The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 472

OVER 30 students from ist, Algerian and Labour Societies, as well as African students and Young Socialist representatives demonstrated in Sheffield on Wednesday afternoon shouting 'Arm the Africans', 'One Man, One Vote' and 'Smith Must Go'.

They attracted a lot of attention from Sheffield workers in the city centre.

The demonstration was highly successful despite the refusal of the Communist Society to take part.

On instructions from the local CP organiser these so-called communists decided it was better not to demonstrate against the Smith regime rather than march with Marxists.

They objected to the slogan 'Arm the Africans', insisted on by the Marxist Society and Young Socialists, and taken up enthusiastically by the whole demonstration.

This action by the Communist students in Sheffield re-affirms the counter-revolutionary role of the CP, revealed so clearly when they called the police against Young Socialists on their own demonstration in Leeds on November 5. growth in unemployment. We insisted at the time that even if the British working class was to make further sacrifices at the behest of a Labour government, the solution to the economic difficulties of British capitalism did not lie in their hands.

We are dealing with a world crisis and the latest developments on Rhodesia prove this to the hilt. Prior to the Gibraltar fiasco unemployment had almost reached 650,000, the balance of payments had almost been closed and there was more gold in the vaults of the Bank of England than at any time during the year.

Yet a few days before the Smith-Wilson confab, the pound began to drop in value as against the dollar. World capitalism was losing confidence in British economy. Immediately after negotiations collapsed the value of the pound took a downward plunge on the world's money markets and had to be assisted by the Bank of England.

CAPITALISTS RUSH IN It is reported that the main reason was the selling up of sterling holdings abroad by the capitalists of the City of London. In other words, these gentlemen, anticipating the threat of devaluation, were quickly rushing into the fray in order to secure hard currency which they could later re-sell for sterling and turn the crisis profitably to their advantage.

It is illegal for workers to ask for wage increases, but it is quite legal for the capitalists to make money by speculation.

Not a single Cabinet minister has spoken up against this form of pocket-book patriotism, yet if a group of workers were to demand an immediate wage increase, the Cabinet would meet, as they did during the seamen's strike, and denounce them in no uncertain terms.

The Rhodesian affair now means that the present economic crisis will become more acute. The 'Financial Times' of December 7 remarked:

"Any reduction in Bank Rate will almost certainly have been delayed in the present circumstances. Nor is it easy to imagine Mr. Callaghan, Chancellor of the Exchequer, following up the hint he gave in the Commons last week of the possible need for "measured steps" to encourage consumer demand until some assessment can be made of the ultimate balance of payments consequences of the chain of events following the rupture with Rhodesia.' In other words all those 'left' MPs who believe that Wilson and Callaghan would re-inflate the economy during 1967 have annther think coming. The nosition will in fart get worse got with the threat of more jobless and still higher prices.

It is in this light that we must scrutinise the weapon of sanctions.

The Communist Party has come down heavily for the immediate application of the heaviest form of sanctions. The 'Morning Star' warmly commended in an article, also on Decemsanctions: 22 left Labour MPs who are insisting on 'effective Who will these sanctions effect most in Rhodesia, the whites or the majority native population?

We say unquestionably that the majority of the people of Rhodesia will be those who will suffer the most. In order to maintain their rate of profit under sanctions the Smith regime will grind down the wages and working conditions of the working population even more than they are doing now.

Tens of thousands will be unemployed with practically nothing to live on. Tens of thousands may well die from starvation, but the white overlords will take good care that they live off the fat of the land.

TWO-HEADED Sanctions are a two-headed weapon. They will worsen the economic crisis in Britain, allowing the capitalist class to financially speculate more and more at the expense of sterling for profit while hundreds of thousands more are thrown on the dole.

They will hit the native population of Rhodesia who are the only real allies of the The Tories fully support the sixpoint programme Wilson offered Smith SATURDAY December 10 YOUNG SOCIALIST GRAND XMAS BAZAAR unionists

BEAVER HALL, December 3, witnessed one of these peculiar political marriages which we may well have thought impossible during the period of the Hungarian revolution 10 years ago. t that time the state capitalist group of Tony Cliff was busily denouncing Russian 'state capitalism' and "state capitalist'. agents in King Street as the grave diggers of the Hungarian working class. y, my, how times and relationships have changed. roughout 1966 the state capitalists and the Stalinists have been the closest of buddies. Whilst the Communist Party has been busy selling out one struggle after another the bedraggled followers of Cliff have tagged faithfully on behind. aturally they have found a common platform in their mutual hatred. of Trotskyism, but it goes a little deeper than that. They have found it easy to share the same political roof, because each in their own way and for their own ends have now a common political affinity with the Wilson government and its left' hangers on.

t the Beaver Hall, the state capitalist handful voted solidly with the Communist Party delegates against the 50-odd of SLL trade union delegates. When our people proposed a policy of action against Wilson their hands were raised against. When the Communist Party proposed that virtually nothing should be done, their hands were raised in support. How come this queer alliance? Our readers may ask. Simple, comrades, simple.

The ladies and gentlemen members of Cliff's group always support the Labour Party through hell and high water. They oppose the building of a revolutionary party. ue, on occasions they moan and groan about the effects of Wilson's policy to make capitalism work, but that is about as important as a sneeze in the editorial office of "Tribune'. During the Hungarian revolution and Suez crisis there was always the danger of a world war between the USSR and the USA.

History teaches us that if such an event had taken place the • Labour leaders would have lined up solidly behind the Tory Party and Wall Street.

With their usual reservations the Cliff group would have supported them.

Hence their bold 'anti-Stalinist' front of those days.

otskyists maintained at that time that if the USA should attack the USSR over Hungary we would unconditionally defend the Soviet Union against such an attack.

Today the scene has changed.

Kosygin and Co. want a deal with the USA to betray the Vietnamese revolution. They would like to use the imperialist governments Western Europe as a pressure force for such a deal.

Hence they snuggle up to de Gaulle_ (Kosygin's state visit to France) and the French CP hails the general as a 'great peacemaker'! The ultra right-winger George Brown spends several hours in friendly private conversation with Kosygin and Co.

during his recent trip to Moscow.

So the British CP like the French CP take care they do nothing to anger Brown and Wilson.

At this juncture they meet up with the opportunist Cliff group who are unable to break from the reformist Labour Party.

in the future war clouds overshadow the world and the danger of a conflict between the USA and the USSR grows serious, the present unprincipled alliance will immediately break up and Clifi's group will rediscover their old 'anti-Stalinism'.

ke the Labour leaders they will join in the crusade of their capitalist masters against the nationalized property relations which is the revolutionary basis of Soviet economy, despite the remnants of Stalin's bureaucracy.

ntil that time they will go on sharing the same bed at the Transport House Inn.

British working class hardest.

In other words, the working class will suffer in Britain and Rhodesia because sanctions are a capitalist weapon and have nothing to do with socialist policy.

The continuous capitulation of the Wilson government to the bankers of the City of London and the failure of the 'lefts' to fight Wilson, has in fact led to the abandonment of the Rhodesian working class.

Without a determined struggle for socialism both in Britain, backed up by a reALL THE FUN of a Christmas Fair was provided by the Young Socialists for East Londoners recently (see above). This Saturday it is the turn of Leeds.

The London bazaar was the biggest success-both financially and organisationally-the YS has had. In Leeds the same selection of wide-ranging, good quality and cheap provisions, toys, clothes (from baby's to boutique style), jewellery and everything for that extra special Christmas present will be on sale.

The very popular side shows will also be open for Leeds' people.

Father Christmas will be inviting children into his grotto to take a lucky dip in his bran tub, and a refreshment counter will be open all day.

In fact the bazaar provides something for all the family.

Why not go along THIS SATURDAY to :

THE CORN EXCHANGE LEEDS 1 at mid-day

Free

Hugo Blanco Glasgow Trades Council passed unanimously the followemergency motion Wednesday :

"This meeting demands that the government of Peru immediately release Hugo Blanco, leader of the revolutionary peasant movement in Peru, and his comrades from prison.

This resolution is to be sent to the Peruvian Embassy.

Page Iwo December, 10, 1966

volutionary struggle for the self-government of the Rhodesian people, the Labour government becomes more and more the tool of big business and the Tory Party.

The Tories would like to see Wilson get his way because they do not believe in any kind of freedom for the native Rhodesians.

They support in fact Wilson's six-point programme which was offered to Smith.

The only difference is that Wilson believes that some preliminary representation should be granted to the native Rhodesian capitalist class. He thinks that this will be the most effective form of colonial rule for Rhodesia in the coming period.

The Communist Party bureaucrats today are political 'tick birds' for Wilson's government. They support and cover up every betrayal by the 'left' MPs in Parliament. They use left phrases in order to mask their capitulation to the Prices and Incomes Act and the government's policies of high prices and unemployment. They betray not only the workers of Britain but the workers of Rhodesia as well.

Only the Socialist Labour League comes forward with a clear socialist internationalist policy for Britain and Rhodesia. • We say Labour must arm the Africans to forcibly overthrow the Smith regime.

We say that the rank and file of the labour and trade union movement in this country must back up this demand with an all-out struggle for the nationalization of the basic industries without compensation and under workers' control. • We say British and Rhodesian workers must unite against the common enemy-British capitalism. process.

The disposal of this form of waste is reported to have cause a great deal of trouble.

The plan for a new tip with an aerial roadway had first been considered in 1962, but it had been dropped by 1965 because of the expense, some £300,000. In 1963, there was a slide on No. 7 tip but tipping was continued.

"There will be evidence that the divide in No. 7 tip occurred at the very same place in 1966 as had been the case in 1963; said the Attorney General.

Evidence was given to the from villagers Aberfan and teachers at Pantglas school about the effects of flooding and the danger of tipping behind the school.

In 1959 Aberfan Ward Labour Party wrote to the Merthyr Town Clerk about the 'continued inaction and almost contemptuous disregard of the NCB to the safety and health of residents of the ward'.

DANGER SOURCE Early in 1964 the NCB area mechanical engineer wrote to the Merthyr Council that 'we would not like to continue during the next six to eight weeks in tipping on the mountainsde where it is likely to be a source of danger to Pantglas school.

Questioning Mr. Leslie Davies, chargehand at the No. 7 tip since 1958, Mr. Tasker Watkins (deputising for the Attorney General) on Tuesday said:

"Had anybody in the last nine years ever asked your views on the safety of tip No. 7?' 'No sir,' answered Mr. Davies.

And later: 'Have you ever had supplied to you any kind of document which would have enabled you to make a report on the safety of No. 7?' 'No sir.' Mr. Davies said: 'We all knew We had tipped over this water... this was why we could not stop it sinking' He said that in the three months or so before the disaster, the tip slipped ten to 12 feet on three, four or five occasions. He said that for the last two years, there had been no phone from the tip head in case of emergency, though he had tried with everyone' to have a new phone installed.

THE IMPORTANCE of an all-out fight to win the working class to a programme of struggle against the Wilson betrayers and their apologists was illustrated again with increased force at the conference called by the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions at the Beaver Hall, London, last Saturday (December 3):

For six hours 480 delegates and 150 visitors-not the 800 claimed by the 'Morning Star'-from trade union branches, shop stewards' committees and 'defence' committees listened to a torrent of words piously opposed to the wage freeze and the government's anti-trade union legislation.

But the only action taken by the organisers of this conference was against members and supporters of the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists.

Every manoeuvre that could be attempted, from the exclusion of delegates to the refusal to take resolutions and the selection o1 speakers, was used to try to prevent any discussion of real policies to defeat the wage freeze and the Wilson government.

Credentials refused The conference opened with the refusal of the credentials committee to allow into the conference a number of delegates from the North-West. Only after the fight had been forced into the conference were these very important delegates allowed to take their places.

The chairman of the conference, former Communist Party member and now a member of one of Barbara Castle's transport committees, Bill Jones of the Transport and General Workers' Union, refused to allow the introduction of resolutions to the conference. Newsletter Reporter 'Any resolutions that I want I will deal with them in my trade union organisation,' he said.

The conference had been attacked by a number of unions who had issued instructions to branches not to send delegatesbut this struggle against the right wing was not referred to by the conference secretary, J. Hiles, when he made his opening report, speaking about the "magnificent response' to the conference.

Speaker after speaker, talked about the need to change union Labour Party policy, to get the 'right people' into office at local and national level, but only those amongst the delegates who were members of the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists were able to put forward a clear policy on which to fight.

M. Jenkins (NUT), called upon Labour MPs who call themselves "lefts' to campaign in the Parliamentary Labour Party and to put down a resolution for the removal of Wilson and his Cabinet. Their policy should be to fight for the repeal of the Prices and Incomes Act and the nationalization of the major industries.

This call to action was taken up by Bill Hunter (representing CAV/Lucas workers) who had had to fight for the right to enter the conference.

He had come to the conference from the shop stewards' committee with a resolution putting forward a policy for action only to find that the conference would not have the chance to discuss this resolution.

Lesson No. 1 The Wilson government was a bosses' government. It had done a deal with big business, it was an enemy of the working class. That was lesson number one for the conference, he said.

How will this government's pression of opinion, By an expolicy be changed?

speeches at a conference?

Only the mobilisation of the working class would change the government. We are prepared to fight, are you? There should be Trades Council says:

a mass lobby of Parliament early in the year to call on left MPs to fight aganst Wilson, Hunter said.

Jack Dash (Docks Liaison Committee) said that his industry was suffering deeply from the cut back of the prices and incomes policy. They would be leading a march to Transport House and reminding their trade union of their policy of work sharing and demanding an end to overtime, so that the industry could work on a 40-hour week.

He represented an industry that removed from the statute books the infamous order 1305 in 1953 when the action of the dockers forced the release of seven dockers who were on trial at the Old Bailey. (Mr. Dash conveniently forgot to tell the conference of his own position at that time.)

'We should work correctly inside our trade unions to make whatever defence committees are possible so that we can come if necessary to the aid of the first trade unionist who is going to be imprisoned or fined.' Pitiful renegade But even more pitiful than this speech by the 'Pearly King' was the contribution made in the afternoon by John Lawrence, a Pabloite renegade from the Trotskyist movement in 1953, representing a Society of Graphical and Allied Trades' chapel.

Delegates shifted embarrassedly in their seats as Lawrence called for the trade unions to disaffiliate from the Labour Party.

"The first thing that our trade union movement must do in this situation is to declare that it wishes to be independent of all governments and all political parties', he said.

What we needed were more speeches like the one from Jack Dash, he maintained, and went on to quote as an example of his type of syndicalism the strike of the miners during the war against the government.

Mr. Lawrence, of course, didn't tell the conference that this strike was the result of a political struggle against the war fought out by the Trotskyists against every kind of slander and witchhunt from the Churchill government, supported and even surpassed by the Communist Party of Harry Pollitt.

Turning tepid But this was the kind of policy offered up by speaker after speaker who were members of the Communist Party. The hot air of the mo and turned first to lukewarm then to tepid as speakers realised that present at the conference were delegates who wanted to take them at their word and organise a fight against the Labour government and who didn't share their pessimism about the willingness and ability of the working class to fight back against the wage freeze and the opposition to the London Transport Board and the Transport and General Workers' Union bureaucracy for so long, could just close shop at a time when its sales were counted in thousands and the need for busmen to be given a lead is more urgent than ever before.

This, in fact, gives the answer. While making many correct criticisms of the T&GWU officials, it never went beyond the limits of a propaganda journal.

It built no solid alternative leadership, despite the fact that its early supporters included many from the Communist Party bus faction which was smashed by the T&GWU bureaucracy on the introduction of the black circular.

The first edition contained a page of names of drivers and conductors pledged to fight the ban. The opportunity to build a real alternative leadership existed.

reader 'MILITANT" Reader's (sic)

Meeting, 7.30 p.m. Leeds Trade Hall' declared the poster proudly.

At first sight this looked like a grammatical error. Surely there was more than one reader, But no. The poster writer was not illiterate, merely accurate. For after the two organisers of the meeting had waited from 7.30 until 9.30 which "announced sier (beneath another tant" Leaders' meeting') only one 'reader' had turned up.

le hard core, however, is not to be deterred easily.

'We'll have a bigger meeting next time, they declared and proceeded to change the speaker (that is from one of them to the other).

Iere's a better idea. Why not let the 'reader' be the speaker? He might do better - and he certainly couldn't do worse.

Argentina AFRAID OF LEADERSHIP?

Many of this group joined the T&GWU bureaucracy. One of these, Bill Jones, is now the union's assistant president. He has expressed regret that 'The Platform' is closing. Is he in fact afraid of what kind of leadership may replace it?

"The Platform', relying on such 'leading' busmen, and having no way to effectively fight them, shared the fate of many propagandists—it bent to some of the most backward ideas which workers have.

In 1963 it supported the resolution carried at a delegate conference which prevented the London Transport Board recruiting foreign workers abroad.

Having failed to build an effective leadership, it was, like the delegates, compelled to seek a scapegoat. The racialists provided one—the immigrant workers.

Recently it has sought to separate the industrial from the political struggle.

LAVISH PRAISE

FOR COUSINS While attacking the T&GWU for not fighting on behalf of busmen, it has given lavish praise to T&GWU secretary Frank Cousins for his alleged fight against the wage freeze.

Its sole advice to busmen has been to take 'action at garage level', which is quite inadequate in the present period.

The LTB claims that the December 31 schedules will cut duties over the fleet by 4* per cent, but this is disputed. Highgate garage has cuts of 13 per cent, and has refused to work them.

The cuts come at a time when the LTB, in its paper, "The Busman', admits that the staff position has improved since 'the cumulative measures of the government's cut-back programme began to take effect.

Yet when the schedules were TRIBUNAL SITS

Labour government. It is therefore essential that we make a balance sheet of the experiences of the Socialist Labour League during that time.

Everything points in the direction of important class actions directly involving the government during the coming period so that our preparation for the construction of the revolutionary party has to take into account not only the general trends but as far as possible the particular experiences of the movement since October, 1964.

The seamen's strike marked the end of an era of purely trade union industrial action. It pointed the way for political strikes, that is strikes in which the government would directly confront those on strike.

It is important that we understand the qualitative differences which will arise in the political experience of the working class as the alternatic pee. purely industrial strikes invariably leads th superficial 'oss of interest in to a return work and in time reasons for the dispute strike, since it forces Those who The aftermath of political articipate to think in a politi cal way no matter how limited inevitably leads to a higher political consciousness when strike 1S over. The political strike is characteristic of a pre revolutionary period, wherein the working class faces problems which solved by the taking of pober.

The more political strikes the working class have to endure over the next period, and we are assured that this will at least last 12 months. then the higher the political understanding not only of those who participate but of those workers who, while they might not be on strike, have similar problems to those who went on strike.

The political strike sharpens democracy, the trade unions. enormously of social Labour governGenerally speaking, during the neriod of the political strike. these organisations have ceased function on behalf of their members, even on the smallest reformist issuesdiscontent grows as a result of rising prices, earnings, of legal when the trade unions ployment and a decline in wage because reasons cannot act for these members, the more an enormous vacuum is built up at the base and within the labour movement.

called union at the roady and • Marxists are practically towards centre of this is proble sa and not to. 'proceed the same coneption of slow development tha haracterised the period of th inflationary boom.

To many there will at first sight appear to be an enormous sontradiction between what they see to be the relatively slow deyelopment of our movement and this growing opposition withthe ranks Labour Party and the trade unions.

Marxist theory is based on the generalised conception of the developing struggle pings strole if its tok. ing Whilst it is true that consider. able time lags can and do take the course of this development, there inevitably comes a time when the working class cannot be contained by the nne mises of the reformist leaders and the door is wide open for the intervention of the Marxists We believe that this is the situation which now confronts the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists and it exWe do not shirk the slightest manifestation of struggle, no

the experience of a plains the reason why. calling the special conference. • are have to examine at this conference all the experiences of the organisation and the theoretical conclusions which flow from them sinto er 1964 took the power in OUT NOW Fourth Intervational Pho ONT ENTS Editorial An Evaluation of John Maynard Keynes by G. Pilling NGERINTODAY by J. Kiomenesekenegha Rosa luxemburg diyye! Slangh LOMOPDAY CAPITAL Be sure of nour copy of this journal of International Harxism by oritingsto.

186a, Clapham High Street, 14. 2 IT IS IMPORTANT to understand that the reformists did ive me dat pere ath working cas British capitalist which was during the last shoulders of the working class.

challenged 500 st reformist treachery 1963 youth me tor socialist ment campaignec lems facing them were coll. ines had little or no Irom Lne duum movement as is usual with reformist an a opportunist and the trade Labour Party unions concentrated their efforts exclusively on the election of a Labour government.

The tendency towards reformism was tnerclote rampant mn une period wuere the 1 Oung Socialists had to was wilson and the [neir suarDest swuggle agains. stuation cia not become tavourable immerate v aer te eec mon ol a Labour government.

When the Young Socialists formed their • WI gamisduon and began campaign for mobilising the adult worKers caey sull had and nave toady to content reluctance on the part of man workers. even though critical of D 9s the latter part of 1964 tan campaigns such issues as the old are ben.

mcrease in vin some sympathy from th *We hadra limited nad success, walen. turn encouraged Young Socialists to continue vine ThIs orientatior towards the But the tempo was slow The Young Socialists themselves had not completely broker mom ene to reformroutinism underSocialists in tie their fight against Young They was and still haecisive iney have. understand that the constructior veryday activity they lave to carry ou The adults.

thich began in octo Base a montredly che can. The high this camtrom it tivitas those it was stantial Van Sonated! the that serious organisation supported, even sion, the acu vraes ists against the anti-trade union HAU adult he sation high tree ou many important lessons.

• The one of Brot south Yorkers anar amary leaderstablishin During 1966 also, Young Socialists gradually to wear of.

• demonstra This as be in de umionists.

demonstrated now having ame gst motor cases to have through different experienass These experiences on the surqualitative development has had to pass and will have what to be repetitive forms de Jur NOVEMBER 26-27th 1966 though each form brings to the surface something new. This something new cannot be understood without analysing periences which wean from each form of activity in great detail from the standpoint of our political perspectives.

It is most necessary to understand that in an old-established working-class movement like we have in Britain great changes, at least in appearance, cannot and will not take place at this stage speedily.

There is a very consistent process at work behind the class struggle which entirely verifies the Marxist method but which cannot be understood or utilised by Marxists unless they apply this method continuously.

WE HAVE now reach entirely new stage i lopment of alternative revo. nary leadership. We

BRITISH

PERSPECTIVES the first to recognise the impoxtance of the political strike. Our understanding of the history of pre-revolutionary Russia emphasises how important this period is.

We are now able to educate and train our members in direct contact with the class struggle under conditions where it is possible to prepare them for alternative leadership in the Labour Party and in the trade unions under entirely different conditions from that which we have experienced in the past.

This politically qualitative development the Socialist Labour League is not just something which altects our organisation but which gradually begins and enter tee species Walter the perspectives for the working class.

There are, for example, the political implications of the struggle which is now developing in Britain.

For many years internationalism has been a pious word used on occasion to denote some struggles that were happening outside Britain.

However, on the eve of another attempt to enter the Common Market it has been possible through the Young Socialists campaigning for internationalism in relation to the struggle against the war in Vietnam and the reformist Labour leaders, to establish the closest working relations with revolutionary youth in Western Europe. fore, e strug in rain, wil have. therea direct bearing on the struggles in Western Europe, just as the struggles there will greatly assist us in Britain.

Internationalism is no longer a holiday word for socialists, it is a practical reality which will greatly strengthen the qualitative nature of our work in the coming period.

Alternative revolutionary leadership, therefore, is not a national form of leadership but one which seeks through the struggles in the country in which it is developing to forge the closest relations for political and practical forms of activity with the international movement. The way forward to the building of strong revolutionary leaderships is through a thorough-going understanding and the application of our international perspectives.

4 OUR SPECIAL conference must set out to achieve a clear political understanding of what is meant by alternative leadership.

We do not see this as something separate from the working class but as a qualitative development within the working class, a development which in the case of Britain requires the most painstaking, penetrating and patient analysis of all the work of our organisation.

Introduced at conference by The Pabloites and state capitalists bury themselves in the Labour Party and succumb to all its reformist pressures. We participate in the youth movement and the trade unions in order to lay • the groundwork for a real onslaught on the opportunists of the Labour Party.

This is the period where we prepare to do real battle with Wilson and his allies. But this cannot be done without a strong revolutionary organisation firmly based in industry and the trade unions and with large masses of young people developing politically to supply it with leadership and above all else numerical forces.

We have now arrived at this stage. Henceforth we can transform entirely the work of our organisation in relation to events in the mass movement; but that means, we insist, constantly thinking over the experiences of the SIL and the YS, especially over the past two years.

5. TWO YEARS of Labour government have witnessed an important polarisation to the right of all the centrist forces; that is the old-type centrists, and the newer ones who were elected in 1964/66.

These people have proved themselves utterly incapable of providing any sort of leadership.

They are so thoroughly imbued with reformism and opportunism that at this stage they absolutely refuse to make the slightest break from Wilson.

All the little groups, Pabloites, state capitalists and others, who in one form or another, hang on to the coat-tails of these gentlemen are now moving in the direction of the Communist Party.

The British Stalinists are making a great bid for what they call 'leadership of the left. In reality this is, of course, nothing more than an attempt to reproduce a new type of centrist leadership in the British working class movement at precisely the time when this movement is face to face with revolutionary struggle and revolutionary decision.

The Stalinists aim to be the leaders of the new betrayal and all those organisations who live off the crumbs from the reformist table but who have no real contact with the working class and who, in practice, reject the role of the working class now line up in one way or another with the Stalinists.

For example, during the abortive lobbies of March 1 and June 22, the state capitalists and the Pabloites supported the Stalinists.

Again, they supported the Stalinists at the motor car lobby in Brighton on October 3.

They now actively campaign for the Stalinists' so-called 'Industrial Conference' on December 3.

Needless to say they constantly fight against the Labour League.

Naturally their counterparts in the USA, the SWP, support the arch-Stalinist Aptheker in the Congressional elections. At Liège they ganged up with the Stalinists to have the banner supporting the Hungarian Revolution removed.

All this happening at a time when the Stalinist bureaucracy is seeking ways and means to join hands with Johnson strangling the Vietnamese revolution.

The emergence of the working class into political activity has completely laid bare the "left' pretensions of the centrists and their allies in the revisionist groups. Class knives are coming out and they run for cover.

The Socialist Labour League alone bases itself on the power of the working class and on the ability of the working class, given revolutionary leadership, to electively change the whole course of history.

The activity, therefore, of the Young Socialists and the Socialist Labour League since October 1964 has, in fact, forced the centrists, their hangers on and the Stalinists into a corner.

This is one of the most important qualitative political sides what we have succeeded in doing. It is not only a question of whether or not we have given successful leadership in terms of being able to force the government to abandon its anti-trade union legislation.

We have been able to prepare for the future by clearing away the confusionist and centrist debris of the past.

In turn, we have demonstrated the strength of the Socialist Labour League as a revolutionary workers' organisation, which produces its publications regularly and which has greatly improved the standards of its youth work since the expulsions in the Autumn of 1964. 6 OUR CONSISTENT international orientation towards the working class and our struggle to learn from the experiences of the class constitutes our main strategy.

By pursuing this course we are learning how to apply our Transitional Programme and how to mobilise the working class political issues which will directly lead to the taking of power. We are today, therefore, working in an entirely different political situation than that which we were forced to work im the period before October, 1964.

Our trade union activity must above all else take into account this fundamental change.

Syndicalist-left politics in the trade unions can now lead only to disaster. It is not a question of left groups of trade unionists coming together to fight out issues like they have done in the period before the Prices and Incomes Act.

Each struggle today has to be seen as a political struggle and prepared for politically. This at once puts an end to 'left' trade unionism.

Those trade union members of the Socialist Labour League who cannot grasp this important fact leave themselves open to grave dangers. 'Left' trade unionism is essentially reformist trade unionism in a period where the basis of reformism has virtually disappeared.

Revolutionary trade unionism is one that prepares its work within the trade unions by politically educating the most advanced workers. This means active participation in all struggles of the working class whilst at the same time patiently explaining to those with whom we struggle the essentially political meaning of what we are doing.

That is why the publication of our booklet on the seamen's strike is of such enormous importance for the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists It is the only political analysis of the most important industrial event in Britain since 1926.

The Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists must concentrate on building up groups within industries and unions who will be able to create the political climate for big changes in these unions in so far as leadership and policy is concerned.

To change the present corrupt and bureaucratic leadership the trade unions is not possible unless the political groundwork for this change is realised. Such change is not a simple question of putti i up alternative candidates programmes. What is called for is an all-round development of the political consciousness of the rank and file, under conditions where Marxists will be able to demonstrate' the kind of leadership which the unions require.

In drawing these conclusions we do not in any way want to lay ourselves open to allegations that we are purely propagandist in our approach. We are noth. ing of the sort.

We start from our political understanding of the present crisis of British capitalism and the counter-revolutionary role of its Labour lackeys. From there we proceed to lay the foundation for doing battle with the representatives in the workers' movement. Ceylon LSSP (Revolutionary) expels Karalasingham Newsletter Correspondent MR. V. KARALASINGHAM, a member of the Central Committee of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Revolutionary) of Ceylon has been expelled from membership of the party.

Karalasingham was a direct agent for the Paris Unified Secretariat on the CC of the LSSP (R). He attended their international conference in December 1965 and worked in close collaboration with Ernest Germain and Pierre Frank, the leading Pabloite organisers of the conterence. It is believed that on his return to Ceylon he remained in close contact with them. The secretary of the ISSP (R) Comrade Edmund Samarakoddy, announcing the expulsion, said:

Mr. Karalasingham has been removed from membership of the Party by the Central Committee, as the Central Committee is fully satisfied that he has been disloyal to the Party and has secretly applied for membership of the LSSP (Reformist)?

Since the ISSP (Reformist) joined the Bandaranaike coalition government in June 1964 this is the second major desertion of an agent of the Pabloite Paris Centre to their ranks.

The first was Mr. Osmund Jayaratne a personal, as well as a close political friend of Germain, who on his return in August 1964 went over to the coalitionists.

It is believed that right-wing leaders of the Socialist Workers' Party such as Art Sharon, who met Karalasingham in Paris in 1965, and who gave critical support to the Stalinist Apthecker in the recent Congressional elections, would support such a move.

The present right-wing policies of the revisionists are moving steadily towards a rapproachment with the LSSP (Reformist), hence Karalasingham's desertion.

We await with interest the issue of World Outlook, a weekly house organ of the SWP, the United States' Pabloite revisionists which will report this interesting event.

Joseph Hansen, who was is editor of this newsheet.

for of l close matter how small, but we do not contine that to left, syndicalist explanations; we try to relate all the struggles of the the working class in the coming period to the need to build the revolutionary party for the purpose of taking power.

In our political work we are preparing to orientate contingents of Marxists towards the Labour Party in order to head oft the Stalinist orientation towards the centrists and to assist further in the exposure of the retormist political machine.

THE SPECIAL conference should, therefore, consider adoption the following series anoposals :

In the pre-conferenre discussion we must thoroughly examine our work during the past two years and its relationship to the development of Marxist theory and the construction of the Young Socialists and the Socialist Labour League. (b) We must examine our trade union work and make more precise its realisation in a Marxist way within the trade unions basing this on the trade union resolution adopted by the 1966 Conference of the Socialist Labour League.

We must go all out to build up the Young Socialists as a mass youth organisation; on the streets, in the factories, at the Labour Exchanges and. in the turn towards schoolleavers. (d) We must work towards the launching of a mid-week issue of The Newsletter; a smaller issue to begin with but one which will analyse politically the problems which will now be constantly emerging inside the trade unions and the factories.

We must organise a series of public meetings in the main centres and in local areas in which representatives of the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists will participate. These meetings should help us towards recruiting and be orientated towards industry in the areas in which they take place.

Local study classes are. now extremely important not only for the youth but for all those trade unionists coming towards the League. • The coming publication of three major works by Leon Trotsky are extremely important in this respect. The National Education Department should be charged with the production of two basic study courses on philosophy and economics by April 1967.

Our conference should instruct the incoming Central Committee to set up a History Commission for the purpose of drafting a history of the Trotskyist movement in Britain. In the course of its work the Commission should be charged with arranging the publication of a series of papers on various aspects of the history.

8 THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE believes that this programme should provide the basis of our work up to the next annual conference of the Socialist Labour League at Whitsun, 1966. Within this perspective the 1967 conference of the Young Socialists at Morecambe in mid-March leading to an international assembly of youth early in the autumn of 1967 will play an extremely important role.

Adopted unanimously.

December, 10, 1966 THE NEWSLE Page fareé

'Lessons of the 1966 Seamen's Strike' must be read and studied by every trade unionist. It is a day-by-day account of how the struggle was fought and the role of the forces at work on both sides of what was a most militant class action-Britain's first political strike The pamphlet outlines the treacherous role of the Labour and trade union leaders and the Communist Party who provided them with a 'left' cover. 'a must' reading for every trade unionist with a struggle against Wilson's policies. Price 2s 9d including postage A special discount for bulk copies of six or over. once to: Literature Department, Socialist Labour League, 186a Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 since 1926.

December

writes:

TRAINING A NEW leadership inside the trade unions today means essentially a break from reformism. All the old left talk which amounts to nothing more than bluffing the employers just won't work anymore. The Labour government has organised the employers to fight the working class and as a result entirely new policies are needed in order to fight the employers and the Labour government.

The case of ENV Take the case of ENV, a north London factory owned by the American Cyrus-Eaton group of companies. In their private lite, Mr. and Mrs. Eaton are well-known sympathisers of the Soviet Union. In the field of industrial management, however, they are no different from any other group of ruthless employers. " During the period of boom, trade union organisation had grown stronger and stronger inside ENV. Wages and working conditions were improved. This was especially so after a successful strike which went on for several weeks early in the 1950s.

Then along came the present economic crisis and the need for a change. The American management directly intervened appoint its own boss on the spot. His first objective was to work out ways and means to weaken the trade union organisation in order to re-organise the factory.

In the middle of the summer of this year he placed a number of proposals before a works' conference attended amongst others These proposals amounted to a complete change so far as the functioning of shop stewards were concerned. Naturally there was great resentment inside ENV and it was clear that if the management. had proceeded to operate its proposals they may well be faced with immediate strike action.

In any case they could not proceed without the agreement of the Employers' Federation. and interests they have other factories and in Britain, they realised they would have to come to some kind of terms with the right-wing AEU leadership, so they quickly changed their plans. • Instead of placing their proposals through accepted procedure they announced that the factory would be closed and that the labour force would be gradually reduced until the final shut-down took place in the autumn of 1967.

Limitations of trade The shop stewards refused to take this course, obviously advised by the full-time union officials.

It was the beginning of the end, so far as their organisation in ENV was concerned. Outside the factory. they set up a Shop Stewards' Defence Committee which was just as powerless as the shop stewards in the factory.

Without a radical change of. policy and a turn out towards other engineering workers in the course of struggle, the mere setting up of committees and travelling from one trade union meeting to the next amounts to absolutely nothing.

As days went by, the men inside the factory became more apathetic. Gradually divisions began to develop inside their ranks. Then came the sackings and the thoughts of the men now without effective leadership turned in the direction of their redundancy payments and looking for other employment.

Resistance to the policy of the management was now effectively broken.

ENV management back to square one A few days ago this same management announced at a conference with union officials that they were prepared to keep the factory going with a reduced labour force of some 400 men but that they must get their way so far as the original proposals were concerned.

In other words, they are back to square one. More and more militant employees have been forced to find alternative employment or go to the Labour Exchange, while there will be nothing against the ENV employers building up a new labour force inside the factory organised to their own satisfaction.

The predominant outlook of reformist full-time trade union officials today is always based on the idea that half a loaf is better than none.

Many of them will justify the recent events at ENV AS SOME KIND OF VICTORY!

However, when these experiences are analysed in the context of the present economic crisis and political situation it is a serious set back.

It is not the purpose of this article to blame this or that in• The ENV strike • The Stalinists' the struggle against the Prices and Incomes Bill in 1966 Communist Party did nothing until March 1, when it was too late.

The YS and the SLI on the other hand went into action in October 1965 and prepared the magnificent lobby of parliament in January 26, 1966.

When the CP realised the YS was gaining support amongst adult workers they organised their own lobby under conditions where they could split the militants.

Then when the seamen's strike broke out and the YS again organised another successful lobby on May 25 the CP boycotted it for a more ineffective lobby on June 22.

Again when the YS organised a mass demonstration on October 2, in Brighton, prior to the LP conference, the CP boycotted it and went ahead with their industrial conference on December Naturally there were no decisions taken at this conference. From the beginning it was nothing more than letting of of steam.

Party members who spoke there declared their support for Wilson's government and would not under any circumstances tolerate criticism of the left MPs.

• All trade unionists and shop stewards should now be clear that the CP is nothing more than a left cover for the Labour Party. They want to modernise British capitalism and make it work.

Gollan and , company have broken completely from any vestige of Marxist politics. Nothing but treachery and betrayal can come from their policies.

SLL trade union The delegates who were members of the SLL at the conference proposed actions calling upon the left Labour MPs to fight Wilson on the basis of socialist policies.

It is not a question of bringing the Wilson government down, with its majority of 96 members of parliament. The Labour Party depends upon the trade unions for its main source of income.

The SLL calls upon all those left MPs to fight inside the parliamentary Labour Party in order to remove Wilson with the other right wingers from the leadership, and replace them with MPs who will fight for socialist policies.

We are calling upon the labour and trade union movement to make those leaders who say they are in opposition to the right wing: Fight the right wing.

Far from this being a policy leading to the destruction of the Labour Party it will lead to a growing interest in what is happening inside that organisation.

Political leadership in industrial struggles must be orientated towards the fight inside the Labour Party. The working class has now to be guided through the experience of Labour in power.

The struggle against unemployment, against wage freezing and the Prices and Incomes Act has to be fought out by a combination of independent class struggle action in some cases, combined with the fight to expose the right wing and fake-left leaders of the Labour Party and trade unions.

Only the Socialist Labour League has the policy and the organisation which can effectively do this today.

• The policy of the The Cliff group is nothing more than a reformist organisation using the left phrases in order to maintain a relationship with the centrists inside the Labour Party and trade unions.

Communist Party treachery Communist Party members in industry are mostly middle aged, thoroughly conservative on trade union issues and cynical of politics. Since the ETU scandal they have become so demoralised that they now fight only for trade union positions.

Even in unions where they could take control they refuse to proceed because of what happened in the ETU. Party industrial members are simply demoralised as a result of the opportunist policies of the party.

Here is the reason why they cling so desperately to the so-called left in the Labour Party. They are frightened to death less they criticise them.

They have independent policy for the working class in the struggle for socialism. As far as they are concerned everything must come about as a result of a coalition with the most opportunist trade union leaders.

Faced with industrial action they proceed always in the same way.

Firstly there is a lot of left talk about 'the justice of the men's case'.

Then when some middle-of-theroad leader appears on the scene they move in behind him. The left talk is a cover behind which they trail along behind the struggle, waiting for it either to collapse or be betrayed.

At no time do they prepare their members for the sell out and betrayal which lies ahead. Indeed wherever possible they dress up these betrayals and sell outs as victories. Everything is done to weaken the determination of those in struggle by depriving them of a political understanding of what is happening.

The Communist Party industrial record for 1966 In the pamphlet by the SLL everyone to see in that strike. During

union procedure It was at this point that the shop stewards were placed in a quandry, for the simple reason hat you cannot get any deciion in relation to the question of a shut-down by simply going through the formal trade union procedure.

All the management had to do was to announce their policy and apart from ensuring that the proper rates of redundancy pay and rates were carried out, the official trade union machine was paralysed.

It was at this point that the shop stewards should have realised that the shut-down could only have been resisted by a stayin strike.

Such an action would have had considerable support throughout the north London area in which there are a number of factories now in a similar predicament.

At this stage a break had to be made with the official trade union procedure, which in itself would have involved a political struggle against the policies of the Labour government.

ANNOUNCING A MOS PAMPHLETdividual shop steward for what happened at ENV., Our task is to show how the present reformist official procedure can become a trap for the trade unionist who is not politically prepared.

Shop stewards must be politically minded Marxist trade union leadership must khow how to fight and when to fight. Such policy will not be realised without difficulties but it has the advantage of being based on a political understanding of the present situation. This can only be acquired by these shop stewards and militant trade unionists who work seriously for the construction of the revolutionary party.

The ENV shop stewards were not politically equipped for such a struggle and the responsibility must be laid at the door of their immediate advisers, the state capitalist group of Tony Clifi, and the retinue of Stalinists whom they wholeheartedly support against the SLL. DURING RECENT WEEKS there have been frequent reports in the press and on television of 'the rise of Nazism in Germany. It would be easy to gain the impression that a fascist movement exists in Germany which could increase its strength by gradual development until it gains power. Such a conclusion would be quite wrong.

Certainly the NPD is a tascist party which includes many practised Nazis! Certainly its electoral support is growing, but it cannot take to the streets and become a mass fascist movement, let alone seize power, until the political conditions are quite different.

The rise of fascism is possible on a mass scale only in a period of working-class defeat.

A Marxist can only analyse such developments. in politics by understanding the relations between the two classes in capitalist society; the working class and the ruling class (and their appendage the petty bourgeoisie, or lower middle class).

Without the support of the petty bourgeoisie and the treacherous social-democratic and Stalinist leaderships, the rule of the tiny capitalist class would be impossible.

Join forces

In a situation where the working class is preparing to take the power, where a Marxist party is providing a clear, revolutionary lead, masses of petty bourgeois shopkeepers join forces teachers, etc.) will with the working class against their common oppressors, the capitalists.

In a situation of defeat for the working class, they may well express their hopeless situation by flocking to fascist parties and becoming the spearhead with which the capitalists try and destroy the organisations of the working class.

The essence of the petty bourgeois is that they can have no political position of their own. In times of capitalist expansion they may, nonetheless, seem to have their own policies.

An example is the ideas and attitudes of the trade union bureaucrats and social democrats which express not the interests of their working-class members but the dreams of the petty bourgeois; the belief that an infinite series of peaceful reforms is possible under capitalism.

During the heyday of the postwar boom it was petty-bourgeois thinkers who insisted that capitalism was no longer capitalism, that the working class had ceased to exist, that everybody now agreed on the need for full employment, high wages, 'free trade unions', 'the welfare state' and so on. is now rapidly ending.

Today world capitalism is faced with an immense crisis soluble at the expense only of unparalleled suffering on the part of the working class and peasants throughout the world.

The sources of this crisis are the inescapable contradictions of the capitalist system; the tendency towards a falling rate of profit, the growing battle for markets, the inability to develop automation within the bonds of capitalist ownership and, above militancy of the working class.

These contradictions are expressed economically in rapid inflation, the world liquidity crisis and over-production.

In every developed capitalist country the paramount problem for the ruling class is : How are the working class to be disciplined? How is the rate of exploitation to be increased?

britain, the reformist leaders of the Labour Party are uised standards era ce war the class enforceable by law.

In the USA, where recent statistics show that labour costs per unit of output are rising significantly for the first time in eight years, there is no agreement on how the working class is to be tamed and the political position of the Democratic Party is called into question by the recent elections. Italy, Similarly in the Netherlann Japan the gains of the working class now present problems for the capitalists which have led, or are leading to, the break-up the parties and coalitions which governed during the boom period. working The political crisis in Germany is an excellent example of this process. After the 12 years of fascist butchery and the allied bombing, the German working class was divided as part of the post-war division of Europe between the Soviet bureaucracy and imperialism.

For years the German workers were kept, as a conscious policy, in abject poverty, the capitalist state machine was rebuilt in the West and replaced in the East by a workers' state in which the Stalinist bureaucracy repressed the few secret workers' organisations which had survived Hitler's rule.

In 1953, a national strike accompanied by demonstrations throughout East Germany was violently supressed.

In the West, the capitalist occupying powers had created a BY - CORRESPONDENT completely new structure of 'nonpolitical' trade unions closely linked to the state. They did this in a period when that part of the country was flooded with refugees, was under military government, when almost every militant over 20 had been murdered and when there was mass unemployment. The scene had been set for the stabilisation of German capitalism.

With the Korean war boom, the Marshall Plan and a currency reform, which made large quantities of capital available for investment, German capitalism began to surge forward and grow with extreme rapidity.

From the ending of military government, the Christian Democratic Party dominated the political scene and appeared unchallengeable.

The Social Democrats were moving rapidly to the right until, in 1959, they abandoned any mention of nationalization from their programme. The Communist Party was made illegal in West Germany.

By the late 1950s and early 1960s West Germany appeared to be almost the model capitalist state; there was rapidly rising output and productivity, the standard of living was neax to that of Britain, there were social services, the government appeared stable, Germany was a substantial part of NATO and had the strongest currency apart from the dollar.

Despite the unparalleled viciousness of the attacks that had been made on the German working class, despite the treachery the Stalinists and the integration the Social Democrats and union bureaucrats into the capitalist state, the German working class was growing enormously in strength especially during the early 1960s.

Particularly significant was the militant strike action of the metal workers.

From 1963 onwards unemployment began to fall to very low levels. The labour costs per unit of production rose by nearly 20 per cent between the end of 1963 and today.

The result of the strengthening the German working class in world situation where competition is becoming sharper and where both the dollar and the pound are under Dressure has ›een a sharp cut in the pronts of German capitalists.

Bankruptcies rise

Several large German companies have had to use reserves to pay dividends to shareholders, whilst the number of bankruptcies has risen 10 per cent in the first nine months of 1966. Industrial production is down on last year and, during 1965, Germany ran a bigger balance of payments current deficit than did Britain in the crisis year of 1964.

It was disagreement over the manner in which this crisis should be tackled that led to the break-up of the government coalition headed by Erhard.

The fact that this governmental crisis has been temporarily resolved by a coalition between the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats is particularly significant for it now appears that German capitalists believe that the best chance of disciplining the German working class lies in bringing the treacherous leaders of the traditional party of the German working class into government.

As 'The Guardian' commented on November 22: 'Bankers and economists ... are disturbed by some of the wage demands currently in the pipeline and some of them want Bonn to emulate MT. Wilson and introduce a squeeze.' As yet, the German ruling class places its confidence in the reformists to solve the crisis, but its support is conditional on success. There are small sections of the petty bourgeoisie and a few big capitalists who would prefer the cosh and the gas chamber to the parliamentary trickery of Herr Brandt.

But there is no doubt that the German working class will fight against all attacks: whether it will win and take the power depends on the development of the Fourth International and particularly a section in both parts of Germany.

At present. Chancellor Kiesinger, the ex-Nazi, will share his cabinet with social democrat Brandt but the development of the crisis of imperialism presses inevitably towards a revolutionary situation where the decision has to be made: Is the working class to be crushed or will it take power?

The German crisis further emphasises the urgency of the reconstruction of the Fourth International.

In this situation, the Stalinists and their "left' camp followers move even more rapidly to the right. The policy of the Stalinists in this situation is to call for more pressure on Wilson to recognise East Germany and supports calls for the banning of the NPD and removal of ex-Nazis in West Germany as part of a democratic front against fascism. • Such policies disarm the working class and subordinate it to social democrats who are in the very process of attacking workers.

There are only two roads that can be taken in face of the developing crisis of imperialism which is illustrated in Germany; either to surrender to imperialism by appealing for pressure on Wilson, Brandt and so on, or to fight for Marxism and the international interests of the working class in the rebuilding of the Fourth International.

The most important sign of the development of the Fourth International was the recent international demonstration in Liège.

THE ARGENTINE General Confederation of Labour has decided to call a 24-hour general strike in protest at the government's economic and social policies. The strike, due to take place on December 14, will involve about two and a half million workers, mainly in the big industrial centre around Buenos Aires.

Over the last two years, the Argentine working class has beer hard hit by governmental measures to strengthen capitalism. In April last year the peso was devalued, to the advantage of the manufacturing increase in but this led to cattle prices which caused some American-owned meat packing houses to lay off a large number of workers. There was a rise in the cost of living index of 18.5 within first few months after devaluation.

In June 1965 the International Monetary Fund, together with the World Bank, the US government, 11 European countries and Japan, made arrangements to help the Argentine poning the repayment of 07.5 million dollars due in debts.

In June this year, the Congress was still discussing budget proposals when the army staged a coup and dissolved Congress.

DETERMINED

This military dictatorship, in partnership with the bankers, is determined to smash the working-class movement in order to make capitalism work in Argentina.

All political parties have been officially banned. Fascist movements, such as the Tacuara, are functioning freely, however, and their leaders have been paying frequent visits to ministers in the military government.

July General Ongania's government ordered the seizure of 500 credit co-operatives by the Central Bank so ensure control over loans which the cooperatives made to small businesses and welfare institutions. 05 Assed. Under Nhis 936 Law No. 16936 was passed. federal authorities can order compulsory arbitration for any labour dispute which they consider detrimental to the economy or security and well-being of the 'community'.

STRIKES STOPPED

Once the government gives notice that it is invoking these howers, those nvolved have 24 in which to cease any action they intended. Immediately this law was made, it was used to stop a number of strikes by sugar estate workers. announced eman to reorganise

Prices and Incomes Act.

Bill Jones refused to allow the CAV/Lucas resolution to be put before the conference.

This resolution which could have rallied those delegates who came to London for a lead on how to organise the struggle against Wilson, called for those left MPs to put down a resolution in the Parliamentary Labour Party demanding the removal of Wilson and his Cabinet and their replacement by people who would repeal the Prices and Incomes Act, end the wage freeze nationalization of the major in! dustries under workers' control.

Mobilise workers This policy could mobilise the working class in a fight against Wilson and should be supported by a mass demonstration in Feburary to make the left MPs fight.

Of course they could not discuss this resolution.

But delegates who go back into the branches and the factories will discuss these policies. Then those attempts made on Saturday to divert a real struggle into constitutional channels in the movement will be overtaken by the class struggle itself.

This was borne out by a meeting of over 50 delegates which was held following the conference. This meeting decided to campaign for support for the CAV/Lucas resolution and to call for a mass demonstration in London on Wednesday, February 22 to put this policy into action.

Registered at the G.P.O. as a newspaper Published by The Newsletter S.W.4 to Capin Hia ra, London, 3.4 Argentinian railways. It involves sacking 40,000 railway workers.

It is the dockers who have led the move towards the December strike. They have been on strike now for over five weeks.

On December 2 police arrested 22 dockers during a demonstration, but the strikers succeeded in invading the Confederation of Labour premises while a meeting was on, and lobbied the union leaders for more effective backing for their strike.

STRIKE CALL

After a stormy meeting, the General Confederation decided to call a strike on December 14.

This is an important step, alhough it will not be enough.

A determined all-out struggle by workers, peasants and farmers behind a revolutionary Marxist leadership will be needed to throw out the military dictatorship.

Become a subscriber to IN the fight for socialism, The Newsletter is playing a vital role. Do you get it regularly? Don't leave it to the chance encounter, fill in this form and send it to: Subscription Department, The Newsletter, 186a Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4. 9s. Od. for 12 issues Address will be more spread overs as buses will be concentrated in the peak periods, with lengthened headways at night. This can mean a 13-hour plus day for busmen who have to work during both the extremely tiring rush hours—in the morning and at night.

This is one of the proposals of the government White Paper and is in preparation for the introduction of one-man buses.

Action at garage level is not enough. Nor is militant talk.

The need is for a Marxist leadership among busmen.

Those busmen who are serious about defending their conditions must consider working with the Young Socialists and Socialist Labour League tor policies of nationalization of the basic industries—including transport-under workers' control.

last cut, the sole reason given was the staff shortage. Busmen were promised better services if the position improved.

LONG, TIRING

WORK PLANNED From December 31, there over Newsletter Correspondent 'WE'VE BEEN sold down the river, was the reaction of East Yorkshire Motor Service drivers and conductors as they left a meeting in Hull last Saturday (December 3).

The meeting marked the end of their seven-week strike for an improved bonus to bring them in line with the bonus paid to the Hull Corporation bus workers on routes they work in common, and an end to the 'split shift' system of workThe 'split shift' is divided into three parts and, although the men are 'at the disposal' of the company for 1l hours, they are only paid for seven and a half.

In the course of the strike it became clear what forces line up against the working class in these struggles.

Strike reported

The East Yorkshire Motor Service is part of the British Electric Traction Company and there are close connections between its directors and those of United Newspapers, which owns the Hull Daily Mail'-each evening this paper has reported the busmen's struggle.

On the other hand half the shares of British Electric are owned by the government —a Labour government that includes a number of Transport and General Workers' Union MPS.

If Minister of Labour Ray Gunter's court of inquiry had been set up over this dispute, would it have supported the just claim of the workers who elected Labour to power?

It is reported that in the talks between the bus company, the union and Ministry of Labour conciliation oflicer, the union had agreed to drop two of the demands that led to the strike, and also that the return to work was on the basis of "proposals submitted by themanagement'.

The •Pearly strikes again LAST FRIDAY (December 2) when Young Socialists were giving out leaflets on the Royal Docks, London, for a public meeting in the area, Jack Dash, secretary of the unofficial liaison committee, décided to act.

He took a leaflet, advertising the meeting on December 8 against the wage freeze, unemployment and the Devlin proposals. A tew minutes later he re-appeared with a loudhailer.

He began by urging the dockers 'unlucky enough to find themselves unemployed' to march to Transport House-headquarters of their Transport and General Workers' Union-on the following Monday morning demanding the basic minimum wage recommended by the Devlin Report, and the implementation of the 40-hour week, won several years ago.

This last demand, Dash claimed, would allow a certain amount of work-sharing, a demand he had made earlier in the week.

His panic reaction to the YS leafletting exposed the bankruptcy of the Communist Party on the docks. He made no call to fight the Devlin recommendations which hit at the conditions and whole defence structure dockers have achieved over years of fighting. Nor did he mention that unemployment was caused by the government's measures and that it would probably worsen on the docks in the future by the implementation of the Devlin Commission proposals. Redundancy payments up So workers must pay pound, the Wilson government is running into deficit DUE TO ITS economic measures in attempting to 'save the National Redundancy Fund.

But no one need worry. Whenever the government runs short it turns ... to the working class.

stons from workers and employers.

A further £40,000 loan was issued to the Fund last week bringing the total borrowing in the last month to £950,000.

Payments from the fund, which have naturally increased sınce the July measures and the lay-ofts in the motor and creed dis intriguess have exceeded t100,000 since mid-April. This deficit could jump to £4.5 million by next February, said Minister of Labour Ray Gunter last month—he obviously has docker' Footnote: On the Monday morning no one appeared to have answered Dash's call and Transport House remained unlobbied.

40 leave short-time factory ABOUT 40 of the 100 men put on short time at Crofts (Engineering) Ltd., of Bradford five weeks ago, have left the firm. Many of them claimed they were only receiving £10 a week after the announcement.

Last week the firm announced that the remaining 60 will be put back on a • five-day week. The workers fear they may have to do the work of 100 men.

the on the rising unemployment figure in mind.

During the next six months, he expects drawings to reach £650,000 a week. The weekly average between April and October was £430,000.

The deficit can apparently be met by borrowing further from the Consolidated Fund to the tune of £8 million-in certain circumstances this could be raised to £20 million.

But the first thought in the government's mind is to attack the dwindling wage packets of the workers first; a macabre sort of insurance or modernised version of a payas-you-get-sacked-scheme.

AS THE ABERFAN TRIBUNAL sat in Merthyr Tydfil last Thursday (December 1), the killer tip-subject of the inquiry—slipped again. Some slurry from the tip, the No. 7, raced for 150 to 200 yards before stopping. Two days earlier, the Tribunal had heard that a plan to abandon No. 7 and begin tipping on a site further from the village had been dropped by the National Coal Board because it would have involved spending €300,000 on an aerial roadway. OUR CARDIFF CORRESPONDENT But Aberian villagers continually fear the danger from the tips which killed 116 of the village's children and 28 adults on October 21.

The legal representative of the Aberfan Parents' and Residents' Association at the tribunal demanded a committee of all the technical experts called as witnesses to advise the inquiry on the present positions of tips Nos. 7, 5 and 4, and to suggest safety measures.

Lord Justice Edmund Davies, chairman the Tribunal questioned whether they had power to set up such a committee.

The NCB said they would send a bulldozer to level the top of the No. 7 tip.

LONG HISTORY This Tribunal has been receiving evidence long history plaints at It was told statement by Si Elwyn Jones, the Attorney General, that warnings from 23 years.

He had also the tribunal safety reguthe tipping of slurry. that no legal door.

memorandum safety when they on. No. tip. tip slid about feet, stopping only 600 short of the village.

Yet No. site much closer to the village on a steep gradient. It also appears that No. 7 tip was in part tipped across the 1944 slide from the No. 4 tip.

After that slide Merthyr Council exchanged letters with Powell Duffryn's manager, Mr. Geoffrey Morgan, who is now the NCB production manager for the South-West Division. and asked for joint examination of the site. But this never took place. NO CONSIDERATION On the history of No. 7 tip Sir Elwyn Jones said that the de. cision that without consideration being given to Ordnance Survey maps, or to the presence of springs, or to water which was known to flow tipped on No. 7. A new form of coal had been made at the colliery with the aid of chemicals by combining small coal particles, 'talings' are the waste from this