The Next Step: No. 9, January 1981

the next step review of the Revolutionary Communist Tendency 20p No jobs with the Tories Sold out by the Labour Party Now the fascists make their bid FOUR PAGE SPECIAL FEATURE ON THE FIGHT AGAINST RACISM AND FASCISM - East London Workers Against Racism and the Anti-Nazi League - You can't fight nationalism with nationalism!

Plus After the Irish hunger strike • Gardner's: the anatomy of a sell-out Cruise missiles and the visions of EP Thompson • The RCT: reconstructing the Marxist tradition

How the RCT campaigned for the hungerstrikers and their fight for freedom.

Strike for Irish freedom!

The ultimate success of the hunger strike depended on whether the British working class could be mobilised to concede the prisoners' Government to demands. The RCT pointed out that, in the end, only industrial action in Britain could press the state to back down on its attempts to brand fighters for national liberation as common criminals. This was the message we took to the British labour movement at every opportunity, nationand locally, as the hunger strike ally putting the issue of dragged on. By political status to the fore and arguing that sympathy with the Irish prisoners means antipathy to the British state, the RCT prepared the way for the most effective solidarity with the Irish struggle.

• 15 November At the national demonstration called in London by the Committee for Withdrawal from Ireland the RCT organised one of the largest contingents under the banner 'Victory to the H-Block men'.

• 29 November RCT supporters went on mass to the Labour Party's Liverpool demonstration against unemployment and the Tories. We didn't go to hear Michael Foot's rhetoric, but to press the urgency of taking a stand for political status on the organisations of the British working class.

• 5 December An RCT labour movement rally attended by 150 people in London heard a series of trade union speakers on the theme *Industrial action to smash the H-Blocks, Victory to the hunger strikers'.

• 7 December A national demonstration in solidarity with the Irish prisoners was joined by a large and vociferous RCT contingent.

• 21 December *The hunger strike is over - the Irish War goes on' said the RCT speaker introducing a rally staged by the RCT in Kilburn Square shortly after the strike was called Support the next step I want to back the next step with a donation of f I want to sell I want to subscribe to the next step (10 copies copies of the next step each issue f2, post free) (1 year Name Address Phone 2 the next step, January 1981 Political status now! From the moment the H-Block hunger strike was announced in October, the RCT made the campaign in support of the prisoners lemands for political status the centre of its activities in the British labour movement. As the hunger strike continued, and was joined by women in Armagh jail, we stepped up our pickets, meetings and demonstrations to publicise it and build solidarity with the Irish people off. Other speakers included representatives from Sinn Fein, IRSP, TOM, the SWP and other British groups.

Victory to the hunger strikers!

force the Throughout the hunger strike branches in London and Manchester used all - their regular street meetings, queue sales as well as workplace, college and trade union branch activities to raise support for the political status campaign.

In Manchester RCT supporters organweek of action on Ireland at the ised a Poly with films, discussions and meetings centred around the prisoners' demands.

On 6 November over 100 people marched through the city centre to a torchlight rally. Two weeks later on 23 November a larger number attended a demonstration commemorate the years ago, of the Manchester Martyrs - republican prisoners held in Irish local prison. East London RCT turned Saturday into Hunger Strike Action day.

general approach start when RCT supporters unfurled a 30 foot banner from St Pauls Cathedral as Lord Mayor's the through the City of London. The message: 'Smash H-Block'. For the duration of the strike we joined with the East London TOM supporters activists through Hackney and Tower Hamlets. We toured street markets and shopping areas broadcasting in a lorry cause over a public address system and selling the next step to explain the politics of our campaign. Smash the PTA! Free Maurice Ward!

The Smash part to play in the hunger strike - the British state made sure of that.

November political status Liam Carlin, recently released from Long Kesh, was snatched off a plane at Heathrow and held at Rochester Row under the * Support the next step financially!

Help us extend our circulation and distribution. Send us a donation today. * Introduce your friends and workmates to the next step. Order 10 extra copies of every issue.

* Find out more about the RCT and its activities and join the fight for revolutionary communism.

Send the cut-off corner to: Junius Publications BCM JPLTD, London WCIN 3XX PTA. STAC immediately picket of the police station.

RCT

dole when From his execution, 113 Our from the clear procession passed - as well as ELWAR in a series of demonstrations prisoners' the the PTA Campaign had its On 14 campaigner

CONTENTS

Editorial Three months of shame Ireland Political status now! The Irish War goes on Labour movement Short time work Imperialism Reagan's landslide Racism and fascism Labour Party Filipino deportations Benn's appeal to blacks The RCT On the road to war hunger organised a Later in November STAC called a picket of the Labour Party headquarters on the anniverlet sary of the party's introduction of the PTA six years ago. The most dramatic stickers case for STAC arose in mid-December we received news that Maurice ition to Ward, an Irish republican prisoner held Ireland. on remand for the last nine months in Brixton jail, had joined the hunger strike.

bed in the prison hospital Maurice Ward confirmed to SPAC that he intended neither to eat nor drink until the demands for political status during were conceded. South London supporters of SPTAC immediately publicised Ward's courageous stand with a press conference, an interviews on London radio stations and in 1981.

SMASH H-BLOCI

Unambiguous banners, unambiguous politics Features Letters 16 Gardner's: SWP joins TUC jobs auction4 Editor Two ways of fighting fascism The Nazis and the SPD, the NF and the 8,9 10 10 Activities in January and February 11 Reconstructing the Marxist tradition 12 Series: the war and the working class 14,15 pickets outside the prison. Every day in the week before the strike ended we gathered outside the prison to show solidarity with Ward and the Six Counties On 18 December strikers. of demonstration including supporters South London TOM and other groups assembled at Brixton Oval and marched to the prison. Police and warders, shaken by the escape of Gerry Tuite earlier in the week, gave us a hostile reception.

Some London supporters went further to put the prisoners' cause in the public eye. Loyal subjects of Her Majesty in Tooting were shocked to see her arriving for a walkabout in an open car wearing a white dress stained with blood, followed by people waving placards and banners proclaiming support for the H-Block protest. The real Queen arrived later as the red Queen was hustled away. Christmas shoppers at the exclusive Fortnum and Mason department store got a whiff of conditions in H-Block when somebody off stink bombs in the food hall These stunts, as well as the hundreds of

RCT

and posters put up by supporters, all helped to stimulate oppos- British government policy in As we enter 1981 the War in Ireland enters a new phase. But whatever form the struggle takes the battle for the minds and hearts of British workers will play a decisive part in determining the outcome The RCT showed where it stood in action we're in the hunger strike: better position than ever before to build anti-imperialist movement in Britain 204- 13 You protest - they survive 15 Entry diary 11 Frank Richards Editorial board Tony Allen, Mike Freeman, Kevin Green, Nick Jenkins, Fenna King, James Wood Published by Junius Publications Ltd BCM JPLTD, London WIN 3XX Printed by Anvil Printers Ltd (TU) Typeset by Junius Typesetters (TU) ISS 0144-350X January 1981

the next step

THREE MONTHS OF SHAME

all possible means the uprisings in Ireland demonstration were the freedom fiohters as common criminals once and for all

LABOUR MOVEMENT

GARDNER

SWP JOINS

TUC

If you believed even half of what Socialist Worker said about the Gardner's occupation you made a big mistake. About the only thing the SWP got right was the fact that L Gardner & Sons is a 2400employee diesel engine plant based at Eccles, Greater Manchester, that belongs to Hawker Siddeley. For the rest, Socialist Worker spent the seven weeks of the strike covering up for the trade union bureaucrats behind it. Eventually it declared "Gardner's win - at last a jobs victory' in banner headlines (Socialist Worker, 29 November 1980). We ask: what kind of 'victory' is it when hundreds of voluntary redundancies are agreed to? OVER THE PAST YEAR engineering workers in Eccles have suffered a whole series of redundancies. So when Gardner's employees replied to management demands for redundancies by occupying the factory, it looked like a major turn for the better. What happened was this: on 21 August the Gardner's works committee met with the employers to hear their response to a 20 per cent wage claim. The employers said they wanted 700 jobs to go, a five per cent increase in wages, speed-up (a new bonus scheme and restrictions on shop stewards. A 5 September mass 4 the next step, January 1981

JOBS AUCTION

meeting of the unions involved - the 1400-strong AUEW plus APEX, TASS and ASTMS - voted for a strike. Following further negotiations and mass meetings, the workforce agreed to conduct a roundthe-clock sit-in. By 6 October a full-scale occupation had begun. Prospects looked bright. The workforce was tough; much of it was young, too.

When it took up the strike committee's slogan - 'Enough is enough' - it meant it, The committee itself was determined and well-organised. It got almost half the workers out on picket duty on day one of the occupation and established a rota so that everybody had to do a stint. It set up • other bodies to service the strike, including a delegations committee (to send people all over the country to collect funds, which proved vital) and a social committee (to make sure that people didn't get bored). And it also instituted tight security arrangements: you had to sign in and sign out just to gain access to the factory.

All this showed the ability of the workers to control things how they wanted. For many the strike was their first experience of union activity, but they learned fast. People were confident: the management had been locked out and forced to set up shop at the local head- Engineering Employers quarters of the Federation. Yet behind the discipline of the occupation lay aims that were feeble and wrong. Flawed from the start The unions at Gardner's struck from a position of weakness. Since the summer they'd been on a three-day week, with under the Government's Temporary Short Time Working Compensation Scheme only 75 percent of basic rates for every day laid off. Their leaders had already agreed to what they euphemistically called 'work sharing' and to a wage cut so as to tide the company over the recession.

Of course, to read Socialist Worker on the occupation was to be unaware of this.

The SWP was happy to give the impression that the people running the strike were out to get the unconditional reinstatement of all those threatened with redundancy. But this was not the case Tom Macafee, convener of the joint shop stewards' committee and a member of the Communist Party, made this very clear on the first day of the occupation. While he declared overnight sackings unacceptable, he said he was 'prepared to accept work sharing and even continue a shorter improve' working week until things (quoted in the Morning Star, 7 October 1980). As far as Macafee was concerned less work and less money was OK. Instead of defending his members' interests regardless of the consequences for the bosses, he and the other strike leaders felt compelled to acknowledge 'the facts of life' that some kind of sacrifices had to be made. They therefore proposed sacrifices that seemed easier for the workers to bear than those put forward by the bosses The bosses wanted redundancies; as an leaders alternative, the of the strike offered further reductions in the working week and in wages. For them the purpose of the occupation was to get management to agree to what appeared as the less painful option. This is why AUEW general secretary Terry Duffy backed them. He quickly saw the sense in short time and lower living standards. On 14 October he and his executive committee made the Gardner's strike official. By this time 110 jobs had already been lost by 'natural wastage'. Mean while Socialist Worker maintained its diplomatic stance towards the strike committee and told its readers that Gardner's should be an example to workers everywhere.

How one thing led to another On 20 October management sent out redundancy notices to the 590 workers whose jobs still remained due for the chop among them a large number of shop stewards and Macafee himself. The following day Macafee had a statement printed in the Morning Star indicating that the strike committee was prepared to countenance 300 early retirements severance pay was sufficient. Management saw this concession for what it was and stepped 'up the pressure accordingly Between 25 and 29 October it sent every Gardner's worker a ballot paper asking whether he'd participate in a secret ballot about a return to work. Then, needless to say, it began crowing about the replies it received in favour. The strike committee was really being By now only 200-300 workers squeezed. were actively involved in the occupation.

With no tradition of committee decisions being reported back to mass meetings many workers were in the dark about what was going on. Media propaganda against going on with the strike started to take its toll Still Socialist Worker stayed silent about the direction of the struggle: after all, the strike committee's moderation wouldn't have looked too inspiring in its pages. But SWP journalist Paul Foot was prepared to applaud that moderation in his column in the Daily Mirror. Noting that the Gardner's workers were on strike 'to share work and take a cut in wages, he commented: If anyone can give me a Hawker Siddeley prefer to reason why sack people rather than share out the available work I'd be glad to publish it' (Daily Mirror, 5 November 1980). A "radical' story for one paper, a reasonable' one for the other. The bosses get most of it their way On 6 November management declared that it would go ahead with plans to ballot the workforce on a return to work.

Seventy of the 590 workers served with redundancy notices had by this time left; and the next day Macafee proclaimed that there was 'room for negotiation' not only on the 300 early retirements he had earlier suggested but on voluntary (Morning redundancies too Star, November 1980). Certain from the start of the occupation that union compromises were in the offing, management now had almost everything it wanted on a plate. The week after Macafee dropped his hint in the Morning Star, the bosses arranged to meet Confederation of Shipbuilding and the Engineering Unions to discuss the terms' of a return to work. At the meeting they did agree to withdraw the redundancy notices they'd sent out; but they also saw the unions promise in person what Macafee had only promised on paper before It had started with a union-supported reduction in wages. It had ended with union-supported 'voluntary' redundancies Crawling to the officials The struggle at Gardner's wasn't a cut-and -dried defeat: through their militancy, the workers had stopped management from pushing through mass sackings as fast as it would have liked. But the struggle at Gardner's did culminate in what can only be described as a sell-out. Even now it's not clear what will happen once the trickle of voluntary redundancies comes to a halt and 'overmanning' persists.

For the SWP to ignore all this, for it to Hawker Siddeley had announce that been forced to back down completely' (Socialist Worker, 29 November 1980) But it was the same was bad enough. story inside the factory too: SWP supporters could not help but go along with the strike leadership. Not only did they draw a veil over each and every retreat the strike committee made, they took their lead from the local AUEW bureau- The attitude of the officials, enthused SWP member Mick Brightman, 'has helped a hell of a lot' (Socialist Review, 15 October 1980). Indeed Mick Brightman even had praise for the role that AUEW John divisional organiser. Tocher played at Gardner's.

Tocher was recently responsible for the loss - without consulting his workforce - of 200 jobs at Fairey Engineering just nearby, but that didn't bother Brightman. On the contrary, the man had had 'more successes over the last ten years than almost any official in the country' (Socialist Review, 15 October 1980). That the SWP paid tribute to the left wing of Britain's trade union bureaucracy

in this way was not surprising. The SWP has no political answers to the problems facing workers on the shop floor. its only answer is an organisational one: more unity. Ever since its Defend our unions' conference of June 1979 the SWP has argued for unity with the Communist Party and Labour left against the Tories (see 'Unity - behind the bureaucrats', the next step, No 3, March 1980). At Gardner's the character of that unity was made graphically obvious - it meant collaboration all along the line.

Bleak overview At first sight the outcome of the Gardner's occupation seems little different from that of numerous other disputes in which trade union bureaucrats have driven through voluntary redundancies. But there is more to it than meets the eye.

All last year unemployment rose rapidly; and all last year the TUC spent time developing a strategy to deal with it.

Eventually Len Murray and his friends came up with the goods. They decided that every union should write in a clause guarding against compulsory redundancies in every document it put its name to.

That clause was incorporated into the national agreement the POEU signed with the Post Office in April 1979. It was also technology', drawn up early in 1980 and since rejected by the employers' organisation. Its purpose is two-fold. First, it allows the trade union bureaucracy to save face with the rank and file, because allows the bureaucracy to keep on being only way the latter can get rid of workers is by getting the bureaucrats' help in But the significance of the clause goes further than this. Failure to adopt it that is, failure to make union opposition to redundancies opposition to compulsory redundancies alone - means being left out in the cold. When, for instance, five civil service unions recently told the Government they opposed all the 67 000 redundancies it had planned for their members, they were told by the employers that they were exceeding TUC policy. In other words, to go beyond resistance simply to compulsory redundancies is to risk being isolated by the official labour The workers at Gardner's learnt about consecuences stratagem the hard way. The SWP learnt nothing. All it did was toe the TUC line.

By hailing the sell-out at Gardner's as a workers from even absorbing the lessons The RCT and Gardners From the beginning of the occupation the RCT tried to win workers to oppose the before there was any open talk of voluntary redundancy, an occupation bulletin issued by supporters of the next step argued that continuing with the Govern- Compensation Scheme would be danger- What the Scheme means is that you are paid only 75 percent of your normal wages for the days you don't work. In other words you take a wage cut. You pay for the bosses' inability to produce profitably. Agreeing to this is only the first step to accepting that you should sacrifice your job for the bosses when Scheme comes to an end. The demand of the occupation should be for the unconditional withdrawal of all redundancy threats and for full pay for all employees.' (16 October 1980) Short time work Short step to the dole queue If you're a teenager looking for a job, On 21 November Employment Minister James Prior announced his intention to spend £573m next year keeping people without jobs off the dole - almost twice the amount he spent in 1980. A lot of the money will go to fund the Government's Temporary Short Time Working Compensation Scheme (TSTWCS), introduced by the last Labour Government and extended by Prior for another year. Below, we look at how the Scheme works and what attitude trade unionists manual workers in British manufacturing industry was on short time. Now one in every 12 is. That works out at getting on for 400 000, the highest figure since at least the late 'sixties apart from the threeday week of 1974. The sectors worst hit are motor vehicles (20 percent of the workforce losing an average of 17 hours a week) and textiles (16 per cent, 16 hours).

The regions getting the hardest hammering are the West Midlands (15 per cent, 14 hours) and Wales (10 percent, 15 hours (Department of Employment, Gazette, because it's exactly the same as that shown by figures for outright unemploy- Employers put their workers on short time for the same reasons they put them out of work: because they're being profitability that's endemic to the capital- Of course management doesn't phrase demand for the products it makes, or that 'unfair foreign competition' (imports) is squeezing it out. Then it tells the workforce that output will just have to drop as a consequence and that that means either work. And then - and this is the worst workforce say they'll take short time.

Whereupon the management applies to the Department of Employment (DE) for assistance under the TSTWCS Demand for the Scheme is now so intense

HOOD WA

yourself. the employer to pay his workers a minimum of f8 a day (before tax) or 75 per cent of their wage for every day of the week they don't work - for a period not longer than six months. It looks straight- The point about the TSTWCS is, as one personnel managers' magazine put it, that it allows a firm 'to cut back production and reduce labour costs at the same time as retaining both its labour force and some goodwill' (Incomes Data Services, Report, July 1980). In other words it's a means of both holding onto workers until business picks up, and showing them that employers are concerned for their welfare.

Scheme can easily be used to set skilled against unskilled. But the second aspect To the individual worker the provisions of the Scheme can look attractive. After all, you get paid money for doing nothing.

But the 'goodwill' engendered by use of the Scheme softens up the workers as a collective body in face of more managemeans accepting the sack later (just like accepting voluntary redundancies paves the way for compulsory redundancies, in fact). Saying yes to the Scheme now allows management to go to the unions and say 'sorry lads, we've tried everything' when the time for full-scale redundancies eventually comes round. It always does come round before long.

Hoover announced plans to put 8500 on short time in its Cambuslang plant in Scotland in August, it threatened to sack 400 workers at the same time.

With nearly all of Talbot UK's workforce of 16 000 on short time in November, the

LABOUR MOVEMENT

company pushed for 1600 redundancies at several of its factories. And so it goes on. Every time more workers are put on a one, two or three day week, or work three weeks out of every four, they're moving a step closer to the dole queue.

Nevertheless the trade union bureaucrats like the Scheme. They say it provides both firms and workers with a 'breathing space'. But today's recession won't go in six months. Even Margaret admits there won't be Thatcher an 'upturn' before the end of this year, and most bourgeois economic commentators reckon it won't amount to much whenever (and if ever) it arrives. More impor tant, to hope that, outside the factory gates, demand may improve or imports abate in six months is to ignore what management will get up to inside the firm in that time. It'll reduce recruitment.

cut jobs by natural wastage, force through redundancies, introduce speed-up and take the opportunity of mass absences from work to try to destroy shop floor organisation. In short, it'll take all the the measure. problem it faces: low profitability.

Yet still the bureaucrats like the Scheme. Prior was only acting on Len Murray's instructions when he extended the TSTWCS in November, for the TUC general secretary had written to him back in August requesting this. It's the same at local level: a survey by the British Market using the Scheme found that most were 'working closely' with the trade unions thev had encountered. 'no objections' to it (Gazette, May 1980).

Perhaps the most striking examples of class collaboration over short time are resenting white collar staff. Because such staff don't usually have short time clauses formally entitled to at least four weeks notice, or pay in lieu of this, before they can be put on short time. But staff union leaders are so anxious to avoid redundancy' by getting their members onto short time that they're encouraging them to take the pay in lieu in order to get onto short time at once Not only that: once their members get the 75 percent wage, or the minimum f8 a day from the state, they encourage them voluntarily to return to the bosses a percentage of the pay in lieu they've received - as a gesture The reaction of John Carty, shop stewards' convenor at Talbot's Linwood factory in Scotland, to a reduction from three days to two in the working week typifies the trade unions' approach to short time: The measure was the only alternative to closure. I'm not particularly keen on the idea but it has to be regarded as a better situation But short time work and the TSTWCS are not the only alternative to closures and redundancies. Occupying the factories is an alternative that workers will go for, especially if they realise that short time inevitably leads to redundancies.

Short time work and the TSTWCS are desperate measures for the bosses to take: commenting on. Prior's endorsement of should be extended in both duration and scope is a measure of the problems we face' ('Mr Prior tries to help the jobless', also desperate measures for workers to take. But the working class cannot afford to be desperate in the capitalist crisis. We have to say: we couldn't care less about We're only interested in maintaining our jobs - and we won't sell them for £8 a

IMPERIALISM

bureaucracy. inthe

Two ways of fighting fascism ELWAR and the ANL Workers Against Racism. movement is what is to be done about it.

The price of success AROUND the Mile End area a number of black families are living under virtual siege conditions, their houses boarded up against raids by racist gangs from neighbouring estates. ELWAR supporters have started patrols and, after canvassing local streets and estates, are building up a list of people to call on to defend blacks when Overse as students necessary Queen Mary College have also been targets of abuse and beatings, so ELWAR is setting up patrols between it and Mile End tube station. Again, because schools form an important focus of racism locally, ELWAR is beginning activity round them too arranging escorts to and from school for black children who have previously been kept at home in fear of being beaten up. And we're stepping up our campaign in the trades councils and other /labour the movement bodies in challenging them to take up the defence of blacks as a vital part of the tasks of the official institutions of the working class.

Many individual anti-racists in East London have come forward to support ELWAR initiatives. An ELWAR meeting end of November at Aldgate at the attracted more than 150 people, However ELWAR isn't universally popular. Local ANL supporters, especially the SWP, the Communist Party and the Labour Party have maintained a hostile and sectarian attitude to it. A few condemn our activities as 'individual terrorism'; most are so uneasy about their own organisation's against racism that they envy mactivity ELWAR's success. Vigilantes and police ELWAR's success has drawn the attention of fascists. Sellers of the next step have met aggravation from them throughout East London; several ELWAR supporters, for instance, were attacked by no less than 40 fascists on the tube home from nee ding the BM demonstration, one stitches to a head wound afterwards. The police are also out to get us. Newham's Police Commander Daniel Hunt has announced that ELWAR supporters will 'face the full rigours of the law' if they defend blacks with than more words ('Vigilantes are warned', Newham Recorder, 4 December 1980). While the ANL now has policemen on its public platform, ELWAR is under direct threat of police repression. What better indication of two different approaches to the fight against racism and fascism?

Black families on the Bow Bridge estate recently contacted East London They have had their electricity cut off, their windows broken, their property stolen, their gas meters broken open, their car tyres slashed and their cars stolen. People have been verbally abused, cornered on stairways, threatened with violence, robbed at knife-point and stabbed - one in the chest, only a fraction from his heart. These are the sort of problems black people suffer in Britain today; the problem for the labour ELWAR's answer is clear. For the past year we have been organising workers' defence against racism and fascism. That means physical protection

NEWHAM

RECORDER.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1980

White vigilantes protecting black families y Lucy Hodges mater black ware other all vilence. he dom organited A who was nor a in meet. (El WAkers Bali st wens worker, and arm The BM demo The tradition IN THE OLD DAYS the radical left had a strong line in anti-fascist rhetoric. No platform for fascists', 'drive the fascists off the streets', 'they shall not pass' were the favourite slogans. Counter-demonstrations aimed to disrupt fascist marches and rallies. But the advent of the ANL changed this approach: the old rhetoric continued but the ANL's moderate sponsors demanded an end to violence.

So the ANL stopped trying to get at the fascists and contented itself with assembling Labour MPs, trade union officials, Stalinists and churchmen - together with declining numbers of genuine militants for futile tramps down roads well away from the fascists. Cordial co-operation between ANL leaders and the police ensured that major confrontations were avoided. This became particularly clear in the summer of 1978.

Then, during an NF march in East London, the ANL co-operated with the police to keep anti-racists at a carnival in Brixton leaving the black community in the East End defenceless. At the same time the SWP prevented its activists from exploding in frustration by organising them in small squads to wander the backstreets in search of isolated detachments of fascists.

against thugs, recent activities of ELWAR attacked them. For the facts, read on.

VIGILANTES the

ARE WARNED

1HE TIMES MONDAY DECEMBER 1 1980

"Anli-racism' _patr Karate-trained volunteers on call to counter harassment in London Fivans sion the In the windows three Here be e his weeks are still broken. move. The new ANL has even dropped the militant rhetoric. Its only aim is to show the fascists that they 'cannot march without massive police protection' (ANL revival leaflet). It is, of course, successful in this project: Police Commissioner David McNee makes sure of that. When the British Movement announced a march through Notting Hill in November, McNee, anxious to save the fascists from the local black community, gave it massive police protection. Meanwhile the AN helped to make sure that the counter-demonstration against the BM was treated to massive police harassment. The action On the morning of the counter-demonstration its organisers - a committee of local activists, the Paddington Labour Party and the AN - met at Paddington Law Centre. They explained their plans.

drawn up in consultation with the police, for a long and circuitous march ending in an easily blocked-off backstreet almost a mile away from the anticipated route of the fascist march. ELWAR stewards pointed out that the only hope of hitting the fascists would be to break away from the proposed route at some point before the whole demonstration was boxed in (continued on page 10)

RACISM

demonstrations against police harassment and fascist provocation and political pressure on the labour movement to recognise its class interests and start defending black people. Below we detail some of the After keeping the AN on ice for almost two years, the SWP is trying to revive it. On 23 November the ANL held a demonstration against the British Movement in Paddington, and just before Christmas, it ran an all-star international rally against the Nazis' near Euston. After the first, it made scurrilous allegations against ELWAR supporters; during the second, it physically The price of unity THE NIGHT of the living dead. That was the theme of the new ANL's international rally. Chaired by SWP Central Committee Paul Holborrow, member the show attracted 800 born-again anti-fascists Though addressed by respectable people from the official labour movements of Britain and Europe, it proved a turbulent affair. SWP stewards had their work cut out to subdue left-wing critics of the platform. Anarchists who objected to the speaker from the French police, supporters of the Irish liberation struggle who heckled Tony Benn and - predictably enough - ELWAR members who tried to speak from the platform were all manhandled, roughed up and kicked out.

An honest cop Infiltration of the French police by the fascist FANE has reached organisation such proportions that more liberal flies have been forced to organise and speak out in defence of 'democratic' policing.

This is what the Autonomous Federation of Police Unions does, which is why its secretary, Henri Buch, was invited.

Just as the AN would like the British police minus the SPG, Buch wants the French police minus the FANE. So he was an obvious choice for the rally. The trouble is that the record of the ordinary gendarme in dealing with blacks in Paris (especially North African immigrants) is even worse than that of the British bobby in London. Still, the ANL is always happy to hold hands with a decent copper - as long as he says he hates 'the Nazis'.

Benn against the Nazis To get Tony Benn a hearing Paul Holborrow was obliged to defend his record on Ireland. 'He has always spoken out for Irish unity said Holborrow of the man who sat in Labour Cabinets that sent the troops into the Six Counties, withdrew political status from republican prisoners and generally fought the Irish War with even greater ferocity than the Tories.

With Holborrow calling for unity and the SWP stewards hard at work, Benn eventually made his speech. His theme was unity too the of 1941: the British people (and the Russians) united against the Germans. This is the Anti-Nazi League's main message: if all British democrats pull together, like they did in the war, then fascism can be beaten. It's a message that goes down well with trendy radicals they gave Benn a standing ovation. But it's a message that spells disaster for workers. As our centre page article shows, "democratic' struggle Britain against 'fascist Germany and Japan led to the death of thousands of workers in Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

the next step, January 1981 7

You can't fight natioral History teaches us two lessons about fascism. The first is that when it comes to the crunch the leaders of the official labour movement allow the fascists to come to power rather than let workers make a social revolution. The second is that anti-fascist activity which is based, on the politics of the official labour movement and leaves unchallenged its nationalist outlook is doomed to failure.

Anti-Nazi League today as it was for the anti-fascism of the communist parties in the 'thirties. Fascist terror is on the rise in Europe (Bologna, Munich, Paris) and in Britain: we look at the struggle against fascism in Germany in the 'thirties and the problems we face today.

The fascist revival 'WE'RE BACK' read the fascist graffiti in London's East End. Blacks know that racist thugs have never left the streets of many inner-city areas in the last few years. But in recent months there is no The doubt that things have got worse.

National Front has revived after a period and its rival, the of internal conflict British Movement, has grown in strength and confidence. Both have held marches, rallies and demonstrations up and down the country. Racist attacks have multi- Oldham, Leicester, plied in London, Manchester and Birmingham.

The fascists have grown bolder and widened the scope of their offensive.

Jews as well as blacks are now under attack; synagogues and mosques alike have been desecrated. The NF's recent national conference resolved to disrupt all manifestations of support for the Irish liberation struggle. This threat has already been carried out in South London, Man- Though Irish chester and Birmingham. meetings and demonstrations have been attacked by fascists in the past, today no labour movement activity is safe. Fascists have broken up trades council and Labour Party meetings in Dagenham, Croydon and Corn wall. The fascists' main appeal is to demoralised youth. The bulk of their demonstrations is made up of skinheads, mostly boys, some at work, many teenage unemployed and some scarcely out of junior school. The NF and the BM recruit in schools and youth clubs, exploiting the climate of violence, frustration and despair that is otherwise expressed on football terraces, in disco brawls and gang the epidemic of teenage fights, and in suicides. Fascists mobilise in depressed areas, taking their message of national pride and racial superiority to Young people for whom capitalism offers no future. Fascist barbarism product of capitalist society in decay. The fascist parties step forward in a time of recession and unemployment with their plans to crisis by crushing ethnic minsolve the orities and destroying the organisations of the working class. At present they remain on the fringes of political life: the British ruling class is not yet forced to resort to such an extreme solution to its problems.

But how have the fascists been able to grow in strength and influence?

Who's to blame? The Anti-Nazi League blames the Tories; we blame the Labour Party. It says the the unemployment that Tories create allows the fascists to grow; but it was a made Labour government that mass unemployment acceptable to the labour movement in the 'seventies. The Tories 8 the next step, January 1981 This is as true for the left's never claimed that they would defend workers against the capitalist system.

They can't be accused of betrayal for collaborating with government and emreduce working class living ployers The Tories honest" standards. bourgeois party. Labour is a fraud workers' party: it has discredited the name of socialism with its reactionary policies in Parliament and its record of cuts and corruption in local government. Fascism arises as a possible solution to the capitalist crisis only when the working class is held back from imposing its own solution: To the socialist revolution. contain working class and secure its acceptance of the capitalist system is the role of the Labour Party. And it is the Labour Party, not the Tories, that leads the chauvinist clamour for the protection of British industry Labour's against foreign competition. nationalism - its support for import controls controls and immigratior differs from that of the fascists only in its moderation. It is Labour's patriotism and hostility towards foreigners that opens up the working class to the extreme nationalism and racism of the NF and the BM. A generation of working class children has grown up with the bitter experience of the Labour Party in government in Westminster and in their local Town Hall: now in despair, some of them see fascism as the only way out. about the rise of Hitler to Writing power in Germany, Trotsky noted that *Social democracy has prepared all the conditions necessary for the triumph of fascism' (What next?, 1932). A look at the role of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) confirms this in two important respects. First, in the failure of the SPD to defend or advance working class interests in conditions of economic crisis, and second, in the concessions made by SPD to German nationalism that the paved the way for the extreme racism of the Nazi Party. Trotsky's warning remains relevant today. Labour's record The SPD held or shared power in the federal government of Germany for over a third of the life of the Weimar Republic from 1919 to 1933. For most of the rest of the time the party acted as a loyal parliamentary opposition. The SPD pursued policies of compromise and class collaboration while unemployment soared and workers suffered extreme poverty and repression. The fact that the SPD ran government and controlled the local police force in major cities such as Berlin did nothing to alleviate the catastrophic impact of the crisis on the working class.

By March 1930, when the SPD was forced out of a coalition government with the main bourgeois parties, unemployment

"900,000 JOBLESS"

"1900 000L

TERRE ATONAL FIN

NATIONAL FRONT MARCH

in PRESTON, LANCS. SUNDAY, 14th SEPTEMBER 3 Assemble: 2.30 p.m. c March Off: 3.00 p.m.

ASSEMBLY PLACE DETAILS FROM YOUR

LOCAL NATIONAL FRONT ORGANISER

"BRITISH JOBS FOR

BRITISH WORKERS

BAN FOREIGN IMPORTS!"

TGWU general secretary Moss Evans abhors everything the NF stands for - or does he?

had reached three million.

A year later four million were out of work working class The SPD feared the more than it hated the Nazis. Rather than the organised might of the mobilise labour movement against the German growing Nazi Party, the SPD supported a succession of increasingly dictatorial and militaristic ruling cliques in the dying days of the Weimar Republic. Fearful of unleashing a militant workers' movement that might pass out of its control in an assault on German capitalism, the leaders of the labour movement endorsed first Bruening, then Hindenburg, then von capitulating to Papen, before finally Hitler. The SPD's crucial betrayal, however, came long before 1933. All through the 'twenties the party had been drawing on its chauvinist traditions to cover its far right. The

SPD

flank against the scorned African people in German colonies in the early years of the century. It led the patriotic fervour against France and Britain in the First World War. When French troops invaded the Ruhr in 1923 the social to collect war reparations, democrats cast imperialist Germany as an oppressed nation and revived its wartime jingoism. The German Communist Party was even more strident. It appealed to German workers to 'fight the French imperialist invasion' and called for 'the overthrow of the government of national dishonour and treason. The Nazi Party grew on this feeling The Nazis and the SPD, thNI National Front News

LIODANTOI

NOTTINGHAM

BRITISH

WORKERS

TEXTILE INDUSTRY

IS IN RUINS

of wounded national pride at Germany's humiliating defeat by France. The official labour movement failed to challenge this mounting wave of chauvinism; instead, it adapted to it. Communist theoreticians explained that it was 'essential that we exploit this sentiment to avoid it being against us. But the labour moveused ment's attempts to exploit this sentiment' served only to legitimise the more extreme nationalism of the Nazis. In the end this adaptation to chauvinism helped to make sure that it was 'used against us' in the holocaust after Hitler took power In 1933 the German trade union federation participated in Hitler's May Day The labour leaders called. on parade. workers to recognise that the victory of National Socialism... is our victory as well'. The leader of the metal workers union pledged that Hitler's Government 'will find no more enthusiastic collaboration than from German labour unions...

collaboration based on mutual trust and solidarity' (Metallarbeiterzeitung, April 1933). The following day Hitler arrested leadership and the entire trade union subsequently liquidated the German labour movement. British jobs for British workers?

The British Labour Party has never bethe same trayed the working class on scale as the German SPD only because it has never had the opportunity. Its record of class collaboration and anti-working class compromises is too familiar to

malism with nationalism th NF and the Labour Party

PUS IMPORTS

KILLING

TEXTILES

"ACT NO

SAYS

T&G

CONTROL

IMPORTS

NOW!

A TOWU RESEARCH BDOKLET

Based on the TWU Special Discussion Conference April 1980 readers of the next step to need repetition here. But it is not only in its that social democracy prepares failures the ground for fascism. It is the success of the reformists in propagating a nationalist approach to the problems of the crisis in the labour movement that renders service to the Websters and the McLoughlins.

Today, the Labour politicians are better patriots than the Tories. According to the Labour left, Great Britain is an - exploited by oppressed nation EEC, dictated to by the IMF and imposed upon by the USA with its cruise missiles.

Then it was the Treaty of Versailles. Now it's the Treaty of Rome and NATO. On all these issues the Labour Party and the National Front stand in complete agreement de fence of British in And that includes backing sovereign ty. Britain against an Irish republican movement they both agree is made up of 'terrorists'. nationalist harmony embracing the Labour Party and the National Front extends over many of the points in the left's "alternative economic strategy' for of British the revival the Communist Party's national organiser Dave Cook admitted candidly, the NF's "demands on economic questions parallel, in a crude and distorted way, a number of those expressed in the left policy' (Comment, 28 April 1979).

There are many areas of Too right. agreement. On import controls, on the call for bans on the export of capital, on the evils of foreign bankers, on the need to pull out of the EEC - there.is much common ground. The Labour Party and the CP are altogether more refined. Their import controls are to be selective, not total; the foreign bankers they object to are not necessarily Jewish. They call for the controls, not repatriation. But, fundamentally, they agree on putting Britain first.

the Party is the same as the National Front.

The difference lies in the fact that the fascists' programme includes the liquidation of the labour movement. But history tells us that we cannot rely on the reformists and the Stalinists to prevent the fascists from carrying through their national final solution. How not to fight fascism One example shows the cessions made by the international communist movement to nationalism in the 'thirties. Reporting a Nazi smear against the German veteran capitalism. As Zetkin in *a Jewish hag') the Daily Worker assured its readers that her photograph had been deliberately retouched in order to forge Jewish facial characteristics into Klara Zetkin's thoroughly alternative Jewish features' (cited in R Black, Fascism, Vol 2). Of course, it didn't really matter "a snap of the fingers' whether she was a or not murmured the Je wess similar regularly ANL's leading sponsors, problem book Never Again!). fiction of 'non-racist' immigration were barely This does not mean that the Labour offended! sort of con- Communist Klara 1932 (she had been called to follows German and nontrous defeats Daily Worker, but in case there were any lingering doubts the CP felt obliged to point out that in fact Klara Zetkin is the daughter of a Saxon school teacher, and has no Jewish admixture of any sort in her veins' It's worth citing this outrageous indulgence of anti-semitic prejudice because apologetics are widely used in 'countering the racists' arguments' today.

The Anti-Nazi League and its supporters reassure their. followers that there aren't that many of them over here anyway, that they don't breed all that fast or constitute too much of a burden on social security. Of course, they say lit doesn't matter a snap of the fingers' - but these defensive remarks only further isolate black people and appease the racists.

The lesson of the 'thirties is that you can't fight nationalism with nationalism: you can't confront racist propagandawith arguments which accept that they (Jews, blacks, foreigners) are the problem for us (the Germans, the British, the nation). Our starting point must always be that the only they is the bourgeoisie (organised along national lines) and the only us is the international working class.

SWP,

The theoreticians of the the have come to different conclusions about the German debacle. For the SWP's Colin Sparks the with the German Communist Party was this: the KPD's insistence on doctrinal purity led to the ultra-leftist mistake of refusing to form a united front with the SPD against the Nazis (see his This is nonsense. The KPD diluted and distorted working class politics to the point where they distinguishable from Nazi propaganda. By 1931, the KPD began to outdo the Nazis in its nationalist proclamations. It even published a review designed to attract nationalist ex-soldiers.

•We are the best patriots', it argued.

"Ideological purity' meant that the KPD prevented its Jewish members from speaking on public platforms lest nationalist sensibilities be The KPD could be ultra-left at times as well. But whether repudiating the SPD as 'social fascist' or uniting with the Nazis against social democrats in local government, the hallmark of the KPD was its capitulation to German nationalism.

It's fashionable in radical circles to accuse the RCT of following the sectarian, KPD in ultra-leftist errors of the our refusal to support the Anti-Nazi League.

The reverse is the truth. In its adaptation British chauvinism the ANL closely the direction of the German labour movement. We look at the disasof the "thirties and say Never Again! Resolute struggle against all manifestations of chauvinism is the only defence against the revival of fascism.

Judith Harrison

ELWAR

Public meetings National Front - Bosses' Front 'Build workers' defence / against fascist thugs! British -rement Edge Hill . Manchester "TOn

• TACIST

attacks are on the increase throughout the country. the next step is organising a series of meetings to publicise the work of ELWAR, to show what you can do in your area. Speaker: Fran Eden

CENTRAL LONDON

Friday 23 January 7.30pm Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1 (Holborn tube)

MANCHESTER

Thursday 5 February 7.30pm Manchester Polytechnic, Aytoun Street

COVENTRY

Lanchester Polytechnic, Priory Street Phone or write for further details.

the next step, January 1981 9

RACISM

Filipino deportations

FROM HOSPITAL

TO AIRPORT

Gemma works as a chambermaid in a hotel just around the corner from Buckingham Palace. She lives with two other young Filipino women in a room at the back of the hotel. A few Gemma had to go into hospital for a major thyroid operation. While she was recovering the authorities were checking her papers. They found out that her references did not match up to those given the on permit issued WOrk arrived in Britain. Gemma was an illegal worker' - and before she left hospital the Home Office served notice that she was to be deported immediately on her discharge. With Gemma the Home Office had it easy. It didn't have to get the British High Commission to hire spies in Manila.

It didn't have to resort to publicitycatching police raids either. It just used standard DHSS procedures in hospitals where no blacks can be treated without their immigration status being

NATIONAL UNION OF PIBUC

EMPLOYEES

STOP

ILIPINO

= EPORTATION

ELWAR marches against Filipino deportations ...BM demo by the police. The organisers nodded knowingly. The march was a familiar AL ramble.

Ex-Labour MP Arthur Latham and other ANL dignitaries led the way. The ELWAR contingent was large and well-organised.

its numbers swelled by people drawn to it through the accounts of ELWAR action given by a series of speakers at our premarch the

ANL

rally. lurched towards the police trap we put our alternative plan into actioit.

At a signal the ELWAR contingent turned to break through the police cordon to head towards the place where the BM rally was about to start. The failed. Although attempt we through the first police row, a second line of SPG officers together with reinforcements from all sides broke up our seized banners ranks, our phones and arrested a dozen people. More ELWAR supporters were picked up a few minutes later when the police started harassing individuals on our contingent.

The , march ended in characteristic ANL style. The police blocked off all access to the area where the fascists were marching and broke In the demonstration. Confusion reigned angry activists tried to find out what to do next. The ANL could only advise them to go home - or try and get to the fascist rally by tube. Mean while police mopped up the few small groups 10 the next step, January 1981 gated. In the last few months hundreds of Filipinos have been picked up using this method and hustled onto the conveyor belt that leads via Heathrow to the Phillipines. One victim wrote from Manila months ago detailing the scope of the Government's behind-the-scenes he reported, been flown others - and they'd been rounded up in just one week. when she So far Gemma has managed to hang on. Appeals by her union, the GMWU, have won a stay of execution during her convalescence. 'false reference' cases stand virtually no chance of success. The courts recognise no rights even the right to health care. As she waits for her case to come up Gemma is desperately trying to find work abroad Canada, Kuwait, anywhere. record of deportation the gloomy. Gemma's plight is not peculiar to Filiinvestipinos: workers from Colombia, Morocco, that had managed to get near the BM.

More arrests took place. The reaction The BM demo had its sequel. Though ELWAR's strategy was scores of marchers who'd had enough of ANL moderation, members of the Labour Party, the Militant tendency and the SWP procession were bitterly critical of our attempt to divert the counter-demonstration to confront the fascists. When ELWAR promptly started collecting money to pay the fines and legal costs for those arrested, criticism turned to smears about stealing broke money. Warning letters Socialist Worker (6 December 1980), and when - two weeks after the demo the ANL got round to trying to raise and megafunds, its announced that it and only it had the right to do so. Obviously the SWP feels threatened by ELWAR's fundraising. But our supporters made up a significant proportion of those arrested on 23 November - and we know the ANL has a poor record of looking counterafter even its own supporters who have been arrested. Our reservations were confirmed by the fact that it took the ANL 14 days to begin its collections. As one demonstrator said to us on the march, ELWAR fights racism - the ANL just the rocks against it'. of British citizenship. some success support for workers. A deportations. He had, out with 186 ELWAR supporters: But legal arguments in for people like Gemma, not must organise to Too - In many But with a outlook supported by appeared in in Paddington knifepoint by the police is concerned. against police victimisation.

Spain and Portugal have all come under attack. As she says, 'soon every immigrant worker will be afraid to go to hospital when they are sick'. The new Nationality Act will allow black people access to the NS and other social services only presentation of a passport or other proof Stop the deportations! Supporters of the next step have had in winning trade union the cause of the Filipino of active growing number workers in the health service have committed themselves to organising resistance.

A 23 November meeting called by the Migrant Action Group and attended by more than 400 trade unionists accepted the following amendment proposed by But This meeting deplores the increase in the domestic resident workers by this government, and calls upon this campaign to oppose the deportation of all Filipino workers by rejecting all immigration laws.'

recently Unfortunately, unions have not so far translated resolutions like this into action.

Yet time is running out. Health workers defend the Filipinos. militants are reluctant to challenge racist procedures in the NHS Only by confronting chauvinist attitudes to immigrant workers can we create the political climate that will prevent Gemma and other Filipinos from being deported.

ELWAR

NEEDS

MONEY

On 18 December Isak Ali of Corbin House on the Bow Bridge estate in East November London was arrested by the police and charged with threatening behaviour.

His crime? He made the mistake of contacting the police after he was robbed of f20 at two skinheads. Robbing Asians in East London is alright as far as But for a black person to make a complaint is a crime!

ELWAR is helping Isak Ali to fight back The ELWAR supporters who were Benn's appeal to blacks An offer we can refuse The Labour left has a long tradition of sup porting British imperialism. More than 30 years ago it had this to say about the Empire: We do not need to apologise for our mission in Africa. Whatever the reasons which took our forebears there we must stay? (Tribune, 20 August 1948) the Labour left has a different today "mission' to carry quelling domestic black resistance to racist attacks. How does it do this? By channelling black anger into the Labour Party. It's for this reason that Tony Benn has suggested that black organisations should affiliate to the Labour Party. He hopes that the experience his party has acquired in containing the struggles of the working class may now come in handy in curbing 'extremists' in the black community. Before readers of the next step rush to send off for their membership cards they should ask Benn whether the various controls on immigration introduced by the last few Labour governments are non-racist. If he replies they are, our readers might care to ask the Right. Honourable gentleman which kind of deportations he supports picked up on the anti-BM demo on 23 and charged with various offences face the prospect of heavy fines and court costs in the new year. To defend victims of racist attacks, as well as activists who come into conflict with the police and the courts, for the day by day fight against racism and fascism in East London, ELWAR needs money.

Make cheques and postal orders payable to: ELWAR Defence Fund, c/o Box 22, Kingsland High Street, London E8.

RCT activities in January and February Deportations... Dear editor, In Springfield Psychiatric Hospital in Tooting a member of the ancillary staff, Mrs Evangelina King, who is an immigrant from the Philippines, is facing the threat of deportation after Christmas. Mrs King has been deemed by the Home Office to be illegal'. Each week she has to report to a police station, just as if she'd been convicted ora come. The case arises because some categories of unskilled workers - eg domestics and nursing ancillary staff - were issued permits to enter the uk and work arter the introducaon or the 1971 Immigration Act. Foreign workers were brought in to do these jobs on the condition that tney did not nave chudren under sixteen Thousands of workers, many from the Philippines, came to Britain. Many of them were in ignorance of the clause about children. A test case has now established that ignorance is no cerence m miese has actively set about rounding up the 'offenders". Mrs King is not the first and will not be the last. More than 150 have been summarily deported this year. Like many others Mrs King was never asked whether or not she had children. Their existence became known to the Home Office when, in all innocence, she filled out a form applying for leave for her husband to join her in Britain.

Not knowing any better she recorded that she had children "illegal'. Mrs King has been working in this hospital for several years. We, her fellow workers, take the strongest exception to the Home Office the next step conference, London Saturday 21 February One-day debate and discussion for supporters of the next step • The present phase of the class • The anti-racist struggle: strategy and struggle tactics For further information write to BM RCT, London WCIN 3XX

LONDON

for more information ring 01-274 3951

CENTRAL LONDON

Public meeting British Movement - bosses' movement National Front - bosses' front Build workers' defence against fascist thugs! Speaker: Fran Eden (ELWAR) Friday 23 January Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1 (Holborn tube) ELWAR defence fund film benefit "The Wobblies' *Hunger strike in H-Block' (short) 16 January London Film Makers' Co-op 42 Gloucester Ave London NW1 (Camden Town tube) Seats: £1 Regular sales Tuesdays 5.30-6.30pm Goodge Fridays Street tube Saturdays 10.30-12.30 Camden market

SOUTH LONDON

All meetings at Lambeth Town Hall, (Lower Hall), Brixton Hill.

Public meeting Ireland the struggle continues Speakers from the RCT and the Republican movement Wednesday 14 January Regular sales Mondays Brixton Dole the cuts today. opposed. her in our hospitals. SuDDOlL. Yours, Glyn Jones Chris Holford Asad Ali Syed and 25 trade unionists cases. and the Home Office Dear comrades, - and was promptly branded an the many black Thursdays Fridays Saturdays Series of meetings

BEGINS

COUNCIL!

No to the dole queues Friday 6 February we can stop it! 7.30pm

EAST LONDON

7.30pm Throw out Defend all jobs! Thursday 5 February 6-7pm Warren Street tube No to the dole queues

RCT

East Ham Town Hall, High Street South, E6 Regular sales Saturdays 7.30pm Sundays 9.30-11.30 Tooting Dole, denying the right of Mrs King to continue to live and work in this country. We object to laws on immigration which allow the harassment of foreign or black workers. Immigration controls are an attack on their rights and an attempt to divide up hospital workers fighting The deportation must be This is why we will defend the right of Mrs King to work at Springfield and all others like We want to show the British state that it cannot victimise workers with impunity. We urge your readers to send us information about other cases and letters of ...and racists thwarted It's nice to report a success, and we've just achieved one here at the Crown Agents.

After management had successfully attacked the workforce (over office reorganisation new terms and conditions) it decided to set about workers here. A personnel division circular said that anyone taking extended leave (3-6 weeks) and who fails to return promptly would be summarily sacked.

The fightback was led by the next step Wednesdays 9.30-11.30 Peckham Dole 5-6pm Brixton tube 4.30-5.30pm Stockwell tube 5-6pm Balham tube 11-1 Battersea market, Balham market

LAMBETH - THE FIGHTBACK

DON'T TRUST

THE

organise! Speaker: Frank Richards 7.30pm Lambeth's services up for grabs - only Speaker: Sabena Norton Wednesday 18 February 7.30pm Ford Workers' Group meeting code! the disciplinary Speaker: Dave Dougdale (AUEW Ford) 7.30pm East Ham Town Hall, High Street South, E6 (near East Ham tube) Rally Against Unemployment organise! Speakers from Ford Dagenham & Halewood, West Ham Trades Council, 7.30pm Wednesday 25 February 10.30-12.30 Whitechapel market Ridley Road market High StreetNorth, East Ham Stratford Broadway Watney Street market 9.30-12.00 Brick Lane (near Aldgate East tube) supporters. We wrote a hard-hitting article in the branch newsletter showing that these new rules were aimed specifically at Asian workers would add the that the state and the right wing have created.

Although the restrictions only affected one group directly, we said, we'd all get clobbered much easier in the future if we didn't oppose them. And we drove home this point at all the protest meetings and branch discussions.

Management modified the proposals, then withdrew them altogether. So far so good, but there's a long way to go. Despite our efforts there's been little opposition to its other attacks. Nevertheless, the fact that management retracted is a success, and a basis on which to build a fightback. Fraternally, the next step supporters in Crown Agents CPSA branch, London Mujaheddin under attack Dear comrades, I was surprised to find mentioned in the November/December issue of the next step about the participation of the People's Mujaheddin Organisation of Iran in the Iran-Iraq war, under the banner of the ruling regime.

In fact the PMOI, unlike some other organisations, has kept a separate revolutionary line in the war, by fighting alongside the people, with the view of forming a people's army. Its members have formed

ELWAR

East London Workers Against Racism confronts the fascists morning in Brick Lane. Join us. Write to Box 22, 136 us at Street, E8. Phone us at 274 3951.

CLEAR THE FASCISTS OUT OF

BRICK LANE!

Rally Meet 9.30am, top of Brick Lane (Bethnal Green Road end near Aldgate East, Liverpool Street or Old Street tubes)

BEAT THE BOW BRIDGE RACISTS!

Public meeting Tuesday 27 January Oxford House, Derbyshire Street, E2 Speakers: Fran Eden (ELWAR) and from Brick Lane Bangladeshi organisations Lobby Tower Hamlets Council Stop racist violence in Tower Hamlets!

Wednesday 28 January Town Hall, Patriot Square, E1 (Bethnal Green tube)

THE NORTH WEST

for information write to RCT, Box 33, 164-66 Corn Exchange Building, Hanging Ditch, Manchester M4 3BD

MANCHESTER

Public meeting British Movement - bosses' movement National Front - bosses' front Build workers' defence against racist thugs! Speaker: Fran Eden (ELWAR) Thursday 5 February Manchester Polytechnic, Aytoun Street Irish events Picket of Army Recruitment Office, Fountain St (off Piccadilly Gns) Troops out now! Saturday 17 January relief trenches climate of fear reactionar charged with Yours fraternally, J Mahmoud Golders Green, London Nick Jenkins replies: precisely because of this.

their members to meependent revolut- Sunday in Cardiff every Kingsland High from Derry invited Thursday 22 January Sunday 11 January Manchester. Regular sales Tuesdays 7.30pm Alternate Wednesdays Fridays Saturdays 7.30pm

MIDLANDS

COVENTRY

Public meeting thugs! 7.30pm

JAILS!

Sunday 18 January 12 noon

LETTERS/ACTIVITIES

ionary defence committees and assistance and tents, and have fought in their own This is why they have been attacked by the and monopolist forces, while fighting in the foremost trenches, in Abadan, Khorramshahr and Ahwaz. About 170 of them, carrying illegal weapons, have been imprisoned in Abadan in a house under constant threat of being hit by Iraqi fire.

It is indeed true that the People's Mujaheddin (PMOI) is organising and fighting separately in the war against Iraq. The statement in our article was based on an early, inaccurate report.

It has since become clear that not only is the PMOI fighting independently of the Iranian regime's forces, but that it is being attacked A well-known PMOI leader, Seyyed Mohammad Reza Sa'adati, has recently received a ten year sentence for allegedly 'spying Ior the Soviet Union' in what was a blatant frame-up and show-trial. Other MOl fighters have been taken from the trenches to face floggings and imprisonment. With such direct attacks taking place against leftist opposition forces in Iran it is surprising - to say the least - that groups like the Organisation of Iranian Peoples' Fedaii Guerrillas (Majority) can continue to oblige 'co-operate fully with the forces who are fighting the aggressors' (KAR.

November 1980, supplement).

Mobilising meeting for 25 January Bloody Sunday demonstration British murderers out of Ireland now!

Speakers: Alex Farrell (RCT), speaker 7.30pm Moss Side People's Centre Trade union supporters of the next step meet fortnightly in Manchester.

Would you like to join the Trade Union Activists' Group? Then write to us in 9.30-11.30 Stretford dole Wednesdays 9.30-11.30 Aytoun Street dole, Levenshulme dole 12.00-14.00 Manchester Poly, Aytoun Street 16.30-18.00 Piccadilly Gardens 11.00-13.00 Piccadilly Gardens, Ashton-under- Lyne Precinct British Movement - bosses' movement National Front - bosses' front Build workers' defence against fascist Speaker: Fran Eden (ELWAR) Lanchester Poly, Prior Street. Phone or write for further details.

SUPPORT IRISH POWS IN BRITISH

Picket of Gartree Prison Market Harborough, Leicestershire 1-3.30pm Organised by Nottingham TOM the next step, January 1981 11

THE RCT:

THE MARXIST

TRADITION

FOUR YEARS ago a group of socialists formed the RCT because we could see the working class going from setback to setback as the recession loomed.

appreciated that overcoming the weakness politics required an organisation built on Our first step was to understand how Marxism had been destroyed. Luckily we brought with us a number of insights Our tasks and methods [1975), Revolutionary Communist Reprints No 1, 'twenties onwards, Marxism had been discredited by what Stalin and his followers had made of it. We realised that workers and working class politics had then gone on to suffer major reversals as a consequence: the collapse of the Chinese British General Strike and the rise fascism in the 'thirties showed this all But that wasn't all. The Second World War saw "Communists' everywhere settle their differences with bourgeois democrats, the better, they thought, to battle regimes - fascist and democratic won the sacrifices they demanded of workers, economic stability ensued. As Marxism had been appropriated Stalin, had rubbed shoulders with Churchill and, finally, had been left on the sidelines. It could not, the RCT felt, be resurrected overnight: the process had It was clear that repeating textbook phrases would not be enough. Nor would that Trotsky had avoided but which those who assumed his mantle and set up various Fourth Internationals had not (see The question of the International' Revolutionary Communist Reprints, No 1). We were intent on avoiding them.

The problem was how to begin reviving The first was to equip ourselves with the basic theoretical tools we needed to go about absorbing what had happened since Marxism's demise. The second was to embark on practical activities designed to help us sort out real Marxists from people who merely pretended to that title.

Our tools were largely composed of the most profound but least-read works communism in a scientific fashion (see second article in RCP 1). We used Capital to determine the origins of the economic and political crisis in Britain "The recession: and the working class', RCP 3, 1978).

Stalinists' 'novel' case to demolish that capitalism can be reformed once the right people are put in charge (see Imperialism, revisionism and the state', RCP 4, We took Marx's writings not as a bible, but as a key to his method, and we used that method to come to a proletarian point of view on topics of vital significance 12 the next step, January 1981

RECONSTRUCTING

Many people congratulate the RCT for its activism in opposition to the Irish War and in fighting racism. But they're frequently puzzled why we focus on these two issues above all others. And they're often irritated that we devote such energy to criticising and polemicising against the Labour Party and the left. Here, through a review of the development of our propaganda, we explain why.

to the movement. Moreover, we decided that, if Marxism was to be a dynamic force in the working class, then our members had to be trained in revolutionary theory. That's why we encourage all of our members to learn how to use the tools of Marxism. We go further too: we theory through researching and writing studying the ins and outs of their trade unions and their place of work.

now Why Ireland and racism? agitate around Ireland and immigration controls. And for good reason. We knew need our advice about how to organise or about what tactics to employ in strikes for higher wages and better conditions.

We knew it did need a lot of advice about focused on Irish freedom and black rights two issues on which the absence of an independent working class outlook has If Marxism was no longer a living force in the movement, a popular cause or an enticing slogan wouldn't rally the masses to it. Our strategy was to get to the masses, but to get to them by first winbanner the most independently-minded workers. Our message to such workers was simple. Irish and black people didn't just 'deserve the support of tolerate the oppression of the Irish and of blacks, all British workers would grow more politically intolerant of their own For us this was elementary. Lenin had demonstrated that, in imperialist, oppresparty could only be built by backing the evident from his pamphlet The right of nations to self-determination. We therefore used Lenin's writings on national journal on Ireland (see "British imperialism and the Irish crisis' and 'No equivocation!', RCP 2, 1978). This provided the framework for practical opposition to the Irish War through our Smash the Prevention of Instead of urging young workers to be more militant, we embarked on a campaign that would strengthen the working class politically: the battle against chauvinism.

'thirties. He had observed that chauvinism was not only the political property of and trade unions as well. We took up these points in a pamphlet directed against the narrow political rabble-rousing of the Anti-Nazi League (see Under a national flag, 1978), and they remain the inspiration for our campaign Why knock the Labour Party?

Eighteen months after founding the RCT we had the beginnings of a revolutionary towards the working class. Uniquely on the left, we could show why wage rises were not the cause of inflation and why the withdrawal of troops from the Six Counties and workers' defence against racist attacks on blacks were in British the Government's Social Contract became our attention to the organisation that obviously embodied all the weaknesses of Ever since the RCT's early days we'd appreciated the strength of reformism in the working class. ideology of reformism had its roots in the capitalist system itself; we knew that it had gained particular impetus during the post-war boom, when Keynesian management of the economy by the state had seemed to bring benefits to all; we knew that it was most coherently expressed in the politics of the Labour left. We also had long accepted that Tribune group economic shibboleths - import controls, wholly reactionary. We were therefore suspicious of all the familiar left tactics towards the Labour Party. But we knew that we had yet to arrive at our own There was no point in trying to make the lefts fight. They were fighting already for a Westminster-imposed Rights for Ireland, for bans on the fascist marches that worked out as bans on leftwing ones. It was stupid to say that they "didn't go far enough'. It wasn't too clever, either, to say 'vote Labour because it's the lesser evil': workers didn't need to be told that. What to do? Our critics had always suggested we grow out of our uncompromising, childish habits by reading disorder. And funnily enough, it was this work which drove us to adopt the position 'No vote to Labour!' in the last British Communist Party to affiliate to the Labour Party. But this was because he wanted the layer of revolutionaries that had sprung up in the wake of October 1917 to gain a hearing among the broader but they were falling down in making their ideas known to the rank and file.

That is not the situation today. None in the organisations of the far left have virtually no authority in the working class.

For this reason nothing could be more misplaced than for Marxists to imagine • that they can 'expose' the Labour Party by voting for it and, in so doing, taking the masses through the experience of They can only be made to listen if every worker already highly critical of Labour becomes its staunchest enemy and takes his hatred of it everywhere he goes.

Marxists can only expose the Labour Party if they do just that expose it: all the time, relentlessly, without concession (see Who needs the Labour Party?, 1978).

Denouncing Labour/Tory bipartisan trols is an excellent means of doing this, as three of our recent pamphlets indicate Workers against imperialism: the 1979; Racial oppression: how to fight it, 1979, and Ireland's victory means Britain's politics render workers powerless to turn back the Tory offensive on jobs, pay and trade union rights is equally crucial. This has been a major theme in our paper from the very first edition we published (see the next step, No 1, December 1979).

Why criticise the left? We took one more thing from the revolutstanding that unity on the left could only political clarity. In his What is to be done?

and on numerous occasions Lenin expressed contempt for those who used the yearning of workers for unity to belittle the need for political clarity. Searching for unity at any price can only paralyse Take the demand to Kick out the Tories. Everybody left of the Liberal Party will agree with it; but in practice it only serves to unite militant workers who could be won to revolutionary politics with TUC leaders like Len Murray and Moss Evans. It lets the labour bureaucrats off the hook and allows them to present calling for the return of a Labour government. Appeals for unity against Thatcher are the means for harnessing workers' energies towards electing the party of the It is precisely because we want unity on terms which can defend our class that we relentlessly expose opportunist trends in the workers' movement. Unity will not come about through paper declarations.

It will have to be fought for through a struggle against the present leadership of working class and against all those who want to postpone this struggle for articles and publications are highly critical of the political outlook and the paigns of other groups. They're polemical, because their aim is to polarise working class opinion around the camp of revollines in this way, the labour movement will continue to stumble from one setback to the next and fail to learn from A revolutionary movement will not be need for Marxism cannot just be declared Marxism has to be fought for. So don't ideas - fight for them. Join us in making Marxism the dominant ideology in the British working class.

and nuclear war, and its veteran leader.

The chiliasm of despair Who was this man? 'Why that's Squire Edwd Tomson of Wick Episcopi, ventured a dutiful police constable. It all started with a dream, he explained. "The dream began olden days when the Americans Russians possessed and the only strategic intercontinental ballistic missiles whose destructive power was so great their use was unthinkable'. Then the nightmare took over. 'Suddenly the ponderous H-Bombs spawned a family of more manoeuvrable, but equally lethal weapons. Most chilling of all they had minds of their own - and they grew up relatively autonomous to be parents and masters. The new wave of tactical weapons could think for themselves and all they thought about was the unthinkable: they were hellbent mutually assured destruction. As the old man awoke all he could see was a vague shape before his eyes which he gradually recognised as poor Britain, our little island, in the form of an American aircraft carrier sinking under a cloud of nuclear fallout. An eerie voice echoed in his ears "Edwd arise, you are confronting accumulating logic of process" "The old man leapt from his bed in the tent pitched deep in the English countryside where he had retreated many years ago after getting wounded in a duel. Like a man possessed, he has not since ceased to preach his message of salvation for humankind against "exterminism" stomping the country stirring terror in huge audiences with his vision of Apocalypse and rousing fanatical devotion to his utopia of world peace and harmony'. The policeman concluded his strange tale. And how was the Squire hoping to prevail against 'the logic of exterminism'? The young officer carried on patiently.

'He says he wants to generate an alternative logic, you know, confront the ideological imperative, that sort of thing.

Basically, he wants to get a lot of people together to talk some sense into these crazy missiles.' What sort of people? 'Oh, broad-based human beings, members of the women's institute movement and its fragments, collectors of badges, paigners against the contraction of the ionosphere and protestors against the inhumane treatment of cod by North Sea trawlermen, all sorts! But how had this prophet of doom managed to attract this throng, tens of thousands in number?

How EP Thompson's visions help the Labour Party You protest - they survive At the end of October one of the biggest demonstrations to be held in London in recent years was led into Trafalgar Square by a handsome man with windswept face and greying hair. More familiar figures took their places on the platform behind him - Labour left leader Tony Benn, transport workers' chief Ron Todd and other dignitaries of the official labour movement. Our special correspondent moved among the crowd to find out more about the movement against cruise missiles Oxford windbags A man who seemed to be a minor organiser of the march took up the story.

went to the same prep school in Oxford Teddy Palmer-Thompson. terribly bright. by everybody from Paul Foot to Conor Cruise O'Brien as a towering intellectual, a superb historian and a brilliant polemicist. People appreciate Palmer-Thompson in the great tradition Union where a good either side of the argument with equal conviction. It doesn't chap's politics are so long as he puts them of their well. Take Teddy's old chum Peregrine Andersthorne: Perry's a seminal essayist, so whether he's writing for a daily newspaper or a bi-monthly theoretical journal on he produces quality lots of high-powered ideas. Teddy still has great respect for the ancient centres of European civilisation at Cambridge - he expects them to play a leading role in his nuclear disarmament campaign.' This man had played a part in many campaigns since his Oxford days: an now he was industrial organiser for the Socialist Marxist League.

think of the anti-cruise demonstration?

"This whole dously positive development' he enthused *and all credit to Teddy for getting it going. It must be given every support.'

Why? "Well, take the basic slogan of this demonstration against cruise missiles "I don't want to die". Now that may not be a pure Marxist, revolutionary demand, but it's highly concrete, and it rejects the European insanity of the nuclear war system. It's a start. The most important thing is that it draws people into action - self-activity against the missiles - and it opens up a dialogue. It creates the possibility learning from this experience and moving on from this basic point, A, to B, to C, etc towards more left wing positions.

So what's B? 'B is the slogan - "I don't want to die for Thatcher". This represents a much higher level of political generalisation, bringing in opposition to the Tory Government over arms - and then on other issues like the cuts and camunemployment. This is how consciousness develops in the course of the anti-war movement? So what's C?

Now steady on. Lenin said you shouldn't be one step ahead of the more thar masses - B is far enough for now. And you have to understand united front the streets. the holocaust despite cruise campaign anybody that members. He was Now he's acknowledged of the Oxford debater can put revival of the Labour Party" matter what a organiser. English prose and Oxford and trade union indeed oriented towards mass What did he ledged the dynamism of the campaign is a tremenand file members. fountain saw "Take redundancies, wage cuts and worse conditions. He's got no influence government and his remaining members increasingly are some way of taking the pressure off. The cruise missiles disagrees that they're a bad thing; so it's socialist easy to get trade unionists backing for the protest. At the same time the campaign is so harmless that it's no threat to the bureaucrats' hopes of consultations or even U-turns. Frank Cousins showed how pacifism could be used by the bureautactics. We are in a united front against cruise with the Quakers and the Ecology Party. Going further at this stage would be divisive and sectarian. What matters is that things are moving, people are out on trade Quite honestly since the downturn destroyed our trade union support we in the SM are happy to find a broad popular movement as an audience for our socialist arguments."

by Demogogues and martyrs A youthful activist had been listening with growing impatience. I'll tell you what C is' he butted in. 'It's the demand "Return a Labour government committed stration. unilateral nuclear disarmament and withdrawal from NATO". This is the only practical way of saving our country from - and it shows the vital importance of the struggle for anti-nuclear policies in the Labour Party? But hasn't the Labour Party in government always increased spending on nuclear weapons, the party's pacifist traditions?

"That's true - but quite frankly the anti- IS transforming the Labour Party. After we lost the election 18 months ago we were in a very weak position. We had unpopular leaders who had doubled unemployment and broken strikes, and an uphill struggle to convince our alternative strategy could save jobs or defend wages. Now the cruise protest is building up the party's campaigning image, drawing in ne w Britain Left-wing speakers like Benn repeatedly, and Heffer are packing in the audiences at Irish public meetings around the country on a scale not seen for 30 years. Opposition to nuclear war unites the labour movement grip. and the focus on Tory missiles confirms that the Labour Party as the only alternative to save Britain. Edwoard Thoreson, the charismatic public speaker of the European Nuclear Disarmament campaign, has made a tremendous contribution to this This was too much for the SML "The problem with directing the anti-missile movement into the Labour Party is that the Labour Party is only concerned with Parliament and elections - not with mobilising a mass movement.

Now the SML is only a small party - but we try hard. The problem with the antinuclear war campaign at the moment is that it's much too middle class. We want descant in to take it into the workplaces and the branches and win solid working class support for the campaign.'

The LP activist asserted that his party was movement. working class support. But he willingly acknow- SML and welcomed its contribution to the campaign. The two marched off with arms linked, affirming the genius of Teddy Thompson and the sterility of sectarianism.

Rituals of mutuality As the marchers filed into the square it draw the was obvious that the trade unions were better represented by top brass on the platform than by branch banners or rank An unemployed car worker feeding the pigeons around the prophecy two through the bureaucrats' rhetoric about peace and disarmament.

Ron Todd. He's chief of the motor section of the TGWU. For the last couple of years he's been negotiating and the younger generation.'

the on disgruntled. He needs its camp followers, issue is ideal. Nobody Government, so it doesn't spoil the munists he can coming through. cracy - now his successor Moss Evans is taking it up to give the union some political prestige. This Ted Tommo and all the rest up there are certainly helping the union leaders through a sticky patch? The freeborn Englishman Mingling with the marchers, distinguished the sign of the crowsfoot on their lapels, were onlookers with Union Jacks and swastikas on T-shirts and in tattoos.

One CND supporter took exception to the presence of National Front and British Movement members on a pacifist demon- What's a fascist doing on a demo against nuclear war?' he demanded aggressively. Look mate", the fascist replied, 'we want to keep Britain out of capitalist wars too. We're against American cruise missiles - and the whole domination of Britain by US finance-capital.' The CND advocate was dumbfounded as the skinhead listed further points of agreement: import controls, withdrawal from the EEC, nationalisation of the banks.

One thing about the demonstration upset the fascist. "Too many commies.

Like this Ipi Tombi he's a foreign agitator and he supports IRA terrorists.

This was too much for the CND man.

Enraged, he seized the fascist by the scruff of the neck and screamed at him.

'Let's get one thing straight. Our leader is a true patriot - his great cause is to save from destruction. And he has publicly, condemned the struggle for national liberation.'

That off his chest, the pacifist relaxed his 'One more thing - these commies are a nuisance to us too. Our leader says certain kinds of "revolutionary" posturing and rhetoric, which inflame extremist ideology and carry divisons into the necessary alliances of human resistance, are luxuries which we can do without. Get it?' The fascist was perplexed. 'But all the commies seem to be here - the ones taking over the Labour Party, the old Moscow Party and the Trotskyite SML. So who are the ones we can do without?' 'Aha, whispered the CND supporter, he says you must listen for the voices which pipe in shrill tones of militancy that the Bomb is a "class question" - these voices are only a falsetto the choir of exterminism'. "They are the luxuries we can do without said the fascist slowly. •You've got it' replied the voice of the broad popular Prophecies, prophecies The rally was drawing to a close. Ed Tomlinson, DJ from Rock against Armageddon, played his last jingles, introduced the bands and acclaimed the vast crowds of young people now surging forward to confront the massed ranks of the Metropolitan Police blocking Whitehall. This was indeed old Ed's greatest achievement - to youth into line behind the veteran pacifists, the tired leftists, the trade union officials and Labour Party campaigners, the whole wretched caravanserai of Labourism. And in this moment a decades old came true In the summer of '59 old Ed had written (in the New Reasonable Express): The bureaucracy will hold the machine; but the New Left will hold the passes between it The prophet's more precise earlier predictions point towards the squalid reality behind his crazy visions of exterminism.

His New Left is now senile - but it, and can still man the passes between the bureaucracy and its mass base. It can still sustain the machine and invigorate the bureaucracy with an influx of workers and youth.

EP Thompson and his acolytes now stand astride the passes between the revolutionary com do without and the younger generation. Old Squire, we're Edward Ludd the next step, January 1981 13

THE WAR AND THE

WORKING CLASS

GIVE IM

BOTH BARRELS

2 THE ORGANISATIONS of the official labour movement emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries out of the struggles of the working class.

As the trade unions grew into an acceptable part of capitalist society the labour leadership became recognised and respected by the capitalist state. For their part the trade union leaders became more and more preoccupied with their own narrow interests and increasingly ignored the aspirations of the rank and file: After the General Strike In Britain the unions grew as the capitalists prospered. In times of low unemployment the trade unions strengthened their bargaining position and extended their influence. The labour leadership came to threat to social stability view any including the class struggle - as a threat to its own position. The labour leaders' moderation and conservatism stemmed from their desire to maintain stability.

Once the unions achieved recognition from employers and the government and collective bargaining was institutionalised, the trade union leaders preferred to lobby the government for reforms rather than wage the class struggle against the state.

The intense social conflict of the 'twenties confirmed the bureaucrats' view that the best course for labour was cooperation with the capitalist class. After the defeat of the General Strike the labour leadership did not abandon the use of strikes or other militant tactics. But working class action was now used to impress upon the bourgeoisie that it the nort step, January 1981 The victories won by the British ruling class in the 'twenties put government and employers in a strong position over workers as Britain drifted towards war with Germany. The first part of this series focused on the disputes and lockouts that culminated in the 1926 General Strike (*Prelude to the slump: the defeats of the 'twenties', the next step, No 8).

Shortly after. that blow the Government introduced legal curbs on trade union organisation and restricted union activity in the public sector. The miners - the most militant section of the labour movement - were singled out for special treatment. Mineowners tried to destroy the miners' federation with company-run scab unions: between 1923 and 1932 the national federation lost 350 000 members.

Mass unemployment paralysed the working class as trade union membership slumped from 8.5 million in 1920 to should seek the co-operation of the leaders of the labour movement. In 1927 the labour bureaucracy wanted the state to establish a system of industrial relations based on recognised forums of collaboration in which labour leaders would be consulted over matters concerning relations between employers and workers The labour bureaucrats saw the employers not as class enemies but as who needed some partners prodding from the state to make them aware of their true role. The real danger to the manoeuvres of the labour bureaucracy came from anti-capitalist workers.

These militants threatened to destroy the which gave the system of production bureaucrats their mediating role and privileged position. To win the cooperation of the employers the TUC had first to demonstrate its determination to sections of the contain the subversive labour movement. The labour leadership used the General Strike de bacle as an argument against militancy and the class struggle. Because many workers were demoralised there was little resistance to the TUC's arguments.

But just to make sure the TUC launched a vicious campaign against communists and militants. At the instigation of the General Council the 1927 TUC Conference withdrew recognition. from all trades councils and union branches which were affiliated Communist Partyto the dominated National Minority Movement.

The TUC leadership had free rein to smash its class-conscious opponents and expel When unofficial dissident union bodies. strikes and rank and file movements emerged between 1933 and 1935 the TUC replied with bans and proscriptions.

The third course With the rank and file under its thumb the labour bureaucracy felt free to embark on its schemes of class collaboration.

In the late twenties the bosses smashed organisations floor and kicked shop millions of workers out of their jobs

SERIES

little more than three million in 1933.

The recession brought poverty and despair to millions of workers; but it brought new power and prestige to the leaders of the labour movement. Before the General Strike the leadership of the unions and the Labour Party had had to fight hard to restrain working class militancy. The slump enabled them to tighten their grip on the rank and file and reorganise their relationship with the capitalist class. By the time the Second World War began in earnest the top bureaucrats were firmly in control of their members and securely ensconced as invaluable members of the War Cabinet. In the second part of our series we examine the response of the labour bureaucracy to the depression and show how the working class movement was drawn into the war drive of British imperialism. The labour bureaucracy in the slump On the road to war while the TUC appealed for class peace.

The union leaders ignored the attack on workers' rights under the 1927 Trades Disputes Act; the TUC General Council lamely protested against lack of consultation. The bureaucracy's answer was what TUC president Walter Citrine proclaimed as the dawn of a new era of trade unionism, 'the third course between the purely businesslike and revolutionary attitude? (cited in H A Marquand, Organised labour in four continents, 1939, p127). Citrine's 'third course was in fact an offer to collaborate with the captains of industry in the drive to raise productivity and sharpen the competitive edge of British business.

TUC

general Ben Turner explained that it secretary was for the trade union movement to say boldly that not only is it concerned with the prosperity of industry, but that it is going to have a voice as to the way industry is carried on, so that it can influence the new developments that are taking place' (TUC report, 1928).

The TUC approved this third course.

From now on it treated the interests of workers and capitalists as the same: 'the prosperity of industry. The TUC prided itself in the conviction that it understood the needs of British industry better than the capitalists. As far as the working class was concerned, capitalist prosperity would mean jobs and high Anything wages. else was as unrealistic as the 1926 General Strike. The Mond-Turner talks In 1928 the TUC attempted to implement its third course. In response to an initiative from Sir Alfred Mond, a leading industrialist, to discuss matters of mutual interest to "both sides of industry, the TUC agreed to hold a series of meetings to explore ways of institutionalising class collaboration. The Mond-Turner talks were designed to educate the working class in the realities of capitalist industry.

The seven subjects proposed by Mond for discussion indicate their scope: 1 Rationalisation of industry, including arrangements for the transference of la bour 2 Status of the worker. Works councils 3 Housing, health, unemployment insurance and educational schemes in relation modern needs of to the industry 4 Effects of taxation on industry 5 Causes and methods of avoiding trades disputes 6 Preparation of the worker in industry as a person who is interested in its prosperity 7 Possibility of creating a permanent consultative committee dealing with topics affecting industry.

The TU's acceptance of these issues for discussion indicated that it was fully prepared to place the needs of capital above the interests of workers. The Right Honourable Jimmy Thomas, Labour MP and leader of the railway workers' union, pontificated that these talks were "a recognition that the country's interests are greater than those of any section, whether it be employers or employed. ...It was a recog nition of the fact that in the great industrial problems that we are face to face with today.

in the struggles of this country to compete in the world's markets, conflict at home, whoever is responsible for it, must inevitably lead to disaster.' (Daily Herald, 21 January 1928) The labour leaders stirred up patriotic sentiments to persuade workers to back Britain against foreign competition. But it was all to no avail. In 1928 the devastation was sufficient to caused by the crisis discipline workers. The bosses were strong enough to attack the working class head on without making concessions to the They Told the TUto labour leaders. mind its business; the Mond-Turner talks were abandoned. A plan to beat the crisis In the early 'thirties the TUC was forced into a holding operation. Its offer of

industrial collaboration had been rejected.

Worse, prolonged mass unemployment and employers' attacks on unions were beginning to erode the social base of the bureaucracy itself. All this did not lead

TUC

to reconsider its cap-in-hand strategy. On the contrary, the labour bureaucrats became even more hostile to working class action and redoubled their efforts to win concessions bourgeois state. 1928 From almost every important strike was unofficial as the TUC ignored the attacks against the rank and file, The millions of unemployed fared no better. The TUC simply absolved itself of any responsibility towards those out of work and attacked those who dared to organise them.

The labour bureaucracy's aim was to restore capitalist prosperity, to save the nation and thus to create new jobs. The essential features of the TUC's economic programme were subsidies for declining industries; public works, education and pension reforms designed to reduce the of the army of unemployed and size stimulate demand; and the creation of a protected empire trade bloc. Like today's Left Alternative Strategy, the programme was a mixture of Keynesianism and economic nationalism aiming at the phantom of an enlightened organised capitalism. Every issue was approached from the point of view of capitalist rationality. Instead of defending the unemployed the TUC worked proposals out would limit the cost of employment for the state. The Retirement and Pensions Committee investigated the possibility of shuffling workers from the dole queue to welfare by raising the school leaving age and lowering the age of retirement. For the TUC education and old age pensions were important because they could be used to strengthen the bargaining position of the unions against the unemployed. As Erest Bevin put it, raising the school leaving age provided for a planned contraction of the working population'; assured the bosses that the standard of health and efficiency that would be gained as a result of increasing the school leaving age to 16 worth more to the state than the cost involved and demanded a state assisted emigration scheme to rid Britain of the unemployed (E Bevin, My plan for 2 000 000 workless, 1933).

Chauvinism and pacifism mix well in The Labour Party this 1934 Labour Party poster. No more war! - vet this sort of propaganda prepared workers for the imperialist slaughter. NO

REFUSE. GERMAN

Since the labour leaders accepted the premises of were forced to accept the barbaric cost that the restoration of capitalist production entailed for the working class.

They never rejected the need for workers to make sacrifices - they merely wanted them to be distributed fairly and democratically. In response to the MacDonald the Government's from on wards employment benefit in 1931 the TUC protested against lack of consultation' and offered. its services in the administration of the new measures.

initiative of the General Council a joint union/government Unemployment Benefit Board minister the democratic and businesslike lines' (TUC General Council Report, 1931).

This is how the labour bureaucracy cooperated with the social administration of the capitalist system. The labour leaders legitimised the attack on the working class. And most important of all they won the acquiescence of the working class to the measures rationalisation. TUC's Behind imperialism - all the way Throughout the 'thirties the TUC leadership tried to suppress and restrict the independent activity of the rank and file.

Until 1935 the TUC had few problems in policing a demoralised working class. But in the late 'thirties when the economy that picked up and unemployment fell, the TUC needed more than victimisation to keep its grip over the working class. The bureaucracy's antidote to class politics was British nationalism. crats saw the expansion of British imperialism as the answer to workers' problems.

The programme of economic nationalism advanced by support for Britain's imperialist policies abroad. Thus in 1930 the TUC demanded that British imperialism defend its sphere of influence abroad by Commonwealth Trade Bloc: "high The comman-sense policy is surely to look ahead and to determine how best Britain, in the light of present-day tendencies, can build would be up close economic bonds with those nations whose interests appear to be complementary to our own. The two main factors that have to be considered are raw materials and markets.'

(TUC conference report, 1930)

NATIONAL JOINT COUNCIL

The Trades Union Congress The Parliamentary Labour Pariy

MADE

IN GERMANY

WAR !

MORE WAR PROFITEERING I

NO

GOODS IT

capitalist rationality they The labour 20 per cent cut in un- On the and was established to adpayment of. benefits 'on performed an British imperialism required for capitalist In 'consultation' had come. The •labour chance: the The labour bureauthe TUC required the TUC's "third course'.

consult with the establishing a statement careful co-operation gamated 1938 industry March the Chamberlain formally asked This was had no immediate operation ambition main ialist war. into the state the workforce. The TUC did not put its reactionary policies forward as the crude pro-capitalist schemes they were. TUC leaders instead portrayed economic nationalism as the harbinger of socialist planning. Import controls and a strong interventionist policy in the colonies were presented as a progressive alternative to capitalist anarchy.

bureaucracy exploited workers' anti-fascist sentiments for its own chauvinist ends. It used the fear engendered by German and Italian fascism to justify the imperialist policies of Britain. Nationalism was now dressed up as a progressive force because Britain's imperialist rivals happened to be fascist TUC support for British capitalism's fight for survival could now be pursued in the guise of a democratic crusade against fascism. During these years the TUC important service for before long the working class was actively participating in the greatest imperialist conflict of all time The bitter fruit of collaboration 1928 the British ruling class had rejected the social contract which the TUC offered. By the late 'thirties things had changed. To pursue its war effectively on the economic and military fronts the capitalists needed the full co-operation of the labour movement. The time for bureaucracy seized

ITS

heightening of imperialist tension was an opportunity to extend its influence, Even the economic programme of the TUC now made sense. Economic nationalism was required by an economy under siege. British imperialism now had no hesitation to launch a programme of public works: rearmament was a matter of urgency. The drive towards war provided the basis for the implementation of In 1936 the engineers' union began to Government on armament. In response to the Government's White Paper the union issued a arguing that the proposed rearmament plans necessitated the most organisation and the willing both of the leaders of industry and of the trade unions' (Amal- Engineering Workers' Union, Monthly Journal, October 1936).

as a wnole was convinced that co-operation with the TUC was the best course of action.

Government for trade union cooperation to assist its war preparations.

followed up by a meeting between the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence and representatives of the engineering unions. These talks, however, mistake. consequences: the employers were not yet prepared to give anything in return for trade union co- The lack of urgency demonstrated by the employers stood in sharp contrast to the labour bureaucrats' determination to press ahead with the war effort. They utilised widespread hatred for fascism to win working class support for the war.

It was an indication of the reactionary Another role of the labour bureaucracy that its was to acquire a consultative role in the pursuit of an imper- Finally in October 1939 the Government institutionalised consultation with the unions. It integrated the trade unions machinery, and for the duration of the war gave them a free hand to organise the labour market. The cothe operation of the unions ensured that force was rarely necessary to speed up work and increase the exploitation of The ruling class could stand back and allow the labour bureaucrats to get on with the job of uniting the British people in the imperialist war effort.

Sabena Norton

ENTRY

DIARY

Inside Chilham Labour Party the struggle continues Last month's Annual General Meeting showed the kind of success that consistent work in a constituency Party can bring, especially in the light of recent Conference decisions which gave Chilham Party activists a tremendous boost.

Under correspondence the secretary reported that we are still receiving 25 copies of the Morning Star a day despite our letter of June last year informing Peter Pink that none have been sold in the Kent area since the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Consensus was that it would be sectarian to pursue the matter further and in any case this was an improvement on 1979 when we received 39 Communist Party membership cards by It was noted that we have not received any correspondence from Transport House (or Walworth Road) since the election. A minority of comrades insisted that this was not the case as the Socialist Organiser circular 'What we gave and what we got' constituted official correspondence. A motion demanding the nationalisation of 250 monopolies was amended to read the top 252' and passed overwhelmingly.

demanding the eight-hour day was ruled out of order. The AGM unanimously supported the petition on peace sponsored by Socialist Organiser, Socialist Challenge and Socialist Press. During the meeting comrades sold four copies of Militant, four copies of Socialist Organiser and four copies of Socialist Challenge: a small blow against the millionaire press!

The meeting voted to raise f10 to reward caretaker Chilham Unitarian Church for his efforts to recycle back copies of the Morning Star.

Next time - Entry Diary looks at the fight against the right wing in Ascot CLP.

the next step, January 1981 15

The Irish War goes on The struggle for political status In 1976 Labour Party Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Roy Mason initiated the policy of 'Ulsterisation'. Its aim was to create the impression that the Irish liberation struggle was no more than an internal problem of "law and order'.

Ulsterisation had two key components.

Firstly Mason put the loyalist dominated - the Royal Ulster Conpolice forces stabulary and the Ulster Defence Regin the front line against the iment movement and reduced the republican open activity of the British army. Secondhe decided to 'criminalise' the ly, republican movement. It was this latter move that set in motion the sequence of protests that led in October 1980 to the hunger strike. In March 1976 Mason 'special category" status withdrew the which had previously been granted to captured republicans. British have The since treated convicted freedom fighters criminals with no right simply freely among themselves, associate own education or wear their organise their own clothing. Mason's aim was to isolate the republican activists from the Catholic com- Six Counties. the munity in succeeded in doing was to provoke prison protests and ever larger demonstrations of popular support. In September 1976 the first republican prisoner to be denied Kieran Nugent, rejected political status, He refused to do the criminal label. prison work and dress in prison uniform and was obliged to wear only a prison than Since then more blanket. have joined republicans the Early in 1978 the prisoners protest. rebelled against constant harassment from warders during washing and slopping out times and began the 'dirty' protest.

National H-Block While the mittee organised demonstrations in support of the prisoners during 1980, the men in H-Block decided to go on hunger strike for a final showdown with the authorities on the political status issue.

No surrender The British were little concerned for the lives of the seven men in Long Kesh, the three women in Armagh jail or the 30 who joined the other republican men as it progressed. After strike British security forces have hundreds of Irish people in the last 10 years and will probably kill many more until they're driven out of Ireland. But the Government was concerned that the hunger strikers deaths ot the provoke an upsurge of popular resistance to British rule in the Six Counties.

The British Secretary of State's right hand man in Belfast, Michael Allison, recalled the circumstances earlier Tory Northern Ireland Minister, William Whitelaw, to introduce political status in the first place: *Special category status was won not just by a hunger strike, it was won by the enormous outburst of lawlessness. concentrated like a into a particular moment in dam bursting history which made it impossible to build in our prisons, to introduce a normal prison regime.'

(Quoted in An Phoblacht/Republican News, 4 October 1980) As the hunger strike continued the British Government became increasingly concerned that it might lose control on the next step, January 1981 16 (see editorial, page 3). the streets of the Six Counties.

demonstrations were Derry, Armagh, Newry and other towns.

Workers cities throughout the Six Counties on a day of action hunger strikers. Young people rioted in Derry and Armagh, forcing Britain to deploy its military forces in a much more overtly coercive way. Meanwhile loyalist All he leaders fulminated against the hint of concessions prisoners, threatening to unleash violent reprisals. The British had tried to forestall the hunger strike by offering concessions on prison conditions. But Atkins' early offer of additional letters, visits and recreation, association limited 400 were rejected by leave blanket At the eleventh hour allow them (and all prisoners in the Six Counties) the right to wear civilian-type clothes. But the republicans insisted on political Com- Once the hunger strike began in earnest, the British remained adamant would be no surrender on the issue of political status. The British monolith Margaret Thatcher put the position of the British bourgeoisie clarity: There can be no give on political status.

Murder is a crime, causing explosions is a crime, all, the maiming is a crime and it must stay that way Murder is murder is murder. It cannot be a murdered political crime. political status.' December 1980) For the ruling class it is vital to deprive would the struggle for Ireland of all political legitimacy: branding republicans as "criminals' helps to ensure that they Britain that would cause problems for that forced the state's oppression of Ireland.

The Tories have a vital ally in their propaganda war against the Irish: the Labour Party. As the right-wing Daily Telegraph commented during the hunger the Ulster Secretary strike: understood the problem was Mr Mason' he favoured a more coercive approach than the Tories (20 November The popular press is preoccupied with the divisions in the Labour Party. But when it comes to the Irish the British state is under unusual pressure, the ranks of Labour close.

political machine from Enoch Powell to the next step

AFTER THE HUNGER STRIKE

The hunger strike by men in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh and women in Armagh jail was the heroic culmination of a four year battle by republican prisoners for political status. During the last eight weeks before the strike was called off in mid-December a wave of demonstrations and strikes in towns and cities throughout Ireland showed the strength of popular support for the national liberation struggle.

In Britain, however, the official labour movement stood staunchly beside Margaret Thatcher and Humphrey Atkins as they prepared to sacrifice more Irish lives to the cause of British rule in Ireland. The organisations of the British left proved incapable of mobilising even their own members to challenge the intransigence of the British state The Revolutionary Communist Tendency made the Irish hunger strike the main focus of activity in the last three months of 1980 (see page 2 for details). We enter 1981 with a determination to take this work forward, to expose mercilessly the pusillanimous approach of the left to the Irish War and to transform the present pro-British outlook of the labour movement into anti-imperialist pro-Irish politics.

Mass Belfast, held in strikers. downed tools in towns and hunger strikers. in solidarity with the slightest cabinets that republican the and compassionate public the prisoners. he offered to by out recognition of their struggle.

- there Charter 80 does either to agree with characteristic actions they November 1980) There can be no question of Charter 80 Telegraph, Daily of humanitarian national liberation in don't build up support in political status. who best 1980) War, especially when The British careful to protests, interests. status issue, Tony Benn presented a monolithic face of implacable hostility to the Irish hunger Labour left leader Benn told RCT hecklers at a public meeting in Hackney that he did not support the . Ireland has had enough martyrs for a thousand years' he said (Hackney Gazette, 5 December 1980).

Benn ought to know about the last 10 years if not the last 1000 - he passed more than half that time in Labour showed supervised the directly creation of hundreds of Irish martyrs in the struggle for national independence.

The left helps out While Thatcher and her Labour allies pushed the issue of political status to The the fore in their campaigns to maximise backing for the Government's stand against the prisoners, the left helped not taking on this question directly but instead concentrating.

humane prison reforms. The left declared its sympathy with the prisoners but was not prepared to build support for the Irish liberation struggle. The SWP's Charter 80 campaign was not even prepared to back the demand for political status: ask its supporters not with the declared political objective of the prisoners or to approve of the are supposed to have done in pursuit of this. It does not even ask its supporters to support the prisoners' right to political status.' (The H-Block Hunger Strike and the Struggle for Political Status, SWP, turn and other radical left solidarity initiatives around the hunger strike played right into the Government's hands.

The Government said 'concessions arising out concern over prison capacity: conditions are negotiable, political status is not'. The left emphasised humanitarian reforms and gave political status a much lower priority. The result? The Government was allowed to get off the hook by making some concessions on conditions but standing firm on the central issue of The propaganda war The hunger strike tactic was designed to advance the national liberation struggle by putting pressure on the British Government - in the Six Counties, in the Irish Republic, and internationally. One of the which the most important factors on success of the hunger strike depended was the scale of opposition to the Government• it aroused in Britain itself. If the British Government had been seriously embarrassed by a campaign of strikes and demon- - strations at home, it might have been forced to concede political status This is why the Government was so win the propaganda war, publicising its side of the H-Block that Labour MPs, ensuring liberals and churchmen all condemned the hunger strikers. Most importantly, the Government made sure that the organised labour movement remained loyal to British This is where the approach of the left was decisive. It was the duty of socialists to mobilise the working class in But solidarity with the hunger strikers.

the left backed down on the political made pious statements of sympathy with the hunger strikers and Government to be pleaded with the merciful. It delivered the working class to the Tories with scarcely a whimper.

Just one example shows the different approach of the RCT. Our supporters in the NALGO chapel of the National Union of Journalists called for strike action in the event of the death of any of the hunger strikers. They won the argument in support of political status after many earlier discussions of the Irish War. In this and other union branches RCT supporters between the connection the arguments needed to win endorsement of the hunger strikers' demand for political status and the industrial action needed to impose this demand on the Government Stop TUC collaboration! unions' pro-British stance on the hunger strike follows from their long established policy on the Irish War. For five years the TUC's programme for the Six Counties has been the Better Life For This campaign endorses All Campaign. the government's murderous proscription of the republican movement while calling on the same government to bring peace jobs and progress to the Six Counties The TUC backs imperialist oppression but pleads, very softly, for it to be exercised more leniently. The Smash the Prevention of Terrorism Act Campaign is holding a labour move- Irish War in ment conference on the Coventry at the end of March. We aim to carry forward the assault on the TUC's Irish policy that began at Tameside Trades we need to Council last year. In 1981 make sure that next time the Irish people workers for support British to action is not prevented by the pro-British politics of the la bour bureaucracy. Sponsors so far include (in a personal

AUEW

Dave Hallsworth Secretary Tameside Trades Council Jimmy O'Hara National Executive TGWU

FTAT

Jim Monaghan Chairman Todmorden Trades Council Sheet Metal Workers Bob Montgomery Write now to SPTAC. BM RCT, London WCIN 3XX

REMEMBER BLOODY SUNDAY!

DEMONSTRATION called by Sinn Fein 1.30pm Cardiff, 25 January

SELF-DETERMINATION FOR THE

IRISH PEOPLE! TROOPS OUT NOW!

Transport from Manchester, Coventry, Canterbury, south, east, central London.

Phone: (01-) 274 3951 for details.