The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 431

air attacks SPANISH STUDENTS PROTEST H-BOMB MENACE By MICHAEL students marched through Madrid last week shouting anti-American slogans as US troops and technicians worked frantically to recover fragments of an H-bomb deposited near Palomares when a giant B-52 bomber collided with an aerial tanker and crashed in Southern Spain.

Out of the four H-bombs in the B-52, three have been recovered.

One of these three partly exploded when the TNT detonator blew up. The explosion cracked the bomb's casing and released radio-active material into the atmosphere and the ground in the immediate vicinity of the bomb.

People in the Palomares area have been asked to leave because of radio-activity.

Another H-bomb is lying in 1,000 feet of sea water two miles from the village. The US authorities hope to recover it with the aid of a midget submarine.

Franco press silent

The Franco press and radio have maintained a tight-lipped secrecy over the whole incident and blamed the demonstrations on 'Communist intrigue'.

No doubt if one of the bombs had exploded, the Franco regime would have attributed it to Communist intrigue' too!

Saturday, February 12, 1966 em car anderst which NE can understand the is now sweeping the ranks of the United Secretariat in Paris, whose members have, for several years, publicly proclaimed themselves as the most devout, unquestioning disciples of ley hailed him as the greatest Marxist of the day and cer tainly the most outspoken opponent of bureaucracy since Leon Trotsky. The recent attack made by Castro, in which he accuses Trotsky's Fourth International of being agents of imperialism, has blown their political world of impressions sky high.

›day, the apologists for Castro of yesterday are "hard put' to answer the question as to 'why Mass support for February 14

Gomulka jails

Polish communists ON JANUARY 12 a communication from Warsaw announ ced that three members of the Polish Communist Party had been sentenced to three years' imprisonment for the distribution of documents, the contents of which were 'directed against the state'.

The men were :

Kazamierz Badowski, years old.

Ludwig Haas, 50 years old. Romuald Smiech, student 25 years old.

Kazimierz. Badowski is an old oppositionist to dictatorship in Poland. In 1938 he returned from emigratión and was immediately imprisoned by the Beck regime. He was detained during the war by the Nazis.

Afterwards he rejoined the Stalinist Party and was again condemned to prison about the same time as Gomulka. After he was liberated in 1956 he worked in Cracow, where he was held in great esteem by the youth.

He worked night and day to provide them with a Marxist education. During this period he was also a great exponent of the idea of workers councils in Poland. CASTRO? cracy now presented a serious problem the Bolshevik Party and Stalin was its chosen leader.

Trotskyism was, theretore, singled out because it was the continuator of Leninism which opposed, tooth and nail, bureaucracy in all its forms. Castro's attack on Trotskyism, today arises because of fundamental counter-revolutionary changes now taking place inside Cuba in relation to the fate of the revolution itself. This is the ebb and tide of that process, in which the future of the revolution is enormously weakened by the existence of petty-bourgeois, bureaucratic clique which Castro utilises to dominate what has always been a capitalist state apparatus.

ever at any time has that state been smashed or has anyone been elected to it and subject to recall. It is the price which must inevitably be paid unless there is a Marxist revolutionary party guiding the revolution. nat is the historical setting for the anti-Trotsky slanders and with this in mind let us return HE Wall Street stock market made the best commentary on Johnson's "peace offensive' last Tuesday—a rumour that Hanoi had asked the Indian government to mediate in the Vietnam war sent prices tumbling. Even the possibility of an end to the brutal US war of repression alarmed US businessmen, but their spirits and share prices rose again when they were assured that the killing and burning would go on.

The resumption of air attacks on North Vietnam by the Americans has, of course, received the blessing of Harold Wilson. What else could be expected of Johnson's lap-dog? Equally predictable was the behaviour of the Labour 'left' MPs. Having hit the headlines with a 'revolt' on Monday, they fell flat on their faces as usual in Tuesday's debate.

Wilson treated their 'protest' motion, feeble as it was, with complete contempt. In return they withdrew it! We were spared the spectacle of them voting yet again for Wilson-only because there was no vote. John Mendelson gave a good example of the political cowardice of these gentlemen.

He ended his speech by congratulating Wilson for his 'forthright and firm declaration' that bombing should not be extended to Haiphong and Hanoi. He ommitted to mention that Johnson had said as much himself.

Naturally, Mendelson's contribution was loudly applauded in from Hanoi, while, on the other, The relationship between in more troops and planes. Wilson and his left friends was summed up in the editorial of Wednesday's 'Daily Telegraph':

'Mr. Wilson almost certainly ing in Vietnam. In 1965, there owed his election as leader to were 25,000 air strikes in North the Left wing of his party thi Vietnam and 83,000 bombing Hi me more remarkauie is we A 11 +h^ mann mmarlahla ingratitude and contempt with which he now treats those on whose backs he climbed to power. He does not merely pay no attention to what they say. He goes out of his way to affront them, as in the message to Washington proclaiming that his Government understood the resumption of bomb-ing; and this of a government containing Mr. Cousins and Mr.

Greenwood—or containing at least their inanimate husks.' Key point Wilson put his finger on the key point when he referred to those who stood not for 'peace' in Vietnam, but for the victory cisely what the Tribune tes of the Vietcong. This is refuse to fight for.

In this way they assist the imperialists by probing for any possible tendencies to negotiate on the part of the North Vietnamese leaders.

At this stage, the American imperialists pursue double strategy. On the one hand they search for some sign of compromise to the arguments of our impressionist opponents.

Did Posadas really make Castro angry? Of course not. It has always been an old Stalinist trick to create an amalgam between the Fourth International and its opponents on the so-called left.

For example, Stalin continuously created amalgam between the Trotskyist Fourth International, the POUM Spain, and others of their ilk, in between the two World Wars. In the case of Spain, Trotsky did not expect anything different from Stalin when he called the POUM a Trotskyist organisation. He did not politely ask him, as the editors of 'World Outlook' ask Castro in relation to Posadas, to read the papers of the Fourth International in order to ascertain the real position. e knew it was Stalin's method, just as it is Castro's today. Stalin, likewise in his day, denounced the Trotskyists agents of imperialism. Castro simply follows in his footsteps today.

(Continued on back page) then step up the chersive, piling But they have nothing to show for these efforts.

by the middle of this year, 415,000 Americans will be fightattacks in the South.

Often these took the form of napalm raids on villages followed by murderous attacks with splinter bombs when the villagers ran out of their blazing huts.

These tactics sickened many British people when they saw them in a television documentary last week.

But the workers and peasants continue to struggle against the US imperialists and their puppets in Saigon.

Johnson's Honolulu talks with General Ky produced no solution for the Americans either. Ky declared his opposition to any negotiations with the Vietcong RumoG am nanapuan nop inmondad tha hamhina Hanoi.

Opposition

Meanwhile the opposition to the war inside the USA grows. Mass feeling against the resumption of bombing is reflected even in Congress.

Wilson, as well as his left' 'critics', ', plays an important part in the strategy Johnson has to work out to meet his difficulties.

Far from bringing 'peace' to Vietnam, they help to delay the defeat of imperialism.

The labour movement must be mobilised against Wilson's capitulation to Washington, which is part of his betrayal of the working class in Britain. This means, not a few parliamentary manoeuvies, but a fight to get rid of this leadership altogether. opposition to

AS we go to press, Mr. Sidney Greene, the NUR Secretary, and his executive are meeting Economics Minister, Brown, new Minister of Transport, Barbara Castle and Labour Minister Ray Gunter, to discuss next week's proposed rail strike.

It would be fruitless to speculate on whether the strike will come off or not, whether the government will bring forward the 34 per cent wage rise, intended for later this year, or not, or whether Mr. Stanley Raymond and his Railways Board will withdraw higher productivity clauses attached to any agreement seeming to benefit the railway workers.

Test case

We stress again that a real test case.

Greene and the right-wing members of his executive are committed, as members of the TUC, to Brown's proposals for legislation.

The rank and file by their militancy have forced the officials to call the strike in direct opposition to the Labour government.

he did it?'. Was he driven so mad by that ultra-left sect known as the Posadas group that he lashed out in sheer desperation? Or, is he playing a double game with the Soviet bureaucracy?

le argument of our apologists here becomes more subtle.

They say that he made a leftward turn in relation to politics in Latin America in order to keep the headquarters of the movement founded at the recent Havana Tricontinental Conference in Havana itself.

Hence they imply he attacked Trotskyism in order to fool the Soviet bureaucracy so that later he can return to providing the revolutionary lead for the impoverished proletarian and peasant masses of the Latin American continent.

e consider that the issues are much more fundamental than these considerations. We shall return to them later, but first of all let us examine what Trotsky a long time ago described as the origins of the 'legend of Trotskyism'. This began in 1923 through the formation of a bloc between Zinoviev, Kamener and Stalin, which This tense confrontation has become a major political struggle.

In these conditions, under the present reluctant leadership, there could be either an llthhour sell-out, or resounding deteat. The government Will not, cannot, back down, and a defeat for the railmen would strengthen its reactionary plans.

Commend supporters

We commend those rank and file members on the Scottish, North-West and Midlands district councils who have made their support for the strike clear. They should, in these last few days before the , stoppage, appeal to wider sections of the labour movement, beyond the London underground workers, for the maximum aid in their struggle for an adequate wage.

This will mean a struggle for a new leadership not only of their own union, but for the whole labour movement.

All out behind the railwaymen!

For a 100 per cent strike.

Down with Brown's wage freeze. continued until 1925. Then, both Zinoviev and Kamenev broke periodiere short period, entered bloc with Trotsky.

During the course of this bloc at the joint plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission, July 14 to July 23, 1926, Zinoviev admitted that the origin of Trotskyism was deliberately fabricated in 1923-1925 in order to divert attention from the growing bureaucratisation of the Party apparatus under the leadership of Stalin.

'Yes,' he said, 'on the question of suppression by the bureaucratised apparatus, Trotsky proved to be right against us.' The attack on Trotskyism at that stage in the history of the Party was decisive. Between the years 1917 to 1923, the heroic years of the revolution, the struggle against the counter revolution and the wars of intervention, there was no mention of Trotskyism.

the years of isolation of the Soviet Union owing to the post-World War 1 defeats of the working class in Western Europe, the growth of bureau-

Newslette ORKERS at BEA London • Airport have learned that Fred Core-senior ETU shop steward at BEA for 10 years —has been banned from holding office for life by the executive committee of the Electrical Trades Union.

A special-summoned meeting of the London Airport ETU branch was convened for Friday (February 1l) when a new secretary • will be elected to replace Gore.

No explanation Airport workers told our reporters that Gore had always carried out the policy of the local committees and could not understand what grounds there could be for removing their elected representative.

As we go to press no public explanation has come from the executive committee, and indeed it is hard to see how it could be justified.

It is true that Gore last year negotiated less than 40-hour week for shift workers and we also believe he was party to a resolution condemning fellow member Blair for casting the union vote against aircraft nationalization at last year's Trades Union Congress.

But surely this record calls for congratulation, not condemnation? What are the executive committee's reasons for removing Gore from office?

pag NE WSLETTER

By Newsletter UNDER the headline Labour Rocked by Brown's Plan Fine the Unions', the 'Sunday Express' (February 6) carried several quotations from union officials which highlight the mounting verbal opposition to these plans.

Richard Briginshaw, joint general secretary of the newly-formed Society of Graphical and Allied Trades, was quoted by Don Perry as saying:

"If the government enforce this legislation, it Will lead to union leaders going to. Jail.

In my view that will finish the Labour Party in its present form. The trades unions will then stand on their own and the Labour Party will become something like the French Socialist Party' Another union official, said to have a powerful voice on the TUC, was reported as saying:

If union leaders are to be fined for doing their job, which is raising the members' wages, some of us intend not to pay.

'Presumably that will mean going to jail. I do not think the Labour Party would recover from the shock.' Encouraging This opposition in official' circles is encouraging, but cannot be put to any effect without the mobilisation of the thousands of trade unionists whose wages and rights will be the hardest hit.

The Lambeth Trades Council, Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists have already begun this mammoth task. See page 4 for news of the campaign.

• legislation of the Wilson Cabinet. Even right- PPOSITION is growing to the anti-trade union wing supporters of Wilson in the trade union group of Labour MPs are worried about whether Wilson can get away with it.

The January 26 lobby of Parliament, called by the Lambeth Trades Council, has started a fight among large and important sections of trade unionists up and down the country. Next time, as are published, much more be organised.

But Wilson and Brown for Brown's Department of Ec Saturday: "The Bill is going ah‹ It is not going to be shelved'.

In other words, the result of the Hull by-election has been taken by Wilson as the go-ahead sign for his right-wing policies.

Mistake

Socialists should not make same mistake.

The 19,000 Labour supporters of October 1964, primarily workers, voted Labour once again, determined to have nothing to do with Toryism. Added to these Labour votes were those of a few thousand middle-class "floaters'.

For the last few years, these voters have been choosing between Tory and Liberal. Misguidedly, they fear most of all the organised strength of the working class. They believe the strength of the trade unions keeps down the 'share' going to those in the professions, white-collar jobs and small businesses.

This time they voted for Wilson's right-wing. policies, especially the attack on the trade unions. They gave a welcoming sign to the apparent drift of Labour away from 'working class' to 'national-interest' politics.

Such a combination cannot last. The purpose of the anti-trade union laws is to attack the working class. Inevitably there will be resistance, the working class will continue as always to fight for their wages and conditions and resist speedup.

The conditions are being prepared for a break between the trade union movement and the Labour government. The very thing which keeps the middle-class, ex-Liberal vote will alienate the working class.

Only decisive socialist policies against big business could unite the working class and win support of many in the middle classes. soon as the terms of the Bill massive national action can do not hesitate. A spokesman onomic Affairs told the press on ad and will shortly be published.

comes Board, but his decision would be final. Anybody who challenged it, as the rallwaymen are now doing. would be committing a crime.

These powers would also be handed over to whoever occupied government powerTories included.

The Communist Party leaders and many who claim to be on the 'left' of the Labour Party opposed the Lambeth Trades Council lobby because it raised the question of alternative socialist policies and opposition to the Labour government.

Instead, they argue, we must concentrate on 'pressure' to change Wilson's policies or wait till the White Paper is published.

They give grist to the mill of those who suggest: Wilson is unable to do anything just now because the American and other international capitalists are holding the government up to ransom. We should be 'patient', and 'not rock the boat', until Wilson has put the country on its feet and then socialist policies will be possible. Dangerous talk This is highly dangerous talk for the working class. Its result is to lull those workers who listen to it, while the government proceeds to act on behalf of big business. The Labour leadership serves capital. It is the pressure of capital to which it responds, when it supports the Vietnam war, when it tables laws against trade unionists.

The effect of militant working-class action is not to push this leadership 'left' but, on the contrary, to work out a strategy to push back the working class.

Labour leaders have the confidence of international capital, and they will not betray that trust. The laws against trade unionists

The fight against anti-trade union legislation is the most important part of the struggle for these socialist policies and for a new leadership.

Into every necessary industrial struggle, the government introduces a political question, a question of who has the state power.

The proposed powers taken by Wilson would not only be placed in the hands of a Tory, Aubrey Jones, of the Prices and InJUST OUT! Fourth International A Journal of International Published by the International Committee of CONTENTS INCLUDE:

Trade Unions at the Imperialism and the Marxist Political Economy The Fight for Marxism Two speeches and DOCUMENTS Trotskyism in the Unite Statement on Vietnam BOOKS 'The Economics' by 48 pages, illus., price 3/. Available from New Park Publications, 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4. have not come in for criticism from any of these international capitalists or from any section of employers in Britain. The 'Sunday Times' financial correspondent echoed the feelings of every businessman and stock exchange speculator when he wrote: "This (the Bill) is a great concession by trade unions of a limitation on their right to strike. There are arguments for the Conservatives supporting the Bill. ... A Conservative government would almost certainly want to use its machinery...• If Wilson was keeping someMarxism the Fourth Crossroad: ¡Editorial Liquidity C risis 'Socialist World' an article by Leon Trotsky Preobrazhensky

WSLETTER Three

thing 'up his sleeve', only wanting to get into a stronger position in order to act in a more socialist way, how do you explain his conduct after the Hull by-election?

He went immediately to a meeting of employers in Birmingham and guaranteed an attack on the workers through the anti-trade union legislation. In the week following, he sent a message of support, even congratulations, to Johnson on the resumed bombing of North Vietnam. Consequences?

Wilson is looking for that kind of pressure and support which enables his government to serve the bosses more enthusiastically.

If we were to accept the idea of 'pressure' to bring Wilson round to socialist ways of acting, what would the consequences be?— the fight for an alternative leadership, the most vital fight, would be stopped.

The spearhead of this fight, the campaign against trade union laws, which is growing among large sections of workers, would be pushed aside. We would make a protest and wait for Wilson to show his response. Meanwhile he and his backers prepare more decisive blows to silence any opposition.

This is in faci what the 'Communist Party leaders have done and are doing They used their personnel and their influence in the trade unions to weaken the lobby of January 26.

They urge Wilson to fight for peace in Vietnam. They issue appeals for left 'unity', but make riot a single mention of the working class. Their turn to the middle class is the best example of this reactionary policy.

The middle-class voter turns to Wilson because Wilson attacks the working class. The Communist Party tones down criticism of Wilson, and drops any mention of the working class, in order to attract these same middle classes!

In other words, this kind of 'pressure' and 'unity' plays an important . part in strengthening Wilson in his turn to the right.

This has always been the logic of the 'pressure' argument.

Inside the Labour Party from 1961-1964, a running battle was fought between the right-wing leadership preparing for today's betrayals, and the Young Socialists, organised for socialist policies behind the paper 'Keep Left' and supporters of the Socialist Labour League.

In an article 'The Labour Party's Youth', the Communist Party weekly 'Comment' writes about the Malvern conference:

'The impression was that there had been some re-thinking amongst Young Socialists and an awareness that pressure on the Labour government is the way to change its policy, and further: 'There were no signs of ultra-leftist and purely negative "Wilson Must Go," or "Down with the Labour government" slogans.' Lies about YS In general then, says 'Comment', 'there emerged healthy signs from the Young Socialists themselves'.

In the whole article, the active Young Socialists' organisation, which came out of the Labour Party and has campaigned in the leadership of every vital working-class issue, is not even mentioned.

Their fight against the bureaucracy is referred to simply as the activity of 'small ultra-leftist groups with policies as unsatisfactory as those of the right wing'.

These. are lies! 'Keep Left' supporters won majorities for their socialist policies of nationalization at three successive conferences, against Transport House. They were twice elected into the majority of the National Committee of the Young Socialists, now abolished inside the Labour Party.

This is the real meaning of the so-called *pressure on the government', Behind it the main attack of the Communist Party, the Labour 'left' MPs, and the small groups around 'Militant' and 'The Week', is against the left, against any development of a revolutionary leadership for the working class.

Sidney Silverman, writing this week's "Tribune', speaks all these people when he says:

'In this country socialism will be achieved through the Labour Party, or not at all. If it is to be achieved, a Labour government must remain in continuous power for at least 15 to 20 years' It follows that this 'can be done only by maintaining the faith of ordinary people in the purposes of the Labour government, and in its power and competance to achieve them'.

In other words, 'Don't rock the boat'-and keep the deception that the anti-trade union legislation and the Vietnam war are not the real 'purposes of the Labour government.

Careful pressure' Somehow careful and not too noisy 'pressure' is supposed to swing the Wilson government round to its real 'purposes' The Socialist Labour League and The Newsletter begin instead from the class interests served by Wilson. He acts for the employers, in Britain, in Rhodesia, in Vietnam. The urgent task is to mobilise the working class against the government, against the plans of the employers, and in the first place against the anti-trade union laws.

New SLL pamphlet on union law HOLLOWING the january 26 lobby of parliament, many union branches, building sites and factories will be discussing the next steps in the campaign.

The new Socialist Labour League pamphlet. 'No Laws Against Trade Unions', , by G. Healy, is an important contribution to their discussions.

In a direct and straightforward way, the pamphlet states the dangers in store for trade unionists if the Labour government's proposals go through. It quotes from the Labour Party document of 1963, which already advocated legal restrictions on wages.

The most important point made in the pamphlet is that, while it is a Labour government that brings in the Bill, it could be a Tory government which uses it. The present situation prepares the way for a split in the movement, perhaps on the lines of 1931.

The pamphlet discusses the kind of campaign needed to defeat legislation and the polithis. It takes un the questions of loyalty to the Labour government, the role of the Labour 'lefts' and the attitude of the Communist Party.

Finally it calls for readers to support the building of the Socialist Labour League and to consider joining it.

The pamphlet should be sold wilely throughout the unions and read by all workers who want to fight back against the employers' attacks.

No Laws Against Trade Unions by G. Healy Price 3d This should be read with:

Socialist Policy the Crisis Price 3d They can for la ordered together for 8d (including postage) from: The Socialist Labour League, 186a Clapham High Street, London,

AS the Hull by-election a 'massive vote of confidence in Harold Wilson and the record of the Labour government,' as the right-wing candidate, Kevin McNamara, claimed?

The right wing are jubilant at the result, but what are the real factors in it?

FIRST There was no desertion of Labour voters. The Tory circus, with its bevy of chorus girls, cut no ice in North Hull.

The Tory Party. split and squabbling over Rhodesia, economic policy and their own leadership, is in no position to lead an onslaught on the Wilson government, even if it wanted to do so.

It is the crisis of capitalism which splits the Party of the ruling class. British capitalism today relies on the Labour leaders. That is why Wilson knows he had nothing to fear from the Tories.

SECONDLY The increase in the Labour vote came from the Liberals. The Conservative vote remained steady (19,127 compared with 19,483 at the General Election). The Liberal vote dropped by 4,625, while the Labour vote increased by 3,813. This is, without doubt, an anti-socialist vote for the policies of Wilson and Brown.

CANVASSERS' 'The Guardian', which followed the by-election campaign very closely, reported that the leftwing' members of Hull Labour Party, having swallowed their principles and gone out canvassin? for McNamara found to their horror that in the middle-class areas of Hull North, voters were saying that they would support Wilson because he was : 'doing something about the unions' There is no doubt that McNamara's attack on the striking Hull dockers, who live mainly in West Hull, was a vote catcher among the anti-working class Liberals of Hull North, who also regard strikers as 'enemies of the community' The increase in Liberal votes in the past years came from petty-bourgeois people who began to feel the effects of the economic crisis of capitalism. Such people fear both the power of big capi-

The Communist Party never supported the Young Socialists against the witch-hunters on a single occasion. They were opposed to the Young Socialists' fight. to defeat the right wing.

Now that the Young Socialists are building their independent organisation, and building a leadership along with thousands of trade unionists, the Communist Party 'discovers' the so-called Labour Party Young Socialists' who met in the rump conference at Malvern last year, under new rules which effectively abolish the Labour Party's youth movement. A discussion article ACK GALE These workers are a very ditferent proposition from the 'left' parliamentarians. As that leading right-wing commentator Peregrine Worthsthorne pointed out in the 'Sunday Telegraph', this legis-

tal and strength organised labour.

In places like Orpington, they were swung by the Liberal Party's appeal to the 'small man', the 'individual', the commuter interest, etc.

In periods of real crisis such people-unless there is a powerful working-class movement to pull them over to its side-go over to extreme reaction.

LIBERAL SUPPORT

In Italy and Germany, for instance, they gave mass support to Mussolini and Hitler.

Today, when a clash between the state and the unions is approaching, these people abandon the Liberal Party as ineffectual, and join the right wing of the Labour Party on the basis of support for its non-Socialist anti-working-class policies.

Thus a 'Sunday Telegraph' gallup poll, completed before the Hull result, showed that more than one in three Liberal supporters want an alliance with one of the other parties, and by a three-to-one margin, they want to link up with the Labour Party.

Significant also, are the remarks of Mr. David Stell, Liberal MP for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles in Scotland. He declared that the Hull result was bad for the Liberal Party, but 'good for the radical left'.

THIRDLY The candidature of Mr. Richard Gott requires comment. This candidature revealed the crisis and split inthe Labour 'left', but Mr. Gott made two big mistakes.

He clearly thought that he could make an impact on the middle-class conscience over Vietnam.

He found to his dismay that middle-class liberals could not care less about the fate of the workers and peasants of Vietnam.

Liberal humanitarianism belongs strictly to the public relations department, while the middle-class conscience is tied firmly to the middle-class pocket.

ISOLATED PROTEST Mr. Gott's second mistake was more serious. To defeat the bomb-happy bureaucrats in the Labour leadership requires more than an isolated 'protest' platform.

Gott was very much 'here today and gone tomorrow'. In an interview in the 'Sun' in January 5—two days before he left for Hull to begin his campaign-he declared:

'I don't think I will go on with it (politics) for much longer. It gets to be a bore.

I think I would like to run a bookshop down in Salisbury' Gott gained some support from sections of the student youth and a little from the tattered remnants of the New Left and CND (although a majority of these fervent marchers of yesteryear supported McNamara, himself and ex-CNDer).

What he did not do was present an alternative to the WilsonBrown government around which people could unite and struggle.

As a result, he was not taken seriously in Hull North . and he did not deserve to be.

FOURTHLY The Labour leaders have moved steadily to the right ever since the General Election. They have progressed from their contemptible treatment of the old age pensioners, on to their racialist immigration White Paper, their abject capitulation to Johnson over Vietnam, and now their proposed legislation against the trade unions.

RIGHT WING PLEASED The right wing are in full cry —Desmond Donnelly called the Hull result 'the first real fruits of throwing steel nationalisation out of the window.

This move to the right is clearly understood by the spokesmen of the ruling class.

The 'Sunday Times' 30 was very lucid:

'Wilson is magnetising the Liberal-minded forces, not by accident, but by deliberate policy, and all the time is edging Labour, with the new fellow - travelling Liberals, nearer to his master-plan for a British equivalent of the Democratic Party of the United States • Hull will now enable Mr. Wilson to continue with his re-education of the Labour Party without ever mentioning what he is really up to and certainly never mentioning Clause 4.

'With the old left now spiritless and powerless-they may raise a gallop occasionally on Vietnam, but they're pretty well cowed-he can proceed on his re-alignment and regrouping on democratic lines •.. socialism and nationalization seem to have become the great unmentionables in the revised vocabulary ... Harold Wilson is playing for big stakes, planning for the Consensus of the Centre ... by the time he is ready, socialism will have become a dead language, of interest only to political students of the future deciphering the dead Clause 4 scrolls.' FIFTHLY The parliamentary cretins of the Labour 'left' are drowned in their own cowardly importance. None of them is prepared to vote against Wilson and the right wing treats them with the contempt they deserve.

As one worker said after the January 26 lobby of parliament:

'These characters talk a lot, but when Wilson says "Hands up", it's hands up?

SIXTHLY All these apparatus men leave one thing out of account—and that is the movement in the working class. The day before Hull voted, 1,500 workers marched through London against anti-union legislation. lation is the biggest challenge Wilson has to face.

"There will be no lack of union militants prepared to risk prison in defence of their freedom to bargain without government interference. This is the only prospect of battle which worries Mr. Wilson at the present time, much more than any challenge from the Opposition?

The Labour government, having abandoned socialism, capitulated to the international bankers, and wooed the Liberals, has now to smash the working class.

TV ATTACK

One day after the Hull North by-election, for instance, there was a savage attack on the Hull dockers on television.

After the announcer had pointed out that the complete absence of any evidenve of intimidation proved beyond doubt that there was some, a 'docker' was produced who stood with his back to the camera and said no-one knew who was calling the strikes. Every Hull docker knows that this is a lie.

But the strength of the dockers has to be broken if the government's economic plans are to work. The same applies to the railwaymen, the builders, the miners, the motor workers, the ship builders, etc., etc.

These workers have strength and confidence. But who is to give them leadership?

Not the Labour leadership, which has betrayed them.

Not the Labour 'lefts' who are glued to their parliamentary seats.

And not the Communist Party, which is rapidly galloping to the right, as its desperate efforts to sabotage the January 26 movement revealed.

ONLY LEADERSHIP The only leadership today comes from the Socialist Labour League. The Hull result of January 27 underlines the need for this leadership-and the lobby of January 26 shows that it is being given.

of By MICHAEL BANDA THE same week thal China's leaders were charging that Moscow was colluding with America in the military encirclement of China, Dr. Castro, in a two-page article in 'Granma' (paper of the Cuban Communist Party), made a similar attack on China accusing her of 'the worst methods of piracy and oppression of Yankee imperialism'.

This is the most serious and explicit attack made by the Cuban Premier so far against the Chinese. The immediate cause of all this is the revision of Sino-Cuban trade pact and the unilateral decision of the Chinese government to reduce the value of its trade from 250 million dollars to 170 million dollars.

Under the terms of a one-year barter agreement China supplied Cuba with 285,000 tons of rice in exchange for 800,000 tons of sugar. Under the new agreement China will supply 135,000 tons (165,000 tons less than Cuba needed) in return for 600,000 tons of Cuban sugar.

Food crisis

In a speech delivered on the seventh anniversary of the Cuban Revolution on January 2, Castro announced that he had assumed the 1965 trade deal to be a longterm one but the Chinese had limited it to a year.

'We now find, he continued, 'that we have only one halt the rice we had in . 1964. We did not grow more rice ourselves because we were concentrating on other agricultural production.' As The Newsletter pointed out in November, 1965, the collapse of Castro's grandiose plan for industry and the consequent fall in the sugar crop forced him to concentrate on sugar to the exclusion of everything else-even food cropse Sugar is the main export-and the principal foreign exchange-earner.

According to Castro the Chinese have also stipulated that trade between the two countries be balanced. This means that the volume of trade will be cut back to the 1961 level-because of lack of credit.

At first Castro suggested that the cut in the Cuban sugar quota was a blessing in disguise because Cuban sugar production this year had fallen from 6.5 million tons to 6 million and the Chinese reduction would release 200,000 tons for sale on the world market.

'Blackmail '

Now, however, Castro has suddenly and dramatically changed key and asserts that 'this is not a matter of a few tons of rice but of something far more important —whether in the world of tomorrow ... the world powers will keep to themselves the right to blackmail, submit to pressures comrade, wing.

instructions from district officials.

that it was run by Trotskyists.

to oppose anti-trade union laws, we in t Socialist Labour League were especially pleased see many members of the Communist Party.

Despite our political disagreements, we were able to unite in action against the danger to the working class of state control of wages. As I expect you know, these comrades supported the call of the Lambeth Trades Council only in the teeth of fierce opposition on the part of the Communist Party leaders. On this vital issue, Communist Party union officials lined up with the right They did everything they could to stop union branches and stewards' committees from sending representatives on January 26. In several instances, the decisions of factory mass meetings were overturned by convenors, who were Party members, on They were told that the lobby was 'unofficial', because of the TUC ban on the Lambeth Trades Council, and, horror of horrors, CP's attitude to Wilson Every Party member must think about these actions. How do they fit in with the Party Congress call for 'left unity'? What political tendency do they reveal in the leadership?

To answer these questions, we must first examine the attitude of your leaders to the Labour government and to the 'left' MPs, on whose votes it depends.

Let us get one point clear, on which we probably agree. This government, voted into office by millions of workers, has got nothing at all to do with socialism. It is a capitalist government.

Its police force, judges, civil servants and army officers carry out the same function under Labour as under the Tories: to organise the capitalist system of exploitation in Britain and throughout the world.

Moreover, Wilson, Brown and the rest, want to keep it that way. Utterly subservient to the banks and monopolies, they try to confuse and split the working class and keep British capital afloat.

From Vietnam to steel nationalization, their policies are directed against the workers who voted for them. They want to pass laws against the trade unions which will be administered by the same civil servants, interpreted by the same judges and enforced by the same police, and utimately the same army, if the Tories return to office.

Of course, we urge workers to vote Labour, but not because Wilson is a 'lesser evil'. To defeat the Tories is to deepen the crisis of the bosses and help us to expose their Labour hangers-on.

It follows that, if we are to halt the introduction of anti-working class measures, we cannot stop short of bringing down the government which is responsible for them.

Wilson and company must be fought to a finish, otherwise they will be used by the ruling class to pave the way for more direct measures to be taken by the Tories at a later date.

Surely that is the lesson of 1931: the working class must build a real socialist alternative to the right wing, otherwise it will be betrayed and defeated.

This brings us to the parliamentary 'lefts'.

Foot, Mikardo and their like are quite prepared to make critical noises now and then. But they refuse to break with Wilson, whatever crimes he perpetrates.

Not one of them would commit himself publicly to vote against the anti-union law. However naked the betrayals of Wilson, for these gentlemen, the Whip is sacred.

Even before the Labour government was elected, in the fight with Gaitskell over nuclear weapons, they showed they were unwilling and incapable of fighting even for their own policies. Having won the vote on unilateral nuclear disarmament at the 1960 Labour Party conference, they ran away from implementing the decision. Instead to NO TU ANT LAW co anore ne ekch and the tete ig no hod ehe l leratei.

When Gollan talks about uniting the left, this is the species he has in mind. And so we have a clear chain of command. Gollan woos Foot, Foot votes for Wilson-Wilson licks the boots of the international bankers. form a party which could do this by spreading the October to Britain. We Trotskyists say that the leaders of your ago gave up such prospects.

It is their opportunist outlook which leads them to attack the Lambeth Trades Council lobby. For them, it is not a question of uniting the working class in a struggle for power, but of covering over the cracks in the right-wing edifice.

This is the reason for the discussion about what to call the 'Daily Worker'. While sales decline, the Party leadership looks for gimmicks which will bring the paper closer to a 'respectable' readership. This trend to the right is paralleled in other Communist Parties abroad.

In the French presidential elections, the Communist Party back Mitterand, the man who, as Minister of the Interior in 1954, organised the repression of the Algerian people. In Italy the Party moves as close as it can to an alliance with the Catholic Church.

In Indonesia, the policy of backing the opportunist demagogue Sukarno has led to a disastrous and bloody defeat for the Communist Party and the working class. Liquidation of the Party The line of Gollan is leading to the liquidation of the Party, its transformation into an appendage of those leftish-sounding groups whose role is to be the shock absorbers for the right wing.

But this did not begin yesterday, or even with the introduction of the conception of the 'British Road to Socialism'. It is the latest stage in the process which began in the international communist movement under the leadership of Stalin.

The worst crimes of this leadership were not even the murder and slander of thousands of communists. These were only one aspect of the attempt to smash the principles on which Lenin had built the Bolshevik Party and the Third International.

The Socialist Labour League, as a section of the Fourth International, continues Trotsky's work to rebuild the communist movement on these principles.

We believe that in Britain we have the possibilities of pressing this task further than anywhere else in the world at this stage. The deep crisis facing British imperialism weakens its right-wing agents.

At the same time, the working class has potentially tremendous power. As the railwaymen have shown, the employers are not going to restrict wages without a big struggle.

Revolutionary political leadership is vital in this situation, which demands the rapid growth of a mass communist movement.

This must fight, inside and outside the 'official' machinery of the working-class organisations, to smash the hold of the right-wing bureaucrats.

What Gollan calls 'Trotskyism' is therefore only the political ideas and methods on which the Communist Party of Great Britain was originally founded.

The Young Socialists, who were the backbone of the January 26 lobby campaign, represent the new generation of class fighters who can finish the job which your Party started.

In the Party are thousands like yourself, worried about decline in its activity, disgusted by the opportunism of many of its union officials . The campaign against anti-union legislation can help them to clarify these questions.

We do not offer our opinions in the spirit of an ultimatum, but in order to work out the best way to fight the bosses.

We sincerely hope you will join us in this fight which faces the working class with great dangers and greater opportunities.

As it develops, the struggle will open the road for giant strides in the rebuilding of communist leadership for the workers. We can break the grip of the right-wing traitors on the movement and go forward to smash capitalism for ever.

That is the kind of unity we fight for.

Britain to Revolution Party long Yours fraternally,

and aggressions, and strangle smaller powers..

The Chinese have already replied to the Cuban criticisms by arguing that their own sugar production had increased and that they were not only building up their rice reserves in preparation for an imperialist attack but were diverting large quantities to North Vietnam.

In addition China had to buy much of her other staples abroad which meant selling rice on the world market to obtain the necessary foreign exchange in other words China, like Cuba, had realised the limitations of barter-trade agreements and felt the pressure of the world market.

Behind the purely economic pros and cons of this conflict lie deep political divergenceswhich account for the tone of Castro's latest attack. As last week's Newsletter pointed out Castro desperately needs to come to a satisfactory deal with US imperialism in order to strengthen the position of the ruling class in Cuba vis-a-vis the workers and peasants.

Affront

In order to do this he relies heavily on the Soviet leaders and the local Stalinists and their policy of peaceful co-existence. In this sense his purging of Ché Guevara was an appeasement of Moscow and a calculated affront to Peking since Guevara was opposed to Soviet trade practices and favoured China's foreign and trade policy. His attack on Trotskyism was a continuation of this policy and his latest outburst against the Chinese must also be seen in the same context [Not surprisingly Castro charged the Chinese embassy with distributing 58,041 bulletins amongst the armed forces.] The Peking Stalinists, however, for all their logic, are unable to explain this latest turn in Cuban policy because they, like so many other groups and parties, such as the SWP and the United Secretariat, have viewed Cuba as a part of the 'Socialist World' and unhesitatingly accepted every word of the Cuban dictator. THE lies and falsifications spread by the Stalinists about the 1956 Hungarian Revolution have been further exposed by the revelation that Imre Nagy-the country's prime minister during the revolution-was murdered in a Rumanian cellar in January 1957.

This brutal act, carried out by the Hungarian secret police, was perpetrated 18 months before the Soviet and Hungarian news agencies announced that Nagy and two journalists, Miklos Gimes and Josef Szilagyi, had been executed after a secret trial for 'high treason and counter-revolutionary activities' 'Der Spiegel', the West German magazine, claimed in a recent article that before he died • last year, former Hungarian president Arpad Sazakasits told friends of the fate of the three men.

The magazine received this information from a high-ranking Hungarian official who travelled to the West last autumn. The facts were repeated in last week's 'New Statesman'.

PRESS CONFERENCE On June 19, 1958, two days after the news agency announcement of the trial, Geza Szenasi, the Hungarian prosecutor general, told a press conference that it had been held in secret because of 'state interests'. The agency reports excluded the time, place and lawyers and judge concerned in the alleged trial, and he was no more explicit.

Szenasi cynically told the press conference: Faits accomplis always have a soothing effect on our people' Bv OUR FOREIGN But the horrific feat had been accomplished—'in the worst tradition of Stalinist lawlessness,' as the 'New Statesman' put it. It occurred many miles away from Budapest, where Moscow-trained Nagy had stood at the head of a country fighting against police oppression and bureaucratic tyranny.

Nagy and a group of friends escaped to the Yugoslav embassy when the 2,000 tanks sent by the Kremlin opened fire in Budapest.

Later the Stalinist-installed Janos Kadar gave written assurances to President Tito that 'no member of the Nagy group will have to stand trial', and he guaranteed their safety when they left the embassy.

BUS STOPPED

But, according to 'Der Spiegel', when the bus which was to carry Nagy, Gimes and Szilagyi to their homes left the embassy it was stopped by Soviet troops, who ordered the Yugoslav officials aboard to leave.

Escorted by a tank each side the bus then drove to the Soviet Army headquarters, and Nagy and his friends disappeared.

Tito protested to Kadar, who, in a secret reply, said Nagy had gone to Rumania at his own request. Kadar said there was a danger that Nagy and his companions might have become the victims of an assassination plot if they had stayed in Budapest.

IN RUMANIA Early in January 1957, says the article i 1 'Der Spiegel', Nagy was reported to be in the Rumanian winter resort, Sinaia, where he, Gimes and Szilagyi were under close guard. It is claimed that the Hungarian secret police commando arrived to carry out their filthy task on the 28th or 29th.

All restrictions were waived and the group returned to Hungary in reserved compartments of a train.

'Der Speigel' actually quotes their macabre remarks-reported by the Hungarian official, who claimed he was on the trip with the secret police.

'Feri's hand trembled. I saw it clearly. He got nervous when the old man looked at him so steadfastly. That is • why he knocked off his glasses. Still, Imre Nagy impressed me,' said one.

The firing squad's commander was whisked away from Budapest's Keleti station in a car said to belong to the state prosecutor general's office. Eighteen months later, the same prosecutor general, Szenasi, announced the trial and execution of Nagy.

COMMENT In the main editorial of 'Labour Review' (forerunner of the 'Fourth International' magazine advertised on page two MayJune-July, 1958, we commented on the murder of Nagy and his friends:

'None of these men was great in himself. But they were buoyed up and swept forward on the tide of great events; and they did not sully the Hungarian Revolution by temporising with their tormentors, or by confessing to crimes they had mitted.

And we added:

'The [Stalinist] bureaucracy has stated plainly that it will not tolerate any Marxist opposition to its domination. It will murder any socialist or workers' leader who stands in its way, even if this means once again dragging the banner of communism through a sea of mud and blood. Marxists can give only one answer to the Kremlin's declaration of war. We can no longer tolerate the perverting and derailment of movements and destruction of people, the miseducation of workers, the slandering of individuals, the dishonouring of socialism, that Stalinist methods entail. Openly, honestly, as befits Marxists and revolutionaries, we want a confrontation of ideas before the workers. We accuse the Stalinist leaders of abandoning Marxism, abandoning the class struggle, abandoning socialist principles. We want to destroy Stalinism, lock, stock and barrel; we want to build a powerful and rejuvenated Marxist movement in Britain, that will bring clarity, vision, understanding and drive to the gathering forces of working class militancy. For rank-and-file members of the Communist Party for whom the murder of Nagy is the final straw there need be no season in the political wilderness. There is a place for them among fellowMarxists, building a movement that will cleanse the Stalinist dross and tarnish from the good name of communism.' This is just as true today as it was eight years ago, and is reiterated by the latest details of the treatment of Nagy and the betrayals outlined in the 'Open Letter' on this page.

rage Four Februa r y 12,1966

Behind Gollan's tactics lies a kind of 'theory'. Basically it is that the policies of the government can be deflected in a 'progressive' direction, by means of 'pressure' from the 'lefts'.

The background to this is the idea that parliament can itself be an instrument used by the working class. This conception is today more dangerous than ever. If Marxists go into parliament, it can only be to break down any illusions about it in the minds of workers. Yes, Wilson responds to pressure-from the capitalists.

Our job is to mobilise a class movement which is prepared to go all the way to get rid of this leadership. The threat of state intervention in the unions raises the question of class power. Marxists must be able to answer that question.

The Communist Party leadership under secretary John Gollan (left) opposed the January 26 Lobby of Parliament because it was 'unofficial'.. They prefer to opportunistically 'pressurize the Wilson government, while liquidating their own Party.

PACED with demonstrations by miners, a strike by reactionary doctors and growing economic crisis, the Belgian coalition government all but collapsed last week.

Two miners were killed and many injured, including a miner's wife shot in the back, in clashes with police and troops. Miners pitted stones against the guns, batons and tear gas of the government forces, while protesting at the closing of 'uneconomic' pits.

The • miners' demonstrations were in Genk, a Flemish-speaking district. They were claiming that pits in the French-speaking Walloon areas should be closed first.

NOT TO CLOSE The Christian Socialist-Socialist coalition, led by Pierre Harmel, finally agreed not to close the pits, particularly the Zwartberg mine.

Harmel then tendered his resignation as the doctors prepared to pack their bags and leave the country. They were demanding that patients pay for services given at the country's six 'free' clinics. They said they would call off their strike é if the coalition government fell.

King Baudouin refused to accept Harmel's resignation, but the doctors still called off their strike-for the time being.

Much of the anger in the country is due to the increased cost of living.

The government taken action against price increases but, because of strong middle-class opinion, an all round increase in indirect taxes has been imposed, instead of large increases in direct taxes.

But, as most papers willingly point out, anger among the working class is expressed by the backward 'nationalist' language question.

Also the majority of minersincluding 40 per cent immigrant workers from North Africa and Europe-have genuine pay and conditions grievances. It was also alleged that Zwartberg miners were stirred up: by •Flemish extremists' on the language question.

It is this division which has prevented a successful struggle by the Belgian workers for better pay and conditions.

Even in its weak position the coalition government can exist while this division-nurtured by the extreme right and aided by the left-continues to split the working class on nationalist lines.

In fact, as their crisis deepens, the so-called socialists of the coalition will forget their small differences over the question of the doctors and be encouraged by this division to really take on not only the miners, but even larger sections of the working class.

The real need in Belgium is for a revolutionary Marxist party to unite Walloon and Flemish workers behind a common struggle-against Belgian capitalism.

THE Transport and General branch which covers the Woolf Rubber factory in Southall, Middlesex, passed a resolution last week asking for an investigation into the running of the recent strike at the firm.

This resolution was endorsed at a mass meeting of the • Wooif workers on Saturday (rebruary 5) when further resolutions were passed; one asking for the setting up of a committee to distribute the strike fund (none of which has been paid yet), and one asking for each of the shop stewards to make known their feelings at the time the agreement was signed between union officials and the management, 'so we can see who let us down'.

There was a tense atmosphere at the meeting as many of the workers now realise the strike was a complete sell-out. Many of them are still not yet back at work, and those who have returned allege that they are being given an ultimatum to either take different jobs or leave.

Different job

One of the men has worked for 14 years at the same job and now has to do a different one.

The manner in which the Young Socialists have supported this strike was recognised by the workers when three Young Socialists were told by full-time union officials and shop stewards to leave the meeting.

The men forced these officials to let the three stay, then went with the youth to the Middlesex Regional Committee Young Socialists where a resolution was passed calling for a lobby of the Southall Trades Council on Wednesday (February y), when the question of the Woolf strike was discussed. campaign against anti-union law. Indian worker, a member of the Foundry Workers' Union.

Cliff Slaughter, a Central Committee member of the Socialist Labour League, gave a report back from the January 26 lobby.

Slaughter pointed out that the lobby had represented the begınnings of powerful working-class resistance to the capitalist policies of the Wilson government, and had shown how correct the Young Socialists had been to break from the Labour Party bureaucracy.

Prostrate

The Labour government was moving rapidly to the right while the so-called 'lefts' of the parlamentary Labour Party lay prostrate. The Communist Party had actively organised against the lobby and had joined the witchhunters in Leeds and other areas.

The only organisations fighting to build a working-class leadership today were the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists.

If you could not fight Wilson now, when could you fight? asked Slaughter. The task was to stop the legislation, not to make ineffectual protests while allowing it to go through.

Two building workers who had officially represented their Constructional Engineering Union branch on the lobby told the meeting that they have been on strike for five weeks and fully supported the present campaign.

They would fight for full support for the March demonstration and another lobby.

Pledges

Similar pledges were given by members of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers, the National Union of Mineworkers, the Tailor and Garment Workers' Union, the Foundry Workers' Union and the Electrical Trades Union.

A factory convenor undertook to visit engineering factories throughout Leeds to get support for the demonstration.

Many of these workers also expressed interest in the Morecambe conference of Young Socialists and were invited to send fraternal delegates to the conference from their trade unions.

A 'state capitalist' explained to the workers present that in his opinion the actions they were proposing were premature because they • were not sufficiently conscious.

Despite this dire warning, however, the meeting agreed enthusiastically and unanimously to proceed with the campaign.

A, collection of over f1l was taken to begin the financing of the campaign. about the Socialist Labour League.

YS CONFERENCE THE 'RALLYING POINT' YOUNG SOCIALISTS, Young Communists, students and trade unionists decided in Stratford, East London, on Tuesday, to continue the campaign against anti-trade union law.

The decision was taken at a report-back meeting on the recent lobby of parliament organised by the Lambeth Trades Council.

Emphasis was laid on the Ys conference to be held in Morecambe on April 2 and 3. "This conference must be the rallying point for the whole working class in its struggle against legislation, explained one speaker.

A resolution was adopted which pledged to work in the local labour movement for:

1. The lifting of the TUC ban on Lambeth Trades Council.

Maximum support for the Morecambe Conference. Lobbies of local left Labour MPs.

Trotsky understood that it was precisely Stalin's method to create such amalgams in order to confuse the working class as it is Castro's method to knowingly lump Trotskyism with the Posadas group in order to confuse the working class of the Latin American continent. As asthe second explanatisoviet Castro fooling bureaucracy? He is forced economically and is completely willing politically for the time being to work hand in glove with the Soviet bureaucracy. They have everything to fear from Trotskyism and his attack strengthens Moscow considerably.

'eryone knows that since Khrushchev's 20th Congress speech of 1956, they have been unable to launch a large-scale attack against Trotskyism on an international front. Now, along comes Castro who, according to the United Secretariat, is the 'left hero' of 'independent revolutionary movements'. His word against Trotskyism will carry far more weight temporarily than that of the Soviet bureaucracy. VICTORY FOR I has ended in victory. He nve-week Strike 01 The employers have accepted the dockers' demand for a reduction of the working week from 45 to 40 hours. In addition, an increase in wages has been granted that will ensure that the reduction in hours will not bring about any financial loss.

This victory can be regarded as very significant, especially as attempts were made to turn other sections of the workers, particularly those laid off due to shortages caused by the hold up of goods in the docks, against the dockers.

However, the gains made by the dockers may well be lost in the future if the political lessons of the present situation are not learned.

Encouraged by the example of Wilson's government in Britain, employers and government circles in the Irish Republic are openly preparing for anti-trade union legislation.

Luring investors

As stated in last week's Newsletter, the Irish government, faced ing world Prospect of a developto lure British and other investors into the country with the bait of a cheap labour force.

So, unless the industrial struggles of the Irish workers are changed into conscious political struggles against the government, the workers may well go down in defeat.

In the Irish Republic, as in Britain and other countries, the pressing need is for a new leadership that will transform industrial demands into demands for working-class power.

WHITHER CASTRO?

cover up his tracks, just as Stalin used left anti-imperialist phrases in the lates '20s to cover up his tracks in the struggle against Trotskyism.

These phrases in practice mean nothing and the Moscow bureaucrats know the game very well. They have played it many times before.

• far as they are concerned there is a division of labour between themselves and Castro, but the ends are the same. To be silent on Castro's counterrevolutionary policies today is to prepare the certain betrayal of the revolution on the Latin American continent tomorrow.

The impressionists have done enormous damage to the international working class movement and especially to the Fourth International by their completely uncritical support for Castro. There is still time to make a change. It can only be done. by a return to the fundamentals of Trotskyism, that is the only authentic theoretical basis which Marxism can be developed in this period of the 20th century. DOCKERS Correspondent 1,000 Dublin deep-sea FURTHER ATTACK ON DRY DOCK PAINTERS ment of a painters' shop steward at Mountstuart's Channel Dry Dock, Cardiff, after a five-day strike (reported in last week's Newsletter), the workers have come under attack again.

A foreman refused to work with the reinstated steward, claiming that he had used abusive language.

Agreed to return

In a two-hour meeting on Monday the foreman agreed to return to work, but a local Transport and General Workers' Union official took the opportunity to offer discussions with the manage. ment, 'to ensure that disputes of this kind do not occur in the future.

In fact the issue of abusive language is a red herring. The steward was originally sacked for calling a meeting in working time: This was in the course of a dispute between the firm and two painters who refused to work overtime-they had been putting in many extra hours during the worst weather of the winter.

The accusation by the foreman was dragged in as an indirect attack on the men in an attempt to hide the real issues, to isolate the dry dockers from other workers, and to lessen the impact of the painters' victory. VERPOOL

THE strike of draughtsmen at the Liverpool factories of the Automatic Telephone and Electric Co. continues. The members of Draughtsmen's and Allied Technicians' Association allege that fifteen of their number were not being paid the rate for the job.

This week all the staff unions at Automatic Telephones and Electric, part of the Plessey combine, stopped work for a day each to enforce their demand for a four-week holiday.

The action was decided at a joint mass meeting of five unions—AscW, DATA, CAWU, ASSET and T&GWU.

Last week the 13,000 workers employed by ATE stopped work for an hour in protest at conditions. The stoppage was timed to coincide with the visit to the factory of Lord Kilmuir, chairman of Plesseys.

JOIN THE SLL -ORDER THE NEWSLETTER • The Socialist Labour League is the only organisation within the labour movement which fully supported the national lobby of parliament, organised by the Lambeth Trades Council.

Our paper, The Newsletter, had, since last October, campaigned each week for the success of the lobby.

The Newsletter was the only paper to protest over the suspension of the Lambeth Trades Council by the TUC. • l Both the Socialist Labour League and The Newsletter pledge themselves to continue with the struggle until the right-wing Labour and trade union leaders are forced to abandon their proposals for anti-trade union legislation.

We ask all our readers, old and new, to pledge themselves to support us in this fight. If you want to receive The Newsletter regularly, why not become a regular subscriber: 9s for 12 issues (Including postage). If you want to know more about the Socialist Labour League, fill in the form below.

I want to become a subscriber to The Newsletter/know more NAME.

ADDRESS Send 186a Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4

le Moscow bureaucrats know their man in Havana. For the time being they have bought him, lock, stock and barrel. is true that there may well be conflicting interests involved between Castro and the Soviet bureaucracy: This is especially so in relation to the Latin American ferment. Both require the containment of the revolutionary movement of this vast continent for different reasons. Castro requires it for a later deal with American imperialism, which he hopes will preserve his regime in Cuba. The Soviet bureaucracy requires it because of their world deaceful co-existener paliciot dealing perialism.

Both Castro and the Soviet bureaucracy agree on one thing, and that is that they must see to it that there are no victorious revolutions in Latin America led by men who subscribe to the programme and policy of the Fourth International.

When it comes to attacking leading revolutionists Latin America the Soviet bureacracy leaves it to Castro. He is the best man for the job. Naturally he uses left anti-imperialist phrases in order to THREE hundred tenants and Young Socialists lobbied the Labour-controlled Wandsworth, London, council on Wednesday over the proposed 20 per cent increase in council house rents.

Most of the tenants had marched to the town hall from their estates and were greeted by lines of policemen at the entrance to the council.

The slogan shouting of the Young Socialists against the rent rise and for nationalization of the banks gained enthusiastic support, particularly from the youth among the tenants.

Dampened militancy

A meeting organised by the Stalinist-controlled tenants' committee dampened the militancy of tenants. succession of Stalinist speakers bored and confused the tenants and many left the meeting early commenting 'you can't do anything'.

A resolution was passed decialists lead By a Newsletter correspondent manding that there be no rent increases and that the government should give a loan to the council, at 3 per cent interest rate.

It was voted on before discussion was allowed.

The tenants' committee leadership proposed a lobby of liament when Housing Minister Richard Crossman could be seen.

But a Young Socialist explained that this was not the way to fight. He said the tenants must link up with other tenants London and nationally and gain he support of industrial workers to wage a political fight against the government.

He added that if necessary the Labour councillors had to go into deficit in opposing the rent increases.

This gained enormous support tenants action and, as the discussion became more militant, suggested that such questions (including that of a rent strike, suggested by a housewife should be discussed at future tenants' meetings.

He then suggested that. the tenants go outside the council and sing 'why are we waiting'.

Police bar way

But the Young Socialists and many of the tenants went with the intention of seeing the councillors. They found a large contingent of police barring their way.

The councillors voted, with only two against, for the increased rents.

A Stalinist organiser pointed to the Young Socialists and said they were 'childish' to try and enter the council chamber.

He blamed them, not the police or the right-wing councillors, for disrupting the proceedings.

•N Wednesday (February 2), 40 tenants, Young Socialists and trade unionists lobbied delegates of Croydon Central Labour Party general management committee at their annual general meeting over the proposed rent increases in the borough.

A leaflet outlining the resolution of opposition passed at a meeting of tenants outside the local council meeting the previous Monday (reported in last week's Newsletter), was handed to the delegates.

It also called on them to dissociate from the Labour councillors • who had sat silent as the Tories called in police to eject lobbyists from the public chamber of the council, and to ight for policies of nationalization of the land, banks and building industry to solve the problem of bad housing and increasing rents.

The councillors and aldermen pushed past the tenants into Wednesday's meeting or crept in hoping they would not be recognised. But a number of delegates said they supported the tenants' struggle.

CRAMMED MEETINGS Tenants then crammed into meetings of the Transport and General Workers' Union and the Amalgamated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen being held in the same building.

In both, discussions took place for nearly an hour on the wage treeze, rents, the Labour government and the need for a new leadership. Both meetings gave support to the tenants' campaign.

The tenants then took over another room in the building and held their own meeting where ideas for the campaign were thrashed out.

Many said they would join the Labour Party to fight in there. A Young Socialist explained the struggle which their organisation had carried out for socialist policies against the right-wing leadership in the Labour Party.

A busman said that the rents fight must be linked with the industrial struggles.

RENT STRIKE

Some tenants called for a rent strike-others for witholding the increase. . The question of industrial action by workers to support a tenants' rent strike was raised. "It was agreed that a march through Croydon should be organised, and delegations of tenants should go to all the factories and sites in the area.

At the end, a report was given to the meeting that the Central Croydon Labour Party had not even discussed the rent issue. Registered at the G.P.O. as a newspaper Published bs The Newsletter IS6A Clapham High Street, Loudon, S W.4 20 Giaphan High Street. London. S. Wi Printed v Plough Press Ltd (TU)

UB LIN rise But many are confused LAST week 23 Labour members voted against the rent increases of 7s 1d to 15s 8d a week, proposed by the right-wing Labour leaders of Liverpool city council.

As already reported, a number of resolutions by constituency Labour Parties and by the Liverpool Trades Council and Labour Party have opposed these increases.

The St. James' Ward Labour Party met on the same evening as the council meeting and immediately released a resolution to the press backing the action of its councillors in voting against the decision of the Council's Labour group.

The resolution declared that:

'The St. James' Ward Labour Party completely dissociates itself from the city council Labour group in their attempt to pass on to corporation tenants the deficit in the housing revenue account in the shape of rent increases.

'Further, we urge all local and constituency Labour Parties to join us in revolt against the city Labour group who have failed over the years to focus attention to the cause of this problem, namely, the interest rate of 6s per cent, which results in an interest charge of t10,000 on a threebedroomed house costing t3,000, making a total cost of €13,000.

Several councillors opposing e increase issued leaflets around • • each year the rents paid by tenants more than cover the cost of building and maintaining the houses they live in. Rents have increased over the years largely to keep in step with increases in interest charges , on money borrowed. ...

Tenants demonstrate About 60 tenants, some called by the Young Socialists, demonstrated outside the town hall before the council meeting.

While the number of votes against the increase reflected the feeling of Liverpool's workers, the opposition among the councillors shows a great deal of confusion.

Some of the petitions against the increases circulated by councillors continue the demand made in the recent statement of Walton Constituency Labour Party. These petitions state that if the increases go through, they should be put before the Prices and Incomes Board. FROM BILL HUNTER Such a demand is an evasion of responsibility to organise tenants and mobilise aid from the factories and docks.

The Prices and Incomes Board has the function of aiding the government's incomes policy, whose purpose is to reduce the share of national income going to the working class. That policy means keeping down wages, and keeping down subsidies to social services.

No assistance Does any councillor, talking about special grants to Liverpool, really believe that the National Incomes Board is going to assist in forcing the government to give them?

Mr. Robert Mellish, joint parliamentary secretary to the Ministry of Housing, made the attitude of the government plain when he visited Liverpool last week:

The Ministry can do nothing about the deficit,' he said. 'In Liverpool, the rents are only now up to those charged by • Manchester and Birmingham, and well below those in London.

Only a mighty movement of tenants, linked with Industrial action, can force anything out of a government of Labour leaders like this. • The government readily subsidises big business in its research or export drive, but workers must face real hardship to pay the moneylenders.

The Merseyside Federation of Young Socialists has called a demonstration for Saturday (February 12). It calls on tenants and trade unionists to march against the rent increases and demand the suspension of interest payments and nationalization of the banks, land and building industry.

The demonstration will begin from Islington Square at 2.30 p.m. and proceed through the city to Christian Street.