The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 436

'The and 7.30 p.m.

Speaker:

secretar SUKARNO:

PRESIDENT BY PROXE DESPITE the bland assurances of General Suharto, it is now quite evident that the coup to end all coups in Indonesia has resulted in the definitive ending of presidential rule.

President Sukarno still remains nominally the president by proxy.

After days of rioting by rightwing students and Muslims, following the exclusion of General Nasution from the Cabinet, the army, under the leadership of General Suharto, moved in on the presidential palace last Sunday and delivered the last humiliating blow to President Sukarno's tenure of office.

Un, Friday, While the Cabinet was in session, groups of the notorious Siliwangı regiment, led until recently a supporter of Sukarno, surrounded the presidential palace and forced Sukarno and his inseparable Foreign Minister, Subandrio, to flee to the nearby town of Bogor in a helicopter.

MORE TROOPS But when Sukarno reached from the sillwangi regiment is occupation of his residence.

While the president was in Bogol, General Suharto canvassed the military commanders for their support in installing a full-fledged military dictatorship.

Sukarno, long on rhetoric, but short on troops, capitulated completely to a deputation of three generals sent by Suharto to Bogor.

There were no negotiations. The president simply signed his power over to the general giving him authority to take in the president's name 'all measures required for the safeguarding of PUBLIC MEETING SHEFFIELD General Election anti-trade-union legislation' Vestry Hall, Road (Moor End)

Sheffield Sunday, March 27 G. Healy, national 1, Socialist Labour League Slowly the ›arrage of lies and hysteria whipped up last week over the Cowley 'workers' trial' is breaking down under of statements about what really happened. the pressure Desperate for a solution to the sterling crisis, Party leaders, aided by the more unscrupulous sections of Fleet Street, last week launched the most vicious witch-hunt in pre-Election history.

Facts were distorted. Facts were inflated. Facts were press and television worked overtime to produce what can great 'noose trial' hoax.

By weaving the fantastic tale of threats and violence and menacing demands for money, all the reactionary forces hoped to whip up public indignation and an atmosphere in which their plans for 'anion reform' coulă be sopped through the new Parliament- be it wiison or Heath in the chair.

At the same time more 'trials' were discovered and presented Wilson with a convenient diversion from discussing the pound at the hustings.

But the economy is the king pin of the 'noose trial' hoax and the big build up against the unions in the past two years. Who else but semi-skilled car workers, pushing their tween fl9 and f25 to replace the parnings un to f40 a week- present wage. structure of beway beyond the 3ł per cent norm—are ruining the country's economy?

Who else but workers who continually defy their management, and even deal out their own justice, should be subject to a Prices and Incomes Bill passed by the government of the day?

Hysteria

This is the logic 'noose trial' hysteria.

But just as the Cowley workers, and especially the shop stewards committee, has led a tremendous battle for higher wages and better conditions in the tactory and attended • the January • 26 lobby of Parliament, so their strength puts an eftective damper on the witch-hunting cretins of Fleet Street.

The inquiries by the unions and the joint shop stewards' statement of Wednesday are bringing out more and more facts to nail the lies of the 'noose', the 'M6 Cabinet', the threats, the fines, and so on.

The real story that the majority of 'reporters' missed is that by August, at least, BMC wants to cut the wages of the 1,400 men employed at the Cowley spares section by at least £5 to flo, and, it is claimed, lay off at least 500 men.

The section, which supplies the whole world with spare parts for BMC cars, is being modernised and semi-automated-the new £7 million Horspath Plant, under construction near the present plant, was supposed to be ready ROBERT tween f25 and f40.

A mass meeting of BMC workers decided to back any action taken by the shop stewards' committee over the wage issue.

The stewards reported back to the company with the senior shop stewards and union officials. They pointed out that a national agreement stated that wages should not be changed by new working conditions.

The management said they would take the matter to York.

Already the management has attempted to introduce the new wage , scheme for packers now working at the new plant.

Bighteen months ago, Morris Motors' repair shop workers were told they would be amalgamated with the BMC spares department. On the day that the new wage scheme was announced six weeks ago, the amalgamation went ahead, but the repairmen were brought in on the new wage scheme. It is claimed that when amalgamation was discussed 18 months ago, it was agreed the repairmen join the spares department at their own higher wages rates.

Two strikes Two one-day strikes were called. The first, on February 24, was supported by the spares department. This was agreed unanimously at a shop floor meeting.

The second strike was to be on March 3. At a meeting of about 500 men, 30 voted against action.

On the day of the strike eight men disobeyed the vote of the meeting.

(Cont. back page, col. 1) whipped up last breaking down really happened.

invented. Both only now be called AN OPEN LETTER TO TRADE UNIONIST STERLING CRISIS WORSENS See page 2 CP Election CP seeking more respectability G munist say the Commu- o one better. vote com nist Party election posters. A splendid slogan for a Party whose policy differs only in one degree from that of the Labour leaders.

And even this degree is not very great. The Party whose titled For a Soviet Britain! is be elected. now separated by only the finest political gap its from Wilson and Brown, as 1966 Election Manifesto shows.

Like Transport House, King Street puts much emphasis on "modernisation'. Like any manuNC • 12 NEN BLAMED FOR Scared SHOP STEWARDS SAY 600 faced man who workers' Asers as the " 31,6 cabinet", were clalted, kangaroo Too shop semants said the group court of ine lodontry. the "trial" vese tressferred yesterday is controlled One of the carat to see ihat papers are mat to ibi found ¡Directer of Public WANTS WITCH HUNT in ditch • hospital speci collapsed facturer of detergents, Gollan commends his wares as being 'new' Socialism is mentioned only in the most guarded terms as the 'eventual aim' of the Communist Party. The 'good' points of the Labour government's measures are carefully weighed against the 'bad 'ones.

Far from calling for any fight against the Labour leaders, the manifesto merely suggests an improved version of reformism. Vote for one of the 57 candidates if you can, otherwise vote Labour and 'press this policy on the Labour candidates, is Gallan's message.

All that is Communist different policy of progress will be achieved more quickly if there are Communist MPs to work for it.

APOLOGETIC

This apologetic tone is in Keeping with the policies proposed. For example, on housing, the manifesto advocates the pegging of council as well as private rents, 500,000 new houses a year and an end to rate increases.

But all of this is to be accomlished without nationalizing the banks, simply by means of 2 per cent government loans to councils. When nationalization proposed, it is steel which is pushed to the front.

Chemicals, building, aircraft and sections of engineering and shipbuilding, together with urban land, are merely suggested 'to go BRAKING Exprose Staff Reporter trial man by-strikers at Cowley broke a third after annaraael. Ing 12 miles. the 'noose trial' at I on the nationalization list'.

or arubag class, either in Britain Apparently, the Queen is expected to call on Mr. Gollan to form Her Majesty's government, if only enough candidates can REFORMS This is the outcome of the 'British road' followed by the so-called Communist Party. While the historical basis for reformism crumbles daily, Gollan and Co. turn to reforms.

As class struggles of unprecedented ferocity are being prepar dime has cemeter respede ability.

When the bankruptcy of the Labour leaders is more clearly revealed than ever, Stalin's former spokesmen hitch their wagon on to the falling star of opportunism.

With gimmiok heaped on cliché, the manifesto mocks the sacrifices and struggles of those who fought to build the Communist Party and the 'Daily Worker'.

However mistakenly, these workers thought that this was the way to smashing the boss class.

Now they find themselves selling a manifesto in which the power of the working class is never mentioned.

That is why increasing numbers of Communist Party members are reading The Newsletter and considering the policies of the Socialist Labour League. car court

The following day, Friday March 4, the men in O block stopped work, and, when company refused them permission to meet they walked out to the roadway.

This is where the Fleet Street and television story began, or what story they could find. thin were the facts gleaned by the newsmen on the spot that they over sensationalised them to give them any weight at all.

In fact, the stewards took the men back inside to work after the company had agreed to a full meeting later in the day at which, the shop stewards said, the eight men would be called and asked to explain why they had worked the day • before during the token strike.

The company paid the men for all but half an hour of the one and three quarter hour meeting.

At first two of the eight men to be questioned came out. Shop stewards went into the to bring out the other six, who it is claimed, were instructed by the management to attend.

The meeting, which was in a good mood, very much like a football crowd, was held from a loading ramp. A piece of rope, which many claim had been there for more than a year, was hanging from a piece of metal.

One of the eight placed the rope near his neck and said jokingly: 'Are you going to hang me then' ', to which the crowd yelled, good humouredly, 'hang them', •

last July, but is expected to be in full operation by August.

Sales increase Over the last year the sales of spare parts has had to keep up with the results of the production boom of two to three years ago. There has been a 10 per cent increase in gross sales, and, therefore, higher productivity in the sales plant.

At the same time, the strong shop stewards' committee has united the section in several actions to increase wages—in some parts they have increased by 100 per cent. In general for an average 27 per cent wage increase, there has been a 23 per cent increase in productivity.

Claiming that in the new plant 40 per cent of the work would be fully automated and 60 per cent semi-automated, the management called a joint meeting six weeks ago with the unions, to discuss a new wage agreement.

This scheme would offer beCOMMENTING on the facts by certain sections of Guanana duln19 TT. TTamie!. 41.- -.... - 11.1 "noose trial, marry urwin, the Transport and General Workers' Union Midland regional secretary said on Wednesday:

'It appears that someone's twisted and vivid imagination has turned something much less sinister than a debagging ceremony at an Oxford college into a Reichstag Trial.' Mr. Urwin headed a fourman inquiry team at Cowley this week.

There had been 'gross misrepresentation of the the press, mr. urwin added.

There had not been a workers' court, no fines, nor any intimidation.

Certain statements • had been taken out of context and frequently distorted.

Reports of an M6 Cabinet and the hangman's noose were ludicrous'.

Because of the gross distortions, the Press Council should institute an inquiry, he said, adding that 'cheque book journalism' had been mentioned to his inquiry team.

Page WO March 1966

KING'S MIRROR' : WILSON : GUNTER: HEATH: GRIMOND B/OSL FILE The Socialist Labour League is confident that the British working class can successfully unite behind a Marxist leadership, which is today being built by the Socialist Labour League, to defeat the attacks of the Tories and the employing class. In the struggles against anti-trade union legislation, this unity and this new leadership are being built.

In the course of this battle against the legislation brought in by the Labour Cabinet of Harold Wilson, more and more workers have come to realise that the Labour leaders are carrying out Tory policies and must be opposed.

This raises the question: How do we vote on March 31? The answer must be VOTE LABOUR, because this will put us in the best position to remove Wilson, Brown, Gunter, Callaghan and Co. and unite behind socialist policies.

The fact is that many millions of workers will vote Labour, refusing to return to Toryism, but not yet understanding the extent to which the Wilson leadership betrays the interests of the working class. We must call on these workers to go with us through the experience of Wilson's betrayals. But this experience must be made in a fight against Wilson's policies.

who will be faced, immediately after the election and the budget, with ferocious attacks on their living standards and their organisaOur purpose in ensuring the return of a Labour government is to strengthen those millions of workers who will vote Labour and tions.

A Tory government means the exclusive and direct rule of the monopolists themselves under conditions where they are strengthened by a Labour defeat, their way to laws against the trade unions prepared by Wilson, Brown and Gunter.

We vote Labour to deprive the Labour leaders and Parliamentarians of any excuses; we warn them in election meetings and lobbies that in voting for them we do this as part of a campaign to build a new leadership and to remove them.

If there are millions of workers who still think that voting Labour is the only alternative, we will lead them in struggle against right-wing policies in order to go with them We vote Labour on March 31 to keep the Tories out; to strengthen the ranks of the working class; to strengthen the bonds between the Socialist Labour League and the working class; to settle accounts with the Labour leaders on the working class's own terms.

Our vote on March 31 is a Labour vote which will strengthen the fight to defeat Wilson and his policies in the fight for a new socialist leadership. through the necessary experience.

OFFICIAL na Shop stewards deny ring the life c WORKERS" CABINET SECRET M6 RULES B.M.C. Service, Itd.,yesterday A sampling THE extraordinary affair of the trial. founn found man yesterday. He was found in a ditch in ditoh thought up for the exaggerated stories now being mon B.M.C. VISIT Cowley M6 cabinet 'a joke' WATTS ERUPTS AGAIN NCE again, Watts, the Negro quarter of Los Angeles, has become the centre of Negro frustration of life under American capitalism.

Faced with increasing unemployment, discrimination and shack housing, hundreds of Negroes ran riot in Watts on Tuesday night.

As in the famous Watts' insurrection of last August, youth, who bear the brunt of the worst features of US society, were to the fore in the street battles with the special riot squads trained to club and arrest as many as possible.

Two people-one Negro and one white-died, 30 were injured, and there were many arrests.

Like the previous riot, Tuesday night's incident began when police attempted to arrest Negro who had thrown a stone at a white school teacher's car. Crowds quickly gathered and began shouting and threatening the police.

Then about 600 Negroes began smashing shop windows and overturning cars. The special riot squads were sent into the crowds. After six hours officials said things were under control with scores of police stationed on rooftops and tear gas squads at many strategic points.

There are reports that many Negnoes were shouting 'down is a result of the discrimination that continues, the failure of the civil rights' dogooders to achieve any concrete results, and the incapability of any so-called workers' party to channel the frustration of the Negro workers into a struggle against capitalism around socialist policies.

There is a dire need for such a party, and a Marxist revolutionary leadership, in the United States today.

and serious discussion I recently resigned from the Communist Party of Great Britain.

I joined the Communist Party some time ago because I believed that the problems facing the workers in this country, namely peace, wages and the defence of the trade unions could only be solved by the overthrow of capitalism and the introduction of socialism.

Being interested in politics, 1 had considered joining the Labour Party, but my experience led me to conclude that the Labour Party no longer stood by the principles for which it was founded by Keir Hardie and others, namely to fight on behalf of workers and socialism.

In tact, the Labour Party today carries out policies identical to those of the Tories on every issue, willingly betraying their election pledges and attacking the working class on the instructions of American big business. I therefore decided to join the Communist Party.

I worked actively as a Party member in the struggle against war and as a Party candidate in the Borough Elections.

I attended the 29th National Congress of the Party as a delegate in November 1965, where, as a result of the sharp rightward contortion of the leadership to placate Labour's right wing, I began to have serious fundamental disagreements with the Party.

My experience in the Communist Party tollowing the Congress confirmed my suspicion about the reactionary role played by the Party's Stalinist leadership in relation to the nature of the Labour government and indicated the total bankruptcy of the Party's 'peaceful road to socialism'.

The issues on which I have disagreements are as follows:

firstly, instead of fighting for the victory of the Vietcong, the Party has been too concerned with maintaining a respectable cover behind such cil in January: Communist Party officials and functionanies were instructed to visit sites and factories in an attempt to reverse decisions, taken by mass workers' meetings, in support of the lobby.

This disruptive taotic not only proved to be a dismal failure due to lack of support from the workers themselves, but was indicative of the depth of the Party's capitulation to the Labour leaders.

Finally I believe that workers face a period in which they will have to fight to defend their living and working standards from the attacks of the employers and the Labour government. This fight requires a Marxist revolutionary leadership and policy which the Communist Party is unable to provide, being already too deeply compromised.

It is my view that only the Socialist Labour League has shown over recent vears its determination to hrmiv detend socialist ideas and principles, and the ability to organise in struggle whole layers of the working class. The success the Socialist Labour League has had in attracting many hundreds of workers is an indication that the future and socialism rests with them.

Since leaving the Communist Panty I have joined the Socialist Labour League and I urge all Marxists who remain within the Communist Party's Stalinist confines to do likewise, and help in the construction of a mass revolutionary communist party with an international perspective, which will present a real alternative for the working class. I consider this construction to be the paramount task placed before the revolutionary vanguard and the working class today.

Keith Standring, Crewe.

HE election battle between the Tories and the Labour leaders involves Dear Tom, THE last time we met we had a discussion about the implications of the Prices and Incomes Bill (what we call the anti-trade union legislation) in which you said that The Newsletter was making too much concentration on it.

To justify this statement you said that it would be possible to find some way round the effects of it and that even if it was introduced the government would have difficulty implementing it. Your parting remarks were: "The workers will them, or search the to find loopholes.

The law in relation to trade unions is in any case so vague or non-existent, that, as" many previous cases have shown, they are determined by the interpretations which the judges of the day profits have been made.

You argue that the legislation won't stop strikes, and that the jails won't hold all those who strike. That may be true, but if you know anything about the first 50 years of the trade union movement you will remember that in the early part of the 19th

the organisations as the British Council for Peace in Vietnam and the so-called 'left' Labour MPs, whose policies, in fact, seek to extricate the US from its role as an international pirate in Vietnam.

Secondly, the main policy adopted at the recent National Congress around the slogan of 'unity of the left' is a fraud. It is designed to mask a shift to the right by the Gollan leadership. This further clarified by the decision to change the name of the 'Daily Worker'. presumably to gain respectability in the eyes the petty-bourgeoisie and other anti-working class elements.

More recently the Party has produced an election programme which might just as easily have been formulated in Transport House.

Lenin wrote in 'Left-Wing Communism' that Communists in Britain should support the Labour Party the rope supports a hanging man. The Communist Party manifesto, however, because it lacks the necessary revolutionary alternative to the Wilson-Brown leadership, constitutes a reprieve for these agents of capital.

Thirdly, and probably most important, has been the attitude of the Communist Party towards the proposed anti-trade union legislation, to be introduced by the Labour government should it be returned at the General Election.

This legislation, to fine and imprison trade unionists who fight for better wages and conditions, is a fundamental attack on the very existence of trade unionism.

I consider that the maximum opposition to this legislation must be organised among all workers.

The leadership of the Communist Party, however, apart fnom expressing some verbal opposition to the legislation through the 'Daily Worker' and supporting the March 1 lobby, which consisted mainly of hand-picked Stalinists, and attempted to prevent the carrying of political slogans by ou Young Socialists (unity of the campaigns o this issue. has organised no real Indeed the Communist Party leadership did everything possible to oppose the mass lobby of parliament organised by the Lambeth Trades CounAs pre-election battle plods on a great deal of noise. It is made, not because of any policy disagreements, but to try to drown out the realities of the desperate probiems facing British capitalism.

But the outbreak of a new sterling crisis, with the pound falling to its lowest level since September, could not be disguised. Rushing through some trade figures on Friday halted the decline for a time, but the basic position is unchanged.

Despite the rise in exports, the continued rise of imports February means that new attacks on consumption will follow the election.

Both the employers at home and the bankers abroad will be pressing for measures to raise the level of unemployment and duce the pressure for higher wages.

The Wilson government has thus solved none of the problems for the capitalist class it was supposed to tackle. Moreover, it nas gıven up any pretence that it can decide its own policies.

WILSON'S PLEDGE

The decision to put the 'incomes policy' and anti-union legislation right at the centre of Labour's election programme reflects the pressure of the international bankers. The way which Wilson pledged action against the unions in return for dollar backing last summer is now well known.

As Brown explained to the TUC General Council during the Brighton Congress in September, arrangements of the big US loan was entirely dependent on acceptance of the anti-union law.

The pound has rested precariously on this loan ever since. Now, with the great part of it still to be repaid, confidence in sterling sags yet again.

As 'The Economist' showed on March 5, Callaghan's financial statement about the gold and dollar reserves indicated no real recovery from last year's crisis. not stand for the outlawing of strikes. The jails will not be big enough to hold all the workers who strike for wages.' One of your other arguments was that these type of laws exist in the United States yet they have not stopped strikes and they have not stopped the American workers winning wage increases.

I know that you, like millions of other trade unionists in Britain, are opposed to the introduction of the legislation and that you will fight tenaciously against it. You did, after all, take part in the lobby of parliament on January 26 and again in the one on March 1. In fact you were largely responsible for the decision on your job for a one-day token strike to support the january 26 lobby.

Weakness

Nevertheless I think your arguments reveal the same dangerous weakness that I have found amongst many trade union members during the campaigns over the past three months.

You see this legislation as just one more attack on the trade unions which we will have to fight in the trade unions as we have fought on many issues in the past.

The introduction of this legislation is much more than another attack. It represents such a fundamental challenge to the trade unions that we have to do more than simply examine the legal implications and understand Sterling crisis The beginning of 1966 saw much the same position as existed before the November 1964 run on the pound.

The present crisis is part of the long-term decline of British imperialism, not just a temporary phase.

Although election jitters play some part in the present pressure on sterling, it is not the major factor. In fact, it is possible that the timing of the election was an effect rather than a cause of the financial crisis.

EXPORTS FALL

National Institute Economic Review statistics show, the British share of world exports continues to fall. The sterling area, still taking more than a third of Britain's exports of manufactured goods, is no longer a safe market for Britain.

Last year, goods from this country represented only 32 per cent of total imports to sterling area countries, compared with over half in 1958.

In the same period, British export prices have risen 6 per cent faster than the world average.

In the world market for cars, the British share fell from 28 per cent in 1958 to under 20 per cent in 1965. The slight recovery en this field in 1962 has not held.

When the total volume of world trade is rising, this fall in the share held by British capital might not be noticed. But last year, the rate of increase of world trade dropped, partly due to the French and Italian recessions, and the British balance of trade suffered.

The problems of the pound are showing itself in the shortage of wish to put on them. This has been most clearly revealed in recent years by the cases of Rookes v. Barnard, Stratford V. Lindley and the ETU cases.

The new Bill would seriously undermine the system of 'collective bargaining' for negotiating on wages which has been the prime function of the unions for at least the last 60 years.

State control It would place the trade unions more directly under the control of the state and thus destroy the reason for which they were formed, i.e., to be organisations of the working class to fight independently to defend and improve the wages, conditions and hours of that class.

Since direct negotiations with the employers and their organisations would no longer be possible, every struggle to defend or improve wages would pitch workers into direct confrontation with the state of the monopolies and the ruling class.

You also know that this legislation is only the first step towards the complete subjugatior of the trade unions by the state. We have all seen the Tory Party election manifesto and have read the consistent campaign being built up by leading spokesmen of industry and big business, by Tories-and by Labour spokesmen like Ray Gunter.

As vicious as it is, we know that this first Bill has been presented cautiously by the Labour government because they themselves are working blindly and know the vast hatred these laws can unleash amongst workers.

The laws are the essential requirements of the British ruling class desperately striving to avoid the complete collapse of their economic system. They are also demanded by the international banks who have poured millions of pounds into the British economy during the last 17 months in a desperate attempt to stave off a collapse which would seriously damage the financial stability of the whole capitalist worsens CRAWFORD currency reserves to finance world trade.

In the acute crisis of last summer, now seen to be more severe than that of November 1964, the US banks and Treasury deliberately propped up the pound. Their reasons were far from philanthropic.

They know that in the present dificult position of the international monetary system the devaluation of sterling would make the situation of the dollar untenable.

As Peter Jeffries' article in the current issue of 'Fourth International' argues, the dominance of the dollar in international finance has enable US capital to find its way into the best fields for investment, especially in Europe.

INSIST ON GOLD

It is this which de Gaulle's policies are devised to fight. French insistence on gold as the only basis for an increase in world 'liquidity' is directed at the continuing encroahment of the dollar in Europe. It directly parallels present threats by de Gaulle to the North Atlantic Treaty.

The contradictions in world imperialism were sharply illustrated by last week's meeting of financial experts in Paris, the so-called 'Group of 10'.

Set up to find an agreed solution to the world's monetary problems, the Group could only report on the basic disagreements between France and the rest.

These difficulties make worse the international problems of US capitalism. The American boom shows signs of hitting the celling of industry under capitalism.

With unemployed registered at 'only' 4,000.000. there is a desworld.

If this is true then what are those of us who want to fight this legislation to do?

To answer this question it is necessary to see the introduction of these laws in their historical context, and in particular to study the experience of the working class and its fight to build the trade unions.

But first we should dispose of any illusions about making the trade union leaders or Labour 'lefts' lead a fight against them.

You and I know from our experience on the two lobbies of parliament that there isn't a single left wing MP who will fight against these laws. We also know from the experience of the last 17 months of the Labour government that even if some of them are shocked in some way to oppose the Bill, they will be totally incapable of leading any successful fight against it.

TUC support The Trade Union Congress leaders have voted to support the laws. This policy will now be dictated to every trade union the IUC, and trade union officials will be told to toe the line. In any case these leaders have known for over two years that this legisiation was the formulated policy of the Labour Party and yet they have remained silent.

Only Clive Jenkins, general secretary the Association Supervisory Staffs, Executives and Technicians, supported the March 1 lobby and has openly campaigned against the Bill.

When George Woodcock said to us in the House of Commons lobby: We (meaning the TUC)

wrote the Bill, he was probably speaking the truth.

These leaders either support the legislation, or are unwilling and totally incapable of fighting it.

There are other more important theoretical and historical reasons perate shortage of skilled labour. Together with the accelerating drain of the Vietnam war, this poses the danger of inflation.

The drop in Wall Street on March 7, the sharpest since Kennedys assassination, was caused by the fear of deflationary counter-measures. A rise two days later was abruptly cut short when the lending banks, led by Morgan's, raised interest rates on loans to big firms.

This situation is closely related to the international financial problems.

Last year, Johnson took urgent action cut the outflow of dollars, which was beginning to deplete the reserves. The present moves will involve. further measures to reduce foreign spending in dollars.

This is the international setting for the sterling crisis. At the Basle meeting of the • Bank for International Settlements this week, central bankers will make known their doubts about the British balance of payments position.

AGREEMENT

They will demand action from a new Labour government to attack wages and social services. Since Wilson and Brown are determined to 'defend the pound'.

that is, the world position of British capital, they will agree to these demands.

Already "The Economist' … a staunch supporter of Wilson's economic policies, is urging a rise in the Bank rate. Its March 12 article also calls for an exports subsidy, which it sees as a substitute for devaluation of the pound.

The question is now. whether things have not for stating that fact.

One of the biggest difficulties many of us in the trade unions face is the whole set of beliefs and ideas that the trade unions have a fixed stable place in society arising out of a natural evolution of British capitalism. These ideas have become deeply entrenched in the working class because of the relatively stable relations of the last 40 years, or certainly the last 20 years, which the trade unions have enjoyed.

No Laws Against Trade U by ( ether gue, century the working class fought heroically to build its unions under illegal conditions.

Workers engaged in continual massive strike struggles, and although they certainly gained some concessions, they were in the main defeated time atter time and their organisations were smashed.

In those early years the Combination Acts of 1799 and 1800 made it illegal for agreements to be made for advancing wages or altering hours or conditions of employment. In that period hundreds of working-class leaders were jailed, starved into submission at the end of strikes lasting many months, and thousands of workers deported to Australia and other British colonies to face long years of hard labour.

This was the period of the Philanthropic Hercules, Chartism, Robert Owen's Grand National Consolidated Union, Peterloo, Tolpuddle, the Builders' Parlia ment and the Engineers' Lock-out.

Reformist historians will say that the defeats that these tremendous movements suffered proved that the strike weapon was the wrong tool for change. To reinforce this argument they say that unites of the theirs model and spinners, the carpenters and builders crattsmen in the years following 1850 were successful because they were responsible opposed the strike weapon and opened the period of peaceful negotiations.

Repression In fact these unions themselves suffered vicious repression their early years and suftered many devastating lock-outs and defeats for all their conciliatory approaches.

No, these unions were successful only because large sections of the thar dating class began to realise an. te was more than one way of killing the cat. Funther, the period of colonisation, plunder and Empire building required a stable relation at home while the capitalists were left free to extract the enormous wealth of the colonies.

So they made an accommodation to these trade unions of the skilled craftsmen and the Trade Union Act of 1871 freed the unions from liabilities for restraint of trade and allowed trade unions register with the Registrar of Friendly Societies.

This period was itself marked by many sharp attacks on the trade unions and not until the general workers able to fight their 1890s was the mass of way out of poverty and establish their own trade unions.

The mass strike movements of the early years failed only because they were fought within the limited framework seeking changes within the existing relations capitalist and worker. They lacked the theoretical derstanding of the economic laws governing that society and cause they were not equipped or formed to take on the challenge presented to them by the state.

Only when Marx wrote his 'Communist Manifesto' in 1848 were the real historical lessons of their struggles assimilated and synthetised, but already defeats had taken place and the plunder of the colonies was under way.

Again in the early part of this century the Taff Vale case marked another turning point in the position of the trade unions.

But with the rise of the Labour Party and favourable economic conditions the ruling class again made an improvised adjustment and accommodated this new development under its wing. From this point the growth of the more refined collective bargaining machinery took place and emergent trade union and labour leaders were taken gently by the nose and trained to perform like pet seals.

The General Strike of 1926 marked the beginning of the phase of trade union history which conditioned the trade union movement as we know it.

with the leaders solidly based upon reformist ideas.

It is clear that we now face PAMPHLET à. Healy Price 3d. This should be read with A Socialist Policy For the Cr ice 3d.

for 8d. (including postage) from: 186a Clapham High Street,

It has been during these years that most of your activity, Tom, and that of many thousands of trade unionists, has taken place, and which methods governed by the procedures, tribunals, rules and regulations of trade union conduct and struggle have become almost a ritual.

The historians and trade union intellectuals have concluded during these years that the trade unions 'have found their rightful place in society', and have placed the system known as collective bargaining at 'the cornerstone of British democracy' A very brief glance at the history of the development of the trade unions will quickly explode these fallacious arguments, and show that the trade unions have in fact developed through very contradictory periods of turbulent, explosive and revolutionary struggles, and have experienced defeats followed by periods of slow recovery and retrenchment.

The relations between the trade unions and the employers and the state have fluctuated and changed many times.

The last period since 1926 has been only a temporary transitional period, albeit a relatively long one, in which the ruling class has made an accommodation to the trade unions for their own reasons and to suit their own ends. During these years, particularly since the last war, trade has been relatively stable and yond that stage.

Can the election period pass without a much stronger renewal Uspressure on sterling? Will the their previous rescue operations, at any rate without even more drastic measures against the working class than those at present contemplated?

The political implications of these questions cannot be overestimated. "The Times' leader of March 1l with its pompous calls for 'action', leads clearly to the possibility of a coalition government.

'STRONG LEADER'

Significantly, the letters to "The Times' in response to this call contained demands, not merely for a coalition, but for a 'strong leader, like de Gaulle' "The Times' was recently pointing out to Wilson the dangers of pressing the legal attack on the unions until unemployment has gone up. Now, this mouthpiece of the most experienced ruling class in the world prepares for the political changes which such an attack would mean.

worker, Breatest danger to the movement comes from a reluctance to face the realities of the present economic situation.

The politics of the boom years are dangerously irrelevant today.

Those trends the labour movement who think of British capitalism as eternally strong are unable to grasp the kind of struggles which are now in preparation.

A political leadership based on a Marxist analysis of the instability and contradictions of imperialism is a matter of life and death.

nions

The concluding article by MICHAEL BEST dealing with what he calls the bureaucratic mismanagement of the Soviet Union. March 1966 Soviet bureaucracy

Officials like Paynter, Berridge and ex-officials like Leo McGree are well known to you and many other trade unionists for carrying out the work of the right wing in strikes and wage struggles.

The next period is, therefore, one that raises sharply the question of a new leadership with revolutionary theory which poses the construction of a party capable of challenging the power of big capital, smashing the capitalist state, and establishing a socialist order of society.

In the fight now against the legislation, all actions will be required which pose the need for and prepare the construction of this leadership.

That is why you must support and attend the Morecambe conference of the Young Socialists on April 2 and 3.

That is why you must decide organise for the one-day national strike later in April and a mass lobby of parliament.

That is why you must seriously consider joining with the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists in building the new revolutionary party of the working class.

There is no future for trade unionism today without this political approach.

Perry. frequently go out of action. Some people have lost the feeling of responsibility.' And yet, the paper goes on to at many farms now have qualified cadres; say: 'The collective and state at many posts there stand communists. ••• so it is not for lack of qualified cadres or 'communists that people left agricultural machinery to rust! What other reasons?

Unwittingly, 'Pravda' reveals the real reason when it adds unctuously: 'The party cultivates in every Soviet man a feeling of being master of his own country, his own collective state farm.' So how come, despite all the 'cultivation' by the party, people behave as if they do not feel that they are masters in their own country or collective and state farm?

Could it be, by any chance, because they are not, and know The second example, this time from industry, also speaks volumes.

It appeared in Pravda' on November 24, 1965, in the form of a letter to the paper by M. Zubov, a locksmith at a Yaroslavl motor works. It discusses the very point that people do not feel that they are masters of their country or the industry they work in.

'We are still a long way from every one of us feeling in this way,' he states and relates how one day he saw two workmates loading some castings.

'I nearly fainted when I got to In Soviet agriculture too, implements and machinery have been allowed to rust awau.

know that they were supposed to be loading scrap.' • "What on earth are you fellows doing" I turned on them. "These are finished castings! How much of your comrades' labour went into them! • 'One of them looked embarrassed, "We did not know that they are good ones."

"The other quite calmly said, "It does not matter to us whether these casting are good ones or it.", scrap. So we are collecting not. We have been told to colThis is the sort of attitude which years of Stalinist 'cultivation' has achieved. The bureaucracy has lost the co-operation of the people and they will never regain it.

But there is yet another feature of the regime which will make it impossible to gain this co-operation. It cannot create the socialistdemocratic conditions under which alone the people would give of their best and planning would take place without the enormous losses of the past.

It is plain common sense that a vast plan covering an economy of the Soviet Union's size, over a period of five or seven years, must first be tested by the people

F Canada has been thrown IACED with inflation, into a deeper crisis by the uncovering of what is being labelled a 'sex and security' scandal. Liberal Prime Minister, Lester Pearson, has promised a full-scale inquiry.

It all began with Mr. Spenser, an obscure postal employee in Vancouver.

Last year he was sacked, deprived of all pension and other rights as a civil servant and placed under continuous police surveillance. At the same time two Soviet diplomats were asked to leave Canada.• The implication was that Spenser had supplied them with secrets of some kind in return for money for 'expenses'.

On the face of it the story was not a very likely one: what sort of valuable information was a post office clerk Jikely to have access to? And, if Spenser was a spy, why was he not tried and sentenced instead of being victimised without the opportunity to defend himself?

However, the government steadfastly refused to give much information on the case or to order a judicial inquiry—until last week when, under goading from the opposition parties, it suddenly changed its stance.

Spenser, who had formerly been an obscure and mysterious figure, appeared on TV and received a person-to-person phone call from no less a person than prime minister Lester Pearson. He was promised that a full inquiry would be made into the affair of which, up to that time, he was the centre.

As for the TV interview, that only displayed Spenser as a simple, honest and confused character who had beoome involved in the espionage machinery of two countries without intending to.

No master-spy Certainly he was no master-spy but a middle-aged victim of lung cancer waiting hospitalisation for a major operation and with a mother suffering from the same disease.

As a , left-winger, he had been active in the Soviet Friendship Society in Vancouver and had become interested in Soviet medical advances in the field of cancer research. It seems to have heen through this that he came into contact with embassy officials and with a naturalised Canadian citizen working as a doubleagent. A TORONTO CORRESPOND Evidently under legal advice, and in fear of incriminating himself, Spenser did not make clear whether he had in fact communicated any information to the Russians or had received money from them. At the least his activities could have admitted of an innocent explanation: a desperately sick man hoping that the Russians had a new treatment for his disease.

But the Spenser case has receded into the background. Under pressure from the opposition, Tustice Minister Cardin accused the Progressive Conservatives of themselves being lax on security when they had been in power. He alleged in the heat of debate that in 1961 a minister had been having an affair with an East German woman employed by a foreign embassy who had been regarded as security risk and was asked to leave the country.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police had obtained photographs showing the minister and the woman in compromising situations and these had been passed to the then prime minister, John Diefenbaker, great crusader against corruption in the last election.

The "beautiful spy • Olga Munzinger, is now believed to March have involved not one but two Conservative cabinet ministers during her diplomatic career in Ottawa. She was said to have since died of leukaemia in East Germany. (She has since been discovered in a West German night club, which she runs.)

With the opposition parties and the press hot on the scent, Pearson has not been able to resist the demand for another inquiry, this time into the Munzinger affair.

More to come?

Although the scent of corruption is never far from Canadian politics, the rumours and allegations have so far been exclusively concerned with the buying of political support and the peddling of influence.

Light has yet to be shed, for example, on the escape from a Canadian prison of the leader of narcotics smuggling ring, Lucien Rivard, later recaptured and sentenced to 20 years in the USA.

Rivard was known to be a big contributor to Liberal party funds.

The extensive arson-bankruptcy racket in Quebec is also said to have political implications. The latest incident in this connection was the discovery of the body of a lawyer, believed to have information, in the boot of his own car on a Montreal street.

Sex and security are new themes for scandal which are, in a puritan Canada having political difficulties with the USA, not at all welcome to the Pearson government. It is doubtful, on the basis of present revelations, whether this adds up to another Profumo affair.

If there had been a security leak at the time it seems doubtful whether it could have been bottled up for so long: and if it has been, why did the Liberal pany wait until now before dragging it out?

If anything the Munzinger affair serves as a useful distraction from the Spenser affair, which concerns the present government's handling both of from the major issiles of and dian politics which are coming into the open. Since the election the question economic and political domination by the USA has been debated more openly than ever before.

Moreover, as the boom continues inflationary pressures mount and so far the government has done virtually nothing about mentation of the letter of the law. Hence, the need to remove from the Soviet statute book any political or legal rights the workers might demand to be implemented.

This new need for legal safeguards, unknown under the Stalin dictatorship, is merely an expression of the political and economic 'logic' of the present ambiguous, ephemeral, transitional status of the bureaucracy which must be towards becoming a fully fledged bureaucracy has very the •te d on tanlcvie ecorone concessons But just as the bourgeoisie be ieves that to attain a successful coller reyo con the so one strinee ll e solee struggle vorkers for a socialist future wi need the help of the international working class help which is organised under the conscious Danner of Fourth International.

Soviet industry which has suffered under the management of the bureaucracy.

O Leeds on Saturday, March 12, in a demonstration against VER 100 workers and Young Socialists marched through anti-trade union legislation. The march was called by the Young Socialists and the shop stewards' committee of George Give one week for talks This demonstration, coming after several days of planned witch-hunting of the shop stewards at BMC Cowley, was a ch 19, 1966

another major change in the relations of the trade unions in society of an even greater significance than the situation that led to the 1926 General Strike.

It signals the end of collective bargaining and the right to strike. and consequently marks the end of the dominance of reformist ideas in the British labour movenow now introduce the legislation The Labour leaders, who against the unions empirically and blindly, knock away the • prop upon which they were built and have rested ever since.

For, if millions of workers have believed throughout this period in the ability to improve their conditions through peaceful gradual negotiations, then with these facilities removed they must turn to other forms of struggle than those they have been conditioned to believe in for so long.

Taken in their historical sense, what, in tact, have been the real gains of this long period of collective bargaining?

You know that despite the boom period and full employment the improvements in basic wages and conditions through national negotiation have been minimal compared with the claims and requirements of workers. Most of the real gains have been made by struggles at local and factory levels by workers, often against the trade union leaders.

This system of the rotten compromise has in fact held back the working class from the real gains which could and should have been made during the last 20 years.

These leaders of right and left vameties, conditioned to these 'suck it and see' manoeuvres and compromises cannot in the next leadership tor the working cass. period successful The Communist Party is also quite bankrupt. It has been trained and conditioned to accept all these procedures, arbitration tribunals and rules. For years its members have accepted and carried out the findings of these collective bargaining bodies, the York memoranda, and the Green book, which were forced on the working class after the defeat of the General Strike. functions as an unthinking machine is not the only reason why it must continue to mismanage. As I wrote last week, during the course of its existence, the bureaucracy has evolved as a privileged caste. It now has distinct interests to defend which are diametrically opposed to the interests of the workers.

It has therefore created a gulf between itself and the workers. The more 'Pravda' shouts about 'the great and inviolable unity of the party and the people', the surer one can be that this gulf is as wide as the Pacific Ocean. It is unbridgeable, as unbridgeable in fact, as the gulf between the workers and capitalists.

And because of it, the bureacracy is not only unable to organise labour on a scientific basis, but what is more important in a country that is officially trying to build a socialist order, it is incapable of stimulating the creative energy of the workers.

Lenin called this potential force 'the basic factor of the new society'. And this is what it is, a practical method of socialist production. It is the ability to utilise this force which, more even than planning, characterises an economy as socialist.

But the bureaucracy has lost authority to call upon the workers to give of their best. Two concrete examples will illustrate this.

NEGLIGENCE

In a leading article, dealing with the need for thrift in agriculture, 'Pravda' , June 23, 1965, related how 'there are frequent cases of a negligent attitude towards social property.

People treat fertilisers, feeding stock, seeds or technical equipment carelessly, it declared. Often, ... machines and other equipment are left lying about. They rust, become damaged and social class, with full, seçure and unambiguous property rights to ase insen leon How long this will take to the wo kes, in se miatin ias

who will be called upon to carry it out.

This is not just a desirable condition but vital to a plan. Only this checking and testing by the workers would make sure that genuine mistakes could be corrected in time.

in other words, the workers must have control over industry. This is what being a master isbeing in control over the things one is supposed to be master of, being able to speak and act freely. But this is the kind of freedom the bureaucracy cannot allow, for this very same freedom could then be used to remove them from their servant-staffed villas and chauffeur driven cars when most workers are only earning between 50 and 100 roubles month and yet have to pay 3 roubles for two pounds of butter the same for meat and cheese and about 200 roubles for a suit. Even eggs are the equivalent of ls each.

This is the background against which we must assess the new reforms that the 23rd Congress motive' will no doubt approve.

But what do they really amount to? In essence, they are a different form of awarding bonuses. In the past, these bonuses were awarded on the basis of 'gross output'. This not only produced the phenomenon of 'avral', * but production/ of sheer numbers.

If factories were •paid on the basis of gross tonnage, they got their extra bonus by producing heavier and heavier machines; clothes were produced all of one colour or size, since this was easier to turn out in greater numbers; taxis, empty of passengers, cruised the streets to fulfil and overfulfil the mileage target.

Faced with the terrible results of their 'management', after years of 'avral'; after seeing thousands of people let property rust or rot; faced with the, as yet, silent hostility of the younger, more educated, less gullible workers who have had no personal experience of the Stain terror and are thus in a much less accommodating mood than their fathers; remembering also Hungary and with Khrushchev's gimmicks a failure, the bureaucracy has Upon the "profit motive' as the formula that will bring salvation.

Immediately, the capitalist press on the one hand and the Chinese Stalinists on the other, each for their own motives, declares that the Soviet Union is returning to capitalism.

Of course, if we take the Russian Stalinists' claim that socialism had already been established in the Soviet Union at face value, then this sudden turn to the profit motive, this bourgeois step towards the restoration instrument, would indeed capitalism.

But the Soviet Union is still * A last quotas. in the transitional stage between capitalism and socialism.

Within its own frontiers, as the aid of its own resources, enormous as they are, it cannot establish socialism unless it can several advanced capitalist countries. This fact is even clearer today than it was when Stalin first put forward the idea.

Still being in the transitional state, the Soviet economy is compelled to use the 'bourgeois instrument of socialist progress' Trotsky material stimuli.

For the profits, as the concept is now applied, will merely indicate an achieved economy in producfor it will tion; it will not create capitalis of private capital.

The extra productivity this will no doubt produce will give the bureaucracy more room manoeuvre.

Better quality goods in greater quantities will appear, the standard of living of the workers may rise slightly, but we must bear in mind one basic fact: everything the bureaucracy does or aims to do is motivated only by its own caste interests.

It is interested in raising production because this will increase its own share of the wealth while at the same time enable it to pacify the discontented workers so as better to preserve its own rule. might become more "sophisticated', cannot change its basic nature. It cannot bring about those reformsworkers' control of industry and socialist democracy-which alone could prevent the terrible waste of the peoples' wealth which spring from its rule. Since the new reforms do not prove that the Soviet Union turning capitalist, does it follow that there is no danger of a capitalist restoration? Will the Soviet economy, even though it is still in the transitional stage, inevitably move towards socialism?

NO SOCIALISM Had the political regime in the Soviet Union been one of socialist democracy, the answer to the last question would be an unequivocal 'yes'. But the Soviet bureaucracy has not, and cannot now have real socialist aims.

As already stated, though it is not a class in the full sense the word, it has all the potentialities of a ruling class. In the present transitional stage, as far as the State property is concerned, the bureaucrats are like thieves who, while in possession of the stolen property, get all or most of the benefits as would legal owners, yet haven't got the security of legal owners. PossesSaw, but not the full tents of the sion may be nine At the moment, they may not be fully conscious of being a potential class, they are not organised as such, they have not, as yet, a coherent aim of beooming one.

They are split up into two basic groups. On the one hand. there are those whom the capitalist press calls 'liberals', that is those who are tolerant towards Western capitalism, but not to revolutionary Marxism. Their 'non-conformist' art is orientated towards bourgeois culture of the West.

Then there are the 'conservatives', who want things to remain as they are or were under Stalin. They are equally hostile toward Revolutionary Marxism, but more than the liberals' use Marxist phraseology and continue to venerate Lenin's embalmed body in Red Square, while flouting every revolutionary principle he stood for. Internationally, they are orientated towards the Stalinists of China.

In general, the factory managers belong to the 'liberals', while the party hacks belong to the 'conservatives'. The latter are the most parasitic, since their function is to supervise the direct supervisors the Soviet economy.

Every open or hidden controversy between the two wings of the bureaucracy in recent years, when stripped of all decorative and camouflaging phraseology, boils down to nothing more than how best to preserve their privileged status.

No doubt, if they could preserve these privileges without altering anything, as the 'conservatives' hope, the bureaucracy as a whole would be quite happy. Unfortunately for them, the new generation of workers will not aways be content to accept the favour of paying for a suit with two month's wages while watching their leaders' living it up.

There must, therefore reforms' time when only left for these 'leaders' would be to vanish. To this kind of reform' the bureaucracy is bound to raise more than academic objections. It will have to say: 'thus far, and no further.' In Stalin's time, the bureaucracy violated all the rules of 'Soviet legality'. But obviously they foresee a time when they will not be able to do so with impunity. The fact that they have now altered the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' as a description of the nature of the Soviet State, The State of The Whole People' shows that they are thinking of a new 'Soviet legality' for, as 'Pravda' December 5, 1964, has pointed out in conneotion with this change:

'The state, which earlier embodied the dictatorship of one class, becomes an organ of unity of all working people the leading position of the working class no longer requires political and legal safeguards.' (My emphasis.)

FRIGHTENED In other words, they are frightened that the more articulate working class of today might begin to demand the implewhich are beyond the scope o1 this article to describe.

One thing can be said at once, however.

The international bourgeoisie is opments Economist, January 23 optchins for signs of these devel 1965. in cussing the then impending Soviet 'reforms' and what they might achieve went on to say: funther, ether, What resits can pes ed pected? One resua West who viti not walcome (ae Kussians should get richer. prospeot of Communist countrie: growing richer. they look secensi t eo o possible social effects. nic reforms of this sort gather momentum, more kudos and munist countries are likely to go heretore more nower in the Com to men kbd use their brains look outward on the modern world. verture ei le tese o enenar al arowe caesonueraı Juence in th crusted existing order? Compare societies which not but of wealth CuCy mave une dusdavantage une the of the old order thanks to the unhappy legacy, have a West.: "luty eatic sis.) oi the What the 'Economist' is discus. sing here is the prospeot OI E counter-revolution. 'mana. fed da odder the orerl ords of che une risue Sitalinists die-hard (the "conservatives' standing for the status quo.

Note also thạt they do not liker them to a ruling class with Dro MURTS are not but trend in tha over of wellt?. counter-revolution take place?

'Looking back on our history Western optimists can fairlbreal lieve that a new class may tion towards greater affluence the Russian working man there have been great minds and prophets in the have wh ot any such peaceful transtormation This, in at least one sense. looks like a stage in the Cande la. geoisie Tisis do sect bellete hat tre bureaucracy (the "liberals', manaderal adventurers", can the Soviet Union inte pitalist state by peacef means Military dd trom outsid ripe. There given, be no , doubt have to when time that contingency plans for .SIC an event have already been pre.

anernanve ro ter-revolution? 'EPICUREAN' MOOD At the moment, the vast majority of the workers. vouns and niddie-aged are epicurean calle nde r as Khrushcaev gowasn com yari or munger for ine mot most ele mentary things food, clothes, shelter. beton to be able to refect manye first time they have oueued for Avant better and more things and, as already said, these new 'reforms' hold out some hope under chas not e shauste all h ree tor res reforms, the vast majority of workers will not embark on the revolutionary noad o' overthrowing the bureaucracy Th Surar guarantee that the workers where les in the fa tittle that the revolutionarv, as

engineering firm of Milispaugh Ltd. The management said that there was no case of victimisation but that there had been a slackening of orders.

Only three weeks ago (see shop steward Frank Levick was sacked allegedly for making a telephone call.

As we said at the time, the fight of the Millspaugh workers was considerably weakened by the decision of the AEU district committee to send the men back to negotiate Levick's re-instatement.

The action of the Millspaugh management shows Clearly their attitude to the organisations of the working class and the shop stewards' movement.

They will be strengthened by the government's Bill on Prices and Incomes. The Newsletter calls on the Millspaugh workers the anti-trade mpion legislationt Students back April 27 action On Monday, March 14, Sheffield University Labour Society voted unanimously to elect a delegation to the lobby of parliament to oppose legislation against the trade unions called for April 27 by the Lambeth Trades Council.

More Delegates The Crossgates Tenants' Association, Leeds, decided this week to send three delegates to the Morecambe Conference of the Young Socialists on April 2 and 3.

Atter the meeting the tollowing statement was issued:

6 That this committee recomAmends a suspension of the token days' stoppage for one week, in order to allow the unions and stevedores to negotiate on the fall back pay. The ban on nightwork and weekend working remains.

It is recognised that the local officers of the Transport and General Workers' Union have admitted that there is good reason for the dissatisfaction on Hull Docks with regard to piece work rates. The Hull port employers also recognise the need for review of piecework rates.

Owing to the vast number of commodity piece-work rates that need revising and the slow method of negotiation it is felt that the granting of the tall back rate would bring peace to dockland.

We, the dockers, realise that continued strike action is harmful to the nation, the port, the employers and ourselves, but recent events have demonstrated that the strength of our case alone was not enough, facts had to be supported by action until they were understood.

Let there now be speedy and sincere negotiations in order to keep the port working normally. 9 The dockers have insisted all along that they would resume work pending negotiations on piece rates if the employers would grant the 4s per working hour fall-back rate.

A minority of dockers voted against the suspension of the strikes because they felt that it was a mistake to do so without any tangible offer from the em'tipped off' were buzzing around Mr. Arthur Timering Union shop steward works about *M6 'Mr. X' the press.

But distortions Oxford Mail statements the quoted Mr. Bell, one that the tional press about threats, abuse and personally have been jeered way! ar. Charles Hopkins also tol e newspaper:

liner meeting and and they ployers. There are already clear signs that the employers are beginning to weaken and divisions are arising amongst them.

Mr. Tom Cronin, a national negotiating oflicer of the Transport and General Workers' Union, is in Hull at present and I understand that he met the Portworkers' Committee and asked for a two week's suspension of the strikes in order that he could get some concessions from the employers. The committee agreed, however, to only one week.

PROMISES

Hull dockers are aware that national officers of the Transport and General Workers' Union have been . to Hull before and have promised all kinds of gains in return for calling off their independent actions. Once the actions have ceased, the promised gains have rarely materialised.

There is no doubt that it is only the determination of the dockers over the past 10 weeks that has made the employers and the T&GWU leaders realise that some concessions are going to have to be made.

They will, however, try to get away with the smallest possible concessions, and some employers will definitely interpret the suspension as a sign of weakness on the part of the dockers.

The Newsletter feels that those dockers who opposed suspending the strikes were correct. The mass meeting, however, was adamant that they were in tact giving the employer only one chance and that if the 4s fall back was not granted by the end ot the week, not only would the one-day strikes be resumed, but stronger action would have to be considered.

attended by students who have been fined by the university authorities.

Mr. Reginald Paget, who was Labour MP for Northampton in the last government, also wrote to the Attorney General-with more examples of courts.

His letter quoted these three:

'1. The stewards of the Jockey Club and National Hunt Committee who habitually set up courts for the purpose (among other things) of maintaining a monopoly and enforcing restrictive practices, which pass sentences involving heavy fines.

'2. The Committee of the Stock Exchange, who_set up courts to enforce sex-discriminatory and monopolistic restrictive practices.

'3. The self-appointed counts known as "libraries' at Eton College, who enforce rules of their own making, often of tyrannical and frivolous descriptions by sentences of flogging which they themselves execute.' Put in place That puts many of those indignant MPS, who attended the famous public school, in their places.

And the press? Well, they didn't have to spend the newspaper proprietors' expenses by travelling to Oxford to find a workers' court.

They are sitting on one of the biggest and strictest courts which has been in operation almost since Caxton invented his first machine.

But to carry out their real task, of bolstering capitalism through a daily barrage of print and paper, it was very necessary: and still Is, tor them to find something on which Mr. Heath or Mr. Wilson can pin their anti-union legislation after March 31.

And so the Party leaders took their opportunity.

Harold Wilson waited for a television appearance before saying the 'workers' court' was 'utterly disgraceful'.

'But,' he added, , 'the Minister of Labour jumped in hard. I think Ministers should be prepared to go in and deal very roughly with those respon sible...?

The Right Honourable Minister, Ray Gunter, told a Transport House press conference on Monday:

"Trade unions were created at a period when they were hostile to society and society modern world it is. in this was hostile to necessary Manns (Engineering) Ltd., Leeds. Newsletter Correspondent

Asked why they had not joined the strike, many of the eight said the action was unconstitutional. It was pointed out that they had all joined similar action on a previous occasion.

Someone from the floor then suggested that a day's pay • be taken off the men-which they would have lost anyway if they had joined the strike-and it was agreed they pay f3. All the men said they would pay.

It was agreed that Transport and General Workers' shop steward, Mick Barlow, would collect these 'fines'-intended, says the shop stewards' statement, for charity. Later all the men refused to pay.

The workers were tremendously angry, but the shop stewards said they could not force the eight men to pay. On Wednesday, March 9, the men agreed the eight did not have to pay.

By that time though, the bees from Fleet Street had been Registered at the G.P.O. as a newspaper Published hy The Newsietter, 5. W.4 Street.

age.

know me.

rude word, everyone I I am not little of the (March 10), Hogg what workers did the of Glasgow Uni university court—an appeal court

IT was declared on Wednesday (March 9) that Il men, including Jim Ashurst the convenor, and two shop stewards, were redundant at the Sheffield By JACK GALE timely reminder that those who wish to attack the unions will meet determined opposition, and that the Young Socialists and the Socialist Labour League are in the forefront of that opposition.

Perhaps it was the virulence of the current attack that convinced some 'lefts' from the Leeds Trades Council and the tiny handful of Pabloites in the Leeds University Labour Society that it would be more discreet to stay away.

The Communist Party-with the honourable exception of a few YCL members-also had a fit of bashtulness, although it is questionable now whether the Communist Party exists at all in Leeds as an aotive organisation.

DISCIPLINE

After the march the demonstrators heard Cliff Slaughter, Central Committee member of the Socialist Labour League, declare that the stewards at BMC had every right to enforce working class discipline in their factory.

'Those who refuse to take part in class actions never refuse the gains that come from them, he pointed out.

All the gains of the working •is moving more and more to the right.

In a very long speech, which could have been a carbon copy of one of Wilson's lectures on technology, this one-time left' and Aldermaston marcher described the Aldermaston atomic weapons centre as a 'centre of excellence.

Abandoned struggle

vate enterprise he asked himself. 'Frankly yes,' came the glib answer.

His speech was a clear statement that he, like Wilson, Brown, Callaghan and company, has abandoned the struggle of the working class for socialism in order to make capitalism work more efficiently.

He avoided mentioning the anti-trade union laws, which capitalism demands.

It was left to Young Socialists to raise this crucial issue.

Cousins refused to commit himselt on this, on the grounds of 'collective Cabinet responsibility, class came from the strength of their organisations. Workers had to detend these organisations. The union leaders should carrying out inquiries into those people who acted against the majority of their workmates and attacked their organisations, not into the shop stewards who fought for workers' rights.

Slaughter explained the dangerous political implications in the proposals to legislate against workers' organisations and in the hysteria that was being deliberately worked up over the Cowley incident.

The appeal to the 'small man' against the strength of the working class was similar campaigns of the fascists in Italy and Germany before they came to power. ;He urged all present to support the Lobby of Parliament called for April 27.

Jean Kerrigan, for the Young Socialists, urged all trade unionists attend the sixth annual conference of Young Socialists at Morecambe on April 2 and 3. She explained that there would be a session devoted to the campaign against anti-union legislation and that trades unions and other workers' organisations were invited send fraternal delegates to take part in this discussion.

John Walls, convenor of shop stewards at George Manns' Engineering, Leeds, said that engineers throughout the country earned more than the rate negotiated at national level by the unions. This was due to their factory organisation.

WELL RECEIVED

Attacks like those on the BMC stewards and the proposed legislation aimed at smashing these organisations in order to drive down the wages and conditions of the workers.

The meeting gave an enthusiastic reception to two members of the Unofficial Portworkers' Committee from Hull.

Although unable to take part in demonstration, these dockers explained to the meeting the conditions under which Hull men have to work and the reason for their present actions.

There was no doubt of the cent support the dockers from both the older trade unionists and the Young Socialists present.

There is a clear connection between the struggles of workers like the Hull dockers and the desire of the employers and the Tory and Labour leaders to have laws to use against them.

As one of the dockers said:

we'll be back in the days the barons. We'll have to join Robin Hood then, because that will be the only way to get a living?

Speakers from the floor included: a shop steward from Shardlow's, Sheffield; the secretary of the Crossgates Tenants' Association, Leeds; an Indian foundry worker from Bradford; and a building worker from Hull.

° THE NOOSE TRIAL' HOAX 0 have been locked out of VER 120 Cardiff fitters the City's dry docks following an overtime ban in support of their wage claim.

The AEU has been negotiating on fitters' wages for nine months, and for the past fortnight the men have been operating an 'unofficial' overtime ban.

Present wages work out at 7s an hour. The men want comparable rates to fitters in other industries, but refuse to accept the employers' offer of 8s 6d an hour because of strings attached —which are reported to include changes in shift-working and the notorious 'mobility of labour' principle.

NOTICES

Last Friday afternoon, March 1l, the fitters found notices of instant dismissal in their pay packets.

'We didn't get a moment's notice. We weren't even given time to get our personal effects off this yard, one fitter claimed.

The lock-out affects 120 men at the Mountstuart, Dry Dock, Mountstuart's Channel Dry Dock and C. H. Bailey's Junction Dry Dock. •One full-time AEU official put the blame for the lock-out on the men. He described their ban on overtime as the work of an 'irresponsible group'.

On Monday the management said they would take the men back if they dropped the overts look at the place, function, • powers rights they ought have.' In fact his last remark explains just why the majority of trade unionists in Britain today are still hostile to society. They recognise the real meaning of the government's Royal Commission on the unions, and the preparation for anti-union legislation in the form of the Prices and Incomes Bill. Ihe action at Cowler is just one aspect of the stead fast defence being set up now by unionists against the attack • by the capitalists and their agents in the Labour movement.

Mr. Heath quibbled about the Labour government's Trades DisAct which, said, created an atmosphere where intimidation and 'kangaroo justice' was encouraged. He agreed that it was not the union leaders who were doing the intimidating, and later said he hoped disciplinary action would be taken by the union leaders.

The Liberal Party, of course reproduced the letter of BMC worker Mr. John Fraser about his £30 a week for 40 hours. This was shot down in flames by the BMC management on facts alone. It became a mere side issue.

In Saturday's 'Daily Worker', Mr. Frank Stanley, Communist Party chairman, and prospective candidate for Hayes and Harlington, was quoted as saying:

Whatever may have been done by some trade unionists at that particular factory cannot be allowed to obscure the highly responsible functions of thousands of trade unionists and their organisations in defending the interests of millions of working people every single day.' He followed this by a rather ibiguous statement:

'We believe that the workers in any factory have the right to dissent from the action of democratic decisions ate the minority who violate majority.' What he in fact says is that the wages at Cowley were de. fended by irresponsible action! Motors statement by the Morris joint shop stewards' committee takes up many of' the points of the 'trial' as outlined by our reporter.

It also adds that:

would appear that the press is trying to make a scapegoat out of Mr. John Power [an AEU shop steward in Q block] over certain • wage structures tiated , alleged to have negoMr. Power, who, it has been alleged, led the flotitious 'M6 DRRESPONDENT time ban. Officials claimed this as a success, but in fact the employers had not moved an inch from their original position.

At a mass meeting on Monday agreed to wait the results of talks before deciding on further action.

to scuss wage claim ON Thursday (March 10), the "Daily Mirror' a call for Frank Cousins removal from the Cabinet. This was part of the anti-trade union witch-hunt by the press designed to force the Labour leaders further to the right.

The same evening, when questioned by Young Socialists at a meeting in Cardiff, Cousins made it clear that he too Cabinet' and instigated the 'noose trial' said on Tuesday:

'The men making these allegations have brought disgrace on themselves and on the trade union movement. I have tried to keep my dignity been said the things that have to my wife, who is having a baby in two weeks, have caused us distress.' Of the noose trial' meeting shop stewards' statement ys:

'The meeting was told quite plainly by Mr. Ashmore (AEU senior shop steward), Mr. Fryer and Mr. Power that no possible action could be taken against these men through the official machinery.

'The members demanded that the eight men should present to give their reasons for not supporting their colleagues. The men attended the meeting and said they were in opposition to unofficial action.

It is significant to note that at no time during the meeting did Mr. Barlow (the shop steward who has since complained about the court) raise any objection whatever.

It is also a fact that in any unofficial action that has taken place, Mr. Barlow not only has raised no objection, but on the contrary, has taken an active and leading part.' True facts It is also hoped that the investigation teams set up by the unions involved will also present facts-soon after the oourt local AEU officials sent report to head office backing their stewards.

As John Crawford's article on page two points out, has only sterling been stabilised from she Us and intern international bankers. In return for this bolster at the beginning of Wilson's 17-month reign, promises had to given on the question of the unions and working class.

Wilson right-wing Cabinet has attempted to carry out these promises, and on every single issue attacked working and living standards and conditions of the working class,

from pensions and housing at home to Aden and Vietnam abroad. The latest move-to tie the unions, i and therefore any wage claim, directly to the state -verges on the brink of corporate statism.

The Newsletter therefore fully supports the Cowley workers and the action they took in defending their wages. This just one encouraging move-which scared the Tories and their Labour friends so much—in the struggle against betrayals of the Labour leaders on anti-union legislation. security and stability of the government administration'.

The capitalist and middle classes of Jakarta turned out masse to show their appreciation to the military strong-man who staged a vast military parade to intimidate all prospective opponents. The soldiers shouted in unison: 'Hang Subandrio'.

CURTAIN FALLS

After five months of manoeuvring, negotiation, terror, intrigue

but he declared that he agreed with the incomes policy 'because it will benefit the lower-paid worker.

Answer refused

When another Young Socialist asked him whether, in that case, he supported Brown's action in referring the busmen's 6.6 per cent wage rise to the Prices and Incomes Board, he refused to answer. (The busmen are members of his Transport and General Workers' Union.)

The chairman and speakers returned again and again to the attack on the Young Socialists.

One of them said he was 'proud of the way Frank handled the young questioners'.

The youth were accused of helping the Tories.

However, these repeated attacks raised little response from the audience, many of whom were uneasy about the government's right-wing policies.

SUKARNO

Communist

Committee held a demonstration in Leeds recently. This silent crowd marched through the city with one or two slogans-asking for God to intervene.

The only people who posed any class demands were the Young Socialists. They continuously shouted slogans of victory to the Vietnamese workers and peasants and against the US ruling class.

Stewards-supporters of the Communist Party-attempted to force the Young Socialists' banners off the demonstration, and threatened to call police.

and forgery, the curtain has finally been rung down on Sukarno.

As we remarked in_ Ootober, the capitalist class of Indonesia has no more use for the guided democracy of Sukarno.

Sukarnoism is played out.

Only the naked military dictatorship of the ruling class will solve their problems.

The tragic paradox of all this is that the dictatorship is based almost entirely on weapons supplied by the Soviet Union.

The 500,000 corpses of Indonesian workers and peasants are a mute and bloody indictment of the counter-revolutionary foreign policy of the Soviet bureaucracy.