The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 437

TE real nature of the milinesia is beginning to show its face—on Tuesday it was reported that General Suharto's Cabinet is seeking financial aid from the west.

Unlike Sukarno, who has finally retired from his precarious balancing act between the Communist countries and imperialism, the reactionary generals, who have taken over an almost bankrupt country, have made approaches to the Japanese ment reassembles. and other embassies.

They realise that the weak economy can easily nurture discontent in the country and strengthen what is left of the Communist underground after the fantastic massacres of the past six months.

unions.

Already there has been talk of a massive deal with a large Dutch petroleum firm. Long-lost Brother Brown THIS IS WHAT you get when a Labour government attempts to bring in laws against the unions. Every boss in the country gets more confident.

To hear some managements talk you'd think George Brown was their long-lost brother' This was how a shop steward the at a BMC factory in Birming- and bankers first.

ham described the situation at Tractors and Transmissions, Washwood Heath, where an unofficial strike of 32 workers making suspension units resulted in the laying off of some thousands of workers at Longbridge and Cowley.

The dispute is about the pay- same.

ment of 6d, as against Sa, per axle. This involves 1d per axle at approximately 45 per hou between 32 men. 'And for this' the shop steward alleged, *an issue involving a few shillings would solve their problems.

extra a week, the management is prepared to dig in'.

Commenting on an incident last Friday in which several thousand workers at Tractor and Transmissions walked out an hour before finishing time and held a meeting in a nearby park to protest against the alleged holding of a worker for questioning for over an hour by security officials, the shop steward said: working class.

'After the hysterical press attacks against the Cowley stewards, workers know they is elected, many workers commust be prepared to put up a fight against all such incidents' Students seize radio class. stations A MILITANT movement is ing in the experiences of the developing amongst students in South Vietnam against to vote a majority Labour Ky's regime, and U.S. policy in government to power. the country.

Thousands of the youth seized radio stations in • the important towns of Hue and for socialist policies. This is the only way • to expose Da Nang on Wednesday and broadcast anti-U.S., anti-Ky Labour's right-wing traitors. programmes.

Earlier over 10,000 students had demonstrated in Hue. A over many years a Labour similar number marched in Da Nang, 55 miles away.

There was no resistance to the students at the radio make these organisations work and expose the right-wing stations, but troops have been fully alerted. traitors by doing so. discern the differences between them. Even the issue of steel nationalization, which, in the 1964 Election, was whipped up into a major difference by the Tories, now seems to be forgotten. The steelmasters who plastered the hoardings all over the country with anti-nationalization posters appear to have gone strangely quiet. Is it because they accept the generous compensation terms of the Labour government as being, perhaps, a sound business deal?

But it would be a grave mistake for the rank-and-file Labour voter to draw the conclusion that there are no serious issues involved in the election. The economic crisis goes from bad to worse. Wilson plans to round off Labour's right-wing election campaign with a series of 'get tough' speeches in which he will call for an early passage through parliament, if Labour gets a majority, of the anti-trade-union legislation. He will also attempt to justify, without committing himself as to details, a harsh budget immediately parliaWhichever party, Tory or Labour, wins the have the international bankers breathing down its neck immediately it is over.

These 'faceless men' are demanding action against the working class and the trade This explains why Wilson, Callaghan, Gunter, Grimond, Heath and Hogg, without bothering to check their facts, accepted Hook, line...

at the outset of the Election, the scurrilous lies about the so-called Cowley 'noose trial'.

They are so busy listening into their 'Master's Voice' in New York and Zurich that nothing else seems to matter. So if the millionaire press lords have a go at ...and sinker decent trade unionists and shop stewards, they tall for it hook, line and sinker, because it is the language the international bankers like to hear.

Any government formed by either Labour's right wing or Tory Heath will place the interests of the monopolists Experience for working class However, this does not at all mean that the experiences which the working class will derive from them will be the A Tory government would act as the direct representative of the capitalist class, leaving Labour's supporters still with the illusion that somehow or other a Labour government The Election of a majority Labour government would, within a short space of time, expose the pro-capitalist role of Wilson and company to their supporters, thus opening the door to the building of an alternative revolutionary leadership, and a more all-out direct struggle against the Tories.

Moreover, if the Tories were elected, big business would be greatly strengthened in its preparations to attack the AEU INQUIRY CONFIRMS PREVIOUS REPORTS On the other hand, if Labour Cowley 'trial' - gross exaggeration paratively new to politics would regard it as their victory and proceed to press home their demands for more militant action. This would result in a speed-up of the HE three-man investigaradicalisation of the working tion team set up by the Amalgamated Engineering That is why the Socialist Union following the so-called Labour League and The News- 'noose trial' at BMC's Cowley letter is for actively participat- plant has found that the press 'grossly exaggerated' the inciworking class by calling on it dent.

Their report, along with that of a Transport and General Workers' Union inquiry, which First elect a Labour govern- also spoke of 'gross distortions', ment and then get ready to is being considered by Minister deal with Wilson by fighting of Labour, Ray Gunter. He will then decide whether or not to set up an independent inquiry on the lines of those conducted The labour movement did by the motor industry's 'troubleshooter, Jack Scamp. lot build up through struggle The AEU report, based on interviews with local officials, shop Party and trade unions to be stewards and rank-and-file memplayed around with by Wilson. bers confirmed the findings of Let us fight together to the T&GWU report and those of La Newsletter reporter.

At the meeting of workers— called with the management's permission after a one-day token

SCOW

MAY LAY OFF 2,000 BIG struggles are expected following the announcement by the Steel Company of Wales of a £38} million development plan which could cost 2,000 men their jobs.

The plan would increase productivity by 25 per cent. This involves the installation of new plant, but it must almost certainly mean a tremendous speed up.

The significance of the 1964 struggle by craftsmen for higher wages-and the extraordinary resistance by the managementis clearer now.

Union organisation and unity in this struggle were extremely strong and the management saw this as a great obstacle to their future plans.

The 13 unions in the vast steel works must prepare again to defend their 16,500 members from the employer's onslaught.

This fight for a livelihood must now be linked with a demand that with Labour's victory at the polls must come the nationalization of the whole steel industry without compensation and with workers' control so that the automation proposed can be implemented to the benefit of all employees. strike-there was a considerable amount of shouting and frivolous and jocular remarks were made. Even so, the workers insisted that the eight men who had worked on the day of the strike appear on the platform, a loading ramp.

Evidence showed that there had been a piece of rope on this platform before the meeting, but it was not used to intimidate the men.

'Clowning'

In fact one of the eight had done some 'clowning' with the rope.

Shop stewards of both unions involved had stressed on the workers that no official action could be taken against the eight 'offenders', but the meeting would not accept that.

After a discussion

Union

support THE Washwood Heath Amalgamated Engineering Union branch held last Friday elected two delegates to represent them at the Morecambe Young Socialists' Conference, and also agreed to send two delegates to the April 27 lobby of parliament against anti-union legislation.

The resolution to support both these events was carried unanimously after members heard a Young. Socialist speaker and then discussed the whole situation today.

The branch is composed mainly of motor workers from the Tractor and Transmission factory.

Shepherds Bush branch of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers has voted unanimously to support the Young Socialists' Conference by sending one delegate at the branch's expense. One observer has also agreed to attend.

This branch also sent three delegates to the Lambeth Trades Council lobby of parliament on January 26 of this year, and, together with the Hammersmith branch of the roung Socialists, playa. a leading part in the fight against anti-trade union legislation in the West London area.

Shepherds Bush Amalgamated Society of Painters and Decorators also agreed last week to support the conference and send at least one delegate.

This branch like the ASW have given full support to the Lambeth Trades Council lobby.

Members have also submitted to the ASPD bi-annual conference a resolution calling for the lifting of the ban on Lambeth Trades Council. Af its last meeting, after listening talk by member the Young Socialists, this same branch asked for a regular order of 15 Newsletters per week, and also to be kept informed of all Young Socialist activities in the area.

Delegates will also be attending from the Water Haigh NUM branch, the Crossgates Tenants' Association, and the Faith Street Tenants, all near Leeds.

The Crawley Clerical and Administrative Workers' Union has agreed the Young Socialist po and send a delegate.

It is clear from the tremendous support given by such trade union branches as these that older workers are only too willing to follow the lead given by the Young Socialists, and at same time are able assist in the development of the youth movement through their greater experience in the workers' movement. agreed that the men pay the equivalent of a day's wage to a charity.

The report states that the stewards then had a choice of accepting this or a refusal of the men to work with the eight.

The inquiry team pointed out that only two of their members had made criticism of what had happened at the meeting. One had refused to give evidence and the other was in hospital.

Evidence showed though, that the meeting was held in a reasonably orderly fashion and was no different from other meetings held in the past.

On the press reaction to the incident the report says:

We are completely satisfied that the press reports in respect of this particular aspect [the noose and intimidation], were exaggerated and completely unjustified.

Commenting on the possibility of an independent inquiry on Tuesday, Sir William Carron, president of the AEU, said it would be a waste of public money.

Inquire into Press

Certainly Mr. Gunter should not decide on an inquiry into the Cowley affair, but into the actions of certain sections of the press.

But it is more likely that he and his colleagues will, when returned to parliament, use the Cowley incident and indignation and fear expressed by reactionary sections to argue even more strongly for legislation against the unions in the form of a Prices and Incomes Bill.

This would prevent the action which Cowley workers were taking before the 'noose trial' meeting—a strike to defend their hard-won wage increases.

By The Editor 'HE Election, which began with a ferocious Fleet against the trade unions, is now drawing to a close which can best be described as a whimper. Neither the candidates have got anything new to say.

In so far as they talk vaguely about their policies, it is almost impossible to Street witch-hunt in an atmosphere Labour nor Tory

Campaign against anti-union Bill high on the Agenda YOUNG SOCIALISTS will hold their 6th Annual Conference at Morecambe on April 2 and 3 this year, against a background of the most crucial struggles facing the future of the labour and trade union movement.

On the second day after the General Election, young workers, apprentices, students, school leavers, and other youth, will meet to discuss their broadsheet for 1965 and what they propose to do in 1966.

Without a doubt the Young Socialists can be justly proud of their record in 1965. The past year has been one of hard campaigning and demonstrating under a Labour government which has viciously attacked the working class.

Following the expulsions and witch-hunts of the bureaucrats of Transport House, the majority of the National Committee of the Young Socialists called the 5th Annual Conference of the Young Socialists last year on February 27 and 28.

From that time onwards this socialist youth movement has campaigned on every issue concerning the working class.

Just how wrong those fake lefts who remained cringing within the corners of the constituency Labour Parties were has been proved over and over again.

Young Socialists swung into 1966 at a cracking pace, in many areas leading the campaign for the January 26 lobby of Parlia'The and The Cemetery 7.30 p.m.

Speaker:

secretar ment against anti-trade union legislation.

Today the Young Socialists is a lively expanding movement. It does not just verbally challenge the Wilson government on its subservience to the bankers and monopolists, it has actively mobilised adult workers and youth against them.

This year's conference promises to be the most decisive one yet for the Young Socialists with over 140 resolutions on the preliminary agenda, and a special statement 'Socialism and Youth' issued by the Young Socialists National Committee, both for consideration and discussion by the delegates.

Substantial support has been forthcoming from trade union branches up and down the country—many have promised to send delegations.

There will be a special section of the conference devoted to plans for continuing the campaign against anti-trade union legislation.

The Young Socialists are inviting all youth and adult trade unionists to attend the conference and decide on a socialist programme.

For further details write to D. Ashby, 9 Chistnut Avenuc, Leeds 6.

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

ROBERT BLACK writes on: Page WSLETTER arch 26, 1966

made clear, the old relationship 1 between the trade unions and the Labour Party, brought about by a political radicalisation of the working class through the events surrounding the latt Vaie case, Is now being undermined by the demands that a crisis - ridden British capitalism puts upon its representauves in the labour movement.

From this historica understanding of tne background to anu-union legisiauon musi How lne poliucal suralegy that Will enaole ine working class to Dreak decisively win reformism wilour running into ine ouna aley of synuicausin. "There can be no aoubt that a furiner term oI Omce IOr Lavour wi! nep to oreak many more worners tom musions in te curuyatea so assimousty ior ovei OU years in te working class, arst Dy tae mace-ciass radiais, tnen tue Labourites, ana now Dy Lon rarty sunce 194).

Bonds broken State action by tne wuson goveriment against ine omical and inolcial Doaies of the working ciass in the torm of inquiries wath the powers to compel attenaance, fines and imprisonments, will assist in the Dreaking oI the bonds that te many secuons of the working ciass to tne institutions and tninking of retormism.

But the development of a leadership that can take the working class through the experience of the tight against the Labour government, through to a break with reformism and beyond to the taking of power, me manical process at Li meonanical process that come about simpiy through the 'exposure' of the Wilson government.

We know from the past history of the international workers' movement that the crisis of and open betrayal by reformist leaderships does not lead inevitably to the growth of a revolutossy alternatine Often Pithe past, disillusionment with the politics of reformism has led to anti-political, syndicalist trends emerging in the working " class, trends that can rapidly grow ano feed on the betrayals of past leaderships if Marxists are unable to intervene in the crisis of reformism in such a way as to win mass support. Syndicalism grew up in the pre-1914 period as a reaction by the working class against the corrupt reformist politics practised by their parliamentary representatives. This process of corruption reached a very advanced stage in France where Millerand aocepted a post in a capitalist Cabinet as early as 1899.

Eleven years later Briand, another 'socialist' broke national rail strike by conscripting all railwaymen into the army and placing them under military discipline. Further impetus to the split between the unions and the socialist movement in France was given by Millerand's decision in 1901 (one year after the Taft Vale judgement) to • make unions legal persons able to sue and be sued in a court of law.

Fertile soil

The open turn by many socialist parliamentarians against the trade unions provided fertile soil for the ideas of revolutionary syndicalism.

Its leading ideologists, Herve anise premise certail politie were corrupt, developed a cult of violence, blind action and spontaneity that was to reach its highest point in the general strike and the ensuing collapse of the capitalist order. Its rejection of a science of the class struggle was dressed up as shallow anti-intellectualism, while the Marxist theory of the vanguard party deeply rooted in the struggles of the workers was rejected for a self-erected elite, which, by acts of heroism and violence, was to galvanise the whole of the class into action.

For a period of time, syndiREAD THE No Laws Against Trade Unions They ethel The S gue, calist theories could appear quite left in relation to the openiy opportunist policies of the reformist wings of French and Italian socialism. The true nature of syndicalism became clear only during the First World War, when leading syndicalists such as Hervé swung night round overnight and pledged full support to the cruitment dripes of toeir respective capitalist governments.

It was no coincidence that many of the syndicalist theorists found their cult of violence best exemplified in the mass slaughter of the First World War, and that after that war, the same syndicalists ended up in the various fascist, groupings that mushPrice 30 be read with A Socialist Policy For the Crisis ice 3d.

for 8d. (including postage) from : 186a Clapham High Street, S.W.4 the publication of factory newssheets, brought for the Communist Party on the eve of the General Strike an influence out of all proportion to its 6,000 members.

It was here that the development of Stalinism-the turn away from the programme of world revolution towards the reactionary utopia of socialism one country-took its tragic toll of the communist movement in Britain.

Fearing renewed imperialist intervention in the Soviet Union, the Soviet trade union organisation, headed by Tomsky, concluded an agreement with the General Council of the British Trade Union Congress that in the event of war between Britain and

The Newsletter have noomed up in response to the international threat of the Russian Revolution.

Because the syndicalist movement based itself on the capture of power by the trade unions, it became an easy prey for the fascist demagogy of 'national' syndicalism and the corporate state. The integration of the remnants of the Italian trade unions into the fascist state was dressed up by many ex-syndicalists as the capturing of power by the working class through its trade unions, and the phoney (factory committees set up by the corporations as workers' control of production.

Lenn sensed the dangers implicit in syndicalism for the working class, while at the same time seeing ut necessary to be very patient with sections of workers who adopted a syndicalist outlook, through their healthy rejection of the reformist politics of the Second International.

In Left-Wing Communism' and the USSR, the British trade unions would use their maximum pressure to force the government to conclude peace terms with the Soviet government.

The rapid swing to the right by the Communist International in the fight against Trotsky and his supporters during 1925 converted legitimate defensive measure by the Soviet government into a cloak for a betrayal by the General Council of the General Strike in the May of 1926. accumulated experiences of political betrayal by MacDonald, Attlee, Gaitskell and now Wilson, and the inability of either the pre-war Independent Labour Party or the Bevanite left to develop any viable alternative to reformism, together with the treachery of the Stalinists throughout this entire period, has created the basis for a possible turn away from all forms of political action when the unions, are attacked by the state.

Such attacks upon the most basic organisations of the working class—its trade union and factory committees-by Labour government through its use of state power must therefore be answered in the same coin.

Reformism, now unable even to tolerate the detensive organisations upon which it gained its nourishment, can only be exposed for what it is if the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists fight for a programme of demands leading to the taking of political power by the working class.

Not inevitable The decay of social democracy and Stalinism on a world scale will not lead inevitably to the victory of the working class. In 1926, social democracy betrayed, as it did again in 1931. Yet, because of the pernicious and false theories of Stalinism and the opportunism and sectarianism of the British Communist Party, the working class was unable to advance beyond reformism.

Even more, tragic were the events in Germany leading up to the victory of fascism, where both Stalinist and social-democratic wings of the labour movement came together from left and right to hand over the German THE •NOOSE TRIAL' HOAX lished The Newsletter with the headline 'The "Noose Trial" Hoax', the magazine of big business and Toryism, "The Economist', confirmed the findings of our articlethat the Cowley incident was being used to mandate the next government on the question of anti-trade union legislation.

'The Economist' in an article "What freedom, whose justice?' says quite bluntly:

'If Labour is to deserve the majority which the country now seems likely to give it, it is a fair point that Labour ministers should, like the Conservatives, now promise specifically to hurry legisiative action along. (Our emphasis.)

After throwing in several phrases such as it is alleged', and 'it is said' the article openly vents its spleen on the BMC workers:

'ENCOURAGED ' 'On the surface these courts are merely outbreaks of the sort of mob tyranny and bullying that middle-class English people will remember (or prefer to fordays, from their boarding-school This 'mob tyranny and bullying' is encouraged says "The Economist' by Labour's Trades Disputes Act of last year (this safeguards union officials from such court cases as Rookes v. Barnard and Stratford v. Lindley).

This Act, it adds for good measure, was perhaps "the single wholly bad one of the outgoing parliament'.

Perhaps the writer is recalling the strengthening of the Immigration Act and similar wholly good legislation passed in Wilson's 500 days.

The Tory policy of registrars of union rules and industrial though it throws in a warning that:

'The Tories would do well, however, to make it quite plain that the fault often lies not merely with trade unionists, but also with management.' The article continues that all union men will either close their eyes, give a nod or a wink to protect fellow unionists-on the basis this argument "The Economist' claims that the Transport and General Workers' Union and Amalgamated Engineering Union investigations working class to the tender cares of the storm troopers and the Gestapo.

It was from these historic defeats of the working class that Trotsky drew the reluctant conclusion that the Third International, as a fighting body of the working class, was as dead as the international that proceeded it.

The Fourth International was founded in 1938 in order to rid the working class of the twin diseases of Stalinism and social-democracy, a task that could not under any • circumstances be entrusted to fascism.

Nothing has occurred to refute in any way Trotsky's analysis.

In the fight against legislation, and in their own lobby on March 1, the British Communist Party leadership demands of their rank and file: that they keep politics out of such actions; that they smooth over differences with the "left' MPs and trade union bureaucrats; that they hide their policies in tenants' committees and in campaigns against the American war in Vietnam.

As in 1926, but now on a far more conscious and treacherous level, the role of the Stalinists is to prevent any political clarification on the type of fight that needs to be waged inside the trade unions in order to break the grip of the right wing.

Precisely now, when every question of wages and conditions brings workers face to face with state power and all its mass Ionisky negotiated with British TUC over i'ar. Sudden silence in Fleet Street Although "The Economist takes the chance to advise on legislation into the 'noose trial' are invalid.

'So the real charge against the unions, it says, is not that they [the unions] are wicked, but that they are inadequate to the task before them,' and 'they are not an effective instrument for bringing to birth an incomes policy.' Then there is that Royal Commission, of course. That is dragging on.

Hurry: that is the word. Hurry to stop this mob tyranny anton along. Hurry legislative The argument of the article is old hat by now.

It just uses the Cowley incident-after, on its own admis sion, having received the widest publicity—to reiterate the line of the Tories, and remind Wilson of his obligations to the international bankers still waiting for repayments on loans they made in November 1964. A legalised wage freeze would help to pay these debts and save the pound from devaluatior.

BACKS LABOUR

"The Economist', as in 1964, is still backing right-wing Labour in the election stakes, realising that only such a government can bring off legislation against the unions. At the same time it suggests strongly that really, the Tory idea for dealing with the unions is the best one.

The Cowley incident certainly proved useful to sections of big business and all parties to whip up the case for the most reactionary legislation against rights and wages and conditions of millions of trade unionists.

In this drab pre-election period the newspapers especially feel that the witch-hunt could have been kept going for at least another week nearer to March 31.

But then there are certain tions who are not so sure. reformist unions and road to revolution.

media and propaganda machine, the Stalinists shy away from the break with the politics of Labour and attempt to turn their membership into a futile campaign to eturn Communist MPs, who, together with the 'lefts', are toform .. the basis of a socialist government.

Groping

Trade union members of the party are left to grope empirically for some sort of perspective that will enable them to hit back at anti-union legislation—-and, quite understandably, develop a one-sided, trade union approach to the question that is very much in the tradition of Communist Party work in the unions.

A national figure in the miners' union such as Abe Moffat can write his life story without mentioning once the question of political power, while all the major party documents on trade unionism since the war have, without exception, ignored this same question.

The Socialist Labour League's analysis of the crisis in British capitalism and its Labour lieutenants rests upon the conviction They know the real facts behind the i Cowley incident-the threatened speed up of a new plant to be opened at Cowley in August, which will need less men paid at a lower wage.

But tor the quick-selling, sensationalised headlines they found their noose and they found their martyrs.

They took it to the stage where Mr. Harry Urwin, who led the T&GWU investigation team at Cowley, could go to the Press Council with a very strong case against Fleet Street.

As Jack Jones, acting assistant general secretary of the union Published by the International Committee of the Fourth CONTENTS INCLUDE:

Imperialism and the Liquidity Crisis Marxist Political Economy and the The Fight for Marxism Two speeches and an DOCUMENTS Trotskyism in the Unite Statement on Vietnam BOOKS 'The New Economics' by Eugene illus., price 3/-. Available from New 1961 Planham Hich Streat Tondon support on the eve Fourth International A Journal of International Marxism Trade Unions at the Crossroads-Editorial article that the Labour right wing cannot be defeated without the breaking of the working class from the right-wing bureaucracy in the trade unions-the principal basis in fact for the Labour Party right wing.

Events today prove how correct The Newsletter was to begin its preparations some time ago for the launching of a daily paper of the working class.

In order to penetrate even more deeply into the ranks of workers now radicalised by the wholesale attacks on trade unionism made by all three parties, the press, radio and television, the Marxist movement demands a daily tribune and organiser to draw the day-by-day lessons of the struggle against the Labour government, and to continue the education of broad masses of the working class in the principles at present understood only by a small minority.

With the Young Socialists as the spearhead of the fight against legislation, the balance sheet of 40 years of Stalinist betrayal and reformist compromise can at last be redressed. From the Morecambe conference to the Trotskyist daily paper! said in Birmingham last Friday after reading Mr. Urwin's report:

'Even this morning we have received very disturbing reports a fake photograph which is being peddled about.

It is suggested that a person has offered this photograph for a three-figure sum. Apparently the faking has taken place between someone associated with the Press and someone inside the factory.

"There has been some information that money was offered • by a newspaper to a man in the factory for information. And we are prepared to lay the information before the Press Council.' After Jones' statement .. silence from Fleet Street.

'Socialist World' by Michel Varga Preobrazhensky Park Publications, C WA

Lenin warned the British communists of the necessity to work inside the reformist trade unions, the Labour Party and also parliament. While Lenin agreed with Gallagher and Pankhurst that the most advanced workers had, through their own bitter experiences, learned of the inadequacies of the. Labour leaders, and the parliamentary very ditterent battle against the road to socialism that they prac- historically - rooted theoretical tised, it was essential that these backwardness of the British workers did not become isolated labour movement, the working along with the Communist Partot class suffered a set back, the from those " broad masses workers that still remained to be thinking of entire generations of convinced of the necessity of the workers in Britain, and, in 1ts revolutionary road to power, or turn, gave further confirmation even of the need for political to the Stalinist faction in the power at an. Goriet. Umor of the necessity Lenin insisted that the British socialism in a sine county. communists fight to return a Labour government committed In 1926 the British Communist to a socialist programme of Party, despite all its weaknesses action against the employers and and inexperience, had the opporthe Tories. tunity to pioneer a breakthrough In the fight to force Labour in the organisation and thinking to carry out such a programme, of the working class. Council in 1926 could have cleared the way for the rapici growth of the Party at the time of the betrayal by MacDonald (above) large sections of the British working class would begin to break from the MacDonald leadership and his supporters in the trade unions in so far as the Communists would be able to develop a clear alternative in the trade unions and the factories.

After the election of a minority Labour government at the end of 1923, Lenin's struggle and the intervention of the Comintern began to bear fruit.

Through its leadership of the minority movement it was able

With the Soviet trade unions failing to break with the General Council during and after their treacherous role in the strike (the alliance was ended a full year later Forward the slogan Party put 'All power to the General Council' even though that body was dominated by such notorious night wingers as Bevin and Citrine.

'Lefts' such as Cook, Hicks and Purcell failed to break with this policy of capitulation, while the Communist Party itself failed to denounce the conciliatory role of these 'lefts' on the General Council.

Through this coming together of international Stalinism and the political immaturity of the British ?. communists waging..

scope of which moulded the British Communist Party from the General in 1931.

It is not being argued that with a different policy the Communist Party could have led a successful revolution that considerable forces in the co its cils ot action, the tactory and strike committees, the minority movement and in the Labour Party and trade union branches, a huge step forward would have been made on the basis of clarification of the role of • social democracy and its 'left' accomplices in the General Council.

by 1926 to influence at least a quarter of the organised workers in Britain. Disciplined faction work in the unions, a whole organisational turned towards the building of factory groups and PAMPHLET A clean break with the 'lefts' and the development of an alternative strategy for the continuation and extension of the strike around political demands would have produced such a deep crisis within social democracy that the betrayal of 1931 by MacDonald and Co. could have cleared the way for a rapid growth of the Communist Party in Britain, and its winning of the majority of British workers to the banner of revolution.

Instead, the lett and right zigzags by the Comintern, responding at every turn to the requiremede impossible the dariation ments of the working class that Lenin had fought for in 'Left-Wing Communism'.

The Marxist movement today has to work in a working class, considerable numbers of which passed through or has been influenced by these 40 years of miseducation and betrayal, and must, therefore, proceed with this history in mind.

Today, when the split between the unions and the Labour government is so openly posed political clarity is essential if the older generations are to be won to a correct programme. The

CLIFF SLAUGHTER writes:

THE NEWSLETTER has already dealt at length with the attacks on Trotskyism by Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro at the * continental Conference in January, and this speech is treated e more detail in the issue of the magazine, 'Fourth International' Fidel Castro press.

Without snauow ur Withant doubt, Castro's attack was attacks on lavana ditoriall i in now in the Three

M trade unions rose by 6 LEMBERSHIP of Canadian per cent in 1965, the best year for growth for a long time.

However, this still leaves 70 per cent of non-farm wage labour un-organised in any form of trade union. This can be accounted for partly by the high proportion of seasonal and temporary labour in the Canadian labour force, by continuous migration workers and by the immigration of large numbers of workers without any background of trade union organisation who take the rougher and lower paid jobs.

But it also reflects the bureaucratic outlook of the unions, which represent, in the main, the highly-skilled and high-paid workers.

SABOTAGE

Even these unions have their problems. Whatever the peaceful intentions of the leaders, labour struggles generally result in violence, or the threat of violence. Factories and installations belonging to the struck firm are sometimes sabotaged-as happened when gas workers were on strike recently in Southern Ontaria.

Pickets fight to prevent the entry of scabs onto the premises. And unions have to encounter the weight of the law in the shape of enforcement officers and police armed with injunctions to limit the rights of pickets.

Under Canadian law employers in junctions can go to the court and obtain an injunotion to limit the number of pickets permissible at any time during a labour dispute. In iddition, pickets are very liable o run foul of the law relating to intimidation and molesting.

INJUNCTION

In January, for instance, when reporters and office staft employed by "The Oshawa Times' went on strike for higher wages, the Thomson-owned paper obtained a court injunction limiting the number of pickets to six.

Incensed by this, the local unions, including the powerful UAW (motor car workers from the GMC plant), carried out mass picketing in denance of the injunotion until the strike reached a satisfactory settlement.

Striking workers at Tilco plastios in Peterborough, Ontario, alter receiving an injunction to umit their pickets to 12 were reinforced to over 300 by local unionists from other industries. This time the law struck and about 30 workers taking part in the picket, including a number of local union officials, have been arraigned on a contempt of court CORRESPONDENT charge after their arrest Tilco's factory.

What the outcome of this case will be is still not clear but Canadian labour obviously has to fight these crippling injunctions and is showing its capacity to do so with admirable solidarity and enthusiasm from which further understanding can come.

There is, however, a footnote to the Oshawa story.

A few weeks after The Oshawa Times' strike, the local Communist Party, through a member who is an official of the UAW local, hired its hall for a public meeting to be addressed by Tim Buck, the veteran Communist leader. On the night of the meeting, however, the hall was barricaded by about 300 auto workers calling on Buck to back to Russia, and the meeting had to be called off.

FAITHFULLY BOWED If Canadian communists get this treatment, much of the blame must be laid at the door of their policies in the past. The party is seen as an upholder of Stalinist methods and it has, of course, always faithfully Moscow line.

However, the workers of Oshawa, ' who had so recently shown that they understand the meaning of class solidarity, would have done better to give Buck a hearing and then make their point rather than taking a McCarthyite position.

In fact, Buck's speaking tour was arranged to enable him to speak about his visit to North Vietnam last year. His speech was mainly a description of what he had seen, the heroism of the people and his meetings with Ho Chi Minh, with some denunciations of US policy thrown in for good measure.

SUPPORT FOR LBJ

There was no political analysis and no political conclusions.

Until reminded about it, he said nothing about the support which US and Canadian communists gave to Johnson and the fact that they greeted his election as a great victory for peace.

Buck claimed that he personally was against this policy because, although the main thing was to defeat Goldwater, it went too far in support of the Democratic Panty. It was clear from his references to Robert Kennedy's position on Vietnam that the CP leaders on this continent still hope to influence US policy through mass "pressure' on the Democratic Party.

part of a world-wide reaction by Stalinism to the growing influence of Trotskyism, the only expression of revolutionary Marxism in our epoch. The deepening international crisis of capitalism has exposed at an accelerating pace all those who deceive the masses in the colonial and ex-colonial countries with 'middle ways', with 'blocs of all the classes in the nation', etc.

In the USSR and Eastern Europe, the advanced workers are rejecting the idea that the solution to their. problems can come through a reform of the bureaucracy itself. In the older capitalist countries, reformism and Stalinism are compromising themselves more than ever before as opportunities arise for the building of Trotskyist parties, in conditions of strong working-class resistance to the attacks of the monopolies.

Defended

But there is another valuable lesson to be learned from Castro's speech, besides the sharpening of our understanding of the depth of the crisis and the enormity of our revolutionary opportunities.

The Fourth International, founded by Trotsky, been de- has more than 12 years fended, and its rebuilding successfully begun, in sharp struggle against revisionism. Michel Pablo, one-time secretary of the International, developed the idea thạt the next big step to socialism would inevitably be taken without the building of revolutionary parties, and that the existing leaderships of mass movements, first and foremost the Stalinists, would carry through this task.

Later, the 'left' nationalists in the colonial countries. of the Castro or Ben Bella type, were supposed to be the executors of this historic task of the working class.

The Socialist Workers' Party of America was only one of the Trotskyist groups to succumb to this revisionism. Turning away from the • real task of building a revolutionary party in the USA as the major international responsibility, Cannon and the leaders of the SWP welcomed Castro and the Cuban revolution as typical of the 'path to Socialism' in our epoch.

The SWP, on this basis, threw in its lot with those who had followed Pablo in 1953. Since this reunification' there have been further splits. (Pablo himself and his tendency have been expelled, and the recent International Congress of the 'United Secretariat' had only two or three representatives from outside the small European sections.) But the latest outburst of Castro has administered a crushing blow to the revisionists, a blow which catches them still reeling from the defeat of their darling Ben Bella in Algeria.

In Algeria, uncritical support for Ben Bella, and failure to direct any work to the building of a revolutionary party, together even with lavish praise of tionary banenership his with Ben Boumedienne and 'revoluBella (for a record of these stupidities see the forthcoming issue of 'Fourth International'), ended with the expulsion of all adherents of the United Secretariat after Boumedienne's coup.

Now, in the case of Castro, the revisionists find themselves turned upside down.

After all, did they not welcome Castro 'natural Marxist?' Did they not say that he and the July 26 Movement were 'confirming the theory of Permanent Revolution?' Did not Cannon excuse the actions Khrushchev the Cuban missiles erisis of 19622 Did there not appear the theory that 'Stalinism can no longer betray'? Was not Castro only a few short weeks ago acclaimed the natural successor to Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky?

Unable to reply It is not surprising therefore that spokesmen 'United Secretariat' were utterly unable to reply to the anti-Trotskyist slanders of Castro.

They began by addressing to him a letter calling upon hidden motives. Perhaps he was trying to deceive the Russian Stalinists, upon whom the Cuban sugar crop is dependent? In other quence of their sery of consebegin Dearis roy were poweriess to imperialism and of the bureaucracy, to analyse the class significance Castro's attack upon alternative leadership.

In earlier statements on behalf of The Newsletter and the International Committee we have tried to draw the attention of those who still adhere to the revisionist 'United Secretariat' to the implications of Castro's speech for their whole position, and insisted that only by turning away from revisionism to the programme of the International Committee, the programme of the Fourth International, can they take what may be the final opportunity of returning to the Marxist path.

The March 7 issue of The Militant' (organ of the Socialist Workers' Party), shows that the crisis within the revisionists' own ranks (an inevitable and necessary crisis, as they are dependent on the bureaucracies and nationalists, themselves in inescapable crisis) has reached serious proportions.

'The Militant' reproduces 'World Outlook's' translation of 'Open Letter' sent by the 'United Secretariat' on February 1 to Fidel Castro. It ends with a demand that Castro submit his 'proofs' to a Tribunal of the Cuban people, to which five representative leaders' of the 'United Secretariat' will answer. In support of their challenge, they quote Castro's words of March 13, 1962, in which he proclaimed 'the revolution must be school of unfettered thought.

Almost the whole of this 'Open Letter' is devoted to a denial of Castro's assertion that ments of imperialism, instru- Trotskyists are 'vulgar ments which seem close to Trotaddressed as skyist policies «Comrade Fidel Castro is still Castro'.

Despite the attempt to strike a sharper note than in the first letter, this 'Open Letter' is inextricably caught in the mesh of revisionism. The questioning, doubt and confusion in the ranks of the SWP and the 'United Secretariat' cannot be resolved within the framework of that revisionism.

Understand

It is not, in the first place, a question of the Fourth International justifying itself in reply to Castro's slanders.

The first task is to understand the politics behind Castro's outburst.

The 'Open Letter' takes us not a step further than the speculation of Hansen's first response in 'The Militant'. Indeda dike astre Castro's speech is livided, curate's egg, nto its 'good' or "bad' parts.

On the one hand this speech is imbued with an incomparable revolutionary spirit . . . 'Reading this part of your speech we feel in solidarity more than ever (1) with this orientation and line of action.' So far, SO good, say our "Trotskyist' Fidelists. ... 'But on the other hand, the speech also levels systematic slanderous attacks against Trotskyism, the Trotskyist movement and the Trotskyist programme as a , whole, attacks whose unjustified nature is felt by us with the deepest indignation and revulsion.' This must be highly uncomfortable!—to feel 'in solidarity more than ever and yet to feel 'the deepest indignation and revulsion'! Like the old joke: we find him attractive in a repulsive kind of way.

But the matter is too serious for jokes.

In all, the "Open Letter amounts to saying: "You should not have attacked us; here is our true record; we demand you substantiate your attacks; please realise that in previous statements you have contradicted the things you now say!

Valuable lessons In tact, of course, there are valuable lessons to be learned from Castro's open attacks on Trotskyism. They sharpen our "workers' state"' is to turn reality into its very opposite, and

understanding of the step reached by the present crisis; they emphasise the essential and central character of the problem of building independent revolutionary parties; and they confirm perspectives of the Marxists in the Fourth International who have fought against the liquidationist tailing behind Castro and his like.

Perhaps Hansen, Frank and the 'United Secretariat' think they are 'defending Trotskyism' when they reply to Castro. This only shows the most dangerous side of revisionism. ciples and traditions end prim Trotskyism into a fossil, a dead dogma, lifeless and unable to develop in line with the tasks of the working class.

"Trotskyism' was turned into a series of phrases to justify the petty-bourgeois demagogues like Castro, who captured the bourgeois state machine and used it to prevent any further advance by the working class.

To call this 'the building of to use Marxist, Trotskyist phrases to do it more convincingly.

The real need was, and is, to understand Castro's role, workers party in Cuba and enery build other country in Latin Americ and the rest of the world which can lead the workers own power. To fail to ternational, and build up the forces will turn on and working-class movement. Castro has proved this more convinc. ingly even than Ben Bella.

The International Conference called by the International Com mittee of the Fourth International this Spring is receiving mounting support from Trotskyists in many countries. theme, rebuilding tionary parties in every those have against the revisionism of Pablo. Frank, Hansen and Germain in the United Secretariat'. Its perspectives are the only answer for these who remain caught in the trap of appealing to Castro to mend his ways.

Police attack Salisbury again used police dogs against demonstrators when 100 students paraded outside the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, where both coloured and white students and lecturers have been striking against police restrictions on college life.

Police ordered that there could not be any meetings of more than three people. This followed boycott of lectures by students demanding that the University takes a stand against UDI.

Most of the 230 students are boycotting lectures, and nearly 30 lecturers—a fifth of the teaching staff-have struck.

Acting head of the college's history department Ian Henderson arrived in Britain on Monday to see Dr. Walter Adams, principal of the college. Dr. Adams had arrived in London on Sunday to discuss grants to the college.

Henderson claims that normal NY conscientious and objective student of Ghanaian - politics must certainly have recognised the military coup as a shift to the right and an attempt to exploit the bankruptcy of Nkrumah's reformism in order to install a more stable and authoritarian regime.

students life in the college is now virtually impossible.

'College life is not just lectures. It is all sorts of gatherings, both formal and informal, and these cannot take place When you have to seek permission.' Ishmael Mulambo, a 33-yearold economics student who arrived with Henderson said the boycott had arisen because of the UDI question and because the university authorities had not taken vigorous steps secure the freedom of students who had been restricted by the regime.

Henderson claimed that all the lecturers were in favour of the strike, but would not join it. He put this down to the fact that, although they opposed UDI, many people had now 'gone along with it because they want a quiet life'.

At the same time the Smith regime had built up a hate campaign against Harold Wilson and loyalties to the regime were strong.

On the question of the sanctions against the regime Henderson claimed: ' •.. they are not working and you can buy anything in the shops!' That is why both Britain and the USA lost no time in recognising the new regime which is based on bayonets.

That the imperialists should wel come this change is not at all surprising, but what can we say when that great 'friend' of Nkrumah and Ghana, Lord Fenner Brockway, writes in Tribune: '. .. I must record there seems little doubt that the majority of Ghanaians now welcome the revolution which has taken place...?

Coming from a man who has spent the last 12 years defending and apologising for, and perpetuating the myth of African 'socialism' and Nkrumah's cult of personality, this may seem a little strange and even somewhat ungrateful. After all Lord Brockway wrote a book on the Gold Coast revolution' which tried to present Nkrumah as a staunch anti-imperialist and socialist-when most socialists, even then, recognised him as a demagogue and a bourgeois lickspittle of imperialism.

When Nkrumah attacked the working class during the general strike and arrogated Napoleonic powers to himself what did the sanctimonious Lord say?

He said nothing.

So long as imperialism supported Nkrumah, he the Redeemer) was alright-but when imperialism found him an obstacle the honourable Lord, with truly amazing political agility, jumped off the Nkrumah bandwagon and discovered (after the events) to his horror that the Black God he had worshipped was a capricious and fallible mortal.

LEADERS ARRESTED Of course if the coup had failed and the leaders had been arrested • what would Brockway have said then?

A rhetorical question.

As a consummate worshipper of the accomplished faot there is no doubt that Brockway would today be filling the columns of "Tribune' with his turgid prose in praise of the wisdom and magnanimity of the Osagyefo. No doubt he would have had some harsh things to say about the abortive coup leaders too. But, as a certain cynic said, nothing succeeds like success and this presumptious humbug now has the audacity to write: (Cont. back page, col. 1)

Paris N Tuesday, March 15, universities of France were brought to a standstill. Teachers and students were demonstrating against the reforms of the entire educational system proposed by de Gaulle's education minister, Fouchet.

The strike, lasting for three days, was called jointly by the main • students' organisation, UNEF, and the union of university lecturers.

The proposed measures are designed to reshape France's schools and colleges to meet the needs of the industrialists in the automation era.

It will make it more BY OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT for working-class children to reach the advanced levels of education, and will, at the same time, step up the production of technicians.

The strike was not supported by the Federation of Teachers' Unions, which has engaged instead in a series of smaller actions, separating the different sections involved.

Trotskyist students fought for a united movement, including the trade unions, but the leaders of UNEF and of the teachers refused to accept this demand. Nonetheless, the demonstration was well supported, especially in Paris.

One of the features of the strike was that, for the first time, the Paris faculty of which includes economics sociology, was involved.

Notoriously the most rightwing section of the Paris students, the faculty also contains a highly organised fascist group• Led by Trotskyists, 70 per cent of the 23,000 students struck on Thursday, March 17. The mass picket line was attacked by 100 fascists, who were aided by the dean of the faculty, Vedel, when he ordered the main gates to be opened.

Vedel, a well-known liberal, then called the police, who attacked the pickets, driving police vans at them and wielding clubs. But the pickets were still able to prevent lectures taking place.

Page

VER 100 docker-crane drivers at the Tilbury docks have boycotted cranes similar to the one which overturned there recently killing one of their workmates. They are refusing to work about 30 cranes which is affecting a quarter of the port's trade, until a full inquiry is held.

They imposed their ban on Monday at a lunchtime meeting after seeing officials from the Port of London Authority and the firm which makes the cranes, to discuss the safety of the machines. It is believed there are 150 similar cranes in the whole of the Port of London.

• Et tu, Brockway?

'Those of us who believe in liberty (sic!) must welcome the assurance given by the National Liberation Council that political freedom will be accepted in the the new constitution.' Since when have military juntas respected political freedom for opposition groups _particularly of the left? What about the arrest of Jan Carew, the author, and the expulsion of Chinese, East German and Russian technicians? Are these accidents or the result of a deliberate policy of repression and a symbolic gesture to imperialism?

Brockway knows all this but prefers to ignore the grave dangers to the working class and peasants in Ghana represented by the army and police.

The Lord has made his peace with imperialism and its worst lackeys.

It is not surprising therefore that he should try to picture this sordid business as a noble and honourable enterprise.

Ghana has lost a president— but reaction has gained a new adherent.

workers return Thirty-two workers at Birmingham Aluminium Castings, Smethwick, returned to work on Wednesday to allow Jack Scamp to carry out an inquiry into their dispute.

They were claiming a ls an hour compensation •dirty work' in their department which produces castings for BMC, Rover, Vauxhall and Ford. Production at all factories had been hit by the stoppage.

Wrist enery tra de unight against the proposed anti-union legislation must support the stand being taken by the Transport a n d General Workers' Union in refusing consistently to vote for the proposed legislation, it must be recognised clearly that the T&GWU must understand the elementary principles of capitalism.

This was made abundantly clear in a letter to 'The Times' on March 18 by Harry Nicholas, acting general secretary of the union. legislation etter he opposed the In this it does not tackle the real problems (of the capitalist economy, he means), and will not work.

In his words: 'It can not only lead to further industrial unrest, but ludicrous embarrassment when it cannot be enforced.' He puts forward, instead of legislation, two main proposals to deal with disputes and 'restrictive practices'.

Firstly, that there should be dismissal tribunals to decide on Registered at the G.P.O. as a newspaper Published by The Newsletter.

Printed by Plough Press 180 Clapham High Street. London In a statement on the accident, in which 36-year-old Harry Wheatley was killed, the Port of London Authority said the crane was severely overloaded.

The machine had a safe working load of three tons at a radii up to 80 feet, but was carrying five tons 15 hundredweight when it tipped over.

One docker-crane driver told The Newsletter that plaints had been made about these cranes in the past.

"They are not clamped down, and we have complained them bouncing on their legs,' he added.

The men had agreed not to work the cranes, he said, because the accident was having a psychological effect on all the men, which could cause more accidents.

The main complaints of the men, he said, are that there is no. warning that cranes are overloaded, and that they are not clamped down.

Other falls?

Rumours are circulating among the men that similar cranes sold by the same firm to Hull, Bristol and Merseyside dock companies have also overturned.

Wheatley, the man who was killed, was a widower. He leaves three children, now in the care of the local authority.

The docker-crane drivers have been making a collection for the children and intend to run a large benefit dance for them.

This latest dispute over safety standards has also sparked off another grievance among the men about their representation. They are seeking permission from their union, the Transport and General Workers' Union, to have their own local branch, apart from the dockers and stevedores, which would be able to take up more specific issues relating to their section of the dock.

Nicholas' plan for unions is greeted by Hogg By Newsletter whether or not a man has been injustly sacked.

Seconcily, that there should be local arbitration tribunals which should report in seven to ten days, as alternatives to strike action.

He cites the Scamp inquiries as a beginning in the right direction.

He concludes by stating that the main question is to increase productivity and he supports Wilson's proposed Productivity Conference. He opposes those who say that the economy needs deflating by arguing that unemployment will not lead the employer to make full use of his labour!

Accepts capitalism

All these proposals are bound in by a view that accepts capitalism as an everlasting system, one which may have its ups and downs, but in which there will always be room for people to argue about how best to make capitalism a fairer system.

This is a very dangerous position for the T&GWU.

Capitalism does not just go up and down all the time: at certain stages a fight to the finish unions press claim Although a 6.6 per cent wage increase for 100,000 busmen employed by private companies has been referred to the Prices and Incomes Board, the unions involved are continuing to press the claim.

Officials said they were annoyed the claim had been referred to the Board without the employers having the opportunity to reply to it.

posed, and just such fight posed today.

The capitalist class is not interested in cricket.

They are going to belt the working class as hard as they can if they are able to find a way through its defence.

Guard lowered

The Labour government is already lowering the guard of the working class by bringing in legislation which will be backed up by a most experienced state machine; police, law courts, army, etc. The only possible way to fight is to mobilise the working class in a fight against these attacks behind a leadership which understands that it is a fight to the finish and is prepared to go all the way to the taking of power.

The working class wants no 'independent' tribunals. It can make up its own mind what is just and then fight.

Who will sit on these tribunals anyway? Fair-minded businessmen, parsons and bureaucrats?

Quintin Hogg, that noble warlord of Toryism aptly replied to Nicholas "The Times' on March 21 when he said:

'Mr. Nicholas' two concrete proposals (March 18) for the reform of trade union law are not necessarily unattractive to Conservatives.' Enough said! By Newsletter Reporter

Thursday (March 17) Young "Socialists and trade Association and Association of Scientific Workers attended a meeting addressed by John Rankin, MP for Govan (Glasgow), to raise the question of Labour's anti-union legislation. A on their guard against Lu Hull dockers should be some people now trying to establish contact with them for the alleged purpose of showing a film about the Brazil docks. These people are members of MRA (Moral Rearmament), an organisation whose purpose is to persuade workers to abandon their militancy and co-operate with the employer-on the latter's terms.

ADMIRED HITLER

This organisation was founded a fervant admirer of Hitler. As everyone knows, Hitler smashed the trade unions in Germany and sent thousands of militant workers - to the concentration camps. Yet Dr. Buchman could By Our Glasgow Correspondent Draughtmen's and Allied Technicians' Rankin, seeing that a large proportion of the audience were youth, immediately began to preach to them the virtues of the present society. Politics is the art of living is society, he said, together in this society, adding that People by their way of living brought punishment upon themselves.

Deeper significance

Quite apart from the obvious target of his remarks, his words have deeper significance. They underline, clearly, the intention of the Labour government to viciously attack the way of living' of the working class.

Rankin pointed out that he is an Association of Supervisory Stafis, Executives and Technicians sponsored MP and said he would not support any laws against the unions. However, when he was pressed on his attitude to the Prices and Incomes Bill he refused to answer as parliament was not in session now and he could not forsee what would happen in the next session.

This is not the first time Rankin has refused to state where he stands on this question.

He was lobbied on January 26 by Young Socialists and trade unionists and his refuge then been that the Bill had not yet introduced to parliament.

At this meeting, which was part of Rankin's pre-election campaign, an old age pensioner spoke up and compared the £29 rise all MPs received after the 1964 election with the miserable pittance the pensioners had received. He was told to sit down by the chairman.

Meeting closed

Under a barrage of further questions on legislation and pensions the chairman hastily called the meeting to a close.

The youth and trade unionists who attended that meeting definitely will not accept being ignored or fobbed off again on such vital issues.

They intend to lobby John Rankin again with larger numbers of workers and to campaign in the shipyards and factories nearby for support against the reactionary anti-working class laws proposed by both Labour and Tory parties. in Hull make the famous remark: 'Thank God for a man like Hitler.' MRA, though constantly talking about 'Absolute Honesty', never reveals the sources of its own finance. In fact it runs lavish headquarters at Caux in Switzerland to which militants are invited. Here they rub shoulders with financiers, employers, politicians and trade union leaders from all over the world. Everything is laid on free.

The money for that sort of thing is not collected at mass meetings. Workers' organisations get their money from their members' subscriptions, from collections and so on • and struggle for every penny. Where does MRA get the money to carry out its lavish schemes?

Not long ago. MRA carried out a massive drive in which a propaganda sheet was distributed throughout the country by one of the biggest advertising agencies in Britain on a commercial basis.

FREE FILM

As part of this drive activities were carried out like the one in Barnsley • Yorkshire, where the largest cinema in town was hired and an MRA film was shown for a week with every seat in the place free. A letter was sent through the post to every house in Barnsley advertising this film. Where did the money for all this come from?

One of the favourite MRA strategems is to visit the homes of militants when the husband Is out, otten bringing flowers for his wife and presents for the children or offering free transport to visit relatives in different parts of the country. All the time, they carefully point out how much more pleasant life would be if her man was not such a 'trouble-maker' at work.

The core of their message is that workers do not need to struggle against the employers. If only there is love and under-

A TWELVE-MONTH struggle by members of the Amalgamated Union of Building Trade Workers in the Merseyside area to prevent 'labour only' contracting on the £75 million Fiddlers Ferry power station contract was terminated last week by a decision of an appeal court.

This ruled that the union, and in particular three trade union officials, must not attempt to terminate contractual relations between the Emerald Construction Company and Higgs and Hill in breach of contracts for the completion of brickwork at the site.

Emerald Construction is one of the 'labour only' firms on the site who are supplying all bricklayers and hod carriers for the main contractors Higgs and Hill Ltd.

The decision of the court means that the daily picket operated at the site entrance by the Merseyside District Committee of the union for almost 12 months has to be withdrawn.

It has been this picket and frequent mass pickets that have kept the number of bricklayers on the site down to below 20, whereas the number required would be somewhere in the region of 150.

The AUBTW placed an official ban on the site to union members last May.

Bricklayers in the area believed that the employment of labour only by Higes and Hill would avoid strong union site organisation.

NO SECURITY For many years the building trade unions have opposed labour only because they know trom experience that bricklayers thus employed have little or no security or protection and that the system undermines the fight for higher basic wages, safety and welfare conditions, and splits and divides workers on sites.

The decision of the court, which upheld the appeal of the Emerald Co. on an interim injunction, could well set a precedent to be followed by other employers, not only in the building industry, to curtail or stop the use of pickets in disputes of this nature.

No further action can now be taken on this site (the picket was withdrawn the following day) until the main action is decided in the courts later this year.

This action is charging the three union officials, Mr. George Lowthian, general secretary, Mr. John Rogers, Mersey district organiser and Mr. James Cousins, Mersey district committee secretary, with conspiracy to obstruct the contract between Emerald and Higgs and Hill.

COMMON

The charge of conspiracy is one which will take trade unionists minds back to the years of the Combination Acts and to the period at the end of the last century when these actions were in common use to stop the use of pickets and the growth of the trade unions.

The decision on Fiddlers Ferry should act as a warning to all building workers.

The trade union officials have played a part in its success.

Leaders of the National Federation of Building Trade Operatives reached agreement last April with the employers Federation and gave a blessing to accept this labour only system. The AUBTW was the only union to oppose this agreement.

The Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers has condoned the operation of the system for carpenters on this same site with the Emerald company and, together with federation, to stop one-day sympathy strikes on the site last year.

standing on both sides, all differences can be resolved. Meanwhile, of course, there should be no strikes-and . the boss remains the boss and the worker remains the worker.

'HAPPY' LIFE

are now touting around People The film which these shows how 'happy' life is on the docks in Brazil now that some former militant workers have 'seen the light' and collaborate with the management in the way that MRA wants. It does not, of course, show the poverty and hardship suffered by many workers and peasants in Brazi.

The role of MRA on the Hull docks-where the dockers have fought for 10 weeks against the employers stubbornness over piece work and fall-back rates, and where the government is anxious to implement the Devlin Report—is obvious.

Fortunately only a very tiny minority of workers are taken in by MRA. Most militants recognise this organisation for what it is and refuse to touch it. A number of Hull dockers have already rejected the approaches of MRA agents when they have called at their homes in recent weeks.

NOT AFFECTED MRA is anxious at the moment to get the Unofficial Portworkers' Committee in Hull to agree to a showing of this film. There is no question of any of this committee being affected by MRA, but the aim of MRA agents is to associate the Committee with MRA in any way they can. • Once this became known, a great deal of confusion would be sown, not only amongst Hull dockers but amongst many workers in other parts of the country who have a great deal of sympathy and support for the struggle of the Hull dockers but who also know MRA. •The Hull dockers must slam the door firmly in the face of MRA and all its agents.

By a Newsletter Correspondent THE Communist Party Communist opposed Britain's entry into the Common Market because 'our parliament would lose its sovereignty and - its control over the country, said John Gollan, secretary of the Party. He was speaking in Hayes, Middlesex, last week in support of local Communist Party candidate, Frank Stanley, chairman of the Party.

Putting forward only slightly more radical reforms than the Labour Party, he promised:

'We would nationalize at least some of the key sectors oi the economy.' Speaking of the Prices and Incomes Bill, he blamed Brown and Wilson personally, failing to explain the position they occupy in relation to the capitalist crisis, and, after referring to Gunter's attack on the "workers' trial' at Cowley, he said:

•Sack Gunter job: he should get the sack, the No mention was made of the Immigration Bill until it was raised during questions. Stanley said the Communist Party . opposed the Bill because of its racial content, but qualified this by adding: to restrict immigration the right The need of the ruling class divide workers, and thus the THE COMMON MARKET connection between the Immigration Bill and the Prices and Incomes Bill, were smoothed over by the two speakers.

When questioned by Socialist Labour League members, Gollan refused to support the Lambeth Trades Council-which called the highly successful lobby of parliament on January 26 in the campaign against anti-union law.

Gollan said that the Council had only itself to blame for the disaffiliation from the TUC.

'Blame itself '

When challenged about the Communist Party's uncritical support for Labour candidates, Gollan referred to The Newsletter 'which also calls on people to vote Labour'.

It was made clear that the Communist Party hopes to achieve its aims through parliament-hence its defence of parliamentary 'sovereignty'.

All that 'Britain' needed was a government of "Communists' and 'left' Labour MPs-Gollan drew no distinction between them.

The working class will not be able to draw any such distinction either.

But they will, having voted for Labout, betrayals of the see ever more Wilson, _Brown, Callaghan, Gunthe so-called ter leadership left' MPs to put the inability of up any tight, and the urgent and vital need for a new socialist leadership.

DALING Labour and Tory councillors approved rent rise of up to 10s at its recent special budget meeting.

The rents have now been fixed at 0.8 times the gross rateable value, and even if they are raised again to 1.0 times the rateable value, it is estimated there will still be a deficit of £650,000 in next year's housing revenue account.

SLOGANS

Young Socialists in the area demonstrated against the increases, calling on the Labour councillors to lay the blame fairly and squarely on the moneylenders who make the loans to the council at exhorbitant rates of interest (said to be around 7% per cent).

A photograph of these Young Socialists appeared in the local press, showing slogans proclaiming 'Freeze rents, not wages' 'Wilson must attack moneylenders, not tenants', 'No rise in rents-Ealing Council must go into deficit', and 'Nationalize the banks'.

A meeting was held after the demonstration at which it was pointed out that a house costing £2,210 would require payments of £9,116 5s at 67 per cent interest over six years.

The meeting then decided to continue the campaign against rising rents.

SAYS GOLLAN SPEAKING ON