The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 461

the home and foreign markets. Allowing for a decrease in hire SYLVIA PICK purchase spending owing to the credit squeeze and high interests rates, the drop in exports is the most alarming. MANY BRITISH MOTOR CORPORATION shop stewards left angry and furious at the end of another source, that is, Massey a meeting in Coventry on Mon- Ferguson's the tractor manuday of their unofficial joint com- facturers. mittee. This meeting was called as a crisis conference following made for exports. Yet this last week's shock announcement week they have also announced by BC of short-time for short-time working on thousands of car workers, to be grounds that their overseas followed by sackings in a few weeks' time. sales have slumped.

No lead Ninety-four shop stewards present, representing 20 factories, had travelled from Birmingham, Oxtord, Liverpool, Llanelli and Scotland to attend the meeting.

Some felt that they had been given no real lead at all in the serious crisis threatening workers in the industry.

The meeting decided to resist redundancy to the full' and put forward an alternative of shorttime working until the situation improved or workers were in alternative jobs. It was also decided to lobby the Labour Party conference to 'bring pressure to change the present squeeze policy'.

Dick Etheridge, convenor of talks. shop stewards at the Austin works, Longbridge, and a promi- pondents suggestea nent member of the Communist hope' and Party, presided over the meeting and pleaded with the stewards that any action taken should be devised not to embarrass the Labour government!

Either . . . or Stewards were asking after the meeting how any effective action to defend the jobs of car workers could possibly be devised which would not prove embarrassing to the Labour government. Either the government must be embarrassed or the plans for widespread sackings would go forward.

It is understood that some stewards urged that industrial action should be taken. Among these was Mr. A. Harper of the Tractor and Transmissions factory, Birmingham.

While the stewards were meetfurther 8,000 of their workers. BMC announced that a at the Pressed Steel-Fisher facon short-time immediately going immediately.

BOOK NOW FOR And this is confirmed from one of the most up to date in the world.

The story being peddled about The bulk of their products are so-called left' and right-wing variety) that unemployment is necessary as a sort of clearance scheme to redeploy workers to other industries is a barefaced Their factory in Coventry is lie.

This state of affairs was also well known to the trade union leaders of the TUC when they voted for wage freezing. No doubt it was also known to one or two who voted against. The 'Morning Star', organ of the Communist Party, quoted a leaflet issued by its party members in Birmingham which said:

"The stewards expressed the view that collusion was entered into between the management and the Government, who, they are convinced, knew of the position —but kept quiet.' It this is true, and we are convinced that it is, why does the Communist Party hesitate to denounce these trade union leaders who knew that unemployment was on the way immediately the TUC was over.

Illusion

It does not seem credible that a man like Cousins who heads the largest trade union in Britain did not know about it, especially since he was a Cabinet member up to a few weeks before.

The Communist Party carefully divides the trade union leaders from the Labour governthey want to cong impression that somehow lying or other these leaders are going to act on behalf of their members.

They will do nothing of the Sort by Sidney reenes Opposition to struggle on the railwaymen's 3$ per cent. wage agreement. He capitulated completely to the government and sold the railwaymen down the line.

Already the National Union of Vehicle Builders has decided against strike action on the BMC dismissals.

The Communist Party knows all this, but it does not want to fight Labour government because it believes in the 'peaceful road' to socialism, the same reactionary theory which the Labour leaders utilise in order to justify their present attacks on the working class.

Backbone

The trade union leaders are the backbone of the Labour government. Without their support, it could not rule.

So when the Communist Party keeps quiet about their role, they are simply covering up for the people who are in fact behind the government.

The idea that the government was "in collusion' with the BMC employers over unemployment is not even halt the story. The trade union leaders were in collusion with both the employers and the government over unemployment.

They are just as guilty, if not more so, than Wilson.

Now we come to the real traitors in this most critical period.

THE LONDON Divisional Conference of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers decided overwhelmingly last Sunday to fight the wage freeze.

Conference passed a motion condemning the wage freeze and congratulating the union's executive council in its opposition to this policy.

The motion called on the executive and those engaged in negotiations to immediately *pursue vigorously' their wage claims. It further called for an UBLIC MEETING Lecture Room, Watford Public Library Hempstead Road (near Town Hall)

Tuesday, September 27, 8 Speaker :

G. Healy, nat. secretary, Fazakerly, Liverpool, decided to back the demonstration, and to levy workers a shilling a week to send a contingent from the factory.

Last week shop stewards issued a statement repeating the decision of the meeting.

It declares: 'Since the meeting, everything that was said there has been justified.' It warns workers:

should be clear as how serious is the situation we are facing. Trade unions were built to fight for workers' wages and conditions. If we allow the control and union, which the Labour government is trying to introduce, then we are left defenceless. ...

'Mr. Wilson said at the TUC that we must have a wage freeze, otherwise we would have unemployment. " He knows very well we are getting both....

'Do we sit back and take it all? That would be a betrayal of all those who fought for trade union rights in the past...

'The campaign to protest at Brighton can. link together differen It will find out where youth. people stand, as it is already doing inside the factory. ...

It is a beginning to marshal forces in the unions and the factories.' CAV convenor Dave Coventry, and his deputy Ted Gilbertson, made a joint statement to The Newsletter about the factory decision.

'We think that out of the decisions of the TUC and the actions of the Labour government stewards in factories co might r different way.

'Stewards cannot fight the wage freeze except through actions which raise the political We face state control of he interests of big busines "Trade union and Labour leaders are siding with finance with a different type leadership? gues to manage the working clas or the employers * needs leaders that will o inise the working class to tak the power off them.

The fight for Brighton is par f the overall fight for suc a leadership. ender actories in Liverpool fo upport.

AT THE MASSEY FERGUSON tractor plant, Coventry, several stewards have agreed to fight for a large contingent on the October 2 demonstration. On Monday, the management announced that 500 workers involved on finishing work would begin a 32-hour, four-day week, starting on October 3. It claims that there is a slackening market.

immediate campaign throughout the union, including a special conference, to rally the membership in support of the executive's stand against the freeze.

Conference earlier agreed to press a claim for a trade union closed shop agreement and a 30s a week increase at Tesco's. A meeting of workers in this chain of supermarkets voted unanimously two days later to press this claim and to take all steps necessary, including industrial action, to win. YOUNG SOCIALISTS CALL TO ALL TRADE UNIONISTS AND YOUNG WORKERS All out against the threat of unemployment in the motor car industry DEMONSTRATE AT MONSTRATE HE LABOUR PART Brighton, Sunday, October 2nd Assemble: 1.30 p.m., seting: Ocean Restaurant, Ocean Restaurant, West Pier, 3 p.m.

All out on October 2nd!

Massey Ferguson stewards sent a delegation to the January 26 lobby of parliament against anti-union laws, and sent two delegates to this year's Morecambe conference of the Young Socialists.

THE DEMONSTRATION was raised at a meeting of the Brent Trades Council in Willesden, north London, last Monday, called to discuss short-time working and mass sackings.

Bro. Taylor of the north London district committee of the Amalgamated Engineering Union said • the whole question was political.

His point was reinforced by Mike Coolley, Draughtmen's and Allied Technicians' Association district council member:

'What we are seeing in Brent,' he said, 'is a local reflection of the disastrous Tory policies that have been carried on by the Labour government.' Calling for an alternative policy, Coolley received strong support when he said the ENV engineering factory-due for closure, according to the Us management-should be nationalized.

ENV shop steward Geoff Carlsson criticised AEU officials and local MPs for their failure to help the ENV workers' struggle.

In discussion, local trade unionists from the clerical, furniture trade and engineering unions called for support for October 2, and one praised the backing from ENV shop stewards.

Stalinists and supporters of the 'state capitalist' group at the meeting were opposed to any such struggle.

Les Burt of the Communist Party attacked people who, he said, were 'trying to bring down the Labour government. (He stood against the Labour candidate in West Willesden in the General Election!) Political issues which might confuse the 'ordinary worker' should be avoided, he added.

State capitalists argued for 'broad local committees' to fight Valley of dying special report frc the Rhondda -p. 4 LABOUR PA CONFERENCE Palace Pier West Pier, stewards committee this fight nationalize the engineering and car industry at once redundancies. These committees should 'keep in touch'.

CLYDESIDE SHOP STEWARDS' committee decided last Saturday (September 17) to lobby the Labour Party conference.

The meeting was attended by shop stewards and convenors from BMC (Bathgate" pressings (Clydebank), Rootes (Linwood), Rolls Royce (Hilling: ton) and many shipyards and factories.

There is no doubt about the anger and real hatred with which the policies of Wilson have been received. But there is very real doubt about the intentions of the Communist Party members who control the committee.

It was set up and conducted a very belated campaign to take a tiny deputation to the June 22 lobby of parliament. Activities were then 'suspended' during the summer months, it was announced.

SLL and YS members continued to campaign against the government's policies, and, when the committee met again in August, demanded that preparations be made to warn the working class of the consequences of Wilson's measures.

The committee was not called again for a month-until, in fact, CP officials can no longer pretend that Wilson pushed to the left, or that 'left' MPs can do the job.

Last Monday's 'Morning Star' featured the Scottish Committee of the CP. It had issued a statement on the crisis which is empty of socialist programme and ignores the fight against "left' fakery, which is responsible for much confusion.

Young Socialists welcome support from carworkers at Bathgate and Linwood and General and Municipal Workers' Union members at Singers, but they know that such support has not been won by the CP.

All other Clyde workers who want to lobby the Labour Party conference should travel with the Young Socialists to Brighton. Their bus leaves from the Suspension Bridge, Carlton Place, on Saturday, October 1, at 6 p.m.

The Communist Party appears to many motor car workers today to oppose capitalism and the BMC management-but it does nothing of the sort.

Communist Party convenor Etheridge of the Longbridge BMC works, started out with a lot of 'left' talk about a strike, but last Monday announced that the whole matter should be referred to the 'officials of the unions concerned'.

In other words, he is passing the buck.

He aoes not want to strike, so he passes it over to the people who are opposed to strikes under any circumstances. This is how he tries to maintain his 'left' cover.

When the present trade union leaders betray, he will once more re-appear • as the 'honest Communist Party member who was trying to 'do his job, as convenor.

If the Cominunist Party really wanted to fight the BMC management it would first of all expose the Labour and trade union leaders. Under these circumstances Etheridge would

VIETNAM There is still time for our readers to sign up to go to Liege with the Young Socialists of Britain to meet socialst yourn from Belgium and countries all over Europe. They will be protesting against the war in Vietnam and against the capitalist alliance of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which has its headquarters near to Liege. The cost of the round trip to Dover-Ostend and Liege is £8 10s which includes a free meal at Liege and dancing on board ship there and back. All money must be paid in by September 30. Do not delay write now to Dany Sylviere, Liege Organiser, Young Socialists, 186a Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4, for further details or send a deposit of £2 with your name and address.

The first of two articles EACH EVENT WHICH sharpens the class struggle in Britain today reveals still further the craven opportunism of the leaders of the Communist Party. The political biography of these people is the history of their training for their present role of subservience to Wilson and the union bureaucrats, their transformation from Bolsheviks to bootlickers of the Labour 'lefts'.

The period 1936-1938 played an important part in this a ge Iwo THE NEWSLETTE eptember

THE INCONCLUSIVE and farcical discussion on Rhodesia at the Commonwealth Prime Minister's conference has again strengthened the reactionary Smith regime to the point where another crawling deputation has flown to Salisbury to seek liege OCTOBER 15 AGAINST NATO AND THE 'independence' by December or Fleet Street's Rhodesian corresfaces mandatory sanctions applied through the United Nations. following a top secret dis- The previous sanctions were cussion on Wednesday between said to be biting, but aid is still Mr. Herbert Bowden, Common- entering Rhodesia from South wealth Secretary, Attorney-Gen- Africa. eral Sir Elwyn Jones and Smith. In any event, Wilson, on It is thought that the talks behalf of imperialism, has back on his word about majority were based on the latest demands that Smith ends Rhodesia's rule before "legal' independence and will continue to seek 'discussions' because of financial interests in southern Africa.

In fact British capitalists possess over £1,000 million worth of investments in southern Africa, compared with £540 million in the rest of Africa.

On top of this South Africa is the major world supplier of gold -the essential commodity to British and world capitalism— and Rhodesia supplies copper.

Any direct action against Smith must mean action against South Africa-despite Vorster's claim to 'neutrality'.

On the other hand, large profits made in Africa and Commonwealth countries have large Smith: In secret discussions sterling balances in London.

the event of the attack, these would be quickly withdrawn.

IMPOSSIBILITY state of then, anton anomic Rhodesia is, in the eyes of the capitalists, an economic impossibility.

British big business-and their lackeys in the Labour government-feel that profits are safer under reactionary rule rather than African majority rule.

At the Commonwealth Conference, Wilson was faced with keeping this institution together and, at the same time, avoiding any action against Smith—in difficult circumstances, it is believed he would rather have let the Commonwealth go.

However, that 'militant Afro-Asian caucus' soon fell into line —Zambia's foreign minister was the only real rebel; he left the conference and labelled Wilson an 'imperialist' and 'racialist'.

The solution in Rhodesia, as we advocated soon after UDI, is the arming of the Africans to take the power from Smith and the capitalists, which would, at the same time, strengthen South African and British workers' struggles.

The Communist Party's call for 'one man, one vote,' for Wilson to send troops and for UN intervention amounts to a sell out to imperialism— it is in line with their policy of saving 'our' (capitalist) economy.

BMC stewards meet facts.

of the export trade. BY G. HEALY motors, modern and grow steadily that tens of Capitalist Britain depends on the export trade and the industries concerned with unemployment have the best export record.

In other words it is not so-called "planning' which is responsible, but a world-wide depression in sales. UP AND DOWN THE COUNTRY in trade union branches, shop stewards' committees, trades councils and factories, the all-important demonstration outside the Labour Party conference, called for Sunday, October 2, by the Young Socialists, is being discussed.

In this present period of short-time working, unemployment and a grand-scale attack by the Wilson government on the working class generally, workers are deciding that the Young Socialists and their comrades in the Socialist Labour League have once again given a timely lead in the struggle for socialism against the betrayals of the Wilson government. A RECENT MASS meeting of 400 workers from two shifts at the Lucas-CAV factories in NEWSLETTER REPORTER

process.

To cover up the sharp turn to the right involved in Stalin's treacherous •Popular Front' policy, they threw themselves with enthusiasm into the campaign of slander against the Marxist alternative, Trotskyism.

It is now three decades since the first of the big Moscow show-trials, on which this campaign was based. For the men ot King Street, these have been 30 years of lies and betrayal on behalf of the Soviet bureaucrats.

Ten years ago, Khrushchev made his denunciation of his former master, Stalin.

John Gollan, Andrew Rothstein, R. Palme Dutt, J. R. Campbell and the rest have tried hard since then to sweep their Stalinist past under the carpet.

Once, they justified and glorified Stalin's regime of murder and falsification. Now they must evade responsibility for these actions, it they are to appeal to their new middle-class, liberal public.

But we shall never let them forget.

The working class cannot go forward to power without understanding how the first workers' state gave rise to the monstrosity of Stalinism.

"Very grievous consequences, especially in reference to the beginning of the war, followed Stalin's annihilation of many military commanders and political workers during 19371941. ..?

According to many reports, Khrushchev's remarks caused some members of his audience to have seizures, so great was their consternation and shock. • What astonished them, however, was not the events reported, but the fact that they were officially admitted by the Party Secretary.

Narrow limits Khrushchev's 'revelations' and the results of the investigation of some of the cases of false accusation, could not go beyond very narrow limits.

Although certain of Stalin's victims have been declared innocent, the chief objects of his slander machine have never been referred to-Trotsky and his son Leon Sedov.

The new leaders of the bureaucracy, the latter-day Stalinists, had to try to disentangle themselves from Stalin's corpse.

Nobody in King Street is actually reported to have had a it in 1956, but, as with the Electrical Trades Union ballot-rigging scandal, everyone pretended that the actions reported by Khrushchev were unknown in the British Communist Party.

This is clearly a lie.

Only the most naive of individuals could read the widely publicised verbatim reports of the Moscow Trials without seeing at once that they were crude and gigantic frame-ups.

Whatever accusations we shall make against the Communist Party leaders, naivity is not one of them.

Kamenev

THE the rest of the British Isles.

problem. • ing class.

rested upon its domination of Ireland.

supporters.

Rule'.

the same religious prejudice.

the bourgeoisie.

liberty'. founded a new denomination, the Free Presthe self-styled 'Moderator'. MURDERER AND HIS VICTIMS: Stalin (left) with The first trial IN AUGUST, 1936,, Linoviev, Kamenev and other leaders of the October revolution, • Confessed in open court to the most fantastic crimes. They had joined with Trotsky and Sedov in a conspiracy with Hitler to murder Stalin and some of his associates.

They were responsible's. M. they Kirov in 1934. All the other assassinations, however, failed to come off.

Let us leave aside the utter improbability of these life-long fascism and enemies of the Sovie Union they had helped to establish.

To read the testimony of the accused (there were no witnesses and no evidence to speak of) is to encounter a thousand contradictions.

For example, no two of the defendants gives the same date for the formation of the 'Trotskyite-Zinovievite Centre'.

One of those who 'confessed', Smirnov, had been in prison from January 1933 and Zinoviev and Kameney from December 1934.

The most famous absurdity in the trial was the Hotel Bristol. This was the establishment in Copenhagen where Holtzmann 'confessed' he met Sedov and Trotsky in November 1932. and Irish polities these events only something peculiarly Irish, separate from their own struggle. In many ways, the situation in Northern Ireland is an anticipation of the coming problems in Since the last World War, despite an annual emigration of 9,000 people, the unemployment rate has averaged 7 per cent. Considerable state intervention and favourable conditions for foreign investors have failed to make any impression on this One reason for this is the extremely parasitic character of the capitalist class Northern Ireland, which invests the major 'militant Protestants' claim that the governpart of its profits outside Northern Ireland.

One of the main weapons of the ruling class in Northern Ireland has always been the Catholic-Protestant division in the workAs Marx insisted, the British bourgeoisie, ever since the revolution of 1640-1648, has In the name of the Protestant Reformation, enormous tracts of land were swallowed up by the British capitalists and their When, in 1914-1922, the independence movement reached the proportions of Civil War, it was the 'anti-Popery' cry which was used by the Unionists (Tories) to raise a 'loyalist', pro-British army against 'Home Many thousands of these Protestant workers met their death in the battle of the Somme when recruited into the British Army.

The partition of Ireland, with Catholic Eire in the South and Protestant-dominated Ulster in the North, was imposed with the help of Many Protestant workers were deluded into thinking that their 'freedom' was guaranteed only by a religious alliance with The Protestant 'Orange Order', founded long ago as 1795, claims as its basic principle 'the maintenance of civil and religious Paisley was almost unknown outside Belfast until recently. Some 15 years ago he byterian Church of Ulster, of which he is Trotsky was in Copenhagen in November 1932. The world's newspapers reported the fact. But, despite all his efforts, and those of his wife, Trotsky was unable to persuade the German authorities to allow their son to meet them there. In fact, Leon Sedov was able to prove conclusively that he was in Berlin at the time.

in any case, another defendant, Sedov Olbert' in Berlin at the same 'confessed' to meeting moment.

Finally it was discovered after the trial that the Hotel Bristol had been demolished in 1917.* * For a detailed examination of the 1936 trial, see Max Shachtman's 'Behind the Moscow Trials' Pioneer Publishers.

The second trial an introductory Most people heard of him when, with his collaborators, he was expelled from Rome for demonstrating against the moves for Anglican unity with the Vatican.

These moves towards church unity, the recent talks between Lemass (Prime Minister of Eire) and O'Neill (Ulster Prime Minister), and the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement, which came into force on July 1, this year, were the incidents immediately preceding the emergence of Paisley's movements as a political force this year.

Besides his religious denomination, Paisley is chairman of a body known as the Ulster Constitution Defence Committee. These ment and the Presbyterian fathers are compromising with the Roman church and with the Catholic South to destroy the political and religious settlement which rules in the North, established by various stages from the 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688 to the Ireland Act of 1949.

The economic, religious and political factors behind the Paisley movement reflect the problems of the capitalist class in Northern Ireland, which is a part of the British ruling class.

The principal function of Paisley is to divide the working class along religious lines in order to the more easily smash its resistance to big business in the present crisis.

ASSURE DISUNITY

But here is also a basis for Paisley's movement among small business and middle-class people who are being squeezed out by the monopolies.

In the first place the working class in Southern Ireland has for two years at least been in buoyant and militant mood.

The employers have been severely shaken up by unofficial strikes of great determination and strength. As the preparation for the European Common Market goes ahead, with the Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement as a preliminary rationalisation, it becomes necessary to assure the continued disunity of the working class.

Big business, Catholic and Protestant, moves towards monopolisation and mutual advantage, but the workers must be divided IN JANUARY 1937, months after the defendants in the Zinoviev trial had been shot, the second trial opened.

Piatakov, Radek and others were charged (and, of course confessed) to belonging to another fascist conspiracy.

This was the 'parallel centre', quite independent the Zinovievite one, but with tar wider aims.

Thus the fantasy was intensified and the contradictions multiplied in the new trial. The 'confessions' at the earlier trial contained not a single word about the 'parallel centre'.

Sabotage These men 'confessed' to plotting the overthrow of the USSR with the aid of Nazi Germany.

To this end, they planned widespread industrial sabotage, they said.

Trains were wrecked, coal mines blown up, nails were put in the butter. In addition, the assassination of Molotov was attempted, but without success. (Molotov's name had been omitted from the list of would-be victims in the 1936 trial. He was relieved to see it restored in 1937)

Piatakov described in detail between Catholic and Protestant.

For example, recently militant Protestants were successful in disaffiliating an Electrical Trades Union • branch in • Belfast from the Trades Council, because of the latter's participation in the Easter Commemoration of the 1916 Dublin uprising against British imperialism.

Secondly, the major investments Northern Ireland in recent years have been by big monopolies like ICI and Courtaulds. These, together with big chain stores, have been accelerating the squeeze on the middle business classes and self-employed people. Now, the Free Trade Agreement takes a certain amount of protection from Southern competition away from these firms, e.g., a meat-processing plant in Belfast last week announced that 1,000 jobs were in danger because lowered tariffs benefitted Southern competitors who are in any case subsidised by the Eire government.

These moves towards the Common Market Will be made even worse for the 'small man' by the recession, in which big companies always have an advantage.

And so we have the classic conditions for fascist movements.

The monopolists and the banks prepare to take on the working class on a bigger scale.

Fascist movements divide the class along national and ideological lines. The forces for this hysterical attack on the unity of the working class are normally recruited from the disoriented middle classes in town and country.

As always, the false 'leaders' of the working class are utterly incapable of answering the threat.

The Communist Party and the Northern Ireland Labour Party have both stated that religioovernment action, and laws forbidding answer Paisley (the Northern Ireland government is, of course, a Tory (Unionist) government).

Mr. Finton Kennedy, president of the Irist Congress of Trade Unions, addressing delegates to the annual conference at Galway on July 19, turned to pay special respect to the Tory Prime Minister O'Neill:

'You have shown yourself and your government worthy leaders, men of integrity and The went to see Trotsky in in December 1935. 'We got into an airplane and set off. We did not stop any, where and at approximately 3 p.m. we landed at the aerodrome in Oslo. There an automobile awaited us.' But it was later proved that in that whole month not a single foreign plane landed at Oslo.

The defendants at both the Zinoviev and Radek-Piatakov trials spoke their lines as directed. The prosecutor, Vishinsky, had no trouble in securing their co-operation. At the end they asked to be punished.

The third trial QUITE DIFFERENT was the third and last of the Moscow trials in 1938. Bukharin, the chief defendant, certainly did confess to the most amazing crimes. But he did it in such a way as to signal his innocence and the guilt of his accusers.

The defendants in 1938 confessed to being spies for Germany, Britain and Japan since 1921. Krestinsky, tor example, a Bolshevik since 1903, explained how in 1922 the German General Seekt had promised him 250,000 marks per annum in return espionage work.

However because of the inflation rampant in Germany at that time, this sum was the price of one box of matches.

Bukharin's treatment of Vishinsky was, by itself, quite sufficient to discredit every charge made against the defendants in the three trials. With wit and courage he demolished his entire testimony, without denying a word of it.

Dialogue

For example, consider this dialogue:

Vishinsky: Accused Bukharin, is it a fact or not that a group of your confederates in the North Caucasus was connected with White Guard emigre circles abroad? Is that a fact or not? Rykov says it is, Slepkov says it is.

Bukharin: If Rykov says it is, I have no grounds for not believing him....

Vishinsky: Answer me 'No'. Bukharin: I cannot say 'No' anc I cannot deny that it did take place.

V.: So that the answer is neither 'Yes' or 'No'?

B.: Nothing of the kind, because facts exist regardless whether they are in anybody's mind. This is a problem of the reality of the outer world. I am no solipsist. arti that technique and investment is retated to work force' leaders for the great struggles already antican be forged.

of Europe. answer to Paisleyism.

letter.)

Bukharin

One of the defendants at the 1938 trial, incidentally, was Yagoda. This man had been the head of the GPU at the time of the 1936 trial. Now he 'confessed' to poisoning Maxim Gorky, in league with the victims of the earlier trial.

Own members How could men like Gollan and Rothstein pretend that they believed all this rubbish? They had personal knowledge, not only of many of the defendants in the trials, but also of two members of the British Communist Party who were engulfed in the accompanying purges.

Rose Cohen was an old cadre of the Communist Party, manager of the Labour Research Department office, and wife of the Comintern agent Petrovsky.

In 1937 while working in Moscow she was arrested as a spy and never heard of again.

Len Wincott was a leader of the Invergordon naval mutiny and a leader in the International Brigade in Spain. He was imprisoned in 1939 in Moscow and not released until 1957.

The CP leaders have never explained these events to their followers.

In other words, these lackeys of bureaucracy decided quite consciously to protect the murderer Stalin and slander his victims. While he dragged the name of Communism in the mud and weakened the USSR, they did all they could to cover up his crimes.

No wonder today that they are ready to split and weaken opposition to the Labour and trade union bureaucrats.

To be continued

The thousands of communist workers who died at the hands of Stalin's thugs, slandered and humiliated, demand that those responsible be exposed and the name of communism cleansed of its association with these traitors.

What was revealed by Khrushchev in 1956 that the CP leaders did not know before?

In his famous report to the secret session of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, what was it that so astonished his audience of bureaucrats?

Stalin's regime, he said, was a regime of terror.

Mass arrests and deportations of many thousands of people, execution without trial and without normal investigation created conditions of insecurity, fear and even desperation. . ..

Many thousands of honest and innocent communists died as a result of this monstrous falsification of such "cases", as a result of the fact that all kinds of slanderous "confessions"

were accepted, and as a result of the practice of forcing accusations against: oneself and others....

'Mass arrests of party, Soviet and economic and military workers caused tremendous harm to our country and to the cause of socialist advancement...• ON THE EVENING of June 6 this year, a preacher called Ian R. K. Paisley led a march of several hundred Belfast Protestants to protest at the current General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Northern Ireland.

Paisley and his followers have accused the Presbyterian leaders of compromising with Roman Catholicism.

Paisley deliberately led his procession through a strongly Roman Catholic area and there, at Cromac Square, they were bombarded with bricks, bottles and various missiles.

Police intervened with batons and there were several arrests. Further skirmishes and arrests occurred later, when police barred ofe the Presbyterian Assembin the proximity This was no ordinary religious procession. The Cromac Square riot initiated a whole series of politico-religious explosions in Northern Ireland and brought the Rev. Paisley's name into the headlines of newspapers all over the world.

Paisley himself, after refusing to pay a fine and be bound over to keep the peace, is now in Crumlin Street prison, serving a three-month sentence along with two fellow preachers.

Belfast and area, and other Northern Ireland towns, are now covered by a ban on all processions (except 'traditional' ones), and public outdoor gatherings of three or more people.

The courts in Belfast have for weeks been dominated by the 'Malvern Street Case', which 18-year-old Peter Ward, said to be a supporter of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), was shot dead at 2 a.m. on Sunday, June 26.

THREATENING CALLS "One of the men being tried for this made a statement to the police in which he said he 'wished he had never heard of that man Paisley.

Members of Stormont (the Northern Ireland Parliament) have complained of telephone calls threatening them with violence if they raise their voices against Paisley.

A statement was issued to Belfast newspapers in May of this year by one Captain William Johnston, 'assistant adjutant of the Ist Battalion . the Ulster Volunteer Force', which said:

*From this day on we declare war against the IRA and its splinter groups. Known IRA men will be executed mercilessly and without hesitation. ... Property will not be exempted in any action. We are heavily-armed Protestants dedicated to this cause?

Workers in England, Scotland and Wales would make a big mistake if they saw in

valour in the great Christian tradition which has been,. is, and will be the basis of Ireland's contribution to human society.

'You must now be more positive in your acceptance that you are not a privileged class;

and dependent on a contented and respected Such is the preparation of the 'official' cipated by the Paisley clashes.

CLASS UNITY

Northern Ireland workers will need to unite on class lines, against Paisley, against O'Neill, against the myth of 'National and Christian unity'. A unity of all British and Irish workers against the capitalists and their henchmen in the Labour government in the Belfast and Dublin parliaments-this unity It will go forward to a unity of all European workers, for the Socialist United States Behind this slogan, the slogan of the Fourth International, European workers will make their contribution to the international struggles-against capitalism.

The fight of the Young Socialists and the Socialist Labour League, for unity of the employed and unemployed, for nationalizaton of the major industries, the land and the banks, for the building of a mass revolutionary youth organisation-these are the main tasks which must be fulfilled as the (More detailed articles on this question will follow in further issues of The NewsSeptember

IN THE PERIOD especially from 1940 onwards, the leadership of the Socialist Labour League learned much from the Socialist Workers' Party in the USA. Our fundamental criticism of the revisionist policy of this organisation today is not intended in any way to denigrate the positive side of that relationship.

The SWP members were especially 1949 in the struggle against the Haston the English Trotskyist organisation, was and Ted Grant. The Hastons deserted right wing of the Labour Party.

Grant, however, did not take this road. Although he had been the political attorney Ior Haston, he could not bring himself to agree with the latter's liquidation into the Labour Party. At the same time, he could not bring himself- aston's desertion from nee desertion Trotskyist movement.

When it was proposed on the Political Bureau early in March 1950 that Haston should be expelled for his renegacy, Grant abstained. The man is an incorrigible opportunist.

It was for this reason that Grant was expelled from the Trotskyist movement at the Third World Congress of the Fourth International in August 1951. Ernest Germain proposed the resolution for his expulsion and it was carried unanimously, on the grounds that Grant was a renegade. Even Pablo, who at that time was already scheming to expel a majority of the French section, supported the expulsion.

The split between the forces of Pablo and the International Committee took place in the winter of 1953 and nothing was heard about Grant until 1957. Pablo was at this time fighting the forces of the International Committee tooth and nail.

When the English organisation during 1956 gained numerically from the crisis in the Communist Party following the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Pablo was desperate.

He went to "Tribune', the weekly paper of the fake 'left' inside the Labour Party, and inserted • an advertisement appealing for someone to come forward and support him.

Pablo rescues Grant Grant answered the advertisement and offered the same kind of service to Pablo as he had given Haston in his day— he was prepared to stop at nothing in his efforts to slander the English Trotskyists.

Earlier, in 1954, when a leading Trotskyist, Bill Hunter, was being expelled from a north London Labour Party, Grant, who was a member of the Management Committee, abstained when the right wing proposed Hunter's expulsion.

Afterwards he proposed a vote of thanks to the AssisOUT NOW!

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helpful to us during the period between 1943 and clique. This group, which comprised a majority of essentially by Haston, his wife Mildred Haston in 1950 and moved towards agreement with the tant National Agent of the Labour Party who was present at the meeting and who had instigated the expulsion in the first place.

Naturally, Pablo was delighted with such a recruit. Forgotten was the decision of the Third Congress expelling Grant for covering up for Haston. He was welcomed back as an ally in Pablo's unprincipled revisionist struggle against the English Trotskyists.

Forthwith, he was provided with the label 'official section' in an effort to confuse the situation in England.

The technique employed by Grant and Pablo to disrupt our movement was simple.

Normally the Grant group carries out little or no activity inside the labour movement. It is a thoroughly sectarian group which has opportunistically liquidated itself into the Labour Party.

The tactic of 'deep entry' in fact provided Grant' with a cover to do nothing.

On occasions, however, the Trotskyism Grant group comes to life, but this has nothing to do with the struggle of the working class. Such outbursts are invariably connected with the difficulties of the Socialist Labour League.

When someone leaves our organisation, such as Peter Fryer, Daniels and Cadogan in 1959, they are immediately approached by the Grant group this particular case by Pablo himself), who immediately proceeds to ignore the political reasons why they deserted the Socialist Labour League in order to glean whatever petty gossip they can against the League. Such gossip is then utilised to obscure the real political issues in dispute.

This is the essence of unprincipled factionalism, the method of the petty bourgeois in the struggle against Marxism.

Whereas the Marxist will always try to reveal the class nature of the political differences, the petty-bourgeois revisionist will endeavour to obscure them with subjective gossip and slander.

This was then the method which Grant and Pablo applied against the SLL from 1957 onwards.

Now, we come to another ally of Pablo at that time, the group headed by I. Clift, which claims that the 1917 revolution in the Soviet Union has been completely defeated and that Russia is today a state capitalist country.

Cliff arrived in England from Palestine (Israel) in September 1946.

• He immediately joined forces with the Haston, Grant group and opposed those leaders who were opposing their opportunist role.

After February, 1950, when Haston deserted the Trotskyist movement, Cliff's small group remained inside the Trotskyist organisation, until the Korean war broke out in the summer of 1950.

Delegates from Cliff's group 'The good name of Britain' proposed to our annual conference in August 1950 that we denounce the North Koreans as being just as responsible for the war Korea as the United States imperialists. This position was overwhelmingly rejected by the delegates with one notable exception-Grant.

He attended the conference as a delegate and when the vote was taken against Cliff, he abstained.

After the conference, the Cliff group then proceeded to open disruption of the majority conference decisions. On the Birmingham and St. Pancras Trades Councils they proposed resolutions denouncing the North Koreans as being as equally responsible for the war as the American imperialists.

Naturally we expelled them immediately.

However, much water has flowed under the bridges since that time.

Today the same Cliff group unites with the pro-Stalinists on the Vietnam Solidarity Committee in proposing 'peace' in South Vietnam. They have joined forces in the campaign against the Prices and Incomes Act with the Stalinists in England, who have betrayed and sabotaged this struggle and opposed the campaigns and demonstrations of the Young Socialists.

State capitalists join hands with Stalinists against SLL In other words the state capitalist anti-Stalinists of the Korean war have now found themselves in the same camp as the Stalinists in 1966.

One of their youth members, Mr. Cafoor, openly writes in Communist Party publications whilst, at the same time, he denounces the Young Socialists and the Trotskyists.

So the anti-Stalinists of 1950 become the pro-Stalinists of 1966. Their method is the same.

When the Cliff group refused to defend the Soviet Union and the North Koreans against American imperialism in 1950 they were acting not on the basis of the Marxist method of class analysis, but on the method of petty-bourThe fifth of a series of articles by G. HEALY National Secretary of the Socialist Labour League in geois impressionism. That is why they have wound up supporting the same Stalinism which they opposed in 1950..

Up until the time the SWP refused to discuss with the Sul in 1961, there was no disagreement between us about the revisionist role of the Pablo, Grant and Cliff groups.

Then as soon as Cannon, Hansen and Dobbs made the political shift to Pablo, they also began to fish around in these gossip sewers in order to attack the SLL.

Grant

thinking. The differences between revisionism and revolutionary Marxism today boils itself down to the differences between idealism and dialectical materialism and not what this individual or that individual is supposed to have done.

It is also very easy to exploit those tendencies who slander and gossip.

The police do this constantly. They simply send agents into these groups who will be prepared to join heartily in condemning the SLL. Naturally such leaders as Cliff and Grant, despite their politics, are sincere in their beliefs and have nothing whatsoever to do with the police.

It is simply that the irresponsible anti-SLL factional climate in their groups assists the police.

The SLL leadership has plenty of information at its disposal to prove this and it is the reason why, from time to time, we make it our business to look into the affairs of these relatively tiny organisations.

So tar as we are concerned, dealing with the activities of Hansen (who is not a police agent) in Britain was indeed a very simple job. The man has little knowledge of a mass movement activity and is wide open to the crudest impressionism.

The real political battle in Britain since 1960 between ourselves, the state capitalist Tony Cliff group, and the Pabloite Grant group, was waged inside the Young Socialists where both groups joined hands with the right-wing Labour leaders in fighting our tendency.

We won an outright victory against them all, even under conditions where Grant and Cliff joined hands to found the youth paper 'Young Guard' in opposition to the most suceessful out paper sin the.

the war, "Keep Left'.

Our paper was proscribed in 1962 and theirs was allowed to function with the blessings of the right-wing leaders.

In spite of all this our youth comrades organised around 'Keep Left' won an outright majority at the Young Socialist national conferences in 1963 and again in 1964.

At this latter conference Hansen supported a united opposition of the Wilson right wing, the Grant group and the Cliff outfit against 'Keep Left'.

Here is a classical example of real petty-bourgeois factionalism in practice, at a decisive turning point in the conflict with Wilson and Co.

The Tory agents inside the British labour movement, Hansen, Grant, et al, lined up with Wilson.

Ugly rumours' In a recent pronouncement ansen declared:

'For years rumours have circulated in the British labor movement about Healy's methods. Generally the sources turned out to be dissidents who walked out or were expelled from the Socialist Labour League.

Some of the stories they told sounded to Trotskyists in other countries like gross exaggerations and thus tended to be discounted as due to factionalism. Yet it had to be noted that in the international scene, Healy's organisation was the only one claiming to represent Trotskyism that had such an ugly reputation in the labor movement because of continual tales about gross violations of the democratic rights of its own members.' Everything that is said here a lie from beginning to end.

Mr. Joseph Hansen, exsecretary to Trotsky, and now a renegade from Trotskyism conditionally supports the arch-Stalinist rogue Apthecker (who justified the Moscow Trials and the rape of Hungary on behalf of the Stalinists) in the coming New York elections.

Tell us why is it that you backed the Grant and Cliff groups who supported Wilson, the biggest renegade in the Labour Party since Ramsay MacDonald, when the Young Socialist majority were being expelled in 1964?

You protest, but the facts are clear.

You, Messrs. Hansen, Grant and Cliff did support Wilson against the Young Socialists when they were warning the working class to fight Wilson's betrayal in 1964.

They, the Young Socialists, were right, and you the self-proclaimed 'Marxists' were wrong.

You still protest, Mr. Hansen.

All right then, tell us why your duplicated house magazine 'World Outlook' refused to publish a single protest about Wilson's attack on the 'Young Socialists'? Yet you can support all sorts of renegades who now make 'left' noises to cover up their renegacy.

Mr. Hansen, you have rejected every principle that Comrade Trotsky fought for.

The 'good name' of Trotskyism in Britain today does not reside with your pet renegades, the Midlands group, Grant or Cliff. It lies wth. the Young Socialists and the Socialist Labour League.

What 'ugly rumours' does Hansen talk about in relation to the SLL.

Let us list our disagreement with various tendencies since 1938, by asking him directly. 1. Were we right to expel Haston and his tendency in 1950 when they denounced the Fourth International by ultimately joining the right wing of the Labour Party?

Were we right in expelling John Lawrence, the disciple of Pablo, in 1953, when he left in 1954 to Communist Party, join the Were we right in expelling Peter Fryer who left us in 1959 when he publicly denounced us to the capitalist press on his way toward writing idealist books on 'sex'?

Were we right in expelling Peter Cadogan in 1959 who insisted that he should have the right to denounce the policies of the League publicly? This man is now a leading pacifist opportunist.

But nobody else has been expelled from the SLL since then ation in Wea other organisation working class movement can claim such a record?

Are we intolerant? Of course not. We try to keep every comrade in our movement, but when they join hands with the capitalists publicly, of course we expel them.

But then, and this is the real De eep to Hensen, how can explain the fact that so many, many comrades who join the SLL remain members?

Inside the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists are hundreds and hundreds I young people who are fight ing side-by-side, day-in and day-out with the SLL and the Young Socialists to build a socialist Britain. talk about the good name of Listen Hansen! When Trotskyism in Britain you are using a phrase to cover up your own support for renegades who have long since deserted the movement.

Next article:

The Robertson , group in the USA

In the autumn of 1964 Hansen took over where Pablo left off and called a conference in tion between the Grant grouf an effort to achieve a unificaand another small band middle-class warriors residing in the Midlands.

This latter group moves around in fake 'left' Labour circles and produces a duplicated periodical which is dis tinguished by the fact that i never deals with a single problem from a Trotskyist oint of view Apparently its motto is, 'if you want to convince the centrists, you must talk and look like them'.

Hansen's main trump card was that both groups hated the SLL and he imagined that this would be sufficient to keep them together.

On the surface of things the conference appeared to produce a limited success, but shortly afterwards trouble broke out between the group leaders about what they were going to do inside the Labour Party and the whole thing blew apart, despite a last-minute intervention by Hansen himself.

So now the SWP-sponsored 'united secretariat' is without any section in Britain, although it favours the Midlands group more than Grant.

This experience reveals the blind-alley politics of revisionism.

From time to time it is possible for the method of subjectivism and gossip to make an impact on cynics and tired refugees from the class struggle, but this is purely temporary.

No movement can be built on such a basis, which is after all nothing more than a reflection of idealist method of

BOARD'S (LTB) report on the future of the capital's bus services proposed 'high productivity with a big switch to one-man buses, operated by fewer but better-paid staff'.

Other measures, such as shorter routes, which would increase productivity and also the arduousness of the job, are also proposed.

The LTB claims that these measures will not lead to redundancies.

Redundancies

If the present rate of crews quitting the job was maintained, this would be true deliberately the government creating unemployment, busmen will be forced to stay on in the job, and rendundancies will certainly follow.

This will particularly affect conductors who, for one reason or another, cannot change over to driving, and women conductors, although the LTB plans to use women drivers as well.

The 'better-pay' part must be a hoax. The LTB knows that the government will not allow big wage increases, even for higher BY A LONDON BUSMAN productivity (the shipyards' deal is the only exception, and this only because the productivity arrangements are so useful to the employers).

In any case, the white paper published earlier this year specifically opposed paying busmen wages comparable to factory earnings, as the general rate in London was 'too high'.

The report comes shortly before the implementation of the five-day week, which is due to take effect on December 31, and which itself entails the biggest attack on working conditions to date.

Since the white paper was published, the government has set up a committee to examine the working conditions of busmen. This committee includes employers' representatives, Barbara Castle, Minister of Transport, and Bill Jones, chairman of the Central Bus Committee, an ex-Communist Party member with a 'reputation for militancy'.

The fact that, for the first time, the government has included on such a committee a working busman (Jones is a driver), shows their desperate need to enlist the official union support for their measures, and to behead the inevitable bitter opposition of the rank-and-file busmen.

T&GWU action

The full-time: Transport and General Workers' Union officials, who see the proposals as being completely in line with Frank Cousins' call for increased productivity', have given support to the proposals 'with reservations' the reservations being their doubt about their ability to force the conditions down the throats of their members.

In these circumstances, there is a grave danger too that, in an industry where a large proportion of the workers are immigrants, racialism will be used to divide busmen.

Three years ago, the busmen's leadership forced the LTB to close their recruiting stations abroad by threatening to refuse to work with people recruited there.

Continued

James report

CHILDREN PLAYED at the Cambrian pithead in the Rhondda Valley, South Wales, last Sunday as their fathers, brothers, uncles and cousins sat in the miners' club in nearby Tonypandy listening to a lunchtime crooner. Ironically, his repertoire included 'Buddy Can You Spare a Dime?'-the US depression song.

The men knew that they too were heading for a depression - this Saturday (September 24), the 80year-old pit is to be closed by the National Coal Board.

For the children, whose grandfathers, and possibly great grandfathers, found their only means of livelihood in mining, the pit can become a permanent playground.

And throughout the Rhondda, and other South Wales valleys, the NCB's closure policy is continued.

On Thursday (September 15), the same day as the Porthcawl conference reported on this page, the South Western Division of the NCB announced the possible closure of nine more collieries to complete a list of 25 pits axed since last November STRANGLED So the Rhondda, along with other well-known areas, is becoming a valley of dead jobs.

In most areas, of course, mining is the main industry. During its slow strangulation, many miners - and youth pouring out of the schoolshave had to turn their hands to other industries. Often these are an hour's bus ride away in another valley or on the industrial coastal belt.

Wilson's economic measures are now hitting these industries, causing short-time and unemployment. These same measures will block any attempts-though there have been few signs of any—to introduce alternative industry into what is gradually becomarea yet again a 'depressed But, as the Socialist Labour League and Young Socialists have continually maintained, the economic crisis facing the Wilson government, and the measures it is taking and will take in its futile attempt to overcome the crisis, are unprecedented.

1926 and the 1930s were depression periods during which the majority of working-class families suffered loss of jobs, lack of food, worsening housing conditions, and ever-decreasing amounts money for their upkeep.

There is no , financial glint of light through the present 1930s: the only alternative which will eventually face the ruling class will be more authoritarian methods of 'putting the working class in its place'.

But unlike the 1930s, the working class in Britain has not gone through a period of defeats, like those around 1926. Workers will be prepared to struggle politically, having seen the seamen's strike and grasped more clearly the role of the rightwing Labourites.

They must be clear that such a struggle can only be successful when headed by a revolutionary leadership.

CP ROLE

They must also be clear on the role of those who prepared the way for the 1926 defeat and have since been foisting, their 'leadership' on the working class through 'left' phrasemongering, and have led many struggles into defeat since 1926.

These people, the Stalinists of te Communist Party oi Great Britain, have had a particularly perfidious history in the South Wales area.

In recent years they have continually refused to fight for the only answer to pit closures by Robens and the NCB, which now fit in neatly with aniser is wormeis Cons. Tl of control of the industry.

The Porthcawl meeting, where Stalinist officials united with right-wing Labourites against the rank-and-file demands for a coalfield strike against the pit closures, _epitomized the Stalinist method.

Because they are not Marxists, they do not see the present crisis for what it is, and therefore hope they can continue their 'peaceful road to socialism' programme by putting forward demands for independent tribunals, direction of industry and similar syndicalist 'solutions'. In fact these methods can lead only to a defeat for the working class.

Tribunals are old hat now, and have been suspect in the eyes of the rank and file for many years. Workers are also coming to realise that there never will be any industry directed to South Wales, or that the present industry will be able to absorb the hundreds shunted out of mine, factory and plant on to the growing dole queues.

The Cambrian miners— about 740 of them—have in fact been offered jobs at the Cwm colliery near Pontypridd. For several weeks they have been operating a 'non-cooperation' policy, but following the conference in Porthcawl where, they feel, they were betrayed, they decided at a lodge meeting on Sunday night to negotiate the transfers to Cwm.

NUM Cambrian lodge secretary Garfield Rogers was to issue statements later in the week about the position of the miners.

Mr. Rogers told The Newsletter that there was tremendous feeling among the men about the closure and the result of the conference. The executive council resolution to nandan interent be resolution.

RUN-DOWN

He claimed that he had been prevented from putting a motion at the conference which deplored the 'rapid run down of the coal industry through government policy, demanded a 'freeze' on closures where there are ample supplies of coal, until the closures can be phased to ensure the future of the pit industry.

He felt that many people in the area leadership of the union had been hiding behind a 'left' reputation for too long. Many were members of the Communist Party.

Mr. Rogers said that transfers began from the Cambrian pit about three years ago, when there was a total of 2,000 men employed. This followed a visit from Will Whitehead, the then area president of the union (and a Communist Party member at the time), who warned of dire consequences if the transfers were not accepted (the joint CP-right-wing line at Porthcawl was that if transfers were refused, or strike action taken, more pits might close).

Other men were transferred over a period, and, at the beginning of 1965, miners found it very difficult to maintain their output and man the developments. At the same time, the management began an attempt to cut back on the len's practices and traditions -the Cambrian pit is the only one in the area which has a wage-pooling system, somehing which the NCB has been trying to undermine for some time.

Then came the explosion in May 1965 which / killed 31 men.

After this men were transferred from other pits to the Cambrian and others who had left for outside industries returned. The Cambrian was just getting back on its feet when the NCB announced the pit was planned for closure, because it was uneconomic.

A delegation had met Lord Robens in London with a technical adviser to show that the pit was still workable. Robens said afterwards that he would further discuss it with his Board.

There was silence until the miners returned from their holiday on August 8. Then Mr. Rogers received a telephone call to say the miners' claim had been rejected.

Since then the lodge had been waging a desperate fight to keep the pit open. available.

'There's as much coal left in there, as has been taken out,' said one. For several weeks the men . had been reaching figures of up to 37 cwt. per man shift, and just a few weeks ago reached 400 tons over the average weekly figure.

ABANDONED The No. 4 face had . been worked for 50 years and had never come up against a geological fault. In the No. 1 pit a seam lower than the one presently worked had never been touched and could be from the Rhondda Opposition and anger at the closure has not only come from the miners themselves, but from relatives as well.

Mrs. Phyllis Gard, a 55year-old life-time member of the Labour Party, and councillor for the Penygraig ward, has written a stiff letter to Harold Wilson.

She says she is disgusted with government policy and asks why George Thomas, MP, under secretary for State for Wales, and a Tonypandy man, has remained silent on the closure.

Mrs. Gard's son David, a Cambrian miner, thought the action of the union executive was bad—it had not given the Cambrian miners a chance.

He was not sure whether he would stay in the industry, but realised that the squeeze meant there were fewer jobs than normal. In any case, he told our reporter, there was no other industry other than mining in the immediate area.

PATTERN

In Tonypandy itself there was a factory—Sewing Industries Ltd. This employed mainly women and closed down several weeks ago.

This was only part of a pattern growing in South Wales-two_weeks ago, Radic and Allied Industries Itd., at Hirwaun, announced 600 sackings, mainly women.

Certainly the Cambrian miners, and many others in the coalfield are angry and concerned about the closures, their wages, families and livelihoods-after all most of them have experienced a depression before.

While accepting the transfers they must be politically clear why this is happening.

They must, along with all South Wales miners, and the rank and file in other industries, make a clean break with the class-collaborationist policies of the Stalinists. Communist Party miners say that Will Paynter, NUM secretary, and Dai Francis, the area secretary, are bound by their executives. This is nonsense.

they cannot use their positions for the benefit of the working class, they should lead a fight from the ranks.

This same claim does not excuse the 'Morning Star' refusing to comment on the right-wing policy of the NUM on pit closures or excuse the straight sa ly or picter Cand brian miners" of the Cam-

THIS HAS GONE way beyond a trade union question now? That was the comment of one Cambrian miner on the subject of pit closures. He was speaking outside the pavilion hall in Porthcawl, where nearly 400 miners from the Cambrian colliery in the Rhondda valley lobbied delegates to a special coalfield conference on Thursday, September 15.

After marching through Porthcawl carrying banners demanding negotiations, stop n, timidatio miners', , and asking is this closure a new method of creating unemployment?' the Cambrian miners-many with their wives and families-lobbied the delegates to the conference.

The Cambrian men wanted a coalfield strike against the closure of their colliery on September 24, and a 'pit closure freeze', but the conference voted for an 'independent' tribunal.

Cyril Parry of Morlais Lodge (West Wales) quite correctly ridiculed this as 'asking the government, which is accelerating pit closures, to set up a tribunal to stop pit closures'.

In putting the resolution forward Glyn Williams went to great lengths to explain how much work had been put into the 'official machinery' for appealing to the National Coal Board against closures.

Mike Griffith (Penrhiwceiber Lodge, Aberdare Valley) asked if any pits had actually been saved by appeals.

Broken promises

No, said Mr. Williams, but they were trying to get the Board to move Caerau Colliery out of the category of pits scheduled for closure into a category of long-life pits.

Unfortunately, , Caerau was in • list of seven South Wales pits threatened with closure published that morning. Mr. Williams said he did not know about the list officially.)

Several delegates pointed to the political aspects of the closures and rising unemployment and criticised the broken BY A CARDIFF CORRESPONDENT promises of Labour MPs.

Councillor Len Davies, a delegate from National Colliery Lodge in the Rhondda, and chairman of the Glamorgan Federation of Labour Parties, said:

I am a loyal Labour member, but 1 am not going to give blind loyalty at the expense of my comrades in this industry' Another councillor and miner called for a national pit strike.

Tom Hopkins, Bedwas (speaking in an individual capacity, said that nothing had been heard of the action committee of mining MPs which Ness Edwards (MP for Caerphilly) had promised to set up.

Earlier, Garfield Rogers, Cambrian Lodge secretary, explained the history of the NCB 'conditioning the colliery for closure'.

South Wales NUM area secretary Dai Francis, a Communist Party member, said he was against strike action. He wanted to see more 'pressure' put on the authorities, and more 'campaigns' for public support.

Summing up the discussion, the vice president, Glyn Williams, used threats rather than reason in support of his resolution.

If miners didn't co-operate with the Board, they would lose their redundancy payments and put themselves in a different legal position.

If they went on strike, then many pits would never be reopened.

The conference then voted for his resolution.

n betrayed have to make up his mind, whether to fight or openly betray.

In effect his policy and the policy of the Communist Party supports unemployment in the motor car trade in order to justify the Communist Party's crawling • before Wilson, who supports the 'peaceful road' to socialism. This at a time when the BMC and other employers are preparing to violently attack the standards of living of the working class through unemployment.

WEAKENED

"This has been weakened due to a policy of negotiation and appeasement,' said • Mr.

Rogers.

By the time an independent tribunal is set up, he added, another pits could be closed. It is already rumoured that Fernhill and Maerdy could follow closely on the heels of the Cambrian.

The Cwm pit lodge had said that there were good conditions there, but still, with all the closures and transfers, they had been able to maintain only a 1,100-strong work force for a 2,000-man pit, said Mr.

Rogers.

Other men in the lodge headquarters-an old mansion converted into a contemporary club and large hall-were more specific.

One claimed that 2,000 men had already been through the Cwm pit and most had left to go to other industries.

"There's something wrong with it,' another said.

f6 million had been spent on the Cwm pit, although it was a conventionally-worked face. The Cambrian No. 1 pit, on the other hand, was mechanised.

Several miners became more and more incensed as they told our reporter of wastage of money in the Cambrian, and the fantastic resources still is the case why are you and your party's paper, 'Morning Star', silent about this?

Is it your idea that 'redeployment' means sending workers to fascist Spain?

We believe it does, because Stalin opened the door for Franco to take power in Spain in 1939. protested (on televisionblicly for example) and exposed the BMC bosses over the use of English workers to support Franco?

In the opinion of the SLL it is time to build a new revoluoperated within six months if necessary.

Another man from the No. 1 pit explained how at least £100,000 had been spent on ploughs, self advancing jacks, etc., to mechanise the face. This equipment had advanced 130 yards along a 240 yard face. It was now intended to abandon it.

Many miners could not understand this policy as Lord Robens has said that any pit that could not be mechanised would be closed down. Cwm is a conventional pit because the gallery floors are too soft to take machinery.

One miner pointed out that it seemed more than a coincidence that many of the pits labelled with a closure ticket were some of the most milltant in the valleys.

A Durham-born miner who had been in the Welsh coalfield for 30 years said there was another aspect of the transfers. Men aged between 50 and 60, changing from a mechanised to a conventional face would find they were earning less because they would not get the same productivity. In any case, many would not be able to stand the change in physical effort involved.

He felt that the lodge had to ensure that every man got reasonable job-not fictitious one. He had been be a lot Cure: he said, en offered work as an engine "There might 17 men might have offered the same job,' he said.

He had heard there were known coal reserves worth £80 million in the Cambrian. If there was the manpower to produce a million tons a year, the pit would have 80 years life.

'In any case, five years ago, the Cambrian was given 20 years more life,' he said.

He thought the Cambrian men had been defeated because the union's executive council had not taken a stand. It was not only a Cambrian issue.

LONDON B From The only real alternative policies are those put forward by the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists.

The whole question of pit closures must be taken out of the hands of the NCB and put under workers' control, as must all aspects of the mining industry.

Where pit closures are necessary, retraining for other jobs must be provided at full pay.

CRIPPLING

The enormous interest payments to the banks, and compensation to former owners, must be suspended. At present these payments are crippling the industry.

Highly-organised scrap merchants must be prevented from taking over the abandoned pits from the NCB and making gigantic sums out of the machinery left there.

Industries connected with mining, like coal distribution, should be nationalized.

Alternative industry should be provided. But it is nonsense to talk about this without a programme of nationalization; otherwise it is an open invitation to private enterprise to exploit unemployment.

These policies will be won by a united struggle of all sections of workers. The support for the Cambrian miners from the Rhondda branch of the Constructional Engineering Union is a welcome first step in this direction.

The present leaders of the NUM will clearly never do this. Therefore, there must be a fight for a socialist leadership in the union to remove the coalition of right-wingers and Stalinists which .. holds sway at the moment.

An essential part of the fight for clear socialist policies is the demonstration by the Young Socialists in Brighton on October 2. Cambrian miners and workers from all pits must pledge to join this demonstration now.

JS PLAN mination to fight in 1958. The

However, it appears that Mr. Etheridge may be covering up for the BMC employers on another issue. We ask him some questions.

Is it not true that the departments of BMC responsible for making motor car parts for shipment to Spain are working overtime?

Is it not true that BMC engineers have been offered jobs Spain for £10 a week? If that tionary leadership to fight the employers. The first thing for BMC workers is to organise a strike, a political strike against the Labour government.

The second thing is to spread this strike to all those workers affected by redundancy and unemployment. The third thing is to demand the immediate nationalization of engineering, chemicals, steel and motors.

The only revolutionary organisation in Britain today which fights for these policies is the Socialist Labour League.

This move was supported by most of the present leadership, including Bill Jones.

The leadership in fact has consistently retused to put up any real fight against the continuously worsening conditions.

The present proposals must be seen as part of the attack by the Labour government on the whole on the terk tadto Sher gies which can only be described as revolutionary.

Busmen showed their deterone necessary condition for their sucess was a leadership which could link up their struggles with the struggles of all workers. This time that leadership must be built.

The first step for busmen is to support the Young Socialists demonstration on October 2 at the Labour Party conference in Brighton against the wage freeze and the Prices and Incomes Act.

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