The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 445

DEFYING the weather and attempts to split working-class unity, 1,100 Young Socialists, seamen, dockers, students and trade unionists on Wednesday calling for a victory to the seamen's strike and an end to the Devlin Report and anti-union legislation. marched on parliament Called by the Young DOCKEAS SRY In the tense situation in the of young and old workers gave MOR the clearest political expresDock The presence of the dockers and seamen, who are facing the ditions, was witness to the poliSocialist Labour League comThis was further strengthened Above: After over 7,000 Also recognising this strength, brought Merseyside seamen's union officials and unto a standstill in support of the lobby, many travelled to All the marchers recognised the demands made their banners, placards and in their London to lead the Young slogans as an open fight against Socialists' march behind the capitalist lackeys-the Lift the Emergency-Fight for huge banner.

nationalize the docks!' echoed Below : Seamen from round the riverside roads as the march, headed by Merseyside dockers and dockers from all over Britain were also marching at the front of the Earlier on the Royal Docks —Mr. Jack Dash's television-cum- demonstration. Several are pool seamen who were there seen with banners expressWing the working-class unity who had organised the demonup in the editorial on this page.) of the demonstration.

MOTORY SEAMEN ACAINST ANTILAWS. TO DEWA Hard-or word retaild of what is said in Parliament, is not exactly a bestseller, and a number of things which are said in there often go unnoticed, even though they deserve some thought.

For example, Harold Wilson, after introducing his intention to use Emergency Powers in the seamen's strike, answered a question from Mr. Eric Heffer, the honourable Labour member from Walton.

The exchange is worth re1. 219K MR By Cliff printing, as an example ot how important political changes reveal the real political relationships more clearly than before.

The 'left' Labour MPs elected in the 1964 and 1966 General Elections have recently received lengthy and sympathetic treatment from the capitalist press. Heffer has often been indicated by the 'political correspondents' as one of the great white hopes of the parliamentary left'.

Let us see how Heffer reacted to the Government's decision to take Emergency Powers:

MR. HEFFER (Liverpool, Walton, _Lab.).-If troops are put in the docks, or there is an extension of the use of the Royal Navy, this could lead to a serious crisis among the rest of the dock workers.

Would not the Prime Minister consider whether under the emergency powers it would be far better if the Government took over on a temporary basis the running of the shipping industry, with a temporary subsidy until the whole matter can be settled?

MR. WILSON.—My hon.

friend, I recall, as a fellow Merseyside member, played a notable part in the shipping dispute of six years ago when the Merchant Shipping Act was one of the serious questions.

I would hope that if there is any attempt-and some of these things are not spontaneous, they are deliberately organised by people of political views not represented in the House—to spread this difficulty and problem, with which we all sympathise, to other areas of the economy . ..!

know my hon. friend would be one of the first to use his notable influence to prevent this happening. (Some laughter.) Price 6d.

Newsletter Reporters tee, the lobby was a worthy sequel to the January 26 AT the House of Com action, and an answer to mons the lobbyists the complete line-up of all were let in at a steady pace.

political forces who attemptIn the lobby Roy Mason, Minister of Shipping and MP ed to destroy the demonfor Barnsley, said he would stration. The number of only speak to people from his demonstrators swelled to constituency.

He said the economy of the 2,000 as the lobby began. country would be jeopardised if the government did not take Class war, this mighty march the Emergency Powers.

"The seamen are trying to establish a 17 per cent increase, sion of anti-capitalist hatred and they just cannot do it, he by British workers. said, adding: 'My sympathies are not with the employers.

In fact they are not anywhere. brunt of the attack by the Wilsor My allegience to the government on wages and coneconomy.' tical strength and lead given by Arthur Blenkinsop, a South the Young Socalists and their Shields MP, could not say if he was against the Emergency rades.

Powers or not. He would not vote against the Emergency by the news, given at the meetPowers if they were in the ing point, that the whole of the national interest to bring in Mersey had stopped - dockers essential supplies and food. were holding a 100 per cent one day token strike in sympathy with Mikardo, Poplar's MP the lobby. threatened to call the police if Young Socialists lobbied him.

Glasgow MP, Garrow, said official elements on the docks linked up with all the reactionary he would definitely vote for the forces in an attempt to castrate Emergency Powers and for the the demonstration. Prices and Incomes Bill. He said the seamen should go to a court of inquiry and could not see why they were afraid to do so.

Labour leaders.

Joan Lestor, ed he sate b, said she opposed the state emergency, but she did not dockers-unite know whether she would vote 'Hands off the unions-Make the against it because she had not bosses pay!' and Devlin outseen the amendments.

South Battersea MP, Perry, said he supported the seamen's claim, but thought it could be over Britain, moved from Tower Hill to Waterloo. negotiated upon before the Emergency Powers were brought 1n. He thought an press conference studio-Liveroffer of a 48-hour week this year and a 40-hour week next looking for support, were warne year should be agreed. about 'mixing with these people Angry seamen surrounding him said 'No, you can't feed stration. (This question is taken children on promises?

The Republican Labour MP from West Belfast, Fitt, said he would vote against the Emergency Powers if he could do so. He had been a seaman for 13 years. He was not sure whether one man could vote against the Powers.

John Mendelson, Penistone, said he opposed penalties on workers, but it did not follow that he would vote against the Prices and Incomes Bill. He said he would be the first to oppose the Emergency Powers.

It was he who had arranged the meeting of MPs with seamen's leader Bill Hogarth that afternoon.

Eric Heffer, MP for Walton, Liverpool, said he wanted assurances that the government would not be sending seamen to work on ships before he would vote for the Emergency Powers.

Seamen who had interviewed Heffer said they had received a quarter of an hour's sympathy from Heffer. But they did not want sympathy, they wanted action.

Continued page

STATÉMENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL • QUESTION: The Labour government, in its and Incomes Bill claims that it is to control both and prices. If this is so, and it brings stable shouldn't the working class support the Bill? Page Tw Prices wages prices,

The message of these Young Socialists passing the London Docks is clear.

Joe Harper, Castletord's Mr, asked about strike, said it was a matter of sitting down and waiting for t to end. He said he though ere was no need for strike verything could be settler over the table. know about the seamen's case until they came out on strike.

The to seen to Do wins, were Lil country and were in the interests of the people. He was voting the Prices and his position on the Prices and Incomes Bill, because it was in the interests of the also people. agreed with the Bill. "We will Smethwick's bearded MP Andrew Faulds He state, as wrangedo that bee was fully behind the •seanner SUPPORTE THE SEAMEN DEFERTI WILSON shipping.

He said that f27 million had been earned on the Liverpool docks last year.

'What has the docker seen of that?' he asked. 'I only get £15 for working a 44-hour week, but an an average is f12 10s. and a 48-hour week.' Dockers, seamen and other workers had put Wilson where he is, 'and now he is up against them.

This government is not a Labour government. A Labour thing to the working man, such a government would not do There had been a lot of modernisation on the docksi'for the ships, not the men.

We are still doing hard graft down in the ship's hold, and we don't get boots or oilskins in bad conditions, he said.

7,700 strike, 63 ships idle MERSEYSIDE came to a standstill on Wednesday when dockers in Liverpool and Birkenhead held a one-day token strike in support of the Young Socialists' Lobby of Parliament against the anti-trade union legislation and the Devlin Report.

"The Times' reported on Thursday that a total of 7,678 dockers were on strike, although 3,028 had reported for duty.

But the newspaper also commented that the strike 'did what the official seamen's strike has so far failed to do and brought work at the port virtually to a standstill'.

By mid-afternoon only three ships were another 14 being manned by skeleton crews. A stood idle.

The report said that the dockers were protesting against the proposed amendments to the National Dock Labour Scheme and anti-trade union legislation.

It also reported that Young Socialists and trade unionists from all over Britain, sympathising with the seamen's strike 'also waited' to lobby MPs.

It was not a matter of also. The dockers, trade unionists, Young Socialists, along with seamen "The Times' reporter did not see, were on a united lobby behind united demands.

That morning they had marched together for several miles in drizzling rain to demonstrate just that.

Who are the real splitters?

THE Communist Party did everything it possibly could to weaken and split the magnificent demonstration and lobby of parliament on May 25. It was an education and an eye-opener for thousands of Young Socialists and trade unionists on the reactionary role of Stalinism inside the working-class movement.

This is not a matter for tittering by Opposition members. 1 happen to know what he did in the difficult situation of the 1960 dispute. I am confident that he, and everyone else who has influence in the shipping and port areas, will do their utmost to see that no one was allowed to cash in, in a political sense, on the difficulties which have arisen. (Our emphasis, editor.)

Heffer, having made plain that he is not opposing the taking of Emergency Powers, only suggesting they be put to good use, is gently but firmly told by the exBevanite Wilson just what his duty to the capitalist state is, and how valuable he is in carrying it out.

WHAT WAS ROLE?

Above all he is commended to both sides of the House as a . man eminently capable of helping out against all those who are fighting to build an alternative political leadership.

As Wilson told the House, Mr. Heffer already proved himself in their respect in the unofficial seamen's strike of 1960. We would like to ask both Wilson and Heffer, just what was this special role in 1960?

Heffer's own development as a 'left' has often been commented on in this paper, but Tuesday's parliamentary proceedings shed an even crueller light on it than before.

Way back in the middle 1950s, Heffer condemned as opportunists all those who as Marxists saw the importance of work inside the Labour Party and in parliament. He insisted that only the organisation of the industrial workers themselves could lead to the victory of socialism.

Continued page 4, column being manned, total of 63 ships Spearheading the Stalinist splitters was Mr. Jack Dash on Tuesday, the day before the lobby, e denounced his fellow dockel 1 the northern ports as irrespon ible 'trouble makers' because they had taken a decision for a one-da: strike to join the lobby.

For this he earned warm praise from the Tory press. The 'Evening Standard' on the same day devoted an editorial commending 'Mr. Jack Dash, who has not previously been renowned for his restraint, is to be congratulated on his plea for moderation. He warned the dockers that trouble-makers are trying to provoke the more militant, element into hasty action.

Obviously he shares the Prime Minister's fears that political factions may try to spread the stoppage.' The Tories support Mr. Dash because be is playing the role of splitter. Dockers on the Royal Group should take careful note of what the Tory Press has to say because neither Dash nor the Communist Party are going to fight the Devlin report.

They will settle for a few minor amendments.

This is the reason why they hate the northern dockers who are going to fight this report. The sooner the London Liaison Committee gets rid of Dash the better.

supports the T&GWU officials who, with the agreement of the right wing of the National Union of Seamen, are now moving ships in the Royal Group in London. In other words these cowardly officials are breaking the strike.

"The Guardian' of May 26 says:

"The astonishing thing is that the N.U.S. is co-operating this work... Yet, inevitably, there are elements in the unions who are profoundly unhappy about having "only half a strike"?

The Communist Party and Dash are tied to Wilson. They use left phrases in order to cover this upbut the cover is wearing thin.

Their actions in joining hands with the lories and right-wing Labour leaders in opposing the May 25 lobby reveals them in the true colours of Stalinism-splitters and disrupters of the labour movement.

intended to control prices, but this is in fact a cover up for its real role which is to hold down the level of wages.

Brown proposes to control rices simply by persuading mployers that increases maj be against the national A smal sumber 9t achieved when trace ims are nationalized and their producion planned for use and not for profit.

How does a firm fix its level of prices?

Competition

battle with Each frm its rivals, must Each engaged in a strive to maximise this profit in order to keep in the forefront of technical and technological developments.

Prices are therefore the result of competition between firms.

A motor car firm will, for example, fix its prices at the highest point possible in relation to those of its rivals.

Of course, firms in a monopoly position have more liberty in raising their prices and in other cases firms may enter into written or unwritten agreements to fix the level of their prices.

In other words fluctuations in the level of prices is part of the functioning of capitalism. There can be no conscious control of prices in a capitalist economy.

Price control is in any case made a mockery by the terms of Callaghan's Budget proposals.

His Selective Employment Tax, in which employers in service trades will have to pay 25s. for each worker employed, will bring large increases in prices over a wide range of goods-this at a time when this same Labour government is proposing to hold down the level of earnings through the force of law.

In any case these Labour leaders have never explained how they propose to get price stability in Britain, which is utterly dependent upon fluctuations in international trade and commerce.

For example, in order to try and ease the balance of payments crisis, the Labour government, soon after it took office for the first time : in 1964, was forced to place a surcharge on many imported goods which had the immediate effect of raising prices. .. m 1.00 READ Vol. 3, No. 2 A Journal of Published by the of the Fourth Inti EDITORS- TOM KEMP, CLIFF SLAUGHTER EDITORS- TON KEP Editorial Algeria Kenya-Coloniali Independence The Struggle for United States (iv) American T Trotsky Tim Wohlforth Cuban Revolution in Danger Statement of the International Committee of the Fourth Iternational Available from:

186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 Become a subscriber to IN the fight for socialism, The Newsletter is playing a vital role. Do you get it regularly? Don't leave it to the chance encounter, fill in this form and send it to: Subscription Department, The Newsletter, 186a Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4. 9s. Od. for 12 issues Name Address explodes the myth Fourth International International Marxism International Committee irnational P, CLIFF SLAUGHTER CONTENTS "rotskyism The recent copper crisis illustrates the same point.

The increase in copper prices sent a shiver down the spine of the City of London, further weakened the balance of payments and threatened large increases of all goods into which copper went.

Illusion

The present seamen's strike is being taken advantage of by traders and firms to raise the price of many goods.

Price stability under capitalism is an illusion.

Planned prices are only possible in a planned economy. That is one where the giant monopolists have been taken over, and nationalized under workers control.

On the other hand the working class must fight the pernicious effect of increasing prices on its living standards.

This can be done only when the unions, having determined the real costs of living, insist that any rise in prices is matched by appropriate increases in wages.

This must be the only 'prices policy' for the working class. PETER JEFFRIES April Price

George Brown, the Minister for Economic Affairs says his Bill is THE International Committee of the Fourth International condemns s an attack on the workers of South Africa, and the whole world, the vicious sentence of life imprisonment pronounced on May 9, 1966, against Abram Fischer, 59-yearold Johannesburg lawyer and member of the Communist Party.

This sentence is part of the ceaseless repression of the Verwoerd government, which oppresses the South African workers on behalf of big capital both native and international.

The Suppression of Communism Act, under which Fischer was convicted, is a tyrannical measure, part of a whole programme of political dictatorship to enslave the workers and peasants.

Verwoerd's government, like lan Smith's in Rhodesia, and the Portuguese imperialists Angola and Mozambique, is the hired thug of the international monopolists and finance capitalists in Europe, America and South Africa..

The struggle against Verwoerd's imperialist dictatorship is likewise a struggle against all those who stand behind him.

Fischer will be freed, and the people of South Atrica with him, only on the basis of an internaional struggle of the force which can challenge monopoly capitalism, the international proletariat.

Fischer's 'crimes' were entirely political. The capitalist government decreed that certain political affiliations, such as membership of the Communist Party, themselves made a person liable to life imprisonment. he was not permitted to carry his political actions out legally, he was compelled to conceal his identity and equip himself with forged documents. socialist struggling against the repressive regime. To convict Fischer on these grounds is not the 'preservation of law and order' on behalf of the people, as Verwoerd's government claims, but the brutal and direct suppression of elementary perParty conceived of the struggle in their country as one directed towards a national democratic that the national democratic tasks of the bourgeois revolution, in the epoch of imperialism, can be carried on only with the methods of the proletarian revolution, by the leadership of the workbe successful. Further, the struggle requires a strategy of united campaigns by workers in the metropolitan countries, in this case particularly Britain, against the bankers of the imperialist regime. such campaigns must be built in and through the struggle against police repressions like those of Fischer.

Fischer could not renounce his politics. Since Such actions are the elementary duty of any workers of South Africa to stand firm in their resistance to the imperialist government, to strengthen their organisation in every area, to rouse the maximum support against the sentence on Fischer, to continue the preparation of armed resistance to the regime, alongside the workers sonal liberties. Fischer and the South African Communist revolution. The Fourth International has always considered ing class and its own Marxist Party. Only when this course is taken will the struggle We know, however, that such leadership and The methods of working-class revolution must be used for this defence also. The International Committee calls upon the GRAHAM and peasants of Rhodesia and the rest of Southern Africa.

It is the independent organisation and politics of the proletariat which will. drive out the imperialists.

Particularly in Britain the campaign must be waged. Behind the smokescreen of a Labour government, thousands of millions of pounds are wasted in South Africa by British capitalists, protected by Verwoerd and providing the basic support for the Smith regime.

The struggle. against these imperialists in Britain is impeded above all by their lackeys in the Labour government.

When we call upon the Wilson government to intervene against the vicious sentence on Fischer, we do it as part of a campaign to expose the social democrats as servants of imperialism, and to build the independent leadership to lead the working class to the smashing of the imperialists at their centre.

on behalf of Fischer and all those South African police state.

All sections of the Fourth International, and revolutionary workers everywhere, must expose by every means the sentence on Fischer and what lies behind it.

Public campaigns and demonstrations to South African legations, all as part of building the anti-imperialist revolution in every country; this is our answer to the Verwoerd. regime.

The armed struggle of the African workers, supported by the international proletariat, will bring the freedom of Fischer and the destruction of Verwoerd and his like.

Every publicity, every pressure, every action, by the workers' movement and its allies all over the world, for the release of Abram Fischer. BERNARD It is this struggle that we fight most effectively detained in the London, May 5, 1966.

GARRETT

M rushed to a Detroit ORE that 40 students hospital to offer their blood after three young Marxists were gunned down by an anti-communist in the Debs Hall local headquarters of the Socialist Workers' Party, on Monday, May 16.

The gunman had earlier shot and killed 27-year-ola Leo Bernard and seriously wounded fellow Wayne University students Jan Garrett (22), and Walter Graham (19). Garrett, hit in the neck, thigh and groin, and Graham, wounded in the chest, leg and neck, were rushed to hospital for operations.

Taxi driver Edward Waniolek, aged 40, was arrested three hours after the shooting..

He had earlier left his wife coyim Isan going to kill some At Debs Hall he asked to see books by Lenin then ordered Bernard, Garrett and Graham to line up against the wall. Using a pistol and a rifle he shot at them wildly.

KNEW BACKGROUND Waniolek was found by police in a library adjacent to the headquarters and offered no resistence to arrest.

Police knew already of his anti-communist feelings. lieutenant in the special investigation bureau had been questioned by the US Secret Service about Waniolek on March 4 this year.

He had told them that Waniolek had been to the South African consulate New York saying that the United States was over-run with communists. Waniolek had told the consulate that he was armed and prepared to fight against communists.

Waniolek had given the consulate a six-page declaration as to why he wanted to go to South Africa. The declaration concluded that he had three rifles in Detroit and was returning to the city to begin shooting communists.

Questioned by the special investigations department after this episode, Mrs. Waniolek said that her husband had spoken about communists and communism for years.

The anti-communist hysteria whipped up over a number of years in the United States, especially since the development of the class struggle at home and the escalation of the Vietnam war, would have encouraged and strenghtened Waniolek in his murderous attack on the three students.

CANDIDATE

Bernard, who was married on March 13 this year, had been a SWP candidate for Congress in the 1964 elections. Garrett is the Wayne County chairman of the Socialist Workers' Party and national committee member of the Young Socialist Alliance. Graham is a Young Socialist Alliance member.

The day after the attack, the political committee of Socialist Workers' Party issued the following statement:

6 A young socialist anti-war fighter, Leo Bernard, was slain yesterday in the Detroit headquarters of" the Socialist Workers' Party by an ultra-reactionary gunman. Two other Wayne State University students, Jan Garrett and Walter Graham, are in the hospital, critically wounded.

This shocking, tragic and ominous deed is not an isolated act. It follows the bombing of the WEB DuBois Club offices in San Francisco and the bombing of the headquarters of the Berkeley Vietnam Day Committee.

The pattern is one of terroristic intimidation against the American anti-war, antiracist, radical youth and socialist forces. The Detroit victims were members of the Socialist Workers' Party or the Young Socialist Alliance, both energetic participants in the protest movements against US intervention in Vietnam and in the Freedom Now struggle of the Negro people.

This murderous assault was politically motivated. It was a product of the witch-hunt atmosphere that has been stirred up and intensified by the "dirty" war in Vietnam. From the White House on down to the John Birchers and the Ku Klux Klan, the country is being incessantly incited against the "communist menace". Today's glorified "hero" is the killer in the green beret in South-east Asia.

This bloody blow at the anti-war and socialist forces is a terroristic attempt to curb dissent. It is tragic confirmation of the recent warning by Senator Fulbright that the war hysteria whipped up by the all the reactionary forces, beginning with the Pentagon, menaces freedom of speech and the hard-won liberties of the American people.

Taking the official propaganda as a cue and a license, the Detroit -murderer armed himself and set out to kill some "communists"

This super-patriotic supporter of Washington's foreign policy of intervening against "communism" in places like VIETNAM U.S. imperialism faces its biggest crisis yet in Vietnam. With open civil war between the regime of General Ky and the Buddhists, what remains of the South Vietnamese state machine threatens to disintegrate.

The recapture of Da Nang after heavy fighting is not going to settle anything. In Hué, the Buddhists are firmly in control, while Saigon sees daily anti-Ky and anti-American riots.

For Washington, this situation is a political nightmare.

The carefully-prepared truce of April was broken by Ky on May 13, when he decided to fight it out with the Buddhist forces controlling Da Nang.

The plans for elections, which would re-unite the South Vietnam ruling class, now lie in ruins.

Like Diem before him, Ky is an American puppet who came off the string.

Meanwhile, as the South Vietnamese troops are engaged in fighting forces tire left to fight t.s. Vietcong on their own. Vietnam and Santo Domingo, is like many others also a rabid white supremacist. In March he applied for admission to Verwoerd's South Africa, sayink he was "armed and prepared to fight against the communists". Unlike the mercenaries hired by the CIA to crush the freedom fighters in the Congo, he was turned down and so took to hunting for victims closer to home.

American capitalism and its rulers are becoming increasingly prone to violence. Over TV and radio, in the press and comic books, violence is shown and glorified day and night. The supreme madness of this system is the stockpiling of nuclear weapons capable of wiping out the entire human race. And Johnson's policy of escalating the war in Vietnam has made this possibility real.

The Socialist Workers' Party, as the most intransigent opponent of US imperialism, mourns the martyred Leo Bernard. But it pledges to fight all the more resolutely to advance the socialist cause for which he died.

The best way to honour Leo Bernard is to stand firm and close the ranks against all assaults by the forces of reaction.

Defend the right of all Americans to speak out!

Build a bigger, stronger antiwar movement!

Forward to a socialist America in a socialist worlda society cleansed of violence where peace, justice, equality and an end to poverty can be realised! 9

As the wettest monsoon season for many years is now upon them, the guerillas are in a very strong position.

The situation can only be compared to that of China in 1948, with Ky as a miniature Chiang-Kai-Shek. The brutal efforts of the imperialists to use Vietnam as a warning to the rest of Asia that attempts at liberation would be punished have led to the direct opposite.

Would-be puppet regimes will look for alternative employers in future.

Johnson has úp to now held a middle policy, between those who looked for a means of making some kind of settlement and the advocates of an all-out war to annihilate Vietnam. The present crisis makes this centre position untenable.

If the war is to be stepped up, one side effect would be to draw British forces into the struggle. Now that the taming of Sukarno has ended the danger to Malaysia, Wilson will be pressed by his Washington paymasters to send at least token military backing into the Vietnam massacre.

On the other hand, it is likely that this policy, which would probably involve China, also, will be rejected But for the imperialists to disengage in Vietnam is now impossible, Withdrawal means defeat for the Americans.

This political crisis has a direct connection with the economic problems of American capital.

Just when the astronomical U.S. diton in toh the the flationary ceiling, the possibility of a withdrawal of forces from Vietnam will shake industrial confidence still further.

But the prospect of a deteat for the U.S. and their henchmen is above all a political blow for the major imperialist power. It will have profound effects on the struggle in the United States itself, not only of the Negro masses, but of the working class as a whole.

The Vietnamese workers and peasants have opened the way for a basic change in the class struggle throughout the world.

ay THE publication of J. MacFarlane's history "The British Communist Party', and the forthcoming 'official' version by James Klugmann, have opened up a number of very important questions of Communist history, and have even enticed R. Palme Dutt, founder member and long-time Communist Party leader, out of his den.

He has chosen particuiarly to attack the review of . MacFarlane's book history of the Party on this period, written by James Klugmann, is now ready for the press.

We will not anticipate the book, but we will recall to our readers that Mr. Klugmann, at any rate, is not one of those who has much of a record in resisting 'passive obedience' to Moscow.

Inaccurate

He was responsible for the most vile and inaccurate publication of the Communist Party since the anti-Trotskyist pamphlets of the war period: i.e., 'From Trotsky to Tito' in which he gave his British readers the full panoply of gory lies about Tito, Trotsky and many others, including innocent victims of Stalinist repression, and even Konni Zilliacus, being agents of monopoly capitalism and fascism. No doubt Mr. KlugThree

which appeared (like all reviews in this journal, unsigned) in the 'Times Literary Supplement' for May 5. The review was in fact empty and lacking in any real knowledge or intelligent comment on MacFarlane's book, which is confined to the 1920s.

Obedient

However, Palme Dutt takes up only the accusation in the review that the British Communist Party was of all Communist Parties the most 'passively obedient to the will of Moscow', together with the reviewer's acceptance of MacFarlane's view of Dutt and Pollitt as nominees of the Comintern against the older leadership in the 1920s.

Interestingly, Palme Dutt has already told us in his own 'Daily Worker' review of MacFarlane that an authoritative mann will ardently expound the British Party's 'independence' from the Stalinist bureaucracy.

But we return to Dutt's own letter. One anniversary which has not been so well publicised this month is that of the opening of the first of the Moscow Trials, 30 years ago, in May 1936.

In these trials, scores of Old Bolsheviks were condemned to death or life imprisonment. No evidence was brought against them and they were convicted on the basis of confessions.

These confessions were flatly contradictory in many respects and in one celebrated case referred to a rendezvous (the 'Hotel Bristol' in Copenhagen) which had ceased to exist years before the alleged meeting of the 'conspirators'.

Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky and many others were 'proved' by these confessions to be implemented in a plot with Hitler and the Nazis to overthrow the Soviet regime, and to this end they were said to have organised sabotage and plots of assassination.

This mountain of lies, the sentences following it, the bloody deaths of thousands who never even got to the courtroom-all this was not only accepted but actually commended and glorited by the British Stalinist leadership, including Dutt himsell, in much the same terms as the much-heralded historian of the Party, Klugmann, faithfully condemned Tito and the "Titoites' in 1950.

Dutt chooses this 30th anniversary, of all times, to tell us in the literary supplement that the British Stalinists did voice their opposition to the Russians in the International and in Russia.

'Dissent'

He claims that the British Party, apart from dissenting on the colonial question in 1928, and criticising the deification of Stalin ('not that we were pposed to his political line ind leadership, Dutt says), at the Seventh Congress of the Comintern, also took up the question of the 'conduct of the security organs.

1 HA HASS (SMIECH "Two years later, at a meeting of a delegation, headed by Pollitt and attended by other leading comrades, including myself, with the international leaders, we were in conflict again over raising questions concerning the conduct of the security organs; and this dispute proved so intense that soundings were made to find support among us for the replacement of the General Secretary; but we all made clear that we stood by Pollitt on this matter?

How many Party members outside the charmed circle at the King Street headquarters have been told anything about this? Why is Palme Dutt so coy, confining himself to the correspondence column of the "Times Literary Supplement'?

For many years, he and his colleagues condemned as "Trotskyist' and, by implication, accomplices of fascism, anyone who questioned 'the conduct of the security organs' in the USSR.

Every Communist Party member surely has the right to demand that Palme Dutt discloses exactly what these criticisms were.

After all, D. N. Pritt, in his autobiography, has recently said that he had no regrets for the whitewashing jobs he did for these same security organs. Come along Dutt, did you protest at the forced confessions, tortures, executions, without trial, the wiping out of a whole generation of the most outstanding fighters in the history of the proletariat? Or did you still agree with Stalin's 'policy and leadership', and decide to push aside your responsibility?

In fact the conduct of the British Stalinists in the 19361938 period (the reputed protest was in 1937), was nothing but base subservience to the Stalinist terror and Dutt's claim is a fraud, just like his reference to the Sixth Congress criticisms of the British Communist Party on the colonial question.

SANIN CABA PENT BARISLISE TrE BANKS LEEI THE On this issue, Dutt omits to mention that the Sixth Congress (1928) was the last at which such a discussion took place. British After this Congress party AILeI InIs the closed its mouth completely, and the dispute was entirely dropped.

It is only raised now, after 38 years, because Dutt is scraping the barrel to find an example of the British Party's 'independence'.

The active performance of the British Stalinists during the Moscow Trials has been fully documented by Brian Pearce in his article 'British Stalinists and the Moscow Trials' ('Labour Review' , March-April 1958).

Only a fraction of the material from Pearce's article is sufficient to produce real anger at Dutt's recent claim.

William Gallacher wrote in the 'Daily Worker' about the Trials:

'Here one sees the Soviet legal system as it really is, the most advanced, the most humane, in the world. ...

(Review of Dudley Collard 'Soviet Justice and the Trial ot Radek', "Daily • Worker', March 19, 1937.)

Remarkable feat Gallacher is dead and gone, but vollan, present general secretary of the Party, made his own contribution in a pamphlet called "The Development of Trotskyism from Menshevism to Alliance with Fascism and Counter-Revolution'.

In this publication he performed the remarkable feat of producing a list of the real Bolshevik Old Guard', ..to answer the argument that Stalin was attacking the old guard. His list included Rudzutak, Bubnov, Chubar, Kossior and Dutt dutifully drew the Stalinist political conclusions, so ruthlessly acted upon, in the pamphlet, "The Truth About Trotskyism'; pointing out that it was 'essential to... destroy the Trotskyist propaganda and influence which seeking to win a foothold withMoscow Trials has been fully documented by Brian Pearce in his article •British Stalinists in the labour movement, since these attempts represent in fact the channel of fascist penetration into the labour movement'. in Ane Daily threen Andrew writing In ine Daly vorker or red of February 5, 1937, said:

"The criminals have received their well-merited sentences.. .. Millions of people have had their eyes opened Trotskyism, The essence of These and many other similar articles appeared for some three years atter the early material of 1936, among which was a 'Daily Worker' editorial entitled 'Shoot the Reptiles!' (August 24, 1936.)

Ever since 1956, the Stalinist leaders have excused their silence on the great purges of Stalin on the grounds that they knew nothing about the 'abuses'.

Now Palme Dutt says they actually protested at the time. Thus another question arises: What were the political reasons for remaining silent then and for so long afterwards?

It is an inescapable conclusion that Dutt and his friends let the matter drop because these Stalinist methods defended their kind of politics.

They did accept Stalin's policy and leadership, and were therefore unable to challenge the Stalinist abuses.

Only Trotsky and Trotskyism have been able to do that proceeding from "the programme: Defence of the conquests of the October Revolution, against the imperialists,

teachers and students had to be brought to light through further action within the working-class movement, Gerry Healy, national secretary of the Socialist Labour League, told a demonstration in London last Saturday (May 21).

The demonstration had been called to Karol Modzelewski, ailing of Polish Trotskyists Ludwik Hass, Kazmierz Badowski, Romuald Smiech, Kuron and others, after a secret trial held recently in Poland.

Over 100 Young Socialists and trade unionists with banners, and slogans, demanding the release Trotskyists, from Park Crescent to the Polish Embassy where Comrade Healy, along with Socialist Labour League Central Committee member Cyril Smith, and editor of the Young Socialist paper 'Keep Left' Aileen Jennings, handed a letter to second secretary Mr. Jan Rabs.

This contained the following resolution which the second secretary said he woud send, via the Ambassador, to Prime Minister Wladislaw Gomulka. (The resolution had already been passed unanimously by the demonstrators):

6 This protest demonstration of trade unionists and Young Socialists, meeting in London on May 21, 1966, condemns, as bureaucratic attack on the international Communist movement, the imprisonment of Ludwik Hass, Karol Modzelewski, Kazimierz Badowski, Romauld Smiech, Kuron, and others. These student and teacher members of the NEWSLETTER REPORTER called to protest acanst [nt demonstrated of the Polish Polish Workers' Party are charged with no crime, but only with issuing a pamphlet criticising their leaders. As Communists, this was their right and their duty.

The Polish Workers' movement has, in the past, suffered much at the hands of the Stalinist bureaucracy and its policemen. We recall especially the murder in 1938 in Moscow of the entire leadership of the Polish Communist Party, and the imprisonment from 19491956 of Wladislaw Gomulka himself.

Like these acts, the jailing of Hass and his comrades is an attack on the international working class and, as such, undermines the existence of the Polish workers' state itself in the face of imperialism.

We demand that these men be released immediately and allowed to fight as communists for their principles.9 Comrade Healy said he had explained to the second secretary that the demonstration was not hostile to Poland. It was a demonstration of Communist, Marxist sympathisers who were genuinely concerned about the position in Poland where a secret trial had taken place.

DISAGREED

He had said that the youth and trade unionists on the demonstration disagreed with the sentiments of another march on the embassy held the previous Sunday in which the anti-Communist, pro-capitalist Polish Socialist Party had participated.

At. a meeting before the demonstration, Healy had said that what was happening in Poland was present in Britain. The main difference was that steps had not yet been taken in Britain to stifle the voice of march as it approaches the Polish Embassy the left by trials and imprisonments.

For the government of Gomulka to hit at the left in a country where reaction in the form of the Catholic church was raising its head was a disgrace.

"There is a vital principle involved here,' said Healy. 'Once you condone secret trials without adequate legal representation, you have a return to a police state which was in Poland at the time of Stalin.' Much more had to be done in the campaign to secure the release of the jailed Poles.

ORGANISE MEETING A large meeting had to be organised at which people prominent in the labour movement opposed to secret arrests, should be invited to speak.

'We have to wage a consistent campaign, said Healy, 'and tie this up with our own work. Very shortly, if the seamen's strike continues and the struggle develops, there will, no doubt, be a very tense situation. It may well be that members of the working class will be imprisoned.' LEADERS JAILED He recalled the 1960 seamen's strike when the 'unofficial' leaders were jailed. The main advantage in Britain was that there was always a trial in such cases.

'But an injury to one is an ınjury to all. An injury to Polish socialists is an injury to British and U.S. socialists,' he said.

The size of the demonstration, he added, in the face of the campaign for the May 25 lobby of parliament, was a tribute to the work of the Young Socialists in the London area. Postyshev, all of whom were either shot or imprisoned by Stalin within the next few months. and against the counter-revolutionary politics of the Stalinist bureaucracy.

A proposed 'peace' talks between Indonesia and LMOST on the same day that news came of the Malaysia, the 'Daily Mail' carried a first-hand report which once again confirmed the massacre of Communists only a few weeks before.

Writing from the island paradise' of Bali, their correspondent, Arthur Cook, says that within four weeks December and January 150,000 people were slaughtered.

When the killing got under way-spurred on by troops from Java, two miles awayevery boy over the age of 15 whose father was a known Communist was also killed. This, says Cook, was intended to 'avoid future hatred' among the so-called peace-loving Balinese.

Japanese engineers building an hotel on Bali told of bodies of men, women and children floating in a village pondsimilar to stories from the mainland where bodies were actually choking up rivers and brooks.

Now there are huge communal graves, already being covered by weeds and the jungle.

Cook puts the death toll at one in 17 of the island's 2,500,000 people.

Killed 25

He quotes a 23-year-old youth, employed by the governadmitted killing 25 agency Com- ment tourist who munists. 'It was all very quick. The communists had to be finished,' he said.

When the September 30 coup failed, the massacres began immediately on the main islands. Encouraged by the right-wing elements in the army, Moslem hordes ran riot.

But on Bali, the Hindus said it was against their religion. They said the gods would pinpoint those who had to pay for their sins.

Cook points that Correspondent gods decided to act on the same day that paratroops arrived from Java to kill the Communists in the garrison.

Every single thing connected with the Communists was destroyed. Cook visited a workers' commune near the village of Ubud. It is now a charred ruin and the 600 people who worked it are all dead.

Not on course The Bali events and, in fact, the whole bloody affair in which half a million Indonesian Communists died, demonstrate the inability of middle-of-theroad rulers like Sukarno to remain on course once the crisis of imperialism deepens.

It also demonstrates just how wrong is the Communist Party's policy of backing such people. Aidit, the Communist Party secretary, who continued this Stalinist policy in playing up to Sukarno, met his death at a summary execution in the Indonesian jungle.

Reaction, in the form of the right-wing generals, is now rewarded - Wilson's Labour government sent a fl million gift, and further trade deals with imperialist countries have been arranged In return British capitalists hope that the three-year-old 'confrontation' policy will be dropped.

With talk of discussions between Adam Malik, Indonesia's Foreign Minister, and Malaysian deputy premier Tun Abdul Razak, almost fixed, it looks like this period could end.

This would leave Malaysia open to increased exploitation and Indonesia as a fresh area for Western investment and trade.

'HIS started out as a straight fight against the shipowners, we had no intention of fighting May 28,196

against the government. Our union voted for the prices and incomes policy because we were led to believe it would benefit the lower-paid workers.

Now the shipowners have brought the government into it and they are using the incomes policy against us.

We are prepared to fight the government if we have to. We have no alternativethe government is fighting us.

Wilson has a way out. Under his prices and incomes policy he can give increases to lower-paid and 1. essential workers. But he doesn't want to take this way out.

He has decided to take us on because we are a small union. But we are essential to the economy and we can win the support of other workers.

The Shipping Federation is issuing press statements about seamen earning £1,000 a year. To get this, an A.B. would have to work at least 76 hours a week for a full year!

He gets £14 for a 56-hour week. At 6s. an hour he would have to put in 20 hours overtime to get f6. And these hours can be staggered—a man can work for two hours then be knocked of for two hours. It is up to the skipper how these hours are worked.

Nor do the shipowners tell the public that it is possible for a seaman to work for two or three days on end and get nothing at all!

Seamen can be called for the 'safety of the ship'-such things as cargo adrift, fire or flooding. He can work all night or even two or three days and he may not get anything at all.

We are determined to put an end to things like this and to win decent wages and conditions.9 Message to housewives, IN A MESSAGE to all British housewives, the Hull branch of the National Union of Seamen says it is obvious 'that the RACKETEERS are now moving in for a quick kill of the breadwinners' hard - earned money'.

The rising cost of consumer goods, it says, has been attributed to seamen's strike, and adds :

•Considering that this withdrawal of labour has only been in operation for four days [the statement was issued on May 19], it is passing strange to us that this state of affairs could come about so quickly?

The government had told the seamen that their claim should be kept within the 'norm' of the prices and incomes policy.

'But to date they have taken no action whatsoever to control the steep rises in prices.

From a socialist government this is indeed strange, but since the inception of this policy, it is notable that the only control which has been made is in respect of the wages of the industrial workers of the country?

The message goes on: 6.. we feel that it is about time that this [Prices and Incomes Board put as much pressure on prices as they do on wages, as this has been causing great concern throughout the country?

•NHE Greater London Cour ci called a meeting of a its electricians and mates last Friday (March 13) at Toynbee Hall to explain the time and motion methods to be introduced as part of a bonus scheme.

The head of the time and motion team stated that the unions. were satisfied with the scheme and that the Electrical Trades Union in particular was 'pretty keen on thi from the beginming.

that works study a study board, On the method of study, he said attend jobs with stop watch and two pencils.

In answer to a question he said that timing would be to the nearest second and would include such things as taking tools out of the toolbox.

Answering another question, he said that no agreement had yet been signedthe scheme was still 'on the table' between the unions and the Greater London Council.

Of workers' representatives who had recently spent a week at Esher college, the ETU's education centre, on a week's course on work study, he said: Their job is to help us with the study work'!

He added: "They will also help you to understand what is going on."

The majority of council elec. tricians, though accepting the bonus scheme, feel dubious about implications.

One asked why a productivity scheme should be accepted when workers would have less control over the management and any saving from the scheme would probably go to private contractors working for the council instead of to the men.

In fact the scheme is not a question of extra money for the men, but one of an increase in productivity without any increase in basic wages. If scrutinised it can be seen to be on a par with the Devlin Report on the docks and the contracting agreement, which the employers are attempting to impose on all contracting electricians and mates.

GLC electricians must reject this productivative ma recallin representatives, demand for an immediate wage rise without strings. of a radical 1950s he had finally got round the classical formula for parliamentary reformist betrayals.

It seems from Wilson's reply in the House that on the way Heffer made himself acceptable to the Labour Party establishment by 'playing a notable part' in the seamen's strike of 1960.

His development is a lesson for the whole movement. Let us hope that the rapid pace of events and the exposure of the Labour government will enable us to sort out all those like Heffer who cover political opportunism with left phrases.

and would vote against clauses of imprisonment. He was for the nationalization of the shipping industry, and would raise it if he had the chance.

Sid Bidwell, Mr for Southall, MiddX., said a large number of MPs were opposing Wilson on the question of the seamen, but added: 'Do you want me to make an heroic one-man stand?' Bessie Braddock, Liverpool Exchange, was not available to the lobbyists.

John Rankin, MP for Govan, Glasgow, said he would make up his mind tomorrow on the question of the Emergency Powers, when he had seen the proposals. 'What I say will be determined by what the government tells me," he said.

Croxteth, Liverpool, MP, Ogden agreed that there should There was night work on the docks when men had to be on duty for eight hours. 'We are not supposed to have a tea break, but we do, and we have to sit in the sheds to drink it. There's no canteen, of course.' Chairman of the Merseyside Portworkers' Committee, Joe Cubbin, said he had met some wartime friends when he visited the Royal docks earlier in the day.

'One lad told me I hadn't changed much. He used to have a full head of hair, but he's bald now, and bent.' Cubbin claimed that the piecework done on the London docks was making men old at 45.

This made Merseyside dockers all the more determined in their fight for their rights and better wages and conditions against the

At Tower Hill, seamen's officials inveigled some seamen away from the march, oftering them food and free underground tickets across London, along with an invitation to meet their union secretary, Bill Hogarth.

A coach was hired later at a cost of f50 by someone anxious to keep Liverpool seamen separate from the people with whom they had travelled to London.

Some .seamen took up the offers. They returned later to the Young Socialist march and lobby.

But the whole impact and political significance of the whole day put paid to thıs mınor set back which, in fact, further exposed the political line up between the Communist Party and the right wing.

After the demonstration, the marchers, drenched by the incessant drizzle, but ready for battle, went on.to parlia ent.

By Newsletter On the march, dockers and seamen-young and old-told Newsletter reporters of the conditions they have to work under.

An elderly seaman from Glasgow, who landed in Poole last week and signed off, said:

"This is a fight for survival as far as the 40-hour week is concerned. I went back to Glasgow last week and attended union meetings. The men are solid behind the demand for the 40 hours.

"This demonstration will definitely go towards helping this.' He told how he worked for five months on a ship during last winter, doing 56 hours a week, which meant working weekends. Indian seamen on board were resting on Saturdays and Sundays.

"They have a 46-hour week, backward a se Dos do to ented.

Seamen, he said, had been told they could not have a pay rise because of competition from other countries. But he knew of many foreign seamen, like the Swedes, who were on a 40-hour week.

'How is it their shipowners can afford it, and ours can't?' he asked.

An 18-year-old assistant stewPrinted by Plough Press ard who had been a seaman for two years on tankers said he received f13 a week for 56 hours. He had spent two years of his early training at a school in Gravesend.

'It doesn't mean much,' he said It is only meant to discipline you. That's all you are there tor really.' A Merseyside seaman who had been on ships for 25 years and had signed off of a Brazil voyage when the strike began said he received £14 a week.

'Everybody is against the 56hour week,' * he said. Nobody likes it.

'I am pleased about this lobby. It is putting on a good show and also shows we mean business.' A 17t-year-old boy rating from Liverpool said he received only £23 a month. He had been on ships for 14 months. He was trained at the Alfred Holt school in Liverpool. "They just show you how to wash dishes and what will happen on board ship,' he said.

He resented the fact that boys his own age on Australian coasters sometimes received f40 a week-I've seen a pay slip,' he said.

"They also get a day off when on board, and don't work Saturdays and Sundays,' he added.

Another Liverpool youth, who had just completed an eight-week catering course at Gravesend, complained of the lack of training.

"The school is just to get some discipline in you. I didn't learn much at the school, only how to lay a table and things like that.' Both youths felt there would be a crisis if the union leadership came to a compromise over their demands.

Another young seaman, a 17year-old assistant steward, said he had been on picket duty every day at the Royal Docks, London, since the strike began. He said he fully supported the demonstration and agreed with it.

A Liverpool man who had been a docker for 32 years said the demonstration was for a good cause'—it was telling Wilson not to impose an incomes freeze, but to nationalize the docks and

Among those present in the lobby, though not associated with those from the march, was Hogarth, also seeing MPs. He had been forced into his lobby by pressure from the seamen.

In fact, despite the press and TV blackout before and after the lobby, its true meaning had its reactions on all sections of the labour movement, resulting in the splitting tactics of the Communist Party and right wing.

The fact that they failed miserably illustrates, once again, that the only road for the working class is on clear cut Marxist lines.

The lobbyists later went on to a highly successful meeting at the Porchester Hall (to be fully reported next week), where speakers included seamen, dockers, trade unionists and Socialist Labour League national secretary, Gerry Healy.

At that time Heffer made much play of the slogan, "The Strike is Mightier than the Vote', all of which sounded very militant.

Contrast then the words written by Mr. Heffer in a special article written for "Tribune' last month, some 10 years later, where he said that he regarded parliament as an instrument for transforming our society into a socialist one.

In other words, from the revolutionary phrases of the • In the house

The Hull branch: and disputes National Union of Seamen gave ment to The Newsletter this week committee of the the following stateMethod study for GLC sparks through the streets of South Shields last Saturday to show their solidarity in the struggle for the 40-hour week.

Seamen • Inere from every port in the north-east from Blyth to Middlesbrough. The South Shields banner headed the march-its first airing since 1926.

NO RETREAT The reaction of the seamen to general secretary Hogarth's neech the da betore had snoken of compromise we rat trom the 40 hour settlement, was immediate v week!

be nationalization of the docks. But there were a lot of com plicated things about the dock: as in the shipping industry.

He did not think worker would be able to run industry He agreed that no official of the docks unions had raise the questions of condition: docks to him voiceu Joe Cubbin, chairman of the Merseyside Portworkers' Committee, told how workers had run supplies during the war.

Dave Coventry an AEU hop steward, asked Ogden fo Incomes Bill.

Ogden said as a whole, he be putting through amend. ments to strike out the penalty NOT wik not pone aiost e No I will not vote against it:

At a meeting after the march, representatives of each of the strike committees pledged full support for a return to work only when the 40-hour week has been won.

In an interview with The Newsletter, Jim Slater, an NUS executive committee member, said: . 'The north-east seamen are solid for the strike. It is impossible to change course now. Our target is the 40-hour week. We have no doubt how the strike will end?

When asked about Hogarth's speech, he said: "The members will have the last say?

At the meeting the men were told that the : Transport and Salaried Staffs Association, whose members include Minister of Labour Ray Gunter, had voted against a resolution supporting the seamen.

SUPPORT POURS IN The seamen showed the spirit of their strike when they passed unanimously a resolution pledging support for the TSSA's campaign for a 35hour week! • Resolutions of support have been pouring in, and on Saturday afternoon the Regional Conference of the Labour Party pledged their suport. All Young Socialist branches in the area have added their support to the seamen's strike and even though their donations to the South Shields strike fund have so far been refused and returned, the Young Socialist members plan to raise more money.

Several seamen will be travelling to the May 25 lobby of parliament to seek to change Wilson's attitude to the seamen's strike.

All donations for north-east seamen should be sent to NUS headquarters, Mill Dam, South Shields.

recommendations Commission.

An engine room man who had walked off the 'Edinburgh Castle' in Southampton last week with the rest of the crew just before the ship was about to sail said the demonstration and lobby was 'just what we wanted'.

He said he was receiving £53 a month for working 56-hours a week in the engine rooms.

'And then they blame us for wanting the 40-hour week,' he exclaimed.

A 19-year-old deck hand from the Esso Tanker 'Exeter" said he and the 28 other crew had walked off the ship three days ago and flown home from Marseilles. His duties not only meant working eight hours a day, but also one night a week. He receives £49 10s a month. AMONG THOSE on the march from all over Britain were:

Twelve Constructional •Engineering Union members from the Grimethorpe colliery site, Yorkshire, Hull seamen, students from Hull and Leeds, miners from Glasshoughton colliery, Yorkshire, a shop steward from George Manns, Leeds, a delegate from Rothersteward from hardlows, shop and students trom the Shetheld University: Labour, Marxist and Communist societies.

Glasgow seamen, Scottish ETU members, and students from Edinburgh and Glasgow;

From the north-east came seamen, transport workers, and AEU and ETU members.

Delegates from the Birmingham AEU joined unofficial representatives from Massey Fergusons, Bristol Siddeley's and Pressed Steel, Coventry, along with Nottingham busmen, Leicester, Oxtord and Nottingham students.

From the north-west came employs and stu ents ards from the Lucas factory on Merseyside.

Royal group dockers, seamen from all sections, tenants, Lambeth Trades Council members and AEU members were in the London contingent along with students from the West Ham Technical College, young workers from Ford, Dagenham, and AEU members from Winters' Engineering, Croydon, who are out on strike.

The bulk of all the contingents was the Young Socialists, many of them representing their own unions, universities and colleges.