The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 417

BEHIND the flag-waving and sales ballyhoo the attack of the employers on British into gear.

According to last week's 'Sunday Times', the employers, led by Rootes' management, put a proposal to Ray Gunter, Minister of Labour, in recent discussions, which was never revealed.

This was a plan for unofficial strikers to be fined automatically, the fines being lifted out of their wage packets.

With the sharpening of competition on the world market, there will be enormous pressure from the U.S. giants to squeeze the remaining British firms out of the market.

This implies a big onslaught on shop organisation and conditions throughout the industry.

In this situation, it is interesting to see the reaction of the *Daily Worker' and its supporters.

The issue of October 20 shows two aspects of this.

'BRITISH CONTROL'

An editorial Whose car industry?' is concerned almost exclusively with the fact that Ford, General Motors and Chryslers, the U.S. motor monopolies, dominate the British firms.

"They use British skills, they exploit British workers, they sell in the British market' complains this patriotic editor.

"The U.S. takeover is also bad for the country. It removes a key part of British industry from British control.' And so, while nationalization, the only answer to the problems of the industry, is put off to the dim and distant future ('One day Vieteong Fights On AS U.S. battle casualties in Vietnam began to mount, hopes of a negotiated settlement began to fall in the State Department. The state-side demonstrations also added to the woes of the military who are still trying to fathom Vietcong motives and strategies, so far in vain.

troops, and hoping 200,000 by January 1966, is trying desperately to entice the Vietcong into positional warfare so that it can use its ballistic and aerial superiority to devastating effect.

But the Vietcong refuse to play ball.

The biggest disappointment for the Americans so far was when 8,000 U.S. and 5,000 Vietnamese troops made a massive and futile sweep of the Binh Dinh province in order to . trap a Vietcong battalion-which escaped in good time leaving the Americans with a handful of prisoners and little else.

Incessant hunt

At the same time the U.S. hopes to keep up an incessant hunt of the Vietcong and with constant aerial observation and bombardment to disperse the Vietcong into smaller and smaller units.

These measures have put a severe strain on the liberation army and have led to an increase in desertions because of shortages of food and medical attention, but there is no indication that the Communist maquis is in any mood to surrender.

On the contrary, as the recent bitter fighting around Plei Me in the Central Highlands has shown, the Vietcong are determined to combine initiative with mobility and flexibility in the guerrilla war.

Despite heavy losses, they continue to attack and are sustained by reinforcements from the North.

This has led Pentagon Made _Gunter by car chiefs of the Motor Show, car workers moves it will be owned by the people') the 'Daily Worker' worries about the fact that honest British bosses are denied the right to exploit our car workers!

On page two of the same issue, one Ken Graves pursues the question in greater detail. He includes a statement from Dick Etheridge, convenor of Austin, Longbridge, which reveals the big dangers facing motor car workers saddled with leaders like this.

Talking of the complexity of the industry, Etheridge says: Quick decisions are needed to avoid trouble and these can only be taken by shop stewards, based on the voluntary discipline vested in us by the shop floor.

PLEA FOR STEWARDS 'Destroy the standing of the shop stewards and you destroy the link between the workers and management. The trouble is there is not sufficient authority given to the shop stewards, either by management or by the union.

We are the unpaid servants of the trade unions with no powers outside our gate.' Is Mr. Etheridge pleading to be allowed to look after the smooth running of the process of exploitation?

The defence of union organisation cannot be separated from the campaign to nationalize the motor monopolies whether British or American-owned, and the building of political leadership to unify these struggles. official to declare that 'Not one square mile of South Vietnam is truly pacined...• We have a long, long way to go.' Unable to win this war on the land, the U.S. authorities are trying desperately to wage a war of rumours to create confusion in the ranks of the Vietnamese Communists. (In this they are being willingly assisted by the Moscow and Prague leaders.)

Latest in this campaign is the story that Peking and Hanoi are at loggerheads. The source of this current tale is a statement supposedly made by the Vietcong representative in Moscow that withdrawal of U.S. forces was not a condition for peace talks. This was given wide publicity on Prague radio until the Vietcong representative denied the allegation. No doubt the Kremlin leaders would like to foment a split in the Vietcong and secure another Geneva-type deal with U.S. imperialism. it is a 'Labour' paper of some sort. This reputation, which began to wane after labelling dockers as 'bloody-minded and selfish', is now used to try and 'soften up' the working class for the employers' biggest offensive and for the Labour government to pass laws to restrict trade union action.

After the first article on Monday, the Mirror proudly boasted on its front page 'Mr. Heath salutes the "Mirror"s courage.

All workers, and especially members of the Transport and General Workers' Union should remember that the 'Daily Mirror', now so lavishly praised by the leading representative of big business, had as its industrial adviser none other than Mr. George Brown, Labour's Minister for Economic Affairs.

In his talks to the TUC leaders in September, Brown made it very clear that laws would be passed to prevent workers and unions pressing wage claims outside of government regulations. Woodcock told the TUC this could mean jail for workers and union officials who acted against the new law.

The 'Mirror' has now taken on the role ot the main battering ram of this big step towards capitalist state control of the unions.

Reject measures

Its popular appeal and presentation, Its caims to frankspeaking - the Daily Mirror dares' is typical of the pseudoradical, widespread propaganda which prepared such reactionary measures in Germany and Italy before the war.

The organised workers and their unions must reject out of hand any such measures and the government which enacts them. If Wilson and his colleagues pass these laws, they are giving disciplinary powers over the unions to the capitalist ruling class and not only to the present Cabinet.

Heath: 'salutes

the "Mirror"s courage The Mirror's sensationalist articles add up to the following: L- abused. 'When shorter hours Shorter hours are being are negotiated they should actually be worked and not used simply as a springboard for overtime at time-and-a-half from that precise hour onwards. And ever upwards.' Does the 'Mirror' hope that its readers will assume that some other workers somewhere in their millions are getting time-and-ahalf for all overtime?

Of course, there are hardly any workers paid at this rate. It is just a cheap method of creating the impression that 'somebody is taking too much thing must be done? and 'some- out of the kitty' The 'Mirror' joins in the growing tendency to oppose shorter hours demands and at the same time to insist on two, three anc even four-shift working, and sc they pick on scapegoats. 'How decor fors7 asks the Mirror time The fact is firemen work some of the longest hours in Britain. Why are they singled out as men who abuse shorter hours?

Because they have a wage claim which Brown will want to push back?

'Swinging the lead, dodging the column and overstaffing are now crimes against society.' You understand-against society -not against the employer. The bosses' fight to make the maximum profit is exercised on behalf oI society. In tact, it is this search for profit which brings chaos, unemployment. and war into the life of every worker.

And so it follows, says the "Mirror', that *society, through government, must interfere and lay down new laws.. We are running out of time.

"The plain truth is that interference is urgently wanted, is long overdue and absolutely essential in the national interest.

Cont. page 4, col. 7 WILSON's visit to Salisbury shows the lengths to which this man will go in the service of imperialism. Equipped with a bevy of secretaries, an army of security men, and a letter from the Queen, he was sent out to Rhodesia by big business to try to appease the white settlers and prevent a break between them and London.

SEL PUBLIC MEETING - LEICESTER SEL PUBLIC MEETING A declaration of independence could interrupt the exploitation of Central Africa by 35 million acres for reserves and special areas, seven million acres for purchase areas and two million acres for other uses—a total of 44 million acres.

As Smith's South African friends have pointed out to him, he already has virtual independence.

Wilson attempts to persuade the imprisoned nationalist leaders to drop the demand for voting rights in favour of some constitutional gimmick.

Discussions are held on a treaty which will 'guarantee' African rights for some future date.

There is further talk about calling in the United Nations.

As the Congo affair showed, this would simply mean the transfer of influence from British to United States imperialism.

The dramatic-and (to Mr. Wilson) highly embarrassing intervention of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Ramsey, in the Rhodesian crisis reveals clearly and vividly that the ruling class and the Establishment are dangerously divided on this important issue.

This is also revealed by the equivocal attitude contained in the Queen's letter to Mr. Smith.

Not since Suez have we seen a similar situation. Yet in the

THE wholesale attack on the continues with : even greater force.

The government banned Sobsi, the Party's trade union wing last Sunday, and ordered the sacking of its members who were absent from work.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives has also announced that all Communist Party MPs have been 'suspended temporarily'.

Despite an appeal from the so-called 'President' Sukarno, antiCommunist demonstrations continue.

Turned increasingly into anti-Chinese attacks, they have involved the wrecking and burning of buildings, especially in central Java.

Meanwhile, Indonesia's economic crisis becomes still more serious.

A galloping inflation is in process, with thousands of millions of rupiahs being put into circulation each month.

Eighteen tons of banknotes are being flown out from France to maintain the supply of currency.

Foreign reserves are almost depleted. face of this disunity and confusion, Mr. Wilson remains utterly prostrate.

The British working-class movement should not allow Wilson's betrayal of the coloured Rhodesian majority to be carried through in its name.

It must fight against every move to cover up Wilson's deal with Smith.

Those MPs who have talked loud and long about their support for the African people must be irst to vote against the government on any occasion the question is being debated at Westminster.

AFTER nearls years of slander an ber 965 truthful and most vivid exposition of the events so significant to the comprehen-

'A N attack on the trade unions is an attack on the life of every person here, Cliff Slaughter, editor of Fourth Interntional", told a meeting in Leicester last week-end.

"The working class, he added, 'must fight on its own behalf to make it impossible for legislation against the unions to go on to the statute books'.

In the large meeting were car workers and other trade unionists, students, and many Young Socialists.

Slaughter. described the next six months as 'the most vital in the history of the working class in this country.

The Wilson government, full of Parliamentary and trade union careerists, was preparing a disaster for the working class on the orders of international capitalists and bankers.

If legislation was allowed to go through Parliament, it would finish everything the Labour Party was founded for.

Strongly organised

The industrial Midlands had a higher level of employment and wages than other parts of the country. This was because the employing class had required a certain kind of labour which they had found in this area, and because the workers had been so strongly organised that they were able to get the level of wages they enjoyed.

But the employers and banks had decided not to tolerate this situation any longer.

In the motor trade the employer wanted to be able to compete with manufacturers abroad who could produce cars as good and more cheaply. He could only do this by smashing the wage rates of car workers.

Slaughter quoted the words of a Sheffield big businessman: "The working class in England have it -PUBLIC MEETINGS NO LEGISLATION AGAINST THE TRADE UNIONS! CLEAR OUT THE WILSON-MACDONALD TRAITORS!

GLASGOW

7.30 p.m., Sunday, November 7 Partick Burgh Hall, Lesser Hall Speakers:

Cliff Slaughter, Editor, 'Fourth International' John Robertson, Young Socialist , and engineering convenor NOTTINGHAM p.m., Sunday, November The Black Boy Hotel, Long Row Speakers:

ck Gale, Central Committer Member, SLL prie Evans, Young Socialist National Committee BELFAST 7.30 p.m., Sunday, Nov.

International Hotel, Donegall Square South Speaker:

National Secretary, too easy. We need a employment.' Every employer knew, said Slaughter, that it was much more difficult for workers in the factory to press for higher wages if there were unemployed outside the factory gates. The Wilson government was preparing laws against the unions so that the employers could carry through this unemployment.

"The chief topic of conversation at the Motor Show was not the new Mini or the Rolls Royce,' declared Slaughter. It was how Cont. page 4, col. 1 MEETINGS FIGHT FOR SOCIALIST POLICIES!

LIVERPOOL

8 p.m., Sunday, November 21 vecture Room, Walker Ar Gallery, William Brown Stree Speakers : 3. Healy, National Secretary, SLL Cliff Slaughter, Editor, 'Fourth International' Peter Kerrigan, Liverpool docker BIRMINGHAM 7.30 p.m., Sunday November 21 Digbeth Civic Hall, Digbeth Speakers:

Aileen Jennings, Editor, 'Keep Left' Mike Banda, Editor, Newsletter Jack Gale, Central Committee Member, SLL NEWCASTLE .30 .m., Sunday, November 2:

Bridge Hotel, Castle Square Speakers:

Cliff Slaughter, Editor, 'Fourth International' Jack Gale, Central Committee Member, SLL Chairman : J. Willamson, Young Socialists National Committee British capital, and break up what remains of British political influence.

Pretence that Wilson is concerned to protect the African people is now disappearing.

Under nominal control from Rhodesia slaved by imperialism and by the white minority.

Under the infamous Land Apportionment Act, thousands have been shifted on to the worst land, the best being taken over by European farmers. • Others work as farm labourers or as domestic servants for the whites, at miserable wages.

USE OF LAND

For the 220,000-odd Europeans there is a total of 37 million acres for farms and reserves and four million for national parks. For the 4,000,000 Africans there are

distortion on the history of the Russian Revolution, the leadership of the British Communist Party is being forced, partly under pressure from its own members to discuss the real role of Trotsky in that revolution and the validity of international Stalinism's judgment on Trotskyism as an 'agency of fascism'.

It was R. Palme Dutt, along with Dobb, Rothstein and others, who first helped to sell Stalin and Bukharin's anti-Marxist programme of 'Socialism in one country' to the British section of the Communist International. They led the campaign during and after the Moscow Trials to spread the Stalinist lies concerning the revolutionary record and integrity of Trotsky and his co-thinkers in the Soviet Union.

It was at this time (January 1937) that Dutt wrote in the Communist Party pamphlet The Truth About Trotskyism' that it was 'essential to destroy the Trotskyist propaganda and influence which is seeking to win a foothold within the labour movement, since these attempts represent in fact the channel of fascist perpetration into the labour movement.

Dutt claims in his reply to critics of his review of Trotsky's 'History of the Russian Revolution' that it is impossible to give judgments on the validity of charges made against Trotsky because *the full facts can only be made available from the Soviet Union when the work of legal investigation and historical research is made complete'.

Must we not assume then, that all Dutt's earlier estimations of Trotsky were based on incomplete information, and that the sentences passed at the Moscow Trials of 1936-38 were similarly ill-founded?

The whole tone of Dutt's reply in the 'Daily Worker' of October 15 is of a tired old hack trapped in a corner. Having been taken up by a reader on October 4 for using the review of the book as an excuse to indulge in the old-style mud-slinging against Trotsky, Dutt justifies his decision to re-review the book 'as a polemical expression corresponding to the political outlook of Trotsky'.

But the difference between Dutt and Trotsky is that the latter uses ample materials, giving all his sources, to back up his polemical positions, while Dutt can marshal nothing in reply.

In his reply to 'Daily Worker' readers, he now undertakes not general, but specific criticism of the book, purporting to prove 'specific examples of the inadequacies of this history as an objective, trustworthy history'.

This pedantic tone of Dutt's comes well from a leading member of a party which, after 40 and more years of existence, has yet to write its own history -objective, trustworthy or otherwise.

And before we take issue with the points Dutt challenges, we would like to inquire what store he now sets by the illfamed 'short course, basic reading for all members of the international Stalinist movement from 1938 until 1956, when Khrushchev roundly condemned it as 'permeated with The distortions of Soviet history contained in R. Palme Dutt's review of Trotsky's 'History of the Russian Revolution' are destroyed by the cult of the individual, which 'speaks principally about Stalin, about his speeches, about his reports. Everything without the smallest exception is tied to his name'.

This history was then pulped and replaced by another equally anti-Trotskyist version, but with the role of Stalin played down and that of Khrushchev grossly overated.

This, too, has been withdrawn and yet another is now in preparation—no doubt soon to meet the same fate as its predecessors.

Write history So, in examining the claims of Dutt as a fighter for historical truth, we should bear in mind that his own movement has yet to write its history even to its own satisfaction.

Dutt's first point is that Trotsky 'fails to demonstrate the key organising role of the party in the factories, which raised its membership from 12,000 in March to 240,000 in September (No mention of this)'.

This is easily disposed of.

In chapter 3 of book three, Struggle for the Soviet Congress', Trotsky analyses in some detail the ways in which the Bolsheviks strengthened their influence in the various workers' organisations just prior to the seizure of power. On page 935, he says the following:

'On the same day, the 19th, an all-Russian conference of Factory and Shop Committees, the most direct and indubitable representation of the proletariat in the whole country, came out for an immediate transfer of power to the soviets?

Earlier, on page 432, he deals with this struggle for dominance in the factories by the Bolsheviks, with reference to the key Putilov works, which employed 40,000 workers. Trotsky thought this aspect of the party work important enough to quote from a worker at that plant, who related the change brought about by the arrival of a leading Bolshevik worker, Volodarsky, in the area.

'From the moment of his arrival in the Narva district, the ground began to slip under the feet of the Socialist Revolutionary gentlemen, and in the course of something like two months the Putilov works had gone over to the Bolsheviks?

So we would not agree with Dutt that Trotsky 'fails to demonstrate the key organising role of the party in the factories'-on the contrary, pages 786-787 deal with this very point:

"The party, which on the eve of the October revolution with Bukharin (centre) and Zinoviev (right)

had only 240,000 members, was more and more confidently leading these millions (those millions of workers represented in the soviets)

through the medium of thé trade unions, the factory and shop committees and the soviets? (our emphasis)

And Dutt says quite explicitly that there is 'no r lention of this'!

Dutt's second point, for the sake of clarity, must be reproduced in full.

'He (Trotsky) gives the picture that he and his tiny group were in agreement with Lenin by 1917 (they Trotsky: President of the Revolutionary Soviet Committee joined in July) and hides the fact that at their conference in May, Trotsky persuaded his group to reject Lenin's invitation to join on condition of a clean break with the Menshevik's "Patriotic Wing" (which he also rejected throughout the war)?

First, to clarify the position of Trotsky in the war. He never at any time adopted a defencist or patriotic position. Trotsky's political weakness during this period, and in fact from 1905, was that he tried to bring together opposed factions in the Russian Social Democratic Party, not on the basis of principles, but on the question of organisational unity.

On his return from America in May 1917, he made clear his adherence to the Theses of Lenin on the need for the overthrow of the bourgeois provisional government, support that Lenin lacked even within his own central committee.

From then . on, Trotsky fought within 'his tiny group' for unity with the Bolsheviks on the basis of Lenin's April Theses.

Opposition to unity came not from Trotsky, but from Yurenev and the later Stalin henchman, Manuilsky.

In the first Russian edition of Lenin's 'Works', is the following note on page 488 of Vol. XIV:

'On the war question the Mezhrayontsi (Trotsky's group) held an internationalist position and their tactics were close to the Bolsheviks.' Even the 'Old Guard' Stalinwriter Louis Aragon, in his book 'A History of the U.S.S.R.' lets Dutt down:

'On August the 8th, with Sverdlov as president, there opened the sixth congress of the Russian Social Democratic Worker's Party (Bolsheviks), the party's most considerable meeting since before the war: it brought together delegates representing 240,000 members, whereas the party had no more than 80,000 at the time of the April conference. The Mezhrayonka had sent delegates to it, and among the elected chairmen Yurenev sat with Sverdiov, Oblinsky and Stalin. Apart from Lenin, the honorary presidents were Zinovier, Kollantay, Kamenev, Trotsky and Lunarcharsky, the last two being Mezhrayontsi.

Sverdlov recalled that the April conference had decided to open the party to all social democrats who had broken with the Menshevik defencists. In fact, ever since May, the work had been carried out by the Petrograd Bolshevik Committee and the Mezhrayontsi committee, acting together?

(page 41, Aragon, A History of the U.S.S.R.)

The defencists On the question of relations with the defencists after the bourgeois revolution of February, it is revealing to contrast the position of Lenin and Trotsky with that of Stalin. Once again, Aragon is helpful.

He reproduces Lenin's telegram of March 19 to the Party:

'Our tactics: total distrust, no support government, distrust Kerensky above all, arming proletariat sole guarantee, immediate election Petrograd Duma, no reconciliation between parties.

Wire this Petrograd.

Ulyanov."

He also reproduces Stalin's /n mealy-mouthed admission his own errors of that period.

It was a deeply mistaken attitude, for it begot pacifist illusions, gave support to those who made a creed of defence, and made the revolutionary education of the masses harder. ... At that time I, together with other members of the party, shared this mistaken attitude.' No compromise What Stalin does not admit is that as editor of 'Pravda' at this time, he allowed Kamenev to write openly defencist articles that were indistinguishable from those appearing in the Menshevik press. On Trotsky's relations with the Mensheviks, Lenin had this to say:

'As for a compromise.

cannot even speak about that seriously. Trotsky said a long time ago that unification is impossible. Trotsky understood this, and from that time on there has been no better Bolshevik' (Minutes of the Petrograd Committee, November 14, 1917)

Dutt finally takes up Trotsky's military record in the preparation for and execution of the October seizure of power. Dutt "makes three claims: one, that Trotsky was not president of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet; two, that the Military Revolutionary 'centre of five' (which Dutt correctly points out had Stalin Trotsky (left) with Lenin (centre) and Kamenev (right) as a member but not Trotsky) functioned contrary to Trotsky's claims that it did not; and three, that Stalin played an important part on the Military Revolutionary Committee (the body that set up the 'centre of five').

Stalin himself corrects Dutt on the first point:

*All the practical work in connection with the organising of the uprising was done under the immediate direction of Comrade Trotsky, the President of the Soviet. It can be stated with certainty that the party is indebted primarily and principally to Comrade trotsky for the rapid going over of the garrison to the side of the soviet and the efficient manner in which the work of the Military Revolutionary Committee was organised.

(from Stalins' 'The October Revolution', page 18, Lawrence and Wishart, 1936)

Explain please!

It can be stated with certainty'-we would like Dutt's comments! This was written by Stalin in 'Pravda' on November 6, 1918. If it was not true, why did Stalin write it? This passage was omitted from the later 'Works' of Stalin (Vol. 4, page 157). Perhaps Dutt will explain both the original statement and the cut.

Secondly, Dutt, in making great play of the fact that Trotsky was not a member of the 'centre of five', fails to point out that neither also was Lenin.

John Reed: author of Ten Days That Shook the World' The answer to this problem lies in the Minutes of the Bolshevik central committee of October 29, 1917:

"The central committee created a military revolutionary centre with the following members: Sverdlov, Stalin, Bubnov, Uritsky and Dzerzhinsky. This centre is to be a constituent part of the Revolutionary Soviet Committee:' (our emphasis)

But this last-named body was lone other than the military revolutionary committee of the Petrograd Soviet, of which, on Stalin's testimony, Trotsky was the president. It would be very strange if Trotsky, chairman of the Revolutionary Soviet Committee, were to co-opt on to that body... himselfl The 'centre of five' referred to by Dutt was therefore completely subordinate to the Revolutionary Soviet Committee, which functioned under the leadership of its chairman, Trotsky.

Two references 'As for Stalin's work during the actual days of the uprising, we can turn to several sources. John Reed's book "Ten Days That Shook The World', which is a minute-by-minute account of the struggle by the Bolsheviks to take the power, has two references to Stalin in the whole of its 322 pages. Neither reference deals with his alleged military activities.

As for Trotsky, there are 53 references to his work, There are no fewer than 80 references to the activities of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. There are none concerning the whereabouts of the body of which Stalin was a member.

About John Reed's Lenin said the following:

'Unreservedly do I recommend it to the workers of the world... it gives a Now available: Two issues of A journal Volume Two NO. 1 ements of the International Committee of the Fourth International and the Socialist Worker:

• NO. 2 Rebuilding the Fourth International (Resolution of the International Committee) Cuba: Marxism and the Revolution Struggle for Marxism in the Ill American Trotskyism with by Tim Wohlforth report dated 12-15 June, 1940 NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD., 186A Clapham High Street, S.W.4.

sion of what really is the Proletarian Revolution and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.' All these questions, which we think have been adequately dealt with, were first raised in the attempts by Stalin and his factions to re-write communist history under the pressure of passing, unprincipled political blocs first, with Zinovier and Kamenev, then with Bukharin and Rykov, and finally, having purged the entire Bolshevik 'Old Guard', with their careerist successors. Twists & turns The twists and turns of 'official' communist history are but the record of the degeneration of Stalinism from a centrist, empirically acting tendency within the Bolshevik party into an openly counterrevolutionary force, which throughout the world has led workers to defeat after defeat in the interests of preserving for the Soviet bureaucracy a friendly relationship with world imperialism.

The Trotskyist movement, because it has always based itself on firm Leninist principles, and not on the wretched and discredited 'theory' of peaceful co-existence with imperialism, is able to write its own history. Trotsky's work will stand for ever as a testimony to the science of Marxism, as a penetration into the motive forces of the class struggle and the processes by which they are transformed into their highest point: insurrection.

Debate again

In contrast to Dutt, and also to Deutscher and other would-be Trotsky canonisers, this, for us, is the core of Trotsky's 'History'. Its great literary merit is a secondary question, which is blown up out of all proportion by those, including Dutt, who want to hide and bury the revolutionary meaning of Trotsky's message.

The debate has been recommenced, but this time with the working class on the advance not ac in the 1920s, in retreat.

Questions of history will now be resolved in the construction of a revolutionary party under the banner of Trotskyism, that will sweep Dutt and his fellow falsifiers into oblivion.

'Mezhrayontsi'. Literally 'inter-district group, which Trotsky joined on his return from America in May, 1917. It stood between the two main factions in the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, but the bulk of its membership tended towards basic agreement with the policies of the Bolsheviks. Amongst its leaders it had not only Trotsky but Lunarcharsky, Manuilsky, Joffe, Riazanov, Pokrovsky (these two being celebrated Marxist historians) and Uritzky. At the joint Congress of the two organisations which formalised the unity that had already existed for some months, a new central committee was elected. Out of a possible 134 votes, Lenin secured 133, Zinoviev 132, Kamener 131 and Trotsky 131. Clearly, if Trotsky had resisted unity, this would have been reflected in the voting for the central committee, as most of the delegates to that congress were not Mezhrayontsi but Bolsheviks.

International Marxism Numbers One and Two

October Pag Thre

In earlier days, Che Guevara (left) with Raul and Fidel Castro and Cuba's president Dorticos Fihe attempts of U.S. imperialism to overthrow *OR seven years, the Castro regime has survived the missiles crisis, the landing of exile bands: these and many other provocations have so far failed to topple the Cuban government.

What enabled the Castro regime to outlive the most optimistic predictions of its enemies, however, was not any superior strategy on Castro's part-but the enthusiastic and total support of the workers and peasants of Cuba, as well as the reluctance of the Pentagon and the State Department to intervene militarily in a situation which could be settled by diplomatic and economic means. Although the Cuban workers and peasants were-and are-deprived of all political power by the regime which has ruled Cuba without a constitution or even the pretence of any organic law for seven years, nevertheless, they continue to support the Castro regime because of the substantial economic benefits which the overthrow of the Båtista regime brought them.

The revisionists in the *United Secretariat of the Fourth International' and particularly the Socialist Workers' Party of America hailed these changes as the emergence of a new workers' state-and even a socialist state.

The Socialist Labour League and The Newsletter warned that without a Marxist working-class party and the institutions of workers' power, such as soviets, there could be no socialism, nor any effective planning in Cuba, and that the Castro ¡turns to the right modest conquests of the 1959 rebellion would be jeopardised.

Recent events in Cuba are a grim confirmation of the warnings made three and four years ago.

Because of the petty-bourgeois capitalistic nature of the Castro's plans for the Cuban economy were so ambitious they cripplea agriculture Castro leadership, it could not formulate a viable plan for industrialisation " and socialist management of the nationalized enterprises, which were enterprises of a state-capitalist type not unlike the British coal mines.

Anarchic spending

Soviet aid (700 million dollars in four years) under these conditions, could not be rationally used, but instead was utilised in an anarchic and wasteful manner.

When Castro did elaborate a programme, it was so ambitious and fantastic that it virtually crippled agriculture (the sugar crop tell from 6,800,000 tons in 1961 to 3,800,000 in 1963).

- By the time the sugar industry revived — after Castro scrubbed the industrialisation plan—the world price of sugar had fallen steeply and so had the foreign exchange earnings of the Cuban economy.

The initial stimulus to the economy given by the agrarian reform has petered out and the economy now suffers from serious shortages and grave dislocations caused partly by the U.S. trade embargo, but largely by the mismanagement of the economy and the failure of the state leadership to work out an integrated plan for the conomy.

Cuba has all the vices of a bureaucratic workers' statewithout any of its virtues!

Increased repression Every setback to the economy, every new shortage is met by increased repression and a greater centralisation of power at the top.

From being a Bonapartist regime Castro is now evolving towards a super-Bonapartist.

In the early period he attempted to harness the Stalinist Party to the government.

By doing this, he achieved two objectives at once: he utilised the talents of the Stalinist intellectuals and functionaries to discipline the labour and trade union movement (as when they attacked the Posadas group in Havana and smashed the press for Trotskv's book Permanent Revolution'), and at the same time he was able to use them as willing scapegoats for any failures of the regime.

First victim The first victim was Escalante. He was dismissed and accused of bureaucracy and flown off to Prague.

There was no discussion, nor a whimper of protest from the Stalinists. In late 1964 Ernesto (Che) Guevara, Castro's right-hand man, attacked Soviet trade policy on U.S. television (see right). Earlier this year he disappeared from the political scene. MICHAEL BANDA describes the events leading up to this in terms of the rightward turn of the Castro regime Between May and December, 1964, another four pro-Moscow ministers were fired summarily —also presumably for bureaucracy.

Again there was no discussion, and hardly an explanation.

Bureaucratic blindness The Missiles Crisis of 1962 brought a sharp clash with Moscow and Castro began to lean heavily on Peking.

No amount of scapegoats from the Stalinist stable could compensate for the alarming disproportions in the economy and for the bureaucratic blindness of the state-party leadership.

In February 1965, Castro fired Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, the oldest Stalinist hack who first served Batista and then became director of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform under Castro.

The firing of Rodriguez was concerned with the extent of the agrarian reform and signified that Castro was preparing to retreat and make concesfor cultas para ser Why did Castro wait for seven moni Guer sions to the private sector in agriculture.

While Castro struck at the Stalinists at home, he was careful to maintain a correct, if not cordial, relationship with Moscow. For, so long as the U.S. trade embargo continued, Castro was forced to define Cuba's economic relations with the world economy indirectly via his trade relations USSR.

But the terms of Soviet trade were anything but equitable to Cuba.

Ernesto (Che) Guevara, as principal economic director, was keenly aware of the nature of Soviet-Cuban trade relations and, in particular, of the prices charged by the USSR, which were no different from those charged by the imperialists.

There were not only unequal, but exploitative.

U.S. policy

Some people imagine that there is an inexplicable contradiction between Castro's concessions to the right wing at home and his increasing reliance on Soviet aid abroad.

In fact there is none and the imperialists have lost no time in exploiting it. As "The Times' in its leader (22/10/65) commented:

"The United States has settled down with the policy of keeping Cuba as dependent as possible on Russia, and as discredited as possible in the rest of Latin America. . . . The policy has ths before producing a 'letter from ara? certainly paid some dividends •.. Cuba's physical capacity to promote revolution has also been reduced, though that may be due as much to Russian restraint as to American pressure.' Resented Soviet methods Guevara, who was inspired by the utopian idea of building an industrial-capitalist Cubawith a large state sector-at a time when capitalism was in decline, resented these practices bitterly. While Castro struck out at Stalinists at home he maintained cordial. and very convenient relations with the Soviet bureaucracu. Here he Guevara vanished in a welter of speculation.

For seven months there was silence. Then, in October, Castro broke the ice to say that a statement would be made about 'el companero Ernesto Guevara'.

At the same time, Castro made two ominously important moves.

Party reorganised

He reorganised the Party, abolished the old national council and further centralised the power by creating a political bureau and a secretariat.

The Stalinist paper, 'Hoy, was incorporated in a new journal called 'Granma', and the remaining Stalinists like the proverbial fly were brought closer into the Castroite spider's parlour.

The name of Castro's party changed for a fourth time-—this time to the Cuban Communist Party.

To strengthen his position, Castro also announced free, unrestricted departure of people whose families and relatives were in exile in the United States: a real and significant gesture of conciliation to the extreme right.

When the text of Guevara's letter was revealed there was nothing in it to dispel the impression that it was either a forgery, or a forced confession.

The relevant extracts read:

I feel I have completed the duty which the Cuban revolution gave me. I say farewell to you. I give up all my posts as minister in the party, as a major and as a Cuban citizen.

"My only fault has been that I did not understand more fully your great qualities. I am proud of having followed you....

'Other nations require my services and I must leave you. I leave behind my dearest memories and my most loved ones....

I free Cuba of all responsibility...:

Why did Guevara have to dissociate himself in this manner from the Cuban regime? What did he mean by the enigmatic declaration contained in the final sentence? What responsibility? And why should Cuba be free from the responsibility for the overthrow of the hated dictatorships in South America and Central America?

Halting movements Since Castro took power a series of successful militarypolice coups have plagued Latin

IN the bac ground to the talks on the reform of the world's monetary system and the meeting of the International Monetary Fund (see The Newsletter for the past two weeks) has been a dramatic increase in the volume of American investment into Europe.

The size of this investment and its nature—often in the most up-to-date plants and industries of Europe has brought increasing opposition from the capitalist states in Europe, especially France.

'PAY IN GOLD'

The proposals of France for the reform of the world monetary system involve the demand that, in future, America pay for all these investments in gold and not in dollars, which, as a 'reserve currency' (l.e., a currency in which many states are willing to hold their reserves), enjoys a privileged position.

France has also threatened to transfer her present dollar balances into gold, which would further deplete the American holdings of gold.

What lies behind ments?

In the first place, the great increase in the export of capital from America has been in response to her own difficulties at home. With the rapid accumulation of capital which occurred in America during and after the war, pressure upon the rate of profit in America was offset by the increasing export of capital abroad, especially into Europe, where wages and working conditions were more favourable to profitable investment.

BEHIND TARIFF WALL Secondly, the creation of the Common Market, with a large potential, especially in Germany, Italy and France, meant that American giant firms had to establish plants behind the tariff wall if they were not to be forced out.

Thirdly, American capital and aid has come into Europe, especially in the immediate post-war years, as a means of ensuring a degree of social stability against the 'threat of Communism'. -But the really spectacular increase has occurred in the recent past. American monopoly-capitalism now has a dominant stake in the European engineering, rubber, food, pharmaceuticals, petro-chemicals and motors.

Over the last five years investment from America into Western Germany has risen by 165 per cent, and now stands at two billion dollars; in France it PETER has risen by 130 per cent and now stands at 1.5 billion dollars; in Italy it has risen by 150 per cent and currently stands at 800 million dollars; in the Netherlands it has risen by 115 per cent and currently stands at 525 million dollars; in Belgium and Luxemburg it has increased by 100 percent and now stands at 434 million dollars.

Investment into France has perhaps been most significant.

Here, from the American point of view, conditions were idealcheap labour, a relatively large peasant population which offered a potential labour market, and the chance to sell into the mass European market.

CONTROL INDUSTRY U.S. companies are now responsible for 65 per cent of French manufacture of farm machinery. They also make a majority of the refrigerators, the sewing machines, typewriters and control nearly all the entire computer industry, which is, of course, vital for the modern technological developments noW taking place under capitalism.

Machines Bull, France's number one computer firm, is unable to compete with American rivals, General Electric or IBM.

The turnover of the French electronics industry is 5.56 million francs, compared to General Electric of 27.6 million francs and I.B.M. of 14.6 million francs.

The buying out of Simca by Chryslers, Remington Rand's decision to close down one of its massive plants in Lyons, and the buying out of the French canning industry by Libbys, which now controls much of the Provence region, has caused considerable concern on the part of de Gaulle and the French bourgeoisie.

MASSIVE PLANTS

U.S. capital has similarly penetrated most of the other European countries, establishing massive plants and using the available supplies.

In most industries, it is a case of several hundred small European firms competing against a couple of U.S. giants. This is true in the case of chemicals, motors, petro-chemicals.

Volkswagen, the biggest of the European car makers, is dwarfed four times as many cars.

The turnover of •General Motors is 10 per cent higher than the Dutch national income. Yet the two biggest firms in Europe Royal Dutch Shell and Unileverare Dutch owned.

As a result, a writer in the U.S. paper of business 'Fortune" recently commented:

"The gap which exists between Europe and the States is comparable to the gap which existed between Great Britain and India in the nineteenth century?

This continuing penetration of capital into Europe in the search for higher profits must mean the elimination of many European firms which are operating with hopelessly out-of-date technological methods. Many of the firms in motors, oil, steel, chemicals, etc., must go in the next few years.

On the other hand, this massive out-pouring of capital from the States has brought its problems for President Johnson-it has weakened the payments balance, placed a question mark against the dollar, and brought political conflicts between France and America,.

Johnson has suggested that action will have to be taken to curb the export of capital abroad —in the military as well as the civilian fields.

SHARPER BATTLES

But to do that could mean too much capital searching for profit in the economy at homewith a depression of profit rates.

This growing battle between the giants of America and Europe means that the working class in both areas will bé drawn into sharper battles with their employers.

No tampering with the present monetary systems, no 'incomes policies', or 'national plans' can avoid this. These economic developments must pave the way for a period of decisive class struggle in Europe and America.

The crunch came at the end of 1964 when Guevara made a bitter attack in a television interview in America on Soviet trade policy and • accused the Russians and East Europeans of being: 'accomplices of imperialist exploitation'.

Castro, hoping to sign a new trade agreement with the USSR, and already trimming his economic sails to suit the pressure of strong bourgeoisreactionary forces in Cuba, decided to use the power conferred on him by previous purges to crush Guevara.

But, because Guevara was no ordinary Stalinist or Fidelista, Castro had to use different methods than those employed on Escalante and Rodriguez.

Guevara's popularity, however, counted for little in the struggle. Like his admirers in the Socialist Workers' Party, he had acquiesced in the arbitrary purges of opponents and centralisation of power in Castro's hands. , The apparatus was Castro's - the reforms were Guevara's. : America. Banientos in Bolivia and Castelo Branco in Brazil, are the most recent.

In the context of this reactionary offensive backed by U.S. imperialism the public endorsement by Castro given to these strange sentiments of Guevara seem to indicate a definite halt to stimulating and supporting anti - imperialist movements in Latin America.

This assumption is furthe reinforced by the recent decision of the Castro government to disarm the militia in Cuba.

The disappearance of Guevara is not an accidental event. It signifies a major turn in Castro's policy, a turn towards a new relationship with U.S. imperialism.

The working class will be the first victims of this process.

Once again, the construction of a revolutionary Trotskyist party independent of Castroism and Stalinism in Cuba is strongly reinforced by these latest series of events. The revisionists can contribute nothing towards this task. is seen with friends in Moscow

Fo

La unanimous decision, Ireland Young Socialists have disaffiliated from the Ireland Young Socialists Northern Ireland Labour Party.

This action, announced in a recent statement, is in protest at the failure of the Northern Ireland Labour Party to dissociate itself from the attacks on the working class by the British Labour government, and the continual witchhunt against Young Social- -ists in Northern Ireland.

Young Socialists who were expelled from the Party included the YS chairman, Bill McElroy, and YS National Committee member, Jackie Vance, who was also a member of the Labour Party's executive committee.™ The Northern Ireland Labour Party is an artificial Party, being kept in existence by the British Labour Party, who supply its main funds. It is isolated from the working class and has never been associated with any of the major strikes and struggles which the Irish workers have taken on.

SLANDERS

The expulsions were the culmination of a long campaign by the right wing against the YS and their policies. In order to carry out these attacks they have to resort to slanders, accusations of violence, refusal of membership, and the contents of a scurrilous anonymous letter.

But by their principled campaigning the YS has gained much support in the labour movement in Northern Ireland. Newsletter Correspondent

jailed THREE members of the Irish on strike in Dublin for higher wages, have been committed to prison for disobeying a High Court order forbidding the picketing of Post Office premises.

A spokesman for the Association said that the commital was reminiscent of the days of the famous strike and lock-out of 1913.

There is no doubt that the decision of the Irish government (the employers in this dispute) to use the repressive forces of the state against workers was influenced by the knowledge that the British Labour government is proposing legislation against the trade unions.

The commital is an ominous indication of what is in store, not only for Irish workers, but also for workers throughout Britain.

The commital also serves notice on the Irish workers that their traditional trade union militancy is not enough. What is needed is a political fight against the capitalist state. Towards this end a new leadership for the working class in the Irish Republic must be built.

to tame the workers in industry.?

The object of the proposed legislation was to weaken and intimidate workers. It was an employers' offensive, the only answer to which was for the working class to organise against it.

"The war in Vietnam is as close to you as anti-trade-union legislation, Slaughter told the meeting 'Every time we strike a blow against the employers and against Wilson here, we make it less possible for the imperialists to win in Vietnam. If imperialism can be defeated in Vietnam, then our fight here is less difficult.' The immediate task before workers here was to make it impossible for the capitalists to use the Wilson government to attack and weaken the working class. The way would then be open to build the alternative socialist leadership.

Other speakers at the meeting were Dave Ashby, National Secretary of the Young Socialists, and Jack Gale, Central Committee, SLL.

Registered at the G.P.O. as a newspaper Published by The Newsletter. 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 Printed by Plough bodies as the Manchester District Council, who have been forced to oppose the proposed scheme from the start.

Such divisions have led to indecision, and a very limited campaign against the scheme-in the early stages this struggle was based only on the issue of using guards on the trains.

NUR issues belated pamphlet statement Liner train struggle THE National Union of Railwaymen's executive has finally made its position clear on liner-trains-after more , than a year of mounting anger amongst railmen against methods for running the scheme.

A 12-page pamphlet has been issued by explain negotiations to its 270,000 members.

This came just a few days after a deal between British Rail and the Tartan Arrow express haulage company was finalised.

This scheme, which was announced in the 'Sunday Telegraph' on July 4 this year, plans two express freight trains running north and south each night between London and Glasgow, carrying the equivalent of 80 heavy lorry loads, cutting the time by half.

Investment

As The Newsletter commented at that time: "The most interesting thing about this story is that the firm is investing €500,000 in depots and handling equipment to be built on sites in Glasgow and London, taken on a 99-year lease from British Rail.' Although this scheme is separate from the liner-train scheme, it is the basis on which the Railways Board wants to operate handing the depots in all parts of the country to private hauliers.

The union pamphlet now concedes that such a scheme would 'pander to private road hauliers at the expense of the jobs of railway employees and the finances of the nation' (1)

But why did it take the executive until last month to actually vote against the scheme under the Railway Board's terms, and until now to put it down in writing?

How much sway has union secretary, Sidney Greene, had over the 24-man full-time executive? For, as "The Times' reported in August:

(Greene) . . . clearly feels personally that the union should accept the trains.' Divisions There are many executive members, representing such militant is still on Greene:

sway over EC?

Yet the more vital quite clear.

The scheme, according to Monday's 'Guardian' is expected to be operating before the end of the year.

It has the full backing of Tom Fraser, Minister of Transport, who, on behalf of the Labour government, said in earlier discussions the scheme would operate with or without union sanction.

To make it even clearer, especially to those in the union leadership: A nationalized industry and the jobs of thousands of workers in that industry are under attack from the government.

The railmen, in good faith, helped put this government into power hoping to see an end to Beeching-ism and the beginnings of an integrated transport system, as promised.

For the Tories But they see a so-called Labour government running the country for the Tories, bosses and the capitalist system, which will be strengthened by the utilisation of a nationalized industry like the railways. They also see so-called leaders of the trade union movement giving full backing to this government.

Rank-and-file railmen, who face a further sell-out on their demand for a wage increase at the hands of the Prices and Incomes Board, must themselves take up a fight before they are railmen no more.

They must make their leaders answer for their actions (or lack of actions) over liner-trains and reject the most recent talk of some sort of compromise with the Railways Board.

They must link up now with other trade unionists to answer the attacks by the Labour government on workers and the nationalized industries and threats of legislation against the unions.

Policies

This answer must be fought around the policies of the Young Socialists and the Socialist Labour League which can lead to nationalization of all the basic industries, including all transport, modernisation under workers' control, work-sharing and retraining at full pay. After mini-shift victory -38 hour week FOLLOWING their minishift victory many Midland car workers are now considering a 38-hour week.

Last week (as reported in The Newsletter), the employers were forced to abandon the four-hour Friday night mini-shift and allow workers a four-day, 40hour week.

Shop stewards' committees in the Austin factories are Shell-Mex drivers form action fight claim for pay increase DRIVERS employed by the Shell Mex BP group have formed an unofficial action committee to fight for their claim to a substantial increase in pay. This committee, said to be nationwide, is in no way connected with the Transport and General Workers' Union, to which most of the members belong. • Drivers at the Black Country Blackheath, say that a year ago, when they were on strike for five weeks, they found themselves isolated and entirely on their own, with no contacts or means of communication with depots of the company in other parts of the country.

Accordingly, depots and refineries throughout the country were contacted. As a result a meeting was held at Smethwick, with representatives from all regions.

'Our committee is not recognised by the union, but it can work on its own unimpeded by any other organisation, said drivers at Cakemore.

At present their basic pay is lavished on the miners by George Brown when he spoke at the Yorkshire Miners' Gala earlier this year. But how are the miners to be rewarded for their loyalty to Labour?

•HE government's White Paper on Fuel Policy, published last week, announces a slashing of coal production to between 170 million-180 million tons a year by 1970, and the closure of 150 more pits. The paper declares: 'Reductions in mining manpower will continue to be heaviest in difficult employment areas such as Scotland, the north-east and South Wales.' At the Yorkshire Miners' Gala a resolution was presented from the Yorkshire Area Council of the National Union of Mineworkers urging the government to maintain coal production at 200 million tons a year as the minimum necessary to prevent unemployment in the mining industry.

In reply, Brown urged the miners to wait until the government's plans were announced.

Now we can see these plans. What has Brown to say to the miners now? Can he deny that he knew all along that such attacks were being planned? now to press for four-night, 94-hour shift working.

Before last week's victory, the employers argued that four-night working was a danger to workers' health.

This argument is now being used against them for the shorter hours.

Some workers at BMC's Fisher and Ludlow plant have decided already to work only the 38-hour week.

committee depot at Cakemore Road, for a 41-hour week. In order to earn approximately f22, it would be necessary to work 55 hours one week and 66 the next. Their present aim is to get £23 10s. for a 49-hour week, guaranteed for 52 weeks per year.

A claim for this was put in a month ago, but talks between their union and employers have so far ended in deadlock. The men say that if they won their claim it would bring them into line with Esso company drivers who were recently granted wage increase.

Cakemore drivers say that the only offer from the management so far has been a revised bonus scheme. This would offer a 15s. rise in return for increased work output.

LOSS NOT GAIN

This, the drivers point out, would result in them losing a half-hour at overtime rates, or 27s. бd. over the week. In fact, therefore, the offer would represent a loss rather than a gain.

They were opposed to incentive bonus schemes also on the ground that they would cause 'innumerable accidents', since under such schemes 'the faster you drive the more money you get'.

They say: We reserve the right to call a lightning strike through our action committee, to show our disapproval of this situation. If that is the only way of achieving our object, then we have to take it. Every region is in agreement on that' They thought it possible that such a lightning strike might be fixed for some time before November 10, the date on which there is to be a further conciliation committee meeting between the union and employers. This might help the company to 'stop dallying and make up their minds'.

"The Times' of October 22 congratulated the government for not allowing 'sentiment' and an 'over-sized conscience' to prevail. This mouthpiece of the employing class described these proposals 'workmanlike', ', 'hard-headed' and 'to the government's credit'.

There is no doubt that these proposals, together with the rapid development of mechanisation in the mining industry, must mean considerable unemployment for miners.

Mr. Fred Lee, Minister of Power, and a so-called left-winger, has said that natural wastage will mean that only 20,000 men will lose their jobs.

Oppose govt. plans The Wilson government does not represent the miners. Brown deceived his listeners at the Yorkshire Miners' Gala. Miners must oppose this government's plans, together with dockers, railwaymen, car workers and all other sections of the working class who are under attack.

They must demand a socialist policy for the mines: • No pit closures unless agreed to and supervised by committees of miners.

No sackings. Alternative jobs with no loss of pay for all miners displaced by machinery or closures.

The trade unions to admit all to membership and take full responsibility for all youth unable.to find jobs.

Nationalization of coal distribution and of all firms concerned with mining machinery.

Nationalization of all rich industries—such as chemicals -which use coal.

Nationalization of the oil monopolies.

Abolition of trade secrets. Open the books to show the real profits of all private firms concerned with the fuel industries and their real relations with the nationalized mines.

RENT

STRIKE FIGHT GROWING TENANTS on a rent strike at at Malvern Road, Kilburn, London, had a big response to their meeting in Carlton House on Thursday (October 21). After only two hours' leafletting, 90 people attended the meeting.

Explaining the progress of the movement, secretary of the tenants' association, George Murray, revealed that investigations had shown that the landlords yielded £6,200 per annum on properties concerned.

On June 15 some of the dwellings were declared 'unfit for human habitation' by the Brent Borough Council. But people are still living in them. Does that mean we aren't human?' asked Murray.

Guest speaker, John Evans, London organiser of the National Association of Tenants and Residents, called on all present to join the tenants' association and build it up.

He advised tenants to raise funds and welcomed a Young Socialist dance for this purpose. He also said he did not disagree with a YS proposal for a demonstration on the housing question.

Dustman

picket fined LEAMINGTON dustmen picketing their depot against "blackleg' contract labour, employed after they went on strike over the dismissal of a shop steward, experienced a taste of coming events recently.

The dismissed shop steward and leader of the strike, Frank Wright, of Leamington Spa, was arrested and fined fl for obstructing the free passage of the highway.

Labour MP for Coventry South, Mr. William Wilson, defending, said that the men were at their depot and had the right to peaceful picketing under the Trades Disputes Act of 1906.

The Act also gives the right to stop people and speak to them, said Mr. Wilson.

Hands off

RECOMMENDATIONS for a s3 5s. a week increase in bonus payments for footplatemen has been accepted 'in principle' by the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen.

These recommendations into the men's demands which led to the go-slow on Southern Railways in July.

There was little hope of these demands being won when they went to the court of inquiry following previous sell-outs of such courts.

But there are fine silk strings attached to this generous offer dangled before the railmen — single-manning of trains within a year.

So the price of a bigger wage packet for some leads to the follow the court of inquiry streamlining and speeding up of the railways system resulting in redundancy for many others.

By their militant action in July, which was viciously attacked in the press, the railmen gave notice to the Board and the government that an increase could not be postponed any longer.

But, at the same time, their leaders, who decided at a July meeting by one vote to reject any further industrial action, are ready to accept the single-

manning plans.

This action, in fact, goes against the decision of the ASLEF conference! earlier this year that a settlement on bonus schemes must not be linked with singlemanning.

These railmen, along with the other grades who will benefit, must not be hoodwinked by a substantial wage increase, but must use the strength shown in July to renew their campaign against speed-up and redundancies by opposing singlemanhing.

Their struggle is closely linked with those railmen in the National Union of Railwaymen who are opposing the introduction of liner-trains.

4 with the workers. "What Management must 'get tough' British industry needs, is a tough, but just management, which will no longer be cowed into wrong decisions by the threat of strikes.

"The managements who say no and stick to it) are increasing And so the 'Mirror" advocates that the workers must become tamer and managers tougher-all in the 'national interest'., Anyone would think that the cent bosses, and 1 or 2 per cent 'nation' consisted of over 90 per workers, with the rest in between, and not the other way round.

D. leaders like Carron of the 'Enlightened' trade union are pralsea militant trade unionists are blackguarded by the 'Mirror'.

Yes, the capitalists would like the wages of engineers for instance, to be fll or fi2, nego-t iated by the top leaders, and no 16 and over, obtained by local militancy.

When the Mirror' calls for more authority for shop stewards, they mean stewards especially selected by those top union bureaucrats and the employers after the militants have : been weeded out and victimised as they were at Ford.

The managing must obviously be left to the managers, the 'Mirror' says more than once. 6. Why does the Mirror contrast the British scene so often with Germany? It says that the German defeats in the last war made a 'fresh start' possible.

What actually happened in Germany?

Hitler, on behalf of big business, tried to wipe out a whole generation of militant workers and their organisation to ensure capitalism's survival.

The war was used by British, French and U.S. imperialism to carry this destruction ever further. The British employers, through Wilson and Brown, with the help of the 'Mirror', now want discipline workers Britain for similar purposes of investment and super-profit.

As for workers' factory committees in Germany, the 'Mirror' again indulges in distortion. from the fresh start of 1945. In It says these committees date fact they originate from 1919 and 1920.

The German workers set up their own workers' councils in the revolution of 1918-19, after the murder of their leaders and thousands of militants under a social-democratic government.

Factory committees were then set up instead of the workers' councils as a sham form of industrial democracy.

Socialist answer

In this four-day campaign on trades unions, the 'Mirror' is only the running dog for big buşiness' attempt to break down the working class as an organised class.

Our answer is a socialist answer —to begin the counter-attack, a socialist attack, to break employers as a class: private ownership of the banks and industry and commerce to be ended; common ownership and workers' management will take their place.

We will build up the force for the socialist revolution if we fight noW on the policies ot the Socialist Labour League: • Oppose all Laws against trade unions.

Democracy inside the trade Democracy unions. unions.

Fight for all wage claims. Fight for all wage claims.

Make the employers pay.

Abolish all business secrets. Abolish all business secrets. Nationalize banks, insurance Nationalize banks, insurance and building societies. and building societies.

Workers' control, of basic Workers' control, of basic industries, opening of industries, opening of the books, and taking steps for books, and taking steps for their nationalization. their nationalization.

Immediate nationalization of Immediate nationalization steel and docks.

Remove the Labour traitors the Wilson Cabinet.

Forward to the new leadership behind the Socialist Labour League. For a workers' daily paper with a mass circulation.