The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 424

Smith's Rhodesian regime being shown by sections of the Tory Party.

It was on the Rhodesian issue that the extreme right-wing "Monday Club' came into the open at the Tory Party conference in October. This group recently held a meeting in London in support of Smith.

In Parliament recently a Labour MP asked if it was true that some Tories had attended a fascist meeting. His question went unanswered.

In another part of the rightest political forest, Lord Lambton, MP, wrote in the 'Evening Standard' last Monday about his recent visit to Salisbury.

This article clearly expresses his backing for the Rhodesian Front government and urges Wilson to come to terms with it.

"Times' letter Another eight Tory MPs, headed by Robin Turton, and including Julian Amery, signed a letter in Wednesday's "Times'. They also called for negotiations with Smith.

Meanwhile, Wilson shows signs of preparing the way to do what they ask. His 'clarification' of the contradiction between Bottomley's 'Smith is a liar outburst and previous government statements, satisfies the Tory front bench.

The arrival of the British Petroleum tanker 'British Security' in Mozambique without any action being taken to stop it providing oil for Rhodesia, is followed by the decision to pay pensions to British residents after all. OAU collapse The farcical collapse of the December 15 ultimatum of the Organisation of African Unity leaves the way open for a compromise with Smith's white supremacist government The Newsletter has argued that the African revolution is inseparable from the fight of the British labour movement.

That is why we have raised the demand for arming the African workers as the only answer to the Rhodesian crisis, instead of relying on British or UN imperialist troops.

Now the other side question is also seen.

Conciliation

Labour's conciliation of the Tories prepares the way for a strengthening of right-wing extremism in Britain. This is as true of its Rhodesian policies as of its racialist line on immigration control.

At a time of sharpening struggles between employers and the working class, the emergence of fascist and near-fascist tendencies inside and outside the Tory Party cannot be ignored.

The preparation for industrial struggles in the next period demands a simultaneous fight in support of the African revolution and against racialism. CHRISTMAS BREAK!

THIS is the last issue of The Newsletter before Christmas break— the next issue will appear on Saturday, January 1.

The Editorial Board would Not Cites for 1956 to i could ¡like to take this opportunity to Hreaders and supporters in( Britain and overseas who are ¡putting The Newsletter on the road to becoming a daily newspaper in 1967. with LBJ On Vietnam policy at a time when Washington is debating whether and by how much to intensify the Vietnam war.

As the representative of British capitalism talks to the leader of big. U.S. business, Johnson is deciding on budget increases to cover the possibilities of bombing Hanoi, using nuclear weapons, and eventual war with China.

He is able to consider these moves with the knowledge that the Russian leaders are prepared . to stand aside from such a conflict.

Lunatic logic

This is the lunatic logic of the situation facing American perialism. The crushing of the Vietnamese workers and peasants demands the military occupation of part of the country-and the complete destruction of the rest.

Nothing short of this will prevent a victory for the Vietcong fighters.

As we stated in last week's Newsletter in reference to MacNamara's London talks, the approval of Wilson will be sought for such a strategy.

It is unlikely to be refused.

Dollar backing

For the pound sterling rests on reserves which depend entirely on dollar backing. This is the main determinant of the policies of the so-called Labour government, from the dropping of steel nationalisation, to backing for the Vietnam war.

It is also the background to discussion of future British 'defence' plans. The Americans want their allies to maintain military commitment 'East of Suez', but under U.S. control.

The buying of the F-111 swingwing tighter, to replace the TSR-2 would be in line with such a policy.

The government is known to THIS is how the white supremacists won' of buckshot in the back.... I saw a photoSouthern Rhodesia from the Africans. graph of the niggers hanging and our fellows Olive Schreiner, the South African standing around smoking.' authoress, who risked her life smuggling this picture out of Africa, quotes a South African prejudice and imperialist arrogance, describes colonialist: just one of many ghoulish missions carried out Dia you hear the spree they had up by colonialists, under Rhodes, against MataBulawayo way, hanging those three niggers for bele tribesmen, who lived in the heart of spies? I wasn't there myself, but a fellow who was told me they made the niggers jump down from the tree and hang thomsolas: ona falls aotany Rhodesia if fuscist backed Tory wouldn't bally jump till they gave him a charge could have their way.

Wilson goes All the way By a Newsletter correspondent favour using these planes nuclear bombers.

Since their electronic and other equipment would be dependent on U.S. supplies, their operation from Indian Ocean bases would form a part Washington's Asian strategy.

Beg support In return for agreement on these lines, the British capitalists, through the mouths of their 'Labour' spokesmen, beg for support in their African crisis.

Wilson's U.N. speech is a This observation, permeated with racial Southern Rhodesia. to U.S. imperialism not to use the crisis to demolish British imperialist influence in Africa.

As on his previous American visit, Wilson capitulates entirely before the leader of world imperialism.

Johnson reciprocates with support for Wilson's so-called embargo on oil shipments to Rhodesia.

If those Labour MPs who say they are against the Vietnam war continue to back Wilson with their votes, they will be joining in this surrender and its betrayal of the labour movement.

The working-class movement must fight against Wilson's surrender to imperialism and its war plans. This could well be the scene in 20th MPs HITS JACKPOT of Young Socialists last Saturday was one of the liveliest and brightest held in Leeds.

The huge Corn Exchange in the centre of the city was transformed by imaginative decorations, a colourful Father Christmas grotto, and a bright array of stalls, including toys, groceries, bottles, sweets, clothes, records and Christmas decorations.

Side shows

A variety of sideshows-including a Treasure Island, a roll-a-penny, a nerve tester and a Can-Can throwing stall-did a lively trade.

A feature of the bazaar was the Young Socialists' stall, which sold Keep Left, Young Socialist badges, and Young Socialist motor cycle pennants, and where over 30 applications to join the Young Socialists were received.

Teams of Young Socialists and Socialist Labour League members had worked for weeks making goods, selling programmes and preparing refreshments Altogether 1,600 tickets were No trade unionist should be in any the plans of the bosses to bring against the trade unions.

The 'Labour' government of Harold Wilson has been entrusted with this job, and fully intends to carry it out.

Gunter, Brown, Callaghan and their like are the men for the job.

On January 26, the Lambeth Trades Council's lobby of parlianent, protesting against the pro. osed new laws, will be supported by trade unionists and their organisations from all the main industrial centres of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

SUPPORT

Support, in the form of resolutions opposing union law and Newsletter Correspondent sold in advance and an additional 1,300 people paid at the door.

But this bazaar was not only a huge financial success. It also clearly established the Young Socialists as the leading political youth movement in the area.

Both the Communist Party and Labour Party had held bazaars in Leeds in the preceding weeks, both were puny affairs held in the Leeds Trades Hall, which is less than one-tenth the size of the Corn Exchange.

This achievement by the Yorkshire Young Socialists gives them a flying start in building an even more powerful and influential youth movement in 1966.

Huge i. verpool Rent Rise By Newsletter Reporter LIVERPOOL Council tenants 'face the prospect of a savage increase in rents in the new year. The City Council's housing account is f11 million in deficit.

It is estimated that this could mean a 12 per cent rent rise by February-an average increase of 10s a week-with the possibility of a 40 per cent rise over the next three years.

At its annual general meeting at the beginning of the year, the Liverpool Labour and Trades Council opposed any rent increases.

These words must now be put into action. There is no doubt that a socialist call from the Trades Council could unleash a mighty movement of tenants, especially from the Kirkby and Speke housing estates.

Already Young Socialists have organised a petition opposing the rent rise, and calling on the Labour and Trades Council, and affiliated bodies, to organise against the proposed increase.

doubt about in new laws Further support for the lobby has come this week from the joint light and heavy sections of the T&GWU 1/270 branch (meat drivers), at Brixton, London;

Hurstpierpoint (Sussex)

branch of the National Union of Agricultural Workers; the Westminster (officers) branch of the National Union of Public Employees; Glasgow East ETU; Connell's Shipyard Works' Committee.

CORRECTION The branch of the United Pattern Makers' Association, which we reported as supporting the lobby was not from Birkenhead, but Bradford.

supporting the lobby, has come from:

AEU BRANCHES:

Sheffield District Committee; Parsons Cross; Branches No. 2 and No. 35 in Yorkshire; Ashtonunder-Lyme No. 2; Hillington (Glasgow) No. 2; Elderslie (Paisley); Kilbowie (Glasgow); Germiston (Glasgow)

Glasgow No. 12; Birmingham No. 9 and No. 11; Coventry Cheylsmore; Wadden (Surrey) No. 2; Tile Hill (Coventry).

ETU BRANCHES:

Willesden (London); Coventry A.A. and E.E. branch; Glasgow Central; Clydebank; Hendon (London); Manchester No. 1 branch; Glasgow North.

OTHER UNION BRANCHES & WORKERS' ORGANISATIONS:

Clydebank No. 4 NUGMW; Clydesdale Television Engineers' Works Committee (Edinburgh); Croydon (Surrey) Trades Council; South-west London CAWU; London School of Economics Socialist Society; Bradford No. 7 United Pattern Makers' Association; George Mann's shop stewards' committee (Leeds); Pressed Steel (Linwood, Scotland) works' committee; Clydebank Trades Council; Guest, Keen and Nettlefold (AP Newall Division, Glasgow) works' committee; Brent (Middx.) Trades Council; South-west London USDAW; North London TSSA; Sheffield No. 4 Associated Blacksmiths, Forge and Smithy Workers; Hillsborough (Sheffield) Constituency Labour Party; Burgess Hill (Sussex) District Labour Party; Moreton (Birkenhead) T&GWU 12/53; Central Liverpool AUBTW (labourers); South-east London USDAW; Liverpool No. Plumbers' Trade Union; Massey Ferguson (Coventry) shop stewards' committee; Emscote (Warwick) T&GWU 5/620; Bristol Siddeley Engines (Ansty) Ltd. shop stewards' committee (Coventry).

This lobby and demonstration will be more than a protest. It will serve notice on the Labour government that attacks on the trade unions will not be tolerated, whatever the name of the government.

And, if it is 'Labour' leaders ho do this, then these leaders nust be unceremoniously attacked and brought down.

And, if trade union leaders, (Cont. back page, col. 1)

MR. CALLAGHAN, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced in the Commons on Tuesday, December 14, that Rhodesian pensioners were to receive their pensions on "humanitarian grounds'.

Contrast this statement with the treatment meted out to British old age pensioners just a year ago.

Pension refused

Callaghan then refused to pay the increases, allegedly because of administration difficulties—now he pays the supporters of Smith without a murmur. By a Newsletter Correspondent All those white pensioners in Rhodesia support Smith to a man.

The old age pensioners in Britain voted Labour into parliament, but they are not treated on humanitarian grounds.

Had to wait

They were forced to hang on for their miserable increases from November 1964 to March 1965, but Smith's supporters in Rhodesia get their pensions immediately.

Is it not clear that the Labour government of Wilson follows a Tory policy?

cember

The In I The The The Sokolnikov Rykov 8 Trials was that The basis of the Trotsky was a deliberate conscious agent of Hitler. Ramelson now graciously admits that Trotsky was not a fascist agent. But that is not enough.

Marxists are required to examine problems, not brush them under the carpet. The question Ramelson must answer is: How could such a monstrous regime arise out of a workers' revolution led by the most honest and truly democratic party the world has ever known?

Stalin's crimes were due to the desperate efforts of the Russian bureaucracy to defend its privileges and political power against the Russian working class.

This bureaucracy developed out of the economic backwardness of Russia and its isolation after the Revolution. My first article (November 27) showed how keenly Lenin was aware of this danger and how, in his last days, he was preparing to fight against it.

After the revolution, the civil war, and the wars of intervention and with Russia in a state of economic collapse, the working class was exhausted.

Many of the best elements in the class had been killed. Others had been drawn away from the class to take up necessary posts in the state and party apparatus.

The rest of the class was almost entirely dominated by the struggle for individual survival.

Pre-revolutionary managers and administrators began to achieve political as well as economic importance.

In the days of the New Economic Policy they were joined by rich peasants and middlemen.

These people began to enter the Bolshevik Party and even to control the Soviets.

Since there was no other political outlet for them, they began to seek expression for their political outlook-conservative, non-revolutionary, isolaBOOKS EVERY WORKER Age of Permanent Revolution: A Trotsky thology (a collection of vital writings) 9s. 6d. efence of Marxism Permanent Revolution Stalin School of Falsification Third International After Lenin (Postage 1s. extra per

Preobrazhensky

SHOULD READ Obtainable from NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD., 186a Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 Radek tionist, nationalist - - in the Bolshevik Party itself. Stalin, himself an old revolutionary, became the political head of this tendency in Soviet society.

Many of the facts concerning this development can be found in E. H. Carr's two-volumed 'Socialism in One Country'.

Carr reveals that under the NEP, the bureaucracy, the managers, the technicians and the intelligentsia were almost exclusively made up of elements alien to the regime.

He quotes a leading Bolshevik engineer-L: Kritsman— who said in 1924 that only one-tenth of the pre-war engineers in the service of the Soviet government were favourable to the regime.

In 1929 former Tsarist officials constituted 37 per cent of the personnel of Narkomfin (Commissariat of Finance), 27 per cent of the personnel of Narkomtrud (Commissariat of Labour) and 26 per cent of that of Narkomtorg (Commissariat of Trade). 52 per cent of the staffs of local government offices in Leningrad were former Tsarist officials.

(E. H. Carr 'Socialism in One Country,' Vol. 1, pp. 115 ff.)

Lenin spoke repeatedly about the danger of Communists being influenced by this tendency.

At the eleventh Party Congress in April, 1922 he declared:

'If we take Moscow with its 4,700 responsible Communists, and if we take that huge bureaucratic machine, that huge pile, we must ask: who is directing whom? I doubt very much whether it can truthfully be said that the Communists are directing, they are being directed....

Have the 4,700 Communists become influenced by an alien culture?' And at the Fourth Congress f the Comintern, in November 922, Lenin said:

"The state apparatus very often works against us ••• in practice it very often happens that here, above, where we hold • state power, the apparatus manages to work, gs. 6d. 15s. Od. 15s. Od. 22s. 6d. 22s. 6d. but there, below, where they take decisions, they decide in such a way that they very often work against our policies.' This was •not an inevitable development. This bureaucracy reflected the outlook of, and was strengthened by, the privileged layers in Russia, itself becoming a privileged caste in Soviet society, usurping political power from the working class.

But to hold on to this power, to consolidate it, it had to defeat the Bolshevik Party itself, destroy its personnel and impose non-revolutionary policies in the name of the most revolutionary party the world has ever known.

The struggle between Stalin and Trotsky, and the crimes of Stalin were not due to "big-headedness', on the part of Trotsky, nor 'negative sides' to Stalin's character, nor any other such personal idiosyncrasies, but to the clash between the representative of the developing privileged layer inside the Soviet Union and the representative of Bolshevism as the party of international working-class revolution.

Stalin's rise to power rise could only be achieved by the destruction of destruction of the Bolshevik Party.

Lenin had fought to prevent this. The Bolshevik Paty. Party, under Lenin, could not be joined by just anyone.

Early in 1917 there were no more than 23,000 members in the whole of Russia. After the Revolution, however, there was a rush to the victors' bandwagon.

The Bolsheviks therefore began a purge of the party in 1921 and expelled about a third of the total membership in the following categories: vulgar careerists, former members of anti-Bolshevik parties who joined after the end of the Civil War, Bolsheviks corrupted by power and privilege, and the politically immature who lacked an elementary grasp of the party's principles. (Listed in 'Isvestia', November 15, 1921, and quoted in Deutscher, "The Prophet Unarmed', p. 18.)

This procedure is in marked contrast to the 'Lenin Levy' begun by Stalin after Lenin's death, in which thousands of careerists and politically immature people were recruited into the Party-and became solid supporters of Stalin.

The Party which Stalin controlled, and which expelled Trotsky, was thus a very different Party from that which led the Revolution. Fewer than 2 per cent of the Party membership in 1927 had been Bolsheviks at the time of the Revolution.

But even this was not enough. Stalin's purges were directed against the old Bolsheviks, and people who had been enemies of the Revolution were used by Stalin to destroy those Bolsheviks.

The chief prosecutor at the Moscow trials, for instance was one Vyshinsky-himself a former White Guard.

Societies of old revolutionaries were closed down and their members put in prison.

The Society of Old Bolsheviks (qualification, membership of the Party before the Revolution) was banned in 1935. The Association of Political Exiles and Katorga Prisoners was also closed down and the book compiled by these revolutionaries -The Katorga and Exile'was banned.

Of Lenin's 1917 Central Bolshevik Committee, not only was Trotsky murdered in 1940, but Joffe (Ambassador to China) and Skrypnik (Party leader in the Ukraine) were driven to suicide.

Others who were executed or died in prison were Kamenev (head of the Party in Moscow), Zinoviev (leader of the Leningrad party organisation and of the Comintern); • Bukharin (editor of 'Pravda' and leader of the Comintern), Sokolnikov (commissar for Finance and Ambassador to Britain), Rykov (chairman of the, Council of Peoples' Commissars), Smilga Had where * i ming Revolution Betrayed:

A reading of Trotsky's classic analysis of the Soviet Union 'The Revolution Betrayed, available since 1937, shows Ramelson's claim about Trotsky's attitude to bureacracy as complete nonsense. (economist), Preobrazhensky (economist), Krestinsky (Ambassador to Germany) and Karl Radek (prominent leader of the Communist International).

Bubnov was imprisoned in 1937 and released in 1957, at the age of 77.

The fate of Berzin, Kiselev, Lornov, Muranov and Varvora Yakovleva is unknown.

Ramelson is completely incapable of answering Trotskyist criticisms of the Stalinist bureaucracy. He is forced to fall back on lies about what Trotsky is supposed to have said. Thus he told the members of the South Leeds Communist Party that Trotsky spoke of the Russian bureaucracy as something which existed in itself and did not serve any class.

-A reading of Trotsky's classic analysis of the, Soviet-Union 'The Revolution Betrayed' shows what complete nonsense Ramelson's claim is.

Here Trotsky describes in detail the role of the Russian bureaucracy, which attempts to defend this workers' state by methods of its own (methods which, in fact, endanger the workers' state), which had usurped political power, but not overthrown the social basis created by the October Revolution.

One extract will have to suffice here (the book has, after all, been available since 1937).

'The Soviet Union is a contradictory society, halfway between capitalism and socialism, in which: a) the productive forces are still far from adequate to give the state property a socialist character; b) the tendency towards primitive accumulation created by want breaks out through innumerable pores of the planned economy; c) norms of distribution preserving a bourgeois character lie at the basis of a new differentiation of society; d) the economic growth, while slowly bettering the situation of the toilers, promotes a swift formation of privileged strata; e) exploiting the social antagonisms, a bureaucracy has converted itself into an uncontrolled caste, alien to socialism; f) the social revolution, betrayed by the ruling party, still exists in property relations and in the consciousness of the toiling masses; g) a further development of the accumulating contradictions can as well lead to socialism as back to capitalism; h) on the road to capitalism, the counter revolution would have to break the resistance of the workers; i) on the road to socialism the workers would have to overthrow the bureaucracy. In the last analysis, the question will be decided by a struggle of living social forces both on the national and world arena.' Thus Trotskyists have always stood for the defence of the Soviet Union. But we are for the overthrow of the bureaucracy which, having destroyed Lenin's Party and revolutionary International, will also bring about the overthrow of the Soviet Union if it is not removed.

We are for the victory of the Russian working class over the bureaucracy and the construction of a revolutionary Fourth International.

NHE conservative bankers of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board have moved to raise the bank rate by ≥ per cent to 42 per cent despite President Johnson's protests.

Behind this lies the growing of 'overheating'-inflation and falling confidence in the dollar —which has found expression for some time in banking and financial circles.

Writing in the 'New York Times', December 5, before the increase had become public, Thomas Mullaney indicated that 'pressures on prices, wages, interest rates, the skilled labour force and supplies of certain goods have intensified so signicantly in recent months that the nation's balanced and orderly 58-month expansion is now threatened by serious disturbances'.

This is borne out by uneasiness on the Stock Market, despite a continued high volume of business last week.

Investors are said to be looking out for high-yield but speculative stocks.

Main interest in the bank rate increase lies immediately in the open rift now apparent between Johnson's backers and some bankers.

The vote on the change was only four to three and one of those voting with the majority will come up for re-appointment By TC at the year end-and the appointment is a Presidential one.

The U.S. interest increase was followed closely by an announcement from the Bank of Canada raising the rate from 1% per cent to 47 per cent.

VOLUNTARY CURB Papers carried at the same time the story that the U.s. administration had urged corporations operating in Canada to impose a voluntary curb on the export of capital north of the border and to bring back some of the profits being made instead of re-investing them.

In fact, re-invested profits have been the main source of new U.S. investment in Canada for some years.

While the Montreal paper 'Le Devoir' headlined a crisis in U.S.-Canadian relations, acting finance minister Sharp, at a press conference, accepted the new move with apparent equanimity. It could be said that increased U.S. investment would export more inflation from the U.S. to the heavily loaded Canadian economy.

Like other measures taken to curb the balance of payments deficit of the U.S., this one is purely voluntary.

In fact, business is being asked not to cut back investment but to prevent it increas›M KEMP ing as rapidly as in the past.

It has been suggested that investment for the years 1965 and 1966 should be limited to 90 per cent of that for the three previous years.

After all, U.S. investment is so very profitable that the motor firms alone have planned a vastly expanded investment in the next few years. By all accounts this will not be affected by the latest checks.

Such attempts to limit U.S. investment, or to encourage firms to repatriate part of their profits, is part of an Administration drive to counteract the effect on the balance of payments of increased spending overseas made necessary by the Vietnam war.

In this connection a revealing statement was made by the Negro economist, Andrew Brimman, who has a specialised post in the Department of Commerce to encourage businessmen to cut down spending overseas.

Referring to criticism of the big contribution which the government makes to the balance of payments deficit he said:

If these aid programmes (sic) were discontinued, private investment might be a waste because it would not be safe enough for you to make them.' There could hardly be a clearer recognition of the connection between the needs of U.S. capitalism and the Vietnam war, as well as so-called 'aid' to under - developed countries, even if representatives of capital are not always themselves conscious of it it.

DOLLAR UNDERMINED There is thus a functional relationship between the different components of the balance of payments which remains in deficit. The current deficit undermines the dollar, thus mak-. ing necessary the raising of interest rates which, in turn, put into question the continuance of the boom itself.

As it is, the U.S. gold reserves continue to shrink.

The best estimate is that the deficit for 1965 will be $1,300 million against $2,800 million in 1964. To handle this problem, business itself is being asked to cut investment, which is the motor force in the whole process of capitalist reproduction.

Commenting on the stricter policies on foreign investment, Mullaney, in the article already quoted, points out that while a curb may be inevitable in the short-run: 'its long-term effects can only be disastrous for American industry, for the payments situation itself and for the whole economy.

There could not be a better expression of the contradiction.

WORLD NEWS ROUND-UP Decembe 1965 try, if not more so.

The drive for profit by French capitalism, or European capitalism in a wider Common Market —which Mitterand advocatesand of the massive U.S. com-

Bukharin Zinoviev Trotskyism versus Stalinism The third article by JACK CALD answering a lecture on Trotskyism riven to the South Leeds Communist 'arty by Bert Ramelson (Yorkshire Ares Secretary of the CP) THE Communist Party 'unity' campaign chugs along in low gear. Alongside a selective circulation of its conference 'unity' appeal a further appeal for advertising in the 'Daily Worker' has gone out to the advertising agencies.

'The Observer' of December 12 reports the following:

'There is a glossy brochure going round the advertising agencies which sets out to prove to advertisers that the 'Daily Worker' could be a valuable handmaiden of capitalism. It contains a photograph of a typical 'Daily Worker' family, complete with dream kitchen, one of those pre-Communist Chinese galloping-horse pictures on the walls, and a well-fed cat.

'The brochure proudly claims that 13 per cent of the paper's readers belong to the high-income AB class-compared with 10 per cent of 'Daily Express' readers and 4 per cent of Daily Mirror readers.

' "It is worth noting," it says, "that the 'Worker' is particularly strong in the heavyspending 35-44 age group and it is well above the national average for families with two or more children."' So there it is: To be or not to be respectable.

The cudgels for and against unity are taken up in the 'Daily Worker' on Monday, December 13.

There is the appeal from old-time fellow-travellers such Councillor Peter Grimshaw, Salford Labour Party.

In his own words he tells us that his kind of 'left' is fighting to maintain the Labour government. The obvious contradiction here is that the Communist Party type of 'left' will be called upon to vote for the party candidates in the next General Election and defeat the Labour government.

Not much basis for unity here, but Grimshaw is not to be diverted from expounding his version of the 'party line'. Like a prayer he winds up by saying 'We need the "Daily Worker more than ever.' •Grimshaw, like all the miserable tribe of fellow-travellers, knows full well the record of the 'Daily Waker".

Next we have Lawrence Daly who not so long ago defeated the Communist Party candidate for the general secretaryship of the Scottish mineworkers.

He calls upon the Communist Party to disband and accept 'Tribune's advice.

Daly really spits in the face of the Communist Party, and he is followed by Alderman" Harry Watton, right-wing leader of the Labour controlling group on the Birmingham City Council, who also believes the Communist Party should fold up and Join the Labour Party.

rrom those on the extreme right, back to the fellow travelDais are followed by two of these who, like Grimshaw, And there the "unity

/ French Presidential election, the British Com- RGING support for Francois Mitterand in the munist Party paper, the "Daily Worker', again plugged its line, used by their French comrades, of 'unity of all left forces behind a common programme which can help to solve the problems of the people.

This plea came after the first round of the election when de Gaulle and Mitterand topped the list of six candi. dates-the general with 10,000,000 votes and Mitterand, 7,000,000.

The massive vote for Mitterand is a blow to the strength of de Gaulle and shows clearly that the French working class, though confused, misled and betrayed, still instinctively refuses to give any support to Bonapartism. In this sense the vote for Mitterand was a negative gesture against Gaullism.

RIGHT-WING SUPPORT So Mitterand, who belongs to no party and now accepts the support of the extreme right candidate, Tixier Vignancour, for the second ballot this Sunday, wins the support of the Stalinists because he stands for 'the extension of democracy and civil liberties, for the right to strike, for democratic planning and more expenditure on education, according to the 'Daily Worker'.

He has also come out against the idea of de Gaulle's nuclear striking force and a military alliance with West Germany and for a signing of the test ban treaty and a revision of the NATO treaty.

There was certainly no confusion among the Stalinists, despite stories of disunity of the left until just before the election.

They had their policy worked out for some time.

POLICY OUTLINED In 'L'Humanite', the French Communist Party newspaper, on October 22 this year, in an article entitled: 'Lessons of the History of the Party'- Why we support F. Mitterand', one Victor Joannes wrote:

*Following the victory of the democratic forces over the retrograde forces of fascism, Maurice Thorez (the late secretary of the Party) went on to take up and develop his thesis on the continued creation of democracy, thus responding to the aspirations and will of our people, which LETTE fought for a renewed and enlarged democracy.

'He stated that the union of all working layers and classes of the nations and, hence, the entente of the parties and organisations representing them in the struggle to enlarge democracy while transforming it, was not only necessary but possible. (Our emphasis.)

'He invited the whole Party to face up to its obligations on the realisation of national unity.

'And, at the head of the Central Committee, Maurice Thorez led all the militants, both in the government and those whose activities go on throughout the country, to work to give France the stable and strong power which is indispensable for its rebirth and greatness in the world' (!)

'Its [the Communist Party's] unreserved support for François Mitterand, the democratic union candidate, lies, quite naturally, within this national policy.

•Yesterday, as today, in order to go forward, it is indispensable to bring about the union of all working class and democratic forces.

"The restoration of France, the accomplishment of her democratic and peaceful mission in the world, are not and cannot be the work of one man, not of one single party or several statesmen, however great they may be.

"This is the task of millions of Frenchmen and Frenchwomen and no one has the right... to exclude from it a fraction as important as the one represented by the Communist Party!

BACKWARD APPEAL So, like the recent Congress of the British Communist Party, the French Party projects, once again, in the most backward appeal, the 'parliamentary [or should we say Presidential] road to socialism'.

This action, with its reactionary calls for 'the restoration of France,' and giving France the stable and strong power which is indispensable for its rebirth' is a more blatant betrayal of the working class because of the vast support that the French Party has amongst that class.

Stalinists in France know that this is not an isolated policy, for they will go ahead and support Mitterand, or his equivalent, in the 1967 parliamentary elections.

WORLD CRISIS They mu: st know that for all Mitterand's statements about democracy, civil liberties and the right to strike, France is as much a part of the world c of capitalism as any other cc BAPT Gaulle: Rejected by class And Mitterand's military policy is as much a part of the imperialist line-up as the General's.

The 'Call to Beat de Gaulle', as the 'Daily Worker' headline put it on December 7, is as dangerous to the working class as Gollan's call in Britain for unity of the left.

French Stalinists prefer to sell out the working class to a man who, as Minister of the Interior in 1954, was put in charge of 'restoring order' in Algeria!

The drive for a real revolutionary alternative leadership in Britain takes on much more significance for the future of the French working class in the light of these recent events.

THE author of Lessons of the Rhodesian Crisis' (Newsletter, December 4), while claiming to be a partisan of the Permanent Revolution, shows in his writings a deplorably false understanding of the central tenets of Trotskyism.

He quotes, for example, Trotsky's letter on the struggle against British imperialism, but does not mention anywhere, Trotsky's equally important letter on the agrarian question in South Africa, which is the central question of the Vkomo: Rhodesian nationalist leader South African revolution—as well as the Rhodesian revolution.

What on earth does the author mean when he writes:

• • • political independence does not come about as a result of a long, bloody and protracted struggle involving the workers and poor peasants'? • What about Indonesia, Algeria and India? Are we to assume that the 'independence' of Algeria was unconnected with the grim and bloody seven-year war of French imperialism? Of course not!

The repression and resistance was inevitable-what was not inevitable, of course, was the sell-out at Evian.

It is a dangerous fallacy to think that imperialism graciously and willingly concedes 'political independence' purely by secret deals.

Personally I disapprove of the term 'neo-colonialism' because it is un-Marxist and I cannot even, by the most painful stretch of imagination, understand what he means by a 'neo-colonialist solution the Rhodesian problem'.

And, pray, why should Verwoerd recoil with fear and horror at the prospect of a 'black' government on his border?

Verwoerd gets along fine with the Congo, Malawi and Kenya leaders, so why not with Nkomo and Sithole?

I do not think we need the posthumous advice of a petty-bourgeois mystic like Franz Fanon to guide us in this situation.

Violence will not cure 'colonised man' of colonial neurosis, no more than the selfmortification of Buddhist monks. It is an illusion.

"Colonial man' will gain his freedom, not through 'violence' but through collectively acquiring and applying the science of class struggle; by Marxism, and the construction of revolutionary parties based on the working class.

All talk of joint military command' today is utopian and petty-bourgeois nonsense.

Who is to organise it and how? Obviously for the working class to do so presupposes the seizure of power in a number of states; a prospect which is still to be realised.

Or does the author believe that the African nationalists can achieve this aim?

One utopia follows another.

"The construction of a revolutionary Marxist Party. in Southern Africa' (my emphasis) he says, ... is now the unpostponable demand of the political situation'.

This statement displays an astonishing ignorance of the nature of revolutionary parties: Such parties, while remaining internationalist in their outlook and connections, must, of necessity, remain 'national' organisations.

It is unreal, and, shall I say, naive, to think that you can have one party for the whole of Southern Africa entrusted with the task of overthrowing Sithole: Rhodesian nationalist leader five bourgeois states.

Finally, the article says nothing about the tasks of British workers in the present crisis.

Political abstentionism in such periods strengthens white chauvinism and black nationalism as well.

The British workers are not helpless by-standers in the Rhodesian drama-they can, and must, become active participants and allies of the African workers and peasants.

The author of the article however seems, sadly, to be oblivious to all this.

Franklin. Communist drive in military commitments to the north.

Shastri himself has said that he would rather see India starve than remain 'undefended'.

The cost of the arms buildup has whittled away the means by which grain could be bought abroad.

'SPECIAL DIFFICULTIES' In a speech in Madras in late November Shastri spoke mostly of the border war and dismissed the food crisis in these terms: Two months hence we may have to face special difficulties'.

But the Indian workers and peasants have been facing such difficulties for a great number of years without any hint of the problem being solved by the leading figures in the Congress Party—a religious and economic elite.

As 'The Times' reported on November 29, the ancient system for the distribution of grain works blindly, without direction or plan. Its purpose is not distribution, but profit, and the fuel on which the whole machinery operates is price variation' To increase the price, the growers hold back the grain, which means there is a buildup on local markets. But the prices are so high, "The Times'

December 18, 196

ANY doubt as to Sukarno's real attitude to the indonesian Communist Party was finally dispelled when the President, in a speech to the Provisional People's Consultative Assembly, launched a murderous attack against the Party and virtually incited Indonesians to lynch Communists on the spot.

Dismissing his ertswhile supporters as rats which have tried to eat the pillars of our house, Sukarno went on:

'Now let us catch these rats, yes, catch them and I will punish them' In earnest To show that he was in earnest, he announced the formation of an extraordinary military tribunal to try all those involved in the attempted coup of September 30.

Moreover, the Indonesian Communist Party, whose activities in the Djakarta region had recently beén suspended, has now been outlawed altogether.

This is the fifth region in Java where the Communist Party has been officially dissolved. It will not be the last.

The purpose of the speech was to try to regain some of Sukarno's presidential power which the generals have usurped in the ETTER course of the counter-coup against Colonel Untung.

These forces, supported by the imperialists, the decisive sections of the capitalist class, the large land-owners, the semi-feudal aristocracy, aid the fanatics of Darul Islam', are now in effective control of all Indonesia.

Opposition crushed

All opposition has either been bloodily crushed or contained by the armed forces.

Thus, the most powerful Stalinist Party outside the USSR and China has been smashed in a matter of weeks.

Every day reports pour in of arrests and of atrocities against Communist Party members and leaders.

The blood-lust of the generals is reminiscent of the white terror unleashed by Chiang Kai-Shek's longsword detachments that massacred the Shanghai workers in 1927.

It is insatiable and implacable. So widespread and intense is the terror that even Sukarno is forced to protest:

'Sometimes I feel that I am just ignored by some groups. They say they stand behind me, and abide by my words, but in fact they push me and kick me about what to do. They say I should do this and that.' This admission reveals the utter impotency of the President who is trying to play Kerensky to Kornilov-Nasution but without any kind of mass movement behind him.

The destruction of the indonesian Communist Party is not only a grave blow to the Indonesian workers. It is also an unanswerable indictment of Peking's support for Sukarno's policy of 'guided democracy' and "Nasakom' (nationalism, Islam, Communism).

This policy, foisted on the Party, disarmed it during the periods of civil peace and successfully disorientated it during the period of civil war.

Apart from some sporadic fighting in Central Java, the Communist Party went down without a single strike or insurrection.

Myth peddled

Not only did Peking maintain silence during this chaotic period (which itself was a betrayal of the Indonesian workers and peasants) but some of its supporters continued to peddle the myth of 'Sukarno-the Socialist' long after the September events.

The October issue of "Challenge' organ of the pro-Peking group in the U.S.A., went so far as to print a speech of Sukarno! seen til used, plain face is never

from a Correspondent bines which have invested heavily in large sections of French industry, will result in even greater attacks on the wages and conditions of the French workers and farmers than have been seen in recent struggles. ONCE more the Indian nation lurches into a food crisis with the threat of the with the threat of the severest famine the country has experienced.

It was this crisis which led to food riots last year, when production was 88 million tons of grain—the staple diet in India.

This year, with over 12 mil lion more mouths to feed, the harvests have produced only 75 million tons of grain.

So the government has begun rationing, and daily papers have carried large adverts saying "Today is a dinnerless day'.

Other papers carried pictures of Premier Shastri standing idly by as labourers dug up his garden. He was showing, by example, that 'a well kept garden should be a matter of pride to every household'.

He asked all city dwellers to take his lead by digging up their gardens and planting grain seeds.

FUTILE GESTURE

But this futile gesture will not prevent thousands of Indian peasants starving, in many cases, to death. -The current five-year plan estimated food requirements for this year at 92 million tons.

Attempting to hoodwink the Indian workers_ and peasants Shastri gives the impression that some of the other 17 million tons will be found in the front gardens of the town dwellers.

Last summer's drier-thanusual monsoon has been blamed for this year's crop failure—in Maharashtra produce fell by 75 per cent! This failure has caused prices to increase by 30 per cent and much black marketeering and profiteering.

But the fact that two-thirds of India's 405,000,000 people are living on a precarious subsistence diet is not due entirely to the failure of the crops, but to the deepening crisis in Indian capitalism, which calls on the people to eat less!

These people are callously neglected by Shastri and his Congress Party to satisfy the profit drive of the large landowners, from whom the Party derives its main support, and to satisfy the imperialists' antiCorrespondent everest famine the country Shastri: Food crisis dismissed as "special difficulties"

reports that 'the poorest in the villages begin to starve to starve to death'.

The state system of distribution, where grain from surplus producing states like Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, is supposed to be sent to those areas which do not have enough grain has, under the pressure of the profit drive, also broken downgrowers in the grain wealthy states have held back cereals.

State governments have been attempting to impose a price on existing stocks and procuring the grain, but, 'The Times' says, nowhere has this method yielded the quantity of food sought:

In fact, where procured stock has been taken into urban areas, it has been followed by large numbers of peasants from the rural areas seeking cheaper cereal in the government-run 'fair-price shops'.

CRISIS WORSENED

The crisis could be worsened by a threat from the U.S., which last year supplied 15 per cent of its entire wheat crop to India, to withdraw supplies until countries like India can solve their own agricultural problems first.

This can only be seen as an attempt by U.S. imperialism to prevent the Indian capitalist class developing industry on its own initiative, instead of investing dollars-paid in exchange for the grain supplies —in Indian industry.

Science can provide an answer. But under imperialism such answers come up against national and international political and economic barriers.

One experimental station, for example, has designed a machine which can extract protein from leaves. Running for eight hours, the machine can produce enough protein for 6,000 people.

But the real answer lies in the control of such means of food production by the workers and peasants in India, along with the nationalization of the land and big banking interests which finance the landowners.

MILITANCY

Indian workers have shown their militancy in the past in riots. The state has clamped down and many communists have been jailed.

The Communist Party has put up no fight to win these workers to a socialist programme--in fact during the border dispute, the Party backed Shastri 'in the interests of national unity'.

This betrayal of the Indian worker and peasant classes and capitulation to imperialism and its lackey, the Shastri government, can only be answered by a struggle for a revolutionary leadership in Britain to give a lead to a similar struggle in India, leading to the overthrow of Indian capitalism.

many did at the Labour Party conference, give their endorsement to Labour's right-wing policies, then these leaders will be removed by those whose subscriptions pay their wages.

A massive response to this call for the lobby, the growth of committees all over the country to make it a political success and to carry on the fight afterwards, will be a great step forward in building å new leadership in which the working class can have confidence. This is the overwhelming need of the hour.

In some places, workers remain unconcerned that the legislation will go through.

They are held back by lingering illusions that Wilson is some sort of socialist, and would not carry through such a Bill.

Others are dangerously complacent, insisting that even if the laws are passed, the strength of the working class will make their implementation impossible.

Make no mistake, the problems of the capitalists have got worse and not better. It is. these problems which make necessary their attacks on the unions.

In the employers' press there are ominous reports of falling profit margins. The steel and building industries are running into unemployment, and this is sure to affect other industries.

Because of the need for an "unpopular' Budget in 1966, there is talk of an early General Election.

The raised discount rate in the USA indicates that America may not much longer be able to prop up the pound-and it is only the international bankers' decision to do that which has kept the Wilson Registered at the G.P.O. as a newspaper Published by The Newsletter, i8o Capham High Street, London, S.F.4 Printed by Plough Press

By Newsletter ONE hundred drivers at the British Motor Corporation factory, Longbridge, Birmingham, are going on strike for an extra 2s 6d a car for every car which they deliver.

The employers ductivity bonus. down on Tuesday ing lasting six and LAY-OFF THREAT At the Vauxhall factory, Luton, 160 men working for the Progressive Deliveries Group are on strike and the company, which is owned lock stock and barrel by the General Motors Combine in the USA, has threatened to lay off 6,000 workers.

Minister of Labour, Mr. Ray Gunter, has decided to hit back at the delivery drivers. He has appointed so-called troubleshooter Mr. Jack Scamp to hold an enquiry into the BMC dispute.

LEGAL POWERS

Gunter has given Scamp legal powers to insist on the attendance of witnesses and the production of evidence.

This is the first time that such an enquiry has been provided with legal powers. It is an omen of what legislation on the prices and incomes will be like. JANUARY 21 LOBBY want a proTalks . broke after a meeta half hours. WAR ON UNIONS BIG DIFFERENCES ON UNION LAW MAJOR crisis between the trade unions and crisis between the trade unions the government is blowing up over the proposed legislation on prices and incomes. The bill for action against the trades unions has still not been published and there is still some doubt that it can become law during the lifetime of the present parliament.

The differences were revealed in a recent speech by George Brown, the Minister of Economic Affairs, to the Women's Consultative Council.

Speaking about his policy of clamping down on wage increases and keeping them to the level of 3z per cent he said :

'If the policy is to be pressed home and is to have the impact required, there may be difficulties and hardship for the public.

'The acceptance of this-and temporary interference with supplies-may be the contribution the general public can make to the result we all desire: price stability and an end to the dreary sound of inflation. • Time is short.' Take on unions In other words Brown envisages the state and the employers taking on unions with wage demands over 34 per cent, who strike under conditions where Brown claims the public would be inconvenienced.

He wants war to the knife against the trade unions and this has caused an uneasy tremor to affect even such ultra right-wing figures as Mr. Ray Gunter, Minister for Labour. They are clearly frightened of the consequences.

In the same speech Brown complained that wages have been rising too fast.

'I must,' he said, 'give a clear warning that if this goes on it administration going.

The proposed laws against the unions are by way of a guarantee for that 'help'.

NOT BEFORE 26th It is unlikely that the new laws, already promised in the Queen's Speech, will be on the Parliamentary Order Paper before the lobby of January 26.

This is not because Wilson is having second thoughts.

The 'Sunday Times' reported this week that the lawyers and the parliamentary draughtsmen are having difficulty in framing the "penalty clauses' for the new Bill.

No wonder! As the 'Sunday Times' pointed out, a new type of criminal has to be defined and appropriate fines or terms of jail have to be decided for the new crime of organising to press for wage claims without going through 'official' channels and with government permission.

The union rule books, wielded by the official bureaucracy, will be used to enforce discipline on the rank and file.

The blessed 'independence' of the official and full-time negotiators (independence from their members, that is!) Will be completed, only to end up as the Labour leadership did, in the fond, but vice-like embrace of the capitalist state machine.

Loyalty to the Labour government, under these conditions, conflicts with loyalty to the working class and its traditions and interests.

Support for the Lambeth Trades Council lobby, and opposition now to the plans of Wilson and the capitalists, is the first duty of every trade unionist.

Between now and January 26, every socialist and militant worker should fight to ensure the maximum attendance at the lobby. will be very difficult indeed to hold prices down.' "Those who, by pressing for increases in personal incomes which are not justified by the agreed Prices and Incomes White Paper, have contributed to this will bear a heavy burden of responsibility for the consequences.' Brown wants a showdown, others in the cabinet more closely related to the trade unions hesitate.

In other words we have a remarkably similar situation to that which formed the background to the 1931 crisis of the MacDonald government.

What better example of bankruptcy of the right wing can be provided in order to justify the building of the alternative revolutionary leadership.

Balance of payments crisis still on Newsletter Correspondent deficit, despite an improvement in exports, still remains at £17,000,000.

Meanwhile everyone from the government downwards expects the next quarter's figures to be, in their words, "depressingly low.

Despite the huge loans nothing has been resolved so far as Britain's economic crisis goes. If it were not for the massive assistance last September from the foreign bankers of the USA and elsewhere, the pound would have had to be devalued.

The Labour government continues its right-wing policy by kind permission of the foreign bankers of Wall Street.

Will these huge loans continue to be doled out to Britain by the United States?

This is exremely unlikely since the dollar itself is in a shaky condition.

The raising of the US bank rate is one of several indications that 1966 may well be a year of major crisis for British capitalism. 20 per cent rent rise for many Wandsworth tenants trolled council is attempting to wipe off its £900,000 housing revenue debt by burdening its 12,000 council tenants with a rent rise.

Wandsworth, London, Borough Council plans an increase from next April amounting to 20 per cent of the current gross value of each house.

This was decided at a meeting of the Council's Labour majority group in late November. They plan a further meetF-III deal Cousins remains silent AT a cost of €300,000,000 the government of Harold Wilson proposes to order 100 American swing-wing FIll nuclear aircraft over the next 10 years.

The first order for 10 will be given on March 1-so more, it is expected, will be ordered by summer.

This plane can remain aloft for eight hours without refuelling and has a global striking power.

It is a machine of nuclear mass murder and the decision to purchase it was made by a Labour Cabinet which includes Frank Cousins, a recent 'ban the bomb' marcher.

Why is he silent? Is it because he has sold out to Wilson in order to remain in the Cabinet?

An answer please!

radiator firm WORKERS at Serck Radiators, Birmingham, walked out of the plant last week when two men were ordered to report to another shop without a guarantee on no loss of earnings.

They returned on the assumption that the firm would give 'average earnings'. Within three hours, the men had struck again until the management gave way on this matter.

The senior shop steward told the Newsletter that if the company had been allowed to win on this matter, a dangerous precedent would have been set.

Correspondent ing in early January when a 14s lodger charge and 1s 3d pram store or shed rate will be discussed.

This same meeting will decide whether the rent increase will be paid as a whole or over a period-10 per cent in April and the other half in October.

Councillors are also to discuss a rent rebate scheme with a minimum payment of half the gross value of each house.

As in Islington, London, where GUNTER HESITATES SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE Area Midlands — Conferences — London CONFIDENCE in the development of the revolutionary party in the coming crucial year was a keynote of the Midlands area conference of the Socialist Labour League, held in Leicester last week-end.

This was coupled with a serious recognition of the League's responsibility to the working-class for overcoming difficulties and problems in its fight to build a revolutionary leadership; for preparing also to launch a daily communist newspaper which would act as 'a daily leadership and record' for the working-class in its struggles.

The sound basis for confidence which members of the League should feel in facing the future was stressed by Gerry • Healy, national secretary of the SLL, in his political report to the conterence.

NOT BLUDGEONED This confidence was based upon the working-class, which would not be beaten down and bludgeoned by the capitalist class. The working-class would follow a revolutionary, not a reformist, road in its struggle for power.

1965 had been a year of the utmost importance for the working-class and the Socialist Labour League. The work and achievements of 1966 would develop directly from it.

The intervention of Marxists would bring fresh forces into the trade unions from the working-class youth, to replace the present conservative union leadership with a militant revolutionary leadership.

This new, young force could not be trained without many difficulties, which would have to be fought through as the form of work was constantly changing and developing.

But the building of the revolutionary youth movement would continue through all problems.

The League's aim was t develop a compact, trained, active force in which every member was a potential leader.

This force would break completely with the trade unionism CLOSURE TALKS CALL THE National Union of Mineworkers branch at the Rising Sun Colliery, Northumberland, has passed a resolution demanding a special meeting of the union's national executive to discuss pit closures.

It has also called for a demonstration of miners when the executive meets.

The Rising Sun colliery has been placed in category B by the Coal Board, i.e. pits with a doubtful future. 9,000 tenants face a rent rise (reported in last week's Newsletter), it was thought at first that new subsidies promised by the Labour government would ofiset some of the proposed increase.

A government White Paper says that the subsidies should be used 'to relieve those with the greatest social need' and, therefore, 'they should not be used wholly, or even mainly, to keep general rent levels low' As in other areas, tenants in the Wandsworth area have already begun organising protests against the rent increases. Industrial of the past.

It would furnish a new leadership of youth for a new kind of trade unionism.

It would sound the alarm for the working-class, lead strikes and explain problems.

This young force would defeat the entrenched union leaders and those who played the game of leftism. The role of all such people was to keep the working-class passive.

No artificial barrier would be allowed to stand between the new revolutionary force and the leadership of the working-class.

CONTINUOUS STRUGGLE It would, however, be one continuous struggle to mobilise, train and teach these young leaders how to fight. It would involve constant political development and Marxist education from all experience and activity in the working-class movement.

Problems involved in the training of youth were part of the basic education of the revolutionary party. Policies and the formulation of demands must be studied and participated in by all the youth; that was the basis on which the movement was built.

That members of the Midlands Area fully understood the serious nature of their responsibilities in the Marxist revolutionary party was demonstrated in the long discussion which followed the report.

This covered the political perspectives of the SLL, the problems and plans of the youth organisation, the importance and development of work in the trade unions, and the extension of sales of the Newsletter, in preparation for the daily paper to fight for socialist policies and the interests of the working-class.

Conference saw the mobilising of support for the January 26 lobby of parliament against anti-trade union legislation as the immediate task of paramount importance.

The aim was to warn and organise young adult workers and bring them together to demonstrate the strength of the working-class and raise the political consciousness of the class as a whole.

ACTIVE PARTICIPATION Resolutions of support from workers' organisations were not enough. Active participation by workers in the lobby must be the prime object.

Young speakers constantly stressed the relation between active involvement in political campaigns and the ability to attract and organise working-class youth.

In order to prepare the youth it is necessary to give them experience in the class struggle' was the way one speaker expressed it.

The huge demonstration last autumn at the Blackpool Labour Party Conference, organised jointly by the Young Socialists and the Sun, was seen as an occasion when 'the Young Socialists moved into its rightful place at the head of the most militant sections of the working-class'.

Conference elected a new area leadership. This was seen as a very serious political decision which would have a far-reaching influence on the development of revolutionary theory and practice in the Midlands. FROM the Keep Left annual meeting on January 1 to the Christmas Bazaar on November 27, 1965, was a year in which the London Area Committee of the Socialist Labour League either instigated or organised demonstrations and campaigns at the rate of one every two months.

The political report given to the Area Conference of the Socialist Labour League in London over the weekend stressed that each event had been decisive for the development of the Young Socialists and the Socialist Labour League.

YEAR'S HIGHLIGHT

The highlight of the year's activities was the commemoration meeting of Leon Trotsky's assasination. A packed hall of 600 heard speakers from the Young Socialists and the Socialist Labour League. This was the biggest tribute that could be paid to the founder of the Fourth International. • Finally there was the demonstration of some 2,000 Young Socialists and trade unionists at Blackpool at the annual conference of the Labour Party. Only the Young Socialists, supported by the Socialist Labour League, made the position clear-that the present Labour government was a government of betrayal.

Now the Socialist Labour League was preparing to support the lobby of Parliament against legislation called by the Lambeth Trades Council on January 26. There would be many Young Socialists organised to come and support this fight against the Wilson government.

ENORMOUS STRUGGLES The permanent crisis of the Labour government would produce enormous struggles for the working class.

This Labour government had to maintain the pound by borrowing from the American and foreign bankers, but it would not be able to continue to do so, and it was this realisation that was responsible for the Devlin Commission on the docks and legislation against the trade unions.

Wilson and company, in order to support imperialism, had to launch a big attack on the working class.

In this situation the working class was not weak but strong wages had increased by an average of eight per cent over the past year.

There was no room for pessimism. The Socialist Labour League believed that the working class could take the revolutionary road to power with a Marxist leadership, and 1966 would prove to be a year in which, more than ever before, the building of the revolutionary party would take place.

Middle-of-the-road compromises must be rejected. The building of a Marxist revolutionary leadership was the task which faced the Socialist Labour League.

POPULARISE NEWSPAPER The report added that in line with the developments in the class struggle the programme and newspaper of the SLL had to be popularised. There would be more theoretical books and pamphlets printed in 1966 to meet the needs of both young and old workers.

Above all the drive for the Newsletter must continue.

The struggles of 1966 were a prelude to the launching of a daily paper in 1967—a revolutionary daily which would mark a big step on the road to the taking of power by the working class.