The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 467

BY ROBERT WHO IS GAGGING WHO over the Aberfan and television have been warned by Attorney commenting on facts relevant to the inquiry smothered over 150 Aberfan villagers in their foggy morning just two weeks ago.

This is a strong and unexpected warning, which has brought righteous indignation from the left and right, but is not out of character for the 'Labour' government of Harold Wilson. In fact, in parliament, Wilson quoted a Tory precedent-under Harold MacMillan's government— for the Attorney General's action.

sponsors the will surv in acti to t

JAMES

Certainly the television interviews with bereaved parents, with their Labour movement will be looking forward to hearing the real voices of the villagers in the near future.

Many of the statements printed and transmitted before the gag was firmly fixed on the nation's informers will certainly have to •be investigated by the enquiry.

Uneasiness

What happened at Aberfan was a national disaster. will take much more than the visits of the Prime Minister and the Queen to remove the deep disquiet that is being felt amongst millions of Labour voters. Whilst the Attorney General's ruling complies with the law, it has added greatly uneasiness which growing over the whole affair.

enquiry will not have achieved anything unless answers questions which are uppermost in the in the minds of practically everybody.

'Sub judice' is an overpowering and frightening legal phrase in the ears of an uninitiated Welsh villager and in the legal departments of Fleet Street.

Our reporters felt and heard the villagers' growing anger, within a day of the disaster: woman summed it up when leaving a recent parents' meeting: 'My , sadness has turned to anger.

At the first sign of independent action by the parents setting up their own associastep in to lend a helping hand. police decided Officers with loudspeakers toured the streets telling parents where to attend the inaugural meeting. There, 300 of them were confronted with Merthyr Tydfil's chief constable, Mr. T. K. Griffiths, who made a statement about legal representation at the inquiry.

parents' committee was then set up and decided to seek legal representation.

The government wants similar action. Commented Secretary of State for Wales Mr. Cledwyn Hughes:

The government is also anxious that all those who will not be represented by any organisation who may wish to appear before the tribunal. particularly parents and dependents who have suffered loss, will in fact have adequate legal representation.

is why the government will be pleased to meet the reasonable costs of their legal representation.' This week officials from the Treasury have been touring the valley taking statements to furbish legal representatives at the inquiry-to open in Merthyr • later this monthwith briefs.

The main question is, then: Will these be used to gag the angry voices of the Aberfan parents at Lord Justice Davies' 'non-white-washing inquiry?

A strong-and independent -Aberfan parents' organisation could decide that question.

now closed Dinas remain shut until eyed along with soI he Rhondda valle in follows a parent le borough council. inquiry? The capi General Elwyn JoI nto the killer coal schools and houses ali: press jainst tip which on cold, vol. 9, No. 18/0SL

new magazine pay strike Ceylon Newsletter Correspondent OVER 11,000 of the Ceylon Mercantile Union's 18,000 members went on strike on Tuesday in Colombo following a breakdown in negotiations for a new pay structure. The union, led by Bala Tampo of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Revolutionary), has been demanding equal pay for. married and unmarried employees, backdated to June 1.

Work at 67 firms controlling vital sections in Ceylon's trade were hit immediately the whitecollared workers struck. The strike affects a number of British-owned tea, rubber and coconut export concerns. It also involves the nationalized Port (Cargo) Corporation and Insurance Corporation, and the important Tea Administration in the port of Trincomali, which ships most of Ceylon's tea exports.

Armed police took up positions at key points in Colombo as the strike began. UBLIC ME

GESTURE THERE WAS a nice surprise waiting for Albert Speers— arms manufacturer and war criminal-on his release from Spandau prison,. recently. To mark the occasion, a gift of flowers was sent to • his laughter • by Willi Brandt, West Berlin Burgomaster and leader of the social democrats in West Germany. Safety survey ALL PUPILS at Graig Ddu Infants School, Dinas, are to be moved by the Rhondda Education Committee to a school at nearby Penygraig. The school, overshadowed by the tip from Colliery, le tip is : 60 tips S. This petition CAXTON HALL (nearest tube St James Thursday November 17-7.30 p.m.

MICHAEL BANDA, Editor, 'Newsletter' and Members of the Young Socialists.

of 1956 Speakers will include CLEMENT of the PCI IT IN

Page I wo

MR. REG BIRCH, executive council member of the Amalgamated Engineering Union has joined the editorial board of the "Marxist', a new bi-monthly review. Writing, no doubt in a personal capacity, in its first issue he says:

'What is the economic significance of the July measures?

They have quickly brought on a domestic recession. As this is what the foreign lenders wanted, some breathing space But sterling has been gained.

change in the basic imperialist policies which have weakened sterling and which keep it weak. So his measures do not guarantee sterling against devaluation' MOTOR WORKERS from Birmingham and Oxford lobbied parliament on Monday as their union leaders in the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions met government representatives. As they waited outside the St. Stephen's entrance before entering to see MPs, many shouted: Redundancy-Out! Wage Freeze-Out! Wilson-Out! Workers' PUBLIC MEETING control-In! Socialism-In!' Earlier they had visited Downing Street and booed Harold Wilson and Labour Minister Ray Gunter.

This upset Communist Party convenor Dick Etheridge from Austin's Longbridge (Birmingham) factory. He told the press as he left parliament that he dissociated himself from the booing.

•It is not our policy in BMC, We don't even do it to Tories, he said.

The workers did not want to boo Wilson and Gunter. We want to influence and discuss With them, he added.

But his influence was as strong as on his visit to Wilson's Brighton hotel during the September Labour Party conference.

Wilson made it quite, clear to the Confederation-and Callaghan told the bosses on Monday -that the government was not changing its policy in relation to the motor industry.

By Newsletter Reporter Etheridge claimed the support of five Midland Labour MPs on work-sharing and for a relaxamoro at to ken at Bighton that he would never vote against the government's policies.

In fact, our reporter was told, Etheridge spent most of the time defending these MPs from the car workers during a noisy, one-and-a-half hour meeting in a Westminster committee room.

Communist Party members among the car men said they were disgusted with Etheridge's performance. control Meeting in the House-car men angrily interrupt MPs -boo Wilson and Gunterleading Communist worried —says 'it is not our policy to behave like this'-Labour MPs have a job to do. MPs say 'Let's go with Labour'.

Back to the Exchange Monday, November 7long queues-no jobsChristmas is coming-—prici still going up.

Back to the factory

all slag safety WASHWOOD HEATH (Birmingham) No. 2 branch of the Amalgamated • Enginee ring Union last Friday (October 28) passed a resolution calling for the compensation of former coal owners to be stopped and to be used to ensure the safety of all slag heaps. The motion also called for the Aberfan miners' lodge to be represented at the inquiry into the disaster, to be held in Merthyr Tydfil later this month. Some of the Midland car workers outside Parliament shouting their slogans. Wilson booedWHILST THE THR EAT of unemployment has hung over the heads of tens of thousands of car workers during the past two months, here is what union leaders have been up to: the Labour and trade Cabinet level Wilson stands firm for unemployment, wage freezing and rising prices. 'Left' MP level • Abstain again when the vote is taken on Part IV of the Prices and Incomes Act —must not rock the boat— flop down on government benches-waiting for pay cheques to come in—f70 a week and all that jazz. No threat of redundancy or redeployment—at least work for four years-—we hope.

union level 'Very distressed'-travel to York-meet employers— register failure to agree home again-squat around in centrally-heated offices snooze on until next round ot meetings-see Gunter, see employers, see Prime Minister-still failure to agree more snoozing and boozing -advice to rank and file in between yawns - must 'carry out procedure brothers'.

Workshop level Leading Communist says 'he will fight'-organises Brighton lobby of Prime Minister-meets• Wilson— afternoon tea—meets the press-much later meets the car workers-announces he is proud to have met Wilson —thinks he's 'achieved the impossible'-men confused —more fighting talk. If Wilson can meet the car workers, says he, then so can Harriman of BMC. And so he does-Country Hotel the boss speaks-nothing doing meeting ends-great confusion-somebody mutters something about 'feeding cherries to pigs'-the impossible' is becoming 'really impossible'.

Back to Birmingham— another meeting put your 'notice of sack in the dustbin brothers'-we're lobbying at York-home againpresent whereabouts of dustbin unknown.

Four days before the sack -time is short-down to London-lobby. Confederation leaders and 'Left' MPs.

The article concludes with nely advice:

'The only salvation for the working class lies in struggle. Today it is the struggle against the Labour government policies which seek to shackle the working class, but one must always. bear in mind that struggles will be continuous until capitalism is overthrown. The overthrow of capitalism should therefore be the pose behind every action, burWe await comments from the immunist Party leaders with me interest.

A NICE MANY Amalgamated Engineering Union branches, whose members are involved in sackings from the motor industry, have been making demands for the nationalization of the industry.

The Pilton (Edinburgh) AEU branch has passed this resolution recently: mounting redundancies in the "This branch British Motor Corporation with concern and demands that the Labour government nationalize the basic industries, including the car industry, without compensation, as the first step in solution of Britain's economic problems.

We further demand that all nationalized industries be placed under workers' control' This resolution is being submitted to the Edinburgh City Labour Party and Trades Council.

Birmingham No. '11 AEU, noting that the short-time working and redundancy demonstrates that the 'elementary right of workers to earn a living is in jeopardy under the present system, calls for the nationalization of the engineering and car industries.

Their resolution is to go to the union's Birmingham district committee.

Washwood Heath (Birmingham) No. 2 branch of the union passed the following motion on October 7:

"That this branch, . having once again seen the callous way in which the BMC and other engineering firms_have sacked workers, demands that the union takes up a campaign for the nationalization of the motor and engineering industry. bringing it under workers control, without compensation?

This resolution was read to branches in the district delegate's report on October 21.

MONEY ENDS NEWSLETTER REPORTER AS THE government's 'freeze' policies begin to bite, some local councils, finding it harder to borrow money from the banks, are beginning to attack the wages and conditions of the employees.

The Labour-controlled Borough of Lambeth, London, is no exception. The dustmen, who have led many militant fights in the past, have just ended a two-week strike to defend some of their hard-won gains.

After a dispute over the amount of money they were entitled to for working in heavy Employers raring to gospeed up—wage freezing and the threat of unemployment to drive those at work to work harder.

Meanwhile up Boardroom Tory employers support government policy-Wall Street happy. rain, their steward was informed by the council that an existing agreement over 'wet-time' payments was not legally binding, and the council would have to consider limiting these payments in future.

Sackings hint

The steward claimed that the men have been trying for nine months to get proper drying facilities, without success, and

fight to organise workers to oppose the closure. He merely made general statements to the eflect that 'this generation would fight unemployment. uncil to grant the increas after a day's rain the men often have to start work next morning 'MEET THE PM' in wet clothes.

Of the National Union of Publi All that the secretary of the Employees' members and others? STUC could offer the meeting Mass sacking was a policy for: Local authorities to build advance factories The dustmen were eventually anople to fill them; to secure a and then out and find driven back to work defeated, either-it would separate us from and the council has hinted darkly ur source of strength, which i meeting with the Prime Minister, at mass sackings if any further ur link with other workers thus giving the trade union move- strikes take place. ment the opportunity to •discuss Because of the amount of the situation': and to call regional refuse which piled up during the conferences 'to demonstrate the strike, the council is now em- higher supplement for blind blind workers' demand for uneasiness' felt by the trade ploying private contractors at unions at government policy. the weekends to clear up the Both speakers were reminded backlog. in contributions from the floor The steward complained that pay-offs had taken place at Bath- that within recent weeks big when he asked to see the drivers' least living 28s 6d to be worth its union cards, he was refused pergate and Linwood motor fac- mission. tories without a vestige of struggle from the union leader- He claims that scab labour is had refused to recognise this shipoung, Socialists and their ment can a ransor and. being used by the trade unionist supporters pointed out that meetings with Wilson General Workers' Union—overwere useless. As one speaker time for weekend work. wage increase. said:

'Wilson has joined the enemy ANNOUNCING A MOST IMPORTANT class—it is no use appealing to the enemy. The working class must be organised to attack PAMPHLET— against the Labour government.

Will Bro. Jack and the STUC Lessons of the 1966 support open demonstrations on streets and strike action against unemployment?' Seamen's Strike Taking up the demand of another speaker that it was time the unions gave real leadership, members pointed out that 'Lessons of the 1966 Seamen's Strike' must be read their organisation had already given a lead on the anti-union and studied by every trade unionist. It is a day-by-day egislation and wage freeze and account of how the struggle was fought and the role of in Glasgow were preparing to hold a demonstration against un. the forces at work on both sides of what was a most employment on December 11 militant class action—Britain's first political strike NEXT TURN since 1926. The pamphlet outlines the treacherous role of the They asked for Trades Coun cil backing. Labour and trade union leaders and the Communist Many delegates referred angrily Party who provided them with a 'left' cover. to the announcement the Sunday newspapers that direction It is 'a must reading for every trade unionist faced of labour was likely to be the next turn of the screw by the with a struggle against Wilson's policies. Labour government.

When Mr. Jack said this could Price 2s 9d including postage A special discount for bulk copies of six or over. Write not happen in democratic Britain, he was reminded that everyone who voted Labour at the once to : Literature Department, Socialist Labour League, Regised it the mc ronse, spor 1So than in Sire, London. S0% 86a Clapham High Street. 186a Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4

1966 TEN YEARS AGO the workers, students and peasants of Hungary rose up in armed struggle against their Staunist masters. They forced a change of government, and all over the country workers' councils sprang up to become the real power in the towns and regions.

Arter this first success, the occupying Red Army forces withdrew, but it was only in order for Khrushchev and the Kremlin bureaucracy to mobilise and send in tens of thousands of fresh troops, armed with modern tanks and supported by aircraft, to bloodily suppress the revolutionary people.

The present regime of Kadar in Hungary is the policeman of this counter-revolutionary reacuon of the Stalinist bureaucracy to the political revolution of the Hungarian workers.

Kadar relies on the presence in Hungary of 60,000 troops; SO much for the wretched Stalinist apologists and their 'progressive' friends who tell us that calm has returned to Hungary, and that the Kadar government has the confidence of the people.

Kadar was one of those who formed the new government of Imre Nagy following the uprising of workers and students in Budapest in October 1956. But, behind the backs behind government, hiding speeches to mass meetings in which he told the Budapest workers that their revolution had been justihed, he went over tc the Russian Stalinists, left Budapest and emerged as the head of a puppet government which set up shop in a provincial town and gave its blessing to the massive Red Army intervention.

For this betrayal Kadar was made head of the Soviet-backed counter-revolutionary governmet, and remains so today.

All the newspaper talk about settled conditions 10 years after the revolt is rubbish. The Kadar government, backed by the Soviet Army, has only recently imprisoned the leaders of strikes and former participants in the Revolution of 1956.

The Stalinist press in Budapest carries denunciations of Trotskyist propaganda in Hungary.

In many towns the Hungarian workers have struck against increases in the cost of living during the last year, despite the repressions of Kadar.

LESSONS OF 1956 The truth about Hungary in 1956, and the lessons of that revolution, are a vital part of the struggle of Marxists in the Fourth International today.

In the October 15 socialist youth demonstration against imperialist war: in Liege, Belgium (see The Newsletter, October 22), not only were the forces of the International Committee easily the biggest in number, but they carried out a fight on a much more advanced programme than other participants.

When the Young Socialists (Britain) and the supporters of the youth paper Révoltes (France) raised in this demonstration the banner 'Long Live the Hungarian Revolution of 1956', they were insisting that the fight against imperialist war necessitates alliance of workers in the capitalist world and in the countries controlled by the Stalinist bureaucracy, and that only a revolutionary struggle of these workers against Stalinist bureaucracy, which sells out to the imperialists, will permit this alliance to be forged.

The Trotskyist youth fought successfully against Stalinists and revisionists to keep this banner flying in the demonstration. This success was a powerful blow for the Hungarian workers and their revolutionary struggle.

was in the International Committee of the Fourth International, and among the forces who understood that they must rally to its programme, that the lessons of the Hungarian • Revolution were learned and built upon.

is for good reason that Kadar's press and raves against Trotskyism in Hungary today, 10 years after 1956.

is the work of the Hungarian section of the Fourth International which is preparing the revolutionary leadership for the Hungarian workers to finish with Kadar, finish with Stalinism, and restore proletarian democracy.

This was the meaning of the struggle in 1956: the workers, students and peasants did not fight for the restoration of capitalism, but to defend the gains of socialised economy by driving out the bureaucracy and their Kremlin backers, placing the power in the hands of the people through their own workers' and peasants' councils, eauivalent of the Soviets of 1905 and 1917, and the Councils of Action in Britain in 1920 and 1926.

Only the Trotskyist programme of builaing independent revolutionary parties, political revolution against the bureaucracy, and the builaing of the International, for such a struggle to could provide correct leadership bitter lessons began learned by Marxists in Hungary after the defeat of 1956.

They found their answers in the struggle of the International Committee of the Fourth International.

The revisionist ideas of those who followed Pablo, Frank, Germain and others after the split of 1953 in the Fourth International, were . in fact a , direct support for the Stalinist bureaucracy.

These revisionists had promised a liberalisation of the bureaucracy, an 'irreversible process' towards socialism, a forcing of the bureaucracy to the left, which obviated the need for the construction of independent revolutionary parties.

But it was precisely the absence of an independent party on the programme of Trotskyism which left the Hungarian revolutionaries unprepared for their defeat.

It was precisely their failure to understand the counter-revolutionary role of Stalinism internationally which disarmed them before, during and after the uprising.

Stalin and the Soviet bureaucracy had imposed upon Hungary a regime bureaucrats Matyas Rakosi and Erno Gero.

The Hungarian landlords and capitalists had been expropriated as a measure to ensure the defences of the USSR and the Stalinist bureaucracy after the deal they made with imperialism on the morrow of the Second World War.

From the beginning, the gains of this socialisation the economy were endangered because they were associated with the suppression of all working-class rights, politically and in the trade unions, and because this regime was backed by Soviet troops.

Unequal economic treaties plundered the industry of the Eastern European 'People's Democracies' to the advantage of the USSR.

For this reason the revolt was also a revolt for national independence and self-determination.

The workers and peasants of Hungary could not carry out a political revolution against Stalinism only by wiping out the Hungarian secret police and removing the government: they had also to drive out the military forces of the Kremlin bureaucracy.

The demand for the withdrawal of Soviet troops, and then the fight against them, was therefore at the core of the revolution.

Only those who have quite un-Marxist ideas of some 'pure' revolution chastise the Hungarian workers for regarding the Red Star and the hammer and sickle, in some cases, as signs of Soviet domination rather than emblems of Communism. For such confusion the Stalinists, and not the people, are to blame.

The Stalinist attempt to portray the Hungarian revolution as a fascist coup aimed at capitalist restoration was one of the vilest landers in stalinist history, anc it never had an ounce of evidence behind it.

Those Stalinists who complain about the struggle of the Hungarians against the AVH (secret political police) and against the Red Army must answer the question: how is it that not a single body of Hungarians was produced, before, during or after the rising, to pledge its support and to fight on behalf of the regime of Gero or of Kadar?

How do the Stalinists explain that for months after 'the suppression of the rising the industrial workers fought a stubborn General Strike in the mines and the factories, and that when troops entered these factories to enforce discipline these workers fought literally to the death?

Are these the methods of fascism and counter-revolution?

Did the Kadar regime, in the subsequent trials and imprisonments, find it possible to provide a shred of evidence to show that the leaders of workers' and students' councils whom they persecuted were in the pay of fascists or foreign imperialists? »For all the talk about the revolution being inspired from the West, the Stalinist police and judges produced no weapons from that source, because the revolutionaries had armed themselves by storming the barracks of Budapest and winning many of the Hungarian soldiers to their side.

The Stalinists must also answer the question: why was not the Hungarian army, 'the army of a 'People's Democracy' entrusted with the suppression of the so-called fascist coup?

The fact is that this was a spontaneous popular uprising.

Its demands, more and more clearly formulated by the revolutionary workers' and students' councils, were the demands of the political revolution, whose aim is to restore the framework of proletarian democracy to the nationalized factories, mines and land, to give the working class control of the and the political life of blan nation, and to remove by force the bureaucratic obstacles to this path.

INTERVIEW When the 'Daily Worker's' reporter Peter Fryer reported to this effect, his dispatches were suppressed, and for a few days the 'Worker' resorted to reports from Charlie Coutts, who had been three years resident in Budapest, editing the international Stalinist youth magazine.

Despite the fact that Coutts lent himself to this misuse, he himself had given an interview to Fryer before the second Soviet intervention. This completely refutes the idea of a fascistinspired coup:

plained, ed not oppose ey thing that happened in their country since 1945. They had wanted to build Socialism in Hungary. They established the basis-but they were never allowed to build their own Socialism on it.

"After the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party everyone expected there would be a complete change.

"There were some timid changes but nothing that met the needs of the situation," said Mr. Coutts. • "In both the Communist Party and its youth organisations there were people who had not joined either on principle or because of political understanding but to advance their careers. They had joined for money and for power.

"There was no free discussion at all inside the Party. It follows from this" Mr. Coutts went on, "that in order to maintain position the Party leadership had to use the security police which was created in 1948. The Party as a whole, and Parliament of course, had no control, over the secret police at all. They had copied the worst features of the Soviet security police as it was under Beria.""

Ferencs Merey, spokesman of 2350055 the Budapest Students' Revolutionary Committee, told Coutts that they were fighting for really independent democratic Hungary building Socialism'.

Figures like Cardinal Mindzenty, friends of the imperialists, naturally wished to use the revolutionary situation to their own advantage, but they had no part in the leadership of the masses.

Coutts' mention of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is important if we are to understand the impact of the Hungarian Revolution in the world Stalinist movement.

Not only in Hungary but all over the world members of the Communist Parties were astounded by the revelations' of Khrushchev in March 1930, TTL..._L-L-which he admitted the repressive, police-state character of the Stalin regime.

But many of the best of these Communist Party members regarded Khrushchev's speech as the beginning of a new period in which the Communist Parties and the workers' states could be reformed and restored to the path of Lenin.

It took the brutal shock of the bloody Soviet intervention to persuade them that a revolutionary struggle must be fought against the Stalinist bureaucracy.

Henceforth there could be no question of compromise, of reform of Stalinism, but only acceptance of Trotsky's perspective: the bureaucracy is counterrevolutionary; a new revolutionary leadership must be constructed in struggle against it.

To defend the Soviet intervention would not have been an act of solidarity with the gains of the Russian Revolution, as the 'Daily Worker' claimed, but to line up against the working class of Hungary.

The imperialists were not in support of the revolutionary people of Hungary against the Red Army.

They would have liked to take advantage of the chaos caused by the revolution but only for their own purposes.

Reporting for "The Observer' Philip Deane wrote from Washington on November I1, 1956:

'High Administration sources say that the United States has tried to let the Russians know, without being provocative, that Berlin and Austria will be defended by American forces. Hungary, meanwhile, has been officially and finally abandoned to its fate.' In other words, the imperialists and the Stalinists had defined their spheres of control after 1945, and they were going to stick to them, without giving an inch either way. What both sides feared was the proletarian revolution in both East and West Europe.

Another worshipper of the status quo was R. Palme Dutt of the British Communist Party, Who wrote in the 'Daily Worker' of November 10, 1956:

'The Soviet armed forces were legally in Hungary by agreement under the Warsaw Pact.' Indeed the 'Daily Worker's' treatment of the Hungarian uprising was so abjectly subservient to its Kremlin masters that it undoubtedly played a major part in the departure of 11,000 members of the British Communist Party.

the first news of the rising, the 'Worker' followed Kremlin in denouncing it 'counter-revolution'.

NO COMMENT After the establishment of the Nagy government, when 'Pravda' and the East European press decided that the insurgents had genuine revolutionary complaints yorker followed suits and against decided the workers and peasants were 'revolutionary'.

However, as soon as the Red Army was sent in again, and the Kadar puppet government established, SO the 'Worker' once more found the Hungarians 'counter - revolutionary'. What comment is necessary?

Between the uprising

October 24, when the Budapest workers began the fight against Soviet troops which • established workers' control of the city, and the second Soviet intervention November 4, there existed a kind i dual power in Hungary.

mre Nagy and his ministers were the only political forces known to the people as an alternative to Gero and the worst of the Stalinists.

The real power however was in the hands of the workers' councils who placed Nagy in office.

The development of the revolution, like that of 1917 in Russia, would have seen struggle of political: tendencies inside the Councils, with the Marxists having the responsibility of developing a revolutionary alternative to the centrist politics of Nagy, once the dangers of his 'neutralism': were exposed to the masses.

In that struggle the banner of the Fourth International would have come forward as the only revolutionary rallying-point of our era. This represented the real danger to the bureaucracy internationally, the •acceptance by the workers of a new revolutionary leadership.

This is why Stalinists all over the world, from Britain to China, rallied behind Khrushchev against the Hungarian Revolution.

Trotskyists are proud to have supported struggle of the Hungarian and Polish workers of 1956.

Their revolutionary heroism against the Stalinists is an inspiration to every one of us, and their actions are the most important of the confirmations of the founding programme of the Fourth International.

The revolutionary workers of Eastern Europe will soon take up once again the glorious banner of Budapest 1956.

November 5. 196 Pag Three

BY CLII SLA UGHTER FOLLOWING THE RECENT attacks by 'Pravda' on Trotskyism (dealt with in the October 22 issue of The Newsletter) comes yet more evidence of the sharpening conflict between the Soviet working class and the bureaucracy. A recent session of the Supreme Soviet has enacted legislation forbidding the following acts:

One: :'Systematic dissemination in a verbal form of deliberate fabrications slandering the Soviet State and public structure.' Two: Preparation and dissemination of works of this kind in a written, printed or any other form.' Three: 'Any insult to the state coat-of-arms or the flag of the USSR."

Four: 'Organisation and participation in group activities violating public order or connected with apparant disobedience to the legal demands of the state officials, as well as those that involve the disruption of transport or the work of the state enterprises.' The penalties for these offences range up to a £38 fine, one year in a labour camp, or three years in prison.

The first point to be made is the classical Stalinist fashion in which the bureaucracy lumps together right and left opposition to its rule, thus hoping to pass all genune socialist movements which aim at the restoration of : workers' democracy as anti-soviet and therefore pro-capitalist.

Rights usurped Attacks on the Soviet flag and coat-of-arms are arbitarily linked with opposition movements amongst the working class and intellectuals, which far from being anti-Soviet, seek to restore rights established by the revolution of 1917 but long since usurped by the Stalinist bureauThat such oppositional groups exist is obvious from the nature of the laws enacted, being designed specifically to deal with organised circles that use both verbal and written propaganda.

Far from being isolated amongst student and. writers' groups, as has largely been the case up to now, the bureaucracy appears to , anticipate a drawing together of these long established centres of resistance to the bureaucracy (centres which showed their hands at the time of the Soviet writers trial) with the industrial working class. Hence the reference to disruption of transport and state enterprises.

an artificial bloc of creating between left and right-wing oppositions to the bureaucracy a long history, dating back to the days of the Trotskyist Left Opposition.

In order to compromise the opposition in the eyes of the Soviet working class, Stalir planted an ex-White Guard officer from Wrangel's army in a cell of the opposition-and then arrested the group on charge of collaborating with a White Guard!

The Moscow • Trials saw the development of this method on a far vaster scale, which became the blueprint for dealing with all future persons or factions that attempted to challenge the rule of the bureaucracy from a communist standpoint.

Similar frame-ups swept Eastern Europe following on the break of Tito from Stalin,_innocent party leaders such as Kostov in Bulgaria, Slansky in Czechoslovakia and Rajk in Hungary being executed on charges treason and collaboration with imperialist powers.

Bogus alliance After all, they could hardly be charged by a bureaucracy that claimed to be socialist, with the crime of organising a struggle for workers' democracy and equality of relations with the Soviet Union!

Today, the bureaucracy prepares itself for the radicalisation of the Soviet and East European working class by creating in advance such a bogus alliance. quirectual opposition. is not re- It is also significant that proof for persons to be sentenced: 'group activities violating public order or connected with la blanket term that has served the bureaucracy for nearly 40 years in its many frame-ups] apparent disobedience to the legal demands of the state officials' (Emphasis added.)

This law is clearly aimed against the enforcement of the so-called right to strike that the Soviet working class possesses— on paper.

It would be a mistake to overestimate the tempo of developments within the Soviet Union.

They are very much dependent upon the success of the workers' revolutions in the imperialist states, of which the political revolution in the workers' states is an integral part.

While the twin reformist bureaucracies of Stalinism and social democracy are able to check or divert the development of the revolution in the capitalist states, the workers under the rule of Stalinism will draw back from the task of its overthrow, realising as they do that such a struggle, undertaken without effective class solidarity from their fellow workers in the West may create for the imperialist powers the opportunity of intervention and the liquidation of all socialist gains.

The key to the political revolution, as developed by Trotsky and confirmed by the Hungarian revolution of 1956, rests with the building of the Fourth Internacome in radia thy thaisable onethrough the struggle against the pernicious idea that the bureaucracy is capable of self-liberalisation and is sensitive to the pressure of the working class.

The recent turn by the interon laws national Stalinist movement towards an organised campaign against Trotskyism, both in the Soviet Union through the press and in the capitalist world via its national Stalinist parties, is proof of the rotten and opportunist nature of this theory.

Both in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China, as well as in the capitalist states, the working class has now to fight for its independence as a class against Stalinism, whether re-enforced with state power or as miserable apologist for those reformists who wield it on behalf of capitalism.

This unified struggle against bureaucracy now becomes the material force that will thrust forward the reconstruction of the Fourth International, cleansed of all theories that sought to adapt it to buréaucracy.

THE HISTORY OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL, and before it the Left Opposition inside the Soviet Union, is devoted entirely to a defence and application of revolutionary Marxism. This is not an abstract question. It is one which has required the concrete investigation of all major happenings inside the international labour movement over the past 30 years. But the success of such investigation could not have been achieved, above all by Trotsky, without a continuous study of all the day-to-day happenings in his own organisation, the Fourth International.

The most important Marxist analysis of the origin and role of the Soviet is undoubtedly 'The Revolution Betrayed' which appeared in the late 1930s. when Trotsky was writing this book he was also actively intervening and seek to the hundred and one different problems which affected the various sec movement.

It was a period of entry into the centrist and social-democratic parties, and the difficulties were numerous. But all this was in the political day's work so far as Trotsky was concerned.

It was, in fact, intimately bound up with writing the 'Revolution, Betrayed', as well as the dozens of other articles which appeared in his name during those years.

So far as circumstances would allow, he was an active partıcıpant in the building of revolutionary parties until the day he was assassinated by This was his greatness; and it was the crowning achievement of his political life, because it fused his whole thinkLeninismi. being with • Lenin and No'revolutionary fighter ever got closer to applying the real meaning of Lenin's teachings than Trotsky. He was Lenin's great disciple, because at all stages he fought to fuse theory with practice. To him the theoretical analysis of Stalin's bureaucratic degeneration was inseparable from building the sections of the Fourth International.

Centrists

and Theory As usual, he came under fire from the centrists of the Independent Labour Party and the London Bureau. Since the hallmark of centrism is conon Trotory or they no baded.

Today the ILP has been reduced to the status of a small sect. The London Bureau disappeared long ago and with it any connections it had on the international field. Its old leaders who are still alive, such as Lord Brockway, have for some time come to terms of co-existence with the Establishment.

In comparison to the fate of these anti-theory specialists, the Socialist Labour League goes forward amongst the youth and industrial workers and has established itself a much more influential position than ever the ILP enjoyed, even in its hey-day.

Anti-theory methods. take different forms. There are those who try to place themselves on a moral pedestal playin.

who just want to carry out practical activity, without bothering about reading and thinking.

In countries such as Britain where, in the past, the development of the class struggle has been slow, such people have sown confusion, invariably winding up in the camp of the opportunists around the Labour Party.

Their spokesmen are to be found chiefly in the ranks of the fake Parliamentary 'left' The role of Stalinism The Stalinists in the Communist Party are constantly denouncing the Socialist Labour League as 'sectarian' By using this term, they endeavour to prevent a serious discussion on the political differences.

Close on their heels come the Socialist Workers' Party ot the USA, the Pabloite Unified Secretariat in Paris, the state capitalist group of Tony Cliff in England and the small gang of Pabloites, Messrs. Jordan, Taite, Coates, etc., who worship at the shrine of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation.

On every conceivable occasion they take time out to explain the SLL away as 'sectarian' When the SLL and the Young Socialists mobilise 1,500 trade unionists and youth a demonstration, they say it is 'sectarian and unimportant'. When 500 Young Socialists travel to Liege in Belgium, they look the other way and say it doesn't matter-yet they themselves only represent a tiny handful.

However, this does not at all mean that such groups are Stalinist in their complete political outlook.

For the Stalinists, the use of the word 'sectarian' is merely a continuation of their descripof the Trotskyist forces as tascist agents of Wall Street. Between Trotskyism and Stalinism there can be no compromise.

Although Stalin has been dead tor over 13 years, the basic revisionist ideas for which he stood still dominate the thinking of the Communist parties all over the world. Stalin represented the most privileged bureaucratic caste ever to arise in the international workers' movement during the history of capitalism.

This bureaucratic caste turn reflected profound opportunist degeneration in the Soviet Union which is today expressed in the policy of the "peacetul road to socialism'.

This policy emphasises that the bureaucracy wants peace with capitalism at all costs, which means that it is constantly in conflict with working class, whose problems can only be solved by overthrow of capitalism.

So far as the Soviet bureaucracy is concerned, their privileges come first and in order to protect them they are constantly prepared to do a deal with the imperialists at the expense of the working class.

Trotsky fought tor the establishment of international socialism, which was Lenin's policy. In doing so he came into violent conflict with the Stalinists persecuted framed and murdered the majority of Lenin's Central Committee during the 1917 Revolution because they opposed them. They murdered some of the most ! prominent of Trotsky's secretaries, and, in the end, Trotsky himself.

For us today, Stalin is dead, but the ideas of Stalinism live Any revisionist tendencies which in one form or another adapt themselves politically to the Stalinists are, our opinion, mortal enemies. This is the essence of our split from the Pabloites and other revisionists.

Let us start with the Pabloite Unified Secretariat.

They broke from Trotskyism in 1951 b déveloping after Stalin's death meant a theory i that de-Stalinisation decisive change in the Stalinist bureaucracy. Five years Stalinist chieftan, Khrushchev, drowned the Hungarlan Revolution against the. Rakosi-Gero bureaucracy in a NAME COATE AGAINST N.A.TO. A MA 500 Young Socialists march in Liege, Belgium-the tiny revisionist handful say it doesn't matter! bureaucracy At the time ing solutions tions of his Socialist Labour League LAMDETY ADES COUNCIL sea of blood.

At that time the Pabloites formally criticised Khrushchev's intervention, but at the international youth demonstration in Liege, Belgium, on October 15, they called in the police to remove banners from the French and English contingents who advocated support tor the Hungarian Revolution on the occasion of its tenth anniversary.

Herein lies the difference between the Stalinists and the Unified Secretariat-revisionist capitulators to bureaucracy.

During the Hungarian revolution there was a powerful outburst of imperialist propaganda against the Soviet Union which took full advantage of the criminal actions Khrushchev.

The gentlemen supporters. of the Unified Secretariat found little difficulty at that time in condemning these actions. Today, it is different.

Now Johnson needs the Soviet bureaucracy to help to strangle the Vietnamese revolution, as well as the rising YOUNG SO ASS trade unionists and youth march-'sectarian', according to the revisionists!

The last of a series of articles by National Secretary Socialist Labour League The tide of revolutionary opposition from the working class in the metropolitan capitalist countries.

The youth, who perhaps more than any other section of the working-class movement enter politics as a result of a struggle against bureaucracy, are proving a real danger to the Soviet bureaucracy, which is moving steadily towards agreement with the archimperialists.

The Pabloite Unified Secretariat senses this reapproachment, and now emerges as the left cover' for bureaucracy and imperialism, and calls in the police to deal with the Young Socialists who commemorate the Hungarian. Revolution.

The SWP covers up for the Stalinists One of the most spectacular developments in the USA in recent years has been the vast IN YE NAM movement to the left amongst the middle-class intelligentsia and the university youth. Untortunately, this movement still remains isolated from the working class.

The policy of the Communist Party of the United States is to turn it politically towards the capitalist Democratic Party, by taking advantage of this isolation.

However, it faces certain difficulties in the forthcoming Congressional Elections. Because there is widespread opposition to the Democratic Party, the Communist Party, has, especially in New York, to arrange a stepping stone towards it.

That is the reason why Apthecker, a leading : United States Stalinist, is standing fOr office in Brooklyn. He supports to the hilt the Democratic Party orientation of the Communist Party. A vote for Apthecker today is an invitation to be led by the nose to the Democratic Party tomorrow.

At this point the Socialist Workers' Party intervenes and gives critical support to him. Whilst it criticises his attitude towards the Democratic Party, it nevertheless advocates voting for him. The significance of such a decision cannot be estimated solely within the geographical boundaries of New York.

Apthecker is an old Stalinist hack who has toed the Party line at all times, especiaily over Hungary. He is prepared to support not only the Democratic Party but any deal which the Soviet bureaucrats cook up with Johnson to betray the Vietnamese revolution. He is deliberately trying to manoeuvre • United States radicals towards the capitalist Democratic Party.

By exploiting the use of the word 'critical support for Apthecker', the SWP is merely covering up the fact that it is initiating a sly, stage-by-stage orientation towards the Democratic Party itself.

If the SWP was really seriously inclined towards an exposure of Stalinism, and warning those who will be confused by Apthecker, then it should openly expose him and the counter-revolutionary policies of the Communist Party of the United States today.

The SWP will not take long to find out that revisionism must ultimately lead towards political capitulation to the politics of the capitalist parties.

On the experience of Liege, the weekly paper 'Militant', published by the SWP, remains silent, although it had a number of leading members present who were aware that the police were called in to take down the banners of the British and French Young Socialists.

So be it, gentlemen. When you say A. for Apthecker, you will be soon shouting P. for the police.

The state capitalist group of Cliff characterises the Soviet Union as a capitalist count is On the surface this group supposed to be very hostile towards Stalinism, but this is purely superficial.

By designating the Soviet Union as a capitalist country contemptuously dismisses the economic conquests which remain as a result of the 1917 revolution. Over the past few years, this position has enabled it to cuddle up closer to the Labour Party right wing in the struggle against the Young Socialists.

Now that these same Young Socialists have emerged as a powerful: force against tne Prices and Incomes Act, the state capitalists weigh in whatever support they can muster behind the Stalinists.

From serving the social-democratic bureaucracy, they now embrace the agents of the Stalinist bureaucracy. Up until recently this change of ally did not bring them into open alliance with the Pabloites. However, the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation has established the bridge-head.

On that Committee the three open supporters of the Paris Unified Secretariat joined hands with the state capitalists recently in an attempt to prevent speaker from the Socialist Labour League from exposing the counter-revolutionary role of the Soviet bureaucracy in relation to the war in Vietnam.

Thus all of those revisionist forces, no matter what their reservations about the role of Stalinism, inevitably find themselves in the same camp when it comes to providing a left cover for imperialism. Trust Bertrand Russell to thoughtfully provide the plaiform for such united action.

These anti-Marxists reject the principle that the working class can emancipate itself and overthrow capitalism through the building of a revolutionary party. They are turned exclusively towards the politics of the petty-bourgeois revisionists.

As a result, they constantly tend towards liquidation into Labour and social-democratic parties in some countries, and the Stalinist parties in others.

The Socialist Labour League has taken its stand clearly against these parties and their counter-revolutionary role. We politically oppose them and have set our course firmly towards the building of the reframework of are International Committee of the Fourth International.

This does not at all mean that we will not carry out an entry into their ranks in order to do battle against them as we have done in the past. It means that our principled conception of the struggle to develop Marxism against revisionism and its reformist and Stalinist allies. is inseparable from the day-to-day struggles to build the revolutionary party.

The Socialist Labour League follows in the footsteps Lenin and Trotsky in the constant struggle to develop Marxist theory.

AN INTERESTING ARTICLE in the current issue of 'Business' underlines the rapid decline of the Communist Party in industry and the unions. Although written from the point of view of the industrialist, this material nevertheless emphasises some of the problems which are now beginning to worry Party militants.

The article draws attention to the age of most of the Party industrial members.

Victor Feather, assistant general secretary of the TUC, is quoted:

"The Communist Party has been very much on the wane. The prominent communists in industry are veterans; you can't find any under the age of 35, and the old ones are mellowing with time' The author goes on to examine the coming power struggle in the Amalgamated Engineering Union. Again he points to the deep divisions within the Party on this question, especially in relation to Reg Birch.

As Feather points out:

'The Trotskyists have been growing in influence and importance, and competing actively against the communists in all their efforts!

"Different animal'

Jock Haston, himself a renegade from the Trotskyist movement, and now educational officer of the Electrical Trades Union, comments:

"The communist today is a different animal from the dedicated man he was before the Hungarian debacle. That and the split between Russia and China have done the party enormous damage. It is now being out-manoeuvred on the left wing by the Trotskyists.' Birch was also interviewed for the article and makes a scathing attack upon the Party leadership in the trade unions.

"There's no strategy Communist Party any more. Bert Ramelson, its industrial organiser, and the centre are no longer in the know. ... As for campaigning, there's no real work being done by the party to contest the five executive council positions in the AEU.

The comments of Will Paynter, general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, are extremely revealing of the degeneration of the Stalinists and should be taken as a warning to all party members in this and other unions.

I'm not the same kind of communist I was 20 years ago; you mature when you accept responsibility.' Feather's comment on Paynter and Harry Watson of the Lightermen:

"They're good reformist trade unionists. «There are some areas we'll never agree upon, but they're people I like very much' As Paynter frankly admits:

Ive belonged to the Communist Party since 1929. I've been against its line many times and I don't take directions from King Street? 'named Harry Watson, Wilson's Red one of the Scare during the seamen's strike, reflects • a similar position to Paynter.

According to this gentleman the "TUC is tremendously useful as a national forum in which the rank and file can express their feelings. But I wouldn't like to see it become subordinate to reactionary policies, particularly When those are aligned to pressures from foreign governments' (sic!).

This article in 'Business' though superficial and unable in any way to explain why the Party has declined to its present crisis in the Party. gives a glimmer of the The Party leaders, basing themselves on the "peaceful road to

THE MOTOR INDUSTRY ON FRIDAY 12,000 car workers were thrown on He is taking the same line as BMC chief Sir the dole by the British Motor Corporation, with George Harriman in 'pressing' the government to lift hire purchase restrictions for the motor industry. short-time working for a further 30,000, and tears This fact has struck the local Tory press as headline at all car factories of more redundancies to come.

title When the Capitalist and the Communist Agree.

This is the size of what has been done to car workers by the Labour government they helped to No communist can in fact agree under any circumstances, on this or any other political or industrial For this disastrous situation a heavy responsibility issue, with a capitalist. Any self-styled communist must rest with the trade union leaderships, who have must have moved a long way from Karl Marx if he remained obstinately blind to the clear implications can" stand alongside a capitalist boss and call for of the government's economic policies. Throughout neasures to save the car industry, instead of seeing they have supported Wilson and connived at his antisocialism' and comprorhise with capitalism, are more and more the servants and hangers-on of the reformists, whether left' or 'right'.

In the unions this has taken the form of greater and greater adaptation to left sections of the bureaucracy and the abandonment of any independent policy and strategy. Thus the Party becomes more and more simply an instrument for vote gathering at union election times, with this work divorced completely from any politics.

The economic crisis has pushed the Stalinists rapidly to the right, along with all the other bureaucratic forces.

Thus they prevented a real fight in the seamen's strike by insisting, against all the developments, that this was merely an industrial dispute, and did not involve a light against the Labour government: they have proved incapable of leading anything in the unions against the Prices and Incomes Act; their main energies have been devoted to a futile attempt to prevent the Trotskyists from leading such a campaign.

Fear gains

Above all the Stalinists fear the gains made by the Socialist Labour: League amongst the youth.

Most of their cadres in industry come from the pre-war or immediate post-war years.

They are a rapidly ageing Party, losing their grip in , the NUM, the AEU, as well as in the ETU This is why the Stalinists have such fear of the Young Socialists: here lies the threat of a real alternative communist movement to their waning influence in the unions.

Hence their desperate attempts Commust the sagging Young League, which is dominated by petty-bourgeois layers from around the 'peace movement'.

But the Stalinists should not be underestimated. Nor should their strength be judged simply by their numbers.

The Stalinists have the "record' as the most powerful counter-revolutionary force behalf of imperialism during this century.

Endanger conquests Not only did Stalinism endanger the conquests of 1917 in the Soviet Union; more than this. the main weapon which the capitalists used after 1945 to restore European capitalism were the Communist Parties of France and Italy who. used their strength in the working-class movement in both these countries to stop the working class from taking power in the post-war crisis.

In Britain, despite the verbal attacks made on the Communist Party by the right wing, in practice they prove most valuable allies.

Certainly it is now impossible to distinguish Party policy from that of the fake "lefts' in the Parliamentary Labour Party.

The real answer to Stalinism is not simply to watch its decline. The only answer is to develop the forces of Marxism embodied in the programme anc organisation of the Socialisi Labour League and Fourth International.

motion passed FROM MICKIE SHAW YOUNG SOCIALISTS made up approximately a quarter of 50-60 people attending Clydebank Trades Council's conference last weekend called to discuss growing unemployment in the area.

last election would have said the of the Scottish TUC same thing a few months ago and a i ofticial of the about the legislation making it Amalgamated Engineer in g illegal for workers to defend their Union and Communist Party living standards by strike action.

If the Labour government could member Bro. Sherriff. do that-it could introduce Without anger or emotion, they direction of labour too. spoke of growing unemployment Only one speaker from the and factory closures. floor supported the platform.

As part of the trade union Overwhelmingly the delegates bureaucracy, they were incapable insisted that there must be a Brent (London) Trades Council of displaying any class feeling at fight, and that it must take place on October 26, the National the calamitous situation tacing whilst the workers were still League of the Blind's London Scottish families thrown out of organised in the factories and district organiser described the factories on to the dole shipyards. some of the activities and government responsibility, about queues. They talked vaguely government responsible for the A resolution holding the struggles which his union had growing unemployment and call- carried out. the need for MPs to fight with ing for nationalization of shipthe unions against unemployment. building and marine engine buldBut their statements soon re- ing industries was carried. 'sheltered workshops' should vealed their real positions. Jack wound up the discussion Sherriff, recounting Clyde with an attack against the revo- of municipal employees. closures and difticulties enlutionary policies of the Young countered by some engineering Socialists. County Council, but was resisted firms, said that in one case AEU othcials accompanied a boss to YS WELCOMED by the London County Council an interview With his bank manager to assure the latter But the chairman of the con- living in Middlesex, but working gentleman that workers would in- ference in his final remarks welcrease their productive ettort if comed the Young Socialists to London workshops, financial backing for the firm the conference and defended drawing the £3 8s wages in the was maintained. their right to express a revolu- shops and getting their extra pay tionary point of view.

DEGENERATED These sentiments were in luthority: so there was a dis arity of wages with money de Such an admission, made with- keeping with the support given pending on where a person lived. out the faintest hini of criticism, by members of the Clydebank from a public platform by Trades Council to the Young Ejected from Council member the Communist Socialists over the past period. It Party, indicates bow far the CP is now vital that support is continued. hoc decenerated. that he and another blind worker But this is in line with the By responding to the lead given actions of leading CP shop by the Young Socialists the at that time when they interstewards in the Fairfield ship- Trades Council can open the way rupted an ICC meeting in proyard, who a few months ago were for workers in Clydebank and test against this attitude. feverishly seeking financial back- the whole of Clydeside to fight ing to keep the Fairfield Company back. recognised, and it was established going. that blind workers in "sheltered No longer are the unions re- workshops' would receive wages, garded by these gentlemen as or- holidays etc., in accordance with ganisations through which the working class can begin to received. struggle to end the system of exploitation. a 14s a week increase given to Sherriff is at present conduct- workers employed by Greater ing negotiations with Mirrlees London boroughs was denied to Watson, an engineering firm the blind. which proposes to shut down one of its factories. claimed, the West Ham workHe gave no indication to the shops, run by the Newham meeting how he intended to

vote into power. either.

of the world capitalisa system a time of acutest crisis Throughout this situation Etheridge has substituted gimmicky gestures for resolute leadership. He has squandered the previous weeks in which a real fight might have been organised against unemployment. As a result, the frustrated militancy of the workers is now finding its vent in sporadic strikes against reNow, instead of giving leadership in an all-out official campaign to resist the sacking of even one single worker, in implementation of the recent failure to agree' decision at York, what does Etheridge propose? That on Monday all BMC workers, including those who have been sacked, should turn up for work as usual, with the object of forcing the manageStewards in ENV's sacking list adopted by the Middlese THE FIRST DISMISSAL notices were handed out at the north London engineering firm of ENV last week-and six shop stewards are on the sacking list. Chairman of the shop stewards committee Geoff Carlsson is claiming that this is a deliberate and calculațed cheque from the Middlesex move to attack the union.

The London organiser claimed were thrown out of County Hall Eventually their demands were whatever local council employees This was broken recently when In one case, the organiser Borough Council, paid the increase one week, but then deA COACHLOAD of Belfast Young Socialists made a signifi cant intervention in a Dublin demonstration, consisting main!: cil to urge the local borough of students, against the Vietnam war last Saturday (October Ve realise that our strength tie up our wages with those 29).

The organisers of the demonstration intended it to be limited to pacifist appeals for negotiations and the observance of the notorious Geneva He also criticised Minister of Social Security Margaret Herbi. Agreements of 1954. son for refusing to accept the But the Belfast YS, by their positive intervention in support I the Vietnamese workers an easants, made a tremendous im pact, not only on those participating in the 300-strong march, it should be , As the demonstrators marched original value. Miss Herbison through Dublin's main streets, the banners of the YS and their Brent Trades Council has de- shouts of 'Victory to the Vietcided to take this up with her cong' enraged the middle-class pressing rent, Codneil for the organisers of the march to such an extent that they demanded the youth stop shouting and take down their banners.

STOOD FIRM However, as in many similar instances all over the British Isles, and on the Continent, the YS, stood firm and continued to express their support for the Vietcong.

A significant feature of the march was that numbers of Dublin demonstrators left their places behind the pacifist banners and fell in behind the YS.

A highly successful meeting was held by the YS after the march and throughout the weekend they came into contact with many militant, young Dublin workers, who showed a keen interest in YS policies.

This intervention of the Belfast youth on the Dublin political scene is very important.

DEVELOPMENT For some time the YS has exerted considerable influence in Northern Ireland, and last Saturday's • demonstration will no doubt accelerate the development of a powerful socialist youth movement in the Irish Republic, closely allied to the YS, both in Northern Ireland and Britain. dundancy in certain factories. ment to agree to work-sharing! Industrial NEWSLETTER INDUSTRIAL YS Policy si pacifists ment. gimmicks. and Socialist Labour League.

An American-owned firm, ENV Willesden announced earlier this year that it would close following the management's failure to impose new agreement in the factory, which would have virtually wiped out any union organisation.

The stewards still feel there will be a decision to keep the factory open, and that this will come after all the stewards have been sacked.

The first list of sackings, they claim, break the company's assurance of a last-in, first-out arrangement of phased redundancy.

Strike 'action against the redundancies has not been ruled out, but the stewards will probably wait for a decision of the Amalgamated. Engineering Union, which is giving 'urgent consideration' to the situation, before taking any action.

135 TO GO The first sackings involvé 135 of the firm's 1,500 workers and include one man who has been in the tool room for 26 years. The six shop stewards under notice form 20 per cent of all stewards at the factory. One has been at ENV for at least 14 years, another for seven years.

One of them said he was worried about ENV men getting jobs in the area-he felt that other firms were discriminating against ENV men.

with the government's economic measures affecting the motor car industry and other major engineering firms, there will be little chance of permanent jobs in the north-west London industrial belt anyway.

A local employment exchange official denied this and added that firms up and down the country had asked specifically for ENV men. But how many of these men will want to move to Newport. (Monmouthshire), or Barrow-in-Furness, where some of the demands are said to come from?

Convenor at ENV, Mr. Geoff Mitchell,. was seeing 30 Labour MPs on , Monday night about the Willesden situation. an article with the CP's age crisis

BLIND WORKERS in 'sheltered workshops' are feeling the freeze like the rest of the working class. Their union, the National League of the Blind, is asking for the support of other trade unionists in trying to get a wage increase for their members in workshops in the Greater London area.

Speaking to delegates at the They had fought for the prinhave their wages linked to those n januar policy

LAST SATURDAY'S (October 29) intervention by the Belfast Young Socialists in a Dublin Vietnam demonstration was preceded a few days earlier by a large demonstration of small farmers from the 26 counties demanding better prices for their produce.

The immediate reason for the poverty of the Irish small farmers is the profiteering middlemen. recently quoted example exposes the role of these parasites: Farmers just outside Dublin were being paid 4d • a pound for tomatoes, which were then sold in the city for ls 9d a pound.

The present Irish government relies on such middlemen for support.

It is useless, therefore, as the present leaders of National Farmers' Association persist in doing, to demand that the government guarantees better prices for the representing the workers and Only a government small farmers can expropriate the parasite middlemen.

Leadership need

The plight of the small farmers, some of whom have to raise a family on not more than £5 a week, together with the attack on working-class living standards, which is inherent in the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement, underlines once more the need for a new working-class leadership in Ireland.

The intervention of the Belfast YS marks an important step towards the building of that leadership.