The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 435

Saturday, March 12, 1966 I-Bomb shadow over Andalusia THE world's greatest and - most expensive search is still on in Spain. Yet still the object of this massive recovery operation, the H-bomb from a crashed giant B-52 bomber, has not been found. and probably never will be.

Millions of dollars worth of the most modern and sophisticated electronic and sonic equipment is being used and thousands of US servicemen employed hunting for the missing device in the area of Palomares, Southern Spain.

The Pentagon, the White House and the US Ambassador to Spain have tried to dismiss the whole incident with an optimism reminiscent of DI.

Strangelove.

But for the peasants of Palomares, who know nothing about Dr.

Strangelove, there will be neither peace nor security. For them, the asinine statement of US ambassador, DukeI think I have proved there is absolutely no danger of holidaymakers being exposed to radioactivity'-is more macabre than anything the fictional doctor might have said.

Immediately after the bomber crashed, 400 US Air Force technicians, armed with geiger counters and eight-foot poles, descended on the village of Palomares and began frantic search for the missing H-bombs. A fog of official silence descended on the searcha silence that was helpfully maintained by the notorious Civil Guards of Andalusia. US Air Force officials vigorously discounted all sneculation about thwaresence of nuclehr weapons It was only when Major Deltar head of the l6th Air Force at Torrejón de Ardoz, near Madrid, arrived with an armada of spotter planes and helicopters, as well as hundreds more air force men, to personally supervise and conduct operations that people began to uspeci that something big had gone wrong The secret was leaked unofficially and quite accidentally when an Air Force sergeant approached a ground told a subordinate group Spanish tomato "Tell these people to get the hell out of those fields. They may be contaminated.

In spite of repeated Air Force statements and Spanish governremained sceptical an leasants ment utterances, mayors of three towns Garrucha, Vera and Cuevas del Almanzora, began exhorting their electors to have their clothing examined by medical teams, the game was up.

ne angry peasants, tired of being pushed around by US servicescientists, doctors and search have finally cuevas Pranco's Civil Guard, during the demonstration in del Almenzora shouting 'Down with Predictably, It they were ali the Americans and their bomb'.

arrested. was the first demonstration of its kind since the Civil War.

ably couldn't isotope from a bull's foot, has now declared that they—the Americans that is—are " determined to leave Palomares as it was befor the Strategic Air Command found it.

To Palomares la peasants in the will no doubt 'Don't bother. Just leave and don't come back SO we can deal with Franco and his Civil Guards' Encouraging mol THE courageous and determined struggle of the Hull dockers deserves the full support of all workers. The wages of these men are an insult and, quite rightly, they will not rest until that is altered.

The employers are beginning to be very disturbed by this tenacity. The 'Yorkshire Evening Post' recently gave great publicity to an attack on the dockers by a Bradford firm of shipping agents.

The managing director was reported as saying: It is time all the exporting firms got together and raised Cain about this. It is just ridiculous.

Millions of pounds worth of orders are being lost through the stupidity of these men' He should be told that it is these stupid men' who make his firm's profit every year.

ON PENSIONS, THE UNIONS, VIETNAM AND THE £ FOR over seventeen months the Labour government of Harold Wilson has accepted and carried out the policies dictated by the of Zurich and New York.

WHEN these gentlemen, through their December 1964 that the old age pensioners paltry increase, they had to wait.

WHEN they said that the cost of living had to go up, then it went millions of the poorest wage earners paid more for their food and clothing.

WHEN they said raise the bank rate and increase rents and rates, then the bank rate was raised and up went the rents and rates.

WHEN they said support United States' imperialism in Vietnam then Wilson grovelled at Johnson's feet, and thousands of defenceless men, women and children in North and South Vietnam were burned alive.

Then the 'great men' said attack the trade unions and anti-trade-union legislation was promptly drafted by George Brown.

What, you may ask, is it all in aid of?

Simple ... saving the pound of course.

Bankrupt

And what, you may ask again, is the pound? Why it is currency based on Tory capitalism which is bankrupt and was bankrupt long before the Labour Party became the government in October 1964. It is entirely dependent upon the dollar, and the dollar is the currency of United States' capitalism.

Today, the pound is a symbol of the decay of British imperialism, the breeding ground for Toryism.

The General Election Manifesto of the Labour Party for March 31 is based upon 'saving the pound'. In other words it is basically no different from the policy of the Tory Party. They also want to 'save the pound', ,, by using similar capitalist methods as the Labour Party.

The 'Financial Times' of March 8 had this to say about the election manifestoes of the Tory and Labour Parties.

*For all its acceptance of the mixed economy, in short, its acknowledgment that resources are limited, and its reterence to responsibility in the social services, the Labour manifesto gives the impression of being still half-concerned with dream world rather than with the world in which new government will actually have to operate. If the Conservatives do not attack it strongly for this, it will be because their own manifesto is open to a similar charge.' The Tory Party advocates strong legal action against the trade unions, the Labour Party in its proposed legislation opens the e by tenacious Hull dockers But this attack should not be underestimated. The employers are very frightened by the strength of workers like the Hull dockers. That is why the Tory election manifesto states that if elected side Torgovernment would ployers the opportunity to seek injunctions against restrictive practices 'obviously contrary to public interest'.

There can be no doubt in the minds of Hull dockers that the type of action they are carrying out is contrary to the 'public interest' in the eyes of the Tories and the employers. That is why the Labour government's proposals on anti-trade union legislation must be fought-it opens the door to the most reactionary opponents of the working class.

It is extremely encouraging, theretore, that a number of Hull dockers have decided to join the demonstration in Leeds on March 12 as part of the campaign to defeat this legislation.

B/OSE FILE by THE EDITOR agents in the City of would have to wait four door for the kind of action the Tories want.

The 'Observer', ', house organ of the Astor family, commented on the Bill in its February. 27 issue:

'Alternatively, the Bill could mark the acceptance of the idea that strikes in defiance of agreements should be punishable: in principle it lays down that unions or workers who strike in support of a wage claim being considered by the Board would be liable to a fine of up to £500. This is a revolutionary concept which 'the unions are finding hard to digest.' The Labour and Tory parties have two different ways of dealing with the trade unions but they all lead to the same thingan all-out attack against the democratic rights of the working class.

As the Tory 'Observer' points out, the right to strike can be made 'punishable'.

Under Labour's legislation against the unions,. which is inAnother Hull exelusive

N his speech at the Daily in the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday, John Gollan, general secretary of the Communist Party, made still more explicit the turn to the right of Communist Party policy.

The programme he outlined for the General Election differed only in degree from that of the Labour leaders.

Labour

JOHN CRAWFORD The Party's 51 candidates would fight not for a revolutionary alternative to the betrayals of Wilson and Brown, but for a few reforms.

His answer to the crisis of British capitalism was to 'cut the armaments bill by half'.

While calling for the nationalization of unspecified 'key sectors' of the economy, Gollan singled out the nationalization of steel as a 'pressing first step'.

Demanding the dropping of Brown's incomes policy, he said nothing about the union leaders' decision to accept anti-union laws.

This type of politics represents only a feeble attempt to cover the treachery of the leadership'.

Directly related to it is the Communist Party's desperate search for respectability.

TV TIME

The greatest energy is displayed in the fight for more television time for the Party. The struggle to field 51 candidates is chiefly directed to this end.

The offer of five minutes was described by Gollan as 'an insult, mean and petty.

'We demand a meeting with the Chief Whips, the BBC and ITA,' said this great 'Communist.

Sunday's meeting was the last to be held under the name of the 'Worker'. In a few weeks' Sar nouri ere Morning In a period when class struggles of tremendous explosive power are inevitable, the leaders of this decaying organisation turn away from the working class and towards the middle class.

No wonder they are terrified by the fight led by the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists against Brown's anti-union Bill.

Among the industrial workers who form the backbone of the Communist Party, doubts about the line of the leaders are widespread.

Many older groups have loyally followed the lead of the Party right through the era of Stalinist slanders and betrayal. Mistakenly identifying Stalinism with the Russian revolution, they took on trust the reformist policies put forward by King Street.

The inadequacy of these policies to meet the present problems of the labour movement is now too obvious to be covered up with left demagogy. An alternative leadership based on real communist principles, being built by the Socialist Labour League and Young Socialists, will attract many of these Communist Party workers to its ranks.

TOXIC

THE 'New York Times Magazine' has revealed that the 'trigger' on the H-bomb lost after the B-52 crash near Palomares, Spain, on February 20 was made of plutonium-one of the most toxic materials known to man.

The 10 kilogram trigger packs enough power to wipe out a city the size of Hiroshima and could easily dissolve in the salt water of the Mediterranean.

Perhaps the U.S. Ambassador to Spain and the Spanish Foreign Minister will be having second thoughts about that swim they took in the sea near Palomares to show how safe it is for tourists'!

cluded in their election manifesto, this is the only conclusion that can be drawn.

So much for the fake-left opposition to the inclusion of this legislation into the Election Manifesto.

No T&GWU fight It is true that the white-collar spit the let on and is e clusion in the Manifesto. But the same thing cannot be said about the Transport and General Workers' Union.

Frank Cousins, MP, general secretary of the T&GWU, accepted that "the anti-trade union legislation should be included in the Election Manifesto, whilst being fully aware that the London busmen members of his own union would be the first victims.

The inclusion of 'steel nationalization' in the Manifesto 1s perhaps in its own way a decisive betrayal of the working class. On the day that Labour's Manifesto was published, the value of steel (Cont. page 4, col. 4) ECONOMICS reporter of The Guardian, John Palmer, was said to be 'unacceptable' as parliamentary candidate for Croydon North-west by the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party, which met on Monday.

Palmer had been chosen by the local party over the week-end, but the members now accept the candidate imposed by the. NEC, Michael Stewart (no relation to the Foreign Secretary).

The NEC said Palmer was unsuitable because of his views on trade union legislation, Vietnam and immigration. • In the 1964 Election, Palmer halved the Conservative's majority when he stood in the same constituency.

The first of two articles by MICHAEL BEST first two articles by MICHAEL dealing with what he calls the bureaucratic mismanagement of Soviet industry (a station seen right) and agriculture. Page THE NEWSLE

Nhen the bankers called, Wilson jumped and thousands died in Vietnam like this man, whose body i A statement by Hi chairman and sec rry Spaven and Walter Cunningham, etary of the Unoflicial Portworkers' LAST week's Newsletter carried a true and accurate report of the struggle of the Hull dockers. This is more than can be said for the rest of the national daily and evening papers, which are continually misquoting us, to our detriment. This has reached the pitch where we are considering boycotting reporters of papers other than those from The Newsletter.

We are asking for money, and the employers are squealing as if they were having teeth pulled out. But the dockers are determined. This was shown by our last meeting at the City Hall which was once more packed to capacity.

Out of 2,500 men there only two voted against continuing our action and one of these wanted more action.

We don't see how the employers can possibly think they are giving the dockers a fair deal -all these workers can't be wrong. We occasionally get a good week in our wages but these are very tew and tar between. Your reporter has seen some of our wage sheets which prove this.

(One member of the Committee showed our reporter a bunch of wage sheets. Nine of these, for weeks before the series of one-day strikes began, showed the following pay: £8 18s. 8d.; £12 5s. lld.; fIl l0s. 4d.; fll 5s. lld.; f9 18s. 6d.; £9 13s. 8d.; f9 17s. 6d.; £10 2s. 9đ.; £11 5s. Od. Committee, Hull Two members of the Committee Showed sheets which contained itheir total gross earnings for Il months. These were f658 and £627 respectively:)

We are entitled to the opportunity to go to work for a fair day's pay. But the Scrooges of the port employers are offering us a bag of peanuts.

Obscure rates

The rates the port employers have negotiated on are in the main on commodities we hardly ever see. For example, loose wet hides—we don't know when we last saw a load of these. And marbles—men have worked 15 years in this port and never seen such a load.

Until the employers are prepared to start negotiations on a sincere basis we want a fallback rate of 4s. an hour in lieu of piece-work earnings. At the moment we get f2 4s. 4d. basic rate providing we are employed.

Leeds March Against Anti-Trade Union Legislation Saturday, March 12 Assemble Leeds Town Hall, 2 p.m. March moves off 2.30 p.m.

Mass meeting Leeds Trades Club 4 p.m.

Transport leaves Hull to join this march at 1.00 p.m. from 14 Derringham Street, Spring Bank.

We only want the fall-back rate while actually working. If work is stopped for reasons such as bad weather or breakdowns, we expect only the ordinary hourly rate.

We say this to the employers. Our wage rates are known to everybody, down to the last penny. But nobody knows what the employers take out of the port.

Open books?

Will they dare to open their books, reveal all their operations and deals which are now hidden behind walls of company legislation, and show that they have a licence to print money at our expense?

As you reported in last week's Newsletter, Mr. Jack Jones, acting assistant general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union, recently visited Hull.

All Hull dockers want to know how a man who holds such a high office can come to a port in dispute and say that he did not come to arbitrate on the dispute.

He told us that his main con(Cont. page 4, col. 4)

ON the 29th of this this month, 23rd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union will meet to 'discuss' and 'approve' (no doubt 'unanimously'), the decisions of the March and September 1965 Plenums of the Central Committee inaugurating the new 'reforms' designed to solve the economic crisis in industry and agriculture: a decline in the rate of growth.

The decline in the rate of growth of Soviet industry and agriculture is due to two causes, neither of which the bureaucracy is able to eliminate without, at the same time, eliminating itself.

The first cause is the Soviet economy's continued isolation from the international division of labour. Although this isolation is not complete and the degree of this isolation must change with the growth or decline of its trade with the rest of the capitalist world, one can nevertheless say that as time goes on, it will increasingly become the most dominant cause of the crisis, though to what exact extent it already contributes to it is not easy to say.

Division

(For an excellent ex position of this cause, see Michel Varga's article in the January issue of the 'Fourth International'.)

The international division of labour, to give a brief summary of it, has grown up with the growth of the world capitalist system and is based on the fact that particular parts of the world are best suited to produce certain commodities, either because of climate, or the existence of certain mineral resources in the ground or because of the development of particular technical skills (or a combination of Fourth International A Journal of International Marxism by the International Committee of the Fourth ENTS INCLUDE : Trade Unions at the Crossroads-Editorial Imperialism and the Liquidity Crisis Marxist Political Economy and the The Fight for Marxism Two speeches, and DOCUMENTS Trotskyism In the Unite Statement on Vietnam BOOKS "The Economics' Illus., price 3/. Available from New Park Publications, 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4. two or three of tages).

This international specialisation has created . a single world economy, each part completely dependent upon the rest for certain supplies. At the moment, this world economy is dominated by world capitalism which is in a position to dictate terms to the non-capitalist parts that wish to continue to co-exist with it.

Up to 1917, the economy of Tsarist Russia was an organic part of the world capitalist économy. After the October . Revolution, the Soviet government, having abolished capitalism, also abolished the former capitalist trade relations with the rest of the world. At the same time, world capitalism isolated the Soviet economy by refusing to trade with it.

Kosygin: Representative of bureaucratic management.

This isolation, helped along by the treachery of the social democrats, who fought against the extension of the revolution to 'their' capitalist countries, was later helped by Stalin.

He accepted this isolation and declared his intention of building socialism in one country alone, even while it continued to remain isolated from the international division of labour and at the mercy of world capitalism.

This isolation has continued to this day and although the Soviet economy, spread over such a vast territory and enjoying such enormous natural resources, nas in the past suttered less trom it than an economy like Britain's would have done, should it have so become isolated, it must continue to suffer from it with increasing severity as time goes on and as its industry becomes more developed and complex.

The second cause of the crisis 'Socialist World' article by Eugene Preobrazhensky —which is the theme of this article-can be said to be a by-product of the first which, because of the defeat of the Left Opposition, was allowed to grow unchecked and has now become almost an element in its own right.

The element causing this part of the crisis is bureaucratic mismanagement. It operates within the framework of the national division of labour and acts as an additional brake on the further development of the economy.

To put it in another way. Had the Soviet economy been compelled, for any length of time, to remain isolated from the international division of labour while remaining under a Leninist leadership, it would still not have been able to prevent the rise of distortions in the economy due to its isolation. But it would have been able to prevent this additional brake on it.

Mistakes

The word "bureaucratic which characterises this type of mismanagement is not used merely to describe some inexperienced or thick-headed bungler, but has a strictly scientific meaning.

It embraces all bureaucratic management, that of the dunderheads as well as that of the type of which Kosygin is representative. Its characteristic feature is its inherent inability to correct mistakes IN TIME; i.e., long before vast damage has been done.

This type of mismanagement is built into, inherent in the political regime itself and must continue to plague the Soviet economy for as long as the regime will last. No amount of 'criticism' or 'selfcriticism' as practised • by the regime will ever eliminate it.

How, specifically, does this second element contribute to the present crisis?

Let us quote from the Soviet press, first taking a regional example as supplied by a director of an automatic-machine-producing enterprise in the Volgograd area, as reported in Izvestia', He stated that despite all the new achievements in the field of automatic machines in 'several enterprises of the economic region, automatic machines stand idle.?

Thus at a canning factory one machine 'has not been utilised for over two years'. (My emphasis) Why? "To reorganise production they the managers] say, requires extra eftort, extra worry.' He gives other examples of expensive automatic. boilers operated by hand, of a factory in tion of new machines which could not be fully utilised for all-round production.

This is how bureaucratic management functions in reality, allowing vast, criminal wastage for 'three to four years' , that is for over half the period of the seven-year plan, yet inherently unable to correct this in time!

But the bureaucracy 1s not only criminally wasteful in relation to machinery, but above all in relation to the living forces of production.

In 1935, Trotsky wrote that the bureaucracy 'spurs on the workers with all its might, but is unable to make a proper use of labour power'.

Thirty years later, the bureaucracy is still unable to make proper use of labour power, even though it has continued to spur the workers on with all its might.

On March 17, 1965, Pravda' had to complain that in hundreds' (a bureaucratic euphemism) of new factories built during the last seven years, labour is not *scientifically organised, that a great deal of manual work still goes on in them and that workers lose a lot of work time between 17 and 25 per cent of the shift.

'At a number of enterprises work begins late and ends earlier than prescribed! It then quoted 'one of many examples'—a factory at Ashinsk where, during the first period of the month, 'hibernation' can be i observed; during the second period there is a 'stir; while during the third period a state of 'emergency' exists during which everybody bangs away for dear life to fulfil the quota.

'Rush work'

It is interesting to note that this type of 'emergency' work had become established under the name of 'avral, which literally means 'all hands to the job', but has now assumed a specific Stalinist economic term which can also be interpreted as 'rushwork'.

The paper adds: 'When the assault [on the work] begins, then often labour regulations are broken, people work overtime and the affair leads to the abolition of off-days.' Another article, which would take too long to quote in sufficient detail to give the reader a clearer picture of 'avral', shows how workers, working less time, in fact completely absenting themselves during the 'hibernation' period, nevertheless earn a bonus equal to those who turn up for work every day.

This appeared in Pravda', December 19, 1965, and deals with the Karaganda coalfields.

Bonuses

The secret of it was to work badly or not at all during the first period, then join the brigade when it proclaimed an 'avral". Since every worker got his bonus not in accordance with his own but his brigade's achievements in fulfillinger overfulfilling the monthly target, all got their bonus.

When the bureaucracy changed the payment to a weekly bonus, it did not help. For two weeks the brigade did little. Then it proclaimed 'avral' and other workers joined in. The result: a bonus for all, even though the total monthly target was fulfilled.

The paper outlined cases where a team working steadily all the time, and during the month is inherent in the regime itself?

Consider this type of regime in some detail. First, there is the bureaucratic apparatus as such— and this applies to all such apparatuses—which is organised as a graded body of persons who stand one above the other with the rank below carrying out the orders or 'directives' of the rank immediately above it. This straight away deprives each successive grade from showing any initiative (even when a directive tells them to 'show more initiative, they will carry out inflexibly and without initiative this order).

This paralysing effect on initiative by the bureaucratic apparatus is—as far as the workers' state is concerned, which also requires the bureaucracy to carry out the day-to-day administration of the state-an unavoidable evil provided this machine merely carries out a freely debated policy, turned into practical administrative orders, , laid down by a freely elected government that stood apart and above this apparatus.

But in the Soviet Union, Stalin's faction, whose members already in the early 1920s held the vast majority of adminiAgriculture has also suffered from mistakes not corrected before vast damage has been done.

strative posts, increasingly began to express the interests of all functionaries. As a result of the Soviet Union's continued isolation, they began to fulfil the function of arbiter between those who earned more and enjoyed the few things in short supply and the rest of the people. just a person who has power to order others about, who has a 'red-tape' mind, but one who, as a result of his function in the state and party apparatus, also enjoys certain material privileges.

They are now people -who outwardly resemble a social class though they lack the economic basis of a ruling class.

Automalic machines in many plants stand idle.

Unlike some of the 'founders' of this ruling caste who were former revolutionaries, the present-day 'leaders' have all sprung from the apparatus itself and have never been anything else but bureaucrats obediently carrying out the directives of those above them - including the murder purges of the 1930s—and now, in their turn, expect blind obedience from their 'inferiors'.

which on the ground floor expensive computers have been installed, while on the second floor a whole army of bookkeepers and accountants still do the work in the old way. He adds, 'one could bring many, many more examples'.

One could bring hundreds more examples of a similar kind as reported from many other regions, but here is what 'Pravda', November 17, 1965, wrote about Soviet industry as a whole:

'One of the most serious shortcomings of nearly all branches of our industry is its slow mastery of its new capacities. In the metallurgical and chemical industries, many enterprises, which began to function three to four years ago, have not achieved their planned capacities.' (My emphasis.)

Among the reasons given:

rious defects in desiga, imirfect assembly, the introducTHE trial of Rolando Cubelas, a major of the Cuban Army, and six others on a charge of plotting to assassinate Castro is further evidence of the deep and insoluble crisis of the Bonapartist dictatorship in Havana.

Cubelas is accused of conspiring with Manuel Artime an anti-Castro right-wing leader whom he met in Madrid December 1964 and of receiving a silencer and telescopic sight from him.

Many of Cubelas' supporters, it is reported, were participants in the Cuban revolution.

The prosecution has demanded the death penalty for Cubelas and hree other defendants but Castro has intervened to request clemency be shown.

It is certain though that this will not be the last of the plots against Castro's regime, whose present conciliation of imperialism and Stalinism must have profound repercussions in Cuba.

If 1965 was the Year of Economy-then 1966 must surely be the Year of Disenchantment ...for the Cuban workers.

Morbld suspicion

Authoritative sources have :ently revealed another spect of the crisis: Castro's morbid suspicion and pathological obsession with security problems.

A number of people have been wounded by his trigger-happy guards who have opened fire on the slightest suspicion. The latest victim of this security mania is a high-ranking Yugoslav diplomat who took the wrong turning and drove past the house of Castro's secretary Celia Sanchez.

The diplomat was critically wounded by a hail of bullets from Castro's security men.

Events in Algeria and Ghana have shown that where there is no Marxist leadership, the army ultimately decides the fate of every Bonapartist dictatorshipas well as the parliamentary regime.

Right-wing encouraged Castro's decisions to disarm the militia and oppose the Chinese have encouraged the extreme right-wing forces who want a bloody settlement with the workers and peasants.

These people find Castro an embarrassment and an obstacle to their policies. They would like to see him dead—or out of the way.

The question that faces Castro now is not whether he can stay in power-but for how long.

March 12, arțicle

actually producing more coal, got a lower bonus than those producing less because the latter team produced a higher weekly amount during the last two weeks.

And this Fred Karno organisation of labour went on for the last seven years!

Some readers might justifiably ask: How is it that these Soviet leaders we call the bureaucracy act in the way they do. Are they really so stupid? Why do we say that this type of management (Trotsky's 'Revolution Betrayed' in which this function of the bureaucracy is brilliantly set out, is still the most relevant work for an understanding of the Soviet Union of today, even though it was written over 30 years ago.)

Presiding over the distribution of the country's wealth, they naturally did not forget themselves, gradually evolving into a distinct social group, so that today, the bureaucrat is no longer

During the last 40 years they have gone through a process of natural selection. Since the most important qualities of a bureaucrat of the Stalin school was and still remains not only obedience, but unscrupulousness, incapacity for independent thought, an ability to grovel before one's superiors, only the 'fittest' in this sense have survived.

In this very machine, selfperpetuating, subject to no public checks, some members periodically go through with the comedy of being elected' by the 'democratic' system of one vote, for one man, for one policy-the one favoured by the bureaucracy. Thus the Soviet bureaucracy not only conducts the day-to-day state administration, but also makes its policy-importing into this policy the same bureaucratic methods.

WEwre in a on gos courtroom on the morning of January 15 waiting for the police prosecutors and magistrates to continue the trial of Marxists framed with 'political crimes'.

No magistrate came. Nor did the police prosecutor. The same thing was happening in all the other many courts on Lagos Island.

We were to wait in vain....

The chief justice of the Federation, Chief Sir Ademola, had disappeared into a hideout.

DRIVEN OUT

By mid-morning senior police officers came to announce tearfully to small groups of middle-class lawyers that the 'soldier bastards have driven us out of our Lion Buildings'.

Lion Buildings is the Lagos headquarters of the Nigerian police sold by the former Minister of Health, Chief Dr. Majekodunmi, to*. the Federal government for t500,000 The central: CID, where, in any emergency, 200 plain clothes police would be lectured before mingling with the demonstrating masses to carry out their fifth column tactics, was also seized.

The political police headquarters, simply named Obalende HO was, we learned later, being ransacked by the 'soldier bastards' throughout Saturday and Sunday.

ine arms, equipment and vehicles of all these bastions of A regular scene during the successful General Strike of 1964—one of the events which illustrated the tremendous THE February ló political _ rally in Athens, called by the democratic' Centre Union on-the-spot report despatched on January 27 the capitalist police were seized.

It took hours for one to realise the cold fact that a coup d'etat had already taken place on the morning of the 15tl broadcasting DIC electricity and compremiers ... of all five regions had been seized.

Prime Minister Alhaji Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and Minister of Finance, the millionaire Chief Okotie-Eboh, had been dumped arrester in the forest on the high later to be killed and road.

PALACE GRENADED The Northern Premier had faced a unit of the First Northern Field Battery and the Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Alhaji Bello had perished during the grenading of his palace, the Nasarawa residence.

Chief Akintola, Western Region premier, had his. bullet-proof jacket torn with an army knife before he was riddled with 16 bullets and exhibited at the public mortuary to the joy of the Ibadan townsmen.

Mid - West premier, Chief Osadebay, was later allowed to escape to his €300,000 country house on the banks of the River Niger, which he built within 18 months of taking office.

The Eastern premier. Dr. Okpara, also retired to his luxurious country hospital, built while he was in office.

Though many of us gathered in the courtroom are probably among the most advanced sector of the political vanguard of the left movement, none of us had ever anticipated the coup, nor thought it remotely possible.

We thought that Nigeria, being the bastion of world imperialism in Africa with fl0 million US capital to build a fully equipped security police torce (£2,000,000 of which was used to build an discontent in Nigeria.

B1111

Party, assisted by the EDA (Stalinists), was the biggest meeting since the war, with more than 500,000 people attending. The meeting was called for elections and fer 'democracy'.

But for fighting spirit it did not compare with the rallies and demonstrations held last summer following the 'sacking' of Prime Minister . Papandreou by the young king Constantine who did not care for Papandreou's proposed army retorm. In genera. the Greek political and sociai crisis is going through something of a lull.

The Stalinist EDA party published a political declaration of policy eight days before the rally subordinating itself the monarchy (for democracy with the king), in common with all the bourgeois parties. Greek police, seen here in action against demonstrators in 1965, attempted to provoke trouble for Greek Trotskyists in February.

At the same time the EDA endorsed the amnesty for all the military conspirators of last year and called for an army separated from political influence!

This is an open betrayal of the struggles of the working masses and the youth against the monarchy, the military plotters and the monopolists' bid for open dictatorship.

The Stalinist apparatus has exercised all its influence to combat the slogans of the Greek Trotskyists which had won influence among the masses last summer.

The February 16 rally lacked enthusiasm because Papandreou and the EDA were against the anti-monarchy and anti-capitalist sentiments of the masses and forbade militant slogans. CORRESPONDENT At the same time the police were fully armed.

They had already carried out a provocation against the Greek Trotskyists by publishing a full programme, entirely drawn by the police themselves, which put forward militant slogans and even called for revolution!

Greek comrades immediately published a counter-proclamation and distributed it as widely as possible. They denounced the police provocation and stated their policy exactly.

HOPED FOR BAN

The obvious intention of the police was to ban the rally on the grounds that 'the Trotskyists would make trouble, stirring up aghting, and even revolution'.

But the rally went off perfectly normally, without clashes, demonstrations, or "Trotskyist provocations'. The Trotskyists own slogans were less influential than last summer because of the Stalinist campaign.

During two political meetings of intellectuals and trade unionists preparatory to the big rally, one of the Trotskyists took the platform and announced: "The movement urgently needs action committees, without which victory is impossible'.

He underlined also that 'the strike movement must be built up to a general strike'.

He * was enthusiastically applauded. monstrations in two months), meetings, lights with the police, casualties, arrests, 'confusions' laid at the door of 'Trotskyist provocateurs' ', bloody political strike of 250,000 workers, the overturn of two royalist governments, and an antimonarchy explosion throughout the nation.

STRIKES GROW

Now the movement is expressed in an epidemic of strikes. From November to February these strikes have increased.

Successive waves in 1965 brought 1,250,000 workers out on strike. The workers had rarely shown such fight. But the Stalinists used this purely for electoral purposes.

The capitalist state, trying to deal with the big economic a reactionary political plan, using an anti-strike committee, which includes a military representative of the general staff.

Military law is used against strikers, and under the civil law many of those arrested last summer are still in jail.

The capitalists are organising a big offensive for the imposition i not taser the serious econo mic crisis.

But the workers are standing firm.

Despite the capitulation of the Stalinists and reformist bureaucrats, they are ready to tight hard once again for the living standards of their families and further freedom.

NEWSLETTE March , 196

underground detention prison beneath the common law prison on Kirkiri island), could not be overthrown for many years.

And we never thought it would be overthrown by a coup, but by a long and arduous struggle that civil war, or guerrilla fighting in would very likely culminate in the Vietnam style.

OFFICERS' PARTIES

We saw army officers living in luxury during the day and in the evenings relaxing in officers' messes that would put English aristrocratic clubs to shame.

We saw these officers accumulating property "millionaires, On crown lands in row at Ikoyi, which faces the Atlantic, and throwing lavish all-night parties at which bayonet-fixed troops stood guard while the 'cream of society' did everything but go to bed with each other. They had champagne, and the purest of palm wine and roast pork.

We thought these officers were too involved with and benefitted too much from the regime to understand the needs of the people.

We could also see the disarray in which the socialist movement in Nigeria is in, and the opportunist corrupt leadership of divided trade union fronts, which are financed by the International Confederation: of Free Trade Unions and the Stalinist WFTU.

That is why we resigned ourselves to a long struggle and began to build the basis of Marxist mass party of Nigerian toilers.

RULERS LAMBASTED But the coup took place. A. Major : 'Kaduna' Nzegwu, appeared to be the leader of 'the five' after an all-night battle at the guarded fortress of Nasarawa and an all-day technical consolidation of gains. The following night Nzegwu took the microphone of the seized Northern Broadcasting station and proclaimed a revolutionary government of the army.

He lambasted the previous rulers as corrupt gangsters, ten per centers (always demanding 10 per cent interest on every development project from the foreign company which was to win the contract), rapists that had been sucking the blood of Nigerian toilers, etc.

REJOICING

He announced that the tribaltorn country was one from the River Niger to the River Benue. He decreed death penalties for all acts of arson, black marketeering, sabotage corruptions, etc., and ordered military music to be played on the Northern Radio Kaduna, to be interspersed with indoctrination symposiums. placed his territory under marshal law.

In the beer parlours, palm-wine sheds, rickety mammy wagon transports, in the stinking, but lively, market places, there was general rejoicing.

By Monday, 2,000 'men of substance'-leaders and hirelings of the old regime—had escaped to the neighbouring republic of Dahomey. But Dahomey's military: governor, General Soglo, finally closed the border to his friends. Many a minister (there were 80 in Lagos alone and over 300 in the whole federation) were caught in boots of cars, or dressed as women with lipstick, wigs and other gadgets, trying to escape in their big American cars. In the Western region a people's court was held by which houses of the hated rich politicians were destroyed.

Meanwhile, in Lagos, the "General Officer Commanding Nigeria Army', Major General Ironsi, a former equerry to Queen Elizabeth, was moving around Lagos holding meetings with one or two former ministers and the British Ambassador.

All the regions were in the hands of the 'rebels'. • Lagos had been captured technically, but not politically.

Ironsi therefore announced at first that a mutinous section of the Army had 'kidnapped' the Prime Minister. But later he changed his tone to announce that the Army had been handed the power of the state.

He was undoubtedly influenced by the British Ambassador, the threat of Kaduna to march on Lagos, the expression of support for Kaduna shown by all sections of the ruling elite pulation, except the That is how Neguib became the head of the new military governrigged elections last year ordered the return of government loans' which had been paid to rich businessmen.

The governor of the Western region had decreed that a new waterworks providing water for two million peasants should be opened-theworks had been closed because the inhabitants of the area had declared a unilateral declaration of independence, driving away all politicians and MPs, refusing to pay taxes and had been letting off droves of stinging bees fed on poison to drive away all military detachments sent to subdue them.

Ejoor, the Lieutenant-Colonel in the Mid-West, who had installed himself as revolutionary governor in the East before the rapprochement with Tronsi, had decreed free education for primary school children.

WASTED 10 YEARS' Lt.-Col. Ojukwu, son of the millionaire chairman of Eastern government's African Continental Bank, had gone further in his progressive role.

He sacked all holders of sinecures, abolished provincial assemblies, decreed against corruption and lambasted the 'capitalist mediocrities who have wasted ten years of the country's nationhood'.The progressive movement had in many press statements been suggesting programmes for transforming the country into a progressive welfare, and democratic state. But they have not organised one demonstration.

All the old parties are ineffective and silent and their leaders live in fear of what may befall them. They even write flattering letters of adulation and support to Ironsi.

Ironsi has all the tendency to. be reactionary. Nzegwu and a large slice of the army are determined to continue no matter what progressive programmes they have.

Otherwise, losing to Ironsi implies losing their neck in the bargain. A schism will occur in the army.

How long it will be fought out, and whether Nzegwu's Five will call for the masses to support them, or whether Ironsi will have America and Britain on his side remains to be seen. This will determine the nature of the coup and whether it turns into a democratic revolution.

Nigeria is such a complex society in the midst of world politics-an internal corrupt leadership, a revolutionary but pauperised people and a disorganised socialist movement with a very small Marxist force-that the development of the occasion of January 15 has many possibilities.

STOP GAP

thing is certain. January Is inne whatever happens, stop-gap between the arising of and new contradictions. (Before January 15 the old government had been effecting a "list 47'. of revolutionaries to occupy the Kirkiri prison and had just ordered the Army to suppress the progressives.)

The result of these contradictions will be in many forms of struggles. The middle class will initially have the upper hand. In any case, a new vista had been opened.

Over some years of persistent struggle and changing events, the toilers may seize power and use. the opportunity of January 15 for the creation of a workers state.

For that to happen depends in the capability of the small Marxist force to organise the toilets at the vanguard of the democratic revolution.

During the summer the movement had the following characteristic features:

Demonstrations (250 big deNKRUMAH, self-styled 'Redeemer' of the African people, amassed a personal fortune of at least £2,500,000. This was alleged at an Accra press conference by Ayeh Kumi, his former economic adviser and business associate.

Kumi said, however, that only about £8,000 of this had been kept abroad as ready cash. Much of it was made up of the Guinea Press, a housing estate and an oflice block. Kumi, now in custody in Ghana, told how both Nkrumah personally, and his Convention People's, Party benefitted from contracts through the National Development Corporation. ment in Egypt. Personally, Ironsi symbolises a ruling-class reformist coup seeking mass support to entrench its position.

The seizure was without sition.

DISCONTENT

That shows that we had not taken into account that firstly, the general discontent in the country was such that the destruction of the old regime, violently, seemingly, actually or otherwise, would meet with loud approval, and secondly that the Army was part of the population and some of the officers were partaking of the general educational efforts of the Marxist movement.

(This could be seen even in wordings of decrees and statements by provincial governors.) worken there had been the dockstrike of 1963 and the general strike of 1964, which led to the trials of leaders of the Marxist revolutionary group.

Besides, in the past year, the first Republic has been courting its own death.

First, the federal election last summer created a boycott by the progressives (who later joined the government).

Secondly, the rigged elections in the Western region had created such violence that was accelerated when the Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa decided to call a Commonwealth Conference in Lagos while the city was burning (literally).

Thirdiy, there was unemployment and general poverty in the midst of plenty.

All the ingredients of revolution were present, except the organised party of the toilers and the leadership of the working class.

Yet the military government is popularising itself. In Northern Region, the Emir's son, who is military governor, had acceded to all the decrees of Major Kaduna' Nzegwu, and

Massive opposition to 32 per cent rent rise pay' was the main slogan of 1,000 Wallasey tenants who marched to the local town hall last week where the annual budget meeting of the council was taking place.

Atter holding a meeting. on the council car park, where tenants and Young Socialists spoke out against the rising cost of living and huge rent increases-which workers up and down the country are facing, while bankers became richer from the interest on loans to councils—the tenants flocked into the public gallery shouting and heckling the councillors.

Because all the tenants could not enter the gallery and refused to move away from the town hall until their delegation • was seen by the chairman of the council (the mayor), the civic hall was opened up to them.

As soon as they entered, they began to sing and chant slogans.

'SPREAD THE LOAD' A meeting then took place at Which a leading member of the Labour group spoke of taking the Tories to court and of spreading the increase to all ratepayers.

All of these suggestions conflicted with the feelings of the tenants.

If the Labour group wants to win the support of the tenants in both the general and council elections, they should not simply fight for a reduction of the rent increase from 32 per cent to 23 per cent, or take the struggle of the tenants through the courts.

Only a rent freeze and the suspension of interest payments will win support.

CP call in security men to sellers SHOP STEWARDS called security men to have five Young Socialists thrown off the Barbican building site, London, during their lunch hour last Friday (March 4).

Twenty-six "Newsletters' were sold in the crowded canteen before the security men arrived.

They had not attempted to stop YS members at the gate to the site.

The paper carried reports of the March 1 lobby organised by the joint sites committee, and supported by the Communist Party and 'Daily Worker, against the anti-union Bill proposed by the Wilson government.

that lobby Stalinist stewards and police had attacked a contingent of 80 Young Socialists who had joined the march with their banners.

At the meeting that evening in the Caxton Hall, Westminster, the stewards on the platform met inquiries and protests about the attack with a blanket of silence.

But this new attack shows that the Stalinists will step up their witch-hunting behind the scenes-for they fear the political leadership of the YS At the Laing's site nearby, leading Stalinist steward pointed at one YS member with a rolled up copy of the 'Daily Worker' and said: 'Don't you know this is private property: We want no politics on this site, and threatened to call the management.

When asked about the political leadership of the March 1 lobby he said: 'We can't tell building workers we are communists because are Catholics and they wouldn't have supported the lobby? (!)

This is excuse.

of political questions and in the coming months must quickly learn the political implications of the anti-union legislation.

Without this political clarification only defeat is possible.

By_their actions, the Stalinist leaders defeat.

The same security men could tomerrow easily be escorting comnunists and socialists alike from building sites straight to prison.

To defeat the anti-union Bill and those who are introducing or supporting it requires the maximum unity of workers against the employers.

We are confident that building workers will condemn this action by the Communist Party stewards, uphold the right of all political tendencies to sell newspapers on jobs and sites, and inin in with the Young Socialists and Socialist Lahour League in actively continuing the campaign against anti-trade-union legislation. council must unite By Our Industrial Correspondent fights health danger A tenants from Faith Street, DEPUTATION of seven South Elmsall, near Leeds, visited the local council offices to demand an interview with the Health Committee last week. They told our reporter that the conditions of their houses and the surrounding area are a danger to health.

The committee refused to see

MEMBERS of Parliament Michael Foot and Eric Heffer spoke at a meeting called by the Liverpool Trades Council and Labour Party last Friday (March 5), and showed that the 'lefts' of the Parliamentary Labour Party are going into the General Election on a sorry platform.

While Marxists and real socialists are calling on workers to vote Labour, but fight for socialism against the right wing, their policy was: Vote Labour because the right-wing Labour government nas, by and large, done a good job.

The former member of the anti - parliamentary Socialist talk on Michael Foot as a great House of Commons man.

He then declared it was the great merit of the Labour government that it had tackled the balance of payments crisis without deflation and unemployment.

"PLANNING'

Foot said this had been done by planning by the government, which had, for example, intensified the provision of new factories in development areas.

It was to the credit of the government that it had not devalued. It had borrowed money, which had carried inevitable problems if there was not to be devaluation, said Foot., For these 'lefts' there was only one choice-devalue or borrow within the bounds of the capitalist economy. The US rulers, in fact, gave the loans on the understanding from Wilson that he would not devalue, because of the dangers to international capitalism.

On Vietnam, Heffer, in mild terms, said that the government should dissociate itself from US policy. But he stressed that it was an advance that the government had given the 'clear pledge' that British troops would not be used in Vietnam.

On rents, the burning problem in Liverpool, Heffer's dampener was that increases would be much worse under the Tories because they would cut subsidies.

ANTI-UNION BILL

Foot and Heffer did not refer to the anti-trade union Bill-the over-riding and central issue for the broad mass of workers in Britain and what is clearly to be a central issue in the General Election.

When asked whether they would vote against such legislation, Heffer stayed silent.

Foot said there were some aspects of Brown's Bill he was in favour of. For example, prices could be referred to the Prices and Incomes Board, which was more directly responsible to the government.

It would be foolish to vote against the Bill with these advantages, he said, adding that 'substantial amendments could be put to the "objectionable parts"!

Font ended his speech by calling for a government with a firm majority committed to the task of transforming society.

Fine words. But the pace of change, he declared, 'depends on the amount of people we get participating'.

So he threw back the onus from the leaders neto head already given clear notice that they found themselves in opposition to movement for change in the ranks. The campaign against the anti-union Bill Scottish MP's lobbied "TWO-FACED devils' was the way in which Mr. Dick Buchanan, MP for Springburn, Glasgow, described a deputation which visited his surgery last Saturday (March 5). Springburn "Young Socialists ers joined by members of the Socialist Labour League, wanted an assurance that he would vote against the anti-trade union Bill in the next parliament.

Buchanan is sponsored by the NUR and earlier that morning had met a deputation of railwaymen who were protesting against the redundancies to take place at St. Rollox and Cowlairs railway depots, involving over 400 men.

The deputation on the trade union legislation was kept waiting from 10.30 a.m. until 12.45 p.m. when they were informed by Mr. Buchanan that his time was limited as he had a weekend school to attend.

Accusation

Buchanan was asked to state where he stood on the question of anti-trade union legislation being introdced in parliament.

The MP for Springburn tried to talk around the question-he accused the deputation of being 'two-faced'-pretending to be socialists but attacking Labour.

He said there was no legislation betore parliament and went on to defend the White Paper on Prices and Incomes, saying it was Newsletter Reporter necessary to give statutory powers to the Prices and Incomes Board to take action against those who ignored the voluntary warning procedure.

'Trade unions,' he said, 'must iscipline themselves to prevent prices and wages spiral.' Safeguards He claimed there were adequate safeguards in the Bill to protect the unions and that in any case the government would not use the Bill to attack the unions. When asked why the Bill was necessary in that case, he evaded the question.

Buchanan condemned the 'restrictive practices' operated by workers, particularly referring to the railwaymen, who, he claimed, were responsible for redundancies and said it was necessary for better paid workers, such as those in the motor industry, to make sacrifices in relation to wage increases so that lower paid workers could benefit. This, he claimed, was the essence of socialism.

Unable to evade the question any longer he said quite clearly and categorically that he would not oppose the Bill. day morning for the past years, he was 'otherwise occupied' when the Young Socialists wanted to see him.

Later they saw him and questioned him. He said that the Labour government was being dissolved and that the Bill no longer existed. He refused to say if he would support a similar Bill introduced by a Labour government after the election.

Ignored fines

He pointed to one section of the Bill alleging that no fines would be imposed on individual workers taking 'unofficial' action, but ignored the section which states that these workers would be fined up to £500.

When pressed on this point he tried to push two Young Socialist members out of the door, shouting that he would call the police and only succeeded when joined by some 'colleagues'.

The Young Socialists are determined to find out if Mr. Bence is going to vote for or against this legislation. They have organised another lobby for March 19 at 10 a.m. in the Labour Rooms, Clydebank.

adult workers and trade unionists are invited to this lobby to show Bence that the Young Socialists have the support of the working class in the area, and that they will not tolerate treatment dealt out on Saturday. CP halt discussion on Bill in B'ham a resolution opposing the anti-union Bill being passed by Birmingham Trades Council last week.

Birmingham AEU No. 9 branch put the motion:

'That this Trades Council protests at the disaffiliation by the TUC leaders of the Lambeth Trades Council because of their campaign for a lobby of parliament against anti-trade union legislation.

It considers that in calling the January 26 lobby the Lambeth Trades Council acted in the best interests of all trade unionists. This Trades Council calls on the TUC to lift the ban on Lambeth Trades Council Council rights as a Trades forthwith and to restore to it Correct policy The mover traced the history of the attacks on the very basis of trade unionism by the right wing and the Bill and the correct policy of Lambeth in uniting the working class in opposition.

The motion was seconded and there was uneasiness among right-wing Labour delegates.

A Communist Party member from the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers then moved an amendment deleting all but the last paragraph of the resolution, effectively smothering re onable twin in ted discuss sion', and the amendment was carried narrowly—in a meeting of 80 delegates nearly half abstained altogether.

Later CP members attempted justify the move of the USDAW delegate by saying he had 'saved' some of the resolution in a General Election atmosphere when the whole resolution would have been lost.

Earlier Young Socialists had lobbied delegates with a petition opposing the anti-union Bill. Many had signed and given money to the campaign.

Sparks support YS conference - send four observers EAST HAM branch of the ETU last week passed a resolution supporting the sixth annual conference of the Young Socialists. The branch decided to send four fraternal observers to speak in the session on the campaign against the government's anti-union Bill.

Registered at the G.P.O. as • newspaper Published by The Newsletter, 130 Clohan Rian See, Ln 224 180 Clapham High Street. London

of the 1,000 Wallasey marchers • DOCKERS THE 6.6 per cent wage increase which the London Transport Board had agreed to pay London busmen has now been referred to the Prices and Incomes Board by George Brown, A decision will not be given before the General Election.

The wage agreement came out of discussions between the Transport and General Workers' Union and the management during the recent five-week overtime banImposed against new schedules involving cuts in services.

It was called off when a detailed agreement on pay and conditions was signed by both sides following their 13 meetings. The cuts were not restored.

A five-day week is promised for 1967, and slight alterations in the payments of bonuses. But by far the most important section of the agreement is one dealing with what is called "restrictive practices' Under the agreement, many protective clauses won by the men will be removed, giving the management greater freedom to work crews as they like.

By still guaranteeing overtime of 11 per cent of duties it is very doubtful if the Board will solve its staff shortage:

For the rest, services will be worked out according to 'staff availability'-in other words, services will be cut to fit the shortage, not stati recruited to fit the services.

Betrayal

For the delegates to accept such an agreement, which was not referred back to branches, is a betrayal.

They allowed the busmen to fight alone at a time when joint action with railway and tube workers was possible, and when the New York transport workers had recently demonstrated to the world the effectiveness of united action.

"The Platform' ,, a rank-and-file newspaper widely read by busmen, must also take some of the responsibility for the defeat. Although it now makes some correct criticisms of the agreement, at no time during the ban did it propose a joint campaign with other transport workers.

The fight of London busmen is not over. Already new schedules have been posted in some garages for March 20. These involve still further cuts.

A transport workers' alliance must be fought for if transport workers are not to be defeated one section at a time.

LYDEBANK Young Socialists attempted to lobby Cyril Bence, AEU-sponsored MP for East Dumthe question of anti-trade union legislation.

Although Mr. Bence has_held his 'surgery" almost every Saturthem and said the matter was being dealt with.

But the tenants are not satisfied.

Mrs. Smithurst asked if someone had to get hurt or killed before the council acted. Not a day passes without an ambulance going into the street. Dysentery spreads like a modern plague from one family to another. Some families have had all their children in hospital with dysentery at some time.

DYKE FLOODS

An open dyke runs along the back of the houses. In winter it floods as soon as there is any rain, sometimes right into the houses. In summer the smell from the dyke is unbearable.

As a result of recent protests, the council has agreed to clean out the dyke, but the tenants point out that this is useless. Dirt and rubbish taken from the dyke is just dumped there and left for the children to throw it back in again. Tenants want the dyke covered in.

After a Newsletter article about these conditions two weeks ago, the council sprang into action, no doubt concerned about votes from the tenants in the coming election.

Two local councillors inspected the street. Tenants pushed a copy of The Newsletter into their hands, and the councillors said the article was far-fetched.

INSPECTOR'S VISIT

Nevertheless, a sanitary inspector arrived two hours later and agreed the council was responsible for the dyke, but refused to look at the houses.

Tenants had to him to enter one in which plaster was falling from the walls of one bedroom, a door had fallen off and floorboards were up. Even inside, walls downstairs are running with damp.

Despite all this, the tenants fear eviction because of the chronic housing shortage in the area. Rents in Faith Street are 26s 6d. There are no amenities in the housesonly a sink with cold running water which does not even comply with the standards laid down by the 1957 Housing Act.

Tenants in Faith Street are determined to act. Their constituency has the biggest Labour majority in the country. but thi shey have writen to heir My, demanding a meeting and intend to attend every election meeting to insist that their demands are met. They also intend to turn out in strength at the next council meeting.

There have been many promises in the past, but these tenants want more than mere words. The Newsletter supports them in every action they take in their fight for decent housing. er Reporter any discussion on the vital issues behind the Lambeth campaign.

cern was the non-unionists on the dock. He told us the membership of the 'Blue' (National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers) was frozen and asked if our unofficial committee the 'nons' into a unicould recruit Dockers' interests Obviously, he thinks they should only be recruited into the T&GWU. He is only concerned to recruit into his union. How can he come here and not try to resolve our dispute?

One thing we do know. The interests of the dock workers will never be fought for by 'representatives' who are never elected by us.

All readers of The Newsletter can rest assured that the Hull dockers have full support for their Committee and this struggle will continue until justice is won.

See Editorial. Wilson accepts orders

shares rose f15 million. The steel owners evidently believe that they are on to a good thing. Why?

They believe that immediately after the General Blection, Wilson, Brown and Callaghan will embark on a budget policy of deflation.

This will, by the autumn, lead to unemployment under conditions where the steel companies would have to reduce their labour force, go on short time, or possibly close down. They are therefore, helping the steel companies to obtain generous compensation now while the 'going's good'. No wonder the value of steel shares go up and up.

The Labour leadership of Wilson in fact helps the employers and their Tory allies.

We are going to vote Labour in the General Election of March 31 so that we can prove to all class-conscious workers through this experience that it is necessary to build the Socialist Labour League as the real alternative leadership. To expose the bankruptcy of Wilson's leadership is a vital pre-requisite towards taking this step forward.

WO hundred carpenters came out on strike at the Wimpey site at Uxbridge on Wednesday (March 2) after the management had refused to discuss their claim for a 5s per hour bonus.

The rate at present is 7s ld per hour, plus a 4s bonus, but the men claim that the bonus is held down.

The day before the men struck, the whole site of 800 men-500 of them employed by Wimpey stopped work in support of the lobby of parliament against the anti-trade union Bill. Three hundred attended the lobby and formed the biggest single contingent.

The men's claim is important as the wages of about 75 per cent of the workers on the site are tied to the carpenters.

It could also affect building workers at the London Airport Wimpey site, who are operating a go-slow in support of a 4s bonus claim, and Barbican site, London, workers, who are pressing for 5s.

It is thought that the management might refer the claim to a disputes commission. Also there are rumours among the men that they Will sack the carpenters, in which case it is likely the whole site will stop work.

The management, which owns the site land and has to complete a f25 million contract to build Brunel College by 1984, has withdrawn the right of shop stewards to hold meetings on the site.

By A Newslett OMMUNIS1 PAK1Y mem bers intervened to preven