The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 427

lilitan cover for betrayal class comes more clearly into the open, the betrayals of the labour and trade union leaders become more obvious. - At the same time, all those pretended 'left' tendencies • who fight against the development of revolutionary leadership appear increasingly repulsive.

Take, for example, 'Militant', which describes itself as being 'For Labour and Youth' Its writers deck themselves in all kinds of Marxist phrases, the cast-off clothes of Trotskyism, in order to cover their naked support for the actions of the Labour leaders.

The issue for December-January is a clear example.

We have no space here to examine the editorial, 'Forward from Malvern' , which • hails the farcical proceedings pretending to be a conference of the Labour Party Young Socialists as a huge success.

Verbal negotiation

We deal instead with the front page lead, headlined 'TU's Must Say No! To Legislation: leaders must defend rights'. Its author is described as Dickinson (CAWU).

This individual's attitude to legislation is easily seen to be one of purely verbal negation.

The article is chiefly directed it discouraging any real fight, not by leaders. but by the ranks of the trade unions.

After explaining why British employers need degal curbs on the rights of trade unions, Dickinson asks: 'Can they involve the trade unions in this?

'For the present it would appear that the trade union bureaucracy is going along with the scheme.

This was written, we presume, before the General Council accepted legislation on wages.

But don't get too worried— 'Brother Woodcock feels apprehensive, and the Contederation of British Industry risks provoking opposition bureaucrats ven from the union And so, says Dickinson, those who demand rank-and-file action 'have been pushed into an alarmist position, predicting immediate all-out the workers' By The Editor THE Central Committee of the Socialist Labour League at its meeting in London on January 8 and 9 issued an appeal to all rank-and-file trade unionists to rally behind the proscribed Lambeth Trades Council and its lobby of Parliament on January 26. The text of the appeal is as follows :

6 Time is short and the dangers are great. When parliament reassembles on January 25, a bill announcing legislation against the trade unions is to be introduced by the Labour government.

It will enjoy the full support of the Tory Party who, as everyone knows, has always been hostile to the trade unions.

They welcome this bill because it takes away the traditional bargaining rights of the unions and ties them more firmly to the capitalist state machine.

This can mean the end of trade unionism as we know it. If the unions cannot legally negotiate for wages on behalf of their members without state consent, then we are moving . closer and closer towards the corporate state reminiscent of Nazi Germany. MOST SINISTER FEATURE A most sinister feature of the whole affair is the subservience of the Labour government to the wishes of the international bankers, who are in the forefront of those demanding such legislation.

They have granted loans to the government only on condition that they reduce the wages and living standards of the working people, the very same people who voted this government to power.

It was the same gang of bankers who, in 1931, forced the MacDonald government to cut the dole.

This led to the splitting of the working class and the collapse of the MacDonald government, which led to the return of a Tory Nutional government with a large majority. This Tory government held power in parliament for 14 years.

MORE UNION SUPPORT MASSEY Ferguson shop stewards committee (Coventry) has voted to send a coach to the lobby and is making a collection in the works.

Standard Valves' (Northampton) shop stewards also agreed to send a delegation, and Romford Trades Council has taken similar action.

AEU branches in Chiswick (No. 4 and No. 5), Acton, Istington, Finsbury Park and Brooklands (which has many workers from the British Aircraft Corporation factory in Weybridge, Surrey), have all given support to the lobby along with Deptford No. ASW, Battersea ASW, Wimbledon CEU, Southall and District CAWU and the South London No. 1/61 T&GWU branch.

Bermondsey ASW has opposed the suspension of the Lambeth Trades Council by the TUC. The future of the Daily Worker Wilson, as the servant of the international bankers, follows in Ramsay MacDonald's footsteps.

Those who support legislation against the trade unions today are following MacDonald and opening the door for a Tory majority in parliament.

These are now the main issues before the working class.

Support legislation against the trade union and you support the Tory Party.

Fight against it with the Lambeth Trades Council and the Socialist Labour League and you fight for the future of the entire labour movement in the struggle to get rid of Toryism forever, thus leading to the introduction of a socialist Britain.

There is no time to lose. It is far better to defeat this legislation before it goes on the statute book, than to stand idly by whilst it is being debated in parliament.

The time to fight is now!

We urge you to join this fight and defeat those most reactionary proposals.

Hands off the trade unions!

All out on January 26 lobby of parliament! Hugh Jenkins, MP

organisations, the banning of unofficial strikes and the underminmade by the workers in the past period.

No need for alarm, says our •Marxist' writer in bold type.

"The capitalist class cannot implement their threats until the workers' movement has been undermined by a whole series of serious defeats.

'Stirring call'

"The capitalist class is ready to use the most vicious and inhuman measures to cripple the labour movement. But it dare not lift a finger at the present time Of course, this extremely revolutionary character ends stirring call for socialism as the "final solution'.

'In the meantime, all attempts to hinder the workers in their struggle to defend their living standards by industrial action must be vigorously opposed by all sections of the labour movement.' In his own branch of the clerical and Administrative Workers' Union, Dickinson's vigorous opposition was reserved for the Lambeth Trades Council lobby, set for January 26. This, you see, was called by 'alarmists'.

Dickinson's own alarms were devoted to frightening the branch members with tales of disciplinary action which might be taken against them by the CAWU bureaucrats, if the branch supported the January 26 lobby.

However distasteful, is worth examining the arguments of these people, (Continued back page, col. 7)

BY ROBERT HE stock of British Stalinism has reached an al-umi low. Following on the Party Congress of last November, in which left critics were either expelled or removed from the leadership as a necessary corollary to the proposed unity campaign with labour and trade union fake lefts, the People's Press Printing Society management committee has proposed a change in the name of the 'Daily Worker'.

Finding little or no response to its overtures (save a suggestion that the Communist Party winds up and its members join the Labour Party) from the 'left', the Party leadership has taken another step even further to the right and indicated that the title of left Daper isolates it from the According to the •Daily Worker' of January 10: 'It is the present name which conveys an incorrect impression of communist policy and incorrect impression of the scope of its appeal'.

We think that this remark is borne out by the contents of the same issue.

What class-conscious worker would indeed respond to the appeal made on page three to deave out scraps of food for birds during frosty weather?

Other, more 'sectarian' questions occupy his mind, such as BLACK the threat of state legislation against the trade unions alongside an anti-working class budget and a probable sharp increase in unemployment.

The statement in the 'Worker' concludes that the present name is 'needlessly restrictive in its effect.

After all, only 75 per cent of Britain's population are industrial workers.

Letters printed in the same issue are even more revealing, and indicate the probability of deep • divisions within the rank and file of the Party over this and allied questions.

One reader welcomes the change as a happy release from the beastliness of the class struggle, saying: 'the word "worker" has all sorts of undertones in modern capitalist society and has a someWhat dated ring about it, reminiscent of the '20's and '30's (Andy Capp and Charlie Drake), which is totally out of date'.

The rightward swing of the party leadership will no doubt give fuller reign to this middle-class hostility to the working class simmering inside many sections of the Communist Party. At the same time, the old factory militants may sympathise with the point made by another reader that the dropping of the hammer and sickle and the slogan workers of all lands unite' from the mast head (at another time of 'left' unity in 1938) didn't help circulation much either.

(Continued on back page)

no mistake, if it had been the workers and peasants of Rhodesia who had declared UDI, Mr. Wilson's 'socialist' government of Britain and liquidation of Marxism in the ruling summits the opportunist leaders of the Organisation of of the labour movement. The most vulgar African Unity would have sent in troops to suppress prejudices now serve as the official doc- it so as to safeguard imperialist properties. trines for the political and trade union And United States imperialism also could have within two hours of Smith's declaration of UDI sent in troops from one of her bases under the umbrella of the international bandits trariwise, the voice of revolutionary organisation (the United Nations) to install a puppet regime as they have done in the past and are still doing in Latin America, realism rings against this artificial sounding board like the voice of "sectarianism". It But as long as the imperialist properties are in the safe is all the more insistently necessary to hands of Smith, and the machinery to exploit the African masses is still safe, these gentlemen of both the Labour Party in Britain and the OAU have no cause at all to take up armed struggle Therefore, the call of The Newsletter to arm the African masses in Rhodesia to fight the Smith regime is the only correct road that can lead to real defeat of Smith's white fascist government. (Leon Trotsky, preface to 'Whither France?' But both Wilson's government and OAU leaders are terribly frightened of arming the African masses and take up an armed struggle against Smith, the reason being that a protracted armed struggle by Rhodesian masses against Smith threatens the very existence of imperialist properties, not only in Rhodesia, but the whole of the African continent. It also threatens the rising native petty bourgeoisie and the privileged bureaucratic leaders of the national movements in The more the crisis in Rhodesia develops the more the African NEWSL a ge

SHOP stewards from the Runcorn, Cheshire, ICI site are visiting other construction sites in the area, calling for support for the demonstration against anti-trade union legislation in London on January 26.

This campaign is given added urgency by the reports of what the Building Trades Employers demanded when they submitted their evidence to the Commission on the trade unions last week.

According to the 'Daily Telegraph of January 8, they told the Commission that 'the freedom of trade unionists to strike unofficially in defiance of collective agreements and with legal impunity should be curbed'.

They declared that unofficial disputes were common on the larger jobs and the activities of a few stewards seemed to be aimed at subverting union discipline by refusing to be bound by negotiated agreements'. They are demanding that unions exercise an 'effective control' over their stewards.

The aim of the employers, which will be assisted by legislation, is to tie down the building and construction workers to national minimum agreements and to break up militant job organisation.

This is why the lobby got the support of 1,500 at the meeting construction workers on the Runcorn ICI site. (Reported in last week's Newsletter.) northawest Other workers, on sites visited by Merseyside Young Socialists in support of the lobby, have also been very conscious of the dangers to their organisations.

Thus, on another building site in Runcorn, one joiner asked if letters on the lobby were being sent to all union branches and if the campaign was nationwide?

'Because, he said, 'building workers all over the country would support this campaign as they will be the worst hit by this legislation.' This meeting, of seventy building workers, gave a lively and friendly reception to Merseyside Young Socialists.

The Federation steward explained how the legislation was meant to deal with unofficial strikes and force union leaders to deal with miltants.

One worker at this meeting related how eight years ago he and another member of their society had been expelled because union leaders and employers had combined against him when he pressed for higher bonus (he was bonus steward).

"That was without legislation, he remarked, 'so think what it will he like with legislation.' Another worker declared that this site was not backward and it must support the ICI site. He moved a 5s levy to finance a contingent to the lobby.

The chairman asked for a seconder and half the meeting replied. The resolution was carried unanimously.

As Merseyside Young Socialists have contacted building sites, almost every steward has expressed concerned at the legislation.

There have been isolated exceptions, as at a site in Ellesmere Port, where steward said he was against 'wild cats, believed wages should rise only with productivity, and Mr. Brown was doing a good job.

On one site, the stewards said they had been waiting for a campaign against this legislation. The stewards' committee has taken a decision to recommend a day's stoppage on the 26th and a 5s levy to a mass meeting this week.

after site, ety decidedito send three delegates to the lobby and impose a levy of 5s every week until the 26th.

A reply to Michael Fool (In "Tribune' of January 7, Michael Foot launches attack on Richard Gott, Radical Alliance candidate in the the file biratestion, undee title Left'. Next week he promises a sequel: 'How the left can win the argument'. The Newsletter begins the reply this week...)

TILSON'S failure to deally i socalst Don cies against the Tories brought the Labour government into office with only a tiny majority. His immediate subservience to big business as on old age pensions and the rapid rise in the cost of living brought the reverse of the Leyton by-election.

Before leaving for Lagos, he attacked the working class openly and Viciously in his speech on wages and restrictive practices'.

Wilson sold out so completely that he has provided the government required by British (and American) capitalism for their present needs of imperialist war and attacks on the workers at home.

Some people in the Labour Party are slowly and painfully drawing conclusions.

Richard Gott and his friends in the Radical Alliance are some of these: their main concern is the Vietnam war, which rightly incenses them.

Readers of The Newsletter know that we do ot conside ectoral intervention bv isolate groups the answer Wilson's betrayal.

But we do say that such opposition is pant of an inevitable revolt among middle-class as well as working-class ex-supporters of Wilson and the Labour Party.

ONLY CONCERN Michael Foot's only concern is to attack Richard Gott and his supporters, and to find ways of continuing to exist with the comfortable reputation of being the foremost spokesman of the "left' wing. This he calls 'working out the strategy of the Labour left'.

In fact, Foot has put himself out in front as the main defender of Wilson's government against any effective opposition.

That is the role of Foot and the "Tribune'-type left of this movement.

It is the working class—victorious in gaining 8 per cent increase in wages last year-which provides the only basis for this opposition.

The Young Socialists and the Socialist Labour League have based themselves on the struggles MP, by Cliff Slaughter of the working class, concentrating now on the anti-trade union legislation. Foot and his friends turn their faces resolutely away. They cannot see beyond the doors of Westminster.

Only a few younger and fresher recruits to the constituencies, together with trade unionists, who only now are forced to recognise the inseparable link of industrial and political issues, are raising their voices within the Labour Party, and many of them will rally around Young Socialist and Socialist Labour League policies.

Foot replies to a question from Gott's supporters which ran as follows:

'What "Tribune" has to explain is how, other than by electoral pressure, Mr. Wilson can be induced to reverse his policies: he has proved remarkably resistant to other pressures up to now.' Poot prefers to continue inside parliament, providing the lobby fodder to keep Wilson there, taking pro-American decisions on Vietnam and waiting for the case to 'grow stronger every month'.

He separates Vietnam from the whole policy of. Wilson. The government's attacks on the Saturday, January 15, 1966 K brutally clear to every ship- erokt very long it wıll D yard worker that what is happening at Fairfield's in Glasgow vitally affects them.

Because of the treachery of the right-wing union leaders, the way is now open for the abandonment of trade union rights apertaining to conditions of work, thus leading to a regime of vicious speed-up and exploitation.

All this should be elementary for those who claim to be Marxists.

However, this does not apply to the Communist Party.

In its weekly review 'Comment' (January 8, 1966), it supports, with certain reservations what is going on at Fairfield's.

The firm, it says, 'must be given a chance to re-organise. ... It is equally obvious that there must be a change in some practices' What 'practices' the article is careful not to say.

'Is it proposed,' the author naively asks, 'to change existing practices for higher earnings?' Well, well, of course, there

FAMINE

CONTINUES WHOEVER takes over Premiership of Indian from Bahadur Shastri, who died in Tashkent this week, will inherit the biggest problem facing the country ... famine.

And, like Shastri, and Nehru before him, the new 'leader' will be as incapable of solving the problem - especially if the economy maintains its frontier army facing to China, if not again to Kashmir.

Like Shastri, his successor will maintain the country's standing with its own ruling class, imperialism and the Soviet bureaucracy.

Only a socialist revolution can solve this country's economic problem and famine, which is forecast to hit a crisis spot in March along with industrial unrest. The Communist Party and will be a certain slight increase in earnings if the rate of exploitation is doubled or trebled.

Everyone who has followed the history of labour relations inside Ford knows this. Under a system of intense rationalization and speed-up the workers may get a little more, but they work twice as hard as they did previously for it.

As a consequence, their lives are shortened in order to provide more profit for the bosses.

In line with their turn towards right-wing Labour, the Communist Party leadership is prepared to urge its industrial supporters to accept the principle behind the re-organisation of Fairfield's.

Instead of warning and leading the working class in an all-out struggle against monopolisation and speed-up, the Party gives the all-clear to the right wing and the employers in the Clydeside, where so many industrial workers still support it.

This is an abdication of leadership under conditions where the workers of Fairfield's were forced • Pavitt told lobbyists: With a majority of two, voting against legislation is out of the question. He would wait until trade union MPs discussed the question before making up his mind. Besides he was in favour of the present prices and incomes policy.

NO ASSURANCE Atkinson said his whole record in the AEU showed he was opposed to anti-union legislation, but he refused to give any assurance about voting against it in parliament.

I will meet with other leftwing MPs as a block and discuss with them. A decision will be reached, and I will abide by that decision, he said, adding that the lobbyists should have faith in the people in parliament.

He said he could not understand why Young Socialists campaigned so hard on this issue.

But as it was pointed out at meetings after the lobbies, it is the youth who are uniting with older members in the labour movement to pose a real alternative leadership to the Wilson government—and all its 'left' supporters-in a struggle against anti-union legislation.

They will even gain support from the Labour Party rank and file as the Poplar lobby showed-_ Party worker and two coun cillors gave support and donation to the January 26 lobby.

Lobbyists were told that Mikardo had raised the legislation question at a private meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party 10 days before Christmas-so no MP can say he knows nothing about it! to give way by the threat of unemployment.

Having been sold out by the Labour government, the working class as a whole is being left with little choice but to struggle more and more against the intervention the capitalist state in shipbuilding and the proposed anti-trade union legislation.

But for this, the labour movement needs a new Marxist-communist leadership.

The Communist Party is betraying precisely at the time when such leadership becomes essential. whereas the Socialist Labour League and The Newsletter do everything in their power to build up the alternative leadership to the right wing.

We were the first to warn the working class about what is taking place at Fairfield's, and about the proposed anti-trade union legislation.

We intend to continue at all costs with this course, because we firmly believe that given correct leadership, the working class can defeat the employers and their state machine.

return of che torres and inlot 0 n Ve nam i camitalıst attac leaderless the working case oter codsiderations do atis main questiontrom of class interest. N roo starts the parlamentar ai onk s the class no majority, Party, for that winn ranks Sponso candidates against it.' Ves norice that could his best!

gIve MotICe ossibly oppos wing expel the:

Foo: should spehor aland the - agey which was proseribed liamentary were there fa o rent ran rio akcr ex.

Never Nadod e coun he as every conservative political corargument.

But it is not an argument!

The question is not to argue, Foot thinks the • Labour Party, will go on for ever. ford cas tand of reor talists are tackling he tackled by the working clas.

ton The srn ge o ti a er returns to the sare castlation no the eat is.

ment over the last decade at least.

(To be continued)

InCE VICIOUS CAMPAIGN ENDS WOOLF STRIKE LIVERPOOL RENT MARCH THE ROUTE for January 26: Kennington Oval (assembling at 11 a.m.), Elephant and Castle, St. George's Road, Westminster Bridge Road, St. George's Circus, Blackfriars Road, Stamford Street, York Road, Belvedere Road (Festival Gardens). on anti-union law By Newsletter LONDON trade unionists - and Young Socialists lobbied four MPs' surgeries last week and found three of them extremely evasive on the question of anti-trade union legislation.

Hugh Jenkins, MP for Putney, (an ASSET official), Laurie Pavitt, MP for Willesden (also Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs), and Norman Atkinson. MP for Tottenham (and an AEU member) were seen. Ian Mikardo, MP for Poplar was not available at his surgery.

The pat answer of the three MPs seen seemed to be to 'wait and see' What the government's proposals were before they acted, Of course, the old bogey of the government's small majority was raised.

Asked if he would vote against legislation, Jenkins said:

'That is difficult to answer. I have voted for many things 1 am against. If you support party native ral u nacele, and tatal rs native defeated worse, you go through the lobbies in support of propositions because you support the party.

'The view of the Parliamentary Labour Party is that I am not sufficiently loyal to the machine, but I will make my own decision as to what I shall do when the time comes. I think I cannot commit myself vote for or against, or to abstain on a bill I have not seen. I will vote against a proposition which will do what you but I do not think it will be like that."

Danced workers.' mankind.

Since the First World War, the first priority in all capitalist countries nas been to break the grip of the reformist (Labour) and then the Stalinist leaderships over the working class.

In Britain the workers, having formed their own parliamentary party (Labour Party) through the trade unions, have continued to see a Labour government as the only political alternative to the direct rule of the employers through the Tory Party.

Led struggle

For this reason, as long ago as 1920, Lenin and • Trotsky led a struggle in the international Marxist movement to convince the founders of the British Communist Party that they should work for the return of a Labour government.

The purpose of this was solely to break the working class from the Labour leadership (Henderson, Snowden and others at that time) through their own experience of the capitalist policies of such a government.

Some people who today call themselves Marxists and Communists are using these writings of Lenin and Trotsky, particularly Lenin's 'Left Wing Communism: An infantile disorder', , to excuse support for the Wilson government, on the grounds that it is 'premature' or 'adventurist' to openly struggle against its capitalist policies.

In fact, of course, they are afraid of disturbing their friendly relations with the so-called 'left' in the Labour Party, who are bemused by the old arguments of 'loyalty to Labour'.

Even now, when the Labour Party conference has endorsed a full imperialist programme for the Wilson government—immigration restrictions, imperialist war in Vietnain, state action against the trade unions etc.-the so-called Marxists are acting in support of the Labour government.

They refuse to quarrel with those loud-mouthed Labour MPs who always stop at a certain point in their criticism and say: 'But we must not do anything to harm 'our' Labour majority'.

A fraud The Labour government is a fraud on the working class. Financed by the trade union subscriptions of millions of ordinary workers, elected by them at the polls on the promise of a lower cost of living cheap housing, the nationalization of steel, increased benefits, these Labour Ministers are in fact the close associates and the most obedient servants of the capitalist class, in Britain and internationally.

Take one example. By threatening mass unemployment, George Brown imposed a settlement upon the workers of the recently modernised Fairfield shipyard in Glasgow.

State subsidy was brought in to keep guaranteed funds provided by individuals roped in by Brown.

Certain trade union funds were brought in for good measure.

Brown's association with the live in an epoch of the universal the French working class. Conover and over again the fundamental of Marxist policies audiences June 10, 1936) kings of private enterprise was known before: even while serving in the Labour 'opposition' , he was employed as industrial adviser to the 'Daily Mirror'.

Even though Brown was a Transport and General Workers' Union MP, the 'Daily Mirror" conducted a fight against London busmen, T&GWU members, when they were on official strike.

Fairfield's is the shape of things to come, as the Labour leaders and their friends among the employers would like to see it.

Fraser told the Fairfield's men nat his money was put in on condition that the union rule book was thrown out.

Big capital, supported by the State and using the trade union leaders to discipline the working class-this is the pattern of development towards the corporate state which asserts itself in every capitalist economy.

Collaborators

Those who do not fight against the Labour government as a capitalist government are collaborating with the capitalists in their plans.

Wilson's government is the chosen instrument to discipline the working class. In the inevitable struggle of the workers against this government, the alternative leadership will be built.

At the end of 1965, Brown finally told the TUC leaders what the penalties would be under his proposed new law on wages and prices.

He had already, at the September TUC, told the General Council that under pressure from the international bankers, legislation, which would mean imprisonment for trade unionists who did not comply with governmentregulated wage levels, was on the way.

There can be no fight for socialism whatsoever, no fight against the employing class or any of its policies anywhere, unless the fight against these new powers for the capitalist state is waged relentlessly throughout the working-class movement tories.

All the Communist Party's talk about 'broad left unity' with people critical of various aspects of Labour policy is meaningless, a fraud, if the key development is ignored.

It is not a question of uniting a dispersed and confused opposition on different points, but of mobilising the working class on the main issues, and in this fight building a new leadership, a revolutionary party of the working class.

First blow The initiative of the Lambeth Trades Council in calling a lobby of parliament by trade unionists on January 26, 1966, against the proposed legislation on wages and trade unions, provides the opportunity of striking the first major blow against the Labour government's capitalist policies in 1966.

When Brown introduced his (above) had told the TUC at its September Congress (see below general secretary Woodcock with General Council members) of plans for plans for anti-trade union legislation. "incomes policy, The Newsletter warned that the Labour leadership's abandonment of any socialist policies would mean that the incomes policy was an attack on the working class.

Socialists must fight against the capitalist policies of Wilson, and bring this policy fight into relation with the struggles of workers for wages and jobs.

Therefore, a turn to the trade unions was the primary necessity.

We said that the 'Declaration of Intent: by employers, government and trade union leaders meant nothing so far as the workers were concerned.

The so-called 'left' were talking about 'incomes policy with workers' control' (1)—and at the same time refusing to fight the anti-worker leadership of Wilson!

'Left' trade union leaders were foxing their members by saying they were for an incomes policy 'on condition' that dividends and profits were sacrificed equally with wages. It was all a fraud.

In the first year of the 'incomes policy, the workers have pushed up laser by 8 percent. At the same time, the old capitalist economy of Britain has continued to stagnate-production has gone up only 2 per cent at the most.

Engineers, in defiance of the 'package deal, and dockers, way out in front of the union leaders, have begun to impose their own holiday and shift-working conditions, over and above the bureaucratic 'agreements' of the bosses and the officials.

In other words, the basic strength of the working class has asserted itself. It is beginning to push aside the 'responsible' leadership.

'Saviour"

When the US and international business fraternity gave massive financial support to Wilson and Brown, it was in the hope that their 'Labour' government would be able to save the pound (and indirectly the dollar) through disciplining the working class.

The legislation now proposed -involving fines of up to £500is the latest attempt by Wilson, Gunter and Brown to demonstrate their 'credit-worthiness' to international finance capital.

The bakery workers and others have discovered in action the capitalist role of the government.

The objective conditions are highly favourable for Marxists to build a revolutionary party, in and through the struggles of the working class. This obviously can only be done through a relentless struggle against the Labour government.

Among the political tendencies in Britain, only the Trotskyists in the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists have campaigned consistently on working-class issues, insisting all along that this must be accompanied by a fight against the leadership of the Labour Party.

A Labour government is introducing anti-trade union legislation for use by the capitalist state, for use by any government holding state office.

They are the chosen servants of monopoly capitalism for the job; they are the enemy of the working class.

It was for this reason that the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists received the full brunt of the witch-hunt inside the Labour Party, including the proscription of The Newsletter and "Keep Left'.

Policies

In the period before the General Election of 1964 we called for a Labour victory, but we also fought for (and won inside the Young Socialists) socialist policies of nationalization; we said that Wilson would betray, even when the majority of Labour supporters had a certain amount of confidence in him.

Only a force trained in struggle for socialist policies at that time could be relied on to lead the struggle against the coming betrayals.

And, sure enough, all those who told us then that we were 'adventurist' and 'too far left' are now unable to fight on the question of legislation.

The 'Daily Worker' could never protest against the ban on 'Keep Left' or The Newsletter.

Today, the Communist Party will not support the Lambeth lobby, even though hundreds of rank-and-file members in the unions are supporting the call for the lobby, and others, so-called Marxists in the Labour Party, around the papers 'Militant' and 'The Week' ', who stood aside when we were witch-hunted, are now so busy keeping their place in the Labour Party that they actually lead the opposition to the lobby in some areas (e.g. Liverpool Trades Council, Leeds University Labour Club).

As we have already pointed out, this betrayal is covered up, very often, with quotations from Lenin's book 'Left Wing Communism: An infantile disorder'.

For a generation, Communist Party members have been vaguely referred to this book as an answer to the policies of Trotskyism. It is, of course, nothing of the kind.

Dangerous 'leftism It was written in 1920, when Trotsky was Lenin's closest collaborator. It was written as part of a campaign within the Communist International, conducted above all by Lenin and Trotsky together, against the dangerous 'leftism' of some elements in the new International, including some of the founders of the British Communist Party, on the eve of its establishment.

It is worthwhile examining the leading ideas of Lenin's book, in order to clarity what he actually said about Labour governments and the Labour Party in Britain.

This will in fact help us to see more clearly the tasks of building the revolutionary party today, since Lenin's aim in this book was to draw for the workers of other countries the lessons in theory, strategy and tactics of the experience of the Russian Bolsheviks. This is the purpose of our next articles. Asia and Africa.

that will lead to Smith's defeat. Africa.

Britain and Africa.

and seek support from the urban poor.

be brought about.

Of course this does not mean that support should not be given to nationalist leaders fighting for political independence in Africa and Asia.

But the type of support should be a very critical one like 'a rope supporting a hanging-man' and not the uncritical and unconditional support the Stalinist RHODESIAN CRISIS class

Always give to them. Uncondi tional and uncritical support leads to betrayals of the struggle of the masses.

• While supporting the nationalist leaders fighting for national independence, the working class must build their own revolutionary party so as to avoid betrayals by nationalist leaders, who only want to stop at political independence to enjoy privileged positions formerly occupied by their colonial masters.

The inability of the petty-bourgeois nationalist leaders of Africa to carry out the revolutionary struggle against imperialism; the collaboration of OAU leaders and Wilson's Labour Government with imperialist big business in Africa; the exposition of the fallacious theory of Stalinism of revolution in three stages and peaceful coexistence'; and the correctness of the theory of permanent revolution are some of the lessons we are learning from the crises of the Congo and Rhodesia.

Recently some Marxists have fallen into the trap of using the revisionist theory of 'neo-colonialism'. The word 'neo-colonialism' is not Marxist terminology. It is a revisionist theory to deceive the African working class and the rest of the masses.

The word 'neo-colonialism' came into use after Guinea was granted her political independence in 1958.

In fact to be exact, Seku Touré first used it, then later some other nationalist leaders in Africa and Asia, and, for obvious reasons the Stalinists, started to use it as it suits their line of revolution in stages.

The petty-bourgeois nationalist leaders who have got political power from their former colonialist masters and want to continue their rule and maintain their privileged position have to formulate theories to divert the attention of the African masses from the real class struggle.

The inability of these gentlemen to overthrow imperialism for a total freedom for the masses of Africa, the inability of them to solve the burning economic and social problems of the suffering masses of Africa left over by the former colonial masters, and the mass discontent against nationalist leaders leads to the coining of the theory of 'neo-colonialism' and 'nation building'.

These leaders attribute all their failures, to satisfy the needs of the masses, to neo-colonialism. They say 'we must first of all unite and fight neo-colonialism. After defeating it we will be able to build socialism'. What nonsense this is.

The nationalist leaders of Africa and Asia are only using different words to replace revolution in three stages' and peaceful coexistence' of Stalinist revisionism by neo-colonialism and unite to preserve the national independence against imperialism.

Neo-colonialism is a revisionist theory pure and simple.

Any colonial country that gains political independence is a semi-colonial country as long as her in Af BY A NIGERIAI READER economy is still dominated by imperialism and the exploitation of African workers and farmers still continues.

Any theory or terminology that does not give the working class a direct struggle against its class enemy, but compromises and collaborates with it, is against Marxist-Leninist teaching.

In other words, there can be no real freedom and democracy as long as foreign and native capital is not overthrown for the dictatorship of the working class in Africa.

Revolution is permanent.

*The permanent revolution, in the sense which Marx attached the conception, means a revolution which makes no compromise with any form of class rule, which does not stop at the democratic stage, which goes over to socialist measures and to war against the reaction from without, that is a revolution whose very next stage is anchored in the preceeding one and which can only end in the complete liquidation of all class society.

'For backward countries the road to democracy, passed through the dictatorship of the proletariat. By that alone democracy does not become a regime anchored within decades, but rather direct introduction to socialist revolution, each bound to the other by an unbroken chain. (Leon Trotsky: 'The Permanent Revolution'.)

The African masses are not just fighting for black man majority rule in Africa. They are not just fighting for parliamentary democracy nor a very belated national-democratic revolution as Stalinists want us to believe. Nor are they just fighting to install Nkomo

and Sithole, and their likes Africa to take the place of white man's rule.

They are fighting against imperialism and the capitalist system because, as a result of this system, they are suffering and they want to end that suffering. So anything that comes in between to stop them from ending their sufferings will be overthrown. JACK ARNOLD analyses the class and opportunities this two week-old THE NEWSLE Trade unionists must understand that the capitalist class will now be launching an offensive against the working class as a whole in order to finance their desperate struggles to maintain their positions internationally.

In this offensive the capitalist class will once again resort to the mond injunctions and jailings bet trade unionists to the beating of strikers and the setting coloured members of the working class against white workers and vice versa.

The Transport Workers' Union in New York is in a strong position to lead the union movement January 15, 1966 1966 Janua money thus saved be used to improve the lot of the working class.

They must demand that all outstanding bonds on the New York transport system be renounced. Some of these have been paid off many times over in interest alone and are responsible for a large part of the 43 million dollar deficit of the Transit Authority this year.

TWU members in the construction of a labour party must go beyond the bounds of their trade union problems and forge a bond with the working class in the ghettoes, who are now, during this strike, amongst their

After all, what lan Smith and his minority white settlers are doing to the Rhodesian African masses is exactly what Mr. Akintola, the premier of Western Region of Nigeria, is doing to his own fellow Nigerians.

Akintola, like Smith, kicked aside 'Parliamentary democracy' during the 1965 October election and used the state machine to instill his very unpopular minority feudal landlord and petty bourgeoisie into power.

Today in that region there is no semblance of any type of bourgeois democracy. There is arbitrary mass arrest and persecution of political opponents. Not a day has passed without reports in the daily papers about killing, arson and missing people.

-Ian Smith declared UDI for the interests of the white settlers' class in Rhodesia.

Akintola and his men installed themselves into power to protect the interests of the minority aristocratic Yoruba land-owning class of chiefs and the rising native petty bourgeoisie of Western Nigeria.

What the African masses in Rhodesia are suffering today at the hands of Smith, the masses in Western Nigeria are suffering in the hands of Yoruba chiefs led by Akintola.

The collapse of the OAU in the face of the Rhodesian crisis stems from the failure of the leaders of the organisation to wage an effective struggle against imperialism.

The leaders of OAU, no matter how 'progressive' some of them seem, support imperialist big business rather than fighting to end the sufferings of the working class and the urban poor.

Thus people like Dr. Banda, of Malawi, Houphet Boigny, Ivory Coast, are more ready to support Smith's regime than the Rhodesian masses.

The failure of our opportunist nationalist leaders to mobilise the Rhodesian masses and African masses as a whole to take up an armed struggle against Smith is primarily due to the education and training some of our leaders have received from Stalinist school of thought.

Stalinism has to take the major part of blame for the betrayal of the African revolution (and in Asia and Europe for that matter) by our nationalist leaders, because most of our leaders have been directly or indirectly connected with the Communist Parties in Europe and the Soviet bureaucracy whose theories lead to class collaboration in all forms.

Just to mention a few leaders who have been directly or indirectly connected with Stalinism: Nkrumah of Ghana, Seku Touré of Guinea, Leopold SeclarSenghor, of Senegal, Houphet Boigny of Ivory Coast, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Apithy of Dahomy, Kola Balogun, Akinfosile, Dafe and Zik of Nigeria.

We should not be surprised at the behaviour of Nkomo, Sithole, Kaunda, Dr. Banda and the rest of them who rely on the Wilson and his Labour Party bureaucrats rather than the African masses.

These men, like any other nationalist leaders in Africa and Asia who are now occupying privileged positions, have great contempt for the masses.

They only use the masses to bargain with their imperialist masters to get political power so as to enjoy the privileges of the former colonial master.

Being petty bourgeois in character, they cannot lead a real class struggle against imperialism.

This is one of the reasons why it is imperative and important to build an independent working class party with a Marxist leadership for the overthrow of both native and foreign capital in Africa and Asia.

The Commonwealth conference, due to be held in Lagos on January Il on the Rhodesian crisis, is only a delaying tactic to allow Smith to consolidate his regime in Rhodesia.

Balewa, the Nigerian Prime. Minister, who called the conference shows how his loyalty to British imperialism is much more profound than to the OAU.

The loyalties of the OAU leaders are with their former colonial master and not for African unity.

It is only the working class and the poor farmers and peasants of Africa that can bring about a United Africa and rid of imperialism in the real sense of the word.

Lagos WHEN Leon Trotsky first saw New York city during his exile from the Soviet Union at the time of the First World War his comment was 'It is the most complete expression of our time' If that statement were true then it is ever so much more true now and nothing could make that more clear than the present strike which has completely closed down the New York transport system.

This system is comprised of over 720 miles of underground tube and elevated track and a massive web of bus lines completely covering the city. It is the world's largest municipal transport complex.

This strike clearly brings home the sharp contradictions that face the American capitalist class and are now boiling to the surface in their attempts to maintain their rule at home and abroad.

In the first place, the giant union of 33,000 transport workers that has been able to paralyse this city is in itself creation of the city government. It is the end result of smashing a number of small unions that had proven to be, on a number of occasions, more militant than the Transport Workers' Union.

The New York City Transit Authority, the city agency that runs the transport system, forced an election to represent all workers in the system.

This was done with full awareness of the role of Michael Quill, leader of the TWU, and of the foregone conclusion that being the largest union in the system, if not the most militant, the TWU was sure to win.

City Hall and Quill The 'New York Times' in an editorial on January 7 makes clear the relationship between the City Administration and the leaders of TWU.

• the responsibility for the hardship the community is now suffering is entirely that of Mr.

Quill and his political allies [Democratic Party] of the old regime at City Hall who for 20 years encouraged him in the notion that every transit crisis could be settled through a back door deal.' What the "Times' neglects to say is that in those 20 years they were themselves rather quiet about those "back door deals', precisely because as spokesmen for the ruling class they feared any dialogue that might reveal the mechanism of these deals the transport workers whose interests were being repeatedly sold These sell-outs have over the years followed precisely the same pattern. The TWU leaders make strong demands and in the final hours before the expiration of the contract at midnight New Year's Eve drastically scale down these demands in order to enable the city to scrape around for small amounts of extra money and come to a settlement.

That is exactly the same pattern, as we shall see, that was followed in this year's contract negotiations until reality of changed situation threw the whole show off the rails.

This single union in the Transsit System was not achieved by the bosses without some difficulty. The Motormen's Benevolent Association, just before Christmas 1957, partially halted New York transport with a strike in protest against this forced amalgamation into one union.

In justifying the vicious jailing of the TWU's leaders and the moves that are being made to destroy the union through economie fines and penalties runnin into hundreds of thousands not millions of dollars, the 'Times' in an editorial on January 6 recalls Quill's role in the smashing of the independent unions: strike Eight years ago, when the subway motormen were seeking to escape his grip, Mr. Quill called on City Hall and the Transit Authority to use every resource of law and municipal power to smash their strike and destroy their break-away union.

At that time he uttered no word of censure against the Authority for its admitted planting of spies at meetings of Motormen's Benevolent Association, the "bugging" of MBA headquarters, the jailing of strike leaders, the payment of bonuses to TWU members for strike-breaking, or the threat of mass discharge of strikers under the CondonWadlin Act.' No strike law The Condon-Wadlin Act is a law which forbids municipal or state workers from striking and imposes heavy penalities if they do, With these kind of tactics the city was able to make the TWU the sole bargaining agent for the transit workers.

In spite of this massive assault on the independent MBA, Quill's union was only able to obtain one third of the votes of the then 30,000 workers, but this being the single largest block the Transit Authority designated the TWU as sole representative. With their old friend Quill at the TWU helm, they thought that their labour problems were well taken care of.

To understand why Quill, this friend of the City government and encourager of strike-breaking, has now himselt been forced to lead a strike, it must be clearly understood that there is no longer money available with which make even small deals of any significance.

The cost of the maintenance of the war in . Vietnam, combined with a crisis in the balance of payments, has created a situation in which the American Federal government is no longer able to come to the financial aid of cities such as New York, which is on the verge of bankruptcy.

In fact the government is saying that the American working class is going to have to tighten its belt in order to finance the Vietnamese war, and is planning to cut back on financing the phoney window-dressing schemes of Johnson's 'Great Society'.

These schemes were really meant to quiet the voices of those who starve in America's ghettoes hesitate to use it.

At this point it is very likely that close to, it not already, a majority of operating workers of the New York transit system are coloured.

There can be no doubt that the newer and younger of these coloured workers have brought their experiences of the rights struggle into the trade union and have infected the older coloured and white workers with a willingness to struggle and fight.

For these "workers a clear understanding has developed in recent years that civil rights must mean ns of the can rigigs t. The ment militants has more and more shifted toward demands for good jobs with good pay and conditions.

How clearly this is understood is reflected in the fact that those workene least abletto aftord the loss of a single day's wages, the coloured workers of New York's ghettoes, are amongst the firmest supporters of the transport strike.

The TWU is demanding a 32hour, four-day week, a 30 per cent wage increase, a six-week holiday after one year's employment, instead of five weeks after 25 years, and half pay after retirement. Demands for a 32-hour week coupled with a 6-week holiday will mean a large increase in the number of jobs available with the Transit Authority. Negro workers who are hardest hit by unemployment will support any strike that seeks to solve the unemployment problem through such demands.

Quill forced

Still in the face of this changed situation Quill tried to stick to the old script as closely as possible.

In the face of refusal from the Transit Authority to offer no more than the merest pittance, Quill was forced to call a strike.

But, having made his demonstration of militancy, he hastened to return as quickly as possible to his old act of scaling down the union's demands by some 80 per cent. What Quill does not understand is that even these demands cannot be met.

Thus, while Quill is willing to forget his ad-lib and return to carrying out his part in the old act, the other actors are no longer able to read their lines in the same way.

Transit Authority chairman, Joseph E. O'Grady, sums up the situation very succinctly in carrying the battle into the political arena.

Socialists' role

Above all American socialists must directly intervene in this situation to strengthen the strike by actively going to trade union meetings, plant gates, and especially to other workers employed by the city and state who fall under the purview of the Condon-Wadlin Act, and call upon them to support this strike actively by giving financial aid and putting down motions in their union branches to strike in sympathy against the jailings of the strike leaders.

For a number of years the TWU has supported the idea of an independent party of the working class, a labour party.

Now is the time to move from the realm of abstract ideas, of words, into a concrete struggle for the formation of such a party.

Starting with the fact of the common struggle through their union, both the Negro and white militants of the TWU can launch a party which will immediately rally round them all the working-class poor of New York's ghettoes.

They must call for an end to the war in Vietnam and for the victory of the Vietcong who are fighting for their freedom.

Already a large part of the American coloured working class oppose this war since they clearly understand that a government that cannot give them freedom at home cannot possibly be fighting for the freedom of the Vietnamese workers.

They must demand that the strongest supporters.

They can do this by demanding that the city government take over all slum housing without compensation to the landlords who have milked these properties over the years for many times their original value without putting in one thin dime for upkeep.

Out of running

It must be noted that one organization clearly out of the running in this struggle Is the Socialist Workers' Party.

In their paper "The Militant', which went to press just before the strike started, there appears not a word about the negotiations of the TWU and Transit Authority.

Their face is allegedly turned toward the Negro militants in the rights struggle, in reality toward the reactionary Negro nationalist movements such as the Muslims.

But their complete failure to involve themselves in the rights struggle of the Negro working class, along with their failure to understand how working class struggles , develop, make them completely unable to see how the rights struggle was due to break over into the general class struggle in the trade unions.

Instead they continue to look toward the petty-bourgeois leaders of the Malcolm X type to bring about the socialist revolution.

Let this be a warning to those socialists who fail to involve themselves in the struggles of the working class and who think that Marxist theory can be developed separate and apart from active participation in the working class movement.

and maintain for them the illusion of the two-party system.

This means that newly-elected 'liberal' Republican Mayor of New York, John Lindsay, is only attempting to maintain the illusion when he holds out the hope of getting Federal funds for the city when he knows that such a prospect has nothing in common with the needs of American imperialism.

Civil rights

The development of the civil rights struggle in the US has also contributed to the present militancy of the rank and file of the TWU membership.

This militancy was undoubtedly of major importance in forcing Quill to depart from his script and call a strike.

This too expresses one of the contradictions that the boss class working through the city administration has to grapple with.

For the past number of years as the civil rights struggle developed in the south, and then in the north, city governments of northern cities have been forced, under threat of mass disturbances, to put some small content into their alleged equal treatment of Negroes.

As a result old racial bars in city employment were swept away and more and more city employees have been hired from amongst the coloured working class, who flock to these jobs in large numbers since they are far better than employment in private industry where only the worst Jobs and pay are reserved for coloured workers.

'HE supression of the Indonesian Communist Party and the liquidation of the trade union movement is a grave blow to the working class, particularly in south-east Asia.

It will be many, many years before the working-class movement recovers in this benighted country. The prospects for socialism are very dim indeed.

It is a blow not only against the Stalinists, but more so at all anti-Stalinist groups and parties as well.

SALUTARY LESSON

For the Trotskyist movement it is an especially significant and salutary lesson, 'for Indonesialike Ceylon-was one of the few countries where the Pabloite revisionists succeeded in securing a political toe-hold.

In the late fifties, the International Secretariat recognised the Partai Acoma as the Indonesian section of the Fourth International.

The 22nd plenum of the International Executive 'enthusiastically welcomed this decision' and recommended to the 6th World Congress that the International Secretariat decision be ratified, which the Congress did.

The Partai Acoma was a loose centrist group which consisted of ex-Stalinists and was led by an Indonesian MP, Ibnu Parna.

Given correct leadership and advice from the International Secretariat, this party could no doubt have shed its centrist leaders and become a viable alternative to the Stalinists.

(Many of its members had fought against Japanese and Dutch imperialism in the Stalinist resistance and broke with the Stalinists when they supported the Renville Agreement, which mortgaged Indonesian independence to the Dutch.)

PARTY DISAPPEARED Instead, the party, after a spurt of activity, disappeared without trace-and today the revisionists in the United Secretariat remain ominously silent on this lamentable experience.

The real reason for the demise of this party is the failure of the leadership of the revisionist International Secretariat to check Newsletter Correspondent the wrong and dangerous of the Partai Acoma.

In its Thesis of October 1959 (Fourth International' Spring 1960. Published by Pablo and Germain), the Partai Acom projected the neo-Stalinist slogan of a 'peoples' government without capitalism' and in doing so advanced the following argument:

'SPECULATION' 'To speculate about a personal military dictatorship which determines the national policy is very dangerous, because it has no roots in a solid class, it has no clear ideology which can be followed, it is very much dependent on personal temperament . . ! !!! and then went on to state:

"The future of Indonesia goes in the direction of the peoples' democratic system, because the military junta is unable to overcome the internal contradiction of the Armed Forces and incapable of solving the national problems in the interests of the mass of the people... we are now already in a period of history which is more progressive than the situation of 1945....

On the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) it stated:

'The Acoma Party and the PKI are both based on Marxism-Leninism. ... (!)

When Sukarno invoked the old constitution of 1945 and began to liquidate the party system, the Partai Acoma proposed a so-called transitional programme which omitted any demand for land reform, nationalization or workers' power, but instead spoke sanguinely of such things as 'killing the germs of the personality cult and of spreading 'the slogans that bring the working people together in the spheres of politics, economics and defence'.

NO OBJECTION It is not surprising that neither the Stalinists, nor Sukarno, nor even the Generals objected to such vague and sonorous phrasemongering.

That the revisionist theoretical organ should have published this un-Marxist nonsense without comment and with their approval is, in the light of subsequent events, not surprising either.

Perhaps that master of evasion, Hansen, . Will turn up with an explanation after all. (Or may be he won't.)

Four BPOOL January 1 5, 1966

when he says: "The union is asking for more money than in the past, and the TA has never had less money to give'.

There are lessons for all workers to learn out of this strike. For British workers, especially those in public transport and the docks, the advantage of fighting as an industry-wide unit dramatically underlined in the total paralysis of the New York transport system.

Advantageous

This would be of far more advantage than the garage by garage struggle that now London transport for better wages and conditions. For dockers in Britain the fight against Devlin and for nationalization of the docks can better be waged through unity of the 'Blue' (National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers) and 'White' (Transport and General Workers' Union) trade unionists under a leadership opposed to the sell-out policies of the old labour bureaucracy.

For American and British workers there are clear political lessons to be learned. The crisis of world capitalism will leave no country and group of workers untouched.

The struggle against the bosses can only be further developed in a political struggle. In Britain this must mean a struggle against imperialist policies of the Labour Party leadership and a struggle to develop an alternative leadership committed to carrying through the most revolutionary measures against the capitalist class. One thing they must surely learn from this strike is the need to join in the lobby of Parliament on January 26 in order to defeat the Labour government's intentions of introducing anti-trade union legislation.

In the US militant trade unionists must clearly understand that the continuation of struggle on the purely economic lines of trade unionism can no longer avail them of any gains. T clamped a curfew and proclaimed ay emergyake • HE nine-month-old government of Dudley Senanayake (the third since 1958) after violent anti-Tamil demonstrations in Colombo, led by the Lanka Sama Samaja Party and Sri Lanka Freedom Party, resulted in the shooting of a Buddhist monk and the wounding of several demonstrators.

As usual, these political bankrupts, unable to pose a progressive socialist alternative to the present regime, appealed to the basest and most racialist prejudices of the Colombo mob when the government sanctioned the use of Tamil as an official language in the predominantly Tamil provinces in the north and east.

This gesture of the government in relation to the Tamils is not as generous as it seems.

Shaky alliance

In fact, it is a political manoeuvre to cement the shaky alliance of the United National Party and the Federal (Tamil, bourgeois, communalist) Parties, which constitute the present coalition government.

This concession to the Tamil petty bourgeois is part of the preparatory moves of the government for an attack against the working Class whose standard of living has continued to decline precipitously.

The racialists, today led by renegades from Trotskyist movement, want to reinstate the jaded Sri Lanka Freedom PartyLanka Sama Samaja Party coalition, and think that the most effective way to overthrow the government is to drive a wedge between the Sinhalese United National Party and the Tamil Federalists.

Little do they realise that this campaign has a logic of its own which will lead not to the return of the 1964 coalition-but to a more right-wing dictatorship: in short, to a non-parliamentary regime.

AEC Ltd., Southall, Middlesex, which produces buse. anc heavy lorries, has taken tough stand against the workers there.

On c was nour back from lunch tor the time Lne following tions, losino their monev ana navine c magre Ce AES workers but [nf ms meeting passedeparment already begun "'hey called tor the electot a warkers caterv commutee powers to stop any dangerou:

this weter sri hót me that đenang:

every effort for he laneary large delegatior 26 lobby of parlament.

FOOT By NEWSLETTER FOLLOWING a wave of publicity from radio, press and television, the six-week-old strike of 600 workers at Woolf's rubber factory in Southall, Middlesex, has ended.

It began as a strike against the suspension of a worker who was alleged to have been late, and developed into a basic struggle for union rights which the strikers— the majority of them immigrants-have continuously fought for in the Southall area.

A company spokesman told the press that none of the three points raised in the strikers' original declaration (union rights, etc.) had been discussed between them and union officials, nor had the case of the suspended man!

tis belleved that the company vill reinstate 50 per cent of the strikers over a period, choosing nem trom a shont list provided by the Labour exchange. The employment of the other 50 per cent has not been decided.

The article on the strike by Rhona Churchill in the 'Daily Mail' (January 5) was one of a series of articles in the national and local press and on television, which emphasised the nationality of the strikers.

British capitalism is on its deafil-bed. It cannot defeat a united working class. Therefore it has to rely on this means of propaganda and its strong-arm boys, the tascists, to divide the working class at a time when the Labour government is attempting to introduce anti-trade union legislation.

Rhona Churchill made the most vicious attacks on this most exploited section of the working class who have to live in the worst houses in overcrowded conditions, at exhorbitant rents, at the same time as empty office buildings are shooting up all over the Southall area, and the Labour government cuts down on house building.

She used the usual arguments about immigrants being ignorant 'all had to be taught about trade unions' UNIONISED In fact attempts have been made to unionise Woolfs for 30 years. It was not until two years ago that the union gained recognition, and it was the immigrant workers who did this. *She also made a statement that there is 'daily violence'. The first violence came on Tuesday (the day before her article appeared), and only then when a picket was allegedly beaten up by scabs.

The management continued negotiations with union officials at the same time as they hired new labour (about 200 people, including known supporters of the British National Party.

The fact that no union money was paid to the strikers, even in and around the factory, especially when the shifts changed.

What is happening at Woolfs (which supplies parts for the motor industry) is a part of the crisis of the out-of-date economy of British capitalism attempting to compete with the semi-automated factories of America, Germany, Japan and Italy.

The Labour Party, introduces anti-trade union legislation, nurtures the racialists and fascists by strengthening the immigration act, and supports the use of the police (they have a history of calling police to remove Young Socialist members from meetings). It has offered nothing to these workers.

NO WAY Many of the leaders of this strike are members of the Communist Party, but the 'Daily Worker' offered no way of fighting the fascists or of winning the strike.

They allowed a policeman to attend one strike meeting without asking for his ejection, and they refused to accept a motion against anti-trade union legislation, saying it was nothing to do with the strike.

solution Woolf workers struggles like those at AEC, and the struggles organised by the Young Socialists to kick the fascists out of the trade union moveto reinstate members in the local T&GWU branch suspended for opposing the denial of these workers' rights (Woolf strikers were turned away from a union meeting called to electrolicers).

The solution is the building of a revolutionary party in opposition to this system of profits and exploitation, for the replacement of the police by workers' militias, and for the unifying of the whole working class against the fascist and racialist press for a workers' daily paper against state action imposed on the trade unions.

A NAME?

return Scamp is called RENT PROTE. CITY-WIDE

been at a standstill since „UBLIN'S deep-sea port has January 2 and the strike of 2,000 dockers has spread to other parts of the country.

Over last week-end, the union, the Marine, Port and General Workers' Union, decided that the men should picket the offices of the 12 Dublin shipping firms involved in the dispute.

It was decided to 'black' all petrol tankers of these firms.

The dockers are demanding a reeded house from e rejected proposals Labour Court for a settlement.

On Saturday dockers at Waterford refused to pass a picket line of Dublin dockers set up around the 'Annabecker' which, they claimed, was carrying cargo diverted from Dublin.

PACKAGES REMOVED The picket was removed after talks with the ship's agents who agreed to remove these packages and compensate the Waterford dockers for loss of time caused by the stoppage.

Earlier on Saturday, the US 'American Packer' managed to sail from Dublin. She had been strike-bound for a week.

Tugmen refused to take the ship out. She was winched around and left port under her own steam. The 'Irish Plane' had left Demand for 40 hours week port under similar circumstances the previous day.

General Secretary of the dockers' union, Mr. James Dunne, commented: •I wish to express disappointment at the fact that personnel in the employment of Dublin Port and • Docks Board assisted in the release of the "Irish Plane" It has been our policy to withhold pickets on the docks because we have no wish unnecessarily to involve other workers, but actions such as this are no help.' Certain circles in the Republic's government are already concerned at the effects of the tariff agreement with Britain on Irish production and profits.

The dockers' strike, which is one of many aflecting the country at the moment, is heightening these fears.

INDUSTRY AFFECTED A union spokesman has made it plain that no goods, with the exception of medical supplies, are being released from the port.

The hold-up of raw. materials is affecting heavy industry. Two motor assembly firms have told dockers' union strike committee that 750 men may have to be laid off temporarily unless motor car bodies and other parts are released from the port.

But no matter how many workers are affected by this strike, they must not be split from the dockers by a barrage of reaction from the press, radio and television.

As in Britain, the greatest unity of the working class is needed now when the employers are preparing large-scale attacks on working and living conditions.

'SIMILARITY'

Under the title 'Some Similarities', ', an editorial in Ireland's national newspaper Irish Independent' stated on Monday ts ti 'There are many points similarity between Britain's current problems and our own.' It quotes Britain's Labour Minister, Ray Gunter, as saying: 'We, as a nation, have been lIving beyond our means.' The editorial adds:

'All this is most relevant to our own affairs. We are so closely tied to Britain in trade that difficulties there have a marked effect on our own prospects. It seems likely that this year will be a difficult period in Britain, and the resulting pressures will continue to operate in this country' And, in the same issue of the newspaper, comes news of a plan by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to include disciplinary measures against unions ignoring its proposals of peace. The plain 'aims to bring industrial harmony to Ireland over the next five years,' says the Irish Independent'.

NATIONAL 'DEAL'

The programme suggests that wages and conditions be covered in this five years by fixed increases in wages for each year-in fact, a giant national 'package deal'.

The Irish Independent' points out that one of the most important aspects of the plan is Congress approval or disapproval for workers' actions.

'This could very well mean that workers would be directed to pass pickets placed by unions in support of claims in conflict with the programme or of an irresponsible nature' Irish workers must reject all talk of 'harmony' with the bosses, whose papers continually talk of wages rising too fast. They must unite with British workers unions and fight for an alternative leadership to replace all those in the labour and trade union movement intent on doing a job for capitalism. received.

£3 12s demand A Hull docker explained to The Newsletter that they were putting forward a demand tor £3 I2s per day tali-back pay on all lobs where piece work could not be obtained.

He said that the old system of Is od per hour differential for abnormal jobs or in lieu of piecework should be replaced by a 4s an hour award on all jobs; all piecework schedules should be revised; and there should be a 25 per cent increase on all commodities that have not been revised since the original rate of 19s per day.

'The unofficial portworkers' committee has also called for a ban on week-end working.

Once again dockers have shown their readiness to fight for a living wage against not only the port employers, but also against the union 'leaders' who 'don't know the reason for the strike'.

A new leadership must be built that will fight for the dockers, not against them.

Dockers should unite with other workers who have taken up this fight by supporting the January 26 lobby.

Registered at the G.P.O. as = newspaper Published by The Newsletter. 186л Clapham High Street, London S.w 4 Printed bv Plough Press Ltd (TU), r.0 180 Clapham High Street. London, S.# 4

though they had been out for six weeks and the strike was made official after four weeks;

that goods were allowed to go to and from the factory; and that other unionists were not called out in sympathy led to a weakening of the strike.

All the weapons of the state were used against the strikers on Thursday (January 6) when five of the strikers appeared in court in connection with disturbances following the beating up of one of the scabs.

A magistrate commented: 'We want you to conform man to man with our way of life without all this ganging up'.

The disturbances were not matter of Indians versus Pakistanis, but of striker versus scab, and it must have frightened the Join with the Socialist Labour against the unions, there will not VER 4,000 Hull dockers and it must have frightened the authorities to realise that the League and the Young Socialists be any need for any Mr. Scamps • took part in a one-day authorities to realise that the strikers had by-passed the police in the fight against the right wing in such a strike-the 50 transstrikers had by-passed the police and themselves defended pickets. and Stalinism and for a Trotskyist porters will simply be put behind token stoppage on Friday and themselves defended pickets.

Police were certainly in force Police were certainly in force daily paper! bars. (January 7) in response to a If ever there was a crying need for a communist daily฿ paper that campaigns for the independence of the working class, t is now, when the old pattern of politics, based on British middle-class compromise, is fast breaking up.

We say to those militants, many of whom are now rallying support for the Lambeth Trades Council lobby on the issue of trade union legislation, that to fight for the defence of the basic organisations of the working class requires fight for a genuine communist daily paper that can help to transform defensive struggles into the ultimate goal of all communists, the struggle for power.

Join with the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists in the fight against the right wing and Stalinism and for a Trotskyist daily paper!

By Our Industrial Correspondent O shooter, Mr. Jack Scamp, or appointed to in N the same day that the motor industry's 'trouble vestigate the strike by 50 transporter drivers at Rover's Solihull, Birmingham, factory, the men decided to return to work.

The drivers' strike had shut down the whole plant. The men are demanding a third day's Christmas holiday pay, and, until Tuesday were defying pleas by union officials to return to work.

Earlier they had shown the depth of their grievance when they successfully held back an attempt to break the strike.

Twenty police, including two inspectors and two formed a line to enable a convoy Coventry depot to enter the fac tory.

Pickets forced their way through the line of police and stopped three attempts by the transporters to enter.

The transporters finally drove away having failed to break through the lines.

The drivers from Coventry are employed by one of the two firms which were inyolved in the Rover dispute.

'CARRY ON'

Strikers claimed that these drivers, when told to enter the Solihull factory, contacted officials of their union, the Transport and General Workers' Union. They were told to carry out their firm's instructions!

A striker said of the Coventry drivers: Well say this for thern, they didn't ty too hard to get in'.

The workers claimed that under their agreement with the employers, they are paid for six Bank Holiday days per year, including Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

This year, the management, on their own initiative, brought the Christmas Day holiday forward to Christmas Eve and paid fite men for only • four day's work.

The men claim that they lost £3 6s by the arrangement.

In view of the strength of the transporters who, it they had continued on strike, could have caused the laying off of 10,000 workers and completely closing down the Rover plant, the company decided that they would not even pay the mere £165 to these men.

And the Labour government rushed to their aid by announcing an inquiry headed by Mr. Scamp.

A 'Financial Times' correspondent claims that the drivers' decision to return to work 'must be counted a considerable victory for Mr. Jack Scamp.

But what victory will there be for the transporters?

In fact, when the Labour government passes its legislation against the unions, there will not be any need for any Mr. Scamps in such a strike-the 50 transporters will simply be put behind bars.

last moment ON Monday, January 3, 600 • workers at GEC (Electronics) in North Wembley were informed by foremen that they were to be sacked over the next few months.

The factory, they were told, was closing as work was to be dispersed to other GEC establishments at Coventry and Portsmouth.

The shop stewards' committee was only informed at the same time, and a press statement was issued simultaneously.

One leading worker told The Newsletter that the decision was 'a commando operation carried out in strict secrecy.

No reason He added that there was no reason for the closure. There has been plenty of work in the factory recently with some departments working overtime.

'We are calling for GEC factories throughout the country to support us by "blacking" all work moved from North Wembley.' The trade unions must fight this attack on the workers at GEC. They must raise the demand that workers' representatives inspect GEC's books and plans be made to keep the factory open, if necessary with a reduced working week.

GEC have carried out similar moves in the past. One plant was closed, and all the workers sacked, only to re-open later with new work force producing different commodities.

HULL DOCKS port

A threat of rent rises, over NGKY and alarmed at the 60 Liverpool Corporation tenants attended a meeting in Speke last week.

The meeting was called by the Speke Provisional Tenants' Committee. The three Speke Labour councillors were asked to attend.

One after another, the tenants fired questions at the councillors, but they kept trying to pin the councillors down with the main one: 'Are you going to raise the rent?' After hearing the councillors there was no doubt at all in the minds of most of the tenants that they were preparing to raise rents.

'REASONS'

One tenant spoke of a pamphlet which had been issued at the municipal elections entitled:

•Five reasons why you shouldn't vote Tory'. One of those reasons was that a Tory Council would raise the rents now a Labour Council was proposing the same thing.

Many tenants said they had always voted Labour and expected something different from Labour in power.

Tenants told how they had come from the slums of Liverpool and had looked forward to a new life but, insiead, wives had One councillor said that the Liverpool City Council could not be blamed for the rise in the cost of living.

'But you're going to put up the rents-that's cost of living, • retorted a tenant.

The councillor said that he was a council tenant himself and his house had cost the Corporation £1,450 when built. Since then, approximately £4,600 had been paid out, mainly on interest payments.

'Well', called the tenants, "what are all you Labour coun cillors going to do about it? it "We are fighting, we've been to the Cabinet. We're seeing the Prime Minister, you cant go higher than that,' was the reply.

Another councillor declared that he thought he still had a bit of socialism left in him, but he proposed a • differential rent scheme.

Bill Hunter, of "The Newsletter', said there were only two ways to aproach the housing deficit. suspend interest payments and nationalization of the land, banks and insurance companies.

The more the working class need for shelter grew, the more prosperous the landlords and big moneylenders became.

Labour councillors could unleash a real fight against them.

The tenants would back that.

If a meeting had been called by the Labour Council to campaign this way, then the centre of Liverpool would not big enough to hold all the workers who would come.

"The working people didn't elect you to place greater hardship on them, either by flat rent increases, or by differential rent schemes to split the tenants up.

'Now is the chance to do something about words and resolutions which yourselves have sup- ported in the past.

There was applause as he said: 'Either fight the rent increase, help organise working s people to get rid of the toll moneylender and landlord, or stand aside.' The tenants were completely disatisfied with what the councillors had to say. The meeting was prepared for a fight.

'BOGEY'

One of the councillors declared that the policy of 'The Newsletter' meant the confiscation of capital. If he felt that this would create a bogey, it certainly did not effect tenants who were angry. about the threat of 10s a week rent increase, and more later, being confiscated out of their income.

'Why can't you nationalize the land?' one housewife kept asking.

Why, indeed?

Because that would mean de veloping the struggle of the work class.

councillors, that struggle would begin by defiantly refusing to increase rents.

The Speke tenants' committee is now meeting to discuss possibility of organising a citywide demonstration.

Walton Young Socialists have already called one meeting of tenants in the 'Braddocks' (two big blocks of flats named John and Elizabeth after Mr. and Mrs. Braddock). There is another meeting there next Tuesday.

• 'MILITANT'

One was to raise rents and make the tenants pay and continue raising rents.

The other was to refuse to increase rents, organise a fight to call from the unofficial workers' committee.

According to the 'Hull Daily Mail', the regional secretary of Transport and General Workers' Union did not know the reason for the strike.

But the dockers themselves know that although their committee had written to the port employers informing them of a pay_claim, and requesting a reply by January 3, no reply had been sent in concentrated form all the conservative trends inside the working class today.

Ideas of constitutional methods. procedural manoeuvres and peace. ful negotiation have been domiany rate since 19r movement, at nant in the labour They are based on hundreds of years British capitalist supremacy in the world marker and were reinforced in the past 20 years of boom conditions.

The Labour leadership, both the open right wing, and its 'left' critics. have fought against every effort by the Marxists to expose this oppontunist method. The Stalinisation of the Communist Party turned it from being potential alternative to the right wing into one of its bulwarks.

Now. faced with deep-going economic problems, the employing class uses the Labour government and the union chiefs to prepare the first stage of the attack on living standards.

The old methods. rules and routines are meaningless in relation to the independent action of the working class. They can onlv be used to hinder the struggle for Marxist leadership of the labour ment.

Strengthen illusion

To argue, as Dickinson does, that, with the existing leadership and following established (i.e.

opportunist) methods, the working class is strong is to strengthen, consciously, the dangerous illusions which still hold back the workers.

The more "Marxist' the phraseology, the more effectively this task is performed for the bureaucracy.

'Look ito the leaders, to the machine', says Dickinson, in effect. 'Obey the rules, stay with the bureaucrats at all costs'.

As in the Young Socialists, he sugars the opportunist pill with Marxist flavouring.

The British working class is potentially very strong. It is strong enough to throw out the traitors who lead it, to beat back the attacks of the bosses.

It is strong enough to smash capitalism once and for all.

But to exert this strength, it must be released from the bureaucratic machine and its methods of thought. It must act independently by building a Marxist leadership.

If it is strong enough to accomplish these tasks, it will not be much hindered by obstacles like Mr. Dickinson and his friends.