The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 448

THE trade union movement laces erave dangers..

moneylenders of Wall Street and the international bankers of Zurich have told the Labour government that they must reduce wages and make the working class work harder. And Wilson, Brown and Callaghan are doing just that.

This is what lies behind the seamen's strike. For a considerable number of years, trade union after trade union has agreed to the 40-hour week. But now that the seamen have decided to implement trade union policy, there is a strange silence on the part of the right-wing labour and trade union leaders.

Having talked so long about the 40-hour week, they work behind the scenes to sabotage the seamen's struggie.

Before the Prices and Incomes Bill goes on the statute books, the seamen are having the terms of the Bill virtually rammed down their throats. Port workers face, under the Devlin Commission, a capitalist modernisation programme which is to be carried out at their expense.

The decasualisation proposals return them back to the private employers and the introduction of new techniques will speed up their conditions of work, without any increase in pay.

We insist once more that the struggle against the Devlin Commission report, victory for the seamen, and the struggle against the Prices and Incomes Bill is part and parcel of the fight against a common enemy, which is the Tory employers and the political poodles inside the Labour government who do the bankers' dirty work. Against all this, the Young Socialists called a most successful lobby of parliament on May 25.

Weeks after the date for this lobby was announced, the Communist Party called a lobby for June 22.

We insisted that the purpose of this lobby was not to wage a real struggle against the Tories and right-wing Labour leaders but to act in a way that would divert the attention of trade unionists from May 25.

Everyone now knows that this lobby was the most timely of all because it took place on the eve of the Emergency Powers Act in parliament and right in the thick of the seamen's dispute. Over 7,000 dockers struck work in Liverpool on the day in order to support it.

Now that it is over the Communist Party has taken little or no interest in the lobby they had previously arranged for June 22.

Apart from a few routine statements in the Morning Star' there is absolutely no drive to make the lobby a success. Indeed, an all-London demonstration against the Prices and Incomes Bill on Sunday, June 19, has been cancelled.

In Scotland, leading Party members stood silent whilst Young Socialist delegates to the Glasgow Trades Council fought for the lobby on June 22.

In areas such as Crawley, near London, they have arranged for transport to take trade unionists to the House of Commons in the evening.

Denison House, one of the smallest halls in London, has been booked to hear report backs from the lobby.

In other words, the Party, having utilised June 22 as a diversion, is now busily playing down the work that this lobby could do because they do not want to come into conflict with the right-wing Labour leaders and the fake 'lefts' We say the Communist Party is in fact sabotaging June 22 lobby. It does not want it to be the success it could be.

The Young Socialists and the Socialist Labour League on the other hand have declared that they fully support the June 22 lobby and completely support all such activiies against the present government in relation to wages, Devlin and the seamen.

We say this because we are convinced that the rank and file of the Communist Party want to fight but the leaders do not.

As one Communist Party member put it: 'All they want is a sort of "teach-in" on the proposed legislation. They do not want a struggle' The Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists are fighting all over the country to make the lobby a success.

We regard this as a test of policy in which trade unionists can see that we alone fight for the real interests of the working class, whereas the Communist Party use these interests to climb in behind Wilson and the fake 'lefts'.

The leaders of the Communist Party have betrayed. It is now up to the rank and file and all trade union workers to make June 22 a success.

Let us work London has seen. biggest demonstration

THE June meeting of the Glasgow Trades Council exposed very clearly the true nature of the Communist Party's call for lobby of parliament on June 22.

Hugh Brown, Labour MP for Provan, Glasgow, pleaded case for the government's Prices and Incomes Bill Opposition to it, be said, stemmed from misunderstandings. Opponents of it were distorting the facts in a dogmatic way.

One speaker said that if the Bill was law now, many seamen would be fined or jailed. He appealed for workers to unite against the Bill and proposed an emergency motion in support of the June 22 lobby.

It was ruled out of order by the chairman, and voted against when his ruling was challenged.

Throughout this Communist NEWSLETTER REPORTER Party members remained silent, even when Brown attacked the Young Communist League paper 'Challenge' for allegedly distorting the Prices and Incomes Bill.

Just before the chairman was challenged many lefts' and CPers were seen scurrying for the exits, one saying on her way out: 'Oh, don't worry, it'll go through easily.

Questioned after the meeting one CPer said the delegate was using wrong methods in getting support for the lobby. Resolutions should come from union branches first. The CPers was unable to state why Party members had not done this.

No attempt has been made in Glasgow factories or shipyards by the CP to mobilise big contingents for the lobby; this will have to be done by the Socialist Labour League and Young Socialists. over the world should join immediately. We say obey the call of the National Union of Seamen.

If they go down defeated, then the standards of living of every member of the working class will be affected.

The most urgent task is to bring the fight into Parliament itself.

Do not let the Labour MPs get away with it. They were not elected in order to support the shipowners agaiust the seamen. They were elecied by millions of votes from ordinary working people who expected that they would defend their standard of living.

A massive lobby of seamen of parliament with other sections of the trade union movement should take place on June 22. The fight against the Prices and Incomes Bill is the fight to defend the seamen. Let us immediately ask the Labour 'lefts', , Messrs. Eric Heffer & Co.: What do you propose to do now gentlemen? Crawl on behind Wilson or open the fight on behalf of the seamen immediately in the House of Commons?

There is no longer any room for you to nanoeuvre or to

, 1966

Editorial The Editor WELL done the sea.

men! By rejecting the committee of enquiry report you have done everlasting service to the labour and trade union movement. Every rank - and - file trade unionist worthy of the name will support your case.

Just look at those who oppose you. Mr. Edward Heath, leader of the Tory Party, 'The Times' • and 'Financial Times', which are the organs of big business. Indeed they go so far as to say that the committee of enquiry have given you too much!

The rest of the gutter press rally, as alwayu, behind the Conservatives.

Now look at the role of the Labour leaders. Wilson sits firmly on the Tory bandwagon and draws £14,000 a year for doing it. Brown, Gunter and Callaghan likewise crowd themselves into this unholy alliance.

Behind the lot stands the bankers of Wall Street and Zurich who have once more stepped in to strengthen the pound in order to give the Labour government time to smash the seamen.

The committee of enquiry was not, in fact, a genuine enquiry into the wages and working conditions of seamen, but one designed as a propaganda measure further isoiate the seamen within the working-class movement. That was the reason why it condemned the seamen.

Naturally, the first of the batch of Right Honourable gentlemen to join Lord Pearson and his enquiry, is, of course, the Trades Union Congress. What could you expect?

Full backing

The Trades Union Congress has long supported the employers, the Tories and the most reactionary Labour leaders.

It is now up to the rank and file to back the seamen to the full.

Remember this. The people who really forced this fight to the finish are the Tories, the government, the shipowners, the TUC and the Fleet Street press.

The responsibility for any hardship lies with them and not with the seamen.

The fight must be extended at once. Dockers and seamen all Young Socialist banners are seen among the seamen's placards at last Sunday's Trafalgar Square meeting. Above: NUS secretury, Bill wriggle out of it.

We say defend the seamen stand exposed for all to see, the fake-'left' cover for Wilson.

The working class under correct leadership can defeat the right wing and the Iories. The seamen are showing the way. We appeal tu everv single trade unionist and member of the Labour Party to join immediately their great fight.

Nationalize the docks and shipping. For the 40-hour week for seamen. NILSON BETESHE speaks, while in the crowd is a Socialist Labour League banner. I leader, n hav already taken the last step to make it a fight to the end, said seamen's th, on Wednesday just after his union's executive had rejected the Pearson FIRMER STAND - | inquiry.

The men were becoming harder as the strike entered its fourth week, and they would not return without the 40-hour week immediately, he said.

which suggested a 13-hour year Hogarth, a sevelt attack on this union'.

After reading press reports of

HARVAC

says Hogarth son committee recommends that seamen lose their Sundays worked at sea on overtime, ats exchange leave.

The average number of Sundays at sea were 37, with 16 days' annual leave. This totalled 53 days. The report said the annual leave should be 36 days, meaning, said Hogarth, that the 17 days

LAST Sunday's London march and rally by Britain's seamen as strengthened by a large contingent of Young Socialist ho expressed their unity in slogans 'Seamen, dockers, unite an fight', 'Lift the Emergency-Fight for a seamen's victory'.

Well over 150 youth marched with the 1,000 seamen from the Embankment to Trafalgar Square, where a 2,000-strong meeting was held.

From the platform Labour MP for Southall Sid Bidwell said that the choice was simple; either one was with the workers or with the had an on asierable cases but it was a sad occasion that after the election the government was holding back the seamen.

Following him was Bill Hogarth general secretary of the Nationa Union of Seamen, who said that the 20,000 seanen out on strike were receiving support and donations from the Dublic, which was different from he attitude the union was getting from the Labour government.

Gentemen

The main arteries of the country were only being squeezed a little. Many other sections of workers could have been involved but the union had perhaps behaved too much like gentlemen during this strike, he said.

Harry Watson, President of the Tugmen, Watermen and Lightermen's Union, brought greetings to the Seamen's Union It was tragic, he said, that the leaders of the Labour Party should be dissociating themselves from the seamen. Why should the shipowners with all their riches be in need of help?

The question had been raised about loyalty to the Labour Party but the Labour leaders should show some loyalty to the trade unions.

Damaging

The Prime Minister had called for an end to restrictive practices but the most damaging was the incomes policy.

Gordon Norris of the Londen District Committee of the NUS said the clarion call should be unity behind Bill Hogarth. NEWSLETTER REPORTER In the next week, he added, the gloves would be coming off. He was answere i with shouts of "they should have come off before'.

Biggest applause came for his demand that the shipping industry should be nationalized.

Alex Kitson of the Scottish Motormen's Union declared that the transport workers would support the sean'en. he Pearson inquiry earlier, sea nen outside the union's Claphan headquarters had made stronger statements about the report.

GLAD IT'S BAD

Several also added that they were glad it was as bad as it had turned out to be. It gives none of the soft bellies in the executive a chance to accept it, said one.

'What else could we expect though. It is an employers' report. The press are going to jump on it to attack us, said another.

As they read deeper and deeper into the report they found it held more bite than its barking 40hours in a year' As Hogarth explained to the press, to ofiset the cost of a shorter working week, the Peardifference between 53 and 36 were being used to offset the cost of reducing hours to bring within the range of the government's norm.

The employers had said their offer was 13 per cent and the union's demand 17 per cent, but the report's scheme would reduce this to 9f per cent over two vears. Seamen, of course, would lose vital pay.

Criticisms of the union in the report were uniustified, said Hogarth, and were being used for the Prices and Incomes policy. 'This policy has played too large a part in this inquiry,' he said.

The report's remark that the employers had kept in mind the national interest was derided by Hogarth. He had not seen the shipowners being patriotic in past Continued paze 4, column 1 → slump will have to be used to support it to prevent a wholesale run on sterling.

Since October 1964 the value of the pound has been preserved, not by the volume of gold in London but by the massive borrowings made by the Labour government from Wall Street and other financial centres.

Without these the pound would certainly have gone to the wall.

But the latest drop in the gold figures coincides with a further loss of gold in the United States, announced in the financial press last week. Because of the enormous outflow of funds from the United States since the war: in the form of military expenditures, loans and 'aid', there has been a sharp increase in the US balance of payments deficit over the last few years.

Despite a reduction in this deficit over the last year (which has meant a drying up of 'aid' to many colonial and ex-colonial areas, with disastrous social and political consequences) it still remains dangerously large.

Gold reserves in the States now stand at under 14,000 million dollars, compared with a peak of nearly 25,000 million reached in 1949.

On the continent, and particularly in Paris there : is growing concern about the size of the US deficit and its possible effect on Johnson's willingness to conyears.

'They are not interested in anything other than their own ships and what they make out of them, he said, adding hat most of them went abroad with their orders for new ships, and often sailed them under foreign flags for tax purpose the tax soing to these other countries and not Britain.

Earlier the executive had taken up the calls from. the strike committees for a tougher line on blacking ships.

On Tuesday they called on 'all affiliates of the • International Transport Workers' Federation to place an embargc on all British flag ships in Britain and throughout the world'; on TUC member unions to do the same on flagships trading on the British coast; and declared black all tankers arriving and leaving Britain with cargoes normaily carried by British ships.

On Wednesday a resolution calling on the NUR and T&GWU and other transport unions to put an embargo on cross-channel freight normally carried by British flag hips was passed.

Passengers and foodstuffs and oil normally carried on foreign ships are being allowed in and out of Britain at the moment. liament on May 25. Two donations were also given to the seamen's strike fund, one to South Shields and one to Sunderland. We hope to give much more.' No compromise A MEETING in the Seamen's Institute in Glasgow also passed this week resolutions calling for the blacking of all British oil tankers. Seamen told Young Socialists present that they will allow no compromise and are determined to win the 40-hour week.

A Tory and Labour MP both attempted to argue that the strike was not political and that a compromise should be sought. The seamen's resolution answered this.

A Young Socialist speaker made a report on the May 25 lobby of parliament. He called for support for the June 22 lobby and for a one-day general strike. This won support among many seamen who approached the youth after the meeting.

& slumped by a further $38 •RITAIN'S gold reserves million during May. This is the worst fall since the run on the pound last summer and the third successive month in which the reserves have fallen. On Friday of last week the Stock Exchange trembled at the news and there were widespread falls in many leading shares.

Not only have the reserves declined to a dangerously low level, but the flow of capital abroad has speeded up since the Budget.

Despite Callaghan's crawling appeal for 'restraint' in the movement of funds overseas, he has been ignored.

Since April there have been reports of massive movements of funds to Canada and Australia. Before the Budget, cash was lowing to Australia at the rate of £16 million a month and this has since accelerated.

Since April there has been £35 million increase in the Australian reser • es. much of it coming from Britain.

Over the last few weeks there has been an increase of £2 million in the shares bought by British financiers in the Hudson Bay Company of Canada, purchases made to hedge against any large slump on the London Stock again Exchange or against devaluation.

Why is there so much concern at the state of the gold reserves?

At the moment, under international agreement, Britain guarantees the value of the pound on the international money markets. Since the last devaluation of the pound in 1949 the "price' of the pound has been 'fixed' at 2.78-2.82 dollars. This means that anybody holding dollars is assured that they will get at least 2.78 dollars for every pound which they hold.

But what happens if there is a massive 'run' on the pound: that is, everybody wishes to exchange their pounds for dollars? This is where the gold and dollar reserves come into play.

The only way the British authorities can stop such a run is by using any reserves of gold and dollars to buy up pounds on the market. But the reserves in Britain are now so depleted that there is very little room for such manoeuvres.

At the moment the pound stands right at the bottom end of 'guaranteed' price (2.79 dollars in fact) and the reserves

Introducing the International discussion, Cliff Slaughter said :

THE 1966 Third Con.

ference called by the International Committee of the Fourth International has to be understood as a new stage in the development of our movement.

It was not just a meeting of delegates from various countries to reaffirm established positions, or for a detailed discussion on current affairs. We had arrived at a very definite stage in the development of the Fourth International itself, a stage which we had to grasp and understand in relation to a definite stage reached in the international class struggle.

In the course of the conference, we were able to do this, to get a clearer picture enabling us to fight very precisely along the lines that our international movement and the Interna tional Committee must now fight in taking up the responsibilities of a Trotskyist leadership.

Upsurge

since 1963, and take into account TWO OrICE pal facts: one, that the workers' struggle throughout the world was undergoing an enormous upsurge; and that not just imperialism, h11f also the bureaucracies on which imdevelopmeni oi thei erite ›emalism depends had. since otherhe Decause the development Inevitably, one went with the contradictions inability neria ism imnerialem o nreserve e rez tive equilibrium which done in recent years in both the developes bronh sne oe underdeveloped Stalinists and urolities. Stalinists tage fia thes Oper that every stage intensification class strugg e meznt alS( deener pricis for the Stalinists and those elements ntaryam WhICr depended upon them.

Secondly, within the Fourth there there had been sae fde velommeet: nowever portant We had coe leted a srin struggle gainst revisionism in the Fourt nternational and had 196. ved Wire Pablo abandoned the programme and tics of Trotskyism, to ntegrat under Struck Co the free. he torces of the internation; Transitional Programme of the Fourth International. Our basis is that Programme.

Despite the attacks of revisionism on the Fourth International as an organisation, which were severe and were carried out by those who held the leadership protra Feth mains tone basis Programme remains the programme. It was fought for and has proved itself as the basis for building an international leadership.

We cannot understand any of the struggles of the working class today without starting from that Programme's understanding of our epoch as one of wars and revolutions, requiring, above all, the resolution of the crisis of working-class leadership.

Ever since the foundation of the Fourth International, there has been a bitter struggle, often from forces which seem to closest to the Fourth International, against its very existence.

Those forces who say today that Trotskyism died as a result of these attacks are in direct line with those who, in 1938, argued against the formation Fourth International. They said the time was not ripe, that it was necessary to fight inside the established communist movement, dominated by Stalinism, and not to build an independent Marxist leadership.

Trotsky and those around him founded the International in the Iull knowledge that they were founding it in a period of working-class defeats and enormous difficulties.

They knew that the Second World War was inevitable, which eventually would face imperialism with a crisis even greater than that which came after World War I.

They knew well that it was a period of defeats, but it was precisely because of Stalinism's role in those defeats that the Fourth International was founded. The preparation of those years of defeat were a necessary act in order to lay the basis for the crisis after the war.

Our basis for building an International today has nothing in common with all those who say that after the dark night of Stalinism it is now possible to start again.

Our basis for building an International is not to prepare to begin only from that consideration. We think the needs of the working class cannot be met in the struggles arising now all over the world except on the basis of the theoretical and political conquests of Marxism in the past.

It was on this question that the International conference turned.

There were those who came to the conference wanting agreement purely on the basis of current tasks and writing off the history of the Fourth International, which they claimed had never rooted itself in the working class.

We refused this and rejected it. We have always taken the position of Marx, Engels, Lenin and ! Trotsky in the struggle to build a leadership for the working class. Insofar as people think they can remain Marxists outside the struggle to build leadership, Marxism becomes its opposite.

Just as the struggle of Lenin to build the Bolshevik Party up to 1917 was absolutely necessary to the October Revolution, so the struggle of the Fourth International to develop its programme was the most important and necessary prerequisite for the building the international leadership today. the principal counter-revolutionary force in the world today. They are the strongest obstacle to the building of an international leadership.

It was not just the material difficulties of the years following the foundation of the International: the persecution and extermination of comrades would have been bitter blows to any movement. What is important to understand is the context in which the blows were inflicted.

The forces of our movement were concentrated mainly in the Left Opposition in the USSR. The only large force of comrades educated in revolution and in the direct struggle with the Stalinist bureaucracy was there, and many of those who came in in the 1930s from the Communist Parties formed in other countries in the 1920s came in with only a very one-sided education. They had to be steeled in the many-sided struggle that is the class struggle.

In the Socialist Workers Party in America, Trotsky, because of his proximity in Mexico, was was able to conduct a struggle against this one-sidedness, and even here it had only just begun when he died. A serious • struggle on theoretical questions was left almost entirely to Trotsky himself.

Behind

Many of those who had joined the movement remained largely one-sided and sometimes purely anti-Stalinist. This was a very important part of the conditions which revisionism, led by Pablo, developed after the Second World War.

It meant that the sections were inevitably a long way behind what was required in relation to grasping the Leninist methods of constructing a party.

Taken in the context of this theoretical backwardness of the movement, the death of Trotsky was an enormous blow.

Some of the forms which the retreat of the revisionists took have very important lessons.

Very often forces inside the Trotskyist movement retreated under the guise of great militancy. Of course, the real path of the working class to power is not through dependence on spontaneous action, but active political intervention to provide leadership in these struggles of the working class; our task is not to wait until things warm up', but to lead on every political question. The politics of such a leadership is based on the longterm historical interests of the working class.

One of the consequences of big struggles is that when sections of the movement get disappointed, they then begin to develop the idea that somehow there are real forces working towards socialism without the necessity of the working class having leadership Expelled Revisionists said after the war, we have not been able to build a Trotskyist leadership in any country, and yet imperialism has been expelled from Eastern Europe, China, and so on, so perhaps we have to correct the perspectives of the Transitional Programme.

They drew the conclusion from these impressions that objective forces would force the bureaucracies to take power, not only in exceptional conditions like those of China, but also in advanced countries like France.

Our basis is to build our leadership in a struggle to expose: and destroy these bureaucracies, whilst the revisionists completely subordinate their own policies to that of the bureaucracies.

When we say that neglect of Marxist theory is one of the main causes of revisionism, we are not talking about just ideas, but where they do not take up the about the life of these question of leadership of the class.

Similarly, today, there must not be just an abstract understanding. of Trotskyism. Theory cannot develop outside of the fight to build • leadership in the class struggle. It is because, in a number of countries, this party-building has begun on the basis: of the Transitional Programme, that our international conference was possible and could set itself the task of building the TrotskyThe 8th National Congress of the Socialist was introduced by Cliff Slaughter. Here we print the text of his contribution.

International discussion ist movement as a centralised, international leadership.

The task of every section of the Fourth International in each country is to intervene and give leadership in all the struggles of the working class. It is in this context that we understand what struck many people as a sharp turn when Castro, at the beginning of this year at the Tri-Continental Conference in Havana, rounded off the conference, alter all the proceedings were finished, with a bitter, vicious and lying attack on Trotskyism.

It has become anessential question for Stalinism to prevent the development of the Trotskyist movement. It was not accidental that Castro's attack coincided with the imprisonment of workers and Communist oppositionists in Poland and Hungary was held in London on May The International discussion TWER Cliff Slaughter speaking at the Congress disintegrate all over the world.

When we met at our last international conference in 1963, the Pabloites had just 'unified'. We said it was a unification without discussion, and that the contradictions under the surface would bring about its disintegration in a short time.

Now in 1966 we have gone beyond this phase of struggle against Pabloite revisionism and must now accept the challenge of rebuilding the Fourth International in the class struggle.

We have had to outline from the conference the political positions of the International Committee and to sharply distinguish our outlook, strategy and tactics from the revisionists in the international labour movement.

Two weeks ago a member of the SWP was shot dead in Detroit by an anti-communist fanatic. This has to be taken as a part of the whole political situation. When Kennedy was shot, his widow received condolences from a very unexpected source, the national committee of the SWP.

We said it was impossible for a party which could take that step to undertake the responsibilities for revolutionary leadership in the US. Their position on the Negro question is similar. Their main demand for a long time was that the Federal Government must send troops into the South to implement the anti-segregation laws.

The SWP ended up not only subordinating itself to middle-class leaders of the Negro colonial revolution, and the struggle of workers inside Russia, China and Eastern Europe, and the struggle of workers in the West.

In each sector there are different sorts of leaderships, not a leadership to unify the struggle, but, according to conditions, other forces who would take the lead. There is no need to develop an independent Trotskyist leadership.

In the colonial countries it would be those forces from the middle class who would be able to lead the struggle against imperialism, and even become Marxists, such as Castro, Ben Bella, etc. It was a long and continuous development.

When the SWP, who had stood against Pablo in 1953, began to develop the idea of the three different sectors, they were in fact developing the same ideas as the Pabloites According to the conception of the Pabloites, the Trotskyist centre became an advisory bureau for these middle-class leaders.

The idea that it was going to take 'centuries' to get socialism became a finished theory in 19491952. But the partly stable, slowly-developing situation from which this 'gradualist' impression was gained suddenly exploded in 1953-1956.

Neglect

Beneath the apparent strength of the 'two world blocs' were enormous forces of the working class. Like all revisionists, the Pabloites neglected the working class above all.

When the East German uprising came in 1953, how were the forces of the Fourth International equipped to deal with it? They were equipped by Pablo with the theory that the bureaucracy was going to rule for a long time.

The continuity and independence of the working class had to be fought for. The fundamental question of revolution arose.

On that question Pablo and Co. found themselves on the wrong side of the barricades. The fight for the continuity of the Fourth International was identical with the struggle against those who wanted to destroy it, abandoning the political independence of the working class.

Since then the position of Pabloism has developed into the liquidation of the Trotskyist movement in favour of petty-bourgeois nationalist, reformist and Stalinist forces. All those who could not learn the lessons of 1953 developed similar positions.

The fight of the International Committee in 1953 and since makes it impossible for that revisionism to have the same effect now as it had in 1953-56. They have been exposed and fought.

The upsurge of the working class now can take shape and be unified with the construction of Trotskyist parties in all countries. This is why the struggle against Pabloism has been decisive for the working class and was not at all only a small struggle in discussion groups. without having been part of and learned the lessons of all the struggles within our movement since its foundation.

The post-war crisis of imperialism was enormous. Capitalism had no inherent strength after 1945. It was the betrayals of international Stalinism which allowed capitalism to rebuild.

European capitalism was in ruins. Only the international collaboration of Stalinism, which allowed the Western European states to be set up and American finance brought in, and Europe, and particularly Germany, to be split in half, saved capitalism.

All the factors behind the crisis in 1945 still remain. There has been no restoration of the basic strength of capitalism. We are face to face with the preparation of the struggle for power and the building of a new leadership.

No Since that restoration of capitalism with the help of Stalinism, there have been setbacks, but no major defeats. The temporary equilibrium after 1945, with the help of Stalinism, was accepted as a 'fact by the revisionists, abstracted from its basis, from the contradictions of society. This was smashed by the working class in 1953. When that upsurge came, those who had subordinated themselves to the bureaucracies found themselves on the wrong side. They ended up in treachery to the working class.

The Marxist perspective was not pressure on the bureaucracies, but a combined social revolution in the advanced countries and political revolution in the workers' international leadership uniting the whole.

Right at the root of this is the enormous development of the productive forces. For over half a century capitalism has stood in stark opposition to these productive forces.

The rebellion of the productive forces against capitalism has led to the deaths of millions and exposed the reformist and Stalinist leaders of the working class as being agents of the capitalists.

If, on the basis of the temporary stabilisation achieved with the assistance of Stalinism, there has been the development of new methods of production, these prepare even greater crises in the present stage.

The development of atomic energy and automation are enormous, unprecedented changes in production. Already they hold out the prospect of the necessary destruction of millions of workers, and the reduction, even inside the USA, of some 50 million people to • pauper level and below.

There is a rapid succession of coups d'etat, and a turn to direct repression of mass movements: witness the fate of the Communist Party in Indonesia.

There are big revolutionary struggles posed in all underdeveloped countries, and the breakup of all established conditions. This is what we mean by the continuing and developing joint crisis of capitalism and the bureaucracies who are unable to offer anything else to the masses.

This pressure of the productive forces has its effect on the USSR, China and Eastern Europe; it presses the imperialists towards the reconquest of these workers' states. This is why the military aspects of the struggle are directly related to the class struggle ever since the last world war.

Vietnam is the main point of concentration of this question.

Vietnam frightens them. brings new problems for the imperialists and radicalises whole of the Negroes in the US.

All those impress strength of US imperi not only the inabil perialism to defeat / tion in Vietnam, bi responsibility of the world capitalism's prı the impact of these USA, the bastion o: capitalism.

The Negro struggle cratic rights had ha when the line was tween those who wan the struggle within and religious bounds who wanted to carry Anybody who thir fight for democratic Negroes without tak class struggle will self subordinated Martin Luther King immediately to the si So much for all th that the so-called 'st of the world revo passed to the colonia Under the banner of has taken place the of the Indonesian Party.

We start from the struggle internationall only be fought thro working class under. leadership. In the historic problems o: development now are the melting pot. Tr Negro rights is part ternational struggle letariat against the The conquests of class in all countrie! be defended only by ary methods. We st. conditional defence quests of the rev Russia, an Europe, but we kno not possible to mal fence except by r methods. We know defend them in stru the bureaucracy.

Similarly in the countries, it is not undertake any defe trade unions agains without revolutionary Youth bi Only the struggle independent revolutic ment based on the defend these organise working class. Tr class is thrown into defend all its conqi leads immediately to of political questions meet even the basic the working class. tional Programme is gramme.

We are still in when imperialism, sence of any strengtr can use the kind of : used in the coloni only insofar as Stalir to do so. There is of defence of any ‹ of the working clas determined strugg Stalinism.

In this period, W cratic leaderships ha themselves much mo agents of imperialisn breakers, they are exposed to the milit and-out servants 01 This is a sign of 1 crisis has gone.

One of the majo pushing Dash and ot in Britain to the righ of the Trotskyists in a world scale this ( lutionarv role of Stali and more exposed.

An intensification of the bourgeoisie Asia would be struck on behalf o namese workers ar but the role of Sta get the Communist P Asian coutries not arms against their 1

This nean tea litthe Interna tional Committe sicti the relations wigen : proceed WITh relations ternational Committee, with their ve nnment ot the nrogramn „ the came var time we complet one struggle have 1NCeT.i rectly what our objectives are, we are ourselves open to revisionist The conference had to play an imogeaną role defining inarnotionalv tha role ot tha Wori ng class and of leadership + ic not noccine " the uparda nf the working-class mov vonł nønonno øąn "eer ing dass conquest Pi wa t oa ne meme ot mi ond terence Taily neeessary for ene worip is enually necessary the advanced countries for thoca in thi states outside imperialist exploatation Euroth Every successful Tong We had to learn all the lessons of the struggle to develop a programme against those who wanted to liquidate the International. What the revisionists in the Fourth International wanted to do in every country was for the sections of the Fourth International not to proceed as building a leadership on all ties questions concerning the class, but to subordinate themselves to those forces currently in the leadership , of the working-class movement, opportunists who restricted the working class to limited gains, rejecting the struggle for power.

The mistakes of the revisionists are not just wrong ideas. It is not just that they are middle-class people who talk amongst themselves.

There has been in the Fourth International a very definite impact from the pressure of enemy class, an impact which proceeds from • the ruling class perpetuating its rule through other forces, and in particular the Stalinists.

In the colonial countries the national bourgeoisie can head off the struggle only insofar as the Stalinists betray on an international scale. The Stalinists are

and the literary trials in USSR.

Outside the USSR, only Castro could carry out that role. For the Communist Parties to return to this type of slander was not possible at that stage. The prestige of Castro with his centrist following gave him that specific responsibility.

Warned

We had warned against Castro and all those who said his path was an alternative path between Stalinism and imperialism. We said it is not possible for anybody to find such an alternative outside developing the Trotskyist leadership. It was a case Castro acting on his own behalf against the working class, but now also being used directly by the bureaucrats on the question of alternative leadership. And this was the question posed for the International Conference, to develop itself as an international leadership.

If the liquidationist forces had been successful, there would have been no Socialist Labour League, nor Trotskyist parties any country. The whole logic of the revisionist line was to liquidate these parties.

From 1953 until now we have had to go through a phase of hammering and defeating the Pabloite revisionists..

We have made big theoretical gains from that struggle, and the revisionist forces have begun to The first phase in the victory against the revisionists was the enormous upsurge of struggle in 1953-6, in Vietnam, the French General Strike and the Hungarian and Polish Revolutions, when the Pabloites found themselves on the wrong side of the barricades. The latest stage reflects their complete disintegration.

In Ceylon, the section affiliated to the Pabloites, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, often boasted as being the largest Trotskyist Party in the world, surprised many people internationally, but not those fighting against revisionism, by going over to full-scale collaboration with the bourgeoisie.

When the crisis in Ceylonese politics came to a head in 1964, these revisionist forces became the only support on which the capitalist forces could rely to survive. They went into the capitalist coalition government. They were used by the ruling class for only a short time, but they were essential at that stage to capitalism's survival.

This led to a split in the Trotskyist movement in Ceylon, leaving a minority, the LSSP(R), trying to save what could be saved. It remains for the LSSP(R) to fight through to the correct Marxist position In the US too, the politics of the SWP, with whom we had taken up the cudgels in 1961, became clear-the process had gone a very long way. struggle, but actually calling upon the imperialist state to carry out its responsibilities against the white reactionaries in the South.

We should also take note of our experiences with the British Pabloites.

The Pabloites could not characterise the Labour government as capitalist. They still maintain that position. They come to this position where they betray the working class because their conception of the epoch and the world struggle is completely different and is a rejection of the Transitional Programme. We have had to fight against them for many years.

They do not look upon the international struggle as a unity, but think the world struggle can somehow be divided into different sectors.

There is

STATEMENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Release Polish and Declaration of the International Committee which attempted to destroy this essential continuity in struggle. In the years 1953-56 these Pabloite reof the Fourth International on the imprison- visionists betrayed the struggles of the revolutionary workers of Eastern Europe. They abandoned the revolument of Polish Trotskyists and other mem- tionary programme of building Trotskyist parties in every bers of the Polish Communist Party, and of country, instead trying to liquidate the organisation June 11, 1 June 11, Page Thr

The advent of the Labour government brought this to a head. They wrote in their organs immediately after the elections that we now had a 'left-centrist government' to which we, must give some kind of support. They fought bitterly against the forces of the Socialist Labour League who, starting from a Marxist perspective, took upon themselves the responsibility of leading those forces who could be broken from sccial democracy in struggle against the Labour government.

This struggle against Pabloism established the essential continuity of Marxism in the past period.

The Fourth International was not destroyed. • The struggle against revisionism was its life.

The building of the international movement and the development of a programme was that struggle, rooted always in the ground of the class struggle.

It was a struggle led not only in discussions on an international level, but against the ruling class.

There are others who look at the crisis in a different way. They use that crisis in order to reject the Fourth International and its history. They have ideas of a 'fresh start' and bringing everybody together on the basis of present programme. We are faced with a struggle against that kind of rejection of theory.

Those who do not understand the fight for the continuity of Marxism as the essence of our position are bound to constitute a reactionary trend inside the international movement.

It is not possible to understand the present crisis of imperialism and the bureaucracy sections of the American youth, who combine with the struggle

SANITY commission has been set up to decide whether Edward Waniolek is fit to be tried for the murder of 27-year-old Socialist Workers Party member Leo Bernard in the Party's Debs Hall headquarters, Detroit, USA.

On May 16, Waniolek, said by his wife to be 'obsessed by communism' and who was known to have weapons, walked into Debs Hall, lined Bernard and two other Wayne University students against the wall and opened fire with a rifle and gun.

Bernard died. others, 22-year-old and 19-year-old Graham, were serio and taken to hospit:

Garrett is now a of his parents. He cast from his waist He will need a lon care and recuperati‹ Graham is still ir a serious conditio undergone several o A preliminary Waniolek's fitness t adjourned until la day. The sanity was then going decision.

•cialist on May scussion Here 1al Betray ibloites could not : the Labour governcapitalist. They still hat position. They is position where they working class because eption of the epoch orld struggle is comerent and is a rejecle Transitional ProVe have had to fight n for many years.

not look upon the il struggle as a unity, he world struggle can ie divided into differsomething called the colonial revolution, and the struggle of workers inside Russia, China and Eastern Europe, and the struggle of workers in the West.

each sector there are different sorts of leaderships, not a leadership to unify the struggle, but, according to conditions, other forces who would take the lead. There is no need to develop an independent Trotskyist leadership.

In the colonial countries it would be those forces from the middle class who would be able to lead the struggle against imperialism, and even become Marxists, such as Castro, Ben Bella, etc. It was a long and continuous development.

When the SWP, who had stood against Pablo in 1953, began to develop the idea of the three different sectors, they were in fact developing the same ideas as the Pabloites According to the conception of the Pabloites, the Trotskyist centre became an advisory bureau for these middle-class leaders.

The idea that it was going to take 'centuries' to get socialism became a finished theory in 19491952. But the partly stable, slowly-developing situation from which this 'gradualist' impression was gained suddenly exploded in 1953-1956. without having been part of and learned the lessons of all the struggles within our movement since its foundation.

The post-war crisis of imperialism was enormous. Capitalism had no inherent strength after 1945. It was the betrayals of international Stalinism which allowed capitalism to rebuild.

European capitalism was in ruins. Only the international collaboration of Stalinism, which allowed the Western European states to be set up and American finance brought in, and Europe, and particularly Germany, to be split in half, saved capitalism.

All the factors behind the crisis in 1945 still remain. There has been no restoration of the basic strength of capitalism. We are face to face with the preparation of the struggle for power and the building of a new leadership.

No defeats Since that restoration of capitalism with the help of Stalinism, there have been setbacks, but no major defeats. The temporary equilibrium after 1945, with the help of Stalinism. was accepted as 'fact' by the revisionists, abstracted from its basis, from the contradictions of society. This was smashed by the working class in 1953. When that upsurge came, those who had subordinated themselves to the bureaucracies found themselves on the wrong side. They ended up in treachery to the working class.

The Marxist perspective was pressure on the bureaucracies, but a combined social revolution advanced countries and political revolution in the workers' states, with an international leadership uniting the whole.

Right at the root of this is the enormous development of the productive forces. For over half a century capitalism has stood in stark opposition to these productive forces.

The rebellion of the productive forces against capitalism has led to the deaths of millions and exposed the reformist and Stalinist leaders of the working class as being agents of the capitalists.

If, on the basis of the temporary stabilisation achieved with the assistance of Stalinism, there has been the development of new methods of production, these prepare even greater crises in the present stage.

The development of atomic energy and automation are enormous, unprecedented changes in production. Already they hold out the prospect of the necessary destruction . of millions of workers, and the reduction, even inside the USA, of some 50 million people to pauper level and below. of the Negroes and poor in the US.

All those impressed by the strength of US imperialism forget not only the inability of imperialism to defeat this revolution in Vietnam, but also the responsibility of the US for all world capitalism's problems, and the impact of these inside the USA, the bastion of monopoly capitalism.

Subordinated

The Negro struggle for democratic rights had hardly begun when the line was drawn tween those who wanted to keep the struggle within middle-class and religious bounds, and those who wanted to carry it further.

Anybody who thinks he can fight for democratic rights for Negroes without taking up the class struggle will find himself subordinated not only to Martin Luther King but almost immediately to the state.

So much for all those theories that the so-called 'storm centre' of the world revolution had passed to the colonial countries. Under the banner of this theory of take donesiahe Communist Party.

We start from the unified class struggle internationally which can only be fought through by the working class under a Trotskyist leadership. In the US all the historic problems of America's development now are thrown into the melting pot. The fight for Negro rights is part of the international struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie.

The conquests of the working class in all countries can really be defended only by revolutionary methods. We stand for unconditional defence of the conquests of the revolutions in Russia, China and Eastern Europe, but we know that it is not possible to make that defence except by revolutionary methods. We know we can only defend them in struggle against the bureaucracy.

revolution of 1956.

The working class in struggle leadership.

Revolution of 1956.

criticising opposing interests. political rule of the working class itself.

Beneath the apparent strength 'two world blocs' enormous forces of the working Like all revisionists, the Class ates eaglected the working Pabloites When the East German rising came 1953, how marion theyn the equipped the forces of the Fourth International equipped to deal with Pablo with the theory that the bureaucracy was going to rule for a long time.

The continuity and independence of the working class had to be fought for. The fundamental question of revolution On that question Pablo and Co. found themselves the wrong side of the barricades. The fight for the continuity of the Fourth International was identical with the struggle against those who wanted to destroy it, abandoning the political independence of the working class.

Since then the position Pabloism has developed into the liquidation the Trotskyist movement in favour of petty-bourgeois nationalist, reformist and Stalinist forces. All those who could not learn the lessons of 1953 developed similar positions.

The fight of the International Committee in 1953 and since makes it impossible for that revisionism to have the same effect now as it had in 1953-56. They have been exposed and fought.

The upsurge of the working class now can take shape and be unified with the construction Trotskyist parties in all countries. This is why the struggle against Pabloism has been decisive for the working class and was not at all only a small struggle in discussion groups.

Similarly in the advanced countries, it is not possible to undertake any defence of the trade unions against the state without revolutionary struggle.

Youth based

Only the struggle to build an independent revolutionary movement based on the youth can defend these organisations of the working class. The working class is thrown into struggle to defend all its conquests, which leads immediately to the posing of political questions in order to meet even the basic demands of the working class. The Transitional Programme is a living programme.

We are still in the period when imperialism, in the abthreatens the stability of imperialist rule.

tions of the Chinese workers' unrest.

defeat of the Stalinists.

Cent of the Labour brought this to wrote in their organs after the elections w had a 'left-centrist to which we, must ind of support. They rly against the forces ialist Labour League ng from a Marxist took upon them: responsibility of se forces who could rom sccial democracy against the Labour This struggle against Pabloism established the essential continuity of Marxism in the past period.

The Fourth International was not destroyed. • The struggle against revisionism was its life.

The building of the international movement and the development of a programme was that struggle, rooted always in the ground of the class struggle.

It was a struggle led not only in discussions on an international level, but against the ruling class.

There are others who look at the crisis in a different way. They use that crisis in order to reject the Fourth International and its history. They have ideas of a 'fresh start' and bringing everybody together on the basis of present programme. We are faced with a struggle against that kind of rejection of theory.

Those who do not understand the fight for the continuity of Marxism as the essence of our position are bound to constitute a reactionary trend inside the international movement.

It is not possible to understand the present crisis of imperialism and the bureaucracy

‹s ago a member of was shot dead in an anti-communist s has to be taken as the whole political When Kennedy was dow received condo• a • very unexpected national committee of it was impossible for lich could take that dertake the responrevolutionary leaderUS. Their position o question is similar. demand for a long There is a rapid succession of coups d'etat, and a turn to direct repression of mass movements: witness the fate of the Communist Party in Indonesia. 'was as There are big revolutionary struggles posed in all underdeveloped countries, and the breakup of all established conditions. This is what we mean by the continuing and developing joint crisis of capitalism and the bureaucracies who are unable to offer anything else to the masses.

This pressure of the productive forces has its effect on the USSR, China and Eastern Europe; it presses the imperialists towards the reconquest of these workers' states. This is why the military aspects of the struggle are directly related to the class struggle ever since the last world war.

Vietnam is the main point of concentration of this question.

Vietnam frightens them. brings new problems for the imperialists and radicalises whole sections of the American youth, who combine with the struggle sence of any strength of its own, can use the kind of agents it has used in the colonial countries only insofar as Stalinism helps it to do so. There is no question of defence of any of the gains of the working class without a determined struggle against Stalinism.

In this period, when bureaucratic leaderships have to show themselves much more openly as agents of imperialism and strike breakers, they are constantly exposed to the militants as outand-out servants of the state. This is a sign of how far the crisis has gone.

One of the major forces in pushing Dash and other Stalinists in Britain to the right is the role of the Trotskyists in struggle. On a world scale this counter-revolutionary role of Stalinism is more and more exposed.

An intensification of the crisis of the bourgeoisie throughout Asia would be a great blow struck on behalf of the Vietnamese workers and peasants, but the role of Stalinism is to get the Communist Parties in the Asian coutries not to take up arms against their governments. of independent and conscious existence.

clearly marked.

SANITY commission has been set up to decide whether Edward Waniolek is fit to be tried for the murder of 27-year-old Socialist Workers Party member Leo Bernard in the Party's Debs Hall headquarters, Detroit, USA.

On May 16, Waniolek, said by his wife to be 'obsessed by communism' and who was known to have weapons, walked into Debs Hall, lined Bernard and two other Wayne University students against the wall and opened fire with a rifle and gun.

Bernard died. The two others, 22-year-old Jan Garrett and 19-year-old Walter Graham, were seriously injured and taken to hospital.

Garrett is now at the home of his parents. He is in a body cast from his waist to his toes. He will need a long period of care and recuperation.

Graham is still in hospital in a serious condition. He has undergone several operations.

A preliminary hearing on Waniolek's fitness to plead was adjourned until last •Wednesday. The sanity commission was then going to give its decision. a further shift of the Communist Party towards the right-wing Labour leaders. But far from being a break with its Stalinist past, this was, in fact, a direct continuation of its history of betrayal.

This contention is borne out by the 'Morning Star' TV notes of last Saturday (June 4), contributed by Stewart Lane.

BBC PLAY

These were forced to deal with the BBC-1 play The Executioner', shown on Wednesday, June 1, about the death of Trotsky.

Lane uses all the familiar Stalinist tricks of distortion, phrases torn from context, meanings twisted, and downright lies, to try to cast doubt on the clear factual basis of the play.

Whatever

Four

that the Federal : must send troops uth to implement the tion laws. • ended up not only ig itself to middleers of the Negro t actually calling upon 'ist state to carry out ibilities against the onaries in the South. Id also take note of nces with the British Reviewer reviewed by John Crawford WHEN the 'Daily Worker' changed its name to "Morning Star', it indicated effective international proletarian leadership, able to mobilise solidarity actions in the capitalist world and in the USSR, and able to provide the Hungarian and Polish revolutionaries with a Marxist, internationalist programme.

Knowing that critical struggles are on the wa the Stalinists strive to rotect themselves throug their repressions against every possibility of the In these future struggles, whose magnitude will far outweigh those of 1956, the existence of a Marxist leadership, part of the Fourth International showing the workers the programme of the united revolutionary interests of the workers of Western Europe and America against imperialism, and those of Eastern Europe and the USSR against the bureaucracy, would make impossible the suppressions of 1956, achieved only on the basis of those Stalinist betrayals which had divided the workers of Eastern and The Stalinist bureaucracy was able through the 1935-38 repressions to exterminate physically almost all the vital forces of the proletarian vanguard. contrast with that period international working class defeats, the present situation produces a conseantutionary leadership, tespite the betrayals wi the Stalinists and social-democrats. At every turn the militant workers are thrown into conflict with the In the past it was possible for the bureaucracy, usurping the revolutionary prestige of October, successfully hold back the revolutionary movement with a wall of lies, slanders and eventually assassinations. It is part of the severe crisis of Stalinism today, however, that the bureaucracy can no longer carry out such acts with the same 'justification'. Their right to do so is no longer acknowledged by the advanced workers, including many inside the Communist Parties themselves. Some other way must be found to initiate a campaign of slanders to once again but at the Fidel Castro has taken on the mantle of Stalin for this purpose, being uniquely qualified for such a role. Castro, the 'respected and great revolutionary', replaces Stalin the 'old Bolshevik'. To Castro falls the task of repeating the lying phrases of Stalin about 'Trotskyite agents of imperialism'—all with the purpose of justifying imprisonment and liquidation of prole'Castro-ism' has reached a dead end. It was never more than the extreme left of petty-bourgeois 'socialism'. Finding itself bankrupt, like all petty-bourgeois formations in the imperialist world, it capitulates for the time being to the Kremlin bureaucracy, serving its urgent need to attack the Fourth International.

On everv front against China, and above al. against all those elements in Latin America Who are rejecting the Stalinists' line of collaboration and subordination to the bourgeoisie and seeking the path of proletarian revolution-Castro serves Kremlin paymasters.

When Castro attacks the Fourth International in the same terms used by Stalin, he takes his place in a single campaign of calumnies and repressions by the bureaucrats and petty bourgeois everywhere, whether The contradiction between the interests of the class in struggle and the bureaucrats and petty-bourgeois who dominate the mass movement is an international phenomenon.. The different forms taken in different countries by this contradiction must be understood as parts of a single process, forcing the bureaucracy and the petty-bourgeois leaderships to fight to prevent at all costs the crystallisation in these struggles of the advanced forces of the proletariat around the programme and organisation of the Fourth International. THE STRUGGLE WAGED by Leon Trotsky against the Moscow Trials, against the exterminations and slanders carried out by Stalin and the bureaucracy, was an indispensable contribution to the whole life and development of the workers' movement. Without this fight, not only the political and theoretical continuity of the movement but even the human. resources of the vanguard stood in danger of liquidation.

Only because this fight was waged as a necessary part of the building of the foundations of the Fourth International could the programme of Bolshevism and the banner of proletarian revolution be carried forward for future generations of working-class fighters. There is no continuity of the movement purely in the abstract. This continuity is carried through by real, living men and their experience in fighting for the programme and for their own existence against every In the last two decades, there developed within the Fourth International itself revisionist tendencies Stalinists' TV review distorts play about nesses, Robert Muller's script was based on the considerable research which has revealed beyond doubt that Mercader, Trotsky's assassin, was an agent of Stalin's GPU (secret police).

'Murder in Mexico' by Gorkin and Salazar, and Mind of an Assassin' by Don Isaac Levine, as well as Isaac Deutscher's book on Trotsky "The Prophet Outcast', have all traced in some detail the history of Trotsky's murder.

Apart from his psychological motivation, it is clear that Mercader was specially recruited for this job by the Soviet bureaucracy's secret police, and trained over a number of years.

Vast quantities of money were allocated to the work.

Lane cannot refute this. Instead, he attempts to confuse his readers.

After all the revelations about Stalin's murders of revolutionaries, after all the exposure of lies put out by the Stalinists, Lane's headline growth of a revolutionary leadership. Western Europe. bureaucrats as well as with the capitalists. prepare the way for political assassinations. tarian revolutionaries. it be in Latin America or Eastern Europe. attack of the class enemy and its agents.

ky says: 'Hard to believe in this thriller-type killer of Trotsky' He even has the impudence to criticise Muller for avoiding the 'detailed political position of Trotsky'. As if the *Morning Star or its predecessor has ever printed anything approaching this itself!

THE FACTS Lane writes: 'It was impossible to believe in this young Ramon Mercader (Sandor Eles), presented as a pitiable weakling with an Oedipus complex, when the real Mercade: has been in prison for 20 years without revealing any more than he said when arresteu.' A reader who did not know the facts might be pardoned for assuming that Trotsky's murderer was still in prison.

But Lane knows quite well that he was released in 1961 and flown, via Havana, to Czechoslovakia. He has not been heard of since.

Then Lane gives us no of Trotskyists on the grounds that social democrats, Stalinists and petty-bourgeois nationalist leaders would, under present conditions, carry out the historic tasks of the proletariat. Today they are found utterly incapable of anything but sorrowful dirges and pleas to the bureaucratic and petty-bourgeois enemies of the working class, having for years hailed these enemiesCastro, the "liberal' Stalinist bureaucrats--as 'progressive.

Unable to analyse in their class meaning the new wave of repressions and slanders, the revisionists are reduced to weeping and moaning, having in effect helped prepare the way for the repressions themselves.

Only the Trotskyists of the International Committee can carry out the necessary task of political and physical defence of the vanguard forces of the proletariat in the countries ruled by the Stalinist In taking upon its shoulders the task of fighting for the continuity of the programme and organisation of the Fourth International, the International and its sections have the inescapable duty of combatting every manifestation of the new wave of repressions and slanders perpetrated by the Stalinists against the most advanced elements of the working class.

This is an international duty in every respect, a task which can be carried out only on the basis of the record and traditions of the Fourth International. In this period our main task of rebuilding the Fourth International will be successfully carried out only in and through the acceptance of responsibility for the defence of all those who fall victim of the Stalinist repressions.

When we fight on the programme of the Fourth International this means nothing more nor less than an unceasing campaign against the bureaucracy, to resist and turn back every attempt made by them to break the revolutionary vanguard. In this way, by taking up all our responsibilities of struggle on every front against the class enemy and its bureaucratic agents. we carry out in practice the fight for the programme and reconstruction of the Fourth International.

The International Committee fights always for its independent political line: when it takes up the defence of the victims of Stalinist repression it does SO without making it a condition that these victims fight on the same programme as the International Committee, nor does it take responsibility for every political stand taken on every question by these victims.

Our programme, to organise the revolutionary vanguard for the leadership of the proletariat in the struggle for power, for the political revolution against the Stalinist bureaucracy as an indispensable part of this international struggle, is clear. To this end we defend all those whom the bureaucracy persecute as part of their campaign to politically behead the proletariat.

In the same way the International Committee accepts enthusiastically its resposibility to defend the conquests and organisations of the working class against every attack of the imperialists and consequently defends every member of the working-class movement who falls victim to the imperialist attack on these conquests and organisations.

However, the best defence, and in our epoch the only effective, defence of these conquests and of the workers and militants who come under attack, is the rebuilding of the Fourth International as the leadership of the international struggle of the working class. The duty of revolutionaries, of communists, is always to represent the long-term, revolutionary interests of the proletariat as a whole in every partial and immediate struggle.

It is in the conduct of every phase of the international class struggle within the strategy of the struggle for power that the fight against the Stalinists' repressions and slanders achieves its full force.

The sections of the International Committee will fight to demand the immediate release of Modzelewski, Smiech, Badowski, Haas, Kuron and others imprisoned in Poland, and of the revolutionaries of 1956 arrested in Hungary, as part of their fight to win the leadership of the working class in each country and defeat the opportunists and Stalinists.

They will mobilise on the broadest possible front a campaign to publicise the arbitrary and repressive character of the arrests. carried out with other iustification than that the accused published their criticisms of the regime, which is the elementary duty of any Communist.

A determined and militant struggle can secure the release of those imprisoned and a defeat for their persecutors. The International Committee will work together with all those who will genuinely fight for the defence of these political prisoners in Hungary and Poland against the Stalinists. We are convinced that every blow struck in this campaign will be an indispensable contribution to the strenethening of the revolutionary vanguard in the USSR and Eastern than four phrases in quotation marks taken from the remarks of Isaac Deutscher, who .commented on the play on BBC-2's 'Late Night Line-Up'.

These are: 'falsification of events', 'the motives of the assassin were not explained' *a highly intelligent political man' (of Mercader), and finally, 'I don't know what went on therc (Trotsky's home in Mexico]'.

Lane dresses up these words to make it seem as though Deutscher did not believe in his own account of the murder!

pite or the oor an approGone are British Stalinists could confidently pour out millions of words of lies about Trotsky and his supporters.

Today they must rely on more indirect ways of falsehood.

There is increasing interest in Trotsky and Trotskyism, while Stalin's name is more and more associated with the betrayal of revolution and the bureaucracv and in the capitalist countries. Europe as in every country in the world. May 28, 1966, International Committee. slander and destruction revolutionaries.

Trotsky once described Stalinism as 'the syphilis of the labour movement' This nauseous political disease is, however, still significant in this country, precisely because of the advances made in the fight to re-build a real communist movement.

The actions of the Stalinists in trade unions, trying to head off an attack on the Wilson government, matches the campaign of lying slanders against Trotsky.

EMBODIMENT

Stalin had to hunt down and kill Trotsky because he was the living embodiment of the traditions of the October Revolution. Those who are now able to continue those traditions under more favourable conditions must learn to hate and destroy Stalinism in all its forms as an enemy of the working class and of the Soviet Union's real interests.

between the governmentbacked consortium and 13 unions at Fairfields shipyards last week which could set a dangerous pattern for the whole of the shipbuilding industry.

The first agreement involves a no-strike, no-lockout, no-go slow understanding, and the second provides for higher wages in exchange for higher productivity among steel workers. The second also breaks down demarcation lines. Mr. Oliver Managing director of the yard, think the most important aspect of the agreement is the bargain for no strikes, and no lock-outs and go-slows, in return for backdating settlements?

He thought that this would 'take a good deal of the heat' out of negotiating and lead to 'more sensible settlements.

JOINT COUNCIL

The terms of the agreement also provide for the setting up of a central joint council union and management representatives to discuss wages and conditions, the appointment of a full-time convenor, the strengthening of the role of shop stewards, and a strict list of rules for procedure in dealing with disThis is an attempt to completely hog-tie the workers to the rule of the management and union bureaucrats.

The terms of the agreement seem mild in comparison with the clauses of the anti-union legislation proposed by the government in the Prices and Incomes Bill, yet they can be more damaging and longer lasting.

The fact that the government has played a large role in putting Fairfields back on its feet almost certainly had something to do with the harshness of the terms Which obviously use see senmanagement, who must see sible' settlements well within the bounds of the 3$ per cent norm.

The worst aspect of this agreement is the role of the union representatives involved.

In particular Mr. Danny McGarvey must answer for this agreement. Oniy a few weeks ago at the Boilermakers Society conference he was, as general Sempany for thei: proposed Prices lambasting Wilson and and Incomes Bill. Yet he allows his members to walk into Fairfields as part of probably the most hamstrung, and eventually the most docile labour force in Britain, subjected to a gigantic drive for increased productivity -speed-up, etc. • Pearson Report GOLD tinue to engage in a rescue operation on behalf of the pound.

Over 1965 France, Italy and Western Germany all chose to increase their gold holdings by • a combined total of nearly 1,500 million dollars.

Whatever disruptive consequences for the international monetary system a devaluation of the pound may have, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the Americans to provide support on the necessary scale for sterling.

How will the Labour government respond to the growing crisis which the latest drop in the gold reserves indicate?

It looks • increasingly certain that the 'Incomes Policy' will be turned into an open pay freeze.

SIX-MONTH WAIT

Frightened by the tenacity of the seamen's strike big business is now demanding that a halt be called to all wage increases for a six-month period.

This was reflected in demands in the Daily Telegraph' and 'Guardian' of last week. Such a move would undoubtedly precipitate a crisis between the working class and the government. the areas

AN open air meeting attended by 500 South Shields seamen last weekend at Milldam, South Shields, reaffirmed the absolute solidarity of the seamen on the North east coast. It was stressed that the seamen had struck for a 40-hour week and that they had no intention of going back to sea until they had got it.

An organiser of the National Union of Seamen phasised the need to win financial support from workers in the area and informed the meeting that was now his main task. Another of his tasks appeared to be to attack the Young Socialists.

He said that people who had been collecting money in support of the seamen were not Young Socialists, but Young Trotskyists. He appealed for nobody to donate any money to the youth.

'he meeting ended on a note which could confuse many seame hose anger and hatred has been roused by the Labour government' Jim Slater, chairman of the South Shields strike member, which had demovestrated its opine.

Șıton to the government, by calling for a vote of confidence in it.

The chairman called for those in support to raise their hands, and a section of seamen did so, but he failed to complete the vote by asking those against to raise theirs. Many seamen were already walking away from the meeting in anucipation of the end.

World

embargo AT A PACKED MEETING of seamen in the NUS offices on Monday, resolutions were passed and submitted to the executive council calling for the blacking of all tankers entering British ports and calling for a world embargo of British ships by the International Transport Federation.

A tremendous siep forward was made for the seamen when a shop stewards meeting at Parsons, a Tyneside engineering lactory employing thousands, agreed to levy a shilling per man every week towards the strike fund. Similar neetings are to be held in all the major factories on Tyneside.

Regular donations of this kind will strengthen the seamen immeasurably.

The Regional secretary of the North Fast Young Socialists, when interviewed by The Newsletter, said: 'If asked by the NUS to collect for them we would be only too glad to do so. We were, however, collecting money for the Young Socialists' campaign against anti-trade union legislation. The collection paid for the bus fare for seamen who came with us to London to lobby paremall this Leylands lay off 15,000 in piecework dispute workers following a dispute over piecework •HE Leyland Motor Company is laying off some with 60 machinists.

They have closed down their subsidiary factories of Standard Triumph, Coventry, Forward. Radiator, Birmingham, and a further subsidiary plant in Liverpool for one week.

Several thousand other workers in component factories and on car delivery will also be affected.

The trouble started back in mid-April with the introduction of the new Triumph 1300 model. The men employed on machining cylinder heads and engine blocks were told by the management nat since the new engine opera ions were only slightly differen from the previous model, only slightly different times would apply.

The men were presented with a price for the new job which, they claimed, cut their wages by £2 10s a week.

Re-timing

Past practice in the Coventry works of Standard Triumph has been that when a new model is introduced a complete re-timing takes place so that any modification can be properly evaluated. This, the men claim, is the only way to calculate piecework prices.

But the management insisted that the new timings and prices would apply.

Since mid-Auril the machinists have been operating a go-slow Seamen and lobby backed The 1/686 branch of the Transport and General Workers' Union, Southall, voted on Tuesday to donate £10 to the seamen's strike fund and also gave support to the June 22 lobby of parliament. It was decided to send five delegates to the lobby with a branch banner. Both resolutions were moved by a Young Socialist member of the branch. Seamen march on Merseyside ER BRANCH, 4 section of a large solidarity march by north-west seamen in Liverpool in which Young Socialists participated.

15,000 prices and taking two days a week off work.

Soon after the men's decision last week to continue these tactics for a month the management decided to lay off 15,000 workers.

Their stand is closely linked with the anti-trade union legislation proposed by the Labour government.

Their refusal to negotiate new piecework rates is the other side of the coin to the Prices and Incomes Bill, for it 1s, piecework rates which have been mainly responsible for the wage increases during the past period.

High wages

Rates' negotiated by stewards at local level have pushed up wages in the Midlands area to over three times the agreed national rate.

Each time a new model has appeared on the production lines, wage rates have increased.

The Labour government's policy may soon be that wages must be held down by legislation, but even before the Bill has reached the Statute Books, the employers move into action.

Only by combining the fight against compulsory piecework rates with the seamen's strike and the fight against the anti-trade union • legislation can the machinists of Standard Triumph win through to victory. Bus routes cut in Nottingham 1HE statement that the Prices and Incomes Board effective use of labour already working on the valent throughout the industry, and some instances evident in Nottingham.

There the management - the Labour Council-has been making an attack on one major bus route in the city where they propose to run five buses less on peak hours and three from another route, run in conjunction. This totals eight on certain parts of the route.

This proposal is as a result of a passenger census covering the creasing difficulties which would impose more strains on the world capitalist system Finally, of course, devaluation would mean a wage cut for every worker in this country as all imports, toodstuffs, raw materials and manufactured goods, rose in price. This would undoubtedly sharpen the class struggle and place the future of the Labour government in grave doubt.

However Wilson decides to regold reserves and his will be largely made up for him by those 'foreigr observers' spoke about when announcing the declaration of a State of Emergency) he can do so only by carrying out further attacks on the working class and the independence of its organisations.

MOBILISE

The response of the working class to this growing crisis of British capitalism must be to mobilise its maximum strength under new revolutionary leadership to smash Wilson • and Co. and replace them with a workers' government. Registered steche The Newsletter. S.W.4 8s a newspaper 100%1 ndustrial STALINISTS CREEP CLOSER TO FABIANISM THE somewhat ironicai slogan mass pressure for a new policy' emblazoned on a banner greeted the 33 people who attended a meeting last Monday called by the London District of the Communist Party.

Here were the fruits of the CP's splitting tactics in the seamen's strike, the dockers' fight against amendments to the National Dock Labour Scheme, and the campaign against the Prices and Incomes Bill.

Here was the new policy of 'left unity' dispiayed in all its glory.

We now understand what was meant by this, policy. Their members have taken the hint and 'left' in the interests of 'unity'.

Main speaker Sam Aaronovitch BY A BUSMAN wanted more buses is preof it are now whole city. The obvious implication is that an attempt will be made to cut all routes, with the management preferring to take on one section of the busmen at a time.

Busmen in the Bulwell and Trent Bridge depots have countered this by refusing to even consider the new rotas until they are given a five-day week.

This confrontation is obviously going on on a national scale with the busmen demanding the five-day, 40-hour week and the bosses wanting to cut down drastically on the major parl of their costs -which is wag.s--by using manpower. more 'efficiently' through the operation of one-man buses, speed-up, etc.

Busmen everywhere must be very wary of this. After all, the White Paper produced by the Prices and Incomes Board points out that in Stockholm every bus is one-man operated.

NATIONAl FIGHT

It is important to realise the busmen's fight is a national fight.

The developments in Coventry, where busmen are being offered an apparently sizeable wage increase in return for one-man buses, are daugerous, for, if copied elsewhere. the busmen would be fragmented even more The fight must be for equal wages for all busmen at the London rates and the nationalization of the entire transport industry, including firms such as Leylands. Big markets are opening up abroad for the Leyland Atlanteans, which are capable of becoming one-man buses, and this firm will gain considerably from the moves of the Board and bus bosses up and down the country. disown June 22 EADING militant workers in Coventry are beginning to wonder about the strange role of members of the Coventry Communist Party in the fight for the June 22 lobby. This lobby was called by organisations and supporters of the Communist Party soon after the Young Socialists' May 25 lobby campaign got under way.

Last week at an AEU quarterly shop stewards' meeting, leading members of the Communist Party sat silent while others expressed support for the seamen and spoke against the line of the full-time engineering union officials, who was at some pains to convince his audience that the CP members were 'real patriots' and that their policy was in 'the genuine national interest' Discussing che Prices and Incomes policy, he asked: "What does it offer for our economic development? What does it offer in solving our problems of trade.' Aaronovitch failed talk real interests of the seamen working class (an expression he skilfully avoided using throughout the whole evening).

It was a rember of the Socialist Labou: League who raised for the first time in the meeting the need to fight for big turn-out on the June lobby of parliament, sponsored by the Communist Party.

The same speaker explained the political character of seamen's strike and the treacherous role of the 'left' MPs. The seamen's strike was, as Wilson had said, a st.ike against the state, he explainea.

HOTLY DENIED

This was hotly denied by Aaronovitch in his reply to the discussion, despite the fact that seaman who spoke at the meeting had also commented:

"The seamen have recognised that a political struggle has been forced on us. We are prepared for any form of action.

Aaronovitch insisted, however:

'The seamen should repudiate what Wilson savs about it being a strike against the state. The state means the people as a whole - not the state machine. The seamen should say to Wilagainst the state, a lie, you are "This is How on earth Harold Wilson can be against the state when he also proposes to mobilise all the forces only against the seamen, but against the whole working class, following the introduction of the Prices and Incomes Bill, Aaronovitch did not explain.

NEW DEPTHS But his theoretical acrobats on Monday convinces true Marxists of one thing: the prostitution of Marxism and the abandonment of class analysis by Aaronovitch and the CP leaders has reached new depths.

The line between Stalinism and Fabianism becomes more slender every day.

The 'left unity is turning out to be a 'right unity' based upon hostility towards the working class and, above all, to its revolutionary vanguard.

Real unity-unity of the working class in struggle for power —can only be won by the Marxists of the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists. advocate wage restraint.

When questioned about his silence, the corvenor of Bristol Siddeley Engines, Parkside, replied that he had hoped someone else would raise the question of the lobby, our reporter was told.

When this same convenor was contacted later in the week by number of stewards from Bristol Siddeley Engines, Ansty about joint action for June 22, the role of the Communist Party became clearer.

On this occasion a Morning Star' correspondent and a local official of the sheet metal workers' union were tackled about the lobby, but quickly withdrew from the discussion.

When the Parkside convenor was asked what arrangements were being made from his fac tory for June 22 we understand he replied that his stewards' committee was not officially supporting the lobby.

Ansty stewards pointed out that they had been informed that the Parkside Stewards' committee had decided to support June 22 instead of the May lobby which was called by the Young Socialists.

OWN LOBBY

They had been told this by Parkside stewards, including one who had been carpeted in the factory Communist Party branch for raising the question of support for May 25.

The convenor denied this saying that Parkside had in fact decided to write to the Coventry MPs asking them for a date when they could receive a deputation.

If the MPs chose June 22, that not, it would be just too bad did would be fortunate, if they Ansty stewards were advised by the convenor to fight for a lobby with Coventry MPs.

(It is reported that when the question of the January 26 lobby, called by the Lambeth Trades Council, was raised on the Coventry Trades Council, the same advice was given-that Coventry trade unionists should conduct their own lobby.)

The meeting between the Parkside convenor and Ansty stewards broke up in uproar.

Communist Party members in Coventry and in other parts of the country where Stalinists seem reluctant to discuss the June 22 lobby must demand why these 'leaders' refuse to kind of east and my ey actively discourage others from doing so.

With continually rising rents, rates and prices such a move would involve a slashing attack on the wages and conditions of millions of people.

It becomes ever more urgent for Wilson to smash the resistance of the seamen by isolating their struggle from the rest of the working class. Only in this way can any measure of confidence be restored in the pound in the eyes of the international bankers.

DEFLATION CALL

Other spokesmen for the ruling class are calling for a sharp bout of deflation with rising unemployment to stem the tide of wage advances. But as others have pointed this would bring growth in British capitalism I Capilansi to an immediate halt.

With the latest restrictions of the recent Budget, been eut to an anticipated 2 per cent per year and any further deflation would bring the figure down to zero.

Despite these difficulties, Callaghan's hand may be forced for him. A recent study carried out by the International Monetary Fund on the progress of British capitalism conciuded that despite the heroic efforts of the faithful Labour Ministers to impose wage control on the working class, their efforts were not good enough and further credit restrictions were becoming increasingly necessary.

DEVALUATION

The only other possibility is devaluation of the pound. The effect of this would be to reduce the price of exports and increase the price of imports, thus 'bridging' the balance of payments gap.

But such a path is again littered with difficulties.

In the first place it would spell the end for sterling: it would mean a second devaluation in just over 15 years. The role of sterling as an international currency brings in about £200 million a year, according to Lord Cromer, Governor of the Bank of England. Nearly all this would be lost by devaluation.

Secondly devaluation would be resisted by many of Britain's competitors overseas.

Their exports would be hit by any such move. In particular the US would be placed under in-

seamen YOUNG Socialists paraded through Leeds last Saturday in support of the seamen and dockers, and in opposition to the Emergency Pewers.

One significant factor was the impression made on the large crowds who stood several deep in the centre of Leeds to watch this very determined demonstration. Cries of 'Seamen, dockers —Unite and Fight!' and calls for the nationalization of the docks and shipping echoed about the streets.

After the demonstration at a meeting held despite police intervention, Young Socialist National Committee member Jean Kerrigan pointed out that the Young Socialists has been in the forefront of the fight again-t the Incomes Policy and anti-trade union laws.

Norman Harding, a member of Leeds Trades Council condemned the emergency powers which were directed against the whole working class.

Socialist Labour League Central Committee member, Barbara Slaughter, said the Labour government was preventing settlement of the seamen's strike in order to protect their incomes policy. A victory for the seamen would be a victory for the whole working class.

A resolution was passed calling for support for the June 22 lobby of parliament.

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