The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 420

SPEAKING about steel nationalization in the House of Commons on Wednesday, November 17, Callaghan, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, declared that: 'We shall undertake the re-organisation of this industry when we have got the majority to do it' Just over 12 months ago, the Labour government elected on the promise that they would nationalize this vital industry In the Queen's Speech of 1964 they declared that they were proceeding immediately to implement this promise.

What has happened in the meantime?

The right-wing Labourites obviously thought they had sufficient parliamentary majority in 1964, but do not believe that this is the case today.

The people who have changed their minds are, of course, the international bankers and big businessmen of the United States who have been bus making it clear to Wilson and Callaghan that circumstances, tolerate nationali zation of steel.

The change of plans has got nothing to do with the question of votes, as Callaghan would like us to believe, but with outside interference which has successfully brought the right wing into line The important question for the labour movement is that it is not Labour government which 1s ruling at Westminster but the world bankers, businessmen and owners of property.

As Callaghan made his statement in the House, the Tories were laughing their heads ofi, and so well they might, They, after all, are the Party which represents the men of wealth and property.

If the Tory Party has not enough in the House to prevent the nationalization of steel then they can rely on their power behind the scenes.

The Labour government on the other hand, they elected, wanted nothing further to do with the working class who elected them. The steel industry ivelihood of those who voted Labour is threatened.

The Labour leaders will not respond to these issues and thus they. engage in measures which divide and split the working class. The Tories stand by their supporters but Labour deserts the working class.

What iS the record of the Labour 'left' in this sorry story of steel nationalization?

For nearly 12 months Michael Foot and Co. kept their mouthe shut. Then, the meeting at Blackpool a few weeks ago, they let out a small bleat of whether or not i son steel protest when they wondered keep his promise steel nationalization.

But any child who can read could have told them that nationalization of steel was disearly as loveheber 19n government as Instead of waging a campaign, "Tribune' and Michael Foot sat quiet and warned nobody. How can any member of the Labour Party respect such 'lefts'?

The Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists have continuously warned the labour movement that steel nationalization was to be dropped. We were the only on the left who exposed the influence of big busi ness on the present government.

We say now that the nationalization of steel is not a question of a majority in Parliament but one more example of broken election pledges by Labour government which has a betrayed the working class, and upheld the basic financial interests of the Tory Party and its supporters. • Sackings at state-owned work see page 4 fraudulent claims to independence whilst trying to maintain the status quo which led inexorably to UDI.

Listen to him:

I call on the citizens of Rhodesia to refrain from all acts which would further the objectives of the illegal authorities....

Since Smith has committed a 'treasonable' offence and set up a military-police dictatorship, the African people are justified, it would seem, in taking up all and every means to frustrate the 'objectives of illegal authorities' If you think that, you are mistaken. Such means, as the Governor further implies, are the prerogative of Mr. Smith and his cowboys.

The Africans acending to the Governor's philosophy of expediency, must never - but never—resort to 'illegal' means. Let us read on.

It is my sincere hope that lawfully constituted government will be restored in this country at the earliest possible moment (!) and in the meantime I stress the necessity to assist the armed services and the police to continue to maintain law and order.' (our emphasis)

'Law and order' • Whose law and whose order is the Governor referring to if it is not the 'law and order' of the racialist minority in Salisbury?

What law and what order are the Africans to maintain if it is not the 'law and order' which enables imperialism to exploit and oppress African workers and peasants?

The Africans are urged not to shoot Smith, then they are requested not to defend themselves -as when the police brutally broke the attempted general strike in Bulawayo.

What then are they to do-bury their arms and turn the other cheek?

This is what Governor Gioos would like them very much to do while Wilson continues his farcical dialogue with Smith over the 'hot line' to Salisbury, and while the British government applies a gentle squeeze on the Rhodesian economy and the United Nations continues to pass pious resolutions on UDI.

This is in line with the whole course of Wilson's previous policy of paternalism, dissimulation and betrayal of African aspirations.

Before UDI, he refused the Africans the elementary right of a referendum or even the formality of a constitutional conference.

The 1961 Constitution - a slave-driver's charter—was maintained and under its provisions, the national movement was outlawed and hundreds of Africans illegally detained, beaten up or exiled to remote jungle areas.

It was this same reactionary constitution that Wilson explicitly defended when he was in Salisbury, and tried to impose on the African nationalists.

Here are his own words given to the House of Commons:

I urged them ... to work the constitution of Rhodesia in a constitutional manner, to persuade their followers to register and to vote....

I urged them to stand parliament and to show Rhodesia ... that they .

could make a reality of a mı racial parliament, as long possible before. •• majo rule.' (Our emphasis)

The extent of Wilson's betrayal must be measured by the fact that these words wete uttered only a week before Smith declared UDI! And it is no surprise to us or the •Africans that the 1961 Constitution still remains in force.

Commission a flop Mr. Wilson's brainchild, the Royal Commission, has proved a flop, despite the substantial concessions granted to Smith in order to obtain his assent, and despite "Wilson's hopeful assurance to Parliament that the acceptance of the Commission proved his "power to prevent the tragic and dangerous development JUDI, which Was imminent. Wilson's own words.] Of course, nothing of the sort happened. His appetite whetted by the concessions so freely given, Smith then went ahead and declared UDI.

Why he did do so soon after the Royal Commission is something on which it would be interesting, but diverting, to speculate.

It is very probable that Smith knew that the pro-UDI faction in the Tory Party was losing out especially after the outburst of Dr. Ramsey and that Wilson had no intention of tying the government to the Royal Commission's recommendations, but instead, was sitting it out until the HeathMaudling wing had settled with Salisbury and his crew.

The Royal Commission, in GROWING SUPPORT FOR JAN 26th MEETING last Saturday, the Sheffield (No. 4) branch of the Associated Blacksmiths, Forge and Smithy Workers carried unanimously a resolution in support of the January 26 Lobby of Parliament by the Lambeth Trades Council. The branch has submitted this resolution for consideration by the next meeting of the Sheffield Trades and Labour Council.

Responding enthusiastically to the call for support of the Lobby, members of the branch bought 35 copies of The Hillsborough (Sheffield) Constituency Labour Party has sent a letter to the Sheffield Trades and Labour Council asking for its next agenda to include discussion of a campaign against any threatened legislation against the trade unions.

Support for the January 26 Lobby is growing in Labour Party constituencies in the Sheffield area.

Other branches which have passed resolutions opposing legislation against the trades unions and supporting the January 26 Lobby include the Coventry A.A.&E.E. branch of the Electrical Trades Union, the Transport and General Workers' Union branch 12/53, which has many workers from the Cadbury factory in Moreton, near Birkenhead, Amalgamated Union of Building Workers, Central Liverpool (labourers) branch, which has sent its resolution to the Liverpool Labour and Trades Council and the South-East London branch • OT USUAW resolution from the Plumbing Trades Union Liverpool No. 1 branch already appears on the Trades Council agenda. This declares: "That the Trades Council, in line with policy already adopted, now supports mass lobby Cane demonstration in London opposing the government's plans on legislation against the trade unions.

The Massey Ferguson, Coventry, stewards' committee has also passed a resolution opposing legislation and supporting thelobby. 'Wilson Africans Smith must go-kill Wilson don't act-Wilson must go'.

At a meeting in Hyde Park Labour lett, Lord Brockway, once again confirmed the opinion of many in the British working class movement that he is indeed only such a 'left' by restricting himself to a call for the extension of the sanctions against Rhodesia's Smith regime to include an oil embargo.

The confusion of demands from the platform and some of the placards notwithstanding, many of those present at the meeting and march quite clearly understood that the only answer to the UDI was an armed struggle of the African people themselves.

FRECOON FoR AFRICANS

The Soviet leaders willingly collaborated in this cynical business. In exchange for a 'settlement' of the Vietnam question, they hoped, and still do, to prevent the nuclear arming of Western Germany by the U.S. and the formation of the multi-lateral force (MLF).

According to the Chinese communication to Russia, leaked to 'The Observer' from Eastern Europe, 'the U.S. authorities expressed the hope that the Soviet government would use its influence so that the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam would accept the following two demands: (1) stop supporting the South, and first of all stop supplying it with guns, and (2) stop the attacks on cities in the South'.

The Chinese letter continues:

'Far from expressing any opposition to these preposterous demands of the U.S. authorities, you officially transmitted them to the Vietnamese comrades ...

'Comrade Kosygin (on his visit to Peking in February 1965) stressed the need to help the U.S. "find a way out of Vietnam"

'On February 16 ... the Soviet government officially put betore Vietnam and China the proposal for the convening of a new international conference on IndoChina, which, in fact, was advocacy of "unconditional negotiations"

'On February 23... you discussed with the French President he question of calling an international conterence without prior conditions..

'Just a month later Johnson came out with his fraud of "unconditional discussions"

•After Johnson's proposal was rejected • publicly insinuated that negotiataions could be held if only the U.S. stopped bombing of North Vietnam.

To stop the bombing and hold negotiations-this is exactly what U.S. imperialism has been trying very hard, but in vain, to achieve...

While criticising the nature and quality of the arms supplied to the Vietcong, the Chinese letter savagely attacks the Soviet proposal to send 4,000 troops to North Vietnam and to occupy two air bases in South-west China.

It is clear from this letter what Kosygin's motives are—the Chintheir failure to send troops.

The war is not only an indictment of Kosygin and the Stalinists but all those centrists, who, like Mr. Mendelson in "Tribune' urge the Wilson government to adopt the same demands as the Soviet Union.

This is the centrist road to hell and every peasant in Vietnam knows it. There can be no peace till the Vietcong have won-and the U.S. troops have gone. colleagues had seen it.

Careful

When Wilson did impose sanctions, he was careful to avoid antagonising the HeathMaudling group in the Tory Party and Maudling went out of his way to praise Wilson's handling of the Rhodesian crisis in the same week that Jo Grimond and Desmond Donnelly were approving Wilson's somersault on steel nationalization.

The scope of the economic sanctions imposed by Britain and the Commonwealth will no doubt hurt the Rhodesian economy, but it will not deter Smith and his racialist allies in South Africa, Angola and Mozambique, nor will it bring his government toppling.

Big business, and particularly the copper corporations in Zambia, however, are not prepared to wait indefinitely until a negotiated settlement is found. The copper producers, as Anthony Bambridge commented in "The Observer' 'now see the prospect of a rebellious Rhodesia turning their blushes into real pain.' Nor, for that matter, are the African nationalists, who for all their anti-Union Jack feeling, will be only too glad to support British preferably United Nations (read U.S. imperialists) intervention in Central Africa.

Thus, no matter what the Foreign Secretary says in the UN, or Wilson proclaims in parliament, the stage is being set for a 'police action' in Rhodesia when and if the sanctions fail.

It is obvious that U.S. imperialism, having got a foothold in the Congo, is now preparing to extend its tentacles into Central Africa through the instrumentality of the United Nations.

Choice"

Like the colons of Algeria, the settlers of Rhodesia will soon have to make their choice: either a coffin or a valise.

Sanctions and 'police actions' however will do nothing to advance the interests of the African workers and peasants. In place of one set of white bureaucrats and policemen, the imperialists hope to impose another, black, group of bureaucrats and policemen who will rule Rhodesia more effectively and economically than their predecessors. (Dr. Banda in Malawi has made this abundantly clear.)

On no conditions, therefore, can Marxists in Britain or Africa support, even under the most pro-

NORTHERN dockers sought unity with their London brothers against the Devlin Report in a campaign last weekend, which ended at a meeting in Canning Town Hall, London.

For three days, Peter Kerrigan, in London on a mandate from the Merseyside Area Committee of the National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers 'Blue Union' and thousands of Merseyside dockers who had agreed to a resoluton opposing the Devin Report, toured London dock areas talking with dockers and inviting them to the meeting.

At the Canning Town Hall meeting he explained the background to the dockers' struggle over the past year for higher wages and better conditions in relation to the recent Report.

Democracy attacked 1a One of the most important aspects of the Report was that it attacked the trade union movement, even over minimum democracy.

'The democratic control of the 'Blue Union' has been an obstacle since 1955 to the port employers' plans to bring in large-scale mechanisation,' said Kerrigan.

This was why Devlin had said that leaders of the 'Blue Union' must not now report back the negotiations over his Report.

In 1962, every member of the

Page Iwo Novem ber 96

VERY soon, U.S. imperialism will have more troops and ord nance in Vietnam than in the whole of Europe. Within two years, U.S. forces in South Vietnam have been escalated by more than ten times, from 22,000 to 250,000.

At the same time the bombing of North and South Vietnam has been intensified-despite and increasing losses of aircraft. In the South alone, more than 13,000 tons of high explosives have been dropped on villages, townships and hamlets. So intense and extensive is the bombing that the destruction of 'friendly villages' has become an embarrasingly common experience.

The State Department, and President Johnson are extremely worried about the situation and its affect on the morale of U.S. troops and the American electorate.

If they cannot obtain some 'Blue' had been circulated with the employers' plans, and this had to the tremendous victory against the 'New Deal' in the northern ports.

But the Devlin Report contained the same seven points of these 1962 plans.

Northern dockers, said Kerrigan, also tought the proposal, accepted by the leaders of the 'Blue Union' , that there 1s no more recruitment to the "Blue' in the north, in return for a place on the Docks Modernisation Committee.

Kerrigan said that despite such suggestions, and despite victimisation already occuring, 'we have 1,500 strong members in the north'.

Opposed to modernisation And, he added, 'we stand opposed to the Modernisation Committee an d collaboration with a force wishing • to impose bad agreements on the dockers'.

In calling for a unity of dockers from the north and south, from the 'Blue Union' and the 'White' Transport and General Workers' Union, he reminded those present of the fight for higher wages last year. when five busloads of northern dockers came to London, missing sleep and money, to lobby pay talks with London dockers.

Kerrigan said he had asked Jack Dash, leader of the London Liaison Committee to attend the spectacular successes, the war weariness of the American people could easily turn into disgust of the Administration, and Johnson could find himself in the political doghouse that Eden was in after Suez. humiliation, Johnson, while main- In order to avoid such taining the military pressure, has appealed to the Soviet bureaucracy to assist him in 'solving' the Vietnam problem.

The overtures have been made especially since the Sino-Soviet conflict began to reach a critical stage.

Continued on pase 4, col. 1 Peter Kerrigan talks to dockers at the Royal group of docks meeting, but he had refused. Dash had, in fact, put out a leaflet on the Royal Docks, when Kerriinn visited them on Friday mornthe liaison committee from the struggle for unity.

But, said Kerrigan, the northern docker saw the main enemy as the Devlin Report. 'We cannot defend ourselves on our own. We need a national campaign. We are talking about unity of the rank and file, an alternative leadership must come from us.' Legislation Bill Johnson, also from the north, said one of the most serious aspects of the Devlin recommendations was that, if the position on the docks-decasualisation, ending of strikes, higher productivity, mechanisation, closer relationship between unions and employers-was not resolved, Devlin would advise legislation.

Johnson had been one of seven dockers arrested in 1951 under the legislation of Order 1305 (which T&GWU acting secretary, Harry Nicholas said recently, should be reintroduced), for organising to demand a wage rise. Between 1945-1951 the trade union leaders had agreed to a wage freeze and compulsory arbitration under Order 1305.

If a struggle was not put up against the Devlin Report, dockers would have a 20th century system of unloading cargo and a 19th century standard of living.

Bert Aylward, the well-known dock militant, who was to speak at the meeting, sent a telegram apologising for his absence. Mr. A. H. Vincent, from London, was the chairman.

Saturday, November by The Editor his resignation. NOthe Sir for

LIVERPOOL

8 p.m., Sunday, November 21 Lecture Room, Walker Art Gallery, William Brown Street Speakers:

G. Healy, National Secretary, SLI Cliff Slaughter, Editor, 'Fourth International' Peter Kerrigan, Liverpool

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

7.30 p.m. Sunday, November 2 Bridge Hotel, Castle Square Speakers:

Cliff Slaughter, Editor, 'Fourth International' Jack Gale, Central Committee Member, SLL Chairman: J. Willamson, Yours Socialists National Committee

OVER 600 people took part in a spirited march and demonstration in protest against the unilateral declaration of independence by the racialist government of Southern Rhodesia last Sunday (see pictures left and below).

Among the slogans shouted by the marchers were 'One man one vote, 'One man—one gun', 'Africa for Africans', "Guns

ANTI-FASCIST MEETING CALLED IN SOUTHALL THE Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists have called a joint meeting in Southall, Middlesex, for next Friday (November 26) as part of the campaign to unite the working class in defence of its trade union and political organisations against the Labour government and the fascists.

In September, a Young Socialist dance was broken up by fascists and shortly after a Young Communist League van used in their campaigns, was broken up by the same people.

By strengthening the Immigration Act and preparing legislation against the trade unions, the Labour government has encouraged the racialists and fascists to the point where they openly attempt to smash the labour movement.

Next week's meeting is the first time any section of the labour movement in Southall has called for a united front of all workers' organisations in a campaign against the fascists. Despite the lack of response so far from the leaders of the local Labour and Communist Parties, many rank-and-file members, as well as individual trade union members, and trade union branches, have already given their support.

The meeting will be held in the Shackleton Hall, Shackleton Road, Southall, at 8 p.m. on Friday November 26. The main speaker will be G. Healy, national secretary of the Socialist Labour League.

goods to be brought in by rail.

As well as this, many of the cranes in use are old-fashioned hydraulic ones. In winter, the water which drives them freezes, putting them out of action until they are thawed out by lighting fires under the pipes.

These cranes were designed to service the small boats of an earlier age. Now that ships are taller and wider, the cranes cannot reach the centre of the holds, thus increasing the amount of manhandling that the dockers have to do on board ship.

Old fashioned

Most of the sheds have no skylights, which make them dark inside, both by day and by night.

The attitudes of the employers match this general picture of decrepitude and old-fashioned methods.

Although there is some containerised loading, some of this is manhandled, or handled on hand barrows!

I was even told of one employer who did not own a single fork-lift truck, preferring to have all cargo manhandled unless this was absolutely physically impossible. Only then would he hire fork-lifts by the hour.

Amenities for the dockers are equally primitive. There is not a single canteen in the Glasgow docks. There are only what are called 'rest rooms' where, on a weekday, a docker can get nothing more substantial than a cup of tea, a hot pie or a bridie. On a Sunday they cannot even get that.

As the regular overtime work here is four hours, and as many dockers have to travel quite a distance into work, this means that they leave home around seven in the morning, only to return at ten at night—with nothing available on the dock in all that time but a cup of tea and a pie!

Once, as a big gesture, the Clyde Trust installed boilers for tea making in the sheds. But it never got further than that, for ever since, the Trust, the employers and the National Dock Labour Board have been in dispute as to who should pay for the electricity to run them.

In the King George V dock, 400 dockers share one wash hand-basin.

New dock An extremely large sum of money would be needed to modernise these docks. Simply replacing the old equipment with new on the present site does not answer the problem about the size of ships that need to dock in the area. Consequently, an entirely new dock is projected at Shieldhall, a little way downstream, to replace one of the docks furthest up the river.

But the employers are reluctant to invest the large sums required, until they are satisfied that they have the solution to one major problem: the problem of the docker.

These harsh conditions are accompanied by the system of casual labour, the call system. This is widely hated by dockers here.

'It's humiliating' 'We'd do anything to get rid of it.' 'Last Sunday I saw 200 men literally fighting for 50 jobs, it made me feel sick: These are typical of the opinions of dockers on the Clyde.

This system has many abuses too. I was told that to get regular jobs, dockers had to learn to hold their drink-and to buy rounds, as, often, gangs are picked in the pubs the night before. The call the next morning then becomes a mere formality.

Determined

As the Devlin Report stresses, the government and the employers realise that it is these conditions that have made the docker so independent in his attitude towards the employers and so determined to stick by other dockers in a fight.

It is this militancy of the docker that threatens the profit margins on the investment now necessary in the docks.

Thus, the promises that the Devlin Report makes for better facilities, more toilets, canteens and so on, and, above all, in the RHODESIA i a discussion artiele Imperialism's role in Africa N° one should be deceived by Wilson's act in opposing Smith's unilateral declaration of independence. In fact, the Labour government is performing a task for British capitalism, and indeed, for world imperialism, which is vital for imperialism's survival and which the Tories, if they were able to do it at all, could only do with great difficulty.

The declaration of independence comes at a time when imperialism is having to resort to different tactics in its domination of the industrially backward countries of the world.

Growing poverty

The present crisis in imperialism is manifested in these countries by a rapid increase in poverty.

India this year is threatened with one of its biggest famines ever.

In Kenya, crop failures may bring famine, and the continuing drop in world prices for raw materials and agricultural produce has reduced its income from food exports from £55.2 million last year to £48.7 million this year.

These conditions have, naturally, stimulated very determined opposition to imperialism in the workers and peasants in these countries.

There have been widespread strikes in Kenya this year, despite the anti-strike laws, as well as in a number of Latin American countries.

Military action?

The Nigerian elections this year saw rioting, following barely one year after the general strike in that country.

The problem that faces imperialism is, therefore, whether to alleviate the conditions in these countries, or to take abolition of the call system, is nothing more than a necessary part of the employers' preparation for modernising.

This makes nonsense of the claim of the Scottish Transport and General Workers' Union that Devlin means that 'at long last comes the chance to make the Dock Industry a decent place to earn a living'. (Progress Report No. 2).

The line of this union is to play up the concessions that the employers are holding out as a bait, and dismiss the more sinister sections of the report with the assurance that the union leadership will make sure that no one gets done down.

Questions

Glasgow dockers should themselves a few questions:

Why are the employers, who for years have refused to spend any money on improved facilities for dockers, now offering military action to install, or to co-operate with, near - fascist governments in an attempt to smash any working-class activity.

It is clear that the imperialist leaders have chosen the second course.

In fact, this was far less of a choice than a recognition of a harsh truth for imperialism: the economies of the advanced imperialist countries are so weak.

that they cannot afford to grant the necessary concessions to the backward countries.

Prices• down

The relatively high standards of living in the USA and Western Europe depend to a large degree on keeping world primary commodity prices down.

As Peter Jeffries pointed out in The Newsletter (October 23, 1965), this was what was implied in the decisions, or rather the lack of decisions for any move to aid the backward countries, by the International Monetary Fund this year.

This was also expressed by Senator Fulbright when reviewing the U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic:

"The question arises,' he said, 'whether this shift in the Administration's attitude to the Dominican Republic is part of a broader shift in its attitude towards other Latin American countries; whether, to be specific, the U.S. now views the vigorous reform movement in Chile, Peru and Venezuela as threatening to the interests of the U.S' (quoted in The Guardian', October 25, 1965).

This last year, then, has seen moves towards far harsher rule in the backward countries.

Communists smashed The American intervention in the Dominican Republic is matched by the smashing of the Indonesian Communist Party and the replacement of Sukarno's nationalist-communist front government by a military dictatorship.

In Africa, similar have been taking place.

Kenyatta, once the anything and everything?

For years they have operated the hated call system and they have been chiefly responsible for maintaining the system of 'spelling' (the Glasgow version of the welt system, under which only half of a gang is actually working at a given time) as they get more production from half a gang than from a whole gang as many safety regulations are thrown to the winds.

Why are they so anxious to get rid of these now?

Faith in union?

And what faith can the docker put in the Scottish Transport and General Workers' Union that it will make sure that their interests are safeguarded?

Certainly nothing in the union's recent history leads one to believe this claim by its leadership. This union, which split from the Transport and Newsletter Correspondent the fake lefts, has just enacted the Trades Disputes Act 1965, which could serve as a model for Mr. Wilson.

Under this, a special industrial court has been established, as well as special boards of enquiry to investigate 'the cause of disputes'. Any worker or employer failing to abide by the courts' ruling is liable to three months' imprisonment and a fine of £25 (more than a month's wages for a well-paid worker in Kenya).

Anyone guilty of inciting strikes is liable to 12 months' prison and £250 fine.

The labour laws in Uganda are similar to those of Kenya, and in 'socialist Tanzania, strikes are outlawed altogether.

One could go on by citing the examples of Nigeria-where the 'model of Westminster democracy failed to meet imperialism's demands in an extraordinarily short timeGhana, and so on. But, the point is surely clear.

Nationalists weak

In Rhodesia, the nationalist movement is so weak that it cannot carry out these tasks for imperialism. In fact, only Smith's government, backed by the strong and well-armed 'British South Africa Police' , as the Rhodesian police force is called, and the even better armed army and air force, seems able to maintatin the kind of rule that imperialism demands.

But this posed a serious dilemma to the British ruling class. Their lackeys in Kenya, Ghana, India as well as the rulers of Algeria, Egypt and so on, use the vocabulary of 'socialism' to mask the task that they are carrying out for imperialism.

As the Smith government moved further to the right, these governments in Kenya and the rest, would come under severe pressure from their working classes to break with Britain, so long as she maintained direct rule of Rhodesia.

This, they feared, might give a further impetus to the already threatening rise of the revolutionary movements throughout General Workers' Union in the 1920s because the officials of that union did not represent the membership, now resembles it in almost all ways except size.

Discontent

There is much discontent among the dockers with the union leadership. One of the main complaints is that the meetings that the leadership have called on the Devlin Report have left them more confused about it than before.

Also, the memory of the role of the union in the foisting of the 'Blue book' on the Glasgow dockers is a bitter one.

Until a few years ago, dirt money was negotiated on the spot by the gang unloading a hatch. The dockers would be promised fl or 30s. for a particular cargo.

The employers then drew ip the 'Blue book' of rates which laid down standard rates for all Africa and Asia.

Thus, the ideal position for British imperialism was to be able to dissociate itself from the measures taken on behalf of imperialism in Rhodesia, whilst at the same time, finding some way of having to avoid acting against Smith. Or, in other words, they had to find some way of strengthening Smith, whilst at the same time avoiding weakening Kenyatta, Nkrumah and so on.

Unilateral declaration of independence has given British imperialism just that opportunity. With it, Britain is able to pose as a champion of African rights, and Smith 1s able to proceed to the even harsher police state needed to maintain imperialist rule.

That does not mean that the negotiations over the last few weeks have been entirely bogus.

On the contrary, it would certainly have been more advantageous to imperialism had the African 'nationalist' leaders, Nkomo and Sithole, been persuaded to co-operate. Wilson's trip to Rhodesia was to try to settle this point, not to talk to Smith.

But even though they will not co-operate, it is clear that they are no major threat to Smith either. They cannot provide the : workers and peasants of Rhodesia with even the limited leadership provided by Kaunda or Hastings Banda. In fact, Kaunda has even denounced them as 'stupid idiots' ('Guardian' , November 15, 1965).

The business of sanctions, of course, is part. of the move to strengthen Kenyatta and company.

Tobacco sold

Their effect on Rhodesia, at least in the short run, will be negligible. Unilateral declaration of independence came after this year's tobacco crop had been sold and this is what determined the date, thus giving the Rhodesian landowners a good few months' breathing space.

Even an oil embargo would have a minimal effect as Smith Africa has supplies, according to the 'Sunday Times', to keep Rhodesia going 'indefinitely.

Gestures like stopping Rhodesian postal orders being cashed in Zambia, are also part of the blind for the working class. Certainly, Zambia's trade with Rhodesia, and the freight charges for transporting Zambian copper through Rhodesia are not paid for by postal order! The only people to suffer from that particular 'sanction' are the families of Zambian workers in Rhodesia who send some of their wages back home.

These sanctions, like those against Italy in the 1930s, and like the arms embargo during the Spanish Civil War, are only intended to deceive the international working class. The imperialists hope that the affair will all die down within a few months, and business can go on as before.

Tricky task

This task carried out by Wilson has been of the utmost importance for imperialism, and has been extremely tricky. Strong rule is necessary, but the British ruling class can afford direct military rule itself as little as it can afford 'democracy' in these areas.

As Dave Ashby pointed out in his article two weeks ago (Newsletter, November 6), it costs the government more to maintain troops in Malaysia than they receive back in profits. Thus Wilson had to do three things: keep Smith in power, pacity the nationalists, and avoid a situation in which troops would have to be sent to the area.

Perhaps Wilson obtained a guarantee from Nkomo and Sithole not to create a situation in which troops would have to be sent. Or perhaps his trip convinced him that they would not be able to confront the Rhodesian forces anyway.

Condition for troops Whatever the case, Wilson has made it clear that the only occasion on which troops might be sent to Rhodesia would be if there was 'civil disturbance', or in other words, if the African workers and peasants tried to oppose Smith!

One of the most important factors in the Rhodesian crisis is that Wilson is doing what a Tory government would not be able to do. A large part of the Tory Party has interests tied to the old-style British Empire, and would not tolerate even the show of sanctions necessary for the successful carrying through of the operation.

Tory split

Hence the present split in the Tory Party, between those around Heath, who recognise that the survival of British capitalism depends upon ruthless modernisation, and those around Lord Salisbury, tied to the 'imperial glory' of British imperialism's past, which is no longer economically viable.

A Tory. government would most probably have split and fallen over the issue. In fact, when the problem arose last year, they shelved it, so that it could be dealt with by a Labour government (as we pointed out in The Newsletter at the time).

Wilson is able to do it without any great crisis in Britain. He is justly confident that he will not be threatened by the Labour 'left' around Michael Foot, and he can count, in need, on the votes of the Heath Tories.

Take on enemy Unilateral declaration of independence and the anti-union legislation are thus part of the same process.

'Modernising' British capitalism requires trampling on a few Tory toes, and Wilson is better able to do that than a Tory leader.

But above all, it requires the more ruthless exploitation of workers throughout the whole world, not only in Britain.

It is an attempt to make the British ruling class stronger to be able to take on its main enemy: the British working class. A 'successful' outcome to unilateral declaration of independence, would thus be a step by the capitalists towards harsher rule in Britain.

main problem confronting Glasgow port employers wanting to modernise is that the docks were built for ships that were far smaller than the most efficient ones of today.

The docks were built too far upstream to accommodate the biggest shipsfurther upstream even than the shipyards, many of which are threatened with closure for the same reason.

Equipment and labour methods employed in these docks dates from the same period. Naturally, they are laid out for most of the the different cargoes, in pence per ten tons.

The union persuaded the dockers to accept it on trial as a temporary measure. • The "temporary' measure is still in force, and the dockers have lost out in wages.

Dockers also readily lay blame on the union for the fact that conditions and wages here are behind those of other ports, notably London.

Leaders are accused of tagging on behind the leadership of the Transport and General Workers' Union (which they call the "big union'); and it is generally believed that the Glasgow leadership is quite prepared to accept lower and worse conditions.

Devlin fight

As one docker expressed it: When we heard that the London dockers had put in a claim for a f15 minimum, we were waiting for our union to put in a claim for f13:

But an increasing number of dockers are beginning to realise that the employers and union leaders are taking advantage of their hatred for present conditions in order to foist the Devlin Report on them.

Many of the older dockers, especially, are very worried about what prospects Devlin has for them.

But above all, the struggle that the dockers in the northern English ports are putting up against the report tells the dockers here that all is not as the employers and union officials would have them believe.

'If its as good as we are told, why • are the English dockers fighting against it?' is a question which spells the defeat of the plans to impose the Devlin Report in Glasgow.

editorial note AN item in last week's Newsletter took up the recent publication by 'Pravda' of an order of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet.

The order was signed by V. A. Antonov-Ovseyenko as secretary and N. I. Podvoisky 'on behalf of' the chairman. The Newsletter's contributor created the impression that the actual chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee was Leon Trotsky, and that this fact is disguised by the Pravda' presentation.

Trotsky was not the chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee any more than was Pedvoisky.

Furthermore, this is just not the point. The chairman of that committee was, in fact, a young soldier named Lazimir, a member of the left' Socialist Revolutionary Party.

However, the Military Revolutionary Committee was only a sub-committee of the Petrograd Soviet, of which Trotsky was chairman, It was Trotsky, assisted primarily by two other Bolsheviks, Antonov-Ovseyenko and Podvoisky, who directed 'all the practical work in connection with the organisation of the uprising' as Stalin himself phrased it in a Pravda' article in November 1918.

John Reed's book 'Ten Days That Shook the World, recommended by Lenin 'unreservedly to the workers of the world, makes this absolutely clear, as do all except the later Stalinist Soviet historians.

Mr. R. Palme Dutt of the British Communist Party knows this as well as we do, and knows that Stalin said it. one year after the event, but he also chooses to conceal the fact behind formal debates about the chairmanship of sub-committees.

Below we print a statement by ASO (the Workers' Trade Union Alliance) of Spain presented A TODOS LOS MAESTROS Y PROFESORES ciones sobre • libertad de enseñanza • Compañeros: FEDERACION OBRERA DE INDUSTRIAS QUIMICAS ciedad. -apiracions sinceres de tots els materia * OBRERA DE nuestro 1 que sod ACION OBRERA DE 'CHALLENGE, a tabloid newsheet published by a pro-Chinese wing of the American Stalinist movement, in its issue of November 2 returns to the old Stalinist method of misrepresenting and slandering the Trotskyist movement.

The particular 'left' gentlemen who produce this paper are led by a Stalinist named Milt Rosen, who believes, and staunchly maintains, that everything Stalin did was right.

The 20th Congress revelathe Committee would not agree to slogans on the demonstration calling for the victory of the Vietcong.

Instead the Committee issued 'Stop the War in Vietnam' slogans which simply amount to a negative pacifist 'do nothing' attitude towards the war. Milt Rosen and the Stalinists agree with such slogans.

The Spartacist group want the Vietcong to win and the U.S. troops in Vietnam to be withdrawn.

Rosen is against these proposals. He wants liberal opinion in the U.S. to be the judge and jury of what is going on in Vietnam. In other words, he hesitates about calling for the Vietcong to be the victors.

When the Spartacist group break from the Committee who to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions in July Page ThIee

tions of the Soviet Communist Party and the recent decision of Soviet historians to produce a history which acknowledges at least a certain amount of Trotsky's role in organising the Russian Revolution of 1917 means nothing to this man.

He just does not read the newspapers which authentically report such things from the Soviet Union. His motto is: 'I support Stalin right or wrong.' Rosen singles out the Spartacist group, which is a very active Trotskyist organisation in the United States.

This group recently resigned from the 'all inclusive' liberaldominated Committee in New York which called the recent Vietnam demonstration because RHODESIA BY A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT LL who asked Pontius Pilate to save Jesus from Herod or de Gaulle to save save Algerians from the OAS or Queen Victoria to save the Africans from Kruger deceived and betrayed the oppressed people.

So it is today with those liberals, Stalinists, Social-Democrats and African nationalists who now ask Wilson, to help save or defend the African people of Rhodesia from that Frankenstein proconsul of British imperialism, Ian Smith.

For the first thing to be said about colour-bar Rhodesia is that it is 100 per cent the creation of British imperialism: from the land-plundering massacre of the Mashona and Matabele by Rhodes 70 years ago to Smith's UDI last week. Crown colony or UDI are two horns of the same devil to the Africans. That is why the Dar-es-Salaam students shouted 'Hang Smith! Hang Wilson!' Pretending to 'civilise the natives' (itself a contemptuous, white racialist term in Africa), successive British governments having robbed the Africans of their land, placed more and more power in the hands of the British settlers and increasingly deprived the Africans of land, movement, job and political rights.

Every colour bar law now used by Smith against the Africans was made by the British Parliament.

1961 FRAUD Knowing the 1961 Constitution, also "made in Britain', to be a fraud, the Africans boycotted its elections. When Wilson saw Nkomo and Sithole in Salisbury to persuade them to work the 1961 Constitution or some modification of it, the African working class of Salisbury defied Smith's bloodhounds around Government House and shouted 'One man, one vote!' to prevent Nkomo and Sithole from selling them to Wilson.

PRO-WHITE ACTION Wilson's mission to Salisbury was to make a deal with Nkomo in order to make a deal with Smith. But when the African workers refused to act as models for Wilson's windoworganised the New York demonstration he is against them, because he supports, as Stalin would have done, the U.S. liberals.

The Spartacist group warns the United States working class of the dangers of the Chinese Stalinists betraying the revolution in South Vietnam. This is correct. We agree with the Spartacist group.

There is that danger, unless we recognise the problems of the South Vietnam revolution, pacifist slogans such as 'Stop the War in Vietnam' are useless and will lead to a betrayal of the revolution.

The difference between the Spartacist and Milt Rosen's 'Challenge' is that Spartacist advocates and calls for the victory of the Vietcong in South Vietnam.

For an African UDI dressing against UDI (similar to the farcical desegregation of Johnson and Kennedy-also a show window for Africa, his government revealed itself as pro-White and anti-African.

He said, like Verwoerd, that the Africans were not yet "ready' to rule.

But the settlers, whom Garfield Todd once called the 'white scum', are supposed to be 'civilised' and fit to rule.

'DAILY WORKER'

BETRAYAL Trotsky once wrote that for the Africans, South Africa was a slave colony.

Does one expect the executive committee of the slave-owners, at present the Labour government, to help the slaves against the executive committee of the slave-drivers, the Smith government?

Therefore, the demand by the 'Daily Worker' that Britain send in armed forces to Rhodesia is not only an arrogant bit of chauvinism (as if Britain has any right to be in Africa at all!), but an act of betrayal.

Wilson made it clear he will not use force against Smith. But if Smith or any other 'private person' pressed the Governor for British troops, Wilson said he would then consider doing so, to restore 'law and order.

Since there is not yet a threat to law and order, Wilson has accepted the "illegal' Smith regime as lawful'. Clearly the only threat to 'law and order' for Wilson is an African rebellion. He implied that he will consider sending forces in such a case.

The call to Wilson to suspend the Constitution (which he has done anyway) not only assumes that Britain has a right to be in Africa, but helps him with his window-dressing act to persuade the Nkrumah's and Nyerere's not to leave the imperialist kitchen -the Commonwealth.

But this is not all. Africa knows from cruel suffering what the presence of British troops means. The 'Daily Worker' demand means that the Zambians are expected to put up again with the hated sight (Continued on back page) in Spain.

N 1965, the Spanish workers are still deprived of all the trade union rights common to their brothers in free countries. They have no right to organise, no right to free speech, no right to strike or to elect their own representatives. Instead, they have a so-called 'trade anion' structure, which is state controlled and compulsory, directly serving the employers and effective in stifling every working-class demand.

More than a quarter of a century has passed since the loss of all the workers rights. Today, the dictator is an old man, his support is divided and the regime worn out. In recent years, the w forkers have increased their efforts against the dictatorship and it will not be long before they succeed in overthrowing it.

More faithful than ever to the international traditions of our working class, the Workers' Trade Union Alliance (ASO), the mouthpiece of the democratic workers of our peninsula, addresses itself to the free workers movements so that our position may be well known and that the fight of the Spanish workers be well understood in these difficult, but crucial times.

ALIANZA OBRERA FEDERACION DEL ¡ Trabajadores del Transporte !

Industria las jad son ante clandestine leaflets issued number of major agricultural problems to the regime, which is unable to carry out a real industrialisation of the countryside and the necessary agrarian reform. Of the three and a half million agricultural workers which existed in 1930, there remain today less than one million, of an average age of more than 50.

It is obvious that, in this enormous upheaval in the social structures, the most active workers, the immense majority of whom have not known the Civil War, will little by little find again the magnificent Hispanic trade union tradition; however, they refuse to crystallise their positions around the competing trade union machines of old, which have only existed in far off exile for a quarter of a century, and which appear to understand present-day reality only with difficulty.

EL METALUIRGIEO

Pm:e.к.3.е..31е..0444132184 ALTANZA SINDIÇAL OBRIRA Underground bulletin of Spanish metalworkers be effective, the trade union leadership inside the country. The ASO demands the effects of the CNS (the Franco unions), built by the efforts of the workers The experience of these last few years-and of the whole series of setbacks previously-shows clearly: the leadership of working-class struggles is always situated there where they are taking place. Only direct and daily contact with the problems of the workers enables one to judge the situation, initiate determined action, mobilise the masses for ganizaciones • G. 7 ederacion Fet. se apliquen sean empleadas eficiente- Los cones del tes las antiguas or- velará porque las inversiones que a ellos roviario -neficio de los servicios, eviraciones ades_comp.....

Tomby

TREBALLADORS DE CATALUNYA! er tercera vegada els minaires asturians plantegen la liuitA: avui, més de .000 obrers d'Astúries i del Lleo afirmen la seva voluntat de viure lliures i de gaudir de major benestar.

Els metallúrgies d'Astúries s'han sumat al seu combat. I al Pais Basc han començat ja les vagues de solidaritat de tota la metal-urgia.

TREBALLADORS DE CATALUNYA!

La classe obrera catalana, fidel a les seves tradicions combatives ha d'afirmar també la seva decissió!

A tot arreu; a les fabriques, als tallers, als despatxos, a Universitat: Accions de solidaritat amb els minaires d'Astúries, Manifestacions ES I HORA DE LA LUTTA propies reivindicacions!

SI, ES L'HORA DE LA LLUITA.

Per l'augment de salaris, per les libertats sindicals !

Afirmeu les vostres reivindicacions! Amb fermesa, sense violències pero amb decissió:

VAGUES DE SOLIDARITAT FINS A LA VICTORIA!

Barcelona, Maig del 1964. lança Sindical Obrera de Catalunya. deraclo Siderometal-lúrrica (FIOM) (Treballador! Cópia i distribueix aquest manifest).

The present situation:

ALÍANÇA SINDICAL OBRERA DE CATALUNYA ELS TREBALLADORS DE BARCELONA enci.

TRE S.O. de CATALUNYA. towards What is the present situation? Despite the agricultural difficulties of which we have spoken and the obvious inflationary tensions, the weight of which falls on the workers, the Spanish economy has been growing for the last few years. Since 1960, it has managed to break out of its isolation and has maintained a satisfactory situation in its balance of payments. Like Italy in the 1950s, it has tried to undertake its economic upsurge mainly with foreign tourism, with a large supply of labour and the import of foreign capital. Benefitting from American aid and from the proximity of prosperous Western Europe, Spain received last year 14 million tourists who left 800 million dollars, to which must be added 250 million more sent by Spanish workers working abroad. The Spanish industrial machine was able to respond to this increase in overall demand thanks to the abundance of currency which enabled it to buy foreign equipment. The rapid increase in industrial production, and the emigration of hundreds of thousands of Spanish workers, have led to a shortage of labour which creates a favourable situation for wage claims, which the workers have reinforced by strike action.

But there must be no mistake: this relative 'prosperity' that the country knows, the industrial upsurge, this upheaval of social structures, has only been possible through the sufferings of workers and peasants, through the efforts of the Spanish workers exposed to limitless exploitation, still working today 12 to 14 hours a day in order to reach a standard of living which is much lower than that of their European brothers, and having no means to defend themselves. Moreover, the few wage increases that they have gained here and there at the cost of hard struggles and after interminable delays, have been absorbed subsequently by the rising cost of living, which has been especially rapid during this last year. Today,

Heading of the ASO newspaper issued in Spain trade union action and of à new working-class reality Something has changed in the Spanish working-class movement since 1962. To start with, an agreement for a trade union alliance inside Spain between the old organisations of the General Workers' Union (UGT) and the National Confederation of Labour (CNT) opened the perspective of reunification before long. But, very rapidly, from the first contact with the workers, from the first meetings in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao, the Asturias, Saragossa and Seville, it was immediately obvious that the young workers coming into trade union activity, and who were often already carrying , out isolated and uncoordinated struggles inside the factories wanted one thing. What they wanted was clear: at all costs the present unity between the different democratic tendencies must be preserved and consolidated but turning activity towards one big democratic trade union organisation.

The ASO was born from this fundamental attitude. The old militants of the UGT and of the CNT, who have been joined from the beginning by a large number of young Christian militants, want to remain faithful to the old working-class traditions, but are refusing to re-establish their separate trade union machines of old (which would incur the setting up of some others) and will not accept the divisions of the past, which they consider played a large part in the defeat and in the present situation.

In fact, this wish for unity, which has always lived in the Spanish working-class traditions, is today established fact. On the one hand, the intense industrialisation that has taken place has overturned a number of the structures of the working-class movement. For example, we need only point out that there are now 4,000,000 industrial workers compared to 3,000,000 workers in service industries and in the last ten years, a million and a half peasants have left the land to work in the big industrial towns. The agricultural proletariat which, at the birth of the Second Republic was the biggest social class, is now well on the way to extinction and this is raising a the conquest of precise objectives. Trade union activity in Spain developed independently from purely political instructions, which were often very much 'out of phase' with the situation in Spain. This is why this trade union activity, carried out successfully over the last two years, has escaped one of the main factors of trade union division: the subordination of trade union activity to the instructions of certain political groups.

One main demand keeps all the workers united: trade union freedom, the right to have free and democratic trade unions, to defend the workers' demands. The ASO has concentrated most of its ideological activity on this demand, convinced that it is fundamental in order to oppose any totalitarian grip on the Spanish trade union world.

ALANZA FL FERROVIARiO PORTAVOS & LA PEDERACICY DE TRARSPORSSS Underground bulletin of Spanish railwaymen But trade union freedom does not mean, to the workers, trade union divisions or trade union weakness. On the contrary, it must mean a powerful and organised trade unionism. At the end of the Civil War, the regime imposed statecontrolled structures on the workers in order to force them under the complete control of the employers. For more than 25 years, the workers have paid the compulsory trade union dues, which are stopped from their wages and with which the 'state trade unions' have accumulated immense riches: buildings, hospitals, schools, newspapers, training schools, co-operatives, etc. This wealth belongs to the workers and it would be scandalous as well as catastrophic if at the end of the dictatorship, under the cover of so-called liberal' principles adopted by the same forces which promoted or sustained Franco fascism, we were to give this wealth away to political parties or divide them among the various services of the administration.

The workers demand as of now the democratic management of all this wealth that they paid for by the sweat of their brow. The ASO, whilst remaining faithful to the old trade union traditions from which it is descended, is organised on the basis of single industrial federations, open to all democratic tendencies. It has declared its complete independence of all political parties and demands democratic control by the workers of their trade union heritage.. the insertion into all collective contracts of a minimum wage of 175 pesetas a day, and a sliding scale of wages, is the main economic demand that the workers are fighting for. The ASO • has supported the setting up of workers' commissions, in every industrial sector, to defend these demands which are accompanied by the insistence on the right to strike and of trade union freedom.

LET TMIPIRIEISIORLC

Pertise de 'a Ederasion de Metes Crashran y del lapel ALÍANZA SINDIAC ERERA' 1965:

Underground bulletin of Spanish printers In the last six months, during a large number of strikes and demonstrations organised by these commissions, a number of ASO militants have been jailed in Barcelona, Madrid, Bilbao, Saragossa and the Asturias. Some of them are still in prison today. The dictatorship, even though it has been forced to give some ground (like proclaiming that "industrial' strikes are no longer a crime, although it does not dare say that they are a right), does not hesitate to use violence in confronting the advances of the forces of freedom. More and more, however, the vast majority of Spaniards know that one single, powerful, democratic, responsible and united trade union movement can stop the penetration of totalitarianism and guarantee the re-establishment of democratic freedom, social progress and peace.

The ASO which already established excellent relations with most of the Free Trade Union Confederations, and whose Industrial Federations contirm their links with the professional Secretariats, wishes today to establish cordial and solid relations with the international free trade union movement which the Spanish workers will one day be able to join freely again, remaining faithful to their internationalist traditions and to their desire for trade union unity as an effective means of social emancipation.

In the present phase, when the Spanish workers find themselves without any means of defence and liberation, the ASO requests the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions to help it in every way to recover the trade union rights that the comrades who live in free countries enjoy, and to enlarge and consolidate the unity of the Spanish working class around the democratic principles that the ASO puts forward. • Readers wanting to know more about the class struggle in Spain should contact the representative of ASO (the Workers' Trade Union Alliance) in Britain, Mr. A. Roa, 210 Bravington Road, London,

Fou be

Workers must demand nationalisation under their control AS the executive of the National Union of Railwaymen plays the waiting game on the question of linertrains'. , the Railways Board proceeds with its plans for introducing a streamlined freight system.

Whilst the rank and file of the union have made it perfectly clear that unless there are assurances that the terminals will not be open to private contractors and there will be no redundancy, they will not tolerate the introduction of 'liner-trains' , the executive stalls and thus allows the employers time to actually get the system going.

The present 'trial runs' are being backed by the executive on. the basis that all goods would be moved to and from the terminals by Britsh Rail lorries, without, however, having established any position on the private contractors in the future.

The policy of allowing private contractors to use the rail terminals has, of course, been given full support by the Labour government. There can be no doubt that considerable pressure will be exerted on the NUR leadership to make a decision in favour of open terminals. : At the last discussion on 'liner-trains' held by the executive the vote for open terminals ARM THI other words, was a device to buy time.

As is pointed out elsewhere in The Newsletter, the conflict in the Tory Party is a long-standing one between the big financial-industrial interests who want to expand the Commonwealth market for capital exports, and the 'traditionalist' wing who ' base themselves on the large landed interests in Central Africa and on • Vietnam Reporter was opposed by 13 votes to 1l.

The issues involved for the rank and file are numerous.

Firstly, there is the very fundamental question of defence of jobs in the face of attacks by the ruling class.

Secondly, the railmen have a right to fight for workers' control of the industry with workers' committees deciding on re-training and work-sharing under modernisation.

Thirdly, there is the defence of the nationalized industry, a policy which the Labour government has now blatantly ditched after the dropping of steel nationalization.

Last week the Scottish ralmen made their position clear when they declared that they would 'black' all 'liner-trains' until the Railways Board gave assurances. Their action must receive the fullest support from all sections of the rank and file.

AFRICANS those, like the paramount chiefs, who are opposed to the growth of native bourgeois forces in these countries and who wish to perpetuate the system of cheap, semi-serf migratory labour.

Predictably, the 'traditionalists' lost out and Salisbury retired to the Lords to lick his wounds.

It is instructive to recall at this stage that Wilson, to prove his subservience to the Tories, went so far as to allow Selwyn Lloyd to examine the complete transcript of his talks with Smith, even before many of his own stage series the state-owned steel company of Richard Thomas and Baldwin announced at the beginning of this week that 300 workers at its Ebow Vale plant in Monmouthshire are to be sacked. Short-time working will be introduced immediately after Christmas.

It is not only the workers at Ebbw Vaie who affected by the cut in working, but also men workin automated Spencer Works, Llanwern, Newport.

This move by the management is intended to rationalise steel production'. From November company intends to close down two of its six fi in the open-hearth steel-making department and on the basis of three-furnace manning.

According to the company's statement to the national press, the works will continue to be developed as a specialist plant for producing coated products and electrical and other steels.

Schemes for modern equipment either completed, or yet to be started, represented an investment of over £5,000,000.

Competition

But what really faces Richard Thomas and Baldwin is the fact that a high percentage of its products go abroad—more than any other steel company in Britain-and because of the fierce competition being met in the field of sheet metal production the company has been seriously affected by a sharp fall in demand.

What both the Richard Thomas and Baldwin company and many other steel firms are beginning to feel is both the increased competition from abroad and the beginnings of a recession.

On the same day that it was announced that the steel men would be sacked, George Brown, Minister for Economic Affairs, urged greater investment in labour-saving methods.

His words were: We are not doing anyone the slightest service machine than necessary, round a and he stressed the need for competitiveness.

The link-up between what George Brown has to say and the sackings at Richard Thomas and Baldwin's steel company is clear. In order to compete with the steel monopolists abroad, the working class has to be attacked in the form of sackings.

Clearly posed for workers in the steel industry is the issue of nationalization under workers' control-an issue that the Labour government now wants to forget about completely.

Only through such a struggle can the working class defend their jobs. Correspondent further 28 the urnaces operate

IN their fight for a £l5 a week basic wage and a 40'hour week the 36,000-strong , Bakers' Union has declared that it will stage a series of strikes without warning in the near future.

So that the management cannot try to break the strikes the actual places where the stoppages are to take place will be kept secret.

George Brown a month ago at the Labour Party Conference offered to discuss the question of a rise in pay for the bakery men but the union has shown its opposition to such a suggestion and has declared it will not go into arbitration.

•It has also refused to ask Brown to allow the Prices and Incomes Board to consider the claim.

Like other sections of workers the bakery men are fighting for a basic wage to meet the rising cost of living.

They know full well that George Brown's Incomes Board ¡ is a farce, that the only way that they can win their full demand is by taking class action.

vocative circumstances, the use of military force by British imperialism or the UN in Rhodesia. Such … a • weapon will prove a double-edged sword whose sharper side will be directed against the African workers in the interests of big business.

The 'Daily Worker' , by calling for the use of force in Rhodesia, is helping to create another Congo. Are we to believe that the British army which is committing daily atrocities against the people of Borneo are going to defend African workers?

To the counter-revolutionary policy of Wilson and the Stalinists the working class must counterpose a revolutionary strategy which will expropriate imperialism at home and arm the African workers and peasants.

We demand once again that Labour : • Suspend the 1961 Constitution and sack the Governor.

Arm the Africans.

Seize Rhodesia's sterling balances and impose a complete strangulation of Rhodesian and S. African economy. Nationalize the mining and tobacco monopolies. For an African UDI of British paratroops in Lusaka and the copperbelt, troops which Kaunda could use to intimidate or even crush their local struggles (as Kenyatta and Nyerere did in January 1964 after the army mutinies).

The 'Daily Worker's demand means that the Africans of Bulawayo and Salisbury must have Wilson's armed killers on their necks, battening on their cheap labour and taxes, as all British Army Forces Overseas inevitably do.

The Daily Worker's demand means British intervention as in the Congo. It is the African toilers, however, not the 'Daily Worker' chauvinists, who will suffer from this, just as Lumumba and his supporters suffered with their lives from the United Nations intervention 'against' Tshombe. Already the Bulawayo workers have begun political strikes against UDI.

The great danger is that Wilson may very well carry out the Daily Worker's demand.

DEPENDENT

The week before last, the 'Daily Telegraph' leader admitted that British businesses were heavily dependent on Zambian copper (a sound economic reason for Wilson's UDI antics). British imperialism is a millstone round the neck of the 'independent' semi-colonies. The super-profits made by their cheap labour is, in turn, the only life-buoy round Britain's neck deep in the sea of her international financial troubles.

The mill-stone and the lifebuoy are the symbols of all that is fundamental to the nature of imperialism. Instead of helping to lift the burden of imperialism from the neck of the Africans, the Daily Worker' wants the burden which the Africans are already bearing to be lashed to their backs by imperialist troops.

SANCTIONS, The same chauvinism underlies the demand that Britain should impose proper sanctions against Rhodesia. But the point is that the only effective economic and other sanctions against Smith must be imposed not by but against Britain, because British finance, etc., controls Rhodesia.

Since South Africa is the obvious trade and financial back door for Rhodesia to escape sanctions, these have to apply to South Africa as well. And since British capital controls the South African economy, effective sanctions have to be against Britain, both on the Rhodesian and South African issues. Otherwise, sanctions are a fraud.

Real sanctions can only be imposed by the class struggle. In the case of Rhodesia, for the British workers this involves a real struggle against apartheid and Smith by means of industrial action, on a political level, against:

all British firms (including banks) with South African and Rhodesian subsidiaries; all firms in Britain export-

Legislationmost important issue PETER JEFFRIES, Central Committee member of the Socialist ... Labour League, opening a public meeting organised jointly by the League and the Young Socialists in Nottingham last Sunday, said that the present crisis in Britain was just one part of the crisis of imperialism. The position in Rhodesia was one aspect of the weakness of the Labour government.

At the same time the role of the Labour government, Jeffries said, had been to confuse and spiit workers in Africa and Britain.

Wilson's support for South Africa, which he showed when he supplied Verwoerd with Buccaneer aircraft soon after coming to power, meant that the use of British troops in Rhodesia must be opposed, since these troops would be used against African workers and peasants.

Legislation against the trade unions is the most important political issue in Britain today said SLL Central Committee member CT T a named la na Jack Gale.

Although such law had been mentioned in the Queen's Speech to parliament, Wilson had not explained what it meant for the working class.

EXAMPLE

Would strikers in the future be fined or imprisoned? he asked. Was it likely that workers could hope to get anywhere through unofficial action, considering that in the mines, for example, there had not been one official strike since nationalization?

'What is to be the position of workers if the experience of ing anything (e.g., oil, arms)

to South Africa or Rhc ›desia;

refusing to load ships carrying exports to South Africa or Rhodesia; and refusing to offload ships bringing anything from South Africa, especially gold and uranium.

South Africa is Britain's second largest trading partner, so this can really hurt British imperialism.

The industrial workers, dockers and also commercial and bank employees of Britain have a major role to play in the struggle against Verwoerd and Smith, by using their class struggle as a direct anti-imperialist and anti-apartheid weapon.

ADVICE

After carefully considering the role of the party in both the imperialist country and the colonies, Lenin gave this very topical advice: that those in the colony should guard against nationalism (e.g., anti-Whiteism, encouraged both by Wilson's anti-African speeches in Salisbury and the Blackpool vote on Immigration and by African nationalism); while those in the imperialist states should guard against chauvinism (e.g., paternalism, by thinking their workers can or should lead the colonial workers; patriotic lack of solidarity with the anti-imperialist struggle, etc.).

This means for the British working class in relation to Rhodesia: THis Saturday, South wales miners are to South wales miners are to march through Cardiff in a protest demonstration the government's pit closure policy, which is speeded up over the next two years. The South Wales coalfield will be one of the hardest MEETING-NOTTINGHAM Bevercotes Colliery is repeated. There, production targets have been reached with 1,000 fewer men than was thought necessary.' How would legislation affect the London docker who drew only £12 8s. for a 50-hour week on piecework?

SPEED-UP

Gale stated that the employers wanted to speed up and discipline the working class, who had had to fight tooth and nail for any decent wages and conditions.

In fact, trade unionists had formed the Labour Party to further this fight.. Now, Wilson was attempting to put the clock back 50 years.

It was extremely important to welcome and support the lobby of parliament called by the Lambeth Trades Council, particularly since people like AEU president, Sir William Carron, were making statements saying that legislation was all right if it included provisions for closed shops.

Discussion followed the speakers in which young people present asked a number of important questions which hinged on the necessity to fight for the January 26 lobby of parliament.

1. The measures 'sanctions. 2. Full support for every action against British property in the independent states, including its uncompensated expropriation. 3. Full support for diplomatic sanctions against Britain over the Wilson government's policy on South Africa and Rhodesia. 4. Full support for anti-British imperialist demonstrations by the colonial workers, peasants and students. 5. Meeting requests for arms and supplies for an African rebellion in Rhodesia. 6. Showing solidarity by fighting the colour bar Immigration Act. 7. Fighting for the abolition of the Colonial Office, the Ministry of Overseas Development and the Commonwealth. 8. Introducing an anti-imperialist content into its nationalization programme by demanding that the overseas interests of all industries nationalized in Britain be handed over without compensation to the governments of the independent states (e.g., Zambia) which have a historic right to this loot.

These form the content of internationalist anti-imperialism in Britain itself.

Our stand is: 'A plague on the houses of both Wilson and Smith!' For the immediate and total ousting of British imperialism from Africa! For a UDI by the African people of Rhodesia! Correspondent march against to be hit, as returns are higher in such areas as the East Midlands and Yorkshire.

Before the recently announced reduction in the annual coal production target, the South Wales area of the National Coal Board announced that some 25 pits, or over a quarter of this coalfield, were on the list of probable closures in the next 18 months.

It is reported now that 33 are threatened with closure.

Robens has declared Rhondda valley 'doomed in long run'.

It is estimated that over 20,000 of South Wales' 50,000 miners will be affected by this policy.

Towns in the Neath valley are likely to have 33 per cent jobless.

Under these conditions, the construction of a socialist leadership of the working class is urgent. But there is no sign of this coming from the Stalinist-led South Wales area executive of the National Union of Mineworkers No fight Since nationalizatio in, nearly 150 pits have closed •down in South Wales, and the : executive have not fought on one single case.

Last autumn and winter a strong rank-and-file movement against pit closures developed, and called for a strike against the closure of the Rhigos and Glyncastle pits. The energies of the executive were concentrated on destroying this movement.

The strike was attacked, talks and 'lobbies' held, and meetings organised on the eve of the strike to split and confuse the strikers. As a result, only two pits came out for two days.

For this defeat, the Stalinists of the Communist Party must take the main responsibility. It was the Stalinists who defeated the strike and within a few weeks co-operated with the NCB to close the pits.

Now they are attempting to confuse their members and maintain their positions in the NUM by this display of fake militancy.

But miners must examine carefully the policies of the Stalinists on this demonstration. A leaflet published by the NUM area executive complains that pit closures have neither 'stemmed the drift of men away from the pits' nor 'solved the problems of heavy absenteeism or low productivity'!

Lend support

Whose interests do these Stalinists serve? The miners, or the NCB and the capitalists?

These remarks lend support to all Lord Robens' attacks on the pit workers, and weaken the miners' struggle Their answers to closures are 'a substantial slowing down of pit closures' and a vigorous programme... providing alternative industry.

In other words, the old chestnut 'direction of industry', a policy which is perfectly agreeable to the employers, who want to take advantage of unemployment, is pulled out of the Stalinist fire.

The NUM leadership attempt to offer the miners a capitalist solution: but the only capitalist policies for the crisis will be to increase exploitation of the workers. The miners are amongst the first hit by these attacks.

Miners must reject the class collaboration policies of Stalinism and put 'forward genuine socialist alternatives—no pit closures except under workers' control, extend nationalization to the coal distribution, mining machinery and allied industries, and suspend interest and compensation payments.

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