The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 422

Defence Secretary, Robert 'we have stopped losing the war statement made this week after a two-day visit to Vietnam must be seriously doubted in the ranks of U.S. and South Vietnamese troops following recent events.

In the battle areas near the Cambodian border and around Saigon, the imperialist forces have suffered two crushing blows in the last two weeks-when the 'flying horsemen' of the First Air Cavalry Division were routed, and when the Vietcong obliterated nearly 800 South Vietnamese soldiers and their U.S. advisers on the Michelin rubber plantation north of Saigon.

There has been much speculation about the numbers of U.S. casualties, as the State Department refuses to give figures for each battle, but the overall figure announced by the government after the 'flying horsemen' defeat was over 1,000 dead.

Previous to this President Johnson said the total of U.S. troops would be increased in the New Year to close on the 270,000 sent to Korea!

This was confirmed by MacNamara. 'We shall send whatever forces are required, he told a press conference.

As these numbers increase, so do the number of demonstrations throughout the world demanding an end to the war.

More and more the cry 'Victory the Vietcong' is taken up. January 26 lobby of Parliament, called by the Lambeth, London, Trades Council, to oppose legislation against trade unions.

The AEU Parsons Cross, No. 2 and No. 35 branches in Yorkshire have also voted to suppor the lobby. Both Parsons Cross and George Manns shop stewards have decided to send delegates.

Gollan reported that the party membership had declined by 1 per cent last year to 33,734.

Members were represented at the Congress by one delegate for 60. This means, on their own figures, that only 28,260 were represented, leaving 5,474 either non-existent or not represented.

It is pretty clear that the book membership of the Party stands about more or less where it was at the Twentieth Congress crisis. FOR CRAWFORD as they marched through the city demanding trade union support to Rhodesian workers, arms to the African majority, and working-class action to impose sanctions on lan Smith's regime.

Earlier in the week, a meeting called by Leeds University Labour, Marxist and Communist Societies had agreed to a resolution proposed by the Marxist Society, and amended by the Communist Society, which laid By Newsletter Trotskyists wanted to see British troops used to shoot down African workers and perhaps the United Nations was an answer.

The Communists, he said, called for the British government to send troops in, and we would then have to insist that they were used for progressive purposes.

NO TROOPS and this would be done by carrying the campaign into the labour movement, thereby weakening British imperialism.

After the march, a Rhodesian student expressed his gratitude support for the African majority, that the marches should and spoke of the disillusionment which they felt towards the Labour government since it had allowed UDI.

It is clear that the campaign in Leeds must not halt at the march of 65 people. Ways must Southall or anywhere else. And, it the fascists lay so much as a hand on any immigrant worker, we shall run a sustained campaign in all the factories?

Healy thanked the IWA for their tremendous solidarity in lending the hall for the meeting.

Vice-President of the Association, Mr. A. S. Rai, congratulated

N tough pseudo-Churchillian -tones, Harold Wilson announced on Wednesday that troops and an R.A.F. squadron were being sent to Zambia.

Earlier President Kaunda requested military support after the sabotage of the electrical supply from the Kariba Dam power station over the border in Rhodesia.

Wilson assured the Commons •.. we will not stand idly by if Rhodesia cuts off the power to the copper belt'. This upset the Tories.. , have welcomed the idea of bune', sending troops. But Wilson's latest statement is too 'provocative' Yet once again Wilson has shown he is the perfect servant of imperialism.

Military intervention by Britain or any other imperialist powers will be used to maintatin imperialist 'law and order'. Such a force will protect not the African people, but the foreign investments.

Wilson, like Kaunda, is worried that the African workers will themselves intervene in the Rhodesian situation. This would also_weaken the imperialist hold on Kaunda's shaky rule, and the country's raw materials.

The paternalism of Wilson's 'tough' speech is designed to head off such a possibility without upsetting the precarious equilibrium in Central Africa.

The danger of UN intervention still remains. Whatever the composition of such a force, its presence would mean that U.S. imperialism would attempt to oust its British 'ally' from the area-the copper: mines alone would be a valuable and welcome asset.

The international labour movement must aid in every way the development of revolutionary struggles in Central Africa.

The arming of the African workers--not the sending of imperialist armies-and nationalization of the copper mines is the way to smash Smith. the basis for joint activity supporting the workers and peasants in Rhodesia and South Africa.

The resolution expressed solidarity with the liberation struggle of the workers and peasants of Rhodesia and called for: • The repeal of the 1961 Constitution. One man, one vote. Full economic sanctions by the British government and support for all trade union activity to enforce such sanctions. A campaign for the British labour movement to give material and political support for the national resistance in Rhodesia and South Africa. Support for the Organisation of African Unity in any steps taken to implement majority rule.

MEETING

Before the march a meeting was held on the Town Hall steps.

The first speaker was Dave Cooke, of the Young Communist League, who outlined the conditions under which workers existed in Rhodesia and South Africa, and said he was sure everyone was united in opposition Smith's government.

However, the question of intervention was a difficult one; neither Young Socialists, Communists nor D. Winter, a Young Socialist opposed the sending of United Nations or British troops. There must be complete clarity as to what had happened in Rhodesia and its significance for the world labour movement. Wilson's role in not preventing unilateral declaration of independence must also be understood.

The British labour movement must understand that the struggle of the Rhodesian workers was the same struggle that it was be found to give support to the Rhodesian • and South African workers through the trade unions and the labour movement.

Workers in factories which have direct financial interests in Rhodesia must express their solidarity with Rhodesian workers through effective action.

International working - class solidarity is the most decisive weapon with which to fight imperialist domination.

carrying out against the bosses in this country.

Robin Jameson, speaking on behalf of the University Labour Society, echoed the criticism of any intervention by British troops, and insisted that the issue in Rhodesia would have to be resolved by the African workers and peasants.

Cliff Slaughter, representing the Socialist Labour League, said that the same finance capital was invested in Rhodesia as was financing British industry.

'When we march, we are expressing the fact that we have taken sides: we are on the side of the African majority against the Smith regime, which is part of the same international struggle against world imperialism,' said Slaughter.

'We must make it clear that this is the struggle and not be detracted into the false • issue of

SUCCESS

HUNDREDS of shoppers began Christmas gift buying last Saturday at the Young Socialists Bazaar held at the Co-operative Society Hall, Peckham, London.

The highly successful bazaar offered a variety of food and clothing and entertainments on many side shows, including Father Christmas in his Grotto and Madame Lucinda, the fortune teller. In the evening a dance was held with the Marshall Scott Etc group.

Northern Young Socialists are holding a bazaar on Saturday, December 11, at The Corn Exchange, Duncan St., Leeds.. Mr. A. S. Rai, vice-president IWA the SLL and YS on the meeting, which was important, not just because they were fighting fascism, but because the time was coming when the whole fate of the world would be decided.

The meeting, he said, would encourage immigrant workers because they would see people they could rely on.

He told how immigrant workers going into factories were atraid, at hirst, to join unions because they might be victimised. But in Southall immigrant workers had fought two successful strikes for union recognition. done a grave injustice to these The Labour had workers by publishing the White Paper on Immigration control. It was a racialist measure.

oBE Decembe

Comrades, IT IS two years and six months since your last Party Congress. This is a long interval for a party claiming to be Marxist, and which supposedly bases itself on analysis of the day-to-day events in the trade unions and labour movement. All the more so, since the party has declined in influence and in membership.

Every delegate knows that the position of the party has gone from bad to worse inside the Electrical Trades Union.

For a considerable period since your last Congress Party members have not functioned as a unit of the Party inside that union.

Mr. Sanderson, who was appointed to lead your faction after the Haxell debacle, and who occupied a position on the Executive Committee, has resigned from the Party.

The right-wing leadership of the Cannon-Chapple (ex-CP members) clique has split and isolated militants inside the ETU so much that there is nothing left but one series of witch-hunts after another.

Is that the future which the Communist Party has to offer trade unionists if its members ever become leaders of the same standing as Haxell (also a member of your executive council in his day)?

You have lost the secretaryship of the Scottish mineworkers, a post which you held for a considerable period.

the National union of Minet workers, a Party member, might as well not be secretary at all for all the use he is to the Party, and Party members.

He is to all intents and purposes a captive of a predominately right-wing execuLive hat sort of trade union tive.

What sort of trade union policy is it that places your leading members in such a position?

On the National Committee of the Amalgamated MERICAN capitalism is enjoying its longest period of continual expansion since the end of the agree with the Chinese Com-

Second World War. The big corporations and banks report bumper profits.

Some are comparing the present boom to the European 'economic miracles' of the fifties and forebodings of eventual recession have given place to fears of inflation.

The boom has been accompanied by sharpening tensions in U.S. society, expressed in the assassination of Kennedy, the growth of extreme right-wing and racialist movements, the rebelliousness of sections of the youth, the agitation against the Vietnam war and insurrections in Negro working-class districts of major U.S. cities.

Contradictions

These are symptoms of the contradictions which lie at • the heart of capitalist society: they express its inner processes of decay and degeneration behind the facade of wealth and power.

The present upward phase of capitalist development in the USA signifies the ability of capital to go on extracting and realising surplus value on an expanding scale from the American working class and those parts of the working class in other countries exploited by U.S. capital.

The great of capital siderable advantages over their foreign rivals of the scale of their operation and their ability to deploy vast resources in the costly research and development projects and large-scale investment made necessary by modern technology.

The maintenance of this system depends upon the possession of immense and destructive military striking power and the willingness to make use of it wherever bourgeois governments are threatened by revolution.

There is thus an inseparable connection between the aggressive foreign policy of U.S. imperialism and the needs of U.S. capital.

The idea of a peaceful capitalism controlled by 'peace-loving' sections of the ruling class is entirely utopian.

It is equally unrealistic to suppose that outlays on armaments are made to sustain the economy; though they have that effect, that is not their intention.

There is no reason to believe that men like Goldberg are insincere when they say that armaments are a burden they would like to get rid of; the fact is that the survival of U.S. capitalism depends upon the possession of overwhelming military power.

State support

It is a fact, however, that a large part of the National Product flows through the hands of the Federal government and that capitalism cannot get along without the support of the state.

Federal spending was high during the periods of stagnation and recession in the fifties.

During the past four and a half years of boom it has been a diminishing proportion of the National Product.

In the past the policy of the Johnson government, which has the full confidence of most sections of U.S. business to a greater extent than that of Kennedy, has been to operate as far as possible through fiscal and interest policies.

Hence tax reliefs, low interest rates and measures to sustain private incomes have characterised the boom, not big new government outlays.

Budget overspill

1965, however, has seen a spending of over 100 billion dollars—the first time this bas been done by the Federal government.

But this budget has also overspilled by seven billion dollars and, Alistair Cooke reported in last Monday's 'Guardian': 'About half of the estimated deficit for this year is blamed on Vietnam.' Johnson's budget 'lapse' is seen as a puny deficit compared with Eisenhower's 1959 deficit of 12.4 billion dollars and even with the: 6.4 billion and 8.2 billion of the: last two Kennedy years consider-. ing the amount of legislation: that has passed through Congress in the last year.

Despite talk about war on: poverty and the like, the policies. of the Johnson Administration: have brought no comfort to the many millions of Americans who lack jobs and live below the: poverty line.

They have been designed to benefit the rich, and especially the very rich; income inequality, already wide, has grown still more manifest during the boom.

The richest fifth of the U.S. population grab 46.6 per cent of personal incomes.

While the rich are getting richer, working-class incomes only grow in real terms because of two factors.

Firstly, continuous employment, overtime, the contribution of women to the family income and 'moonlighting' (i.e., doing two jobs); in other words any increase in real incomes has. had to be worked for and worked for hard.

Its background is insecurity and it is accompanied, even in the boom, by at least 4.5 per cent unemployment-the official figures are generally taken to be an underestimation.

Secondly, the working and middle-class families are getting more and more deeply into debt to the finance houses, mortgage companies and banks.

Debts rising

While in the past five years personal savings (which include those of the rich who normally save a high proportion of income have fallen from 7 per cent to 5 per cent of income, consumer debt has grown by 50 per cent '(and the rich don't use hire purchase).

In short, the relatively high living standards of the American working class rest upon the continued availability of jobs and credit.

Those who are in unions, by minority, are disciplined labour bureaucrats who work closely, indeed more closely than ever before, with the bosses and the Administration.

Most do not not even have the protection of a union card and their future depends on the job market. As for household debt, it is easy to see what that means in a boom-bust economy.

Lack savings

As the conservative 'National ›server' wrote recently:

'Should a recession develop and incomes decline, many Americans may lack sufficient savings to maintain their standard of living while fending off the financial company on loans made this year or last.' From past experience, in a recession past debts are paid off more rapidly than a new debt is contracted - which means, of course, that the market for consumer durables contracts.

It also means a considerable cutback in family spending on food, clothing and other nondurables.

While the boom is on, these are only clouds on the horizon, but the fact that the business press is talking about them is significant.

Nor is it only the fact that everyone knows that booms do not last for ever. This boom, the greatest, perhaps, in U.S. history, depends particularly on a lavish outflow of credit at every level down to the continuous assault on the consumer to later.

Business has to sell, and more resources are thrown into sales campaigns and advertising. It must sell more, not simply stabilise sales, if the debts contracted during the boom are to be paid off and the expected profit rates maintained.

Meanwhile, more investment outlays are being made and planned, involving, to a considerable extent, more borrowing. The thread is being stretched tight.

The growing mountain of debt, public and private, has only been made possible by the easy credit policy pursued by the banking system in line with the guidance of the Federal government.

Industrial expansion and prosperity are closely geared to what amounts to an outpouring of new dollars. This new credit has been the basis of the boom, enabling the process of capitalist reproduction to move forward on an ascending plane.

For example, the key motor industry is very closely geared to the credit situation; money owing on cars amounts to about the value of a whole year's output.

Bumper motor sales No wonder, therefore, that Detroit is highly satisfied at the bumper sales of the 1966 models in recent weeks.

Not only does the pyramiding of debt create problems for the future but it is already having its effects. The more nervous business commentators continually call attention to the dangers of inflation.

Costs are rising and they are rapidly being passed on to the consumer, as is the case in every boom.

But harm is also being done to the dollar, at least potentially.

Despite the efforts of the Administration, the balance of payments is likely to remain in deficit this year.

A continuous struggle has to be waged to maintain the international position of the dollar, upon which the world monetary system depends. But the dollar is depreciating in real terms and the continuance of boom conditions aggravates this tendency.

Tension unrelieved

Hence a main point of tension which the world role of U.S. imperialism makes it impossible to relieve.

Even before the boom reaches its peak it could become necessary for the Administration to take restrictive measures at home to safeguard the international position of the dollar just as British governments have had to curtail expansions based on easy credit in order to save the pound.

Such a step could have far-reaching effects in the U.S. because of the weight of debt and the dependence of the economy on its continued increase. The market would contract sharply and excess capacity and unemployment would signal the onset of recession.

RHODESIA: A DISCUSSION ARTICLE Three

Engineering Union which met last April, your member delegates on that body joined hands with the right wing in congratulating the Gollan: tied to Stalinism, now cuddling up to the Labour 'lefts'.

right-wing Wilson government-the same government which is now preparing legislation against the trade unions.

Your leaders cuddle up closer to the Labour 'lefts' precisely at a time when these gentlemen are providing more and more a left cover for Wilson, Callaghan and Brown. This is particularly so around the burning issue of the war in Vietnam.

Your Party does not call for the military victory of the National Liberation Front in South Vietnam. Instead, it crawls in behind that old pacifist, Brockdisposal of U.S. banks and corporations is the main reason for its dominant position in the capitalist world.

These institutions have conway, sinking its identity in a movement that calls not for the overthrow of the U.S. armed forces but peace with Johnson and the White House gang. This is nothing more than a betrayal of the heroic Vietnamese people.

The Communist Party does not lead as a party, it is constantly on the lookout for 'fronts', such as in Vietnam, behind which it can sink its identity-no wonder it is losing support.

No longer is the Party capable of organising mass demonstrations, it has practically no young cadres, its leadership is old and out of touch with the real happenings inside the working class. It is completely tied to the past Stalinist heritage of the party.

At the end of this Congress you will have the same leadership-here and there perhaps a few changes but nothing decisive-Gollan & Co. will remain. ^* Gollan is tied to Stalinism. He has never broken from his past tutelage by the late Harry Pollitt.

Although a history of the Party was promised in 1956, it has never been produced. To tell the story of the past of the British Communist Party is to tell the story of Stalin.

Your Party had no independence from Stalin, and what he did inside the Soviet 1965 from the Socialist leaders of a movement claiming to be communist. No, they knew what was going on but they kept their mouths shut.

Now they are compromised and, since they are opportunists, they cannot admit their errors before their Party and the working class.

Trotsky and all those who supported him were framed up by Stalin. This has now been admitted by leading Soviet historians.

A new history is now being produced which will at least go a small part of the way in clearing up what happened to Trotsky. Gollan knows this and remains silent.

The history of a movement claiming to be revolutionary is its most priceless capital. How can the youth take the Party forward to socialism unless it has access to this history? • Gollan, furthermore, knows that Stalinism was not a system of terror only. The terror had a political meaning for the Communist Parties outside the Soviet Union.

It brought them closer to a policy of 'peaceful coexistence' with the imperialist states.

Stalin agreed to and endorsed the 'British Road to Socialism', your Party policy, in 1952. It was written Kosygin: frightened bureaucrat obliging Soviet people with clarification of Trotskyism.

under his guidance and struction.

This is the policy which today places you in the position of tail-ending the Labour 'lefts'. By all means let the Communist Party fight as far as it can on the basis of Marxist principles in unity with the Labour left', but it does not do that.

It sinks, we repeat, its identity behind them. Stalinist history is responsible for the present opportunist course of the Party. Without correcting that history, there is no way forward.

This is also the problem behind the conflict with the Chinese Communist Party. There has never been a really organised and open discussion about these differences inside your Party.

As Trotskyists we do munist Party. We think they are right about their opposition to peaceful coexistence', but this is only one side of the issues raised by Stalinism.

Because the Chinese CP supports Stalin they have absolutely no support from the working people of the USSR.

The working people and the youth of the USSR are absolutely opposed to Stalinism, consequently they see no reason for supporting the Chinese CP.

The people of the USSR are our real allies in the fight against Stalinist opportunism. They do not support your Party nor the Chinese CP. They press more and more for the issue of Trotskyism to be clarified and, because Kosygin and Co. are timid frightened bureaucrats, they are forced to oblige in a bits and pieces way.

Hence the inadequate 'histories' produced in the USSR since 1956.

We call upon you as delegates to instruct Gollan to produce a real history and admit his mistakes.

We are confident that a real communist movement can be built in Britain.

The Young Socialists, who have since your last Congress broken decisively on the basis of Marxist principles from the right-wing Wilson leadership are also confident that this is so.

That is why they collaborate so closely with the Socialist Labour League.

The Young Communist League, under Gollan's leadership, continues to stagnate. At the same time as the Young Socialists lead tens of thousands of youth, your youth organisation is, like your Party, subordinate to the pacifists.

The time has come to call a halt. Force your Party to break from the opportunist heritage of Stalinism.

Yours fraternally, Soc alist Labour League.

Union your Party endorsed.

The leaders were not naive and misguided as they would now have us believe —if that were charitably the case they should not be Trotsky: All those who supported him were framed by Stalin. Soviet people press more and more for the issues of Trotskyism to be clarified.

tries in Southern Africa that have forged very intimate economic, financial and military ties for the retention of white supremacy and imperialism on the southern tip of the African continent. The other two are the Republic of South Africa and the Portuguese possessions of Angola and Mozambique.

'No social upheaval ... is thinkable with the retention of British imperialism in the South African Dominion. The overthrow of British imperialism in South Africa is just as indispensable for the triumph of socialism in South Africa as it is for Great Britain herself. . . . The struggle for the expulsion of British imperialism, its tools and agents thus enters as an indispensable part of the programme of the South African proletarian party.' These observations were made by Trotsky in a little known letter he had written in 1933 in reply to a document presented to him on the national and agrarian questions by the Workers' Party of South Africa. It is called 'A Letter to South Africa' and is still pertinent for our times, especially in view of the recent unilateral declaration of independence by the white supremacists in Rhodesia.

Intervention Judging by the reaction of the Rhodesian African nationalist leaders and the majority of African states as well as certain 'socialists' to UDI, it appears that Trotsky's remarks are a grievous error and should today be completely reversed.

For the African nationalists are saying that the liberation of the Rhodesian sector of Southern Africa is, in fact, bound up, not only with the retention of British imperialism, but indeed its forcible intervention on the side of the black majority against Smith's white supremacists.

The so-called liberation forces in Rhodesia and Africa generally are not at all perturbed that the British government has, in fact, connived at UDI by ruling out force well in advance and warning of half-hearted sanctions in an apparent bid to bring Smith to heel.

The African leaders, nonetheless, insist on Britain's responsibility for Rhodesia, demanding that she should forthwith restore 'legal' government in the colony and place herself at the head of the movement for the peaceful and constitutional transition to majority rule-in short, that imperialism must liquidate colonialism and secure national independence for the oppressed.

Perhaps the African leaders are under the illusion that the socialist government of Britain has a liberating mission. Yet one recalls that they also looked to the Tory regime to carry out the self-same mission.

Further, one would have expected them to perceive the hollowness of Britain's socialist pretensions when Wilson capitulated to colour prejudice at home by instituting immigration controls. It is a capitulation that was foreshadowed by the Labour government's acquiescence in America's intervention in the Vietnamese revolution, their suppression of the Arabs in Aden, and of the national struggle in Borneo. ( These in turn served to strengthen chauvinism at home and invested 1. Smith with the necessary condence to seize independence and do so with impunity.

this pamphlet are available, price 2s. Park Publications Ltd., 186A Clapham bargain from strength with imperialism for concessions. But in the final resort its country remains the client state of imperialism.

The weakness and corruption of the national middle class once again confirms the theory of the permanent revolution, that, in the period of monopoly capitalism, the

UNOFFICIAL leaders from London docks met officials last week-end to discuss a plan of Fo Decem er

of the three coun The Labour government with its thin parliamentary majority needs to conciliate the white racialists abroad in order to retain its support at home.

Trotsky agreed with the South African Workers' Party thesis that 'those "socialists" who are fighting for the privileges of the Whites . . . we must recognise ... as the greatest enemies of the Revolution', ', and added: '... the worst crime on the part of revolutionaries would be to give the smallest concession to the privileges of the Whites. Whoever gives his little finger to the devil of chauvinism is lost'.

But far from being revolutionary socialists, the Labour government is more effective than the Tories in saving what is left of the British Empire, and doing so at a time when imperialism generally, and British imperialism more particularly, is facing grave economic difficulties.

Forestall It is true that the African states and the Rhodesian nationalist movement are warning that they have decided on the use of force to dislodge Smith from the political saddle. But this is being held only as a threat over the British government so that Wilson would intervene in good time and in this way forestall a sustained revolutionary struggle for national independence.

In any event, the Labour government is not losing any sleep over these bellicose gestures, because it knows from experience that the African leaders usually capitulate behind a barrage of demagogy in order to deceive their own masses.

It is clear then that we are not dealing with a genuine movement for the complete freedom of the Rhodesian oppressed from both white supremacy and imperialism.

The two major African political organisations in Rhodesia -the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU)-have no perspective of independent mass struggle aimed at the root and branch expropriation of imperialism. On the contrary, both parties have repeatedly assured Britain that her investments in Rhodesia would be protected and advanced under majority rule.

In a word, the nationalist movement in Rhodesia is begging for a neo-colonialist solution.

The current African nationalist leadership in Rhodesia is merely following in the wake of those African states who had secured their independence on a neo-colonialist basis.

FOI, since MacMillan's famous 'wind of change' speech in 1960, it has become fashionable for imperialism to impose independence on the African colonies, even where, as in the case of Tanzania, the future rulers asked for a postponement of this favour in as much as they were not quite ready to receive it.

In the popular mind the illusion was thereby created that the granting of independence was a purely voluntary act by imperialism, inspired by its concern for the welfare and aspirations of the dependent people.

It is now commonplace that with the granting of formal independence imperialism stabilises its position at a higher level and proceeds to strengthen its financial, commercial and military connec tions with these states.

In any event, political independence does not come about as a result of a long, bloody and protracted struggle involving the workers and poor peasants. On the contrary, it comes as a result of bargaining and horse deals, behind the backs of the masses, between imperialism and the embryonic national middle class that is seeking a place in the capitalist sun.

This class, characterised by vulgar greed, fear of and contempt for their masses, agree to protect the interests of imperialism under independence, in return for which they become the junior partners in the continued plunder by the former mother country of the independent state.

But this national bourgeoisie is too weak and appears on the historical scene too belatedly to consummate its own bourgeois democratic revolution. It consists for the most part of small businessmen, bureau. cratic officials in the government, petty traders, professional men and landed proprietors who take the place of the white settlers.

Without capital and technical know-how, inventiveness and cultural traditions, this class is already senile at birth. It cannot transform the static social relations in its country by establishing large-scale industries and become obsessed with cornering part of the plunder of the foreign companies.

system Unable to effect the national unification of its country and aware of its economic weakness and dependence on imperialism, this class cannot create a sophisticated society and endow it with elementary democratic institutions. This class expresses its fear of the masses in a one-party system which is a caricature of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

This regime is Bonapartist in that, by balancing itself among and above the classes, it gains some political independence from them. On the one hand, it promotes the avarice of the national middle class within certain bounds, keeping it in check by invoking from time to time the claims of the masses.

On the other hand, it uses its influence in the country to middle class is an unprogressive force that cannot achieve genuine national liberation from imperialism. This task falls to the working class that draws behind it the poor peasants who constitute the majority of the people in backward countries.

As a result of the closer economic and financial association between imperialism and the African states, the latter are becoming weaker.

This results from the unequal exchange of low-priced colonial. raw materials and minerals for high-priced manufactured and capital goods of the metropolitan countries. This weakness expresses itself in the extreme caution the African leaders display in the colonial struggles.

Nyerere of Tanzania now warns the Rhodesian nationalists against the use of force.

Kaunda of Zambia, tied hand and foot to the economy of Rhodesia, is finding even the brinkmanship of ZAPU and ZANU uncomfortable.

It is clear, then, that the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), formed to plan and coordinate the liberation of Africa from imperialism, is now working out a suitable formula for selling out on the Rhodesian issue. And inasmuch as the ZAPU and ZANU leaders are themselves oriented to the African states for ideological and material support, they too will continue to scan the horizon for the foreseeable future to make out the liberal intentions of Britain.

Fear repercussions A cardinal fåctor in Britain's and indeed in imperialism's postponement of aneocolonialist solution to the Rhodesian problem and their trust in a strong white supremacist government is their fear of the repercussions a black majority government might have on the Republic of South Africa itself.

South Africa is the focal point of over 70 per cent of all imperialist investments in the whole of Africa.

The contribution of Britain is £1,000 million, that of the USA over €500 million.

There is genuine concern in imperialist circles that even if Rhodesia goes neo-colonialist it must bring to the forefront at once the problem of South Africa, the most stable and safest country in Africa for imperialist investments.

Obviously, a neo-colonialist approach to the Republic of South Africa is fraught with the greatest risk and danger to the Western. powers. For there is no knowing where reforms, once undertaken, will stop.

With a large and relatively sophisticated proletariat, constituting the majority of the nation, reforms can act as a landslide by arousing péople who are already receptive to socialist thought.

It is for this reason that the State Department of the USA maintains a pregnant silence on the Rhodesian issue, preferring simply to warn Smith that he is playing with fire. U.S. imperialism regards the Rhodesian issue as a flea on the back of the South African elephant". While there is no immediate danger to the Verwoerd regime from the South African liberation forces, imperialism is playing safe and taking off the liberal mask it wears in Africa north of the Zambesi river.

The Rhodesian masses will have to rely on their own strength and sustained revolutionary struggle if they wish to MOROCCO ALGERIA TUNISIA LIBYA U.A.R. (EGYP SUDAN MAURITAMIA SENEGAL MALI UPPER VOLTA HIGER IVORY COAST DAHOMEY GUINEA TOGO GAMBIA SIERRA LEO CHANA NIGERIA LIBERIA CAMEROON CHAD CENTRAL AFRICAN REPU CONGO (BRAZZAVILLE) GABON CONGO (LEOPOLDVILE) ETHIOPIA SOMALIA KENYA UGANDA TANGANYIKA ZANZIBAR RHODESIAS & ANGOLA MOZAMBIQUE SOUTH AFRICA MADAGASCAR MAURITIUS REUNION The redistribution of political power in a free Rhodesia ingly be accompanied by a redistribution of economic NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD., 186A Clapham gain complete liberation, not only from white supremacy but also from imperialism.

The weapons of criticism must be replaced by criticism with weapons.

The Rhodesian masses must be armed so that they may transform both themselves and their environment in the crucible of revolution.

Colonized man, says Frantz Fanon, the Algerian revolutionary, in his book, "The Wretched Earth', gains his freedom and cures himself of colonial neurosis only in and through violence.

But such a revolutionary perspective calls for a radicalisation of the programme. For the experience of the African states teaches that 'one man, one vote' does not secure democracy at the grass roots. Poverty and local and imperialist exploitation persist under universal suffrage.

The re-distribution of political power in a free Rhodesia must accordingly be accompanied by a re-distribution of economic power, and this can be effected only by taking over without compensation the imperialist concerns in the country and nationalizing them.

The territories of Southern Africa are inter-dependent at Coffee Sisoleo Prothrum fa-al; table shows Rhodesia's chief products. This is a polemic against Radek in 1928. Trotsky examines the arguments against his pre-war theory of the permanent revolution (as expounded in Results and Prospects) and takes up the history of his differences with Lenin before 1917, of which Stalin and his henchmen made so much. Trotsky shows that it was Lenin's criticisms of his attitude to the centralised Marxist party, which he afterwards understood and accepted, that kept them apart, and not their differences on the permanent revolution.

254 pages, many levels, and just as the white supremacists in the territories have forged economic and military alliances among themselves to perpetuate their rule, so it behoves the liberation movements of the various countries on that sub-continent to pool their resources and coordinate their forces by forging a joint political and military command for the entire area. Yet even such co-ordinated action cannot ensure the complete success of the liberation movement.

The sharp swing to the right in the Algerian revolution demonstrates once again that a national movement as such cannot even realise its own programme unless it is led by the working class organised as an independent social force and standing at the head of the liberation struggle.

'With regard to countries with a belated bourgeois development,' says Trotsky in 'Permanent Revolution', 'especially the colonial and semi-colonial countries, the theory of the permanent revolution signifies that the complete and genuine solution of their tasks of achieving democracy and national emancipation is conceivable only through the dictatorship of the proletariat as the leader of the subjugated nation, above all of its peasant masses.' Peonuts I Coffee Fish Saloma Diamends Benonos Coffee L Coffee I Palm ( Cotton (Mario/ Plomonh 1 tron ore / Polm / Polm I Diamond: ficobo (zEI Colton Coffee Damonday Diamends AL Sisal Corn Tish Waol 07 0.

Palm Dil Palm Products must accordpower. This 15/ - soft cover, 25/Available from: CORRESPONDI The construction of a revolutionary Marxist Party in Southern Africa that wages a resolute struggle against the vacillating and opportunistic liberal and petty-bourgeois national forces in the liberation movement is now the unpostponable demand of the political situation.

The Rhodesian events gain their full force and significance against the background of the current international balance of class forces which, as a result of the recent serious reverses suffered by national liberation movements, is now tilting in favour of imperialism, temporarily at any rate. These reverses were precipitated by the open and unveiled collaboration between the USA and the Soviet bureaucracy as counter-revolutionary forces.

The United Nations mission to the Congo in 1961, aided and abetted as it was by the Soviet Union, gave American imperialism control of the heart of the African continent, which it is now using as a base to subvert liberation movements and exercise an iron grip on the African states.

Armed with the knowledge that the Soviet bureaucracy is seeking to contain liberation movements and sell them down the river for closer understanding with the USA, imperialism is gaining confidence all round. Sino-Soviet rift The ascendancy of imperialism is assisted by the widening ideological rift between Russia and China.

But despite the Marxist validity of the Chinese argument that the Soviet bureaucracy is selling out world revolution in the interests of ollaboration with the USA eking does not help the caus of colonial revolution and socialism.

The dynamic abstensionism of Peking on the issue of the Vietnamese revolution proves that the interests of world revolution are strictly subordinated to the national and sectarian needs of the Chinese bureaucracy.

In addition, the task of the Indonesian Communist Party to coon maste destroy tefred for, the diass col boration at an inter-state level of Peking anc the corrupt Sukarno regime. This has lec to the grave defeat of the Indonesian Communists in circumstances when the poverts and degradation of the Indolesian people could have se. ured its success A revolutionary Marxist Party for Southern Africa cannot afford to make the same mistakes.

It must preserve its independence and contribute to world revolution by adopting a Bolshevik-Leninist stand onl questions of international socialism, a stand that is resolutely opposed to national chauvinism and bureaucratic opportunism in the international labour movement.

High Street, London, S.W.4

Stormont Parliament, held on November 25 has resulted in a swing to the right and the near-destruction of the Northern Ireland Labour Party.

Following the loss of two of their four seats, the question everyone is asking is whether or not this right-wing rump of a party, which faithfully follows Wilson, can recover.

The Unionist party was returned to continue its one-party rule, unbroken since Northern Ireland was created in 1921. The party has 36 seats in the 52-seat Parliament-an increase of two.

That reactionary relic, the Nationalist Party, commonly known as the 'Green Tories', are again the main opposition with nine seats.

NO BELFAST CONTEST Relying on the Catholic majorities in rural constituencies they did not contest any seats in Belfast, nor oppose sitting Unionist candidates.

With 17 candidates standing, the Northern Ireland Labour Party needed desperately to increase its representation it the leadership was to justify its actions in the past year when there have been threatened splits, crises, and expulsions of Young Socialists.

But, in the words of the 'Daily Express, they were nearly demolished. Everywhere they were routed — with the party organisation cracking up as demoralised rank-and-file members saw no incentive for working.

The swing to the Unionists was 7 per cent and the Labour vote fell dramatically in every constituency.

D. Bleakley and W. R. Boyd, their best known MPs were defeated in the important Belfast constituencies of Victoria and Woodvale. Although the two seats were held in Oldpark and Pottinger the majorities were greatly reduced.

IDENTICAL POLICIES The Labour leadership refused to offer a socialist alternative to the working class and its policies were almost identical to those of the Unionists. These leaders' boasted, in fact, that the Unionist policies were originally theirs!

The separate identity and theory of the working class was thus lost and many workers could see no difference between the two parties.

This had been started when the Ulster Economic Development Council, the local National Economic Development Council, was formed with the full collaboration of the Irish Congress of Trades Unions.

The ICTU leaders, including Mr. A. Barr, Communist Party chairman and a candidate in the election, happily took their seats and proceeded to administer capitalist 'development'.

The Labourites are not aware of the depth of their own treachery.

By refusing to wage a real fight against Unionism they have allowed a strengthening of the ultra-right and the forces of reaction inside the Unionist Party.

Although O'Neill claimed to be In this situation there is no room for reformist policies. Proof of this is the meagre 308 votes for Barr, the Communist Party candidate, whose policy was unity with such anti-working-class tendencies as the Nationalist Party to make Stormont a progressive Parliament which 'would be capable of overcoming the political, economic and social problems of the area'.

'TRIBUNE' EXPOSED

Exposed also is "Tribune', which before the election, printed long articles predicting big Labour gains.

Only the Young Socialists, actively preparing the alternative leadership to the right wing, predicted the Labour defeats when giving conditional support to the Labour candidates.

In a joint press statement with the Belfast branch of the Socialist Labour League they demand:

The Northern Ireland Labour Party dissociates itself from the policies of Wilson!

Sack Napier, the Labour Party secretary!

Lift the ban on 'Keep Left' and the Socialist Labour League!

Reinstate the expelled Young Socialists!

give Pickets out in foundry strike for recognition

ELECTRICIANS employed by the Greater London Council, dissatisfied with their pay rates for a long time, decided last Thursday to take strike action on January 3 unless they receive a substantial pay increase.

During the term of office of the right-wing executive council of the Electrical Trades Union they have seen their pay fall far behind the wages of other tradesmen employed by the Council, and have even seen their pay drop 3 per cent behind the wages of other electricians in the contracting industry-also lagging behind the rising cost of living.

The Denison House mass meeting which took the decision last Thursday was attended by about 400 electricians.

Miserly increase

Senior steward Wally Bolt admitted that the last miserly increase of 1fd. an hour, negotiated at the beginning of the year, was completely inadequate.

The meeting was also addressed the union, and Dave Chalkley, member of the GLC, and of the ETU, both of whom promised their support to any action by the electricians.

After the first motion was carried unanimously, another motion demanding that no settlement be reached between the ETU and GLC until the electricians had been consulted and agreed to the offer was also accepted unanimously.

It was decided to reconvene the meeting on December 30.

fighting the election solely on the government's economic record, there was the traditional Unionist electioneering of Orange bands accompanying Unionist candidates and whipping up religious bigotry.

ARMED GUARD

O'Neill set the atmosphere when he announced that all Cabinet Ministers were to be given an armed guard because of the possibility of IRA attacks on their lives.

The IRA disclaimed this and the alleged information which led to this action was never disclosed.

In Derry, after the election results had been announced, the police baton charged 200 youth in order to 'protect' a Unionist torchlight 'victory' parade.

Behind this election was the crisis of British imperialism.

In order to carry through its attacks on the working class, the Registered at the G.P.O. as a newspaper Published by The Newsletter, 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 Printed by Plough Press Ltd. (TU), 180 Clapham High Street. London, S.W.4 SINCE November 9, television engineers have been on strike from the South London branches of Radio Rentals Ltd.

The strike, for recognition of the Electrical Trades Union as representative of the workers in negotiations with the management, is rapidly being extended, receiving support from branches in Surrey, Sussex and North London.

160 striking.

About 160 engineers have drawn their labour.

On February 20 this year, the company issued a statement saying they would negotiate with the ETU, but after many attempts by shop stewards to initiate meetings, none were held.

The maximum wage for an engineer, qualified with a City and Guilds National Certificate, is only f17 12s. 6d. A skilled grade 'C' television servicing gineer receives a maximum £14 a week.

Maintain cars

These engineers I ave to supply and maintain their own cars on an allowance of as little as £4 10s. a week.

An 'improver', a qualified engineer under 21, who does the same work as an adult engineer, receives £l less than the adult rate for every year under 21.

The south-east area senior shop steward claimed:

"The apprentices here are bonafide apprentices, but in no branch are there facilities for training; there is no equipment set aside for this purpose. They are released one day a week, but for the remaining four they make tea, clean up, check stock, and perform other such duties.' He maintained that apprentices, who are not permitted to strike under their agreement, were being sent out in vans to service sets.

The strikers marched through Oxford Street on November 16 to gain support for the strike and are campaigning in town centres and high streets outside Radio Rental branches for support.

The firm cannot cry povertyit grossed f12 million profits last year, and is the biggest firm of its kind in the world.

All-round fight The engineers must stand united until their demands are met. In doing this they will begin to see that it is not just the Radio Rentals' management they are fighting, but the whole of the employing class.

Donations to the strike fund should .. be sent to Mr. Leslie Barnes, 295 Grange Road, South Norwood, S.E.25.

General Election for the ruling class will undoubtedly have to mobilise fascism in the form of religious bigotry and hysteria. Tilbury Liaison Committee, declared: .

'It was the first time the union has consulted liaison committees and the meeting was cordial. had a long discussion on the Devlin Report and I t the outcome will be a plan which will be acceptabl the union and the liaison committees.' Also at the meeting were Jack Dash, from the London Liaison Committee, and Peter Shey, secretary of the T&GWU docks group.

ill not be plar rejection against Somers of big • proposa. business and the Labour government.

The London Liaison Committee has never waged any campaign against the Devlin Report.

the lished, the committee's lips wer members demanded a seat on the Modernisation Committee, set up as a result of the Report.

These members were demanding to sit with the employers' representatives, the trade union Headers and covernment aDDones in working out the best way • tie dockers to groups of larg employers and to modermse docks in the interests of big business.

Then, as several meetings organised by the National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers (the 'Blue Union') demanded nationalization and a rejection of the Devlin proposals, and The Newsletter found a response among London dockers, the liaison committee began to make a little criticism of some of the Devlin proposals.

Dockers' Charter

It began a campaign for the dockers' Charter - but as an attempt to outflank the struggle against Devlin, The Charter is seen by the committee as something to be won with or without Devlin.

So, while trade union leaders have lined up with the employers and the government against the docker, and while Harry Nicholas, acting general secretary of the T&GWU showed what is in their minds when he called for the return of war-time order 1305, under which dockers have been prosecuted in the past, the liaison committee has attempted to soften down any struggle against them.

Instead of calling for dockers to pull these leaders off the modernisation committee and pull Cousins out of the government, they called on dockers to put more power in these leaders' elbows-'secure the support of our trade union officials' was the advice on how to win the Charter, given in the London portworkers liaison committee broadsheet No. 1.

Now, according to the report 'The Guardian':

'An 1l-point dockers' charter which makes nationalization of Britain's ports a top priority is likely to be accepted by the Transport and General WorMASS LAY-OFF OF ENGLISH ELECTRIC SCIENTISTS HE management of the Atomic Power Division of the English Electric Group has announced that the number of nuclear scientists and technologists employed in the division will be reduced by between 300 and 500 during the next year.

Twenty redundancy notices have already been handed out to members of the technical stafi.

This has come as a nasty shock to the staff who must have felt confidence in the security of their jobs following the recent announcement by the Central Electricity Generating Board of the placing of a contract with the APC nuclear consortia.

Also, the CEGB has announced that they plan to increase the amount of power produced by nuclear means by 60 per cent.

The policy of the workers must be clear cut—a rejection of all claims of redundancy, for a withdrawal of all the notices handed out and that any movement of personnel only to be carried out with the full agreement of the unions.

the We hink e to kers' Union, Mr. Charles Cole, chairman of the liaison committee, said yesterday' First, let us get the facts straight.

The liaison committee does not make nationalization a top priority. That would mean an immediate campaign and struggle against Devlin's proposals to strengthen the grip of the employers on the docks.

Same policy

The liaison committee broadsheet No. I says quite definitely: 'First win the Charter and then, later the nationalization of the industry' There is no difference here with the official policy of the T&GWU, whose broadsheet on Devlin declared the union would campaign for public ownership alongside its support for the Devlin Report.

Union officials now give token support for the docks Charter, creating the illusion that they can get something for the docker out of participation in the Devlin modernisation committees.

Those wanting to advance the dockers' struggle must fight this.

They must demand the withdrawal from the modernisation committees. That must be the first demand in the real fight for a real dockers' Charter. sackings in

•WEknow that it we lose this strike we This was how pickets, standing ou ham brass foundry in the bitter cold, struggle for union recognition.

This dispute has come to a head at a factory in a side street in the heavily industrialised district of Tyseley.

The firm was founded in 1784 and has never in all its career of 181 years had a strike before.

It is a good example of the kind of business which has been ticking over placidly, keeping out of any trouble for decade after decade, until suddenly it finds itself pushed by the sharpening of the class struggle into an open clash between management and workers.

The firm manufactures various kinds of brass valve components. •The only trade union they recognise is the National Society of Metal Mechanics. Of their employees only eight are members of the NSMM. One hundred and ninety-three workers have joined the Transport and General Workers' Union, and are now fighting for its recognition.

Of 193 strikers, 180 were present at a strike meeting, and voted unanimously to stay out till victory was won.

'Some of the men and women have worked here for over 50 years. The one with the longest service is a woman worker who has been at the factory for 57 years. She is on strike with the rest of us.' The strikers include many immigrant and young workers, both youths and girls. Basic wages are £9 19s. 6d. for a 40hour week for adult workers. Boys under the age of 18 earn approximately £5 7s. 6d. for 40 hours, and girls under 18 approximately f4 17s. 6d.

ELEMENTARY RIGHT Standing outside this factory, the oldest part of which dates from five years before the French Revolution and decades before the earliest struggles to build trade unions, there still seems glaring incongruity in the fact that even now, in 1965, workers should be forced to wage a struggle for the elementary right to form their union organisation.

The strikers are making an appeal to T&GWU shop stewards to help them win this first round in the fight for better living standards.

Close everything.' tside a Birmingdescribed their

AUNANIMOUS decision was taken by the Birmingham East District Committee of the Amalgamated Engineering Union last week to call for the total blacking of the Birmingham Engineering Company. This decision is being sent to the AEU Executive Council.

Birmingham Engineering Company gave one week's notice to 19 toolmakers who staged a sit-down strike when their Is. 6d. per hour wage claim had been flatly turned down (see last week's Newsletter).

In spite of the fact that the union official accompanied a delegation to the owner and manager demanding that the notices be withdrawn, the firm refused to rescind them.

Offer rejected

Instead, they said that if each worker applied individually for his job, they would take 90 per cent back.

The other 10 per cent would be refused. This would almost certainly mean that militants would lose their jobs and was rejected out of hand.

The 19 toolmakers decided after the meeting to leavenot one asking for his job back; The firm has not a single toolmaker (vital for its press work) left on the grounds.

A delegation from the members addressed the District Committee on their struggle. The blacking decision of the Committee, if ratified by the Executive Council, will mean that no union toolmaker can go to this firm.

If the firm obtains non-union toolmakers, all finished press components will be blacked if sent to any union firm. This could close this small firm down.

After he dropped away, the Party leadership abandoned the Deas registration of party memIn other words, the present membership figures are easily faked. It is very doubtiul if the Party has more than 2,000 active members, many whom are ageing rapidly.

There were only 45 delegates at the Congress under the age of 26 years 234 between 41 and 60 40 years, years and 24 of 61 years and over.

At the pre-conference discusssions the average attendance at a branch meeting of 60 members or over, was seven or eight, but out of this only about three were really active.

The predominant membership of the party is a book memberShip which is now not even called upon to register each year.

Party cards are distributed automatically. In other words, you can be a member for life and inactive, provided you are not expelled.

The changing • of the guard The removal of Kerrigan, Campbell and Dutt from the executive was undoubtedly on age grounds.

These men know too much about the internal workings of Stalinism in Britain to be tossed out by someone like Gollan.

These are old-line Stalinists who have stuck at it through thick and thin.

It is also highly improbable, as the capitalist press would have us believe, that Kerrigan had to because of the Electrical Trades Union fiasco.

So many of the leadership could have been involved or could have known what was going on and could do nothing about it, that Kerrigan cannot possibly be blamed as an individual.

If there was any one person to blame originally it was Pollitt, who personally took an interest in Haxell, Les Cannon & Co.

Gollan simply inherited the ETU scandal when he became general secretary.

The removal of Reg Birch was another question.

Birch was an open supporter of the Chinese. At the private session, which he did not attend, on the Monday, the leadership claimed that they had information about a letter from Birch to a pro-Chinese group in the Australian Communist Party in which he claimed that the Chinese fight was going well in Britain.

Be that as it may, the fact that he failed to attend this session went heavily against him.

Had he done so and answered the platform, he would undoubtedly have got a sizeable vote.

Birch is, however, the party's most able representative in the Amalgamated Engineering Union.

His replacement by Hugh Wyper, also a member of the on the executive, especially since Glasgow AEU leaves a big no one seems to know what Birch is now going to do.

Naturally, the leadership are hoping he will become a right- winger so that they can deal with him more easily in the union, but if he doesn't the party can have a lot of trouble from the left wise of its membership in this important union.

The party's position on the docks is somewhat confused.

Danny Lyons, a member of the party for only a short time, was elected to the executive.

At the same time Jack Dash holds back and is not even nominated.

Why? Dash is no left-winger.

There must be some other reason which cannot be publicised. We believe we shall hear more about this later.

Appeals against

expulsion At least 50 people have been expelled from the CP and the YCL seven sought leave to appeal These were:

Richard Jones (Coventry)

Robert Dale (Coventry)

Henderson Brooks (Coventry)

David Longley (LSE students)

Peter Seltman (Barnet)

Muriel Seltman (Barnet)

Terry Monaghan (YCL)

The three Coventry members are pro-Chinese, Longley and Monaghan are now Young Socialand the Seltmans are in China., The appeals procedure was a farce.

The three Coventry • expelled members were available to address the Congress but were not called because of a trick.

A delegate requested that they have the right to speak, but the Congress chairman said he didn't know where they were.

When they were expelled the same delegate asked that they be notified, whereupon a member of the appeals committee said he would do so because they were sitting in a cafe round the corner.

This same person had delib tely kept quiet earlier wher ›on the impression was create at they were not available.

The political policy swings rightwards, the effective membership is amongst the lowest in the the party's history.

It has no hold amongst the youth and it is incapable of organising any kind of mass demonstration and struggle.

The British Communist Party Yello to trewall te the coust centrists if the Socialist Labour League provides the alternative leadership.

We have the socialist youth, now it is necessary to turn this youth more and more towards the factories and the adult working Class.

The youth are already taking their places inside the trade anions. The future belongs to the Socialist Labour League.

The British Communist Party as a revolutionary party is dead—Forward to the building of the mass revolutionary Communist Party of which the Socialist Labour League is an integral part.

BILL on the Devlin Report. docks met Union of action Correspondent MORE than 320 men-first of the estimated 1,156 due to lose their jobs over the next six weeks-were paid off at the Belfast shipyard of Harland and Wolfi on November 26.

The men are riveters, platers' helpers and stagers.

Determined that they will survive and not follow other shipyards which have closed, the company is automating at a rapid rate.

The drastic cutting down of manpower takes place despite the fact that there is a full order book. The management is replacing workers with machines and hopes eventually to work a shift system which will return the capital outlay in a short period.

There has not been the slightest sign that the local trades union leaders could stop •the redundancies. In fact, during negotiations, the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions was actually talking about 'deployment of labour'.

Nothing has been heard from the inept and right-wing-dominated works committee members in Harland and Wolff. They are seemingly more interested in organising social activities than organising the workers.

Those class-conscious workers in the shipyard must fight with these demands:

No redundancies!

Four-day week for a full week's pay!

Open the books to the workers!