of the the backward countries, the ith the help of the privileged tensibly politically independent them economically, financially, estion adopted by the Second st International, July 28, 1920.

Drafted by V. I. Lenin)

questions avoided by Joseph Hansen, hidden behind the smokescreen of his attack on the 'sectarianism' of the SLL. These questions have mounted up during Hansen's short stay in Europe. It is as if this member of the Socialist Workers' Party veterans' club arrived in Europe to preside over the liquidation and burial of the revisionists in Pablo's movement.

Three debacles He has already, in less than three years, sat through the debacles of Ceylon, Belgium and Algeria, as well as arriving at the split with Pablo almost before the ink was dry on 'reunification'!

This is no mean accomplishment. The more he attacks the Socialist Labour League, the more his own position is dragged into the open and brutally exposed. It is surely time for him to pack his bags and go home to preside over the last rites of the leadership of the Socialist Workers' Party. Time is short.

TROWING United States Icapital investment in European industry has been one of the most significant developments in capitalism in recent years.

A large part of this investment is made directly by the big manufacturing corporations; 70 per cent of the 1,000 biggest firms now have manufacturing plants in Europe. So, also, do many of the smaller hrms.

GREATER SCALE In general, the American capitalist enterprise operates on a vastly greater scale than its European counterpart. Monopoly and concentration have proceeded much further. Thus, for example, the total profits of General Motors are twice the turnover of the French Renault mator firm.

The five largest US corporations have a business turnover larger than the total national product of Italy. The twenty largest produce more than the whole economy of West Germany.

The vast size of these US corporations means that they face a rapidly diminshing rate of return on new investment at home.

25 YEARS BEHIND Their concentrated power, however, gives them a big advantage in Europe, where business methods are often routine and techniques sometimes 25 years behind the US norm.

Thus, they have been able, without much difficulty, and generally with good financial results, to establish a place in the European market. The expansion of European capitalism has offered higher profits and taken the pressure off the rate of profit in the United States.

Holding key patents, possessing invaluable technical know-how, and backed by capital resources unavailable to all but a few European giants, US business has been able to establish a comthe assassination of Histeachings grow more powerful ago, between the hours of 5.20 and 5.30, Leon Trotsky was assassinated by an agent of Stalin's GPU.

This man, disguising himseli as a friend of the American Trotskyist movement, was allowed to visit Trotsky in his study, where he presented him with an article that he claimed to have written, and about which he requested a political opinion.

As Trotsky sat in his chair reading the article, the agent drove an ice pick deep into his brain. He then removed the weapon and struck Trotsky seen here as Commissar for war Capital manding position in a number of fields.

The significance of the penetration of the dollar into European capitalism has lain not so much in its absolute amount as in the key sectors over which it has secured a hold.

GROWING STEADILY These include petroleum, hemicals, machine tools, ball earings and electronics, while the US stake in the motor car industry has been growing steadily.

Where Two issues nunth Intannotinnal issues Fourth d now out! A JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL MARXISM PUBLISHED "FOURTH INTERNATIONAL, the journal of international Marxism published by the International Committee of the Fourth International, is out in two new issues this month, as part of the preparation for the international conference, convened by the Committee for early 1966.

The Summer, 1965, issue consists of theoretical and political documents from the struggle of the International Committee against the revisionism of the leaders of the Socialist Workers' Party of the USA betwen 1961 and 1964.

These include, besides analyses of the basic political questions before the international revolutionary movement, an indispensable treatment of the underlying differences on philosophy and Marxist method. Dialectical materialism is counterposed to the essential pragmatism of the SWP leaders.

Through a thorough examination of current political questions like Cuba, Algeria, the reconstruction of the Fourth International, etc., the central role of revolutionary consciousness, as against the revisionist descent into 'objectivism', is hammered out in these documents.

This essential point is expressed concretely in the fight to build revolutionary parties in every country.

In the August, 1965, number, the lessons of this fight against revisionism, and its implications for the future of viciously once more. Hearing a loud cry from Trotsky, as he lay dying, the guards rushed in and disarmed the assailant.

During the next 26 hours, despite the most skilled medical attention, Trotsky's life ebbed slowly away and at 7.20 p.m. on August 21 he died.

Trotsky's death was not a surprise to his followers. The entire resources of one-sixth of the world were mobilised by Stalin and his secret police to destroy this one man whose Marxist ideas they feared most.

Many of his old comrades, members of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party with Lenin, who were unable to get out of the Soviet. Union in time, had previously perished during the infamous Moscow Trials.

Framed

From the mouth of Khrushchev and the rest of Stalin's heirs today, has come the admission that they were framed up and murdered in the most cold-blooded fashion.

But, and we must insist on this, it was Trotsky's ideas which Stalin feared most and it is about these that we wish to speak on the 25th anniversary of his death.

Trotsky, the revolutionist is dead, but his Marxist ideas zrow more powerful than ever.

brings new plants or takes over old ones it brings with it a whole gamut of new methods. Its aim is to earn profits and earn them quickly. Plants which don't pay their way are shut down or production is moved across national frontiers to where labour is more docile or taxes are less.

WELCOMED

This is not the only problem posed for European governments. In the past, most have welcomed US capital as a way of modernisising their economy and bringing in dollars to help with balance MILITANT Much has been spoken and written by professional historians about the 'old man' as he was and is, affectionately called by his followers.

Some like to praise him as the most brilliant journalist ever, and he was indeed a brilliant and gifted journalist. Some say that his achievements lay in the building of the Red Army which he commanded during the vital war of imperialist intervention against the first workers' state.

Others like to depict him as a brilliant individual who because of his individualism' was no match for Stalin. These descriptions of Trotsky are entirely inadequate, and in the latter case completely false.

Falsities

His greatest contributions to the teachings of Marxism undoubtedly began when he took up point by point the falsity of Stalin's theories in the period following Lenin's death.

Despite the continuous witch-hunt which raged against him and his immediate followers, he poured out pamphlets and hundreds of articles and books, analysing the bureaucratic degeneration which was then developing under Stalin's leadership in the Soviet Union.

He was the great Marxist specialist on bureaucracy: To him Stalin was not just a tyrant, who practiced murder for the love of it. To him Stalin was the leader of the bureaucratic degeneration which destroyed Lenin's Bolshevik party after Lenin died in 1924.

But Trotsky Publicly this is still the position of such The of such Italian, Belgian and Dutch.

RESERVATIONS

The strongest reservations have come from France, where the pressure of US business methods on a structure of small-scale, family firms has been most acute.

Recently, too, there have been some misgivings in West Germany. At government level the main consideration has been the taking over of key sectors of industry by a dollar backed by a of Trotskyism in the present period. World War.

much more, than analyse bureaucracy. It was he who inspired the building of the Left Opposition within the Bolshevik Party.

LIls opposition had a considerable following, especially amongst the intellectuals and youth.

• Later atter he was exiled diately to Tuy ebe ban talin ee imou.

Lask communis rarL mem bers who nad bv now been expelec or were engaged in against Stalinism. became their organiser and teacher.

Fourth International After the victory of Hitler's fascist regime in 1933, an event whịch conuuuvusiy warnca le working Ciass tne wora aboul, ne ser out to organise and build the Fourth International.

"The crowning achieveand launching which are seen here on way to prison dwindling gold reserve.

The dollar investment in European industry has been one of the main contributors to the US balance of payments problem. But it has also contributed to the supply of dollars for the finance of international transactions.

INTENSIFY PROBLEM To stem this flow, either by action in the States or by the action of European governments, would only intensify the growing problem of international liquidity.

Fourth International at its first congress, held in the summer of 1938.

Trotsky was a man of action, who constantly fought for the unity of Marxist theory and practice in the building of the revolutionary party. Those who fail to explain the relation of Trotsky's teachings to the building of the Party understand nothing so far as Trotskyism is concerned.

Cynics

'But what happened to the Fourth International?' say those tired old cynics of the fake left and centrist movements. The answer to the question cannot be provided within the scope of this article. But this much can be said.

When Trotsky founded the Fourth International he brought with him all the experience of the pre-revolutionary situation in Russia, the Russian revolution itself, the wars of intervention and a life-time of collaboration with. the world's leading Marxists, all of whom Even de Gaulle'. Even de Gaulle's advisors, who investment in see French indust see French industry being taken over with paper dollars, are unable to do anything about it. Meanwhile, although the gold reserves of France and other countries have been going up, US control of the international monetary system has actually prevented the depreciation of the dollar by as much as the franc and other currencies.

European businessmen view the dollar invasion with mixed feelings. The bigger fish are not seriously worried. In some fields the capital required for research and development is so great that there are just no takers for serious competition with the US corporations.

TAKE-OVER

The pinch is greatest where American firms introduce a more highly competitive situation. Some businessmen, unable to obtain the capital to survive by other means, are resigned to seeing a US competitor take an interest in their firms. Others, such as family firms on the way out, are happy to be taken over.

The nationalist reaction of de Gaulle to the growth of US investment in France is largely one of impotence. To curtail US investment in France would only drive it to some other pant of the Common Market. The threats to the dollar, if carried through to the end, could only precipitate a crisis from which French finance and industry would certainly suffer.

MORE VULNERABLE As it is, European capitalism has become more vulnerable to the vagaries of the American economic climate. A brake on new investment or the increase in the outflow of US earnings from Europe could have serious effects on the balance of payments of European countries.

In the background is the whole question of international liquidity and the expected levelling off and decline in US business activity widely forecast for later this year or early in 1966. far as consciously relating Marxist theory to revolutionary organisation was concerned, Trotsky was the Fourth International.

His early recruits in the Socialist Workers Party in the United States, such as Cannon, and Morris Spector from Canada, came to the Communist Movement in a period of defeat for the working class, following the First World War.

Many of them, ex-members of Stalinist parties, although adhering to Trotsky's teachings, nevertheless could not help but carry with them much of the miseducation they had received in these organisations.

None was remotely comparable in political stature to Trotsky, who realised more than anyone else that revolutionary parties are consciously built in the struggle for dialectical materialism, the philosophy of Marxists, against all the exponents of capitalist idealism.

Dialectical materialism It is not the 'brilliant organiser' who builds revolutionary parties but those who constantly relate the philosophy of dialectical materialism to the every day tasks of the building of the party.

These are the real Marxist organisers. It is now very clear that Trotsky's early disciples, despite his brilliance and experience, had come into the movement under conditions of defeat where they were unable to develop and to fight consciously for dialectical materialism.

They accepted his writings, and in some countries built working organisations which, though small in numbers, were extremely active. But Trotsky's death cut them off from the fountainhead of Marxist knowledge. His last great struggle to defend dialectical materialism was in 1939.

Thereafter those who

claimed to be his disciples and heirs merely contented themselves with reprinting his books, but failed to develop the main field of his teachings, in the realm of philosophy.

When Stalin: murdered Trotsky he dealt a most powerful blow at the Fourth International. It is only now, 25 years after this terrible disaster, that the Fourth International is beginning to recover.

Virtually destroyed During the major part of this quarter of a century the Fourth International was virtually destroyed by the anti-Marxist revisionists of the Pablo and Cannon schools.

This was brought to a halt in 1952 when the French Trotskyists challenged and defeated Pablo inside their organisation.

Trotsky's real teaching and work is now being carried on by the International Committee of the Fourth International, to which the Socialist Labour League is an affiliated member.

The work of the International Committee has been steadily strengthened by the adherence of large groups of young Marxists, especially in Western Europe, who are now politically preparing a real international congress to continue the work which Trotsky began in 1938.

Those who have deserted our movement belong to the period of defeat and great difficulties which followed Trotsky's death. The International Committee heralds the future. We begin where Trotsky left off in the struggle for dialectical materialism. It is in the work of the International Committee that the real spirit of Trotskyism lives.

As the largest organisation with an experienced leadership, the Socialist Labour League bears a considerable responsibility for the development of Marxism from the writings of Trotsky.

Develop theory

It is not enough just to read and study what he, together with Lenin, and, before them, Marx and Engels, wrote. We must learn to develop Marxist theory by analysing the world conditions under which we live.

For us in Britain this means laying the foundations for the daily Trotskyist newspaper, which will undoubtedly be the first of its kind in the world. This is how we commemorate Trotsky's death. luetta signed India pute + remot of Ka:

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Indi depict inspire rated. indepe Pakist It greate! Pakist Kashm forcibl peasan

1965 had perished before 1938. So Three

International nternational

Scan pages 4, 5

RXISM PUBLI! ternational Committee ssues this :ernational ly 1966. etical and ternational ers of the and 1964. c political ary moveunderlying Dialectical ragmatism t political on of the of revolust descent uments. ely in the untry.

this fight • future of the movement, are summed up in 'Rebuilding the Fourth International', the resolution submitted by the International Committee for its forthcoming conference.

The fruit of international collaboration, this vital document gives a clear outline of the analysis and perspective of Trotskyism in the present period.

John Castle's article, 'Cuba: Marxism and the Revolution', gives a full treatment of the significance of Castro, his party and government from the Marxist point of view.

It takes up the argument that Cuba is a 'workers' state' and shows the true relevance of the theory of permanent revolution for the Cuban revolution. This is an article which will be read with great interest by all Marxists.

Finally, appropriately enough for the 25th anniversary of the assassination of Trotsky, the journal prints the second instalment of its series, 'The Struggle for Marxism in the United States', by Tim Wohlforth.

This is especially concerned with Trotsky's role in the building of the Socialist Workers' Party, and contains an invaluable transcript of a lengthy discussion between Trotsky and SWP leaders at the beginning of the Second World War.

Each issue costs 3s. and is available from Publications, 186A Clapham High Street, S.W.4. corporations.

TAKE-OVER

The pinch is greatest where American firms introduce a more highly competitive situation. Some businessmen, unable to obtain the capital to survive by other means, are resigned to seeing a US competitor take an interest in their firms. Others, such as family firms on the way out, are happy to be taken over.

The nationalist reaction of de Gaulle to the growth of US investment in France is largely one of impotence. To curtail US investment in France would only drive it to some other part of the Common Market. The threats to the dollar, if carried through to the end, could only precipitate a crisis from which French finance and industry would certainly suffer.

MORE VULNERABLE As it is, European capitalism has become more vulnerable to the vagaries of the American economic climate. A brake on new investment or the increase in the outflow of US earnings from Europe could have serious effects on the balance of payments of European countries.

In the background is the whole question of international liquidity and the expected levelling off and decline in US business activity widely forecast for later this year or early in 1966.

long to the period of defeat and great difficulties which followed Trotsky's death. The International Committee heralds the future. We begin where Trotsky left off in the struggle for dialectical materialism. It is in the work of the International Committee that the real spirit of Trotskyism lives.

As the largest organisation with an experienced leadership, the Socialist Labour League bears a considerable responsibility for the development of Marxism from the writings of Trotsky.

Develop theory

It is not enough just to read and study what he, together with Lenin, and, before them, Marx and Engels, wrote. We must learn to develop Marxist theory by analysing the world conditions under which we live.

For us in Britain this means laying the foundations for the daily Trotskyist newspaper, which will undoubtedly be the first of its kind in the world. This is how we commemorate Trotsky's death.

Industrial

Grave crisis and turmoil in India

By Michael Banda

Scan page 4 · page of its own

6 hours, ed mediky's life and at I he died. ( is not a ers. The one-sixth nobilised 'et police an whose red most. omrades, ral Comrik Party e unable et Union reviously infamous Khrush: Stalin's ome the ed in the :y were ion. i insist otsky's feared t these żak on of his tionist is ist ideas han ever. ' old ones gamut of s to earn quickly. their way luction is frontiers re docile problem ernments. welcomed nodernisid bringh balance perialist intervention against the first workers' state.

Others like to depict him as a brilliant individual who because of his 'individualism' was no match for Stalin. These descriptions of Trotsky are entirely inadequate, and in the latter case completely false.

Falsities

His greatest contributions to the teachings of Marxism undoubtedly began when he took up point by point the falsity Stalin's theories in the period following Lenin's death.

Despite the continuous witch-hunt which raged against him and his immediate followers, he poured out pamphlets and hundreds of articles and books, analysing the bureaucratic. degeneration which was then developing under Stalin's leadership in the Soviet Union.

He was the great Marxist specialist on bureaucracy. To him Stalin was not just a tyrant, who practiced murder for the love of it. To him Stalin was the leader of the bureaucratic degeneration which destroyed Lenin's Bolshevik party after Lenin died in 1924.

But Trotsky Publicly of such governments as Italian, Belgian and Dutch.

RESERVATIONS

The strongest reservations have come from France, where the pressure of US business methods on a structure of small-scale, family firms has been most acute.

Recently, too, there have been some misgivings in West Germany. At government level the main consideration has been the taking over of key sectors of industry by a dollar backed by a Communist members or were engaged in struggle against Stalinism. He became of Hitler's wnich 1 rOISKI continuous v class internatona 1 ne achievenent of his life was un and une dwindling gold reserve.

The dollar investment in European industry has been one of the main contributors to the US balance of payments problem. But it has also contributed to the supply of dollars for the finance of international transactions.

INTENSIFY PROBLEM To stem this flow, either by action in the States or by the ction of European governments, ould only intensify the growing problem of international liquidity.

Cynics

'But what happened to the Fourth International?' say those tired old cynics of the fake left and centrist movements. The answer to the question cannot be provided within the scope of this article. But this much can be said.

When Trotsky founded the Fourth International he brought with him all the experience of the pre-revolutionary situation in Russia, the Russian revolution itself, the wars of intervention and a life-time of collaboration with. the world's leading Marxists, all of whom Even de Gaulle's advisors, who Even de Gaulle': see French industry being taken over with paper dollars, are unable to do anything about it. Meanwhile, although the gold reserves of France and other countries have been going up, US control of the international monetary system has actually prevented the depreciation of the dollar by as much as the franc and other currencies.

European businessmen view the dollar invasion with mixed feelings. The bigger fish are not seriously worried. In some fields the capital required for research and development is so great that there are just no takers for serious competition with the US ciples, despite his brilliance and experience, had come into the movement under conditions of defeat where they were unable to develop and to fight consciously for dialectical materialism.

They accepted his writings, and in some countries built working organisations which, though small in numbers, were extremely active. But Trotsky's death cut them off from the fountainhead of Marxist knowledge. His last great struggle to defend dialectical materialism was in 1939.

Thereafter those who

claimed to be his disciples and heirs merely contented themselves with reprinting his books, but failed to develop the main field of his teachings, in the realm of philosophy.

When Stalin murdered Trotsky he dealt a most powerful blow at the Fourth International. It is only now, 25 years after this terrible disaster, thạt the Fourth International is beginning to recover.

Virtually destroyed

During the major part of this quarter of a century the Fourth International was virtually destroyed by the anti-Marxist revisionists of the Pablo and Cannon schools.

This was brought to a halt in 1952 when the French Trotskyists challenged and defeated Pablo inside their organisation.

Trotsky's real teaching and work is now being carried on by the International Committee of the Fourth International, to which the Socialist Labour League is an affiliated member.

The work of the International Committee has been steadily strengthened by the adherence of large groups of young Marxists, especially in Western Europe, who are now politically preparing a real international. congress to continue the work which Trotsky began in 1938.

Those who have deserted our movement beHARDLY had the Ranbe ef Kutch agreement been signed between Pakistan and India than a new border dis pute emerged, this time in the remote mountains and valleys of Kashmir.

When India was partitioned one of the first acts of Nehru's government was to forcibly occupy Kashmir against the expressed wishes of its predominantly Muslim peasantry.

The Kashmiris, under the leadership of the legendary Sheikh Abdullah, wanted autonomy, but the Indian army annexed this strategically vital territory. Sheikh Abdullah himself was arrested in the early fifties and gaoled for 12 years, and emerged from obscurity only recently to be arrested once again in May this year and placed under housearrest in South India.

NEHRUS POLICY

Nehru's policy provided the Pakistani landlords, capitalists and religious fanatics with a convenient pretext for intervening in Kashmir's internal affairs. Kashmir's politics reflected quite clearly the division and conflict of the two powers.

One group, led by Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed, fought to keep Kashmir under Indian domination, while the secessionists, led by Sheikh Abdullah and after his arrest by Farouk and Massoudi, strove to take Kashmir out of the Union.

In the second week of August an uprising assisted by the Pakistan government was launched. A clandestine radio called Voice of Kashmir' operated by the Revolutionary Council of Kashmir began daily broadcasts.

"GOVERNMENT'

Since then a 'National Government of the People of Jamnu and Kashmir' has been proclaimed by the Revolutionary Council, and sporadic fighting between Indian-occupied Kashmir and Pakistan-held territory has been going on. There are now over 100,000 Indian police and troops in the area.

Indian press attempts to depict the uprising as Pakistaninspired are grossly exaggerated. The Kashmiris want independence from India-and Pakistan.

It is reported that the greatest discontent is in the Pakistan-occupied part of Kashmir. Food shortages and forcible conscription of peasants are the main causes of resentment.

Kashmir, however, is by no means the only grave problem facing prime minister Shastri. There are graver problems at home. In Bihar huge demonstrations of hungry workers, peasants and students marching on government warehouses and police stations have been fired on, resulting in numerous deaths.

IN SOUTH INDIA In Andhra province inflation and increased lay-offs caused by factory closures sparked off massive demonstrations of government employees. In June government employees demonstrated in a 2-mile long march against the state government for increased allowances.

IN NORTH INDIA In Uttar Pradesh a row is looming over the denial of the use of Urdu as a second language of the state.

IN THE EAST Attempts to prevent Pakistani infiltration into Assam and to pacify the Nagas have proved difficult and unsuccessful.

The terrible food shortage and the foreign exchange crisis combined have brought Indian economy to a virtual halt. Even the sedate 'Times' remarked laconically:

'A cow-dung economy does not move upward in an even graph ..: (sic!).

If India is moving rapidly towards a pre-revolutionary situation then it is true to say that the Communist Party of India is evolving even more rapidly towards reformism and chauvinism.

PATRIOTIC

During the Rann of Kutch fighting the Stalinist Executive was as patriotic as the capitalist Congress party and even opposed any thought or suggestion of cease fire. Party Chairman, Dange, in an article in 'New Age', implied outright war against Pakistan.

(The same man also wanted war against China.)

The Left-wing pro-Chinese party continue to attack Dange and the Right-wing - as well as the Centrists led by Bhupesh Gupta — and refuse to be drawn into any unity manouvres. But their opposition is blunted by their complete identification with the Chinese bureaucracy, and prevents them from working out a genuinely Marxist analysis and programme for the Indian Socialist revolution.

Such a task can be achieved only by the Indian Trotskyists.

Greenwood upholds imperialism in Aden THE collapse of the

Scan page 4

OW i years 1, Leon Stalin's merican 1 in his claimed Hearing atsky, as guards med the ILITANT Much has been spoken -and written by professional historians about the 'old man' as he was and is, affectionately called by his followers.

Some like to praise him as the most brilliant journalist ever, and he was indeed a brilliant and gifted journalist. Some say that his achievements lay in the building of the Red Army which he commanded during the vital war of immuch more, than analyse bureaucracy. It was he who inspired the building of the Left Opposition within the Bolshevik Party. This opposition had considerable following, especially amongst the intellectuals and youth. • Later, after exiled One immelatery enormous those Fourth International at its first congress, held in the summer of 1938.

Trotsky was a man of action, who constantly fought for the unity of Marxist theory and practice in the building of the revolutionary party. Those who fail to explain the relation of Trotsky's teachings to the building of the Party understand nothing so far as Trotskyism is concerned. far as consciously relating Marxist theory to revolutionary organisation was concerned, Trotsky was the Fourth International.

His early recruits in the Socialist Workers Party in the United States, such as Cannon, and Morris , Spector from Canada, came to the Communist Movement in a period of defeat for the working class, following the First World War.

Many of them, ex-members of Stalinist parties, although adhering to Trotsky's teachings, nevertheless could not help but carry with them much of the miseducation they had received in these organisations.

None was remotely comparable in political stature to Trotsky, who realised more than anyone else that revolutionary parties are consciously built in the struggle for dialectical materialism, the philosophy of Marxists, against all the exponents of capitalist idealism.

Dialectical materialism It is not the 'brilliant organiser' who builds revolutionary parties but those who constantly relate the philosophy of dialectical materialism to the every day tasks of the building of the party.

These are the real Marxist organisers. It is now very clear that Trotsky's early dis70° Bombay 6y Panjin -GO Juliunda. ADE 'vetta asimila Chandigarhö Sutie PUNJA B DELHI, d Jaipur RA LAS her Chante Gwalier Narbada Diu (. Nagpar Damaro B o M B Y 15 Trivandrum MACH Katmandus Låshker Patna Rewa o A R P RA D, ES H Cuttackz To Hyderabad ESH Yanam ANDHRA Bangaloreo q Madras "Mercara Mahé •Pondicherry *karikal erragores Londoh constitutional conference on South Arabia, which preceded by a week the separation of Singapore and Malaya, constitutes another big dent in Wilson's gettingtough-East-of-Suez policy.

The Adeni nationalists and Labour leaders, led by Mackawee, came to the conference hoping to get a few concessions from the Labour government. They had already been branded as traitors by the pro-Nasser National Liberation Front of South Arabia • for having agreed to participate in the talks.

There is no doubt that if they had not put up some kind of opposition to Britain then the bombs and grenades now aimed at the British would, sooner or later, be aimed against them as well.

The Adeni delegation thus insisted with uncommon stubborness that the British government immediately implement the terms of the 1963 UN resolution on South Arabia, but since this motion demanded the release of all political prisoners, the British government flatly refused.

Imperial tradition

Instead, Mr. Greenwood, carrying on in the best Toryimperial tradition, issued a statement which upheld the commercial and military interests of British imperialism in South Arabia.

Greenwood argued that he would consider 'any proposals with regard to the state of emergency in Aden which are consistent with the safety of the civilian and service population, Arab and British alike, and the security of the base' (our emphasis).

Since the security of the base today depends solely upon the continuation of the Emergency there is little or no prospect of the Labour government lifting the Emergency unless forced to do so.

Mr. Greenwood and his advisers in the Colonial Office are determined to hold on to Aden at any—or almost anycost. When he visited Aden in November last year he spent most of his time with the Blimps and sheikhs of Aden and the surrounding Protectorate.

Actions

His actions and utterances before and since his visit have done little to differentiate this ex-chairman of the Movement for Colonial Freedom from his Tory predecessor — Duncan Sandys.

British imperialism needs Aden badly as a staging base for its anti-Socialist repressive actions in the Far East.

It is the only adequate base between Libya and Gan in the Indian Ocean.

Because of its proximity to the oil fields and its bunkering facilities, Aden remains a vital and indispensable link in the chain of far-flung military bases.

Britain has succeeded in keeping a tenuous hold on this dusty, waterless and fly-blown hole only through a combination of violence, deceit and intrigue.

Gerrymandered

Firstly, it tries to play off the semi-feudal sheikh-ridden principalities in the Federation against the politically advanced town Arabs, then it successfully gerrymandered the electorate (only 8,000 out of 250,000 adult males were qualified to vote in the last elections) and finally, a series of draconic measures have muzzled the opposition and sent dozens of nationalist leaders to jail.

In case this policy fails, Mr. Greenwood and his reactionary advisers in the Colonial Office have promised the Adenis independence in 1968!

But the Adeni people want independence now and an 'early withdrawal' of the British base, neither of which the Labour government is prepared to concede.

And so the terror has been resumed. Oil pipelines, electrical installations and British troops have become targets (Cont. on back page)

West Indian workers hold conference on racialism

By Sylvia Pick

Scan page 5 · page of its own

Title, extent and credit checked against the scan (17 October 2026, from the scan: page 5 (printed page four), headline across columns 1-2, 'By Sylvia Pick'; the headline was lost in the split; the Leicester tenants box and the Tenants feature welded after it are cut off); the text is still machine-read.

must help ourselves, delegates trom West Indiar immigrant organisations in London and the Midlands were told at a meeting last week-end in Birmingham.

Delegates decided to form a national organisation to protect themselves from racial discrimination and from violence of a Ku Klux Klan type.

'A retrograde step which reeks of South Africa, and is the first step towards a Fascist police state', was their opinion of a clause in the Labour Government's recent White Paper n Commonwealth Immigratior hich proposes to make coloure people register with the police.

Speakers referred to the complete breakdown of confidence among immigrants in the ability of the police to protect them against racialist attacks.

Threats

This meeting took place against a background not only of racialist violence in America, but a campaign of threats in London against immigrants, including one threat to burn alive a university research assistant if he did not leave the country by the end of this month.

Racialist violence in the Midlands during the past week included a fiery cross incident at Leicester and race riots in Wolverhampton last Saturday, when a crowd of white people, nearly 150 strong, armed with sticks and bottles, collected round the home of an immigrant family, shouting 'we want to get at the black bastards'.

The sharp stepping-up of racialist agitation and violence in this country during recent months is no accident. The 'Newsletter' has repeatedly pointed out that the shameful appeasement of racial prejudice by the Labour Government was an encouragement to every fascist and racialist in the country.

Retreat

As the Labour leadership has gone through the rapid stages of its headlong retreat from all-out opposition to racialism, so the demands of the racialists have grown, insisting on still harsher controis, and the violent fascist-type elements have become more open and arrogant in their attacks.

The new -moves of the West Indian immigrant organisation, however, will do nothing to solve their problems. Forming allimmigrant organisations cannot become a substitute for unity of all workers around demands which are now put forward increasingly by the rank and file of the Labour movement: end to the wage freeze, nationalisation of building industry, make the monopolists pay.

Unemployment

This coming winter the deflationary policies of the Government will inevitably produce unemployment and a yet more acute shortage of housing. To create a situation in which immigrants, instead of the insoluble crisis of the capitalist system, are blamed, must clearly be the object of all reactionaty political elements.

To distract the attention of all workers from the responsibility of capitalism for the economic crisis, and to split coloured from white workers in order to weaken the ability of the class to fight back in its own interests — these are the prime objects behind all racialist agitation.

It can only be successfully countered if workers stand resolutely together and fight against their real enemies, the system of monopoly capitalism and the ruling class which operates it.

Leicester tenants form association

Scan page 5 · page of its own

Title, extent and credit checked against the scan (17 October 2026, from the scan: page 5 (printed page four), boxed item 'Leicester Tenants Form Association', unsigned); the text is still machine-read.

AT a meeting in Leicester on Wednesday called by the Leicester Federation of Young Socialists, 60 tenants from Court Crescent Estate voted to form a tenants' association to fight 30 per cent rent increases proposed for November by the Labour council.

A lively discussion on the need to take the fight on to as many estates as possible and into union branches took place. A committee of Il was elected to cover the entire estate for a further meeting next week, to which the councillors will be invited.

This was the first of a series of tenants' meetings called on Leicester council estates by the YS.

It was agreed to work for an all-Leicester demonstration and meeting in September.

The tenants also supported a proposal to participate in the YS demonstration at the Labour Party Conference on September 26.

Tenants must win support of trade unions

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its sweep across the country.

Last week the London borough of Waltham Forest announced increases of up to 30s. a week spread over 18 months for its 12,000 tenants. • In Islington, where the increases in some cases almost double the existing rents, two Labour councillors have resigned the Labour group in protest.

A demonstration of over 600 tenants outside the Town Hall led to an assurance by the Mayor, and the Chairman of the Housing Committee that every attempt will be made to call a meeting of the committee this week—to discuss the possibility of the rents being raised in instalments.

REBATE

Most of the increases are accompanied by some form of rent rebate scheme and, as has been frequently pointed out, rent rebates are intended to squeeze the highest possible rents from the tenants.

A report on housing in Britain, issued last week by Political and Economic Planning, goes even further.

It says: 'It may be argued that subsidies should be reserved for those families that, because of age, lack of earning capacity, or other handicaps, are unable to afford economic rents' In other words all other tenants must pay the full, unsubsidised economic rent, of which today, much more than half represents interest charges.

It is significant that side by side with the rent increases and the demand for 'means test' rebate schemes there has been an increase in racialism.

It is the low standard of working-class housing that makes it possible for the racialists to spread their propaganda and divide and divert the workers.

•Bad housing and high rents can be blamed on one class and one class only-the class which includes the landlords, the financiers and the big building interests (the Political and Economic Planning report mentions that the investment of private capital in dwellings for lettings has practically stopped).

TRADE UNIONISTS

This is the class which the Labour government and the Labour-controlled councils are supporting through their policies and actions.

Tenants must fight back against these attacks. But they cannot fight alone. The many successful tenants' movements of the past have been won through supporting action from trade unionists.

Today the Young Socialists can give a lead in building up tenants' committees and enlisting the support of their trade Tenants living on council estates, like these in London, must organise unions for demands that The Stalinists of the British councils: • Refuse to increase rents or rates.

Refuse to cut back building programmes.

Refuse to pay interest charges.

Demand nationalization of the banks, building and building supplies industries and the land. for support of the trade unions.

Communist Party can give no lead to the tenants' struggles.

They talk vaguely about councils insisting that interest on housing should be cut, without saying anything about the need for tenants to force the councils to take up a real fight against high interest rates.

Their only role is to cover for the Wilson government.

T& GWU official attacks

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workers hold THE ware of rent increases for the council tenants contines members call strike meeting Newsletter Reporter MEMBERS of the British Iron, Steel & Kindred Trades Association employed at Guest, Keen & Nettlefold Castle works, Cardiff, have taken an important new step in their ten - week - old official strike.

The strikers, who work in the cold roll department and came out on strike in support of a long-standing claim for increased pay, have had to face viscious public and press attacks from the right-wing officials of their union.

The strikers feared that BISAKTA was preparing to negotiate a 'package deal' with GKN behind their backs, involving redundancy. They demand a pay increase with no strings attached.

No support has been forthcoming from other BISAKTA branches and little or no attempt has been made by the strikers to win support from the craftsmen's union. This has isolated the strike.

MEETING

Last week 130 of the 200 strikers collectively asked for their cards. The Strike Committee claim, however, that these men will support the dispute. The committee has now called a meeting of all trade unionists employed by GKN to be held on Friday night.

Mr. Cyril Aubrey, a member of the strike committee said: 'We want to put our case to them,' but more than explanation is required; the support of other workers in the GKN factories is necessary to end the isolation of the strike and ensure its success.

Hoover

will be affected by plans announced by Hoover this week, to reduce their working week.

The proposals, to come into practice next month, will take effect at two factories -Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorgan, and Cambuslang, Lanarkshire. By Our Industrial Correspondent 300 workers at Girling, Cwmbran, MonM Workers' Union docks secretary on Mersey. R. LEW LLOYD, Transport and General side, is primed ready to use the Devlin plan to get back his union's 'former authority in the docks'.

An interview he gave to the Liverpool Weekly News' had front-page, banner headlines: 'No working with Blue Union; I.G. W.U. chief declares: "It's Trotsky led"?

Mr. Lew Lloyd is the successor to the recently deceased P. J. O'Hare, described in the mildest of terms by the Devlin Report as being 'rather autocratic in manner'.

Mr. Lew Lloyd has pretended to be closer to the rank-and-file than his predecessor.

Some local Communist Party dockers have hinted that he might be another new shining light — it will be remembered that this is how the party described Frank Cousins when he became General Secretary of the union.

In the interview with the 'Liverpool Weekly News', Mr. Lloyd said: 'We feel that the Blue Union is Trotsky led. In Tact we have ample evidence that this is so, and their publication, "Newsletter", professes quite openly to be the news vehicle for the Communist Party on the docks.' Inaccuracies How much does a union official know about happenings around the docks if he can fit so many inaccuracies into such a small number of words?

The whole sentence is a complete fabrication. The Blue Union is not 'Trotsky led'; and certainly the 'Newsletter' is not a news vehicle for the Communist Party.

Mr. Lloyd can come out with this type of thing because he is not seeking to enlighten dockers or the readers of this paper.

Does Lloyd make this statement because he thinks it can win support for his aims of clearing the Blue Union out of Merseyside and of defeating militant opposition to the Devlin plans?

deal Where does the 'Newsletter' profess 'quite openly' to be a vehicle for the Communist Party? Lloyd knows very well that the 'Newsletter' is politically opposed to the Communist Party. He knows that the 'Newsletter' and the Socialist Labour League will make no deal with trade union reporting team Our Merseyside Correspondent officials who act as agents of the employers in the trade union movement. However, he knows he can get working arrangements with Communist Party members.

The 'Newsletter has denounced the Devlin report as planning a full-scale attack on dockers' conditions. The Communist Party and the 'Daily Worker' have evaded taking a stand on it. In fact, they support it.

Girling workers defy lock-out ABOUT

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conference mouthshire, car components factory, who were laid off last Thursday after refusing to end their work-to-rule, defied their union officials on Monday, August 16, and once more refused to call off the work-torule. " The work -to-rule by Amalgamated Engineering Union and Transport and General Workers' Union members employed in the back plate and cast iron sections began a week previously in protest against working conditions which they claim make piecework impossible.

Complained

Mr. Horace Webb, chairman of the TGWU branch alleged that after he had recommended improvements 'people complained to me that the section was in such a condition that men were not able to do piecework'.

I found that there was only one labourer on the night shift and two on days, whereas the management had agreed six months earlier to provide five labourers on days and four on night shift.

Laid off

The men were laid off Girling after they / refused discontinue the ban.

On Friday, 30 machine setters and inspectors were laid off. After the mass meeting on Monday, when the men defied the lock-out, despite their full-time union officials and shop stewards, the company laid off a further 300 men. • At an emergency meeting called by union officials on Tuesday night, after afternoon talks with the management, the men agreed to discontinue their work-to-rule pending further negotiations. Who is kidding whom on the docks?

Not enough

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Underneath Lloyd's interview in the "Liverpool Weekly News', is a statement from the Communist Party in Liverpool. Their spokesman declares support for the TGWU. His comments on the Devlin report imply that here is an advance but it is just that it doesn't go far enough.

'Even if the Devlin report were fully implemented', he says, 'it would not solve the crisis in British ports.' When the Devlin report was published, the 'Daily Worker' editorial (August 6) did get bold enough to talk about 'plans for capitalist rationalisation'® But there was no call to rouse the dockers to resistance to the plans through a struggle for nationalization.

It simply called for dockers to be 'vigilant, united and militant in defence of their interests'.

Struggle

→ Since then, there has been no general comment on the report in the paper and Communist Party member Jack Dash has refused to make any statement on it in interviews, While Danny Lyons referred to it as a 'golden apple'.

It is not a question of fighting to get the most for the dockers out of the implementaof the Devlin Report. The Devlin Report is the most carefully planned and powerful attack on the docker so far.

It will mean the end of the Dock Labour Scheme and the handing over of the dockers to a handful of big employers.

The Newsletter says that the report puts starkly before the dockers the question of who is going to control the industry: big business or the dockers.

The struggle against the plans of Devlin and the fight for nationalization go together.

Mr. Lew Lloyd is not concerned to mention nationalization at all. His main concern is to strengthen the TGWU bureaucracy in the process of carrying out the Devlin proposals.

Golden apple

The Communist Party, like some Labour MPs, calls for nationalization of the docks as something which will be a good solution in the long term, but it has no intention of organising the dockers for it in a present powerful struggle.

Lew Lloyd openly tries to put across Devlin and has to attack the real dangers to the employers' dictatorship on the docks — the 'Newsletter' and the Trotskyists.

The Communist Party makes double-talk on Devlin and assists the right-wing trade union leaders. Both are obstacles in the fight for nationalization of the docks.

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