The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 468

ACE THE FACTS. The dole queues are swelling each day. Almost overnight tens of thousands of hard-working people have had their weekly income slashed to a small fraction of what it used to be. It won't be long before the bills mount up, rent, rates and hire purchase. There are, of course, no jobs available. The word 'redeployment' is a reminder of a cruel joke initiated by rightwing traitors in the Labour Party. In the factories, where the 'shake out' has taken place, the employers are on the warpath.

BMC is determined to bring its wages structure into line with Fords and General Motors.

Together with the rest of the employing class it proposes to proceed from 'wage freezing' to wage cutting. Wilson has accomplished what the Tory government was unable to do in 12 years. He has organised the employers to fight the workers under conditions where the full force of the state with its laws against the trade unions is now bearing down upon every worker, employed and unemployed. Meanwhile, is it good enough for MPs who claim to be more socialist and left' than Wilson to abstain on the vote when Part IV of the Prices and Incomes Act is being applied by Parliament?

How can they abstain?

Are they for it or against it?

Is it good enough for them to nothing when thousands being sacked?

Are they for unemployment or against it? Is it good enough for them to stay silent when prices are rising almost daily? We will be blunt and to the point. Such conduct is just as bad as that of Wilson. If the 'left' MPs and Frank Cousins want to fight, then the way is immediately open to them: Announce without delay a public break from Wilson, Brown and Callaghan. Place a resolution before the Parliamentary Labour Party demanding the resignation of Wilson and his Cabinet and their replacement by Labour Members of Parliament who are prepared to fight for the following policies :

The immediate repeal of the and Incomes Act.

• The legal reinstatement of all who have been sacked.

Nationalization, without compensation, of all the basic industries under workers' control, so that socialist planning can begin. • Withdraw all troops from overseas and break with US imperialism over its brutal war in Vietnam. This programme by itself is not enough. Without mass action there can be no real change from the present policy of Wilson. The programme requires the immediate intervention of the working class. In the event, as it seems most likely, of Wilson dominating the Parliamentary Labour Party, it will become necessary for the left' MPs to call upon the working class from all over the country to stage a one-day strike, a demonstration and lobby of Parliament. They must prove to Wilson that they mean business. Force him to resign and change the leadership of the government. Cease abstaining and go into action. tight and say workers are PUBLIC MEETING BELFAST SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 7.30 p.m.

CONTINENTAL ROON (Entrance in Chapel LE BELFAST

ON OCTOBER I1 two men, Mr. Carroll and Mr. McDonald, were fined £20 each at Brighton magistrates court, after being arrested on the pavement whilst a demonstration of Young Socialists was marching on the streets on the eve of the Labour Party conference.

The Morning Star' , Organ of the Communist Party, reported on October 12 that the Young Socialist 'marchers had told them to leave the procession and Carroll said he had been pushed out.

Thus the Stalinists implied that the Young Socialists were, in fact, responsible for the arrests. In the "Tribune' of October 21, Mr. Pat Jordan, an official of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign and a Pabloite supporter the Unified' Paris Secretariat, set out, quite unwittingly perhaps, to spread this poison further. In a letter of protest about the fines and treatment of the accused, he wrote :

"Their "crime" was to get involved in an argument with Keep Left Young Socialist demonstrators who objected to their joining in a KLYS march along Brighton front?

Mr. Jordan appears very anxious to help the Morning Star. Unfortunately for both of them, the truth about the arrest can now be confirmed from one of those involved, Mr. McDonald.

In an interview and report by 'Mandrake' of the 'Sunday Telegraph' on November 6, the following account appears:

Indeed Mr. McDonald and Mr. Carrol are ardent multi-racialists; dedicated campaigners In pacifist and humanitarian causes. What took them to Brighton on Oct. 2 was a C.N.D. demonstration on the first day of the Labour Party Conference.

Ernie McDonald arrived late, after demonstration had started. Finding a march in the streets near the station. he unfurled a banner proclaiming "Birmingham Council for Peace in Vietnam "—one end of which was enthusiastically grabbed by Tom Carroll - and joined in.

It was not long, however, before McDonald's keen political Isixth sense detected that he was in the wrong march: that this was, in fact, a Trotskyist demonIstration organised by the Socialist Labour League.

"We rolled up the banner." says McDonald, "and walked on to the pavement, alongside the march. Carroll began shouting at people he knew on the march to come out of it, and join the C.N.D. demonstration. Meanwhile, asked a policeman where the C.N.D. march was, and he directed me to the sea front."

Almost immediately, for reasons which are still not clear to either man, both were arrested for obstruction, bundled into a van, and, eventually, whisked off to Lewes prison.

nailed There was no argument with the organisers of the demonstration. McDonald and Carroll could have marched with their banner if they had wished. The Young Socialists protested most strongly against the arrests and fines and they would have been very happy if McDonald and Carroll had marched in their demonstration. The choice was up to them.

The Stalinists placed another interpretation on what happened for their own ends in their unprincipled struggle with the Trotskyists, because they have on a number of occasions recently called the police to remove contingents of Young Socialists from their demonstrations.

Although the facts about such cases are well known to Mr. Jordan, he has so far remained silent.

Surely, here is another case where Pabloite thinking and hostility to Trotskyism helps the Stalinists.

It also explains why Trotskyists were prevented from criticising the Stalinists at a central London Vietnam Solidarity Campaign meeting early in August.

Even this makes their crisis more acute-on Saturday three members of the Young Communist League (one of them quite prominent) retused to march in protest at the calling of the police. Ironically the CP leaflet handed out called on the YS to 'settle accounts with your leadership'!

Worried

Several adult supporters of the Party also refused to march and stayed behind to listen to the YS meeting. Many of those who did march were clearly very worried at the Party's action and are beginning to question the Party's politics.

As the struggle of the working class becomes more acute, many of these members will begin to study the Trotskyist programme which fills their leaders with such anger and desperation.

SHORT-TIME IN BRADFORD Bradford, Engineed at the bef Bradford, announced at the ginning of the week that 100 men are to go on a four-day week.

The firms claims that this is due to lack of work. Union officials have said they can do nothing about the short-time.

Several men have left the firm because of the lack of work—reducing many to f10 a week-and lack of union action

W SL

the city.

CP COMMUNIST PARTY organisers appealed to the Leeds police to use the 1936 Public Order Act—introduced because of the activities of the Mosley-ites-against members of the Young Socialists and Socialist Labour League last Saturday (November 5). This attack occurred before a demonstration, called by the Yorkshire area Communist Party, was about to move off around THE CP LEAFLET handed out last Saturday included the following passages:

'This demonstration has been called by the Communist Party and the Young Communist League. Its purpose is o pur our poncy to the public and for this reason we nave NOT invited any other organisation to take part. We are not willing to accept any other organisation to take part.

Your organisation, which disagrees with our policy and attacks our leaders, comes here without ever having consulted us.

'We will not accept you on our demonstration and if you want one make your own arrangements with the police. If you have not done so and run into difficulties, don't blame us, blame your own leaders who brought you here without either consulting us or notifying the police.

'For years the police have never had reason to intervene in the internal affairs of a demonstration, only in recent months have they sometimes had reason to do so and the responsibility for this rests entirely on your leaders.... If this leads to trouble, your leaders are responsible.

'We realise that your rank and file includes people who are honest and we are prepared to accept you as individuals on the march provided you accept these reasonable terms:

Drop your slogans and carry ours. Accept the direction of our stewards. Enter our march as individuals and not as organised body.

'We leave it to you to settle accounts with your leadership for their disruptive action' Called on an area basis, the march was attended by 45 CP members-the size of the demonstration shows the crisis of the Pariy which decided to send four full-time organisers: Dave Priscott (secretary of the Yorkshire District Committee of the CP and NEC member), Bob Wilkinson (Sheffield-based organiser), Howard Hill (Yorkshire industrial organiser, recently based in Hull), and Bill Moore (Leeds Party secretary).

'Unity of the Labour left, militants in the unions and the Communist Party can change Wilson's Tory policies' was the theme of their lead banner. Just Over 30 members of the Young Socialists turned up with banners demanding 'End Wilson's Wage Freeze', and, half an hour later, when the CP contingent finally appeared, the YS were handed duplicated leaflet,_ signed by Priscott. and addressed to 'The SLL and the Trotskyist Young Socialists'.

This told them that they would not be allowed to march. The YS 'rank and file' could join the march as individuals if they dropped their slogans. Priscott produced a letter he had written to the Leeds chief constable saying it was a CP march and no other organisation would be allowed to Of course, the YS refused to give up their slogans and argued vehemently with the Stalinists and police.

At one point the police appeared to be giving way so Priscott dashed away and returned with a police inspector who read out a section from the 1936 Public Order Act and threatened to arrest YS members if they marched.

While this was going on, Howard Hill, beside himself with rage, screamed repeatedly at the mother or the ce, arnold Petite of feeds Univer sity, stood by silently. This gentleman has maintained a consistent silence when writers and critics have disappeared into Stalinist prison camps so he can hardly be expected to speak out against the police!

As the CP contingent moved off, eight policemen lined up in front of the Young Socialists, prepared This action reveals the crisis in the Communist Party. Forced by the highly successful demonstrations of the SLL and YS-such as the recent Brighton and Liege marches-they have to give their members some activity.

When they do so, however, not only do their full-time organisers produce pathetically poor results, but they are immediately faced with, the political programme of the Trotskyists, which is in marked contrast to their trailing behind the 'left' MPs and trade union officials. for 3d. rise

what 'unity' meant was soon made clear. carry its banner on the demonstration.

Defended slogans

physically to stop them from moving.

- • The fear of this real alternative is so great that they continually call in the capitalist police. BARBICAN REDEVELOPMENT **? MYTON SITE 100% TU SMASH THE FREEZE URRIF By a Cardiff Correspondent MAN ALMOST 300 LONDON buildins workers marched to the-National Federation of Building Employers to protest against speed-up and reduction in bonus earnings on Tuesday.

As they walked from Marble Arch to the employers' headquarters in Cavendish Street, several shouted: 'What do we want-Threepence'. They were also protesting at the freeze on a threepenny increase, due under an agreement, due that day.

Called by the joint sites committee, the demonstration drew workers from the giant Barbican development siteespecially Myton's site, which is in dispute-Bernard Sunley's Horseferry road site also in dispute--Higgs and Hill site, Waterloo, and other sites.

There were intermittent shouts of 'Wage freeze-Out!' and 'Unemployment - Out!' and a leading Communist Party member continually asked through megaphone wages. Not once ail e Forest who 'they' were.

At the Horseferry road site, the works' committee was sacked late last month for 'industrial misconduct'-they had taken 350 workers out strike against the management's attempts to impose gang bonus and a new clocking on system.

The men are still out. night, the South West London nt. the so Federation of Young Socialists unanimously passed the following resolution:

This meeting congratulates he workers in dispute at the Sunley site, Horseferry Road stand they have committee and trade union one defend the works' Foretont Thin are in those workers who are struggling against the emplovers' and Labour government's attack the trade unions and the working class. We pledge full support for Federation decided to inform all affiliated branches of the workers' struggle and strike a letter has been sent send donation to the o the site committee inform ng them of these decisions

THE ANGER among the peopl tragic disaster-has led to the organisations of villagers who a handling of their children's futu An Aberfan Residents' Protection Association has been set demanding that Aberfan people should have a majority on the committee set up to administer the disaster fund.

At present, the committee of 11, set up by the Mayor of nearby Merthyr Tydfil-he wants to turn Aberfan into a shrine!-has co-opted one Aberfan councillor and one parent.

It is believed that the Protection Association and the Parents' Association may unite within the next few days. They already have joint legal representation at the tribunal into the disaster, due to open officially later this month.

Both Associations insist that the fund should not be used to build a new school: they want the National Coal Board to be made to pay for this.

The Parents' Association voted on Monday to boycott the temporary pre-fabricated school rooms set up in full view of the scene of the disaster and the cemetery where many of their friends are buried. The school is situated below another, older tip from the Merthyr Vale colliery, whose slag was heaped on to the killer tip.

'Springs muddied'

Lord Justice Edmund Davies, chairman of the Aberfan disaster tribunal, said at a preliminary hearing on Tuesday that the ban on comment about the disaster, announced by the Attorney General, Sir Elwyn Jones, was made after consultations with him.

They were concerned, he said, that 'the springs of evidence should not become muddied at the source.

The previous day, the report of the government's own Royal Commission on tribunals had recommended that the Attorney General should not participate in tribunals himself.

However, Lord Justice Davies said that Sir Elwyn would still act as leading counsel for the tribunal.

He claimed that this was entirely different from all previous cases of tribunals, implying that it did not involve the government, or any political considerations. It has been pointed out, though, that a nationalized industry is involved in the investigations.

In the House of minons, The Attorney General said: tribunal, having been established with wide terms of reference, it is highly undesirable that any comments should be made in the press, in the radio or on television on matters which it will be the express funtions of the tribunal to investigate.' of Aberfan-the scene of th establishment of independer showing their distrust of th and the disaster fund.

BIRMINGHAM No. 11 branch of the Amalgamated Engineering Union unanimously passed the following resolution last Friday (November 4) :

"This branch demands the immediate suspension of compensation to ex-coal mine owners. This money to be used to make all coal slag heaps safe in Britain. We also demand that representatives from the miners' union and citizens of Aberfan should sit on the Commission of Inquiry into the disaster.' This resolution is to be sent to the Birmingham District Committee of the union.

Does this mean that the 'wide terms of reference', , to which the government gave so much publicity, are now to be the reason for imposing a wide-ranging gag?

Working people in the Merthyr area have expressed deep resentment over this gag. It is regarded with almost universal susReciong to same independent ae.

tion by Aberfan villagers in demanding their rights.

Perhaps recognising this, at least one donation, from motor workers in a London factory, has been sent direct to the Parents' Association, not the committee.

Meanwhile the concern spreading throughout the South Wales mining valleys has led to a spate of protest meetings and petitions over the dangers from coal tips.

PUBLIC MEETING

Hungarian Revolution KTON HALL (nearest tube St James Thursday November 17-7.30 p.m.

AILEEN JENNINGS, Editor, Keep Left ERRE LAMBERT, secretary of the OCI (France) Long live the of 1956 Speakers will include MICHAEL BANDA, Editor, 'Newsletter'

THE MAGNIFICENT demonstration organised by the Jeune Gardes Socialistes in Liège on October 15 did not please everybody. We can understand that the bourgeoisie and the _ reactionaries should be hostile to the anti-imperialist convictions clearly expressed by 4,000 youth. We can also understand that the leaders of the Socialist Party should be embarrassed by this impressive demonstration of youth, as they never manage to get together any more than a few dozen bureaucrats sons.

What we can understand less readily is that some organisations, which call themselves left wing, should find ways of running down the strongest demonstration in support of the Vietnamese revolution which has so far taken place in our country.

This is, however, what 'La Voix du Peuple', the paper of the pro-Peking Communist Party, does in its article on the Liège demonstration entitled Trotskyist finds that and Cops', , and this demonstration was ... anti-communist.

To do this, Grippa's supporters must pretend to be blind and deaf and to not have noticed the great number of banners in defence of Vietnam and the shouts in solidarity with the National Liberation Front against American imperialism.

Neither do they retreat before falsification. As their arch enemy is Massoz, whom they have expelled, they have falsified a photo in order to show him marching in front of the banner 'Long live the Hungarian socialist revolution of 1956' Too bad for them. Revolutionary and working-class youth iurn away and will turn away from these procedures of political gangsters.

But they are not alone in putting forward false descriptions of the Liège demonstration.

The editors of a British weekly, The Newsletter, Who call themselves Trotskyists, but who do not have much in common with the ideology of Leon Trotsky, have not hesitated to use the same method of falsification.

They imprudently declare that the JGS leaders called the police in order to have the

British Young Socialists' contingent at Liège, October 15 HERE ARE THE EVENTS as they took place between myself, Claude Thirry, president of the IGS, and the Belgian police :

We went to Thirry to ask him about the order of march and instead of answering this question he began to demand that our banner on the Hungarian revolution should be taken down. Our reply was that there could be no question of this.

He then said that in that case we would not be part of the march. I replied that as we, together with our French comrades of Revoltes, made up more than half the march, we were really, not concerned about his permission.

At this stage two men who had been standing by Thirry, and who were unknown to us, intervened. They said that they were police officers and that they should make it clear that if we were not part of the official march, we would not be allowed to march.

We replied that we had been officially invited by the Belgian • Socialists to the march and that we were therefore officially part of the march. Thirry then intervened and repeated that if we persisted in keeping the banners up, we would not be recognised by him and he continued 'that is sufficient to make you out of the march as you have no written proof, or anything like that, that you have been officially invited.

We then questioned the police in order to clarify the position completely. We asked them what was their objection to our banners. They said that they had no objection to our banners • whatsoever, that they were indifferent to all the banners in the march, but that they were acting enMR. MANDEL, the Belgian editor of 'La Gauche', and his supporters in the JGS are in • serious difficulties trying to explain away the intervention of the police during the Liège demonstration on October 15.

This was of course a political action and one which the Young Socialists in Britain are very used to.

The Wilson leadership called in the police to have their leadership removed from the Labour Party in 1964.

The Stalinists called in the police at a Croydon demonstration last summer and four Young Socialists were arrested and heavily fined because they called for the victory of the NLF in Vietnam.

As can be seen from a story on another page the Stalinists again called in the police and removed the Young Socialists from a demonstration in Leeds a few days ago.

Liege was therefore a sign of the times. The Soviet bureaucracy is a counter-revolutionary tool of world imperialism. As a conservative privileged caste it always comes to the aid of imperialism during periods of crisis.

Today, it actively prepares for a deal with Johnson in tirely on a point of law. One march had been given permission.

Mr. Thirry was the recognised organiser and that any body not recognised by him was therefore legally outside the march, and that they would be forced to act.

We asked them pointedly how they would know that we were march, and whether they would need explicit instructions organiser in order to act against us.

They hedged at this, but said that from what had gone before clearly we would not be part of the march the banners remained up.

At no point did Thirry intervene to defend the YS banners in this conversation. . He was in complete agreement with the olice proposals.

At this time. and subsequently the police stressed that theu had no objection to our banners, and that they would merely be acting on a technical matter of law: recognition from the recognised organisers of the march.

other words, far from the IGS 'refusing to have the banners removed by anyone, as 'La Gauche' complete agreement with police action being used in order to have the banners removed, at order to betray the heroic Vietnamese fighters.

Just as the imperialists rely upon the Stalinist bureaucracy to help them out of difficulties, the Stalinist bureaucracy does not hesitate to call in the police when faced with exposure. The police, of course, are an integral part of the capitalist state serving imperialism.

Liège, handful

Stalinists refused to march with the Young Socialists, because they objected to the YS banner defending the Hungarian revolution.

The pro-Chinese Stalinists also bitterly opposed the banner. And why not? Did they not give the most enthusiastic support to Khrushcher when he crushed the Revolution in November 1956?

On the basic principle. of opposition to the Hungarian Revolution both Moscow and pro-Chinese Stalinists are united.

Now along comes the Pabloite Mandel trying to twist the argument around by suggesting that the Young Socialists and the pro-Chinese Stalinists found themselves in the same camp at Liège. This man is a brazen liar, as all the political facts go to show.

When the pro-Chinese Belgian Stalinists call their own ex-members such as Massoz

organe do combat socialiste banner concerning the Hungarian revolution taken off the demonstration.

The truth is that these leaders, on the contrary, resisted the demands of police to have these banners taken down, as these had not been • communicated to them previously.

whilst consider th that inos.

ducing these banners a united-front demonstration in defence of the Vietnamese revolution was out of place, refused to have them removed by force by anybody, so long as the foreign delegations who had brought them refused take them down voluntarily (which they should have done, if they had any political sense).

Treading in the steps of 'La Voix du Peuple', the people from The Newsletter have not hesitated to call the organisers of the demonstration in solidarity with the Vietnamese revolutión 'servants of imperialism'. Avowed Stalinists and shamefaced Stalinists unite in this way to blacken through falsifications and slanders when they run short of political arguments.

Such methods as these will only arouse contempt.

REVOLUTION the behest of their Stalinist friends.

They recognised that neither they nor the Stalinists had the force to remove them, as they admitted in last week's 'La Gauche, and were quite happy to have the police do it for them.

The fact that it was the JGS that were the driving force behind the police threats and not vice versa is also borne out by what happened subsequently.

We asked the police for five minutes in order to consult our committee. This was readily granted. After a short meeting it was agreed that we should put the question publicly to the French and English contingents.

The response of the marchers in favour of the banners was overwhelming that Albert Fajer sta)n, another JGS organiser Thirry having now disappeared said that they had no objection to our banners, exclaiming at the same time 'How can we under this blackmail'.

The police then immediately withdrew their objections and again stressed to me that the objection had not been theirs and hoped that I had made this clear when I had addressed the marchers.

agents of imperialism, they are speaking for themselves. Our principled political criticisms of the Soviet and Chinese leaderships is well known and we will go on making it.

Mandel's JGS, however, invited the Moscow Stalinists to join the march. They refused because of the Hungarian banner and the capitalist police were called in.

This is what is most revealing about the centrist politics of Mandel.

It has, in fact, led him tovards the camp of Stalinism, he agency of imperialism in the international workers' movement.

The political implications of calling in the police show that he is rapidly becoming a diligent servant. If he objects to our charaterisation of this action as one carried out by servants of imperialism', that is up to him.

If, however, he should decide to break from such an orientation and return to Trotskyism, nobody would welcome this more than The Liege has shown what is possible for the Trotskyist forces of Western Europe. The future really belongs to us and not the pro-Chinese or pro-Moscow Stalinists.

LA THE MOST POWERFUL testimony to the working class nature of the Hungarian Revolution was the emergence and resistance of the workers' councils. As comrade Cliff Slaughter emphasised in last weeks Newsletter, it was this proletarian core to the national uprising that gave it its progressive character as against the rule of the Stalinist bureaucracy, and in defiance of any attempts by pro-capitalist forces to abolish the nationalized property relations that existed in Hungary.

An analysis of the role of the working class in the revolution, the forms of power it sought to develop, and the economic and political demands that it advanced against the bureaucracy and capitalist restoration, is therefore particularly timely today, in view of the renewed struggle that is now unfolding against bureaucracy, both in the capitalist world and the states of the Soviet bloc.

Striking feature

The most striking single feature of the rise of the workers' councils during the Hungarian Revolution was that they were created by a working class that had been denied all semblance of organisational and political freedom (with the dubious exception of the immediate post war years since the overthrow soviet government of Bela Kun in 1919.

From that date until the full Nazi occupation in 1944, the trade unions led a shadow semi-legal existence, tolerated on condition that they organised no working-class resistance to the Horthy regime. Under the Nazi terror, ended only by the advance of the Red Army in 1945, many of the best militants who survived the Horthy era were wiped/out.

, The ensuing Stalinist regime arose therefore over a working class, the majority of which had little or no experience of independent class and political action.

• The consolidation of the Rakosi-GeroFarkas regime after 1947 hindered even more the development of the class consciousness amongst the Hungarian workers.

Its greatest blow struck against the development of class consciousness was not that it simply denied the Hungarian working class the facilities and rights to organise as a class independent of the bureaucratic state apparatus, but that this repressive policy was carried through in the name of Marxism and communism. This was the most grievous blow struck at the : working class by Hungarian and Soviet Stalinism.

All the more incredible therefore, that this same class, when catapulted into the tumultuous events of October 1956. should at once begin to assert its political and economic independence in the same way as did the Russian working class in the period between the two revolutions of 1917.

It was this instinctive groping towards a conception of class power and organisation, derived from the first successful workers' revolution, that gave the national and democratic demands of the Hungarian masses their socialist and revolutionary character. Opposition forum For several months before the October uprising, it was the intellectuals and the students who appeared to be making all the running in the fight to liberalise the Hungarian regime. The Petofi circle, set up by the Party bureaucracy as a safety valve for critical intellectuals, rapidly turned into a forum for those opposed to the rule of the bureaucracy, albeit from widely differing standpoints.

Yet even here, the weight of the working class was felt. Just prior to the student demonstration that triggered off the revolt, the Petofi circle voted approval to a programme of reforms within the party, state and economy. Basic to this programme was that the working class must play the leading part in the life of the nation 'by introducing factory selfmanagement and workers' democracy. _Beneath the more privileged layers of Hungarian society (who, through their value to the regime as publicists and artists, were allowed certain limited freedoms), there had long been a deep smouldering process of radicalisation in the working class and particularly the youth, which, denied all formal outlets in the Stalinist-controlled factory committees and trade unions, forced its way up through the students and intellectuals closest to the proletariat.

October 23 belonged to the students, but from then until December it was the working class which increasingly made its weight felt in the development of the revolution. The students also reflected this immense pressure exerted by the working class, for so long gagged and bound hand and foot by Horthyite reaction and Stalinism.

Point four of the students' programme demanded that 'Factories must be directed by workers and technicians. The present humiliating system of wages and norms and the disgraceful condition of social security benefits must be reformed. The trade unions must truly represent the interests of the Hungarian working class?

At the heart of the student programme therefore was the recognition that the working class had borne the brunt of the Stalinist tyranny, and that it was this same working class that must now become the decisive force in its removal.

Workers' councils began to appear on on October 24. Their initial task was to spread and co-ordinate the strike that broke out following the fighting outside the radio headquarters in Budapest. Workers' guards were supplied with arms by the Hungarian army, which went over en masse to the revolution on the second day.

Solidarity between the army and the working class found its political expression in the programme of the Revolutionary National Defence Committee, which soviet troops and free removal of elections, insisted on 'a true democratic basis for Hungarian socialism.' The programme of the revolutionary committee of Hungarian intellectuals was equally explicit in its recognition of the leading role of the working class in the revolution.

Together with demands for independence and democracy went points four, five and six. These insisted that *Plants and mines must really become the property of the workers. Factories and land are to remain the peoples' property and nothing is to be given back either to capitalists or big owners •.. The ruthless exploitative schemes now in effect must abolished. The union must really defend the interests of the working classes and freely elected. heir leaders are to be Thus students, intellectuals and armed forces each felt the power of the working class as it moved into the arena of the revolution, and acknowledged this power and political drive in their programmes It was not the working class that yielded to the illusions of bourgeois freedom and democracy, or or became infected by peasant and clerical chauvinism, as the Stalinist and State Department publicists would have us believe.

It was instead the working class, reenforced by the best sections of the intellectuals and students, that inserted a revolutionary, internationalist* content into the thoroughly legitimate demands of the Hungarian people for independence from the rule of the Kremlin and their Hungarian satraps. Here, as always in the great revolutions, the working class played a role far out of proportion to its actual numerical strength.

Distrustful of the unstable centrist coalition government set up by Nagy after BY ROBERT the October 23 events, and becoming could ensure permanent changes in ter aware that only effective class state and the factories, the working class began the construction of economic and political organs entirely independent of the Stalinist-ridden 'trade unions' and the now disintegrating and discredited 'Communist' Party.

The only basis for continued Stalinist rule apart from the Soviet troops (which proved unreliable and had to be withdrawn on October 30) was the security police, or AVH, which had been recruited by the Rakosi regime from the ranks of the Horthy secret police. This odious remnant of Stalinist oppression was dealt with in summary fashion by the whole population. They died unsung and unmourned.

From this debris of a shattered bureaucracy there arose new forms of power. On November 2, the newly-formed National Council of Free Trade Unions put forward a series of proposals for the re-organisation of the economic and political life of the country.

It called for the establishment of a workers' militia, removal of Soviet troops, worker and technician management of the factories and mines, and an end to the bureaucratic methods of central economic planning. Production norms were to be abolished (this proved to be a universal demand) except when agreed to and set by the workers' factory committee in question. Minimum and maximum wage limits were to be set in accordance with socialist principles of equality. struck at the nerve centres of the bureaucracy-its dependence on foreign bayonets and its parasitic role in the nationalized economy.

In the individual factories, the first step of the newly-established workers' councils was to chase out the Stalinist-imposed management and take active steps to ensure that they could not return.

Communist Party members loyal to the revolution played a prominent part in the work of the councils, and were singled out by the Kadar regime for special punishment after the defeat of the revolution.

The economic measures of the councils had little opportunity to take effect, as the main task before the councils was to organise the general strike and resistance to the Soviet troops, as well as to develop a political programme of struggle for the working class.

To complicate matters still further, the years of Stalinist oppression, the bungling of the economy and the brutal forced collectivisation of the countryside, had prepared fertile soil for the sowing of reactionary ideas based on the Catholic church and extreme nationalism.

Despite these complexities, in which the working class faced not only the threat of restoration on the right and repressions by the Soviet troops, but the vacillations of the Nagy 'government', all the available evidence-and there is now ample-points towards one conclusion only: that the Hungarian working class was measuring up to its historical tasks, that of the overthrow of the bureaucracy on the one hand and the defence of the gains established by the elimination of capitalism in Eastern Europe on the other.

Co-ordinated action The structure and programmes of the workers' councils differed widely in a formal sense from region to region. In recently-industrialised areas, such as Magyarovar, the emphasis was on the national and democratic demands, with the restoration of the rights of small traders and artisans. In the traditional centres of heavy industry, the demands were more explicit in their class nature, and reflected the matured class sciousness of several generations of workers.

The best organised of the councils took over the radio stations and began to co-ordinate their activity through constant exchanges of news, ideas and propaganda.

The radio rapidly surpassed the printed word as a medium for further radicalising the workers and peasants, and became in the hands of the workers' councils a unifying force in the struggle for a single programme and plan of action.

After the temporary withdrawal of Soviet troops on October 30, the workers' councils were better able to link up into regional bodies. A political struggle began inside the councils against anarchist tendencies which advocated a series of local 'counter governments', • as opposed to a centralised state power based on the support and participation of the workers, soldiers, and students' councils.

Such a struggle developed in the Gyor workers' council, but through the intervention of representatives from the local railway wagon works, this basically reactionary conception was defeated.

Similar struggles for a unified political programme were being fought out in all the main councils from Gyor in the West, through Budapest and Dunapentele in central Hungary to Misolc and Debrecen in the east.

According to the testimony of the Hungarian correspondent of the Polish student paper, 'Pro Prostu', the empty factories were under permanent guard...

'Behind the iron gates of one of the industrial works, a group of armed people. They explain that they are workers, revolutionaries, who are defending their factories. The division is clear: the nation on one side, and on the other, the Stalinist faction of the government and the AVO. There are thousands of Communists among the insurgents. The workers have occupied their own plants The whole working class youth and students are on the barricades' (Marian Bielicki, 'Pro Prostu, Warsaw, Nov. 25, 1956).

The movement of food supplies, essential services and the maintenance of ively by the workers, determined excluscouncils in conjunction with the army. Here was the embyro of the workers' state power, that in a partially-conscious fashion, sought to reshape Hungarian society along democratic lines.

Through the implementation of this programme, the new leadership of the Hungarian trade unions and workers' councils intended to break the back of the bureaucracy both in the individual factories as well as in the central planning departments.

To back up this assault, it intended to lean upon armed workers organised into factory and trade union militias.

Through worker participation planning and factory management, the regulation of production and the distribution of its benefits could now come under the scrutiny and control of the working class and its independent organisations. In this way it would expose and make impossible the graft and corruption upon which the state and party bureaucracy thrived and added to its already considerable privileges.

With deadly aim, the working class * Both Stalinist and imperialist writers hide the internationalist nature of the councils.. The workers' and students' Council of Miskolc published leaflets in Russian for Red Army men:

Officers and Soldiers! We appeal to you not to fight against your brothers, the Hungarian workers, students and youth. Our people did not revolt against you, but for the achievement of legal demands. Our interests are identical. We and you are all fighting together for a better socialist life. Don't be simple tools in the crushing of the Hungarian people's justified fight.

That it was not able to do so was completely due to the brutal second intervention by the Kremlin.

With the renewed intervention, all opposition to the bureaucracy other than that based on the workers' councils melted away.

The Nagy government, whose writ never ran further than the government buildings that housed it, dissolved.

The students' and intellectuals organisations were atomised, many of their leading members emigrating.

It was only the class organisations of the workers that were able to withstand the full weight of the Red Army. Far from weakening, they grew to a of influence after the crushing of the last armed resistance on November 14.

Still in possession of the factories, mines, power and communications, the working class was better able to withstand the onslaught of the Stalinist reaction, and maintained its morale through exercising a crushing grip upon the economy.

Despite reprisals by the Avh, the general strike continued into its fourth week. The working class areds of Budapest were, in many cases, reduced to rubble. But the workers fought.

THE NEWSLETTE hree

The demands put forward by the Greater Budapest workers' council (set up on November 13) to the puppet Kadar regime were unchanged: removal of Soviet troops, release of freedom fighters, free elections and workers' control of the economy.

In the face of such determination, Kadar was compelled to begin negotiations with the only effective force in Hungary. Again, the councils refused to retreat on any basic issue, so the Kremlin forced Kadar's hand.

On December 9 all councils above factory level were declared illegal'-to which the illegal Budapest proletariat replied by calling a two-day total stoppage.

Arrests of workers' councils committees followed at Red Csepel, the mines Salgatarjan, at Egar, where a demonstration of workers compelled their release, and in Budapest itself, where the chairman and the secretary of the council, Sandor Racz, and Sabdor Bali were seized.

Fresh strikes broke out to secure their release, and production fell almost to nil in most industrial areas.

On December 15, the death penalty was introduced for striking, while the independent trade unions were dissolved and re-organised on their old Stalinist basis as police organs for the bureaucracy. Exhausted by two months of continual strike action and terror, the workers' councils were faced with the choice of capitulation to the Kadar regime or self liquidation.

To their everlasting credit, they chose the second course, thereby denying the bureaucracy the opportunity to harness them to its own state and party machinery.

The declaration of the Greater Budapest Worker's Council is typical of the dignity with which its brother councils all over Hungary recognised the futilty of prolonged open resistance to bureaucracy:

•We cannot carry out orders that oppose our mandate. We cannot sit passively while members of workers' councils are being arrested and harassed, and when the entire work

THE 800 FRENCH workers and youth who went to the Salle Lancry in Paris last Friday (November 4) were proof of the growing will of the Trotskyist movement to carry out the tenacious and organised work to build a revolutionary party and youth organisation, and to rebuild the Fourth International.

Called by the Organisation Communiste Internationaliste (OCI) and the youth organisation Révoltes, the meeting commemorated the 49th anniversary of the October 1917 Revolution in Russia, and the 10th anniversary of the Hungarian revolution of workers' councils, crushed by the tanks of the Soviet bureaucracy.

The meeting was chaired by Stephane Just, a member of the Central Committee of the Organisation Communiste Internationaliste, and speakers were Gadge of Révoltes; Balacsz Nagy, one of the three secretaries of the Petofi Circle; Gerry Healy, national secretary of the Socialist Labour League, and Gerard Bloch, Central Committee member of the OCI.

The important speech of Balacsz Nagy brought the message of the Budapest workers who fought against the Stalinist bureaucrats-—their struggle was to defend the gains torn by the workers from capitalism and to democratically administer them through councils elected in the factories.

Revisionists

criticised Nagy severely criticised the revisionists in the Trotskyist movement who refused to understand the lessons of the revolution by the workers' councils.

He demonstrated. how the position of the Voix Ouvrière group, who consider Hungary a bourgeois state, confused the meaning of the Hungarian workers' struggle because they lump together the privileged bureaucrats with the Hungarian workers and peasants who, with all their strength, had defended the victories American CP calls off conference on "Jewish question' THE COMMUNIST PARTY of the USA has decided to postpone indefinitely a conference on Jewish affairs, originally scheduled for November I2 and 13. The decision—officially because the main resolution was inadequately prepared-follows a trip to Moscow by party leader Gus Hall.

On his way back, the American Stalinist has been speaking around various European CP meetings-including one in London. While in Rome, he denied that the CP-USA was concerned ovèr the treatment of Jews in the Soviet Union, stating that his party was an 'American Party' concerned with the problems of American workers.

There had been an increase in fascist and anti-semitic activity in the USA, and this was why the party was discussing the Jewish question.

'Our party is going through handle the problem,' Hall said. 'These are not focussed, however, on the way it is handled in the USSR, but on the general problem of anti-semitism, particularly in the USA?

As has been reported in previous issues of The Newsletter shige of rest and fascist ivity in America, terrorist attacks on the labour movement, and racist mob violence organised in Chicago by the American Nazi Party.

Johnson himself recently made the point of singling out American Jews as a group, accusing them . of not 'showing sufficient loyalty to the war in Vietnam.

These developments are taken very seriously in the American underline the urgency of the Marxists calling for independent working-class politics, building of a socialist youth movement.

The response from the CP-USA has been an opportunist hope that now is the occasion to have INTERNATIONAL SPEAKERS COMMEMORATE HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION Report taken from 'Informations Ouvrières', duplicated weekly newspaper of the Organisation Communiste Internationaliste of France - against capitalism in the face of imperialism.

He told the Pabloites, who supported the second Soviet intervention of November 4, 1956, that they should not be in the Fourth International at BY another go at getting a foothold in middle-class Jewish organisations.

It is typical Stalinist 'front' politics.

Find an 'issue' (in this case anti-semitism treated not as attack on working-class but as something that just affects Jews), look around for someone you can unite with on the 'issue' —anyone, so long as he isn't a Marxist-and then seek unity at all costs, avoiding any awkward questions which might clarify things.

The Party report advocating this middle-class orientation even contained a formula for what to do when a Stalinist confronts a Lionist.

The Pers were told they need not accept Zionism as an ideology, but they could accept legitimate support for Israel!

No wonder the November conference had to be called off. The Stalinist leaders cannot afford any theoretical development among their members, particularly because the question of the Soviet bureaucracy's policies towards Jews would be bound to come up at the conference, whatever Hall says.

Continued page all, for they usurped its name and betrayed the struggle of Leon Trotsky.

Last Friday's meeting was not a public meeting for conflicting opinions. It was called by the OCI in order to clarify the policies of the International Committee of the Fourth International for the Trotskyist vanguard.

The Pabloites and Voix Ouvrière who, despite their differences, had united in a new anti-Trotskyist coalition, attempted to provoke incidents at the meeting. These, fortunately, did not get very far.

They demanded the right to speak at 11.30, when the meeting was closed. The chairman refused them.

For years, the OCI and Révoltes have held monthly Marxist study groups, where discussion is free and open to all. The Voix Ouvrière have spoken once at one of these meetings. The Pabloites have never taken the opportunity.

'Informations Ouvrière', the weekly duplicated paper of the OCI, comments on this:

'We would say two things to these brave defenders of democracy. First of all, you are fraternally invited to speak up in the Marxist study groups and in all public meetings held by the OCI and Révoltes. Secondly you must refresh your memories.

'At Liège, you fierce defenders of democracy tried to have a political resolution, which was unknown to all the participants and organisations present, voted through without any discussion.

'Révoltes and the Young Socialists (Britain) then had to impose respect for workers' democracy.

"The resolution that the Pabloites had proposed was discussed at a meeting the following day!

Difficult

Broad The struggle for the building of the revolutionary party and the rebuilding the Fourth International is hard and difficult. The road is sown with traps and obstacles placed there by the class enemy.

The problems raised at last Friday's meeting reflect the implacable character of the class struggle whose issue, socialism or barbarism, will be determined by the ability of revolutionaries to build the new leadership the working class.

For some time now the rank and file has been uneasy on this aspect of Stalinism.

The Yiddish-language CP paper 'Morgen Freiheit' has come out in open opposition, stating that 'the line of forced assimilation which began with the Stalin cult has, in the main, remained intact.

Whatever evasions and clever formulas the Party hacks think up, they cannot really make Stalinism look like Leninism for those who have learnt the difference.

Whether or not the CP-USA ever has a conference on the Jewish question, it is to be hoped that among those who oppose the Stalinist line, a serious discussion does take place, SO that some will find a way back to Lenin's politics, and to the movement which continues them, the Trotskyist movement.

It is because the American Trotskyist movement inherits Leninism that it can offer a real communist alternative to the Gus Hall's and is alone able to lead a struggle against racialism in America itself.

Registered at the G.P.O. as a newspaper Published by The Newsletter. S.W. 4 186a Clapham High Street, London, Printed by Plough Press Ltd. (1U) T.O. 80 Clapham High Street, London. S.W.4

AS INDIAN politicians prepare for the campaign leading to February's election, the country is racked by hunger and violence.

The second crop failure in a year threatens the worst famine since the Bengal disaster of 1943. It is estimated that over 50 million people lace sheer starvation in the next tew months.

In Bihar, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, the drought has destroyed most of the crops. Stocks of grain are rapidly dwindling. Many peasants are moving into the towns to look for work.

The towns themselves are the scene of almost daily demonstrations and riots. Calcutta and Bombay have seen general strikes of 48 and 24 hours, protesting at the tood shortage and rising prices.

Students in particular have erupted in a series of violent demonstrations. Fights with the police amounting to pitched battles have broken out in many university towns, involving several deaths and hundreds of injuries.

The reactionary Hindu communalist organisation Jan Sang steps up its own agitation to divide the working class on religious grounds.

Sacred cow

On Monday, it led a big demonstration in Delhi in support of its 'save the cow' campaign, aimed at preventing the slaughter of the animals, sacred in the Hindu religion.

Hundreds of thousands were involved in battles with police and soldiers in front of the parliament building. Several people were killed when police opened fire on the crowd. Communist Party:

divided into Moscow and Peking factions, has led many of the movements on the food issue. But neither group preparies any struggle which can resolve the deep problems facing the sub-continent.

Meanwhile, the country's economic problems get worse. Unemployment increases and the foreign exchange position has hardly benefitted at all from June's devaluation of the rupee.

By forcing prices up still faster, this measure makes the plight of the workers and peasants still more desperate.

Ability queried This is the background against which Mrs. Gandhi leads the Congress to face its fourth general election. By means of all kinds of political juggling the giant national party of the Indian capitalist class has managed to hold itself together.

Now, doubt about its ability Religion -a dressing for reaction THE PROTESTANT UNIONIST (i.e., extreme Protestant Conservatives of the type who now follow Paisley) election candidates of the last two years have circulated very similar propaganda to the leaflet shown in a recent issue of The Newsletter. Demonstrations of Protestants are called with slogans like this :

'Protestants show O'Neill secrecy to Lemass and Co. Register your protest Surrender.' Paisley's newspaper, 'Protestant Telegraph', which has been appearing fortnightly since May this year, combines this political campaign with long and violent religious articles, together with the building up of Paisley himself as the saviour of Ulster's Protestants.

In the issue of July 30, Paisley's article The Reasons Why I Chose Jail' contains the following:

'With the grace of God anc the help of the Protestants of Ulster, the day will come when I will be in Stormont-the only. way true Protestant people can deal with the ruling junta of Lundies (traitors)

is to have someone there to root out the nest of traitors.' While Paisley rants on with his demagogy, his paper campaigns for some myth of rough simplicity of commonsense, at anti-intellectualism reminiscen of Hitler, combined with dark hints at the power of 'vested interests' behind all the deception.

DRESSING

Paisley uses Protestantism as a dressing for this reactionary message, the essence of which is that every man should work for the glory of God in the situation in which he has been placed. An example is this extract from an article on synthetic products in modern industry, published the •Protestant Telegraph' on May 28:

'All this is bad enough, but worse still is the double-talk of the politicians, and the steady, smooth deception of the public by powerful vested interests which make it almost impossible for us to think straight. Worse still perhaps, is the use of an evangelical vocabulary which has no real experience to back it. In this synthetic age in which we are being conditioned to a superficiality in thought and speech, the early witness of Society of Friends is needed more than ever it was:

"But let your communication be Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil"' The verbal attack on vested interests is one of the tricks of all right-wing extremist and fascist movements. Those who are drawn into them must be per suaded that the whole corrupt set up of politics and business whose decay is threatening their existence will be thoroughly overhauled.

Hitler used to talk about a "permanent revolution' in the As Mrs. Indira Gandhi (left) leads the ruling Congress Party towards its fourth general election, the country again explodes into more widespread rioting. Begun because of the acute food crisis, these riots also express the lack of confidence in the pro-capitalist rulers. JOHN CRAWFORD reports to deal with its present problems are voiced, not just in India, but in imperialist circles.

The Congress regime arose from the agreement with British imperialism to partition the country in 1946. The Indian capitalists had to carry out the task which the imperialists could not face alone: to hold back the wave of revolution sweeping Asia.

Nehru saw the Chinese revolution reach the frontiers of India. He worked to obtain a deal with the Stalinists which would enable him to balance between imperialism and the Indian masses.

Neither Shastri, nor Mrs.

Gandhi, could continue this that he joining in our ranks. No German state, and Mussolini went much further than our English Liberals of 1966 with calls for workers' control and an end to the betrayals of the Labour politicians. relish to his 'exposure, added Paisley is able to give attacks by a spate of 'scandal' stories about the Roman Catholic Church and the 'betrayal' of so-called Protestants who turn a blind eye to these abuses.

Paisley's paper runs a column along these lines called 'Do You Know . .., which is suspiciously reminiscent of an almost exactly similar one which used to appear in the British fascist paper in the 1930s, the 1930s, though that one was devoted to anti-Jewish stories. Here is a sample:

'Did You Know... "That the Roman Catholic Church in Toronto has been forced to purchase a large Tudor Mansion in which to house the drunken alcoholic priests of Canada? The official Romanist figure states that there are about 4,000 alcoholic fathers in the Canadian Church.' Fascism is not defended by its ideological content: it can be seen clearly that anti-Catholicism plays here the same role as antisemitism in Britain and Germany before the Second World War.

insisting on the religious 'truths' of Protestantism, as interpreted exclusively (among the living, that is) by Paisley himselt, Paisley builds up an ideological barrage against the socialist movement which is the only salvation of the working class in every country.

ROT THREATENED

Everywhere capitalism is in crisis; its decay: threatens to rot and destroy every vestige of the cultural heritage of mankind, built up by human • labour and genius over thousands of years.

In one of the countries which has been among the worst victims of this process, Paisley concentrates everything on making the people look backward to the pure days of the Protestant settlement, before science and sophistication 'corrupted' mankind.

Take for example his use of a quotation from Martin Luther:

'Martin Luther, the German reformer, thundered the following regarding higher institutions of learning: "I. am afraid the universities will prove to be the great gates of hell, unless they diligently labour to explain the Holy Scriptures and to engrave them upon the hearts of youth. I advise no one to place his child where the scriptures do not reign paramount. Every precarious balance without great dangers. For none of the problems of Indian society, national, economic or cultural, can be answered by the Congress or its capitalist backers.

Without nationalization under workers' control, the destruction of landlordism and imperialist solutions are possible.

this implies a smashing of the Congress regime and an alliance of the Indian and international working class.

That is why the building of an Indian section of the Fourth International is vital for the solution of India's desperate problems.

Cliff Slaughter deals with ideas of the Rev. lan Paisley institution where men are not unceasingly occupied with the Word of God must become corrupt"!

The task of the working class is to sweep away the power and property of the capitalist class which has misappropriated all the conquests of mankind.

In order to do this the working class, through Marxist theory, builds upon and improves upon all the past material and intellectual products of society.

It is this future of the working class against which Paisley nghts with his propaganda and his religious rhetoric.

Paisley's , movement, whatever its future in Ulster, not the dominant bourgeois terests decide to use its political and military organisation as its weapons against the working class, is a warning to the labour movement of all Britain and Ireland. The very emergence of such a movement indicates the depth of the social crisis and the seriousness of the political tasks facing the working class.

OPPOSITE

We see also how the much-vaunted 'democratic' and 'compromising' traditions of the history of British bourgeois society, established by the 'middle classes' in the period of the rise of capitalism, turn into their opposite and provide adequate material for fascist demagogy.

The fact that the social-democratic leadership of the labour and trade union movement continues to avow allegiance to these very traditions, and • that the so-called Communist Party cats for the unity of all demodefeat fascism and racialism, is again only a sure sign of their having long since gone over to the side of the exploiters.

The answer to Paisley and those interests which stand behind him, both now and as a potential instrument big capital, is the building of à movement with socialist policies for all the problems facing the working class-employment, cost of living, housing, education—as well as the national-democratic tasks left unsolved by the Irish bourgeoisie.

These policies will only win the following of the working class in the course of a fight to expose the false leaders of social-democracy and Stalinis Marxists must fight in the labour movement for organised resistance to the splitting activities and intimidations of the Paisley-ites and their ilk.

It is along these lines that the Young Socialists and Socialist Labour League will fight in Britain and Ireland.

SPEAKING AT A TEACH-IN at Leeds University last Friday (November 4), Jack Dash, London dockers' 'leader', spoke for well over an hour-but never mentioned the seamen's strike.

Outlining the history of the dockers since the days of the Cutty Sark, Dash described the militant action of London dockers in support of the Canadian seamen's strike-incidentally seeking to imply that he was in the leadership of that action ('The cops came in and pinched us,' he said, though he himself was not arrested).

But he failed to explain why such support was not forthcoming for the British seamen in May and June this year.

In the three minutes were allowed for discussion, Dash was challenged on his opposition to the lobby of parliament called by the Young Socialists and the Merseyside dockers on May 25. He replied that he 'had to accept the decision of the committee.

He refused to say why he had spoken on the London docks in opposition to the Liverpool men, nor would he comment on the 'Evening Standard" praise of his moderation.

Condemned

Condemned for his lukewarm support of the decision of the Hull, Merseyside and London portworkers' committees to black British ships in June, Dash said he had to give the platform to Transport and General Workers' Union official Bill Mundy. He himself had urged Donas if cheds to call in union He omitted to say that the union officials concerned were T&GWU officials who were opposed to blacking ships anyway.

Many serious-minded students came away describing Dash's performance as a 'comic variety turn'. But it had its serious side, not least of which was his description of Lord Devlin as 'a well-meaning man who wants to do his best'.

Jack Dash is the man who was referred to by Wilson in his witch-hunting House of Commons' speech as being not very enthusiastic about dockers striking in support of seamen and who, in "The Guardian', said he would not lead an unofficial strike on the docks, even if the government sent in troops.

Not only dockers, but all serious socialists are now beginning to question the leadership' men like Dash, and to realise that the only alternative is the Socialist Labour League.

A RAW, FOGGY NOVEMBER morning missions factory have issued a grim warning of what future conditions may well be inside car factories. with a fine drizzlesuch were the weather Their document, "The Shape of Things to Come', Four Nove 12, 1966

Morris Radiators' drivers are laid off MANY MILITANTS employed by BMC at Oxford have stressed that a real fight would begin on November 4, unemnlovment dav for hundreds of these workers. FANTANJ They have pointed out that the BMC would attempt to cut wages and worsen conditions, and that a fight would have to be put up against redundancy and every other issue, whether big or small. They also argued that every show of weakness or disunity would bring major attacks from the company.

The truth behind these arguments have now been demonstrated with extreme clarity in the transport section of Morris Motors.

In this militant section of over 200 drivers, pay increases of almost f4 a week and improved conditions have been won over the past two and a half years.

One section of the department is engaged on the collection material from Morris Radiators, whose workers been strike for nearly three weeks.

Work 'blacked'

Immediately their strike began, the Radiators strike committee asked the Transport department to "black" any work coming out of their department.

This was a difficult action as Radiators' own transport section insisted on working, but a meeting of Transport department stewards took a decision to stop collecting from Radiators.

Morris Motors retaliated by locking out the Radiator transport section and, it is claimed, induced other drivers to do the job.

The rest of the department failed to support the stewards in protecting these members, and shop floor organisation was split wide open. • BMC moved in swiftly, introducing four-day week and allegedly using contract transport to cover the work. This, stewards claim, is contrary to agreement.

The most serious attack, however, has been directed against the night-shift transport section, already , educed from seven by the November 4 sackings. This was a very strong section, but the company has now locked out six of those left, and are, it is claimed, using day-shift men to do their work.

The night-shift shop steward who is also locked out, asked for a meeting with the transport foreman to discuss the issue when he entered the works to collect his pay last Thursday (November 3) This was conceded, but when he went to enter the factory from the pay station, he was stopped by works' police who, it is claimed, said they had direct instructions to keep him out.

The fact that this can take place in a factory where militancy and shop floor organisation has been on a very high level shows in clear terms the extent and nature of the attack which BMC will launch in the wake of the defeats of November 4.

¡Anger at movement of labour DOCKERS IN HULL are becoming angry and bitter at the situation that is causing little or no work for many of them. Three times recently they have stopped work to stage a token strike or to attend a mass meeting called by the unofficial portworkers' committee.

They complain that employers are moving gangs of regular men from one dock to another and so cutting down the number of pool men required. A docker can come down in the morning, see the dock full of work, but still have to dint (having his employment book stamped to ensure his guaranteed weekly wage).

Some dockers see this as a step towards the implementation of the Devlin Report (amongst themselves they call it the 'Devil's Report'). The employers would certainly welcome a situation in which they can move around regular gangs of welldisciplined men, with a pool to draw from only when needed and with the militants excluded.

Work-sharing

At the recent mass meeting in Hull City Hall the portworkers' committe put forward the plan for work-sharing with one-third weekly workers and two-thirds daily workers in each ship.

They said the ban on weekend working would be lifted as soon as such a work-sharing scheme was accepted by the unions, the employers and the National Dock Labour Board.

But dockers must study the lessons of the past struggles on the docks, as well as the seamen's strike. If the amalgamations of the employers mean that they are preparing big attacks, with the Labour government standing alongside them, then a new political leadership is required the political struggles ahead.

Such a leadership must then put forward the demand and campaign for the nationalization of the docks industry under workers' control. WORKERS' COUNCILS of the Worker's Councils is branded as "counter-revolutionary" For these reasons, and regardless of our personal fate, we have unanimously decided to resign our mandate. Our decision does not mean that we are trying to evade responsibility. It is our opinion that our continued existence would help to deceive the workers. We therefore return our mandate to the workers.' Little wonder that with the rise of the workers' council movement, imbued with such socialist conviction and revolutionary dedication, the State Department of the US government (then under the rule of Foster Dulles) made it clear through its spokesman, Lincoln White, that the Soviet troops had every right to be in Hungary. The full account of this interesting, to say the least, position adopted by the leading imperialist power is given in the "New York Times' October 27, 1956. Anthony Eden, hoping that the HunRamn events would provide a diversion This attack on Egypt, found American government unco-operative. He writes in 'Full Circle' that 'Five days passed without any further meeting of the UN Security Council upon -Hungary, despite repeated attempts by ourselves and others bring this about. The US representative was reluctant, and voiced his suspicion that we were urging the Hungarian situation to divert attention from Suez.

The US government appeared in no hurry to move'.

And why should it have done? Soviet tanks were doing their dirty work for them, crushing a revolution that if successfu, would nnally engult not only the Stalinist bureaucracy (also the main barrier to socialist revolution in the capitalist world) but the rule of imperialism itself.

The US government stood aside, calmly allowing the revolt to be crushed, at the same time capitalising on the brutal second intervention in order to make cheap anti-communist propaganda. city.

bridge.

in there makes you want to cry.

demonstration. sackings after Christmas. STAN NEWENS, a "left' Labour MP, pointed to the small attendance (20) at a Leeds Centre for Socialist Education meeting he was addressing as an example of the fact that there was at present a 'crisis of the rank and file' in the labour movement.

In attempting to justify • his refusal to vote against the Prices and Incomes Act, Newens tried to shift the blame on to the rank-and-file worker.

In doing this he expressed not only his complete contempt for the working class, but a gross ignorance of what is now taking place in Britain.

Far from seeing the action of the motor workers as an example of the will to fight, which the Labour 'left' could give a lead to, he said that he didn't entirely agree with making the recent strikes official. It was probably necessary for the union to support its members, he said, from fear of 'criticism by people like the Socialist Labour League'. 'Bitter strikes' Newens said that he foresaw 'a series of extremely bitter industrial disputes of which the seamen's strike was only a harbinger' It was quite clear from his refusal to vote either against the emergency powers in the seamen's strike or the Prices and conditions adding to the gloom on Monday in Birmingham, when mass unemployment and dole queues became a grim reality in the Many of the 6,000 sacked BMC workers signed on at Selly Oak Labour Exchange in the neighbourhood of the Austin factory at LongMost of them were in the younger age-groups. Some brought a small child or two along to take part in the dismal ceremony. All looked anxious and heavy-hearted. A woman clerk leaving the office said: This is horrible and depressing. Being The plan for redundant workers to march into Austin's on Monday morning, recommended by Dick Etheridge, convenor at the factory, proved to be the resounding flop such a pointless exercise deserved. According to reports it was turned down firmly by nearly every section in the factory Only a handful of workers turned up for the proposed What lies ahead for these sacked workers, and for the 'lucky' ones who have kept their jobs?

What lies ahead circulated inside the works, urges those who have At Longbridge workers report that already speed-up and the transfer of men from one job to another are being introduced. Workers who formerly had one machine to mind now have two; they are told if they don't like it they can get out, along with the redundant men. They all fear further Shop stewards at the key Tractor and TransNewens tries to Shitt the blame not lost their jobs:

'Let no one celebrate on the 7th of November, that "I'm safe now". No one is safe. Workers remaining are to be moved around the factory like the office furniture.' This document states that there are definite plans in BMC for a different pay structure, with job evaluation on the daywork side, and the measured day on the piecework side. The latter simply means piecework speed and production for a daywork payment. Balance sheets compared 'Why,' ask the stewards, 'should BMC like this to come about? They have been looking at the balance sheets of Ford and Vauxhall and see that where BMC only make approximately f8 profit per worker per week, Ford and Vauxhall make approxisystem. Many stewards think the management are no longer concerned with production profits but Measured day are welcomed by quite a number of leading trade reason for this is that 'the power of bargaining is taken away from the workers and stewards. would mean a more leisurely life for the officials.' Should Britain be taken by the government into the Common Market, the stewards envisage that 'by then Mr. Gunter will have a nice huge pool of unemployed labour. It could be directed to, say, of the clauses in the Common Market is the Incomes Act which side he would be on in these disputes.

According to Newens' maximum support must be rallied for people like Frank Cousins. When challenged on Cousins' role in the seamen's strike, he replied: "The fundamental integrity of Frank Cousins shines out enormously ... Frank Cousins whom we admire ... have a tremendous respect for ... I am proud to call one of my personal friends' He attempted no political defence of Cousins.

He made the usual demands for defence cuts, without once mentioning how the struggles of wage freeze should be developed.

'Keep Labour in'

He insisted that the 'end above all, while defending our views, is to keep the Labour government in office' and concluded his speech with what could easily have been a quotation from Harold Wilson: he said that we must muscules by the ine bold diate and solving the real economic problems of growth What could be a clearer example of how such 'lefts' as Newens, despite all talk of socialism, tenaciously support Wilson against the working class? We can only conclude that if the workers of Leeds don't come to meetings to hear such stuff, it is due to their militancy, not lack of it.

Thus the Kremlin and imperialism united to strangle the Hungarian revolution-and cemented this unity by spreading lies and slander against its aims, methods and leaders.

For the Stalinists, 'proof' of the reactionary nature of the uprising was established by the participation of pro-capitalist and even fascist elements in the anti-Soviet movement.

It is nut the task of Trotskyists to disprove this aspect of the revolution. Instead we can refer such slanderers to Lenin, who wrote the following of the 1905 revolution:

It consisted of a series of battles in which all the discontented classes, groups and elements of the population particiatled with the crudest prejudices, with Amongst these were masses the vaguest and most fantastic aims of struggle: there were small groups which accepted Japanese money, there were speculators and adventurers etc. Objectively, the mass movement broke the back Tsarism and paved the way for democracy: for that reason, the class conscious workers led it'. (Collected Works, Vol. 22, Page 356).

We could also add that this same revolution was triggered off by the massacre of a peaceful demonstration led by the monarchist priest and police spy, Father Gapon. But this no more rendered the 1905 revolution a monarchist, clerical and police plot that did Lenin's passage through Germany (with the permission of the German military high command) in in 1917 stamp the Russian revolution of that year as a Prussian junker conspiracy.

We are able to establish with evidence the Stalinists have been unable challenge that at its core the Hungarian revolution was democratic and socialist, so under i mination i said Union.

In building the Fourth International, we make the most effective reply to the slanders of the Stalinists, and ensure that the sacrifices made by the Hungarian working class in their fight against bureaucracy have not been in vain. mately f20. Both these are on measured now are going for profit per workers.' and job evaluation union officials, so the document declares. Germany, where there is a labour shortage.

exchange, or movement, of labour'.

The document warns: *Factories in Italy, Spain, South Africa and Australia are now commencing to produce the comvehicles, machining, sembly-the lot. CKD will soon be at a minimum, and this country will in all probability be importing BMC cars and not exporting them in the very near future. This already happens in the USA, where it is cheaper to produce the Cortina in Britain and ship it to the USA than produce it in the USA. This is the result of cheap labour.' The document concludes: In the factory you are a number on a clock card, and don't ever be kidded otherwise.' It urges car workers to 'make a stand now and don't leave it until we have no chance to defend our conditions and jobs'. Only clear I at Bathgate

This document shows a correct understanding, not only that employed and unemployed workers are all in this fight together against ruthless exploitation by the capitalist system.

It also shows by implication that the fight is international, with workers in such countries as Italy, Spain, South Africa, Australia, Germany and the US also threatened by the drive of international capital to increase profits by keeping labour chear and conditions of work tough.

For the fight to defend jobs and conditions the total strength of the working-class must be mobilised. First a clean break must be made from those treacherous political .and trade union 'leaders' who are prepared to sell workers down the river in order to enjoy 'a more leisurely life'.

They have shown that they are altogether ceasing to function in the interests of their members.

In their place a new revolutionary leadership must be built for the sharp class conflicts which lie ahead.

TENANTS on the Waddon council estate in Croydon, Surrey, are determined to defeat both right-wing Labour and the Tories in the council by-election on Thursday November 17 despite the boundary changes which have brought more traditionally Tory areas into the ward.

Waddon Ward Labour Party defeated the right-wing nomination for candidate and selected Frank Fadden. He is chairman of the Ward Labour Party, and secretary of the Croydon Tenants' Action Committee.

'Not a penny'

This Committee was set up earlier this year to fight against the rent increases of up to 25s. which came into force in April. •. The Committee campaigned under the slogan 'not a penny on the rents, not a penny on the rates', , and demanded policies of nationalization of the land, banks and building industry.

For this action Frank Fadden and other Labour Party members were threatened with disciplinary action by the right wing.

Last week. leader of the Council Labour Group Alderman George Cole told a pubReporter lic meeting that Croydon council tenants owe the council £16,000 in rent arrears following : last April's increases, and, he added, 'we will evict them' Council tenants are furious and more determined than ever to fight.

The Croydon Communist Party plays its usual role. Rather than unite the tenants in a fight against right-wing Labour and the Tories, they are standing their own candidate, Charlie Young.

This is in line with their policy during the rents struggle to call for pressure on the Tory-controlled council.

They declared that the Young Socialists were sectarian when they insisted on linking the rents struggle with the campaign against the wage freeze and anti-trade union laws to build a socialist alternative to the right wing.

If Frank Fadden is elected, every means will be used by the right wing to make him toe their line.

As one of the right wing put it: We have broken others—we will break him'.

The only way to defeat the right wing ; is to keep up a continuous fight to take workers and tenants into action with the socialist policies of the Young Socialists and the Socialist Labour League. for by the YS since 1964—the inclusion of the Young Socialist delegates in the motor workers' conference would therefore be of tremendous assistance to the motor workers in working out a policy of action which will not be blocked by liberal fakers and bureaucrats and officials.

• CP-USA

_BY SYLVIA PICK | NEARLY 200 people attended a conference in the Co-op Hall, Bathgate (Scotland) last Saturday to discuss the serious situation which faces motor workers at the BMC factory. On Monday, the 'Morning Star' gave an enthusiastic report of this conference. But a more honest and critical examination of what actually took place is required.

The conference was a hotchpotch of representatives from the Bathgate BMC joint shop stewards, trades councils, the churches, local councils and Scottish Nationalists, with Labour MP Tam Dalyell and prospective Communist Party parliamentary candidate Irene Swann also present.

Nevertheless, a real alternative was put forward by a young engineering worker who is also a member of the Young Socialists. He read to the conference the resolution passed by Pilton (Edinburgh) AEU branch (published in last week's Newsletter):

This branch views mounting redundancies in the 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 the solution of Britain's economic problems.

'We further demand that all nationalized industries natied under wordest control!

'This is the resolution which should be put to this conference,' he said, 'because it puts forward a socialist alternative.

Applause

From the motor workers came eager support and applause the YS policies contained in the resolution.

The 'Morning Star' emphasised the Rev. Tom Milroy's statement that if the conference was communist inspired-'then bully for the Communists, for it is a timely and commendable conference'.

The 'Star' ignored the comments of another representative of the churches, father S. Smith, who suggested that the American method of negotiation and new techniques should be adopted by trade unionis tin woBritain.

Linwood plant Rootes Pressings, American techniques were adopted three years ago in the form of the Emerson plan. The result was a constant driving down of working conditions in the factory, ending in redundancies working.

But the Communist Party is so anxious to preserve unity with liberals and fakers they keep quiet about the Rootes experience.

At the Bathgate conference, whilst uttering criticisms of the abour government, Irene Swant stated that she was very sympathetic to the sentiments expressed by a speaker from the Scottish National Party who sought a solution to the problem unemployment in Scotland through independent government for Scotland.

Her only criticism was that the crisis had to be seen as a British MICKIE SHAW crisis. Her solution was direction of industry to Scotland, the halting of the export of capital and cuts in military expenditure.

The 'Morning Star' ended its report of the conference with a statement by Provost J. Robertsummed up the keynote of unity. He said:

'It is a pity that it takes a crisis to get us all together. We should be together all the time.' Provost Robertson is a Tory -and Tam Dalyell proposed that he should lead a deputation to Parlament from the Bathgate area.

So there came together the Labour MP, •the Communist Party, the churches and the Tories to prevent any real fight by the Bathgate workers against unemployment and short-time working.

The decision of the conference was that a joint deputation go to London to appeal for action from Westminster. amendments or alternative resolutions were permitted.

After the conference many workers in discussion with Young Socialists and Socialist Labour League members expressed dissatisfaction with the conference. They had no confidence in the deputation to Westminster.

They explained that no fight had taken place to prevent the sacking of 800 men three weeks ago. They also pointed out that in fact many more than 800 had left the factory.

There are 1,400 less men employed at BMC Bathgate thar there were at the beginning of 1966.

No work No alternative work is available in the area for the men who have been sacked. and every week many families are leaving Bathgate and their newly built homes, because they cannot afford the rents and upkeep. They are returning to overcrowded Glasgow, finding the best accommodation they can, and hope to obtain a job.

Those workers who remain at the on short-time are finding it factor impossible to make ends meet and in many cases are unable to draw dole money for the days they are not working because the days off are split over two weeks.

Convenor of the BMC shop stewards Mr. Dave Wilson stated that through the shop stewards at Bathgate a Scottish motor workers' conference was to be called in the near future.

Such a conference will be welcomed by all motor workers if it projects a real policy of struggle against sackings and unemployment, for nationalization under workers' control and a fight for a socialist solution to the economic crisis.

Such a policy has been fought