The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 456

+E British working class lives today in the shadow of 1931, the shadow of dole queues and wage cuts. Capitalism faces deep crisis not only in country but internationally. Share prices drift downwards in London on Wall Street as confidence in the future of the economy ebbs away.

Death Of Frank Parkinson FRANK PARKINSON, 74year-old member of the Liverpool branch of the Socialist Labour League, died suddenly last Friday.

Frank came from Northampton from a family with radical and labour traditions. worked in the boot and shoe industry and then in engineering in Liverpool.

He was a member of the Labour Party and then of the Communist Party. At the age of 66 he broke with the Communist Party over the Hungarian Revolution.

He came out of a Party aggregate, bought a pamphlet from a member of the Trotskyist group selling outside, and said, in his usual blunt way: 'I'm finished with that shower' He joined the Socialist Labour League at its foundation and never missed a national conference. He regularly. sold Newsletters among old age pensioners and his friends.

He was scathing to enemies of the League, meeting opportunists peddling gossip, about the League with vigorous sarcasm.

He had been no mean athlete —a runner, a footballer and a referee. He was an active man with • zest for life. He collapsed and died while working on his allotment.

Great response to Liege drive MORE and more young people are enrolling to go with the Young Socialists to Liege on October 15—branches report that the response has been 'great'. the country have been holding public meetings, leafletting factories, youth clubs and shopping centres in a big drive to take 500 youth to Liege.

The delegation of 500 will be going to Belgium to meet socialst youth there who will be pro esting against the war in Viet nam and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which has its headquarters in Belgium.

The Young Socialists in Britain consider it their responsibility to take such a large number of youth over to Belgium.

They have been in the lead of the campaigns in this country to fight for the victory of the National Liberation Front and against the aggression of United States imperialism in south-east Asia.

MEET YOUTH

The journey to Liege will be a tremendously important one for Young Socialists as they will have the opportunity of seeing socialist youth from many countries throughout Europe.

The cost for the compléte round-trip Dover-Ostend and Liege and back is f8 10s., which includes a free meal at Liege and dancing on board ship there and back.

Young workers, apprentices, students, school-leavers and adult workers are invited to come with the Young Socialists to Liege.

If you would like further details you should write to Dany Sylviere, Liege Organiser at 186a Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4. OHN RAWF The Wllson government, whose policies tie it hand and foot to the fortunes of world capital, totters on the brink of disaster.

The question for the working class is dragged down also, or can it break free wing Labour traitors?

Short-time working has already hit wide sections of industry. Factory closures and sackings are announced daily. Production and investment sag This is the result ot the government's economic and financial measures aimed to keep British capitalism The selective employment tax and the reduction in the ceiling on bank loans will especially hit small businesses already anectea oy previous crea restricuons. 1ne erect on worku: conaluions will de intensmea by me muca-amendea ruces and Incomes acr rusnea turourn oy me government al orcarucck speed.

The f keeps sagging Employers will at once begin to use this threat against trade union organisations to resist any improvements in wage and later to impose wage cuts.

The overseas trade figures for show beginning to reveal the July deficit was only f4 million lower.

The toughest deflationary measures since the war, plus legislation to jail trade unionists, have still failed to stop the pound sagging on demand sill more vicious attacks on the s, orke rinternational financiers Cuts in social services will also be expected by Wilson's masters, chen not ere and ined, and may already ale pioneer deve deline, of can a a capitalist mi can an e claskers must be made to pay for the capitalist crisis, says the ruling ENV factory conference arranged EMPLOYERS of the Willesden, London, ENV engineering firm, part of a giant U.S.based world-wide combine of Eatons are to present new proposals aimed at destroying union organisation in the factory at a conference next Wednesday.

This attack on the thousand or so ENV workers must be repelled. If the management succeeds in its plans, there will be repercussions nationally.

Originally, in a meeting with Sir William Carron and shop stewards, the firm proposed that stewards give up all their long-established rights, and that completely new working agreements be made-these would mean wage cuts.

For the first time since late June the management this week reopened negotiations with the shop stewards on floor disputes, but the shop stewards' conmittee has made it clear that it has the complete backing of the workers in opposing the management's proposals.

A background article on the ENV struggle will appear in The Newsletter next week.

this: will it be from the righttes of fae seamen's strike.

And devaluation of the pound will ever capitalist system cannot sustain these mhe voi king chas 10 oé se Thirty-five years ago this week, Ramsay McDonald broke with the labour movement and openly joined the Tories. On the instructions of the American bankers, he carried through cuts in the dole, as unemployment soared above the three million mark.

Millions of workers and their families suffered the privations and humiliations of the means test. Already defeated in 1926, the trade unions were unable to shield workers from the blows of the bosses.

The way was opened for the working class to be herded into a Second World War.

But British capital faces greater problems today than in 1931.

Wilson, Brown, Callaghan and Stewart confront an undefeated working_class. the world posttion of British imperialism is far weaker than before the war.

It is against this background that all tendencies in the labour movement are being tested.

The story of the passage of the Prices and Incomes Bill through Parliament must not be forgotten in the course of the coming struggles.

Not a single 'left' Labour MP voted against this measure. Two dozen, or less, were brave enough ... to abstain! Heavy fines imposed THREE OF THOSE ARRESTED: (from the left): Pat Leonard, Dorothy Gibson and Rex Henry. after Vietnam march Socialists arrested after CP use police FINES totaling 840 with 19 guineas costs were imposed on four socialists by the Croydon, Surrey, magistrates on Monday affer being found guilty of obstructing police officers in the execution of their duty.

The charges arose out of incidents on a demonstration against the Vietnam war, when Communist Party officials attempted to prevent the four from marching.

The prosecution's case against Mrs. Dorothy Gibson, a 32-yearold housewife of Longley Road, reydon, was heard on July il. the police and using insulting behaviour likely to cause breach of the peace. The magistrates dismissed the second charge on July Il following a submission by Mr. B. Birnberg, defending.

Last Monday the magistrates heard her defence on the obstruction charge, but found her guilty. She was fined f10 and ordered BES to pay 10 guineas costs. She was given two months to pay.

The other three: James Dawson McMullen, a 36-year-old sheet metal worker of Thomson Crescent, Waddon; Patricia Leonard, a 19-year-old clerk of Mersham Road, Thornton Heath; and Rex Henry, a _ 20-year-old student of Annsworthy Crescent, South Norwood, were each fined £l0 for obstructing the police, and were ordered to pay three guineas costs each. They had pleaded guilty.

Prosecuting counsel, evidence Mylne, offered no against the three on a charge of insulting behaviour and the magistrates dismissed the case.

Warned

ON June 25, the Communist Party held • a demonstration against the war in Vietnam in Croydon, Surrey. Several members of the Young Socialists and Socialist Labour League turned up to participate. They carried posters which called for the Victory of the Vietcong, to which the Communist Party organiser, Mr. Sidney French, objected.

So far so good.

Mr. French is entitled to his opinion, if necessary to disagree with anyone who calls for the victory of the National Liberation Front (Vietcong). That being the case, the most charitable thing that could be pointed out to Mr. French is his inconsistency in opposing the war in Vietnam whilst at the same time being hostile to anyone desiring the victory of the NLF over the Americans.

Important question But then Mr. French did something else which raises extremely important questions for the labour movement. He supported the calling in of the police, who, as everyone knows from the recent court fines and sentences, are hostile to those who demonstrate against the war in Vietnam, be they menbers of the Communist Party or the Socialist Labour League. As soon as the police arrived on the scene, members of the Communist Party tried to prevent those Who held the 'Victory to the Vietcong' posters from marching.

The police then intervened and arrested those with the posters, who were last Monday heavily fined at the Croydon court. The Communist Party and Mr. French had gained new allies— the police.

Yes indeed, the same police who turned so viciously on Communist Party demonstrators at Grosvenor Square a week later. What strange bedfellows in Croydon. But surely it all flows from the Fabian Communist Party theory of the for it tuere is to be a peacer, road' the police are there, so the. Communist Party must agree to see that the police force is kept. Or are they?

Opposed C.P.

If that were the case, how do events in Croydon match with Grosvenor Square?

On the third reading, they scurried from the floor of the House, so as to avoid identification by the Whips.

When the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists were campaigning to • prepare trade unionists to fight back against the Bill last October, these Mis and their friends in the Communist Party leadership, were telling workers not to be alarmed, as the penal clauses in the Bill would be amended.

Even now, "Tribune' explains that 'the attempt to hold down all wages is likely to break down' and hopes that 'the Administration may be restored to its senses'.

Just as in 1926 and 1931, it is the pretended 'lefts' who are most responsible for disarming the

Wage Cuts Unemployment workers' movement as it goes into battle.

As the seamen's strike showed, a preparation for the struggles now beginning demands a ruthless exposure of this type of fakery.

All politics which bases itself on the hedging and class compromise of the post-war boom must lead to defeat and betrayal.

Join us

The Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists call on all workers who want to break with the treachery of Wilson and join in the building of an alter the cowardice of his 'critics' native revolutionary leadership.

The demonstration at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton on October 2 must lay the basis for united class action against unemployment and wage cuts.

Resistance to the attacks of the employers can only succeed if it leads to the political action against the capitalist staie machine.

British capitalism, and the world system of which it is the weakest component, offer no future but unemployment, fascism and war. The power of the workers' movement must be harnessed to clear this decaying social system off the historical scene and replace it with socialist planning.

They pointed out that increases represent a substantial breach of the government's 'prices freeze'. They are asking why there is no suggestion of fines against councils which reject government appeals for a freeze, whereas workers are threatened with heavy fines if they take action to increase their wages to meet these and other additional expenses from rising prices.

MR. RALPH SCHOENMAN is an official of a body calling itself the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign'. This body is sponsored by Bertrand Russell who recently, after a long membership, resigned from the Labour Party because it supports the American imperialists in their brutal war against the Vietnamese people. We say: Good for Bertrand Russell.

Because we support such forthright actions we were impressed still further when we learned that the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign supported the complete victory of the National Liberation Front and the withdrawal of all American forces from Vietnam.

Everyone is sick and tired of the fake lefts who, together with call for Came minis Pam, Dear Mr. Schoenman, May we take this opportunity to explain the position of the Socialist Labour League towards the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, and more especially to its public meeting on Saturday, Augu t 6.

When we met you towards the end of July, we explained that we agreed with the Statement of the Campaign that it propo ed to campaign for the victory of the National Liberation Front and the complete withdrawal of all American armed forces from Vietnam. During the course of this conversation the role of the 1954 Geneva Agreement came up and you suggestd that this should note in teen in the forefront of the campaign at the present time. agreed with the proviso that this Agreement was in fact largely responsible for the present state of affairs and that this should be which would leave the American militarists still in occupation.

In private conversation Mr. Schoenman would most certainly agree with the need to oppose the role of the Communist Party and lett Labour MPs. But in public he will oppose such a policy as he did at the meeting on August 6 (reported in last week's Newsletter). He is a man with two policies which are mutually exclusive and contradictory.

Naturally it is impossible to defend the Vietnamese revolution in this way and the Socialist Labour League could not be a party to such a wrong position. That is the reason why we decided not to be associated with this campaign.

The following is a letter sent to Mr. Schoenman following the August 6 meeting:

In his evidence on July ll in the case of Mrs. Gibson, Mr. Mylne alleged that she and group of people had tried to join a Communist Party demonstration on June 25 in Croydon against the war in Vietnam, after being warned against it by the police.

Communist Party organisers had told the police to keep Mrs. Gibson's group off the march because, Mr. Mylne said, they did not agree with the group's 'extreme political views'—one of the organisers had pointed at a poster saying 'Victory to the Vietcong' and said:

'You can see they are not policy. policy"s. You can see what This is not our these Trotskyists are going to do: if we don't allow them on the march, it will be stopped.' Mr. Mylne had told the court that a police officer had felt that a breach of the peace might occur if Mrs. Gibson and her group joined the demonstration.

strike What are the conditions like on board ship after the seamen's strike? What is the future for struggle in the seamen's union?

BILL HUNTER answers these questions in next week's Newsletter. We Trotskyists have always opposed the role of the Communist Party under Stalin who framed and butchered thousands during the Moscow Trials of the thirties.

Stalinism was an expression of the foulest type of counterrevolution within the world labour movement.

Mr. French and others carry out the same policies today.

Rather than join with those who fight for the complete victory of the National Liberation Front in Vietnam, they will call in the capitalist state police. Mr. French's action in Croydon speaks for itself. He should be condemned inside the Communist Party by every sincere fighter against the Vietnamese wat.

VI August 20

FOR over a decade there has been discussion as well as fierce controversy between the Trotskyist movement led by the International Committee and the revisionist groups clustered around the United Secretariat or the International Secretariat as it was previously known.

No matter how heated the dialogue became and no matter how much tempers were frayed, both sides strove to keep within the permissible limits of the discussion and tried to maintatin the traditional norms of conduct of the socialist movement.

By preventing the controversy from degenerating into a brawl both sides were able to discuss in a serious way and learn profitable lessons without inviting 'outside' interference. POLITICAL COMMITTEE OF THE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE This period has now ended. Not because of any provocation or stupidity on our part, but because the leaders of the Socialist Workers' Party of America have deliberately chosen to do so by an unprecedented and unconscionable action which could have serious legal repercussions on one section of the movement which supports the International Committee.

The action we refer to is the publication by the Socialist Workers' Party of a document called 'Healy Reconstructs the Fourth International' (with a preface written by Joseph Hansen).

This document, apart from giving a thoroughly false account of the Congress of the International Committee, tries at the same time to give the impression that the Robertson group and the Wolforth group in the United States were seeking affiliation and, or recognition by the International Committee of the Fourth International, a measure that is explicitly banned by the reactionary Voorhis Act of the United States.

In the past this law prevented the Socialist WorA STATEMENT BY THE kers' Party from participating in the leadership of the Fourth International. So long as it remains on the statute book Trotskyists in the United States cannot affiliate to the Fourth International and can do so only at the risk of going to jail.

Since neither of these groups sought recognition by or affiliation to the Third Congress of the International Committee we have no hesitation in denouncing and rejecting, in toto, the fabrications and innuendos of Hansen and Dobbs.

In passing we should like to remind these people that only 13 years ago similar allegations by Pablo's supporters in Britain was deeply resented and rightly denied by the same people who today resort to such sordid schemes to compromise their opponents.

Hansen cannot disclaim knowledge of this fact. In the face of this ruthless and most powerful enemy-U.S. imperialism-the least thing that Hansen and his co-thinkers could have been expected to do would be to demonstrate a common solidarity with their political opponents.

But they have chosen do otherwise. We think this is not merely deplorablewe consider it despicable and utterly unworthy of a communist.

(It is not for us to speculate on why these creatures did all this.) Was it out of factional malice or was it some baser instinct? We shall leave posterity to judge.

So far as the treatment which the pamphlet metes out to the representatives of the Socialist Labour League at the International Conference, it is legally libellous. iWe shall not hesitate to deal appropriately with the handful of United Secretariat agents who hawk it around the cynical fake-left in England.

What matteřs to us is the politics of Hansen and company. Having capitulated to imperialism on the Kennedy assassination and having sold out the anti-war movement it is not really surprising that they should act as finger-men for the State Department now.

This is the logic of capitulation in which one political obscenity follows another. This latest provocation constitutes a complete and irreversible departure even from revisionism and is, in this sense, the most damning indictment of their politics and morals. There is nothing more to say. 16/8/66 of To bring together Marxist Early History of the Communist Party of Great Britain A Socialist Labour pamphlet, 2s. 6d.

DJILAS: still jailed

THE re-arrest of Mihajlo • Mihajlov, the Yugoslav professor, and the continued incarceration of Milovan Djilas —one-time vice-president of the Yugoslay Federal Republic-makes nonsense of the recent actions undertaken by Tito against the secret police and the dismissal of Minister of Interior Rankovic.

These actions indicate the depth of the dilemma which confronts Tito better than any policy change might do.

Whatever political faults Dillas may have, he had the unique merit of being the first to protest against the growing power of bureaucracy which was threatening - and still does - the conquests of the Yugoslav revolution.

CRITICISM

In fact his most vehement criticism was aimed against the growing privileges enjoyed by the officers of the army and secret police (a fact which is only now being made public - and how timorously). For these and other dissenting remarks the Tito regime used the penal code against Djilas and he was sent to jail.

During his trial Dillas protested strongly against the covert pan-serbian chauvinism expressed by the Judiciary.

Yet it is only today (12 years after) that any resistance is being put up against pan-Serbianism, represented by Rankovic and his clique.

His first book "The New Class' an analysis of the Yugoslay state system from the standpoint of state capitalism, earned him a sentence of seven years.

After his conditional release in 1961, Djilas wrote another Stalin' for 'Conversations with for the publication of which he was re-arrested, tried and imprisoned, despite the protests of many socialists and communists and despite the knowledge that the trial was a ludicrous judicial farce.

Mihajlov, a liberal and mystic intellectual, has been arrested for trying to found a journal independent of the Yugosiav Communist Party and for having defied Tito in the Italian press.

Whatever disagreements Marxists may have with Mihajlov, it is impossible to condone the actions of the government against these dissidents.

Greek Army threatens life of conscientious objector CHRISTOS KAZANIS, a 22year-old member of a religious sect, known as the 'Martyrs of Jehovah', has been sentenced to death by the Athens military court for refusing on religious grounds to bear weapons.

The verdict was unanimous and is the second occasion on which an objector has been sentenced to death. The first youth had his sentence • commuted to a seven-year jail term.

According to a Jehovah's Witness spokesman, the real culprit is not the army, but the Orthodox Church, which has immense powers in the government. "Huks' renew Phillipines struggle THE 'Hukbalahap' movement in the Phillipines which was driven underground after the defection of its leader Luis Taruc in the fifties has now re-emerged under a new leadership and is presently carrying out an armed struggle against the regime of President Marcos.

Workers' management and administrative de-centralisation cannot be reconciled with either an omnipotent secret police, or an omniscient party.

Proletarian democracy, if it means anything at all, must surely mean the right of all tendencies and parties which accept the Yugoslav constitution to function freely and advocate their policies without any fear of administrative reprisal.

Only the release of Djilas and Mihajlov can show how real the change in Yugoslav government policy is. those who think differently,' Rosa Luxemburg once said. Footnote: Mihajlov's associate Dr. Marijan Batinic days been released (after three detention) with an official document stating that his arrest had been illegal.

I AM SENDING this letter because I think there must be a number of workers in their thirties and forties who have the same feelings as myself.

All my working life I have been a Labour supporter; for a time I was a member of the Labour Party., Soon after this Labour government I had a sense of disillusionment. I was going to join the Communist Party. Then I came into contact with the Newsletter. The first thing that hit me was that it was attacking the Communist Party. Looking further I found it was justified.

The only people prepared do anything really on the gineering package deal and the anti-union laws were Socialist Labour League and Young Socialists.

My first contact with the Young Socialists was when I went to lobby the National Committee of the Amalgamated Engineering Union last year. At first I accepted the attack on apprentices and Young Socialists there as rabble.

I have learned different since. Now I think they were not harsh enough with Sir William Carron.

I respect how the youth fought for the old age pensioners and against the anti-union laws.

I used to believe that the Labour Party and the trade unions could solve the workers' problems. Now, we must destroy the idea in peoples' minds that the Labour government is a workers' government. It is a tool of the bankers.

Lots of people think more nationally than internationally. We can't do that. The Labour government is in the grip of the international bankers.

The question for my generation is: Whereas under the Tories we looked on the alternative as the trade unions and the Labour Party, where do we look now? Where can workers look for leadership?

Does the Communist Party offer it? They tried to sabotage the lobbies on the anti-union laws. In the seamen's strike they told workers it was not a political struggle. In my union— Amalgamated Engineering Union - they can organise nothing against Carron.

The Party doesn't call for Victory to the Vietcong. They have a policy of peaceful coexistence.

The Labour 'lefts' are alternative. My opinion about them is that a capitalist regime like the British recognises that it has to have an opposition that it can control. The Job of the 'lefts' is to act like a safety valve.

When we went to the House of Commons, Heffer, Orme and the others told us: "You fight

THE New York newspaper strike which the newly-formed combine WorldJournal-Tribune Inc. says killed the 'New York Herald Tribune', is now in its fourth month, and is no nearer a settlement.

One of the main differences is between the Press Workers' Union and the company over the number of hours worked on the proposed World-Journal-Herald'. The men want a six-and-a-half hour Saturday shift to prepare the paper, along with any necessary overtime, instead of the present eight-hour shift they work for the 'New York Times' and the 'Daily News'.

President of the Press Workers' Union says that the company has shown bad faith by ending the 'Herald-Tribune' claiming that they intended to close it all along-the closure will mean the loss of a further 800 jobs on the new combine.

Previously it had been expected to print three papers (Herald Tribune' in the morning, "World Journal' in the afternoon, and 'World-Journal-Tribune' on Sundays) With a staff of 2,500, but with two papers the company will need less staff.

Now the company will have to negotiate all kinds of new agreements with the 10 unions involved in producing New York's newspapers.

Bombay general strike planned ON August 25, Bombay will be paralysed by a token general strike called by the Stalinist and Socialist trade unions in protest against the soaring cost of living and the effects of the devaluation of the Indian rupee. The devaluation has only increased the problems of the Indian economy without curing any of its ills. outside and we will fight inside.' They didn't do much fighting against the wage-freeze Bill, their main complaint was that Wilson didn't do it in the right Parliamentary way. But what are they going to do now its gone through Parliament? We'll fight it outside but we've got no chance of assistance from them.

The answer lies in the youth. Lots of the older generation have been brainwashed into believing that eventually the Labour policy will work. Youth is free from this mistaken loyalty. The older generation has relative values— "well, it is better than it was". Youth sees the class inequalities more and feel the speed-up more.

The only alternative for workers is to join the Socialist Labour League and assist in every way they can the building of the Young Socialists.

P.M., Liverpool.

ONCE again U.S. army intelligence has come to the help of the crisis-ridden regime of Marshal Ky who fears he might lose the September elections.

This time it is not a Buddhist 'plot', but a 'diabolical Red plot to take over Saigon that has been unearthed.

The U.S." military say that seven battalions of Vietcong were to be posted in Saigon, while another three divisions were to be held in readiness 30 miles away, and were to march on the capital if there was another coup.

The real purpose of this hairraising story, however, is revealed in the remark of one senior planner: "The Communists will try everything they can think of •.. to disrupt the September 11 elections.

Thus, ostensibly to prevent , but, are being deployed around and in Saigon. these trends rather than being able to correct them.

The combination of rank-and-file militancy and middle-class radicalism, dressed up in Marxist phrases, proved deadly. Only the intervention of Lenin, Trotsky and the leadership of the Communist International protected the newly-formed Party from the crudest sectarian excesses.

Lenin's Left-Wing Communism: An infantile disorder' analyses the lessons of the Russian Bolsheviks' experience for the strategy and tactics of the young communist parties, with particular reference to Britain.

Brian Pearce's pamphlet brings together under one cover two articles which he wrote under the pseudonym of Joseph Redman in Labour Review' of July-August 1957 and January-February 1958.

These articles deal with the years in which the Communist Party came under Stalinist domination, and consequently betrayed its duty in the General Strike of 1926.

These early years of the Party have been the subject of much recent writing and what passes in Fabian circles for controversy. With the exceptions of Pearce's own interventions, these offerings have swung between 'Moscow domination' and the native faults of the British Party as the key to its early development. The real merit of this pamphlet is to expose the poverty of this dichotomy.

The contribution of the British Communist Party to the betrayal of the 1926 General Strike, by their insistence on strengthening the power of the General Council of the Trades Union Congress and by their unqualified support of the bogus 'left wing' on the Council, was part of an international series of reverses (along with China and Poland)

science with the class struggle of the working class, enabling the workers to destroy the state power of the capitalists and establish the dictatorship of the working class - that is the essential task of our epoch.

It can be accomplished, as it was by the Bolshevik Party in Russia, only by a revolutionary party devoted to the struggle for power through every aspect of the experience of the workers, and developing Marxist theory through this struggle.

For such a party to be constructed in Britain requires a bitter fight against the built-in agencies of capitalist ideology in the labour movement, especially strong in Britain because of the historical priority of British capitalism and the long pre-eminence of British imperialism.

the 1920s began as little more than an amalgamation of the propagandistic sects already existing. The elements who came in from the militant shop stewárds' movement which had grown up during the First World War, such as William Gallacher, became victims • of New pamphlet reviewed by CLIFF SLAUGHTE Later, when numbers of those associated with the Opposition in earlier stages went back to Stalin, Trotsky wrote:

•.. the great majority of the capitulators (to Stalin)

were not sure and firm in the Chinese and the Anglo-Russian question. That is very characteristic!..:

Trotsky refers here to the glo-Russian Committee:

•... a joint committee of the British and Soviet TUC General Councils formed in 1925 to promote world trade union unity in general and closer relations between British and Soviet trade unions in particular, for the common cause of Labour' Pearce shows how the alleged 'pro-Soviet' sympathies of the TUC 'lefts' on this committee led the Communist Party to accept them as left allies and to foster illusions about them in the working class, which proved fatal. The Communist Party leadership had been brought to this position only as part of their joining, in 1925 and 1926, the side of Stalin against Trotsky in the International.

Middle-class commentators, so typıcal ot the left-wing' journalistic world, invariably see Stalinism as the natural successor to Leninism. They like to identify the bureaucratic centralism of Stalinism with the discipline and firmness principle which characterised™ the Party of Lenin. This is why they find it necessary to portray the history of the British Communist Party without analysing the life-and-death struggle between Stalinism and Bolshevism, led by Trotsky.

Zinoviev and Stalin saw the Anglo-Russian Committee as a substitute for the revolutionary party, and it was precisely this point at which Trotsky hammered. From the beginning of 1925 to the latter part of 1927, Stalin and his factior in the leadership of the Comintern acted on the basis of a perspective of capitalist stabilisation, with revolutionary actions by the proletariat ruled out.

Under these circumstances, said Stalin, 'the workers' confidence in our State'-and not the mobilisation of the masses on the road to power-was 'the fundamental antidote to imperialism and its interventionist machinations' With this perspective, it became a priority to encourage those in positions of influence in the labour movement to PAMP of the create a buffer between imperialism and the Soviet state.

If the independent mobilisation of the class behind revolutionary leadership, requiring exposure of all opportunists, offended these elements, then such independent mobilisation must not take place. Indeed it would be condemned as 'adventurism' In this way the British workers were handed over to the traitors of the General Council, and the Chinese Communists to the tender mercies of Chiang Kai-shek and his gangsters in Shanghai.

Pearce's invaluable work shows_that Trotsky had consistently fought for an alternative. This is why the British CP, / when it finally brought out an edition of Trotsky's 'Where is Britain Going' (after the General Strike), omitted the preface written by Trotsky to the American edition in May 1925.

for the proletariat and the Communist movement.

Neither the causes nor the consequences of these events can be understood except from the starting-point of the struggle for Marxism against the growth of Stalinism in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Communist International.

Tragedies

It was Trotsky who led this fight, and who analysed the British and Chinese tragedies before as well as after the actual debacle in each case.

Within the Left Opposition in Russia itself, only those who politically understood these international questions could carry through the fight against Stalin.

Great Britain (Reprinted from 'Labour January-February 1958)

Available from:

NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS, 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 BY BRIA PEAR 2s.

July-August

Page Th

There the following words appeared:

"The inference to which I am led by my study is that Britain is heading rapidly towards an era great revolutionary upheavals.' They also made several cuts his preface to the German ition, written in May 1926, d in particular the following:

"The most important task for the truly revolutionary participants in the General Strike will be to fight relentlessly against every sign or act of treachery, and ruthlessly to expose reformist illusions.' The difference between Marxist revolutionary preparation and the provision of a pseudo-Marxist cover for opportunism is brilliantly demonstrated in the story told in this pamphlet. In that sense it is a real contribution to the theoretical arming of Marxists the coming struggles in Britain.

But above all it should be studied in order to understand better the inner content of the struggle to implant Marxist theory in the British labour movement through the building of a revolutionary party.

Responsibility Such a party is being built and can be built only by those who accept wholeheartedly their international responsibility for continuing and developing the work of Lenin and Trotsky.

The lessons of the early history of the Communist Party are part of the experience of the international proletariat. They can -be fully appreciated and acted upon only as part of the struggle to build the Fourth International.

It is essential therefore that Pearce's pamphlet is widely read, and that this study begins a systematic analysis of the struggle of Trotsky and the Left Opposition for the foundation of our movement on the principles of Márx, Engels and Lenin.

(Twould be very wrong to lay the blame for the development of liquidationist revisionism solely on the shoulders of Pablo. He was one of the principal mediums through which it penetrated the Fourth International, but only one. Pablo was an impressionist and an idealist. His theory about the inevitability of a Third World War fought out under conditions where the Stalinist parties would be transformed into revolutionary parties was impressionist to the core.

It left out of account the reactionary bureaucratic nature of the leaderships of these parties and the role of the international class struggle against imperialism. It superficially saw things from the standpoint of great power politics and the goings-on in the apparatus of the corrupt 1933 allowed Hitler to come to power and necessitated Trotsky declaiming that the Third International was dead, so the Ceylon betrayal signified_ the complete bankruptcy of Pabloism and the United Secretariat.

The responsibility for building the Fourth International now rests entirely with the parties of the International Committee.

lessons from the independent revolutionary party functioning actively in the daily experiences of the working class.

Only under exceptional circumstances can total entry of a section of the Fourth International be contemplated, and even then it will be absolutely essential for those who enter to be actively engaged in the struggles of the class so that they can bring their experiences into the fight against the right wing of the apparatus.

The essence of the entry tactic is that the revolutionary party and its leadership must constantly function within the working class independent of entry whilst at the same time utilising its experiences to fight the right wing. The second of a series of articles National Secretary of the Socialist Labour The Of Belgium, Austria, Italy, France, Ceylon, Greece, Switzerland, Algeria, Argentinia, Denmark and one other country-in all 16 countries, a drop of 10 since the so-called unification of 1963.

Needless to say, this decline was never explained — the Congress was simply noted as 'a great success'.

There were observers from Spain, Iraq and Nigeria, some of whom were also present at the Third Congress of the International Committee held in April 1966.

To describe the two tiny groups (one opportunist and the other sectarian) in Britain as 'a section' is to scrape the barrel to the utmost.

These people represented nothing of the slightest importance, and, in practice, are irreconcilably divided among themselves.

From these examples, it can be seen that no reliance whatsoever can be placed on the way the Pabloite United Secretariat reports its Congresses. Because of revisionist policies, their movement is disintegrating in one country after another. is not the whole story.

After Livio spoke, Germain introduced an amendment making a definite concession to him. He declared that he is against opposing the Egypt led by the bourgeois nationalist, Nasser.

On the question of Ceyion, the Congress allowed one and a half hours to the discussion and report covering the expulsion of 500 members. As soon as a crisis of this magnitude has to be discussed, Pabloite Congresses are not really interested.

It took just 90 minutes to dismiss what happened in Ceylon.

Although Pablo has been expelled, his political methods Socialists Fined £40 When she persisted in attempting to join it, she was arrested.

In evidence on Monday, Mrs. Gibson said she had received a leaflet on June 17 announcing the demonstration for the following Saturday and she had gone along to take part in the ma.ch.

She had gone there with Patricia Leonard and met up with some others. She had taken Young Socialist banners to take on the demonstration. Gathered near the starting point were members of the Young Communist League, the Labour Party Young Socialists and members of the Youth CND.

Object

"The object of the demonstration was to protest at the war in Vietnam and the atrocities carried out by the United States. We went along with our slogan of "Victory to the Vietnamese people", she said.

She was then told by Inspector David Mitchell that the organisers of the march did not want her on the demonstration. She told him that she had a public leaflet, but he reiterated his warning.

Communist Party organiser Sidney French then got on a box and told everyone around him: 'You can see what these Trotskyists are up to' Inspector Mitchell again spoke to Mrs. Gibson.

Then, she told the court, another organiser—Eric Trevitt— was heard, to say: 'We're not going to let them on the march.

She was standing with about six others at the back of about 50 demonstrators when the march moved . off. As they moved forward six members of the Communist Party including French, Trevitt and a man named Reader came between her group and the main march.

Held banners

"They held on to our banners and posters and on to our peoples' arms trying to take down the banners,' she told the court.

She was at the back of her group telling them not to be provoked and as she attempted to guide them around the CP stewards, she was held by two policemen. Asking why she was being arrested she was told: 'You will find out at the station, she alleged.

She had to wait half an hour in a police car before being taken to the police station. There she was charged with the offence which the magistrates dismissed week later that she nas charged with obstruction.

Secretariat.

Orders to:

LONDON, S.W.4 M.BANDA CEYLON:

The logic of coalition politics Also contains documents, statements and conferHence decisions.

Price: sixpence still dominate the thinking of the United Secretariat. Pablo nas gone, but the legacy of Pabloism lives on.

Next week: The Role of the Socialist Workers' Party.

(For further information about what happened in Ceylon our readers should study the two pamphlets 'CEYLON-The Great Betrayal' and 'The Logic of Coalition Politics', , 2/- post free. Obtainable from New Park Publications Ltd., 186a Clapham High St., London, Mrs. Gibson said she knew a large proportion of the people on the march and, though clear on political differences while working in the local labour movement, was friendly with many.

Marched before

While recognising Inspector Mitchell's fear of a breach, there was no reason to expect trouble.

'We knew a large number of people and had marched them on previous issues, with said.

The only violence had been shown by the Communist Party stewards.

In summing up, Mr. Birnberg told the magistrates that the evidence had been that a breach of the peace was • likely-from the organisers of the demonstration. The Communist Party officials were the people showing violence and intimidation against six to nine people.

"They are not entitled to organise a public march when the public is invited and then show hostility, unless they have good cause to do so. If a faction does show hostility, then there is not doubt in the police taking action.

No hostility "This is not the situation in this case. Mrs. Gibson and the others showed no hostility. They exercised their right in taking part in this demonstration. They said they supported the objects of the demonstrațion and had no basic differences. They were not there to make trouble.' Prosecuting against the other three, Mr. Mylne said that some time after Mrs. Gibson was arrested, McMullen, Leonard and Henry were seen on the demonstration in Church Street.

They did not leave, despite several warnings by police officers, and finally scuffles broke out between Communist Party officials and the three.

McMullen, as he was arrested, shouted: I plead guilty-to shouting "Victory to the Vietcong"' Mr. Birnberg claimed there was little trouble, and that most of the people on the march were friendly towards the three. think most of the trouble was caused by the stewards,' he said.

There had been a certain amount of 'political repartee' as the three were arrested. Leonard shouted to the stewards: 'Stalin would have been proud of you,' and one replied: 'Stalin was the greatest man of the century.' The logical of Coalition CEYLON! politics HIGH STREET,

leaderships.

Once a Marxist departs from a continuous study of the workers' movement from the standpoint of the struggle to build the revolutionary party, he departs from the science of Marxism and becomes an impressionist.

From impressionism to idealism is an easy jump either way.

After a wrong estimation of the international perspectives Pablo rapidly developed his theory of the self-reform of the Soviet bureaucracy, especially following Stalin's death in 1953.

This was only logical especially since he had already come to the conclusion that the Stalinist leaderships outside the Soviet Union could transform themselves into revolutionary parties. Here he substituted an idealistic conception of the self-reform of a bureaucracy, whose very presence on the international scene represented the results of the counter-revolutionary role of international capitalist pressure on the workers' movement.

From that time, that is from 1953 raniards, The degeneration was rapid. Marxist method was completely cast aside and the road to one betrayal after another was opened up.

Pabloite

disintegration In the summer of 1954 just after the split between the International Committee and Pablo, Lawrence and his group in England, together with the Mestre group in France, left him and turned towards the Communist Parties.

Pablo and his tendency gave up all pretences of being a revolutionary tendency and liquidated themselves into the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN),, subordinating themselves to the leadership of Ben Bella and Boumedienne.

Those of their followers such as Germain in Belgium who joined the social-democratic parties rapidly dissolved themselves into the centrist 'left wings' The stage was set for the 1964 betrayal in Ceylon when the overwhelming majority of Pablo's section joined the Bandaranaike government, under conditions where even Pablo's heirs, Frank and Germain, had to expel over 500 members. of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party.

Nothing like this had ever been seen in the whole history of the Trotskyist movement since its foundation. Just as the sectarian debacle of the German Communist Party in It is at this point, however, that the International Committee should take another look at the tactical question of entry, so that it may avoid the opportunism of Pablo which led to liquidationalism and the sectarianism which has in the past led to the isolation of so many potential revolutionary groups.

The tactic of entry into the social-democratic parties was elaborated by Trotsky around 1934 in order to try and win over to the Fourth International the left-centrist layers of those parties who were hovering between us and Stalinism.

It must be understood that from the outset Trotsky viewed entry as a tactic and not a principle.

It is necessary to emphasise this because there are still alleged supporters of Trotsky who wrongly insist that it is necessary for our parties to go through the social-democratic or communist parties at some time in their development.

This is the case of the so-called Revolutionary Socialist Labour League (Grant group) in England who in all essentials agree with Pablo's revisionist theories.

In order to liquidate the Fourth International Pablo insisted in practice that entry was a principle. He then went on to adapt his weak forces to the prevailing centrist currents within the social-democracy.

Gradually they completely lost their political bearings and became /centrists themselves. The classical example is Belgium.

Although today Germain is expelled from the social-democratic party on the organisational grounds that he wanted minority rights, not declared for a revolutionary party.

On the contrary he continues with a small centrist party whose weekly paper 'La Gauche' has less than a 2,400 circulation.

Germain did not fight the right wing around the proFourth ante painciples of the he joined their party he became a centrist and remained a centrist even when he was expelled.

This was not Trotsky's conception of entry. He conceived of it as a temporary measure which was necessary in order to fight the right wing and win over members to the Fourth International.

Experiences have shown that this conception needs further elaboration. Entry cannot be successfully carried out unless there is a strong

Pablo set the stage for the Ceylon betrayal when the overwhelming majority of his section joined the 1964 Bandaranaike coalition government.

Pablo and his tendency liquidated themselves into the Algerian National Liberation Front, subordinating themselves to Ben Bella (left) and Boumedienne (right) seen above.

Pablo, Germain and company turned their backs on the struggle of the working class and concentrated instead on a verbal centrist argument against the bureaucratic right wing.

The essence of Marxism which is a continuous analysis of the experiences of the working class by an active participant in the building of the revolutionary party was cast aside. In its place came the idea that things were decided not by the working class but by developments within the bureaucratic apparatus.

Having abandoned a study of the working class for the theory of the inevitability of a Third World War and the self-reform of the Stalinist bureaucracy, Pablo, Germain and company turned the entry tactic into the opportunist opposite of what Trotsky originally proposed.

The work of the Socialist Labour League in the Young Socialists between 1960 and 1964 corrected to the full this mistake. Not only was this work most successful but it proved that by maintaining a strong independent revolutionary organisation and combining faction work with serious activity amongst youth in the local areas it was possible to win over the forces necessary to defeat the Labour Party bureaucracy:

We established in practice a united front from within with those youth who were moving to the left, whilst at the same time we exposed the role of the fake lefts in the fight against the right wing.

That, in our opinion, is how Trotsky advocated the application of the entry tactic.

How Pabloite Congresses are reported?

The Pabloites on the United Secretariat are constantly boasting about the strength of their international relations, in the same way as they used to boast about the 'great party' in Ceylon.

In the winter 1960-1961 issue of their magazine Fourth International, No. 12, they report their Sixth Congress as follows:

"The Vith World Congress of the Fourth International was held in Switzerland from l0th to 15th January, 1961. More than a hundred delegates, fraternal delegates, and invited comrades, coming from about 30 countries of all the continents, participated in its labours.

In June 1963 the 7th reunification congress was held and its character was noted as follows in Fall 1963 issue of 'International Socialist Review':

the overwhelming majority of the Trotskyist movement representing 26 countries have now been united....

Note how the number of countries dropped from 30 to 26.

Now take a look at the representation at the VIllth World Congress held at the end of 1965.

There were delegates present from Britain, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, West Germany, Pablo has gone, but Pabloism lives on It was at this VIlIth Congress that Pablo was expelled on the grounds that he and his followers had violated discipline over two years. But his departure did not ir any way signify that his political ideas were rejected.

On the contrary, Livio, representing the Italian group and a leading collaborator of Germain and Frank, took the floor to report on the African revolution claiming that in Egypt and Mali there was a possibility of a socialist transformation without revolution. -Here we have the essence of Pablo's revisionism. But that the formation of the Bandaranaike-LSSP coalition government and the subsequent split of the LSSP. M. Banda's reports cover the period up to the downfall of the CEYLON The great betrayal Two reports from Cayian by G. Healy * CArm Two pamphlets which contain the reports from Ceylon by the representatives of The Newsletter. G. Healy's reports cover the developments leading up to and including coalition. Together, these accounts constitute a searching analysis and a devastating exposé of revisionist politics as practised by that rump which calls itself the Unified CEYLON:

The Great Betrayal By Also includes documents, statements, resolutions, and correspondence. Price: one shilling PUBLICATIONS LTD.,186A CLAPHAM

a ge Fou

DURING the last week the majority of Sheffield's 63,000 council tenants received questionnaires from the Corporation Housing Department asking for information concerning family income and rents.

This questionnaire is only a probe, say the Corporation, but tenants know that it is the first shot fired in an attempt to introduce a 'differential rent scheme'-traditionally called a 'means test'.

Reaction in the city has been quick and hostile. Sheflield tenants, many of whom work in large, well-organised factories, are not prepared to return to the 1930s.

The most important step forward has been taken by the Ambrose Shardlow shop stewards committee. Stewards at this engineering firm have set up a rents committee which has advised all workers to ignore the questionnaire and throw it into the fire.

Much more, however, needs to be done.

Rent committees have to be set up in every factory, and the industrial strength of the working class used to stop all rent increases.

This task is particularly urgent as the British National Party has begun a campaign on the housing estates collecting names for a petition against the 'means test'.

Young Socialists and Socialist Labour League members organised a well-attended, wellreceived open-air meeting on the Southey Green Estate on Sunday at which they exposed the sham campaign carried out by certain sections who should be driven off the estate.

Speakers stressed the importance of organising tenants associations and of campaigning in the labour and trade union movement against any rent increases, especially during the period of a wage freeze.

La lobby by council house tenants on Tuesday, when the Tory Council defied the government and raised rents by 20 per cent.

With their banners proclaiming: 'Not a Penny on the Rents! — Not a Penny on the Rates! - Suspend Interest Payments! — Nationalize Banks, Land and Building!' the YS came out with the socialist solution to a tangled political row which has been further complicated by the government's wages and prices freeze.

From some of the 16 tenants' associations throughout Birmingham came delegates. carrying slogans which showed that many of them also understood the basic cause of constant rises in council rents — the huge interest payments to insurance companies and the big moneylenders.

Other posters carried by tenants demanded: 'How do 20 per cent increase in rents on FROZEN WAGES?' Though some banners urged that the increases should be transferred to the rates, tenants in general opposed the idea as one which would cause a split between the interests of different sections of workers, at a time when unity was vitally necessary to fight rising prices and frozen wages.

Young Socialists were urging tenants to take up this fight by joining the demonstration at the Labour Party Conference at Brighton on October 2.

Birmingham City Council, which has had an overall Tory majority of one since last May, decided to increase council rents on August 1 by sums varying between 5s. 7d. and 14s. 7d. per week. They said these rises were necessary to avoid a deficit of £l million next year in the city's housing account.

Appeal

Richard Crossman, then Minister of Housing, 'appealed' to the council to freeze the rents at last month's level. Tory leaders in Birmingham forecast that rates would have to go up by Is. 8d. in the f if such a rents freeze was accepted.

Birmingham Borough Labour Party sent a telegram to the Minister urging him to veto the rent increases. When in control of the council three years ago Labour themselves forced through a substantial rent increase in the teeth of bitter opposition from tenants and 12 of their own 'left-wing' members who opposed the increases.

Tenants are only too well aware that if the council decided to agree to a freeze of rents, increases would only be postponed till later on. SYLVIA PICK

BETWEEN 1,500 and 2,000 of the 17,000 men at the Steel Company of Wales' giant Port Talbot plant are likely to be working a four-shift week from September 1, it was announced on Monday.

A company spokesman said: "The cold mill department at the Abbey Works has been working slack for some time and the hoped for improvements in the order book has not materialised.' Clearly behind this is the government's economic measures, which are leading to a cut in the demand for steel, particularly from the motor manufacturers.

The officials of the trade unions involved are not proNewsletter Correspondent posing to fight short-time working. Their main concern simply that short-time working might make it more difficult to sell their members the redundancy which will result from discussions at present taking place on new working arrangements.

One official of the Transport and General Workers' Union is reported as saying: 'Against this overall background of overmanning, the present problem is even more serious and it may mean reducing the number of men as well as the number of hours?

This is a remarkable statement from a union official and will now bring him into increasing conflict with the Port Talbot steelworkers.

fers.' The struggle against closures has been greatly weakened in the past by the Stalinist leadership of the South Wales National Union of Mineworkers who have held back tions the struggle with 'negotia'appeals' talk about "direction of industry, and all the other devices of fake leftism.

Only socialist policies can provide an answer to pit closures.

Miners should go to the special conference and demand that the union hghts for the suspension of compensation and interest payments, the nationalization of the mining machinery, wholesale distribution and contracting firms, and an end to all pit closures, except under workers' control.

as a newspaper

SHORT-TIME WORKING AT OVERTIME is being cut down and in some cases stopped, and redundancies have begun in the Midlands building industry.

On one large building site in Leicester the labour force has suffered a cut of 15 per cent with even bigger sackings promised. These are very significant at this time of year, and particularly as this area has suffered very little unemployment in the past.

The present situation, caused by the credit and mortgage restrictions, can only be made worse with the autumn as the payroll tax begins to bite.

The large payments that this will involve will force sackings, speed-up, and increased costs to the house buyer. Smaller building firms will definitely go to the wall.

The period of the house building boom, during which building workers were able to push up their rates and bonus earnings is finished, and employers will now use every means to : attack workers' wages and conditions.

One organiser, whilst in negotiations with the management of one large Northamptonshire firm for increased bonus rates, was confronted with the Prices and Incomes White Paper and informed that his presence wouldn't be necessary for quite some time to come.

It is also clear that, in order to avoid the payment of the payroll tax, many employers will resort to the introduction of labour-only sub-contractors, so that both the tax and National Insurance contributions_will be paid by the workers themselves. This has proved very effective in the past in increasing productivity and clearing out the structure of safeguards and agreements won by union organisation. refuse to co-operate the Board can exercise its right to make individual approaches to the workmen regarding transfers, but at the meeting the men gave 100 per cent assurances that they will not co-operate with the Board in these trans-

How do we pay a 20 per cent rise on FROZEN WAGES? to THE CAMBRIAN COLLIERY: Closure will increase jobless total.

Disaster pit on Jobless figures will rise in Rhondda DELEGATES from every colliery in South discuss the National Coal Board's latest list at a special conference on September 16.

The latest closures include pits with ample reserves of coal which are situated in areas threatened with heavy unemployment: Duffryn Rhondda near Port Talbot and two pits in the Rhondda Valley-Glynrhondda at Treherbert and the Cambrian colliery at Tonypandy.

On August 8, 230 workers at Sewing Industries Ltd., in the Rhondda, returned from holiday to be met by closure notices.

The government's economic measures are creating unemploy. ment in the very light industries which the Labour Party said would bring new jobs to South Wales.

Militant struggle

In this situation, a militant struggle now lies ahead of the miners.

The Cambrian colliery has a long record of militancy since it led the fight for the national minimum wage before the First World War, and took on troops sent by Churchill in 1911. The same colliery was the scene of the disastrous mine explosion which killed 31 men in May 1965.

On Sunday night, 750 men from the Cambrian met Mr. I. R. Thomas, MP for Rhondda West. It is reported that he had to face a barrage of questions.

The men at the meeting gave support to the lodge committee's policy of non-co-operation in the closure, and demanded that the coalfield conference be brought forward.

No co-operation After the meeting, Mr. Garfield Rogers, the lodge secretary, said in a press statement:

"As the lodge is opposing this closure, we will not be cooperating in the mass transfer of men to Cwm Colliery.

'We appreciate that if we GLASGOW busmen are to determine their attitude government's Prices and Incomes Act at important meetings this week of the Transport and General Workers' Union. They now have the backing of the Corporation's Transport Committee in their demand for a 9s. 5d. pay rise.

The wages of busmen are kept at a 'reasonable' level only because of excessive overtime and rest-day working. At one garage in Glasgow busmen said that the 9s. 5d. increase which was agreed in July and stopped by the government's wage freeze would be worth fl with overtime enhancements. closure list CARDIFF CORRESPONDENT Wales will of closures CLYDESIDE SHIPYARDS BEGIN MERGERS shipbuilding , yards on the Clyde are now being implemented on the lines of the Geddes Report recommendations.

The Connells, Barclay. Curle, Yarrow and Stephens' yards have announced that mergers may take place within a matter of weeks. Before this John Brown's of Clydebank announced that it had approached Fairfields for merger of the two yards. The latter firm is 50 per cent financed by the government subsidy following its announcement of bankruptcy last autumn.

The lesson of Fairfields is being drawn by all the large shipbuilding firms on the Clyde and elsewhere. It is that either they jointly amass capital to cut labour and other costs and rationalise production or they go out of business. No firm is now too large to avoid this procedure.

So the Clyde will see within a year the eliminaton of all but two large consortiums of shipbuilders.

The lessons for shipyard workers are equally clear. It is that to preserve illusions of negotiating plans such as that at Fairfields where the resources of the unions are put at the disposal of the employers (the Electrical Trades Union oblingingly trained Fairfield shop stewards in time and motion study) is disastrous and will be paid for at a heavy price.

Urgent need

One thing is certain: the recently negotiated 'no strike' pledge for the boilermakers will be blown apart.

But it is urgent that leadership is built which will draw all the lessons from the betrayal of the right wing.

Rising unemployment will mean a massive increase in pressure on wages in the yards with the employers seeking to take advantage of the government's Prices and Incomes Act to make actual cuts.

Nor will plans for increased earnings coupled with better productivity get by the wage freeze.

There will be 'Fairfield'-type plans to increase productivity and cut wages and they will be pressed with the knowledge that there will be thousands of unemployed outside the yard gates.

Shipyard workers must now support the campaigns of the Young Socialists against the wage freeze and march in Glasgow on August 27. BOB SHAW the They claimed that a working week of 80 hours was common but that because of the low over shifts there was a continua] stream of new recruits into the whom By had ter this winter more workers will be forced to accept work on • the buses so that overtime will be slashed and earnings dip down tiz. to the basic minimum of GRIM PROSPECT With prices bounding up and rent, rates and tax increases, this will mean a drastic reduction in living standards and a grim prospect tor thousands of workers' families.

The union delegate at the same garage expressed great complacency. He had no idea of the union's intentions on the wage freeze but thought that things were generally satisfactory.

That the situation is explosive is understood better by the leaders of the Transport and General Workers' Union and the Glasgow (Labour) Corporation.

They remember the impressive strike of Glasgow busmen two years ago when there was a 100 Indian Scottish workers, despite several racialist provocations attempted by the press.

The Corporation and T&GWU officials have, therefore, been exchanging shots, mainly to impress the rank and file. Corporation officials have complained that a strike is being prepared and is being imposed from London. Local T&GWU officials have hinted at action to secure the payment of the 9s. 5d. increase.

TYPICAL ACTION But typical of the T&GWU attitude is the actions of one official who is also a member of the Glasgow Trades Council. During the period of January to June, he has effectively blocked all attempts to mobilise the Glasgow trade union movement in a fight to throw out the Prices and Incomes Bill. Only the most vague and general resolutions on this question were put forward.

To take up a struggle against the government's wage freeze is essential if great hardship is to be avoided. Not only that, but to allow Wilson's measures to go unchallenged by the working class on the Clyde means a reappearance of heavy unemployment such as was experienced three years ago when in sorne areas there were 10 per cent unemployed.

From page

Vietnam Solidarity Campaign

kept in mind, in case the Soviet bureaucracy should attempt in the future to foist another similar reactionary agreement on the Vietnamese people. We have kept to that agreement.

During our talk we made it clear that we were not affiliated to your Campaign but that we would support your public meeting on August 6 and the torchlight procession to the American Embassy at Grosvenor Square, W.l. afterwards, on these grounds, and these grounds alone.

Subsequently, attempts were made by members of your Campaign such as E. Taite that Mike Banda, the assistant general secretary of the SLL, should not speak at the public meeting, because he was too forthright in his condemnation of the war in Vietnam, and that he might embarrass any Labour MPs who would be on the platform. Naturally, we did not agree to this, since it is out of the question Tor anyone, apart trom members of the SLu, to determine who should speak for our organisation at any meeting.

Then it was agreed that he should speak, so we called upon our members and supporters to attend the meeting and join the demonstration which, of course, they did.

At that meeting we were faced with an extraordinary situation in which you as chairman tried to determine by your control of the meeting what our people should or should not say in relation to the role of the British Communist Party and the Soviet bureaucracy. You wrongly accused the Socialist Labour League of breaking the united front of the Solidarity Committee.

We did nothing of the sort, since we were not in the first place members of the Committee and we would never under any circumstances agree not to criticise the British Communist Party and its evolutioverlords who are in our opinion Betraying the Vietnamese A united front agreement is one that relates the specific issues of agreement whilst enabling those who participate to criticise, necessary, the political shortcomings of others who subscribed to the agreement. Since neither we, the British Communist Party or the Soviet bureaucracy are members of your Campaign how could the SLI spokesman from the floor have broken any agreement?

The most charitable conclusion we can draw is that a serious mistake was made by you due to a misunderstanding of your powers as chairman.

You must appreciate that the members of the Socialist Labour League are indignant over what they believe to be an unwarranted interference with the rights of their organisation.

They participated in the demonstration when others who are affiliated to your Campaign sought refuge in a public house by Baker Street tube station, rather than march. to Botore we decide as to appetite you to cents. Yours by CP By a Newsletter correspondent A RECENT meeting of the . BOAC joint shop stewards' committee at London Airport showed exactly where Communist Party stewards and their sympathisers stood in relation to the rank-and-file workman.

Referring to the parity claim (which is the attempt to raise the wage level of BOAC workmen to that of BEA workers), a leading member of the committee and CP member stated that although negotiations had been going on for over 18 months, the. officers of the committee had been correct in refusing to make the call for industrial action in order that the foreign. bankers would have more confidence in the Labour government.

Agltation

However, in order to remain a militant figure in the eyes of the other shop stewards, he went on to attack the Prices and Incomes Act and the wage freeze.

The freeze would last longer than 12 months, but prices would continue rising. He made a call for agitation amongst the workers at the BOAC base. What was needed was a large demonstration against the wage freeze, he said.

Later in the discussion, an apprentices' representative - a Young Socialist—called upon the committee to support the Young Socialists' demonstration outside the Labour Party Conference in Brighton on October 2 aganst the wage freeze, and to organise a coachload of workers to attend.

The same call was made again later and this time the chairman urged the mover to leave it until the next item—a shop resolution condemning the wage freezehad been discussed.

After discussion on this resolution, the apprentices' representative again called for support for the Young Socialists' demonstration, warning that if the shop stewards' committee did not act, it would be left behind thousands of workers who would be out on the streets demonstrating against the wage freeze in the next few months. A decision on this was deferred again.

The S.L.L. and the