The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 444

HIS is an extremely dangerous time for the trade union movement. Callaghan's budget proposals on the pay-roll tax which come into operation on September 5 will result in substantial increases in the cost of living. Meanwhile, many workers have been deliberately confused, because taxation on such commodities as beer and cigarettes was not increased. le actual truth is that the pay-roll tax will considerably increase the cost of living for every working-class family as soon as it is applied. Most of the big wholesalers and retailers are already preparing to increase their prices, before the date when the tax goes on. Meanwhile, there is the proposed legislation on the Devlin Commission and the Prices and Incomes Bill. These are to be pushed through parliament as speedily as possible so that the working class will be as hamstrung as possible when the cost of living goes up. The campaign against the Devlin Commission and the anti-trade union legislation assumes great importance. It is indeed very urgent that no time is lost in mobilising the greatest possible opposition to these proposed parliamentary bills. Time is decisive and we have none to lose. It was for this reason that the lambeth Trades Council, as far back as last October, called the lobby of parliament on January 26. The lobby was opposed by the Connunist Party leadership, although many of its rank and file turned out to give it support. nfortunately, this split in the ranks of the left has resulted in some serious victories for the right wing. Had there been a united campaign inside the factories and in the trade unions, it is highly possible that the USDAW National Conference and the AEU National Committee would have rejected the proposed anti-trade union legislation. Instead the working class suffered serious setbacks at both conferences. When the Communist Party finally called a lobby on March 1, it was too late to halt the drift towards the right inside these unions. The Labour right wing is now pushing forward its plans against the unions and the National Committee of the Young Socialists has called a lobby and demonstration on May 25. Once again the Communist Party deliberately sets out to split the working class and calls a separate lobby on June 22--too late to be effective. Gollan and Co. know very well that there is no time to lose if the Wilson government is to be forced to retreat, yet they choose to split the working class just as they did on January 26. The leaders of the Communist Party justify this on the grounds that it is necessary to get close to Labour's 'left' in parliament. But this is a fake 'left', and one which in times of crisis will always betray the working class.

The Communist Party leaders are supported by the Tony Cliff state-capitalist, anti-Soviet Union group who publish a paper called 'Labour Worker'. oreover, when the attack on the dockers through the Devlin Commission report and the anti-trade union legislation is part and parcel of the Labour government's determination to weaken the working class, the Communist Party deliberately ignores the dockers' case in its lobby of June 22. They concentrate on the anti-trade union legislation, but not on the dockers' opposition to Devlin. The time has come to expose Gollan and Co.

as people who have sold out to some of the worst traitors inside the Labour Party. Trade Unionists must fight now. We appeal to every militant and shop steward to support the March 25 lobby of parliament against the Devlin Commission and the anti-trade union legislation.

agai imprison men and stud ents each'. hood.'

AS ahd same strike deadline means endure do solout looms larger and larger from the union-government-TUC discussions. The 48-man executive of the National Union of Seamen reaffirmed their decision to go ahead with the strike this morning, but then so did the railwaymen's executive in February before Wilson stepped in for the gigantic sell-out.

NUR secretary, Sidney Greene, following his executive meetings and pressure from the thousands of hopeful railwaymen, continued the 'strike-on' statements almost until the February 14 strike date, then accepted the government's proposal for a full-scale inquiry on wages and an interim pay rise well within the norm.

Now the seamen's struggle is following a similar pattern—a zig-zag course which could leave 70,000 seamen on a 56-hour week with a March to the Polish Embassy £60 a month wage.

Secretary of the NUS, William Hogarth, has met Minister of Labour Ray Gunter three times —on Wednesday he took along his executive in a coach to the Ministry-and George Woodcock, TUC general secretary, twice. Today Hogarth and assistant secretary Bill Marshall left the EC in session to answer a call to Congress House from Woodcock. They have only to meet Wilson to complete the pattern.

The seamen's executive has continually rejected the employers' offer of a 13 per cent wage increase over three years, with a promise to base it on a 40-hour week, and stood firm by their demand, reiterated today in a statement, for '£14 a week for an able-bodied seamen after five years' service for five days work of eight hours This demand would mean a 17 per cent rise immediately.

Plea from Gunter This, along with the possibility of the ports being crippled, is the biggest threat to a Labour government attempting to carry out capitalist policies while its balance of payments crisis continues.

Meeting the full executive on Wednesday, Gunter pleaded with them to call off the strike because of the state of the country's economy.

Asked about this later, Hogarth said: 'Naturally, none of us wants to see the economy disrupted, but the seamen want a decent liveliHogarth then saw Woodcock, who told the press: 'At the moment I don't see a chink of light. It looks like a near certainty."

Remembering the 1947 dock strike, when troops were used to run the docks, the news that 'the government is making arrangements to minimise interference with essential supplies and services in the event of a strike' ('Guardian', May 10), takes on a greater significance.

24-hour re-call The executive breaks up after today's meeting, but, a press conference was told, it can be recalled within 24 hours. A six-man strike committee has been set up to deal with discussions meanwhile. Only the full executive could call off the strike, which would mean Saturday at Questioned on Wednesday, Hogarth said that if Wilson wanted to see the NUS, he would have But if the executive has really made up its mind to fight, there should not be any necessity to meet Wilson, or any half-invitation to step in London, Thursday of U.S. invincibility in South-east Asia.

ABRAM FISCHER JAILED FOR LIFE DR. Abram Fischer, the 58-year-old barrister who defended Nelson Mandela and others at the Rivonia Trial, was this week jailed for life after being found guilty on 15 counts by the South African Supreme Court. The British labour movement must immediately demand his release and the release of all political prisoners from Verwoerd's jails.

• Fuller story—page two

PROTEST

ist the secret trial :of Polish Trotsk the Gomulka in a Polish Saturday, May 21 Park Crescent, W.1, at INTERVIEWED soon after the • seamen announced their strike, London dockers expressed their solidarity in terms of possible 'blacking' of cargoes.

One South London newspaper reported a Surrey Dock crane driver as saying:

'We've heard nothing official about the part we may have to play in the strike, but most of the blokes would be willing to make sure they get out full support.' A stevedore said that dockers might refuse to work foreign ships used as substitutes for British ships-it is thought that some cargoes heading for Britain may be off-loaded at Continental ports onto foreign coasters to bring them into the country.

But no opposition to Wilson's policy AST week's "Tribune' murmur at Wilson's treachery had carried an article by Eric nothing to do with the small Heffer headed: 'What's Wrong Labour majority. Now that the with Labour's Left?'-the ques- majority has been swollen to 97, tion Is complacently answered in the sub-heading: 'Nothing as long as it prepares for the future.

The 'plans' proposed by this one-time ultra-left make it plain that the 'new left' group of MPs will be even worse than the 'old left' of Michael Foot and lan Mikardo.

In several hundred words, Heffer finds space for not a single criticism of Wilson, nor for a single reference to the working class.

Instead, he presents vague phrases about the need for 'a sort of Bow Group of the Left'.

'Like the Fabians'

'Such a group,' he says, 'could carry out research, set up working parties, hold discussions and conferences, issue pamphlets and documents, and thereby influence policy in the way the Fabian Society does.' The problem, for whose solution Heffer's group will be searching, is really this: how to evade struggle against the employing class and its agents in the Labour Party leadership.

To retain a reputation for 'left'-ism sufficient to keep a parliamentary seat, while at the same time remaining within the bounds set by the right-wing leaders is a harder job than it used to be.

The failure of the 'lefts' in the last parliament to do more than even Heffer has to point out that 'the government has no alibi, neither has the left'.

But to join in protests against the right wing in the 1950s was one thing. To pose a real opposition to Wilson in 1966 is quite another.

Respectable

The Labour leaders carry out an essential job for the bosses today. In the present crisis position of British capitalism, the Labour government has to prepare the attack on the trade unions.

And so many a sectarian phrasemonger of former times appears as a respectable 'left' today.

Heffer, who once denounced both parliament and the Labour Party, discovers that it is not possible for the Labour government, with its substantial parlia mentary majority to really begin to transform society by democratic parliamentary means'.

The Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists, whose aims embody the real aspirations of millions who voted Labour in the election, must learn from the degeneration of the Labour 'lefts', both 'old' and 'new' varieties.

It is not verbal opposition to the right wing which matters, but a tight to mobilise workers in a movement which will smash the employers and their Labour lackeys.

the earliest.

to inform them before 5 p.m. today.

Dockers may SHE week ending May 6 saw the worst slide on Wall Street since June 1962. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 30.85 points to 902.83.

Thursday, May 5, alone accounted for over half of this fall. The avalanche' of share prices was set off by the news that eight of General Motors' 23 plants were going on to shorttime working.

General Motors were having to rectify defects in their Cadillacs and Oldsmobiles, exposed in the course of a drive for safety in US cars. Fords and Chryslers have also been forced to call in many cars and have announced cut backs in production with an ending to some overtime working.

The Ford announcement was followed on Monday by the largest single drop recorded in one day on Wall Street when the Dow Jones industrial average fell 16.03 points to 886.80.

(Meanwhile, the National Safety Council announces, 10,710 people were killed in US car BY OUR OV CORRESPOND accidents in January, and March.)

Earlier this year General Motors had already announced a fall in profits and its dividend was cut.

But the troubles of the car industry were only one of the immediate causes of the Wall Street slide.

At the beginning of the week, statements by Gardner Ackley, Johnson's chief economic adviser, and McChesney Martin, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, had started the movement.

Each had pointed to the dangerous trend towards inflation in US capitalism. Ackley said that prices and profits were too high; especially in view of government calls for wage restraint.

Company profits this year are expected to top 80 billion dollars, 9 per cent up on 1965 and 88 per cent on 1961.

No wonder Martin said that only an increase of taxes could hold back inflation.

Deep worries

The wave of share selling reflects deep worries in business circles that the 3} year boom cannot continue indefinitely.

The Vietnam war places a tremendous strain on the economy and on the financial system. Many sections of industry are suffering from an acute shortage of skilled labour.

Combined with the international liquidity problems threatening the dollar, this constantly raises the possibility of deflationary action being taken.

Such action would have important international repercussions, especially on sterling.

The US economy appears on the surface to be very healthy, breaking new records in sales and profits. But the deep-going problems of world capitalism are present at all levels, and Wall Street only reflects them.. and Cambodia, is now very real and very grim reality.

Grim for U.S.

Nevertheless, just as grim-for the U.S. that is—is the reality that America's supremacy in the air and sea cannot and will not compensate for her extremely vulnerable and precariously fragile situation in Saigon and Da Nang. Here the war is well and truly lost.

In Central Vietnam the disenchantment with Ky's regime is total and complete. So complete that Buddhist leaders are training para-military commandos 'in case the junta had second thoughts'.

Painters'

support for May 25 At its last meeting, the Shepherd's Bush branch of the Amalgamated Society of Painters and Decorators voted to support the lobby of parliament, called for May 25, against the Devlin Report and government's anti-union legislation.

A full site meeting at the Grimethorpe i Coalite plant in Yorkshire is to be called next week following a meeting this Thursday when workers from a sub-contractors heard a speaker outline the campaign for the May 25 lobby.

was rapidly brought to close by the chairman after a Young Socialist speaker was warmly applauded. He had appealed for united campaign in support the one-day stoppage and lobby of parliament being organised for May '25.

This lobby has already received widespread support in the labour movement and is aimed at ventens the introduction of lares against the trade unions.

The clear analysis of the treacherous role of the Labour government given by the Young socialist speaker sharp contrast to McGree's hesitation wond you say wit care i about me one sh clarations, he sa Forgetful?

ut the lead must come from th Trades Councils-not from a poli ticale gas appar that Communist Communist Party rotters worked night and day to prevent antary 26 obar op partiam en articipating in th which that Party members isolating itself from the labour novement because of its coura seous stand in defence of the trade unions.

He forgets to mention that there had had been call tomo single ommunist Party has influence.

Mise Pay thembers will not members Feline Streese of their leaders In Saigon the situation is 'hopeless, but not serious'. • Ky, who at first appeared to concede the Buddhist demands for free elections to a constituent assembly and a civilian government this year, quickly reneged on his promise.

When the delegates to the preliminary meeting to select electoral commission demanded from Ky that he respect and accept the findings of the proposed commission, he refused.

Ky threatens coup

The delegates unanimously threatened to boycott the commission. The arrogant and wily Ky then retaliated by threatening to stage a coup if a 'neutralist or communist government' was elected.

He fürther demanded to remain in power for another year and began to incite the Catholics against the Buddhists in Da Nang and Saigon.

To strengthen his position still further, he appointed Col. Ngoc Loan as chief of the Military Security Force.

Col. Loan's plot is to depose the members of the military junta and install Ky as a civilian president, thus giving Ky a free hand to arrest his civilian opponents and hold the elections on his own terms!

Whichever he does, Ky's goose is cooked, and with him will go the only prospect of a stable pro-U.S. regime in South Vietnam.

As a Saigon bourgeois reputedly told a 'Newsweek' reporter:

'The people have wanted true democracy for too long. If the government abandons the elections after it has promised them, I am afraid that many of the nationalists in the country might . turn to the National Liberation Front.' Paradoxically, Ky has turned t to be the Vietcong's best ally!

The only way the seamen will win their demands is through strike action. This can be strengthened further ifother unions connected with the industry are asked to give every support.

LATE NEWS-Later today, it was learned that the TUC's 'inner Cabinet'-the Finance and General Purposes Committee—was meeting this evening while this afternoon Gunter was meeting representatives of the Confederation of British Industries.

In the light of these developments the executive was deciding this afternoon whether or not to continue its meeting until tomorrow.

This ominous move was made clearer when Hogarth told an interviewer that the union wanted to give 'everybody a chance to intervene' The strike, he said, could be called off within 24 hours.

The executive had discussed their meeting with Gunter for an hour and had reaffirmed the decision to strike. 'While we feel upset at causing disruption to other workers and the country, our needs have got to be heard.' Asked about any hopes from discussions with the TUC he said: "Where there's life there's hope, but reiterated that the strike would go ahead unless there was an improved offer from the employers.

Registered at the G.P.O. as a newspaper Street, Lordon, s.w. 4 rinted by Plough Press wards demands were made for the right wing to explain their action in calling in the police. There were considerable verbal exchanges and when the Young Socialists left the meeting they were followed by most of the trade unionists.

The newspapers, which normally operate a boycott on the Young Socialists, broke it to attack the Day for their stand on May The 'Sunday News' carried the headline 'Young Reds Mar May Day Rally', and reported that there were 20,000 people at the open-air meeting.

There were, in fact, about 3,000 people marching, of whom only 200 stayed for the meeting.

On Wednesday, the Young Socialists held a meeting in preparation for the May 25 lobby of parliament against anti-union laws. The meeting also commemorated the 50th anniversary of the execution of Connolly, the leader of the Easter Rising.

NOBODY knows whether the U.S. president and This advisers are addicts of LSD, but their latest actions in relation to Vietnam seem to indicate that they are drugged with hallucinatory visions of power, a power which is largely mystical.

So obsessed are they with the prospect of military defeat in Vietnam that they will stop at nothing to uphold the myth A bloody demonstration of this fact was the insensate murder of innocent men, women and children in Saigon on in Vietnam Monday by U.S. troops and MPs when a Vietcong mine blew up.

This arrogance and bloodymindedness is reflected in the latest consultations going on in Washington as to whether the U.S. presence should be increased to 500,000 or whether Laos, Lambodia, as well as Hanoi and Haiphong should be bombed.

Crisis of decision

The first alternative will lead an escalation of the opposition the war in the U.S.

The second will lead to a massive opposition abroad — particularly from China.

This situation has been aptly summed up by the Washington correspondent of "The Times':

"The reasons for what is known here as the crisis of decision are clear. In spite of all the costly ground action and increased bombing and gassing, the games theory approach has again failed. The pacification programme is almost at a standstill, and the infiltration of North Vietnam troops has continued to increase from a previous estimated total of 4,500 a month to perhaps 7,000.

'If the games theory approach has failed, it has not been discarded by the President's advisers. This is evident by their response-—a choice of alternatives, both of which are further steps up the escalation ladder' "The Times' reporter continues ominously:

•.. the enormous machineryis now in full swing.' The devastation of Hanoi and Haiphong, not to mention Laos

TUDeNTS in many countries are now taking up the cudgels against oppression; and, in Spain and Italy, it seems from the events of the last two weeks, they have a common adversary-fascism.

In Spain there has been an ever-increasing battle against the open fascism of the Franco state, and in Italy left-wing students have faced attacks from a hidden fascism which many thought had died with Benito Mussolini.

Barcelona and Madrid have been the scenes of battles between the notorious National Guard and students demanding the right to organise their own unions—like the workers, they have for years been tied to the government-controlled Sindicato'.

POLICE STONED It was before Christmas that the country's 75,000 students rejected the 'Sindicato' and elected officers for their own organisation.

Strengthened by the apparent weakening of the Franco state - and the Generalissimo himself — the OUT NOW Fourth International Vol. 3, No. 2 A Journal Published by of the Fourth EDITORS— TOM Editorial Algeria Kenya—Colonialism and the Lessons of Kenya-Coloniali Independence The Struggle for United States (iv) American 1 Trotsky Tim Wolforth Available from: 186A Clapham High Street, Londı of the Int KEE Cuban Revolution in Danger Statement of the International Committee of the Fourth Iternational International Marxism International Committee irnational P, CLIFF SLAUGHTER CONTENTS Trotskyism witho Barcelona students took up their demands again on April 27, running through the town demanding the dismissal of their rector and throwing stones at the police.

After the Spanish Education Minister had closed the university-and received objections from 67 professors 2,000 Madrid University students voted to strike in support of their locked-out colleagues.

'LIBERTY' CALL On May 2, 1,500 students clashed with riot police 50 were arrested later when a crowd marched . towards the Chancellor's office.

Three days later students ran around the campus shouting "Liberty'.

To really gain some success for their demands the Spanish students must unite with those trade unionists who marched on May Day in many Spanish towns, and who are also demanding their own unions and freedom 1 of association.

The student riots in Rome also began on April 27—two days after the anniversary of the liberation of Italy-when TILL April in, S.W.4 Nowsletter Correspondent fascist thugs beat up Paolo Rossi, an architecture student and Young Socialist standing for election to the students' union.

He died shortly afterwards after falling from a wallbrought on by dizziness after the attack.

TRAGIC CLIMAX His death was the tragic climax to a series of right-wing attacks from fascist students and thugs from outside during elections over a number of years.

One student told the 'Sunday Times' reporter:

•Every time there are university elections, fascist goon squads-we call them "beaters" — infiltrate the university from outside and seek to "influence" students known to be against their policies.

'Their tactics are a hangover from the old fascist regime days—a survival of mob rule. The fascist "beaters" usually stalk in gangs of 10 or 15 and, like the cowards they really are, attack only much smaller groups of two or three people.

'If they don't beat you within the university itself, they waylay you outside or follow you home.

'It was these goons who beat up Rossi betore he died.

Sometimes they use knuckledusters. We know quite well who they are?

It is now thought that the struggle against the fascists may turn into a more objective struggle for a reform of university government.

It is believed that several projects have been frozen in parliament.

'The Economist' comments:

"The uncharitable explanation is that so many university professors in politics fear that they might themselves be victims of the reform.

PROTECTION

In what, for this magazine, is an outspoken article, the Rome correspondent says the fascists were encouraged by the all-powerful Rector, Professor Ugo Papi, who refused to allow students to commemorate the Resistance movement on liberation day, a public holiday.

Two days later, when Rossi was killed, demonstrating leftwing students were held back while the police, on orders from their district chief, protected the fascists.

'The police had stood by unmoved while Rossi was being beaten up,' the correspondent adds.

Then students and professors organised a sit-down strike, saying they would not move until Professor Papi resigned.

Papi called in the police to remove students.

The government intervened after there were reports of workers throughout the country expressing their support for the students.

Interior Minister: Taviani ordered police chief Dr. Vicari to police the university. Vicari received a deputation of (students and professors and the police are now holding the fascists in check.

'INDONESIA'

'The Economist's' correspondent reports that the fascists 'have adopted a strange slogan, "Indonesia"; presumably refering to the recent mass butchery of communists in Indonesia?

He reports that the Rome University is spacious and well laid out, but has 'grown out of its skin', having 60,000 students.

Students have no union buildings, there are no amenities and there is no personal contact between students and professors.

There is overcrowding in the lecture halls and many students have to clock in for lectures which they cannot hear.

Administration is in the hands of the Rector and 260 of the 9,000 strong teaching staff.

This comparatively small group appoints 'non-staff' lecturers and assistant lecturers, who are tied to their professor.

'At its worst, says the correspondent, 'it breeds corruption.

In the most powerful faculties of law and medicine the private activities of the professors provides them with their main source of income. Therefore, actual teaching goes by the board with many professors 'cramming' lectures to leave them time for outside activities.

The growing resentment against this state of affairs finally exploded with the fascist activity and the death of Rossi.

Professor Papi has been forced to resign, and university government may be reformed.

But in their struggle for real self-government — not simply hrough reforms-students must link with the workers who gave them support in defence squads to clear the fascists off the campus and out of Rome.

F in Glasgow has now AIRFIELD'S shipyard become the scene of an intense drive to increase production. Trade union practices are being Jettisoned almost daily and wage rates are kept down to an absolute minimum with the backing of the right -wing trade unlon leaders.

The same right wing has invested thousands of pounds in Fairfield's in order to encourage the management to pull the firm 'out of the red' and start making profits. All in all it is a demonsrtation of the confidence which the trade union bureaucracy has in capitalism.

German lesson Such experiences are nothing new in the history of relations between the Labour and trade union bureaucracy and a capitalist class in crisis.

The history of the German Labour leaders in their dealings with the German capitalist supporters of Hitler, during the years before he took p ower in 1933, were similar. Under the constitution o: : the Weimar Republic they set about implementing all sorts of class-collaboration schemes in arder to help the pro-Nazi capitalists out of their difficulties.

The Fairfield's 'experiment' is just such a scheme. The shipyard bosses, who in the depression of the 1930s sacked their workers, smashed up the shipyards, and sold the proceeds for scrap, now want to introduce automated processes for shipbuilding at the expense of the wages and working conditions of the sons of those who were unemployed in the 1930s. The trade union right wing in the Amalgamated Engineering Union and in the Electrical Trades Union support Fairfield's proposals for rationalisation and speed up in the shipyards.

This, we repeat, is normal so far as the relations between the capitalists and the trade union leaders in the present crisis goes, with only one proviso. The German Labour and trade union leaders did their best to get an agreement to work under Hitler after he took power-we have still to arrive at this position here, but the trend is unmistakable.

One of the main differences between the experiences of the pre-Hitler period in Germany and now is the role of some renegades from our movement such as Jock Haston, General Secretary of the Trotskyist movement between 1940 and 1949.

Right-wing choice Mr. Haston was appointed Educational Director of the ETU after the ultra rightwing Cannon and Chappel took over from the Stalinists as a result of the court action some years ago. He was especially chosen, not just for his educational abilities, which in our opinion are very limited, but for his anti-communist and anti-Trotskyist record.

The Daily Mirror on Tuesday, May 2, reported that Haston was in charge of a special one-week school, tor which Fairfield shipbuilding bosses were paying £6,000, in order for him to convince shop stewards and managerial staff of the need to boost production.

The 'Daily Mirror' report praised Haston by implication and in an editorial of May 3, when it said:

All praise to everybody •concerned with this enlightened scheme. To the ETU for its initiative in this kind of industrial education. To the shipyard unions who are co-operating with the firm in the project. To Fairfield's management for pushing this particularly bold experiment in work study, carrying it through and footing the bill.

Jock Haston is today applauded not only by the ETU right wing but by the most reactionary press lords. He has gone a long way from when he was General Secretary of the Trotskyist movement in Britain.

During the second World War he fought for socialist principles in relation to the ownership and control of industry. Now he fights for capitalism to function as a system. That is the meaning of his Fairfield's.

Haston

preached policy:

intel at that time the following Workers' control of pro•duction to end chaos and mismanagement in industry to be exercised through workers' committees.

After the second World War when a Labour government took over in 1945 he preached again the same policy:

A genuine socialist government would have issued a call to the workers to seize the factories and take control into their own hands. Such a government would prepare a national overall plan based on the workers' interests. The plan would be drawn up, not by capitalists and their economists. with a trade union bureaucrat looking on, but by delegates from the workers' and technicians' organisations and after the widest discussion in the ranks of the organised workers. Its operation would be supervised by planning commissions of workers' representatives in every area.

The government would explain that an efficient plan needs the socialisation of all the basic industries and banks at once. It would call on the workers to aid the government by introducing workers' control of production. Committees of workers and technicians would be in a position to make a survey of the entire resources of the country in factory equipment, manpower and raw materials.

(See 'Socialist Appeal, mid-August, 1947.)

Now he has changed his tune and we ask all workers in Fairfield's to take note of the reason why.

He deserted our movement in February 1950 in order to politically move in the direction of the right wing of the Labour Party. For years he was the national organiser of the National Council of Labour Colleges and then he got a job with Chappel and Cannon of the Electrical Trades Union.

So far as his ideas are concerned this man is a INDIAN FAMINE turncoat. During the war and up to 1950 he advocated the revolutionary socialist policies in relation to capitalism. Now he advocates pro-capitalist policies." We ask every worker who attended this school from Fairfield's shipyards to recognise what Haston represents.

Will he raply?

He has got nothing to do with Marxism or Communism. He is, in our opinion, the most conscious representative of the right wing in the Labour Party and the trade unions. We say further —if Haston wants to reply to these things we will be only too willing to publish it.

Once upon a time, during the Second World War, Haston, and the Trotskyist movement of which he was a member, declared that he would give f10 to any member of the Communist Party who could contest the fact that the policy of the Stalinists in relation to the Trotskyists was lies.

We say to Haston, now prove us to be liars. The pages of The Newsletter are open to you.

O and racialist justice ot Verwoerd's regime has been dealt out-this time jailing 58-year-old white South African lawyer Abram Fischer, defence counsel in the infamous Rivonia Trial of 1964.

Jailed for life on Monday, ifter being found guilty of 15 charges last week—including being a Communist Party member--Fischer left the South African Supreme Court with smile and 'thumbs up sign', salute of militant African National Congress.

The life sentence was for 'conspiracy to commit sabotage'.

Fischer was also sentenced to eight years' jail for being an office bearer of the Communist Party, taking part in Communist activity before he went underground last year for nine months after jumping a $5,000 bail, taking part in communist Party activity during those nine months.

These charges brought under the regime's repressive Suppression of Communism Act.

Under the country's Aliens Act, he was fined E10 or one month's jail, for using a false name; sentenced to two months for forging an identity card; and one month for forging a driving licence.

All sentences are to run concurrentiy. In South Africa a life sentence means exactly that for political prisoners.

Fischer told the court that all the charges arose out of his attempts to bring about more links between whites and non-whites.

If such a bridge is eventually established, I will be able to bear with fortitude the sentence which the court will impose, he added.

Mr. Justice Boshoff said in passing sentence that Fischer, as a member of the Communist Party, had conspired with the African National Congress ('Spear of the Nation') to procure and commit acts of sabotage.

Fischer, he said, recognised only one loyalty... to the Communist Party.

• Every possible protest must be made by the British labour movement against this vicious sentence. Demands must be made now through the South African Embassy for the release Fischer, the liberation leaders whom he defended at Rivonia, and all political prisoners of the Verwoerd regime.

Contempt for dying heightened by the social and Mrs. Ghandi, too, has shown religious differences nurtured tion increase. 'There will be no famine. We like India. Only a socialist THE read a rev Nguy Left is the paper with a programme for youth featuring Young Socialists' news and views NAME ADDRESS RY comment on the • undeniable famine which is threatening millions of Indian peasants and workers with starvation in the next few months comes from the 'Sunday Telegraph's' = correspondent Rawle Knox.

The mystery of whether or not there is famine in India is easily solved, he says:

"There is when Mr. Subramaniam, Minister of Food and Agriculture, or Mr. Mehta, Minister of Planning, is in Washington, since that is likely to produce more American aid.

"There is no famine when they return home to their parliamentary benches because that would reflect adversely on their respective Ministries. similar contempt for the dying by imperialists, and their Conmillions-time after time she gress Party lackeys, in their has denied that the 19 million drive for profit. ton food gap means starvation, Neither industrial nor agridespite the 12 million popula- cultural aid will solve the have a scarcity, but there is revolution and socialist planno question of starvation. It ning can save 10 million has been highly exaggerated. Indians from starvation.

SPECIAL 12-PAGE MAY of WAR IN the Story olutionary en Van T Get your copy now. Order single 4d. a copy by sending your to 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4.

Newsletter Correspondent Keep LEFT paper of the Young Socialists packed with special features o VIETNAM behind the fighter— oi' If we get help it is welcome, but if we don't get help, we shall manage,' she said earlier this year.

The US has boosted its 6} million tons offer to 10 million tons of grain and President Johnson has warned: • We may stand at the threshhold of a great tragedy. Unless the world responds, India faces famine.' Harrowing photographs It cannot be denied, especially after harrowing photographs of the Calcutta Death House, where Belsenlike figures, young and old, wait to die from hunger and poverty, appeared in an 'Observer' colour supplement recently.

The stubborn denial is merelv a reflection of a desperate bourgeoisie caught in the backlash of the crisis of imperialism which is problems inherent in a country Articles commemorating The 1926 General Strike The Founding of May Day

ROBERT BLACK WRITES ON:

'he antagonisms within the bureaucratised Soviet economy, which Brezhner (above) admitted was leading to 'shorteomings' in agriculture, emphasise the inability of Stalinism to defend and extend the conquests May 14,

the question Stalin was never allowed to intrude into the bureaucratic stupor of the 23rd Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, it would be wrong to say that its proceedings were unrelated to the history of the Stalin era of Soviet politics. First of all it confirmed that the removal of Khrushchev in October 1964 was directly linked to the crisis of the Soviet economy, and in particular to the collapse of its agricultural programme.

In Brezhnev's report to the Congress, he drew attention to 'serious shortcomings in the system of procuring farm products, which 'hindered the planned management of agriculture'. An equal obstacle to expansion was 'the unjustified reorganisation of agricultural bodies, the imposition of stereotype recommendations from above and the underestimation of science and the experience of long years of practice'.

HOPELESS

POSITION Much of the background to the general problems of the Soviet economy has been dealt with by Michael Best in his two...recent articles in The Newsletter, but a closer look at the problems in agriculture would help to round out the picture of the antagonisms within the bureaucratised Soviet economy, and underline the hopeless position of the Stalinists in their attempts to realise in a rational way the potential a planned economy linked to automation and atomic power.

Starting with the 'secret speech' which debunked the Stalin myth at the 20th Congress in early 1956, Khrushchev began a series of maneouvres on behalf of the Soviet bureaucracy, designed to postpone or head off a clash with the East European and Soviet working classes, who were pressing more and more for the settlement of accounts with the accomplices and heirs of Stalin. This bogus 'de-Stalinisation' - Stalinism without Stalin-combined with promises of a rapid improvement in living and working conditions, formed the essential plank in Khrushchev's domestic platform.

NATIONAL

REVOLTS But it was these same half measures and glib promises that became factors in deepening the crisis in the bureaucracy. The revelations about Stalin, coupled with deep unrest at the continued lag living standards in relation to the sacrifices made by the working class. triggered off national revolts against the bureaucracy in Hungary and Poland, with the working class youth in the leadership.

While Gomulka, by balancing between the church, the working class and the army, and breaking with the most discredited Stalinists, was able to re-establish the rule of bureaucracy without the intervention of Soviet troops, the Hungarian » Stalinists found themselves isolated to such a degree that their restoration to power could only be carried out through the use of Soviet armed forces, many of whom either went over to the Hungarian workers fused to fight.

This chain of events, particularly the sympathy shown amongst the Soviet people themselves for the overthrow of the bureaucracy (Moscow students were expelled for calling meetings in solidarity with the revolution) forced the bureaucracy to take panic measures to defend its own position in both the Soviet Union and in relation to the other workers' states.

Hurried plans were drawn up for the emergency 21st Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1959 by which, it was claimed, the living standards of the working population would be increased at an unprecedented pace. After a year of advance publicity, the 20-year plan for building communism in the Soviet Union (not conditional on any successful. revolutions in the capitalist world) was adopted by the 22nd Congress of the Soviet Party in 1961, being accompanied by further ritual denunciations of Stalin, by the very men who assisted him at every stage in his liquidation of the Bolshevik Party.

The successful implementation of this plan hinged, it was Gomulka re-established the bureaucracy in Poland made clear, on the rapid expansion of Soviet agriculture and light industry.

By 1980, it was claimed, the Soviet Union would be approaching a society of abundance in material goods, in which the role of money as a means of consumption rationing would be fast withering away. The central thesis of the 20-year Plan was 'to ensure a gradual transition of the Soviet countryside to communist social relations, and to eliminate, in the main, the distinctions between town and country on the basis of a powerful expansion of the productive forces in agriculture'. (Khrushchev, Report on the programme of the CPSU, 22nd Congress, 1961.)

PRODUCTION FIGURES How far has this 'powerful expansion in the productive forces in agriculture' taken place? What is the reality of the Soviet economy in 1966, and how does it stand in relation to the Khrushchev Utopia of 'communism in one country'?

Below are set out the targets and actual levels of production in key commodities in agriculture and light industry.

Column A gives the level of production as it stood in 1960, column B the target for 1965 according to the 20-year plan.

Column C is the target set by the same plan for 1970, while column D gives the levels to be reached by 1980, the beginning of Soviet 'communism'.

Bracketed under column B is the actual level of production reached in 1965, while bracketed in column C is the target for 1970 as revised by the 23rd Congress.

Commodity 1960 (millions of tons)

Grain Meat Milk Potatoes Raw Cotton ••• Mineral Fertilizers Eggs (1,000 millions 27.4 Leather Footwear (Millions of pairs)

These figures, all taken from Soviet official sources, reveal very clearly a profound crisis within the Soviet economy. They prove that the 20-year plan for bullding communism has already been silently scrapped.

For example, grain production stands lower today than it did at the outset of the plan, as does potato production. The target for meat has been cut by over half for 1970, while milk and eggs sufler almost equal reductions. Nearly all the targets set for 1965 will not be reached even by 1970, such is the chronic lag in the development of Soviet agriculture.

It is by the crucial test of Marductive system is in the last analysis judged, and in this respect the Soviet economy, and in particular its agriculture, lags far behind the United States, where, in some departments of production, output per man hour is over 10 times as high. The fortunes of the bureaucracy. are therefore closely bound up with the success ot its attempts to provide standards storere over • DOVICI people. We can see from the figures quoted that periodic purges of the apparatus, as in the days of Stalin, are solving nothing.

PROGRESS

WATCHED The most important factor, however, is not reducable to a bare statistic. It is the Soviet working class. We can be sure that its most conscious layers are watching the progress (and the shelving of the 20-year plan with great attention, and have already noticed that the alleged march to communism is not accompanied by either an equalisation in the distribution of the national income, or a decline in the privileges and social aloofness of the ruling bureaucracy.

Far from moving towards the Communist social relation of 'from each according to his ability, unto each according to his needs', the New Plan adopted at the 23rd Congress envisages 'the steady enhancement of the stimulating role of wages in the solution of the major tasks of the Five Year Plan'.

These factors, taken together with its international role as an ally of imperialism, separate the bureaucracy from the mass of the Soviet people more and more sharply. The East European and Soviet working class will be driven into struggles against this reactionary force at a time when the bureaucracy leans increasingly on imperialism to defend its position at home.

Gromyko's visit to the Pope, and his clinching of the deal with Fiat, together with the sinister collaboration between the East German Stalinists and the top West German. social democrats for a fake German unity over the heads of the German working class, are all part of this rightward anti1965 1970 1980 180 (120) 225(167) 290-300 16 (9.3) 25 (11) 30-32 105(65) 135 (78) 170-180 147 (81) 140(100)

10-11 50 (31) 77 (62-65) 37 (29) 68 (34) 110-116 419 (486 825 (625) 1,000 socialist cracy• Within the USSR, the bureaucracy attempts to overcome these contradictions in several ways. It tightens up labour discipline in the factories by the introduction of workers' record books and the increased use of the Leiberman costing system. It seeks to ease the social tensions caused by these measures through the use of scapegoats (the removal of Khrushchev and the execution of Jews for 'economic crimes' are examples of this and by holding out the everlasting carrot of 'a planned all-round increase in the wellbeing of the people' In order to plug the yawning gaps now appearing in the Soviet economy, the bureaucracy reaches out tentatively to the most powerful of the capitalist monopolies such as Krupps, I.C.I., Mitsubishi and now Fiat. Without the advance of the workers' struggle for power in the imperialist states, this growing together of the two sectors of the world market, ruptured temporarily by the Russian Revolution, contains within it the danger of restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union. This restorationist pressure exerted on the Soviet economy finds an echo within certain layers of Soviet society itself, not the least important of these being the peasantry.

It was the bungling of collectivisation of agriculture by Stalin from 1929 to 1932, carried out in a brutal and empirical way as a panic response to the grain strike of the richest peasants, that alienated the vast mass of the rural population from Soviet power, thus breaking the link between town and country so carefully nurtured by Lenin and the Soviet government in the early days of the revolution. Khrushcheu's removal linked with agricultural crisis Thus the question of Stalin did loom very large over the 23rd Congress, but in such a way as to prevent its participants from even touching on the darkest days of the Stalinist terror in the Soviet countryside. The deeply rooted mistrust of the Soviet system by the majority of the rural population is a barrier that can only be broken down by the re-establishment of Soviet democracy, and the . planned development of the economy under the direct control of workers, peasants and consumers' committees.

INTERNAL

CRISIS In its turn, the internal inbalances of the Soviet economy, inevitable even with the most highly developed of democratic planning and contral, integration of the Soviet economy into a world-wide system of planned economy harnessing all the latest advances in science and technology. Seeing as we do now the rapid going over to right-wing social democracy by the The 20+year plan has, in its first year failed to mer targets.

Russian Revolution.

Stalinist movement in all the capitalist states, it would be wrong to separate this development from the internal crisis of the Soviet bureaucracy. The sharpness of this crisis will give the lie to all those political tendencies that face all their hopes in the 'self liberalisation' of the bureaucracy.

Much of the regime of terror that was an essential part of Stalinism in the 1920s and 1930s remains behind the "liberal' screens in the form of 'corrective' labour camps, 'mental hospitals', and trials in camera of writers and intellectuals.

The recent arrests of oppositionists in Poland by the so-called liberal regime of Gomulka is more evidence of this hardening of the line against would-be doubters and critics of the bureaucracy. All those who cover up for and adapt themselves to the 'soft' wing of the bureaucracy not only confuse workers who seek to break from these capitalist agencies in the workers' states, but also dig their own political graves at the same time.

-The class struggle, both in Western and Eastern Europe, will pass these appendages of bureaucracy by. The unity of these struggles is bound up with the construction of Trotskyist parties of the Fourth International, basing themselves on all the lessons of bureaucratic betrayal.

There is one thing the 23rd Congress could not conceal, with all its bureaucratic smugness, and that was its total inability to defend and extend the economic and political conquests of the Russian revolution. That responsibility long ago passed into other hands— the Fourth International.

T Cyprus is in as big •ODAY, the island of a political mess as it was three years ago, when the - inter - communal troubles started. The inability of the l Makarios regime to settle the problem had been manifested, first by accepting the London Conference of January 1964, and secondly, by applying to the United Nations to help him restore order. The United Nations, always eager to work as agents of the imperialists, immediately stepped in and managed to keep the Greeks and Turks apart (instead of bringing them together).

Makarios-Grivas Differences The present so-called differences between . Makarios and Grivas are merely differences of personal ambiBY KYPRC Cypriot tion in controlling the machinery of the government of Cyprus (this is to represent the interests of the ruling class).

Their differences are not of an ideological character. In fact both of them want and foster Enosis (Union with Greece), a solution which actually means throwing the island into the arms of NATO.

General Grivas, the extreme right-wing leader of the armed forces in Cyprus, and a former collaborator with the British during the Greek Civil War, wants to have Enosis at once, whereas Makarios, supported by AKEL, the island's Progressive Working People's Party, believes that a plebiscite should take place to enable the people to choose whether they want to join with Greece or not.

The A.K.E.L.

Standpoint

AKEL, the official Communist Party of Cyprus, has no programme of turning Cyprus into a socialist island.

Like other IS TOFALLIS Journalist Parties, instead of taking the initiative and leading the people to socialism, it cooperates with the agents of the oppressors of the Cypriot masses. So far, it has not made a single call to both the Greek and Turkish peasants. and workers to join forces , and face the enemy, which is a combination of foreign imperialism and native capitalBy fostering Enosis, AKEL is isolated from the Turkish workers and peasants. AKEL is afraid of the Greek right wing (as well as the Turkish right wing and hence, it fears alienation. A Communist Party which has no Communist programme to offer the masses is not worthy to be called Communist.

right-wing press The Greek right-wing press and especially the newspaper 'Machi' ('Combat'), edited by Nikos Samson, a former EOKA member, has started just recently a fierce campaign against AKEL and all Communists in Cyprus by calling them traitors and agents the Soviet Union.

Everyone knows that AKEL is 1 pro-Makarios Party, but Samson wants to stir further trouble during this difficult period when the big monopolists and Anglo-American imperialists will rejoice to see a further split in Cyprus, i.e., a split between the Greeks.

Unity of people urged The left-wing newspaper 'Haravghi' ('Dawn') calls upon the Cypriot masses to ignore the provocateurs and remain calm. This futile attempt, originating from NATO circles, will not sứcceed. The people of Cyprus should realise that if they want to achieve a socialist victory they should first and foremost throw out the British bases and the UN troops as well as the Greek and Turkish forces stationed in the island.

On eliminating the foreign interests then and only then can Greeks and Turks proceed to the socialist road, the road which will bring everlasting harmony and peace to the long-suffering Cypriot workers an d peasants.

Page May 14, 1966 May

for united action in a lobby of parliament on May 25 against the Devlin Report and the proposed anti-union legislation tabled by the Labour government.

'For us to unite in action as dockers with workers in other industries would be a big blow against the employers and the government in their attempts to shackle workers' militancy,' the leaflet says, adding:

'Either you support action such as that proposed by Merseyside, or you meekly accept being parcelled ployers and tish ary controlled by them and with laws against militancy. That is your choice!

The Portworkers' Committee says that the government's proposed inquiry into the amendments to the Dock Labour Scheme, which includes decasualisation of the docker, is 'a trap to force the Devlin proposals on us. BELFAST MAY DAY Workers back youth against witch-hunt By our Northern Ireland Correspondent K Young Socialists marching on the annual May Day parade. IGHT-WING stewards used police to stop Northern Ireland The youth, who had marched every year since they were formed in Belfast four years ago, had made a float consisting of an eight-foot gallows with the theme: "Trade Union rights on the gallows—Defeat the anti-union laws'.

The float, bedecked with red bunting and political slogans caused quite a sensation when it arrived at the assembly point in May's market.

Right-wing stewards scurried to the police, instructing them not to let the youth march.

Though various trade unions invited the Young Socialists to march as part of their contingents, the police cordoned off the youth and held them in the market. Stewards made no objection to the CND, Young Communist League marching.

WITCH-HUNT INTENSIFIED This act marks the intensification of the witch-hunt against the Young Socialists who have already put up a struggle with the Lambeth Trades Council against the anti-union laws.

A Belfast Trades Council official and Communist Party member jeered at the youth as she went past: 'Who is going io make the revolution now?'.

Asked for support against the right wingers, a Young Communist League member suggested that the Young Socialists should hide their banners against the anti-trade union laws and march as individuals.

Determined not to take this action lying down the youth quickly prepared a leaflet.

When the May Day march returned to the market, it was met by the youth with their banners against anti-union laws and the leaflet calling on trade unionists, to pass resolutions in their branches condemning the action of the right wing in excluding the Young Socialist contingent.

WORKERS LEAVE

At the open-air meeting afterAEU BACKS WILSON'S VIETNAM POLICY ot the Amalgamated engineering Union passed by 40 votes to 12 a resolution welcoming the Labour government's policy on the war in Vietnam.

An amendment which called for the immediate ending of the American Devlin-style plan FORTy to fifty dundancy, abolition of registration and complete mobility of labour are the main proposals contained in a draft already agreed in principle between union officials and employers aflecting Transport and General Workers' Union members on the South Wales dry docks.

This agreement is a most serious threat to the livelihoods and trade union rights of ship repair workers.

One union official described it as being in advance of the Geddes Report on shipbuilding.

There is no doubt that the anti-working-class policies of the government on anti-union laws and re-organisation of the docks have encouraged the dry dock employers to renew their attacks on the men.

If the agreement is carried out, it will mean the following changes:

Registration :

The Joint Registration Scheme, which gives priority of employment to registered unic ›n members, and means I control Be union will be cancel led. This been existence since 1933.

Further, all previous working practices and customs will be cancelled.

Mobility of Men will be fully mobile between all ship repair yards in South Wales ports (Newport, Carditi, Barry, Port Talbot and Swansea).

The one-man, one-job principle will be scrapped. "The men • shall form a general labour pool available to carry out all unskilled and/or semi-skilled work in yards at the discretion of the management,' says the proposed agreement.

A three-shift system would be introduced.

Wages :

Many special conditions rates to be abolished. For the rest, a standard special conditions rate of 6d an hour to be paid. It is estimated that this could mean a loss of f2 a week in some cases.

Wages will fluctuate with national fluctuations. This is a clear attempt to take away local bargaining power.

bombing and the implementation of the 1954 Geneva Agreement was defeated by 28 votes to 24.

Again the Stalinists inside the AEU have lost on an important international issue to the right wing of the union.

As in the

Welsh

ship repair men By a Cardiff Correspondent New rates of 8s an hour, and 7s an hour 'idle time' to be The main purpose of this is to split workers at the small, largely unoccupied, and less well-organised yards from those at the main yards at Cardiff.

Redundancy :

With these proposals agreed 'in principle' the employers are naturally thinking in terms of big cuts in the labour force.

The local ship repairers' association demands that unskilled and semi-skilled labour be reduced to the following numbers (present numbers in brackets):

Newport: 30 (approximately 60).

Cardiff and Barry: 260 (approx. 500).

Port Talbot: 40 (approx. 70).

Swansea: 70 (over 100).

The management intend to pick themselves those who will stay. Ihis is the obvious opportunity to remove leading militants and shop stewards.

Also all men over 65 will be retired immediately. As though determined to add insult to injury the association concludes:

'In this present era of full employment we are sure that none of these individuals will find difficulty in obtaining employment outside the ship-repairing industry,' but for special cases employers 'might be prepared to consider some form of ex-gratia payment in accordance with the merits of the case.' Having secured agreement their plans from full-time union officials, the employers can afford defeat on the question of proposed legislation against the trades unions when the issue was raised last week, the fake fighting of the Stalinists of the British Communist Party has brought about a serious defeat in an important trade union.

press home the attack all the harder.

These officials may quibble over some points, but in the long run they will accept the consequences of their agreement with the management.

The union officials and the workers do not talk the same language; one union official talks of 'speeding up our negotiations'.

The attitude of the men iswho wants to speed up these negotiations?

It is absolutely clear that the fight against these proposals involves a struggle to build an alternative leadership to the present union officials.

The draft document proves how right The Newsletter has been to warn against placing any reliance on union leaders who want to compromise with the employers.

Similar schemes to this are being introduced for members of the Amalgamated Engineering Union and the Boilermakers on the dry docks. The point of carrying on negotiations with separate unions instead of with the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Workers has been to split up the dry dock workers.

Unity between all unions and grades now essential if the new proposals are to be defeated.

Most important is the recognition that this is a political Soughe Wales dry dockers is The attacks on the closely connected with the proposals of the Devlin Report on the docks, the Geddes Report on shipbuilding and the proposed Incomes Bill against the trade unions.

These are all aspects of the government's attempts to maintain the capitalist system at the expense of the working class.

Ship repair workers should establish the widest unity with other sections of the working class by joining the campaign against the anti-union legislation and the Devlin Report, and giving full support to the lobbi of parliament called for May 25 Writs out on deliverymen WRITS were issued last week against 50 Coventry car delivery drivers. Along with 300 other drivers they struck last month after a workmate had been dismissed for allegedly striking a job allocator, because of his attitude towards grievance.

After re-instatement had been refused, the drivers came out on strike in the face of bitter opposition from Transport and General Workers' Union officials.

The employers, Port Car Deliveries, are alleging conspiracy, inducement of breach of contract and disregard for agreed settlement procedure, and withdrawal of labour.

The Observer' pointed out: 'The case could be as significant for labour relations as Rookes v. Barnard. It should be the , first big test case of the Trades Disputes Act which was passed last year to reverse the effects of the House of Lords ruling in the Rookes case.'

'Any leader, official or unofficial, who accepts this inquiry, really of the Devlin Report @pproves "Security' promised in the Devlin Report, it says, means security for the employers. The amendments mean that dockers will be employed directly by individual port employers.

The committee says that the government is attempting to "kid along' the dockers to accept Devlin by hinting at nationalization of the industry.

"The docks could be nationalized under committees dockers. knows they could be run more efficiently and with real security guaranteed that way, the statement says.

This can only be achieved through united action, and that was why Mersey dockers had decided to lobby on May 25-a decision in line with the feelings of the rank and file in other ports.

Nothing gained spectacle of Jack the London liaison committee] and others opposing the policy of action from Merseyside and substitting support for an inquiry,' the leaflet says.

Nothing has been gained from inquiries, and those who claimed it as a victory were wrong.

An inquiry had been accepted during the wage struggle of 1964 and this had led to the Devlin Commission and Report.

'Waiting for an inquiry means waiting while preparations go ahead to push through the main provision of Devlin on which union leaders, employers and the government have agreed. It means waiting while employers get added strength. by laws which will impose legal penalties rank-and-file militants who break wages standstill.' • Seamen

BY NEWSLETTER CORRESPONDENT IN their latest leaflet, the Merseyside Portworkers' Committee calls deal A last week over 150 Ta mass meeting members of the Electrical Trades Union voted unanimously to reject the three-year package deal signed for the electrical contracting industry.

The meeting was at the site of the new Ford Research Centre at Dunton, Essex, where a dispute is/ now taking place.

On the following day, the 'Daily Telegraph' pointed out that the deal is likely to be referred to George Brown's Prices and Incomes Board as it provides for wages far in excess of the 34 per cent. norm.

The proposed increases in hourly rates were, of course, the bait with which it was hoped to hook ETU members into agreeing to grading of electricians, probable abolition of the full price rates, redundancy and speed up.

With the bait gone, one wonders who will be hooked: the rank and file or the right wing full-time officials and the executive council of the ETU?

Two hundred and fifty electricians at the Tilbury 'B' power station were sacked on Monday after taking strike action the previous Friday.

The strikers are demanding the re-instatement of 1l of their work-mates, sacked by the main electrical contractors on the job.

far as the rank-and-file members of the Natiol and their pay claim, launched in February, are conce CP's builders' rally attack on wages and liner trains moving in for the kill as al Union of Railwaymen ned.

As the Minister for Transport, Mrs. Barbara Castle, one time supporter of the 'left', is the spearhead of the Labour government's battle to get the executive of the National Union of Railwaymen to accept most particularly the liner trains scheme, with its policy for allowing private contractors to use the liner train terminals.

The Minister of Transport in fact appeared to be so anxious to convince the NUR executive that she made a precedent in being the first Minister to address a meeting of the executive at NUR headquarters.

Redundancies?

Whilst the national papers made a point of reporting Mrs. Castle's enthusiasm for modernisation on the railways-under the National Freight Authority, which the government will set up—no mention was made of plans for redundancies on the railways, which will must surely follow the introduction of liner trains.

No mention was made either of the fact that introducing the practice of private contractors at the liner terminals means the virtual de-nationalization of the railways.

Following closely on the heels of Mrs. Castle, who met the executive the morning, Minister of Labour Ray Gunter took part in talks with the union representatives of railwaymen and other heavy industries along with Stanley Raymond, chairman of the British Railways Board.

Pay examined

This meeting, on pay, was the follow-up to the conference held at Downing Street on March 10 following the calling off of the strike by NUR general secretary Sidney Greene in February. that time angry rank-and-file railmen saw the intervention of Wilson and the staving, off of their wage demand until an inquiry was held.

Yesterday's decision was to set up an examination of pay and grade structure.

Next month Gunter is to chair another rail industry meeting at which, it is reported, productivity will be the main question under discussion. The full implications for rail workers are clear.

After a strike sell out following intervention by the Labour government, a long period of time before anything constructive is done to even discuss the wage increases, and big publicity about London Transport's losses, railwaymen will probably be tied to a deal which will involve a big speed up and redundancies. • Vietnam

by Geoff It 7 workers who attended the Communist Party's "rally' for building workers in London last Thursday (May 5) heard Leo McGree —billed on the publicity handouts as a 'famed Merseyside builders' leader'-produce wealth of detailed statistical information, but no policy for a struggle against the government's proposed anti-union legislation.

Nor did his speech campaign comfort to those who, mistakenly, had hoped to hear an alternative Communist policy for building workers.

McGree failed to mention to he ever-dwindling audience the rices and Incomes Bill or to make any analysis of the Labour government.

In reading out list upon list of tables relating to strikes, wages Amalgamated Society of Wood- the 'famed' country bottom every league.

A case for laws McGree claimed that despite the vicious Taft-Hartley Acts; in strikes in the United States of America than in any other country.

The significance of this information was not explained. Could it be the beginning of a case in favour of repressive legislation against the unions?

Despite treacherous leadership in the building trades unions, which had led to package deals with miserly wages increases, the situation the rest 'official' labour movement was far from Following. the General Election, we now have a large body of genuine socialists in ment, McGree continued—failing to mention any names.

The leadership of the Transport and General Workers' Union was one of which could all be justly proud, he added! (He should tell that to the dockers.)

Inspire confidence Even the National Union of Seamen's leadership received the McGree stamp of approval.

Seamen and dockers can now unite behind their official leaders with full Communist Party backing!

meeting-anin whole to inspire This was the whole tone of the confidence sections of the social-democratic leaderships, both in parliament and in the unions.

The discussion which followed