The Next Step: No. 27, September 1982

the next step

THE UNION LEADERS

WORKERS MARCH AGAINST RACISM

BRICK LANE * BRIXTON *BRIGHTON 4-8 SEPTEMBER

UP AGAINST

THE TORIES...

A NUPE OFFICIAL POLICING THE PICKET LINE AT ST THOMAS'S HOSPITAL See page 16

UP AGAINST

inside

WOMEN: NO FEMINIST INCOMES POLICY! RULECAN ROUND-UP

WORLD WAR: US ARMS BUILD-UP, EL SALVADOR, LEBANON

IRELAND: THE WAR COMES HOME

FOUR PAGE SPECIAL FEATURE

PREPARING FOR POWER

An international conference for the 'eighties

Black workers strike to save union September activities

WORKERS AGAINST RACISM

WAR has branches in East London, South London North London Brighton Bristol Coventry Birmingham Sheffield Manchester Liverpool Leeds Phone 01-274 3951 for details fortnightly meetings. Transport leaving from all these areas Friday 3 September for the Workers March Against Racism.

WRECK THE RACE CHECKS!

On 1 October the DHSS is planning to introduce 'race checks' in hospitals throughout Britain, designed to force foreign patients to pay for NHS treatment. And the Department of Employment is doing the same thing in dole offices. WAR supporters in the unions are getting ready to wreck these racist schemes.

Come to this meeting to plan joint action.

No pass laws on the dole!

Free NHS treatment for all!

Tuesday 21 September 7.30pm Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1 (near Holborn tube) Contact 01-274 3951 for details of September Wreck the Checks' meetings in your area.

•

DEFEND AHMED KHAN-

DROP THE CHARGES

Ahmed Khan works as a waiter in Sheffield.

He was set upon by racist thugs in his restaurant and then ended up facing serious charges in court. A buu-strong demonstration August demanded police drop Join the picket in his defence Thursday 2 September 10am Magistrates Court Snig Hill, Sheffield

NEW

Irish Freedom Movement

VIDEO

NO BRITISH SOLUTION!

Now available for hire to show at your trade union branch. Details from Joe Doyle, Leeds IFM, Box RCP 59, Cookridge St, Leeds LS2.

Subscribe Why moan about the downturn when you can do something about it? Every issue of the next step takes the lead in promoting effective resistance against attacks on jobs and wages. Every issue organises action against racism fight for Irish freedom. And every issue uncompromising provides an class view of the important developments in international and domestic politics.

Take it regularly! £4 for 12 issues Make cheques/postal orders payable to Junius Publications and send to BCM JPLTD, London WC1N 3XX.

Contents Editorial Beirut only the beginning Workers Against Racism Heathfield strike Fighting police harassment Campaigning in the unions Workers March Against Racism .

Ireland London bombings 2 the next step, September 1982 of regular on 14 the charges. THIRTY EIGHT black been instrumental in unionised the union workers, make Now he fields striker) and in support of the working by setting tants in the plywood PTA terror Bobby Sands memorial British imperialism Special feature Preparing for power Imperialism 20 The war drive is on

HEATHFIELDS

workers have on strike for over four weeks at Heathfields cable drum factory in Slough.

They are all GMWU members who were the factory getting 1980. back in November Management has been trying to smash ever since. When the black all unskilled, joined I have worked here all my life to him and his children fat. wants to kick me out. He's not going to get away with it, however long we have to fight.

(Abdul Kahliq, 56 year old Heaththe GWU, Heathfields' bosses responded works council. The up a skilled (all white) print workers, who are in SOGAT, agreed to sit on this body which is chaired by the works director.

The GMWU members refused.

Then in January this year, management tried to disperse the core of black milidepartment to different sections. They responded with a 8 The militarisation of politics 9,10,11,12 Why Reagan needs Brezhnev 13 13 US nightmare in El Salvador 14,15 strike and a four-day occupation of the plant. Despite being served with an injunction, they held out and won.

The next offensive when the GMWU put in for a 20p an hour across the board pay increase. An overtime ban was imposed by the plywood backed by the women in the workers, assembly plant, to try and force through this claim. The response from management was a lock-out. On 15 July Works Director Fred Rawlet sacked 21 workers, all of them black. Since then the 21 plus their supporters have been on all-out strike. It has been made official by the GWU, though no strike pay has been received yet. The strikers are already suffering hardship. And they are getting a lot of aggravation from scabs and from police who have so far arrested three pickets. The biggest problem, however, is that SOGAT is not backing the dispute.

Heathfields is owned by Sonoco Ltd, a US-based firm. The masters at divide and rule tactics like paying white workers 30p more per hour for the same work as the black employees.

To win this fight and get all the strikers Industrial notes NHS dispute TUC reorganisation The TUC and the Tories TUC internationalism Women No feminist incomes policy!

Rulecan lessons End of an ERA Letters Rulecan: Derek Cattell writes Feminism: has the RCP got it wrong?

have at least came in April, week. machines Road, Slough Berks serious the bosses are past board Mike Freeman 16 Editorial board 16 16 16 James Wood 17 18 18 19 19 In the plywood department we accidents three God knows how old the And the dust is are. terrible. The department manager's an ex-policeman. He treats us like criminals. He thinks we're illiterate.

We'll show them.' (Zaheer Iqbal, 22 year old Heathfields striker) re-instated, the Heathfields workers want 7am • support on their picket line, 7pm daily at Heathfields Ltd, Western Trading Estate, Slough, • trade unionists in allied industries to refuse to handle Heathfields products • generous donations to their strike fund. Rush donations to GMWU, Heath- 103 Greenfields Dispute Committee, wood Avenue, Hanwell, London W7 They also need support from SOGAT, the TGWU drivers and the wider labour movement. The Heathfields strikers will be on the Workers March Against Racism to September's TUC, demanding solidarity for their dispute. Be there with them!

Editorial Tony Allen, Nick Jenkins, Judy Harrison, Sabena Norton, Marcelle Reynolds, Frank Richards, Helen Simons, Published by Junius Publications Ltd BCM JP LTD, London WIN 3XX Printed by Morning Litho Printers Ltd (TU) Typeset by Junius Publications Ltd (TU) ISSN 0144-350X September 1982

only the beginning ON 6 JUNE Israel invaded the Lebanon.

What was initially portrayed as a military action of limited scope Peace for Galilee' scale invasion culminating in the siege of Beirut. After several weeks of bombardment and 11 of Beirut now appears to be drawing to Palestinian freedom close. stood and fought against overwhelming But they fought alone, and the odds. combined pressure of the Israeli military machine and world imperialism ensured that the Zionist state would triumph.

In the West significant sections of the media were appalled by what they saw.

"This time', they said, Begin has gone too far. Prominent imperialist leaders, including Presidents Reagan and Mitter- Schmidt and, Chancellor Minister Thatcher joined the chorus.

But has Begin acted irrationally? Will the imperialist powers abandon their most reliable ally in the Middle East?

The myth of irrationality Faced with the devastation everybody, from Reagan politicians, has been quick to disclaim responsibility for what happened. Even Begin has hinted that he didn't want to go so far but that his hand had been forced by Defence Minister Ariel Sharon.

So who is to blame for the carnage in Lebanon? Clearly, Sharon did not act on his own initiative. The invasion of Lebanon has been on the cards for a long time.

growing instability on the which threatened to get out forced the Israeli Government to strike at the centre of Palestinian power in Lebanon. According to Israeli Chief of Staff Rafel Eitan the operation planned for eight months.

But it wasn't just the Israeli military that was involved in the planning.

Reagan administration was fully briefed about the operation and American military advisers were consulted preparatory stage. In particular, former US Secretary of State General Alexander Haig was a strong supporter of the invasion. An influential American weekly up Haig's summed approach problem: In what turned out to be his last major "victory" within Administration, Tre argued that the US should condone the invasion, while making tongue-clacking sounds of disapproval, 1n the expectation 'Operation - turned into a full- "ceasefires the battle fighters military. exclaimed that PLO' (13 August). and Prime of Beirut, Zionist to the situation. of resistance The West Bank of hand their point of view, Lebanon was entirely had been has been The behind the during the settlement secunty of force Haig would quickly succeed in eradicating or seriously weakening the PLO as a military force.

(Business Week, 23 August 1982) And that's precisely what Washington did.

But didn't Israel go too far? After all, even Reagan was compelled to denounce the 'excessive' use of force by the Israeli Virtually the entire Western press from left to right repeated the same point. The editor of the New Statesman "tragically, the Begin Government has systematically destroyed the hopes (which were real enough for those who wished to see them) of a move towards political understanding with the In fact, Begin went as far as he had to.

The survival of the artificially created Israeli state depends on the oppression of the Palestinian people. Yet, this very oppression creates resistance which undermines the stability of the oppressor state.

Every war launched by Israel to guarantee its security has only created more tension and more resistance - and each time over a wider geographical area.

The invasion of Lebanon was designed to destroy the threat which represents a danger to the viability of Israel. Begin's simple view - it's either them or us' - is an accurate assessment of instability The growing on the West Bank and the emergence among Palestinians living inside Israel's boundaries finally forced Begin's hand. For the Zionist leadership, the destruction of Beirut is a small price to pay for ensuring Israel's survival. From the invasion of rationa. n the short term, the result is that the military threat posed by Palestinian fighters severely curbed, Syria has been neutralised and Israel's domination of Lebanon can now be enforced through alliances with right-wing Lebanese forces.

It is essential to understand the logic Israeli war machine. All the talk about the possibility of a peaceful or a political solution non-military solutions to guarantee Israel's misses the point. No peaceful solution is possible. The maintenance of Israel requires the systematic application - so too does its overthrow.

The only choice is which side to support, the oppressor or the oppressed.

It's only the beginning During the past decade the whole system the next step Beirut of imperialist domination Middle East has broken down. When the Iranian threw America lost control of Iran, previously one of its most important client states in the region. Saudi Arabia suffer from internal unrest and therefore are of limited usefulness for US security. At the same time the USA faces growing competition from its imperialist rivals. France, Japan, West Germany, to name only the most prominent, all want to strengthen their stake in the Middle East - inevitably at America's expense.

The breakdown of the traditional mechanism of US domination provides the background for the violence that now threatens to engulf the Middle East. The weakening of imperialist influence has created wider possibilities for the long-suffering Palestinians to pursue their liberation struggle against Zionist state, the destiny remains the central issue in the region. America would like to distance itself from Israel and assume the mantle of a neutral arbiter, presiding over another Camp David jamboree. But there are limits on the options open to US imperialism. For all the problems Israel world, Israel remains reliable force able to defend imperialist interests throughout the Middle East.

The debate in the contradiction between overall Middle East strategy and Israel's determination to take necessary for its survival. There will be much talk in more even-handed' just wishful thinking. erialist interests are intimately bound up with the survival of Israel.

The debate will no doubt continue, especially as the invasion of Lebanon is only the beginning of the military conflict. The peace' imposed on Beirut is only a prelude to the next stage of the war. It will not bring stability to Lebanon nor will it curb oppression. Even if every fighter leaves Beirut, renounce the use of force.

still thousands of Syrian troops and PLO guerrillas both in the north and in the Beka'a Valley in the east. If not tomorrow.

then the day demand new guarantees and new restrictions on who has the right to live in the Lebanon. over the created new out the Shah, punishing and Egypt mains intact. state. not survive. ensuring that their it comes Washington expresses America's weaken them Israel. measures any Congress about having a Party. policy. But that's At present, impright which is resistance to Israeli Palestinian bullets Israel will not There are after tomorrow, Israel will Lo wal By invading Lebanon, Israel has only problems for itself. The divisions inflicted on the Lebanese people will not heal with the PLO's withdrawal from Beirut. A Lebanon under Israeli domination is inherently unstable. It will create permanent unrest.

forcing Israel into a situation which will make its difficulties on the West Bank seem easy by comparison. The siege of Beirut gives us a taste of things to come so long as the Israeli war machine re- The British working class It is very easy to denounce Begin. But the problem is not Begin or even the Israeli Without imperialist assistance Israel would never have been created, and without imperialist aid Israel could Every Israeli bomb that drops on a house in Beirut rings on cash registers in New York and London.

Beirut must become a symbol for the working class. Those who are genuinely outraged by the massacre must choose sides. On the one side stand the people of Palestine, on the other side is Israel and its imperialist allies. The best assistance we can give to the people of Palestine is to fight imperialism at home. When to the Middle East, even the most anti-Semitic member of the British ruling class is a Zionist. The more we the more We must fully expose the hypocrisy of the liberal establishment and the Labour Their tears over Beirut mean nothing so long as they recognise the of Israel to exist. Liberals and reformist politicians want Israel to be more rational. But it is the existence of Israel and the denial of the right of selfdetermination of the Palestinian people irrational, not the policies pursued by the Begin regime.

What happened in Beirut was not an accident. It was no more accidental than the murder of Irish children by rubber on the streets of Belfast and Derry. It was no more unplanned than South Africa's recent invasion of Angola.

The crisis of the imperialist system forces the capitalist class closer and closer to war. If British workers do nothing when the next Beirut comes then they will have given another green light for the imperialist war machine to drive down the road September 1982 3

Vorkers Against Racism Against Workers Against Racism Agai

FIGHTING POLICE HARASSMENT

The Front Line last year - how long will it last?

BRIXTON

A bipartisan approach

'GIVE IT THE LEBANON TREAT-

unanimous verdict MENT: That's the the recurring of Lambeth Council on Front Line'. Brixton's problem of weeks have seen Recent conflict in the 'no go' area bordered by Railton Roads. Mayall and battles between police and groups of 50 or more black youths have got Brixton's Robert Marsh, Chief Superintendent, alarmed: We just cannot play by the rules we are playing now and expect people to have respect for law and order...we are afraid that we are running out of time.' (The Times, 22 July) But the local political establishment has not been slow to respond. A set of proposals, jointly submitted by Tory Council and leader of the leader Robin Pitt Opposition, 'Red' Ted Knight, more than answer the police chief's prayers. Their problem of the Front solution to the is beautiful in its simplicity Line' there will be demolish it. In its place trees and around the ...trees, more "Afro-Caribbean leisure year 1990) an centre. No one, least of all the police, actually believes the official line that between 150-200 young black criminals are the cause of all the conflict. No one really thinks that razing a few slum tenements to the ground will change anything. But it's in everyone's interests - the police, the Council, the Uncle Toms who are meant to represent the black community Robin and Ted's along with to go landscape gardening schemes.

cause it helps perpetuate the myth that Brixton's riots were the work of a handful of criminals. The aim is to eradicate the 'Front Line' and restore police-community relations.

So pressing is this need to restore confidence in the police that Ted Knight and the local Labour Party prepared to sink party political differences. His joint document with the Tories boasts about their cosy relations: "A feature of the Council's approach to the Railton Road problems has been its bi-partisan nature. The objective has been to achieve a consensus between the political parties and between the Council and the community?

And the consensus that is Too right. 4 the next step, September 1982 being established is one that says we're behind the police all the way.

Ted Knight is not an isolated case.

Alternative strategies for beating crime have become a fashionable intellectual renewed pastime on the left. We are urged, in the August issue of the CP's journal Marxism Running Today, to 'resist a romantic view of black crime; black crime is an attack on the not themselves, pool Therefore we should ask the capitalists to provide an 'effective policing' policy to deal with it, and allow the 'marginalised youth to re-enter the polity' where they can take part in the democratic process.

The SWP, on the gives its critical support to the crime prevention campaign. Of the 'Front Line" it says: 'Demolition yes, but on condition that the occupants are rehoused and that there are no arrests' (Socialist Worker, 14 August).

WE SAY - DEFEND THE FRONT

LINE from the police and the courts!

the all-Party And from wants to bulldoze Brixton's blacks into submission. Meanwhile... While the Labour Party is kept busy on the Lambeth Police Liaison Consultative Group' (the bulldozing team), South London's police have got plans of their own.

The press recently reported that fullscale riot training - including the use of *Pig Squirt' water cannon Greenwich, in Way. But WAR has recently exposed a Why? Bemassive riot training centre right in the heart of Lambeth, inside an industrial warehouse on Larkhall Lane. The building is owned by the Met. Plans for its 'normal' conversion Council in July 1981. large quantities of riot equipment and police have been frequently sighted there are fully decked out in full combat gear.

The Estate. estate are angry and alarmed at what's going on in joined forces with WAR and local community groups to get rid of it. Perhaps the council would like to re-direct its down to bulldozers

BIRMINGHAM

Cameron! an convicted of him on another charge to threatening before Roy Hattersley, accept a police have framed up capitalism. on Defend the other hand, only chester Workers collecting that alliance were eventually money were dangerous - is going on on wasteland by River 164-166 Corn were approved by Lambeth Ditch, Manchester M4 3BD Inside there are building backs onto Springfield Black and white tenants on the their backyard, and have blacks Larkhall Lane? Defend Osman

ON 23 JULY

OSMAN CAMERON is a young West Indian from Sparkhill. He's been fitted up. by the police more times than he can street fighting remember. One time stands out. During orgy of police violence last summer Osman was beaten up in an unprovoked Now attack by 20 police. He ended up with a €200 fine and two year's probation, wounding and assault. Three months ago they tried to get - stealing a bike that belonged to his sister! That was a bit far-fetched, so they switched the charge behaviour' (Osman had asked the plain-clothed cop for his ID questions). agreeing to answer Osman went to his local Labour MP, for help. Hattersley's response was 'it's a fair cop' - he didn't want to know. But a growing campaign has been mounted by Birmingham WAR to get all the charges dropped. A large and militant picket of the court put the police on the defensive. They were overscene in heard pleading with Osman's solicitor to "bind-over' instead of going ahead with the trial. Osman refused point Granby blank. He's not going to let the police add even more charges to his record.

pavements We're fighting for Osman Cameron and lights flashing every other black youth the Birmingham this past year. out and

MANCHESTER

the Chorlton Two! Merseyside. ON 13 AUGUST two supporters of Man- Against Racism WelC

WORKERS

for the MARCH AGAINST RACISM in Chorlton, Manchester. Two plain-clothed police officers drew up and arrested them for 'collecting money by deceit. The charges changed to 'collecting without a licence. In the police by the NF. station the officer announced that they out to crush Workers Against Racism, 'which is connected to ELWAR communist vigilante group. It seems that the police have been reading up on the campaign in order to make a specific attack, aimed at undermining the significant support which has been building up amongst black people and trade union branches in the area for the September march. Help us fight this politically motivated attack - and send donations for court costs and fines to: Manchester Workers Against Racism, Box 33, Hanging Building, Exchange

CAREE

Balham Job Centre, campaigning to recruit to the Metropolitan Police, was picketed by WAR supporters in August.

Since 1967 London's 23 000-strong police force has gained 158 black members.

LIVERPOOL

In for the kill -the anniversary of the killing of David Moore - rioting in Liverpool 8 once again made the headlines.

Not that it's ever stopped. Liverpool 8 was the scene of the most ferocious with the police during last year's long hot summer, and sporadic confrontations have continued ever since.

they're increasing in scale and intensity, and even spilling over to other districts. According to Mrs Simey, Labour Party chairman of the local police committee, they're led by tiny revolutionaries of 12 to 14 years old.

What's going on? Why all the fuss about Liverpool 8 after months of covering up the real situation? The answer is simple. Like their colleagues in Brixton, the Merseyside police are out to get the "real criminals. Five thousand people live in Liverpool 8. Eighty per cent of them are black. Over 75 per cent are unemployed. Short of destroying the whole area and dispersing the entire community, the only option the police have got is to go in for the kill. That means provoking riots. A typical this: Liverpool 8 goes like • eight vanloads of police park by the Cathedral while one patrol car goes into • it tears up and down the streets, over siren blasting, lawns, and • when the kids (average age 12) come respond the eight vanloads stream in and beat them up badly.

So far there have been few arrests. Just beatings. The police want to flush out' provoking them blacks by older beyond endurance. are backed up by a These tactics massive propaganda campaign designed to seal off Liverpool 8 from the rest of When a 14 year old white girl, Jackie Molyneux, committed suicide recently the Liverpool Echo (30 July) screamed GIRL FOUND DEAD IN BED AFTER BUS WAS STONED'. The implication was unmistakable; black youths stoning the bus she was in had killed her.

Subsequently the Charles Wootton Centre - the black community HQ in Liverpool was threatened with firebombing For one year Liverpool's race relations experts have worked hard at buying off the supposed troublemakers and setting up numerous projects like the new Law Centre (Lord Scarman called it a most can't imaginative proposal'). But they buy off the whole community. Liverpool - too close to the ghettos of Belfast and Derry for comfort - is getting the 'Ulster treatment'. It began with CS gas last year. Soon they'll be killing children.

BALHAM JOB CENTR

POLICE OFFICE

OPPORTUNITIES

CRORE

nst Workers Against Racism Against Worke

CAMPAIGNING IN THE UNIONS

CPSA

Back door dole checks THE DEPARTMENT of Employment is trying to implement its racist system of 'checks' on black claimants via the back door. After getting a very negative response from staff and claimants to its 'pilot study' in March during which WAR organised effective industrial action in a number of UBOs - the DE is now hoping the scheme will go through on the nod. It has been consulting management, who recommend a 'modified visual assessment' system. In other words, if you look black/foreign, you go down on the computer as suspect. And if anti-racists in the dole offices don't move quickly, the scheme will go through. The main union involved, the CPSA, has very belatedly issued a circular giving branches two weeks to register their opposition! If the CPSA doesn't receive an answer it will assume that's a vote in favour of visual assessment. And this mockery of a democratic ballot is

NALGO, NUPE, COHSE

Countdown to October NORMAN FOWLER - Health Minister responsible for denying hospital workers their 12 per cent claim - plans to enforce DHSS's racist scheme ot checks foreign patients from 1 October onwards.

implemented it will mean suffering for thousands of ineligible' foreign patients, who can't afford fees of up to €130 per day for NHS treatment.

It will mean harassment and humiliation for all black patients, as they get asked to produce their passports as a matter of course.

WAR

has been campaigning hard, since the DHSS tried a dry-run of this scheme last year, to build up opposition in NALGO, NUPE, COHSE and all the health service unions. At NUPE's national WAR's conference in June, demanding industrial action against the

NUS

WHEN THE TWO P&O liners, and Canberra, set sail for the Atlantic in April, the National Union of Seamen insisted that only true Brits were up to fighting the "Argies". The 600 Asian seamen on board were promptly removed and replaced with British NUS members.

However, this flag-waving has backfired. The union may have a policy of *British Seamen for British Ships', the employers are colour blind. Once the war was over they wanted to get back to business as normal. That meant sacking the patriotic British and re-employing the cheaper Asian labour. Which leaves Jim Slater and Sam McCluskie (general and assistant general secretary) open to charges of racism on the one hand, and "selling out their white members the other. How did Jim and Sam get into this fix? They are the victims of their own chauvinist policies. For decades the NUS has been complaining about being conducted at the height of the holiday season, when are away. What's more, the circular does not itself oppose ethnic monitoring. It puts the CPSA Broad Left's line, which manoeuvred through at conference; was an absurd proposal for registration' by black claimants.

In spite of all its rhetoric, Broad Left CPSA leadership is doing no better than the old right-wing at fighting this racist scheme. Rank and file CPSA members will have to take matters into their own hands and organise a nationwide boycott of the scheme whatever the outcome of this phoney ballot. But let's make sure our voices are heard now.

Return your results to the CPSA immediately, demanding all-out opposition to the scheme - and demand an extension of the time-limit on the ballot so that all members views can be expressed.

checks was carried overwhelmingly. Numerous branches in all the relevant unions have voted for a boycott of the scheme.

Now is the time for all trade unionists on in the health service to demand some action from their national officers. There untold have to be rank members andhile checks, their unions will back them up and prevent any victimisations. A mass campaign by the unions amongst staff and patients, including multi-lingual leaflets and posters, is needed to alert everyone to the Government's racist intentions.

Contact WAR WRECK THE CHECKS

CAMPAIGN,

c/o Box High Street, London E8 or phone 01-274 3951 for information. literature motion ivities up and down the country designed to wreck the checks in coles and nospitals.

British jobs for British workers' Uganda foreign labour under-cutting their mem- South bers wages. But instead of fighting for equal wages and jobs for all, they have simply tried to crews. This has been extended to negotiating a 'penalty' payment of f20 to the union by the shipowners for every foreign seaman employed. Of course, neither the British nor but penny of this money. The outcome of the NUS's patriotic policy has been the loss of 10 000 jobs British for on ships since 1978 number of jobs by British seamen. Far from strengthening the union's hand against the shipowners, made sure everyone loses out. No wonder on Harwich Sealink felt confident enough to announce 2000 redundancies the day after the NUS negotiated a return to work! The moral of the story is plain to British Jobs for British Workers' see cheap means less jobs all round.

TGWU

many members voluntary selfthe new unintentional 'overstayer'.

If something doesn't union and clear guarantees that when boycott the that the of but all at once, to Kenya!

GMWU

22, 136 Kingsland and details of actget rid of the foreign foreign seamen ever see a foreign seamen - and the loss of the same the NUS has don't figure at all. tinual morn in union no end. No deportations Workers

MUS

AY NO WAR/GWU picket of the Home Office, 12 August SHAUKAT DARR is an Asian bus driver in Leeds. He's in the TGWU. He came to Britain from Kenya in 1974 and has a wife, two young children and parents-inin the law in this country. Like many Kenyan Asians he has now discovered he's an back happen soon, Shaukat will be out of a job, out of the along with his family kicked out of Britain to Kenya. Originally the Home Office was going to split the family three ways, between Britain, Pakistan and Kenya. After heavy hints European Commission on Human. Rights might find Britain guilty violating family rights, the Home Office still plans to deport the Darrs Numerous representations nave been Uphill for black women try

RACISM

apart. They let them'. Black difficulties Nilam Khan: 'They won't break our union.

IF BLACK WORKERS are low on the (which TUC's list of priorities, black women Yet they are a conthe side of the trade pressures bureaucracy, fighting for their rights with a degree of militancy and heroism that embarrasses the bureaucrats eneUnior acism 26WV

MORI

says

CPORTAION

Sorkers and verse made on the Darrs' behalf. But the most important support they've received so far is from Shaukat's fellow trade unionists TGWU. The union has pledged itself locally to fight his case, and has circulated all branches in the region to him Nationally, Bill Morris up. (national transport officer of the TGWU) agreed to lead a deputation to the Home Office. Avtar Jouhl - general secretary of the Indian Workers Association (GB) and a leading militant in Birmingham TGWU - was there too. WAR is fighting in Leeds and nationally to extend this trade union solidarity.

The Darrs could be deported any day.

Their supporters have made it clear that if and when the immigration police come, they'll have to take on the lot of us!

Nilam Khan is 26, has two children and is a GWU shop steward at Heathfields. She described how the bosses raised the women's miserable pay offer to and split them off from the men.

It didn't work. Most of the black women are out and the ones who aren't don't deserve to be in the union'. Nilam is joining the WORKERS MARCH AGAINST to the TUC this September: 'Here in the factory racism has been very bad. Management pay different wages to black and white workers. And to men and women. That way they try to keep us want to break our union They want to make us crawl. We won't women experience enormous when they on strike go Frequently their immigration status as dependents means they are not entitled to supplementary benefits at the best of times, let alone when they're on strike.

The Catch 22 system of child benefits excludes black from claiming for children in their home are intolerable country means there on many female immigrant workers to keep their heads down at work. But still they fight. And it's about time the unions matched their courage blow for blow. the next step, September 1982 5

When the war comes home Ireland

THE ATTACK

had a clear political purpose, as a statement supplied by the IRA explained: Now it is our turn to properly invoke article 51 of the United Nations Statute and properly quote all Thatcher's fine phrases on the right to self-determination of a people. The Irish people have sovereign and national rights which no task or occupation force can put down.' (An Phoblacht/Republican News, 22 July 1982) In the wake of Britain's victory in the South Atlantic - in a war which Britain pretended fought defend was so-called right to self-determination' of Falkland Britons - the bombings aimed to expose the absurdity of Britain's talk about democratic principles.

intended to reassert the right and the capacity of the Irish people to pursue its liberation from Britain by military means.

Four legs good, two legs bad Even the popular press was presented difficulty in this with some conjure up the usual parade of innocent victims to help boost circulation figures.

So the horses grabbed the limelight. Acres of print were filled with heartrending of unfortunate Sefton accounts other four-legged members of the Royal Household Cavalry. That the personal 6 the next step, September 1982 On Tuesday 20 July two IRA bombs exploded in the centre of London, killing 11 members of two of Britain's most prestigious regiments - the Blues and Royals and the Royal Green Jackets. Injuries to civilians were slight. This latest mainland bombing ranks with the assassination of Airey Neave in 1979 and the ambush of British soldiers at Warren- Point the same year as one of the most dramatic acts of Irish republican guerrilla warfare. And, predictably, it has called forth some of the most rabid anti-republican propaganda from the bourgeois press and the most craven reactions from the left in Britain. Sabena Norton examines the response to the bombings and explains why we give our unconditional support to the Irish liberation movement.

background and history soldiers and their regiments received only scant attention is understandable. The recent activities of the Blues and Royals in the Malvinas and the Jackets in Belfast would hardly fit the desired picture of murdered, peace-loving individuals. Both regiments are notorious and hated in Ireland from their frequent tours in the Six Counties. The B&Rs, one of the oldest British infantry regiments, first rose to fame in the Boer War, following its role in the slaughter of 80 000 internees in the The camps. 1958, similarly distinguished themselves and in Aden, Cyprus being despatched to occupied Ireland.

They were The press indulged in flowery descriptions of the ceremonial functions during which the 11 soldiers The purpose behind the images of the gleaming knights of the Household Cavalry and the gentle British pageantry' (Daily Mail) of the bandstand in Regents Park case to was to get across the crucial message: that were not war casualties, but inthese nocent victims of heinous crimes.

The whole bourgeois propaganda machine set to work to unite the nation against and the Irish freedom fighters. Humane, good and kindly Prime Minister of the dead insults Royal Green "barbarity and calamity. crack troops, so that its wounded. Britain's concen- RGJs, formed in Malaya before offer. blown up. were utionary Party, Margaret Socialist Thatcher described those responsible as 'sub-human, evil and brutal men'. These were faithfully echoed by the Labour Party leaders, Michael Foot and Roy Hattersley, who dribbled on about "outrages. Meanwhile, distraction'. workers on NHS picket lines were bullied to return to work in the face of national The COHSE leadership called off the strike at St Mary's in Paddington members could tend the before the The Daily Mail, which bombings had made the health workers (sic)' the object of its own outrageous attacks, suddenly dubbed the nurses angels' and gloated: Everyone buckled down marvellously' (21 July). Norman Fowler extended his personal greetings to the St Mary's staff - not omitting a reminder to them to accept the government's pay The perfect distraction The British left got the message. Right on cue, came the predictable condemnations of 'terrorism'. For News Line, paranoid paper of the paranoid Workers Revolment. the bombings were nothing other than the fruits of a sinister conspiracy between Thatcher and the IRA ('Who's running the IRA?', 21 July).

Socialist Worker, however, topped the league for dishonesty. In theory the crazy Workers Party supports Irish liberation. But in practice it always finds a reason to condemn the struggle for Irish freedom, especially when it strikes too close to home. This time the problem was the IRA's bad timing. The bombs, according to Socialist Worker, were a perfect Had it not been for the bombs, apparently, unemployment tigures, corruption in the intelligence service and scandals at Buckingham Palace could have Then, lo and stayed in the headlines. behold, 'the depths of the government's callousness, hypocrisy and incompetence would have been there for all to see. How further reports on unemployment statistics and palace intrusions would have affected the class struggle, did not venture to Socialist Worker explain. The main point got across arty way - what a nuisance these bombs!

simply While the bourgeois press attacks the liberation movement, Socialist Worker tries to understand it. The result of this sickly, patronising exercise tells us more about the SWP than about any problems faced by the liberation move- Pat Stack, SWP expert in social Why ordpsychology, pontificates on inary people become bombers' (31 July).

His argument runs as follows: the Irish people have got a point they are awfully repressed. Not all of them are "The bulk (how headbangers:

understanding!) of today's Provisionals are not evil or sinister but are ordinary working class men and women driven to arms by discrimination. etc, etc. That done, Pat Stack goes on to heap abuse on the republican movement, in particular on the military struggle. According to the article, the IRA should lay down its arms, forget about the British troops and seek unity in trade union struggle with the allies of their British oppressor Protestant points that the latter are staunch supporters of Catholic repression, and that repression is enforced through Britain's military rule in the Six Counties, are, of course, passed over in such a profound analysis. From Clerkenwell to Hyde Park To cater for the prejudices of its readership, Socialist Worker also tries to call on the authority of Marx and Lindsey Marx and his supporters in England had always criticised the Fenians for using conspiracy and uprising as a substitute for arguing their politics to the mass of workers but they supported their aim of a Along with Militant and the A memorial in Leeds been forgotten in Leeds. The local Irish Freedom Movement's campaign for a Bobby Sands has provoked a major controversy. Letters to the Yorkshire Evening Post, debates in the Council chamber and on the streets, have made It started in April when Leeds IFM presented a petition with over 500 signatures to the City Council. The petitioners called on the council to authorise the painting of a large mural on a suitable building in the city centre.

This was a demand supported by local workers and trade unionists together with members of Shock, horror, mural probe On 30 April thing began to get moving. The Yorkshire Evening Post carried a front page article Bobby Sands shock mural is unveiled', complete with a reproduction of the model for the mural, depicting Bobby Sands above the famous lines Til wear no convict's uniform nor meek v serve mv time Tory Councillor Keith London told the people of Leeds that they would find it 'offensive and declared that the council would be most anukely to grant planning permission Party planning department spokesman coun tered that planning permission might not be required. This is where matters threatened to get stuck in the nether regions of the council bureaucracy, with the petition being shoved In te continued to attract supporters. One of them, PTA terror in Southampton AT 7.00am on Tuesday 6 July the home of the McAllister family in Southampton was raided by half a dozen CID officers.

Every piece of furniture was turned over.

scrap of notepaper and Thomas Every McAllister's personal notebook were confiscated. Thomas (52) was arrested under the PTA and detained for six days in Portswood Police Station.

Three other Southampton Irishmen were arrested the same day. Like Thomas, they all work in the docks or aboard sealiners and ferries. All four were released without charge on Sunday: South London IFM members visited Thomas McAllister immediately after his release.

The circumstances of his arrest and a of harassment whole history by the police and Special Branch are a striking example of the repression of the Irish community in Britain. Press reports on the four arrests free and independent Ireland' (7 August).

This is a fantastic inversion of the truth. Marx, unlike the SWP, recognised that the only way socialists could support the 'aim of a free Ireland' was to support the anti-colonial struggle, regardless of its building support among British workers for the Fenian struggle was the key to the British revolution. They devoted considerable energy to building this moveand they never qualified their ment support for Irish freedom with criticisms bombings of 1867 which Lindsey German uses to prove her point is contained in a personal letter Marx wrote to Engels on failed to recognise the difference between the building of an anti-imperialist move- Trotsky isn't spared any distortion either.

WRP, the left-wing Labour Councillor Lorna Cohen, had the courage to make her views publicly known.

She issued a statement which said: There car be no British solutions. Only the Irish people themselves can resolve the conflicts of sectarianism which centuries of imperialist rule has implanted among them. It was this fundamental truth that bobby sands livea by and diea for It is because of this fundamental truth that The statement produced another storm in the pages of the Yorkshire Evening Post. But more was to come. On 30 June Leeds IFM was finally invited to attend a full council meeting to formally submit the petition. Amid uproar on the Tory benches, council leader George Mudie agreed to have the petition heard.

When the IFM members entered the council chamber all the Tories and the single SDP member walked out. It was the first time in anyone's memory that discord on the council had led to such drastic action. Two days later, having been referred to the Planning and Extra-mural activity Nonetheless, the very idea of a mural continues to make Leeds' patriots foam at the mouth.

A Mrs Whitehead of Chapel-Allerton felt that "Arthur Scargill and the Bobby Sands mural gang' would be better off in Siberia (Yorkshire Evening Post, 27 July). And 'Outraged", a frequent correspondent to the paper, demanded to know whether the persons who wished to have a memorial to Bobby Sands in Leeds 'also approve of the latest IRA activity In reply, David Osgood of Leeds IFM asked suggested that the police were out to crack an arms smuggling operation involving Irish seamen aboard the 'QE2'. The story was that the Special Branch and the FBI had launched a joint investigation into links between IRA arms smuggling in the US and Irish seamen in South- Several weeks earlier two Irishmen, Gabriel Megahey and Andrew Duggan, were deported from New York after an astounding tale of how they had approached him to acquire surface-to-air missiles for the IRA. At one point Gabriel Megahey had been a resident of Southampton. The local police promptly sprang Throughout the six days of detention, was never once asked about missiles or other weapons. Instead, he was asked to identify photographs of his SWP shares a peculiar enthusiasm for a relatively obscure pamphlet written by Trotsky in 1911, in which he subjected Russian anarchism to a thorough critique.

Here Trotsky criticised those who substituted assassinations of Czarist officials for the task of building a revolutionary He party in Russia. was not talking about a war of liberation against an imperialist oppressor, but about individual terrorism, a trend reflecting the impatience and immaturity of middle class radicals. Nevertheless, as has become all too familiar, the SWP tries to use Trotsky's criticisms of the terrorists against the IRA. With its response to the latest bombings, the SWP leadership has declared where it stands. It opts for that pathetic and despicable tradition of British socialists who mouth fine phrases about revolution in the abstract, but grow with dizzy trepidation whenever the going gets rough. It looks for a solution to the Irish war which does not involve The long-winded talk about violence. terrorism and class unity serves to justify the SWP's leadership's fear of class violence. It ends up providing an escape Irish people! Troops out now!

Yorkshire

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Bobby Sands shock

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mural is unveiled H.R. 1954-1981 Bobby Sand "ll wear no Convict's meekly serve Uniform, nor That my time. make Ireland's fight sears of trame the appropriate questions: Do our opponents really. oppose bombs. or just Irish bombs?

Are opposed to commemorating the war dead...or just those who have died for Ireland? (6 August). "Outraged" has since But others. have taken to more forcible expressions of loyalty to the Union Jack On 31 July the hunger strike commemoration protest held in honour of Kevin Lynch and Keiran Doherty in Dortend Square, attracted about 30 National Front members equipped local Irish acquaintances and to account for every name and phone number in his address book. Thomas explained that his interrogators did this to provide some sort of justification for holding him. This information was already available to the police. The Irishmen on the police photo files were very well known to the police as they, like Thomas Mc- Allister, had for years been subjected to persistent harassment. At one time in the late seventies, the Southampton police stationed photographers in the northern part of town to get photos of all adult Irish males. The Southampton police keep the Irish community under continuous surveillance, to inhibit any display of support for the liberation struggle.

Thomas told us he decided to remove a tricolour and other republican symbols from his flat several years ago, because otherwise he would 'never get any peace.

Thomas and his wife Rita grew up in the Markets area of Belfast. He moved Southampton in 1957 to work in to Ireland route for people who agree with Marxism in theory but can't stomach revolutionary struggle in real life. The working class can have no use for this tradition. It has nothing to gain from before bourgeois propaganda cowering against IRA violence. Fortunately, workers have not always been reluctant to apply violence to further their class interests, as the current struggles of the hospital workers show. The problem is that Irish self-determination has yet to be understood an objective which British have every interest in workers helping to achieve. The revolutionary attitude to the armed struggle of the Irish people is full and unconditional support. It is not up to British workers to lay down the terms for how Irish freedom is to be achieved. Our job is to fight alongside the Irish people for the common objective of destroying the British state. A blow against the state is in the interests of us all. Use the opportunities raised by the liberation struggle to argue with other workers that Britain has no right to be in Ireland. Self-determination for the

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mura the This amorial to IRA hunger-strike Bobby Sande which arun inent position in Leec vement seeking Sex-shop crackdown the IRA!' placards and 'Up yours, Argentina!'

tee-shirts. Their attempts to disrupt the protest were prevented, however, by more than 60 In the wake of Britain's victory in the South Atlantic and the barrage of chauvinist propaganda following the London bombings, determined action in support of Irish freedom is more important than ever. If you want to join in and beat the chauvinists, contact the docks. His acquaintance with the Special Branch and the PTA started in 1975 when he and five other Irishmen arrested and detained after were an arms cache had been found in the area.

Thomas spent a month in Winchester prison before he was released without charge. His career as a seaman, however, was wrecked forever. On the instigation of the Special Branch, he has been blacklisted from work on deep sea boats and the Vosper Thorneycroft shipyard has him from work *sensitive' barred parts of the docks. Thomas's wife Rita was still shaking when we visited the MAllisters' home In Southampton the PTA has been used to establish a climate of fear to dispeople from showing support courage for the struggle against British imperialism. If you live in or near Southampton and want to get involved in the work of the IFM, please contact Sabena Norton on 01-274 3951. the next step, September 1982 7

British imperialism The militarisation of British politics In previous issues of the next step we have argued that the war in the South Atlantic was fought as much at home as abroad. It is now clear that, in the long run, Britain's domestic the most decisive for the ruling class. The Falklands factor' has given the Tories a real edge. The spirit of the task force looms over local council elections, parliamentary debates and industrial disputes. Many Labour politicians, resigned to this state of affairs, are looking forward to a speedy return to normal political life. Pat Roberts shows why their hopes are in vain and urges our readers to prepare for the militarisation of the British political scene.

EVEN BEFORE THE Falklands Wal was over, sections of the ruling class were predicting the dawn of a new era.

of The Daily Telegraph The editor warned that the 'public will expect Mrs Thatcher to tackle home affairs with the verve displayed in the Falklands' (24 May). This theme was played on time and again. The fascists noted: 'It is ironic that the British Government should take immediate and entirely appropriate action to protect the way of life of 1800 British Falklands folk while it and preceding governments have allowed our homeland to be invaded by millions of aliens (National Front News, No 41); while the Daily Mirror remarked: The Prime Minister has demonstrated over the Falklands that she can give single-minded, determined leadership. Now she must apply it to the country's other problems (23 June). Towards law-and-order What are these 'other problems"? For backwoodsmen of The Daily Telethe graph they were the maintenance of the unity' (8 July). the kingdom's For editor of The Economist, they were more specific: 8 the next step, September 1982 conflicts will prove When the conquerors of Port Stanley return to these shores there might be no trains to whisk them home....The wounded and battle-weary should not expect too much care and attention from the National Health Service: strike action by ancillary workers has reduced hundreds of hospitals to emergency and accident services only. Worse is to come: the coal miners are massing for another fight. Britain is still some way from being a land fit for heroes.' (19 June 1982) Appropriately, when the Canberra came home to a tumultuous welcome in Portsmouth, television cameras zoomed in on a group of paras holding a banner with the Call off the rail strike we'll call an air strike.

The national unity the bourgeoisie forged in the heat of battle was at once directed against internal foes.

The railway workers were the first casualties. The chiefs of the NHS unions quickly got the message. In what they thought was a clever move, they tried to justify their.

members' wage claims on the grounds that those treating the war-wounded should be properly rewarded. But the pleas were so transparently opportunist that they could safely be ignored.

The crusade against all things unpatriotic was remarkably successful. Industrial action was denounced as treason.

On 13 July, full of confidence, Thatcher taunted the leader of the opposition: I have noted Mr Foot's support for ASLEF. He now seems to have become the strikers' friend'. Foot, taken aback, dithered and replied: 1 am the friend of a peaceful settlement in this industry as in others'. Thatcher won the argument the Falklands factor struck again.

Though, despite ample media coverage of Britain's returning soldiers and sailors, the war began to recede into the political background, things did not return to normal. When a smoker was found in Her Majesty's bedroom, The Economist asked: Who in Britain can feel safe at home when the Queen is not?' (17 July).

National soul-searching began on Palace security, only to be combined with about leaks at the national an xiety Government Communications HQ at Cheltenham. Different aspects of law and order monopolised political discussion throughout the summer. But law and order has been a major issue in British society for some time now. Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan made halting the abuse of union power a key principle in the 1978/9 'winter of discontent'. The aftermath of last summer's street fighting saw countrywide debate take place on the right type of police equipment. This spring, the release of statistics on muggings coincided with a Police Federation campaign to bring back hanging: the result was the granting of new powers to search and arrest to the police.

Is the whole thing a conspiracy?

The answer to this is yes and no. People in the establishment have a clear understanding of its interests. They know that, if their class is to survive, they will have to mobilise the full power of the state against their domestic opponents. Still, until now systematic coercion has only been used against ethnic minorities primarily black youth. The criminalisation of black youth is part of a conscious policy to isolate and if necessary crush the oppressed. So too is the attack on sections of the Irish community. The Prevention of Terrorism Act is designed to put fear into this community and pre-.

empt the emergence of support for the struggle for Irish freedom. But the ruling class uses coercion only as a last resort. The regular application of force is expensive and its results are too often unpredictable. It is much better to get by through organising national political consensus than to rely on force.

It is, however, impossible to achieve such a consensus on issues such as unemand the ployment, public sector cuts deterioration of living standards. Even the most backward workers can see that there are in fact two nations that poverty and degradation coexist, though in a difficult world, with power and wealth. But the establishment knows this, which is why it conspires to generate problems which can overcome class divisions. It refuses to recognise the us as social and problems that face instead tells us that they are problems of law and order. Invoking an external threat serves its purposes particularly well: then, the ruling class can come right out and says its' us against them'.

The ruling class is very fortunate.

The Labour Party has never challenged the nationalist prejudice that an English worker has more in common with an English banker than an Argentine worker. Indeed, it was the last Labour government that introduced the whole question of 'intimidation' by pickets.

Thanks to this service, the Tories can now pass one anti-trade union law after another. As millions are driven onto the dole, the Government can still make union bully-boy methods' the subject of near unanimous criticism.

movement has The offical labour helped to construct the Falklands factor.

At question time in Parliament, Labour MPs fell over themselves demanding what steps had been taken to batten down the hatches on HMS Great Britain. Typical of this outlook was a recent editorial in the New Statesman. After expressing concern with the incident in the Queen's bedroom it noted: But she can reflect that her brief encounter with Mr Fagan achieved in a few minutes a movement for police reform, where others fought without effect for decades. Overnight, criticism of the Met became obvious and radical (23 July). The New Statesman saw in the widespread criticism of Palace security the potential for police reform. It forgot that the result of such criticism is always tougher policing - something which can only strengthen the law and order lobby.

The fact that the establishment can turn a bedroom farce into a topic for scores and scores of newspaper leaders is a measure of just how powerful the Falklands factor has become. Rule Britannia The conscious strategy of the ruling class depends for its successful implementation the outlook of the official labour on movement remaining confused. But there are also objective pressures which push the establishment towards the militaris- The economic crisis ation of politics. has unleased forces which no government can control. Economic collapse threatens to engulf industry and nobody can guarantee that social unrest will not escalate further. New police powers and what the Report of HM Inspector of Constabulary for 1981 called the development of positive, mobile tactics are just some of the steps being taken in anticipation of future social conflict Then there is the potential threat from Capitalism is a world foreign quarters. system, and, internationally, the British ruling class faces economic forces over which it has no control whatsoever. The global dimensions of the crisis weigh heavily on the British state. Cut-throat competition for markets and spheres of investment drive imperialist nations to commercial wards conflict. Ultimately disagreements and economic rivalries are resolved by force of arms. Thus, the the Malvinas was no passing war in episode but an indication of things to come. At present external threats are mani pulated to consolidate popular support for the ruling class. For the time being the threats from without can be used to curb the threat from within. This is the significance of the Falklands factor.

So long as workers support the bosses on foreign policy issues, the bourgeoisie can deal with troublemakers' and the isolated instance of industrial militancy with ease. In the middle of the NHS dispute TUC general council member and NUPE Rodney Bickerstaffe general secretary observed: "There is a crisis of confidence that the trade union movement cannot deliver, that it cannot stop the rot, it cannot do anything about unemployment Still, he added, "we have got the Falk lands bit behind us, and all the gungho (News Line, 9 August 1982). But we haven't. Slowly, imperceptibly, militarism is becoming an acceptable feature of British politics. We can't yet prevent the bosses from But message. pushing their militarist we can reject our myopic union leaders So long as they wish the issues of war, violence and public order away, they bourgeoisie's carefullyup the nurtured political consensus.

The fight against the militarisation of British politics must begin with a fight against them.

Four day international conference organised by the next step • 40 workshops • 6sessionson the Soviet bloc •5plenaries • special courses on women's oppression, Ireland andracism •300participants • 6featurefilms • formal debates

PREPARING FOR POWER

power now. itself. The world's one and only In the bestselling Exterminism and cold war, Edward guru for Power, however, we hope to prove him wrong Timetable Saturday 9.45am prompt: REGISTRATION 10.30am Plenary introduction to the conference: The arms race today - myth and reality There are 120 000 nuclear warheads in Western Europe, and the ones mounted inside cruise missiles take just six minutes as Frank to arrive at Moscow. But, Richards will argue, hardware like this doesn't necessarily mean that the next world war will be fought out East-West, both the White propaganda from House and the Kremlin has made out for contrary, 30 On the the past years. all the indications are that the imperialist powers are spoiling for a fight with each other. Among the issues to be dealt with: political roots of the economic and Airlift, Cold War, the Berlin original the U2 crisis, quiet rearmament in Japan, and the 'workers' bomb' 12.30 Lunch: hot food and drink on sale on the premises 1.30pm

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Special course on women part 1: The nature of women's oppression Six times as many married couples get divorced now as did 20 years ago. But if it's obvious that the recession has put Preparing for Power is a conference about doing just that. The communists, said Marx and Engels in their famous Manifesto, represent and take care of the future of the working class movement as well as the present. These days few people on the left think about what seizing and exercising state power would be like; but unless we begin to size up the opposition and map out what will be necessary to replace it, we will never get to see socialism in our lifetimes. Labour Party activists know their party may not win a parliamentary election this side of 1990, SWP activists have forsaken romantic visions of the barricades for the narrowest forms of trade union work. Yet the revolution will not wait. The ruins of Beirut lie in front of all of us unless we prepare for This year's next step conference is about war. It's a topical theme, but it's also one which has a significance beyond the banal observation that nuclear weapons are a threat to the survival of the human race genuine workers' revolution took place in the middle of a war, and there can be no doubt that we will have to master the intricacies of everything from spy satellites to fallout shelters if a socialist Britain is to ward off attacks as successfully as did the Red Army of Trotsky's Russia. The fact that, in 1982, such a prospect seems so distant and so daunting only reinforces the need to get a scientific analysis of modern-day militarism moving right away.

peace movement Thompson has done something which, in its rush to congratulate him on his eloquence and humanism, the left has failed to notice. In his attack on American and Russian warmongers, Thompson reserves his fiercest gibes for Marxism. The current war drive, he argues, is not susceptible to Marxist analysis: indeed it is not susceptible to rational analysis at all. Is Thompson right? If he is, doom or the Church seem the only alternatives before mankind. Through Preparing Preparing for Power is a conference marked by a very high level of millions of working class families under strain, it's not so obvious why women bear the brunt of this. Why is it that it's women who do most of the housework?

Have washing machines, launderettes and state socialised domestic the welfare - and what do we mean by work at all the socialisation of domestic work anydomestic way? How does performing work affect the kind of jobs women workers do and how does it make for discrimination in the factory and in the office? Last month the editors of Spare Rib re-affirmed their view that men and only men are responsible for the oppression of Other feminists point out women. that women did domestic work centuries before the rise of capitalism. Here Kate where Engels Marshall will explain went right and where he went wrong on the historical and class origins of women's oppression, and will go on to prove why the struggle against drudgery in the home means a struggle to smash the capitalist state OR Brezhnev's bomb: the Soviet Union and the arms race Nuclear arms workers and nuclear scientists are more highly equipped, paid and privileged than most of the Soviet Union's But despite the fact that population. military spending has probably Soviet risen by 60 percent every five years since the early 'sixties, the Soviet economy is more geared to churning out lowtechnology Kalashnikov submachine guns than sophisticated Pershing missiles. Even the USSR's millions of infantrymen have problems: if it is still true, as Napoleon observed, that an army marches on its state of Soviet stomach, the parlous debate: you should register now so as to get details of what it makes sense to read beforehand. But Preparing for Power is also a conference with a strongly practical thrust. Apart from the workshops and plenaries on war, there are six sessions designed to answer the everyday question "What about Russia?", and a further three special courses on the fight against the oppression of women, the Irish and blacks. There are also six sessions on immediate political and cultural issues facing the workers' movement. The contrast between Preparing for Power and the concurrent (and thus rival) Socialist Society Summer School could not be clearer. The clotted cream of Britain's left-wing academics will be sitting in seminars pondering whether Britain is a 'viable entity, whether the British state should be democratised, federalised or broken up, and whether we need a Constitutional Convention; they will also be deliberating over 'education for unemployment' and 'the politicointellectual weeklies'. We will be talking about industrial action to open up the H-Blocks and physical defence of the black community. So make sure you're there! Start Preparing for Power before it's too late!

Dates Saturday 11 September through to Tuesday 14 September Venues Caxton House, St John's Way, London N19 (10 minutes from Archway tube Archway Road, London N6 (two minutes from Highgate tube) on the two weekdays Creche phone 01-274 3951 now if you need a place for your child Accommodation bring a sleeping bag and phone 01-274 3951 now if you have nowhere to stay Admission prices £8.50 all-in (€5 on presentation of a UB40 card); £5 for the weekend only (£3with UB40) Payment in advance make cheques out to RCP Association and send to BM RCP, London WC1N 3XX Further details phone 01-274 3951 agriculture suggests that a lot of the Warsaw Pact's armed forces won't be up to much of a fight.

USSR

Representing the more combat-ready than it actually is is key to Margaret Thatcher's strategy of getting British workers to rally round the flag.

Forcing the USSR to spend more on nuclear weapons is key to Ronald Reag an's strategy of softening it up for US Meanwhile, CND is almost imperialism. worried about the Soviet threat as it is about the Pentagon. In this session, Gareth Evans will use the CIA's latest statistics on the Soviet military to sort out the confusion OR Special course on Ireland part 1: From the Easter Rising to the Civil War - the watershed of Partition •War waged by oppressed nationalities and the class against the oppressor, on the weekend; Jackson's Lane Community Centre war of the proletariat against capital.. .1s par excellence the swiftest, safest and most peaceful form of constructive work the socialist can engage in', James Connolly told a huge crowd in Glasgow on May Day 1915; and, within 12 months, he had put his words into practice, by seizing Dublin's General Post Office and declaring Ireland free of British rule Five years later, however, Britain divided Ireland into two and, in so doing, managed to set Irishman against Irishman in one of the bloodiest conflicts northern Europe has ever seen. Even now the legacy of that period is with us: backed by James Prior, Taoiseach Charles Haughey has just arranged for IRA hero Gerry Tuite to be sent down for 10 years for his commendable exploits against British imperialism.

Phil Murphy will lead the discussion OR End of the line in Lebanon Demonstrations aren't much of a cure for the feeling of helplessness many British sympathisers of the Palestinian cause have. One way we can render that cause real assistance, though, is to expose and Labour's Zionists destroy the support give the Israeli state. Another, as Inez Landa makes clear, is to highlight the

Preparing for Power unpublicised developments on largely where nine local Arab the West Bank, dismissed been councils have March for identification with the PLO, and where the Zionist-run Palestinian Leagues' now have a weekly Village paper to encourage the local population to collaborate with their oppressors 3.30pm Tea 4pm

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Russia, 1924: how the revolution was lost 'A gigantic heap' the Bolsheviks' machinery cribed Moscow in government in 'twenties; a bourgeois and Tsarist hotchpotch' was his term for the Soviet state apparatus as a whole. But it was not until 10 years after Trotsky was defeated at the thirteenth congress of the Soviet Communist Party in May 1924 that the inheritors of Lenin's tradition just how entrenched the Soviet bureaucracy had become. In this workshop Frank Richards describes how the degeneration of the Russian Revolution disoriented even its most distinguished critic OR Special course on racism part 1: The politics of black oppression in post-war Britain want a nigger for your neigh- If you bour, vote Labour' said the Tory can- 1964 didate the in Smeth wick. campaign many Labour councils are just as eager as Tory ones to keep blacks confined to the worst council flats and out of the way of clean, Has the Labour Party ever defended black people's interests? Judy Harrison gives some answers OR guns of August: British workers and The the First World War In 1911 Clydeside revolutionary Gallacher proclaimed that workers should condemn idea of form of shooting down those who exploited them'. clamoured to join the army. What went wrong? Keith Thomas explains OR The peace movement in Europe Is a nuclear-free Europe a possibility or an illusion? Why is anti-nuclear feeling so strong in West Germany but so weak in since British of tigates 5.30pm

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Plenary: the war at home renewed furore The was how Lenin desof the early geoisie's domestic questions too... OR Dietrich OR and lumpen criminals realised general election But today, decent and law-abiding whites.

8pm

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live band OR Willie Alfred Hitchock's all idea of patriotism and all tary secrets, militarism, unless it took the Scotland of 1935 But in 1914 workers OR bings York. New France? Why are protests in Holland, previously the lynchpin of the Continental peace movement, now in decline? Was George Orwell right to link the strength pacifism to this country's position as a naval power, and does such a link exist today? Sabena Norton inves- Operation over Countryman looks like heralding a cleaner, better managed police force - something that black GLC councillor and prospective Labour MP Paul Boateng has gone on record as saying would be a step forward.

Meanwhile, Britain's fascist organisations seem to be keeping out of the news.

In this plenary, RCP experts on the police, will field the far right and the media questions from the floor on the bourcurrent efforts deal with They'll be asking dissent. Charlton Heston, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Marlene and Orson Welles in Welles' Touch of Evil. Manic camerawork, police corruption and American racism in a narcotics tale set on the Mexican border Peter Lorre in Fritz Lang's M. Filmed in Germany before Hitler came to power: how a child murderer can be more decent than stout middle class. citizens Revolutionary Communist Cabaret with Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll in The 39 steps. Mili- German intelligence agents and British oratory in the London and Cary Grant. in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest. Illusion, reality and stabat the United Nations building, Look out for Leo G Man from UNCLE) Carroll... Sunday 10am

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Special course on women part 2: Women and the unions In 1953 the TUC opposed the construction of state nurseries; now it says it's in . But has Congress House favour of it. really changed its attitude to A recent survey by NALGO shows that, despite a rise in the local government union's female membership, cupy fewer positions in the union now did in 1974. than they reserving union posts for women help?

outlines what Marshall Kate need to do to make unions workers and why male trade worth joining unionists must take up the same battle OR Special course on Ireland part 2: 1969 the rebirth of the IRA Thirteen years ago the Provisionals really were a tiny band of conspirators isolated from the nationalist community. But soon changed. that situation Norton looks at the rise of an organisation British bourgeoisie the than most OR Russia in the 'thirties: of bureaucratic rule Behind all the purges, the mass trials and the labour camps, Joseph Stalin achieved a remarkable - and, to this day, largely feat. By unrecognised Soviet higher education, he was able to most the youngest, recruit sections of the working class into the Communist Party and the state.

they received ample rewards for loyalty.

Freshly trained engineers became some of Stalin's staunchest allies: they presided over the USSR's headlong rush to industrialisation and, in the shape of Brezhnev, Kosygin and Podgorny, went on to become some of its most prominent postwar leaders. Inez Landa looks at how the Soviet bureaucracy has proved a much tougher parasite than Trotsky supposed OR The Labour Party and imperialism Healey the problem For Denis Israeli leader Menachem Begin is that his phosphorous bombs only make the PLO more militant. For Tony appears to be no problem with Begin at all he has yet to make a major public the Lebanon statement on current conflict there began. Mike Freeman looks at the attitude Labour rightwingers and left-wingers have taken to the Middle East and other backward capitalist areas of the there's not been a lot to choose between the two 12.30pm Lunch 1.30pm

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workers and the ment with Asians mother's name, to gain entry to Britain.

succeeded. The women? women oc- OR Why? Would The nature of gay oppression women Richmond business; but, every day Sabena OR dreads more phones, OR 3.30pm Tea the stabilisation 4pm

EITHER

South Africa: for war overhauling South Africa's articulate onel There SWAPO in Angola, Volkswagen's main still with survive OR Vietnam to today with Benn there popular since the OR Moscow vs world and concludes that Moscow vs Kabul and peoples selling Special course on racism part 2: Black British labour move Mr and Mrs Dipak Patel have two children aged six years and 20 months. Ugandan a British passport in the they have spent nine years in an Austrian refugee camp trying Now they've helped them; Times the United Nations helped them; Liberal peer Lord Avebury helped them. The TUC didn't. Pam Lawrence looks at what black workers are up against Even before the Trestrail affair broke, CID raided the Spartacus Club, Barnes, and made four arrests on the grounds that a homosexual brothel was being run there. Now three MPs and one judge have been implicated in the as Don Milligan Revolutionary Gay Men's Caucus shows, they'll never get the kind of aggravation working class homosexuals experience The US military-industrial complex Who's going to get the $300m contract build eight new 500kw transmitters for the Voice of America? What's the real purpose of the space shuttle? Kevin Green explores the world of Bell Tele- General McDonnell Douglas, Dynamics and Rockwell International Argentina: 150 years of British plunder By the end of the Second World War Britain owed Argentina €100m - a tidy sum even now, and an enormous amount of money then. But, as Mike Freeman chronicles, a few British threats reduced Britain's debts. Now the Foreign Office is having talks with Brazil about getting the Argies to agree to a Latin American supply route to the Falklands...

black workers get ready While Prime Minister Pik Botha promises Coloureds token parliamentary representation, repudiates Col- 'Mad Mike' Hoare's raid on the Seychelles and intensifies his raids against workers at black plant in the Cape have been bringing production to a stand- Longford Charles strikes. assesses how much longer apartheid can Anti-war movements in America: from 'All men are created equal, not cremated equal' said the Master of Ceremonies at an unprecedently big (20 000) Chicago demonstration against nuclear weapons in the spring. Today's anti-war movement in the States is as American-centred as the Declaration of Independence in outlook: in fact petitions against war are now Republicans. lifelong Mick Hume compares sixties US radicalism with the 'eighties variety the USSR's nationalities, Russia isn't the same thing as the Soviet Union: indeed ethnic Russians are more more being outnumbered by the of the USSR's Central Asian Republics. Books on the yellow peril are Leningrad. Andy in

Clarkson scrutinises Great Russian chauvinism and its influence on the invasion of Afghanistan OR Can the unions survive the crisis?

When Len Murray feels duty-bound to slap Michael Heseltine on the back after a speech against bad management at the National Economic Development Council - then it's even more apparent than ever that the unions are in a mess. Again, the NUR and ASLEF are set to see 15 000 this year, while tussles jobs disappear continue on the TUC General Council over the representation of white collar unions. Gavin Poole surveys the damage recession and bureaucracy have done to our movement over the past three years and suggests how we can undo it 6pm Break 7.30pm Plenary: Militarism and the working class Monday 10am

EITHER

Special course on women part 3: War and peace in the women's movement Is war a male institution? Kate Marshall explains why not, taking a look at how Suffragettes recruited the trenches in the First World War, and at how form the armed national liberation movements the world over. Also: why Bevin and Attlee's Second World War was as much a defeat for women as it was for the working class OR Special course on Ireland part 3: The Protestant paramilitaries Since the hunger strike, the UDA and the UVF have surprised many by not embarking on a sustained But sectarian assassinations. Wall will demonstrate, that's only because the British Army is operating to their satisfaction; and when executive jet factory collapses, Protestant workers there will turn to the Orange Lodges rather than the unions OR Beyond the labels: the nature of the Soviet Union For 40 years socialists claiming Trotsky's mantle have argued over the terms state capitalist' and "degenerated state. But the Soviet Union demands more profound and more specific analysis than this. What do you say when people demand you 'go back to Russia"? Frank Richards analyses the changes in Soviet society OR UK Ltd: upturn or slump? Norman are round the of the crisis 12.30pm Lunch 1.30pm

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liberation in the States Watts, Los National Guard, Today millions why OR Poland since the coup men to the of backbone ski took over. hold out OR campaign of Mike as Belfast's Lear condemning paigns back in 1939

ZANU (PF)

OR the red-and-yellow badges 3.30pm Tea 4pm

EITHER

ginners national finance have made it building societies loans market, workers' more Bridge... Tebbit says millions of jobs corner; Labour MPs are speechless when the Tories tell them that the public will vote for a telephone service that actually works (because it's privately run). But British Airways has £300m in losses and 7000 redundancies to contend with, and even the boom in video shops has collapsed. Tony Allen offers a few predictions on the next stage Special course on racism part 3: Black Burn baby burn' said black rioters in Angeles, in the sixties; and even Wall Street heard the cry. Millions of dollars were poured into America's inner cities, blacks were recruited into the and strenuous efforts were made to create a new black middle class. But, though Lord Scarman would rather we didn't notice, nothing changed.

of American blacks are on welfare or on poverty-line wages, and the Ku Klux Klan claims a membership of 10 million. Kevin Green shows The fact is that most of Solidarity's best-known leaders seem to have learnt nothing from the reactionary role the Church has played since General Jaruzel- Despite imprisonment or being driven underground, many still possibility of peaceful the reform. Yet, Annie Dobbs says, with this summer's harvest having to be rescued by the Army and bread rationing on the cards for the winter, Polish workers have little choice but to take up arms The British left and colonial wars Gerry (News Line) Healy, Ted (Militant) Grant and Sid (Tribune) Bydwell were bombing cam- Republican - yet the Provos are still decent enough to pick guardsmen rather than ex-Trotskyists as their targets! Keith Thomas looks at how the far left has reacted to guerrilla movements over the years, from the IRA to Nuclear power: can we handle it?

Next year sees the opening of a public inquiry into the building of the Sizewell Pressurised Water Reactor on the Suffolk coast. CND has opposed it and most of the left can be counted on to do same. Renegade physicist James Wood shows why nuclear power isn't nearly as dangerous as those ubiquitous The bankers behind the Bomb: a bethe City and interguide to With Barclays worrying in public whether its loans to bankrupt industrial companies over-extended, and the cutting interest rates to hit the Big Four's share of the home the men in pinstrip suits aren't quite as stiff-upper-lipish as they once were. No wonder they're desperate to rip off the Third World still more but, as Tony Allen makes clear, the Third World's broke too. Watch out for bankers underneath Blackfriars OR Debate with Jewish Socialists on Zionism Does Zionism have a progressive mission?

Do Jews deserve a homeland of their own? Do the anti-war demonstrations in Israel amount to anything? An exchange of views OR CND: from Aldermaston to Greenham Common The one time the world really did look like it was on the brink of an East- West nuclear conflagration missile crisis of 1962 - support for CND actually later, however, the Campaign's bouncing back. Or is it? Fran Eden investigates

PROTEST

AND

SURVIVE

OR line then so were pure Hollywood, youth? 6pm Break 7.30pm

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ialism designers sure that - the Cuban units in declined. Twenty years OR order. there has Preparing for Power The New Musical Distress Even Time Out couldn't bear to print rock critic Julie Burchill recently, her on the Falklands was so bad; but was Bob (The Wall) Geldof's too. On the other hand, early-'seventieswimp-turned-anti-nuker Jackson Browne had young working class kids spellbound at the Hammersmith Odeon this summer - his homilies to peace and his audience but that didn't matter. Mike Harris evaluates the impact of the falling rate of profit on the record business and asks: do personal stereos foster bourgeois individualism in the

GANG

Plenary: The hard face of British imper- Last year British Leyland did more than £50m-worth of work for the Ministry of Defence. Next year compulsory military service may be brought in for the unemployed. Scotland Yard has engaged the services of Britain's best industrial and ergonomists to make the banks of visual display its new, multi-million pound 'command and control' rooms make for maximum operator efficiency. All the 1000 female army and UDR personnel who carry out body searches in Northern Ireland are equipped with hefty handguns. In this plenary, RCP specialists on the arms industry, the Territorial Army and the technology of repression will give the details of what we're up against Episode 1 of GF Newman's Law and The BBC television series on the framing of a blagger caused a Tory outcry when first screened a couple of years ago But since then yet more evidence of police fit-ups has come to light, and been a renewed furore over the case of Patrick Meehan. Ultra-realistic plot and acting, not-so-realistic Cockney dialogue - but rivetting all the same

OR Clint eastwood in Sergio Leone'sA fistful of dollars. Operatic, cynical, hilarious: With No Name in one of his best Spaghetti Westerns Tuesday 10am

EITHER

Special course on women part 4: The past 20 years of unequal rights You'd think that Labour's 1975 Equal Pay Act might at least be observed by the government, if not by private employ- But you'd be wrong. Since the Act ers. was passed, women's earnings as a percentage of men's have increased by less than one per cent in the public sector, but by more than three per cent in private industry. kers' jobs are to be found in the public sector. Kate Marshall looks at the revolutionary alternative bogus sexual equality and hits out at the TUC's Charter for women's rights.

review: disaggregation comes from men's, positive discrimination, and why women get such a bad deal from the welfare state I would like to attend 'Preparing for power' Name. Address Tel Trade union/organisation Accommodation Creche OR Every the Man Worldwide the murder lives on OR New Statesman they're cheaper. '82 author Yet most women worbetween laws cone on the head? Also under of women's inand enclose 8.50 registration fee 5.00 unemployed with 40) Special course on Ireland part 4: The significance of the hunger strikes In Portadown the nationalist community rips down street signs named after Winston Churchill and replaces them with ones paying tribute to Martin Hurson, who was starved to death in 43 days.

morning the police put the old signs up again, every night they've vanished. Sabena Norton assesses the impact of the prisoners' heroic struggle of Bobby Sands'

MICHOL

Alternative weapons policies and TV contributor South television producer Philip Geddes prefers submarine-launched cruise missiles to submarine-launched Trident DSs New Statesman investigative journalist staffer and Hard Rock Duncan Campbell says the Phantom jets and mobile radar columns now running round the South Atlantic should be brought back here - it's more important to defend the British Isles than the Falklands. New Statesman ex-editor Bruce Page says that Europe needs the Royal Navy, not the British Army on the Rhine, to reply to Russian attacks.

James Wood asks: what's the difference getting a conventional bullet in the back and getting a nuclear nose- OR The left and the Spanish Civil War While premier Calvo Sotelo struggles to keep his Centre Democratic Union party intact, Spain's socialists are riding high in the opinion polls. But farmworkers in Andalusia are fasting for jobs and pardemocracy looks liamentary stable than it did during Colonel Tejero's attempted coup. Adolfo Suarez is making noises about repossessing Gibraltar. Rob, Knight looks at the lessons of Franco's victory in 1936 and asks: how pleased was Stalin when three quarters of Britain's International Brigades came home dead or wounded? 12.30pm Lunch 1.30pm

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Liberals, SDP and Labour: why they're tailing Maggie While David Steel and Roy Jenkins try to make their courtship look more romantic - the Alliance's electoral support has dropped by half since it reached a peak in November last year Peter Tatchell Cheques payable to RCP Association Send to BM RCP, London WC1N 3XX Enquiries: phone 01-274 3951 tary opposition OR America of debts looks at the prospects no more Meanwhile ex-premier threatening OR Thirty-nine chess OR ly oppressed Charli "Irelan nobody about clo untries Likewise, departure ment paid attention 3.30pm Break 4pm says how personally hurt he was by Bob Mellish's resignation. Mike Freeman looks at Thatcher's loyal but divided Parliamen- Toward insurrection throughout Central Mexico's economic collapse under $80bn country's highly means une organised proletariat is being hit hard. US imperialism has already faced insurrec tions in its back yard: soon it could meet with one on its doorstep. Phil Murphy The Leninist line on sport Bristol City fans arrested after their coach missed an away match at Bridport, Dorset and went to Torquay, Devon instead. Brazilian production lines shut down by the government during this year's World Cup. Italy, one of Europe's least chauvinist powers, celebrates victory with flag-waving on a scale not seen since Mussolini. Alan Harding asks why Vlad imir Ilyich confined himself to playing

FIGHT

THE CUTS

SAVE

LIVES

Special course on racism part 4: Black women workers' - super-exploited, doub- Black nurses have been in the forefront of the recent health strikes, but usually especially as notices them thousands slave away in geriatric, psychiatric and mental subnormality hospitals of the holidaymakers fe w jetting away from Heathrow notice the Asian cleaners who pick up litter in the Anita Lloyd lounges there. says it's time the official labour move- Plenary: Where do we go from here?

Why Reagan needs 'the Soviet menace' Dozens of left-wing and right-wing analysts have tried to unravel the mystery of why Reagan's handling of foreign affairs is proving just as unstable as Carter's.

Some have pointed to the existence of a 'Californian mafia' in the White House; others, to the machinations of the US industrial-military complex. In fact, however, the pattern of American foreign policy is relatively straightforward. The USA is responsible for enforcing political stability worldwide. As the ultimate guarantor of the survival of imperialism on this planet, it is forced to keep an eye on developments everywhere. However, global responsibilities can often conflict with immediate national interests. Washington discovered this in the South Atlantic war, in which it had to balance between Britain and Argentina. Now it is caught in the same dilemma in the Middle East, where it cannot please both 'international opinion' and Israel, its very own client state, at the same time.

1981 US industrial output has fallen by more than 10 percent.

up massive budget deficits has failed to stimulate recovery. The effect on interest rates has caused consternation in Europe and Japan, as well as in the USA. And America also faces the problem of economic decline. Since the summer of Even running the USA's imperialist rivals are edging it out of export markets.

Militarism and a menacing anti-Soviet stance are Washington's chief reactions to all this. The US has to flex muscle to force its allies, who are in reality its com petitors, into line. Political pressure over the Siberian gas pipeline is designed to intimidate European capitalists and revitalise the flagging western alliance.

US rearmament has nothing to do with what has become known as 'the Soviet threat'. As Robert McNamara argued recently, the USSR is militarily in a weaker position than it was 15 years ago, when he was Secretary of Defence. McNamara added: We overstate the Soviets' force and we understate ours, and we therefore greatly overstate the imbalance.

going on for years' (The Guardian, 9 August 1982). America is jacking up arms expenditure to compensate for economic decline. Introducing an element of force into the market - militarising market relations - shows its allies that it means business. Below, we examine the direction US arms spending is heading in and go on to look at the situation of a country that has experienced the effects of that spending all too directly these last two years: the situation of El Salvador.

Imperialism This is not something that is new; it has been The war drive is on Since his election Reagan has pursued a major programme of modernising America's military machine. Defence spending is set to rise $158.6 billion in 1981 to $237 billion in 1984. Tentative estimates suggest that it will reach $350 billion in 1986. Why the phenomenal increases? Has Reagan gone mad? Kevin Green investigates. ACCORDING TO his liberal and reformist opponents, Reagan's main aim is to establish a new level of nuclear terror.

But in fact most of the increases in his defence budget this year have gone toprogramme of improving wards a crash the war-readiness of America's convenreplenishing tional forces towards stocks of munitions and spare parts and above all, towards catching up on a big backlog of maintenance and repair work on US planes, tanks and ships.

The Pentagon's plans Reagan's stress on upgrading the USA's conventional weapons capability is only consistent with Carter's approach. Carter's key arms spending innovations looked like this: Nuclear Submarine-launched intercontinental Trident missiles $2.4 billion $0.7 billion MX missile development New generation of air. launched cruise missiles $0.7 billion $3.8 billion Conventional 175 F-16 fighters but taters 144 Fairchild A-10 $0.9 billion Teconna ssance mane. AWACS advance warning $0.7 billion racar system $0.5 billion B-52 bomber modernisation

TOTAL

$4.8 billion the next step, September 1982 13

Imperialism Continued from page 13 However, whereas Carter needed only to prepare for the possibility of having to make conventionally-armed interventions abroad, the USA's position in the world has weakened so dramatically of late that Reagan has had to organise a whole new conventional armed forces network: one which, as the International Herald *can go anywhere in a Tribune put it, hurry, not on American terms, but in any circumstances' (3 February 1982).

That isn't The USA's eaSY complement of 350 transport planes and 200 transport ships couldn't even move half the tonnage that would be needed to sort out a serious spot of bother in the Persian Gulf. And, earlier this year, the Operation Brightstar exercises confirmed that taking one airborne division, one infantry division and a squadron of B-52 bombers from North Carolina and North Dakota to the Middle East, getting all three into a state of battle-readiness and putting them in position would take a full two weeks. fact, ferrying US-based In around the world is not a viable option.

So more troops and planes must be kept at sea - or on naval bases close to potentially troublesome areas. This is why the US Navy plans to have six battle groups (a battle group has at least the firepower of the task force Britain sent to the Malvinas) afloat in the next five years.

Two will go in each of the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans; they Reagan reach his target of a 600-ship navy by 1987. deployment of troops is The swift one problem facing the Pentagon.

other new programmes commissioned or speeded up by Reagan are designed to fill the other gaps: they include the XM-I tank, which is faster and more manoeuvreable than anything the USA present; the Advanced Attack has at helicopter; infantry new the Patriot ground-to-air and missile defence system. As we have seen, most of the new money for US defence is going on conventional weapons. But when we come to the USA's overall defence budget, we find that spending on the strategic nuclear weapons that Reagan's critics always focus on is completely dwarfed by that on conventional forces. The $15 billion allocated for

SULALCE

amount to only eight percent of the $200 billion the USA will be spending on defence as a whole this year (US Treasury, The budget for fiscal year 1982).

over, between 1980 and 1982 strategic weapons spending will increase by 35 per cent - quite a bit less than the increase for general purpose forces (41 per cent) and way behind the rise for air and sealift forces (66 per cent).

Kissinger is dead After Vietnam, the USA narrowed its foreign policy goals somewhat; but it has still not abandoned its global pretentions.

Henry Kissinger In the "sixties, disengagement' gested the limited American forces overseas as the proper way forward. But this presupposed the existence of reliable and stable governments which could do America's dirty work for it. Unfortunately for Washington, such governments were difficult to find. In South East Asia, for example, US troops had to remain stationed in Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and Thailand. even the limited degree of Today, 'disengagement' achieved after Vietnam is not on. Once again the USA must be prepared to 'go anywhere'. A combination of factors - the most important of which are inter-imperialist rivalries and the threat posed by national liberation movements - requires an activist foreign policy response from Washington.

The sheer size of the Us machine is impressive. US defence spend- 14 the next step, September 1982 ing exceeds the Gross National Product of every nation in 12 industrial producers. the top America's military strength greater in the late forties and early and 'fifties than today; world in the weight the same period has been even This is what rearmament is all striking. - retrieving lost military prowess about and holding on to the USA's crumbling current interests abroad. Current literature on the arms race entirely misses The favourite fetish is nuclear work. True, arms. bombs neutron But the main objective of the Pentagon is not unleashing nuclear war but creating an effective conventional force that can destroy all local opponents of American imperialism and at the same time keep its European rivals on the detensive.

One long red scare Since the Second World War every US forces intervention abroad taken the form of political manipulation or military invasion - has been directed against radical, usually nationalist forces out to undermine the influence of imperialism. Moscow never posed much danger to US interests in the Lebanon, Iran or Guatemala, or indeed any of the other experienced countries that will help ference in the 'forties and fifties.

On a number of occasions the Soviet Union has provided material and military assistance to national liberation move- The ments and to Third World governments, But generally it has only done this long after local battles with the USA have begun. Cuba is the best example of this trend. Here Castro's guerrillas had to endure the wrath of Washington for years before Moscow decided to lend them fighting a hand. Even the Cuban missile crisis, which is always held up as evidence of Soviet ambitions, proves just how limited those ambitions are. in his recent interview with The Guardian, the Soviet build-up of missiles in Cuba was a defensive response unprecedented expansion of US nuclear arms: *The advantage in the US inventory was so great vis-a-vis the Soviets that the Air Force was saying that they felt we had a first-strike capability...If the Air Force thought that, imagine what the Soviets thought. And assuming they thought that, how would you expect Morethem to react?' It is true that the Moscow. The Soviet Union is a 'threat' to America insofar as the evolution of its foreign policy is difficult to predict.

Moreover, the ready to take advantage difficulties in which the USA often finds But the White House's emphasis itself. on Soviet aggression has little to do with these two considerations. The function of anti-Soviet hysteria is to justify the sugcommitment military spending in line with America's role as world arbiter of capitalist relations.

This remains true today. widespread publicity, the real US commitment of resources in El Salvador is small public, very unpopular. But the bogey of communism in Central America has been successfully used by Reagan to push ahead with a massive increase in general arms spending. has argued for enormous outlays on the Rapid Deployment Force and on a better air and sealift capability almost entirely in terms of Soviet designs on Iran and the Gulf. In reality the USA is more worried about Japanese cars and West German trucks than Soviet subversion annexation. The concerns of US impermilitary ialism remain quite conventional the world except But was even its shrinking economy over more the real dynamics at doomsday rhetoric about makes good reading. whether it has US internoted As McNamara to an USA cannot ignore Soviet Union is always of the local of national resources to Despite and, even among the American conference, Likewise, the Pentagon Salvador. with the overthrow of El new, more equitable or Soviet insurgency El Salvador

SHULTZ'S

NIGHTMARE

Nowhere has the increasing impotence of US imperialism been more starkly revealed than in El Salvador. Throughout the 1980 US Presidential election campaign, Reagan headlined the country as a test case for his new brand of consistent and forceful foreign policy. When freshly-appointed Secretary of State Alexander Haig held his first press he made it clear that the line would be drawn' in El But today, 18 months later, Haig's replacement George Shultz has yet to draw that line.

IN OCTOBER 1979 the USA went along Salvador's Romero regime and the installation of a 'moderate' junta. A more distribution of land was at the top of its list of priorities. As Roy Prosterman, a former agrarian counterexpert in Vietnam, put it: and the USA •If the reforms are carried out successfully here, the armed movement of the left will be effectively eliminated by the end of 1980°. The land reform was to be introduced in three phases; but so far only Phase 1, which was supposed to mean the expropriation of the big farms.

has been implemented. Phase 2, the

expropriation of medium-sized estates, and Phase 3 - "land to the tiller' - have been postponed indefinitely.

In practice, Phase 1 has meant that a mere five per cent of the best agricultural land has been taken from the rich and even it has been handed over to government-picked peasant cooperatives.

The whole operation has been used to army saturation of El justify greater Salvador's countryside. As a result, large sections of the radical peasantry have been wiped out. nay, however, has the USA stopped there? Why not push on to Phase 2 and mix egalitarian rhetoric with ruthless as before? The explanation repression is not simply to be found in the antireform campaigns run by El Salvador's coffee-owning oligarchy. It lies also in the collapse of El Salvador's economy and the weakness of America's.

No room for reform The imports of foreign technology and marked the El Salvador of the 'sixties did little to change its traditional economic structure. Even in the mid 'seventies coffee and cotton still accounted for world commodity prices and the exigencies of war have led to complete stagnation. Foreign investment has dried up, large parts of the oligarchy have left the country and taken their capital with them, and much of basic infrastructure just doesn't have the cash to engage in On the other hand the USA is unable to step in to the extent it might like. The fate of Reagan's main initiative in economic diplomacy this year, the Caribbean Basin Initiative, confirms a trade and aid package, was reputed to announced, in February, it was down to small sum, half of which was destined for El Salvador, has got stuck on Capitol Hill. Many senators are just not persuaded that the benefits are worth the costs. In fact, some feel desperate enough to have demanded that the Initiative be made conditional on the introduction of leather goods ("Mauled All in all, the USA is in no condition to press ahead with economic reforms in El Salvador. It cannot buy off the revolution the way Roy Prosterman envisaged.

No place for progress The USA specifically designed this year's March elections to encourage political progress' in El Salvador - in other words, to strengthen the middle ground there at the expense of both left and right. The plan was simple: with the left excluded the electoral rolls, 'moderate' Christian Democrat Napoleon Duarte would sweep the boards against the hard line right. Thus, a political mandate would be secured for dealing with the guerrillas and at the same time some of their popular support would shift to the

COLLEC

But the polarisation of El Salvadorean society had already gone too far for any of this. The far right romped home at the polls and America, having engineered them in the first place, had no option but to accept the result. The USA was back where it started. True, it installed moder- Magona as titular ate rightist Alvar president, but in practice Major Robert D'Aubuisson's Arena Party 'Blowtorch' was the government. Even at the military level the prospects aren't good for US imperialism. If the current daily body counts keep up, Salvador will once again see more than 35 000 people die in the space of the next three years. Yet though the left takes most of the casualties, the government forces have been unable to make any real headway in crushing it. In fact the FMLN successes. During the elections it attacked official buildings in the capital, San Salvador, with impunity; and, in more recent fighting, it shot down a helicopter with two high ranking military commanders on board. Today, El Salvador's guerrillas control about a third of the country.

When the government sends its troops into one region, they simply intensity attacks on economic and military targets US military backing has done no more suffering even greater setbacks.

US military advisers, more than $80m of military aid this year, US specialist training of the 3500-strong Atlacal and Ramon Belloso brigades, the provision of modern planes and helicopters - all these have been tried and found wanting. Yet other- solutions have vanished. US plans for the creation of a Pan American force, drawing largely on Argentinian troops, to intervene on its behalt, have been set hack for a period, if not irrevocably, by its support for Britain in the Not only has the US been unable to conflict is spreading throughout Central America. Since the March coup which brought born-again Christian Efrain Rios Montt to power, fighting between guerrillas and right-wing government forces in emergency was announced in July. Even Honduras, run for many decades as a virtual fiefdom of America's United Fruit Company, is shifting still further rightwards; and Costa Rica's unique tradition of parliamentary democracy looks likely an end sooner rather than

0C0C1O

later. But if Central America is really getting out of control for the USA, today, why did Reagan make such a fuss about drawing the line two years ago, when things were much quieter there?

At the time of Reagan's election, The Washington Post observed: The six countries occupying the Central American isthmus are mostly tiny and of little inherent economic or strategic importance' (4 January 1981). It was right: US investment in these countries, for example, is little more than $1bn. It is thus apparent that Reagan made Salvador a foreign policy priority not because of its inherent importance for US imperialism (it has none), but because it could help America show itself as being intent on retaining its position the world's number one power. If the USA could not be seen to be restoring control and close to exercising its power so - imperialist rival or backhome, who ward capitalist country would take seriously its claim to be undisputed world leader in any other region? The way would be open for America's European rivals to extend their geo-political influence to the detriment of the USA, or for Third World states to break away from Washington's clutches. The International Institute for Strategic Studies saw the implications of the 1979 Nicaraguan Revolution in similar terms: it had, it said, occurred in the USA's 'own backyard, where her influence was presumed to be strong, even if it was not exercised with the same directness as in the past.

crucial interests, That, more than any seemed to give Nicaragua strategic significance for the United States' (HISS, 1979). The problem for America is that its , has backfired on it. Far from strategy proving the continuing power and imof American capital, El Salportance highlighted its decrepitude.

vador has For instance: only Britain was prepared imperialist powers condemned them as a farce, and have moved on to curry more Central America in the hopes of expanding their influence in the region.

The USA's growing nightmare is that El Salvador has given encouragement to anti-American aspirations everywhere south of Texas. The equanimity with which Argentina invaded the Malvinas, present for the White House, is only the most striking instance of the growing contempt for Washington. Yet Mexico, Panama and Latin America proper are sites of US economic interests much more sizable than those in the countries nearest Mexico is the USA's third biggest overseas market: the source of five per cent of America's oil needs already, it has the potential to supply a great deal more in the future (Mexico is now the world's fourth largest oil producer). Yet Mexico is the world's most debt-ridden economy, and any political instability there could spread across the US border on account of the millions of Mexican The collapse of the Mexican economy represents a major blow to American strategy in the region. According to US calculations Mexico was meant to be a force for stability in Central and Latin America. Mexico was supposed to provide the ideological alternative to Cuba, Nicaragua and the guerrilla movements is in trouble. Far from isolating the 'threat of communism', Washington must where tens of thousands marched recently through Panama City inflation, unemployment and government corruption - down to Argentina, discontent is rising. And the USA is getting worried. In Latin America border disputes, action are all proliferating. Here vast US interests are at stake: $30bn of investments (80 per cent of US private investment in the backward capitalist world and markets which account for one-sixth of US exports. Losing even a fraction of these would be a massive defeat for the American bourgeoisie. Imperialism How to stay alive US imperialism's options are now severely limited, and US policy-makers know it.

As Haig said of El Salvador last year: The situation has become essentially stalemated, (but) stalemate could ultimately be fatal' (Newsweek, 9 November 1981). The situation that faces his succes- 'sor George Shultz can be summed up as the same, but worse. . The days of cosmetic economic reforms and political consensus are numbered. The fundamental problem for US imperialism rests not in having the 'wrong people in charge not in lacking imaginative proposals', but in its economic decline. A dying beast is characterised by being both erratic and vicious. American foreign policy in El Salvador and elsewhere bears the same hallmarks. Opinion is divided over what to do.

The fall of Haig marks a defeat, for the present, for those in the US Administration who favoured a direct invasion of Central America by US marines as happened in Guatemala in 1954 and Santo Domingo in 1965. Many Congressional leaders favour giving reform another chance and are threatening to cut US military aid unless this happens. Today, however, the dominant view in the Administration. and the one likely to be pursued over the next period is that held by the Pentagon. It feels, first, that there should be no direct US invasion in Central America, if only because this would be likely to generate greater hostility internationally to the deployment of US troops in other crisis regions where vital US interests are at stake most importantly, the Middle East; and second, that what is necessary is to maintain the appearance of seeking reforms as long as possible to contain the popularity of the opposition forces.

Under US pressure, President Magona has just signed a seven-point plan calling "democratic reform, for respect human rights, economic measures and peace' with Arena, Duarte's Christian Democrats and the right-wing National Conciliation Party (The Times, 5 August 1982). Alongside this will go continuing US military aid and the encouragement of other regional governments, such as the Honduran, to take a more direct role in fighting any opposition movements in their own or neighbouring countries. But time is running out for the USA - and for the peoples of Central America. British workers must give solidarity to the El Salvadorean masses now. In twelve months time it may be too late.

Phil Murphy MALVINAS are ARGENTINA'S 'After Galtieri, Buckton' was the Tories' cry as the • summer began, 'now we've dealt with the Argies,: let's settle scores with the railway workers, the • •health workers and any other workers who refuse to give in to the government'. The Falklands factor.

•has already proven a powerful force in British politics.

The Malvinas are Argentina's pamphlet shows how• the acquiescence of the labour movement from right to left in Britain's war in the South Atlantic has given • the ruling class a powerful weapon to use against.

workers. Published at the height of the war, it remains • •vital reading for anti-imperialists and anybody who.

wants to fight the Falklands factor in their workplace.

•Send 50p to cover packaging and postage to Junius tions, BCM JPLTD, London WC11 the next step, September 1982 15

INDUSTRIAL NOTES

Squabbling barons For some time many of the big battalions on the General side Council, like the transport workers and miners, have resisted changes to the methods of electing the General Council. Then, last year, the POEU threw a big spanner the into the works. It got a motion passed, with a narrow majority, which required the TUC to accept certain principles as the basis for changing the composition General Council. of the So, for the last year the unions have squabbled over face. various formulas designed to adhere to the 1981 motion.

TUC affiliation is organised along broad sector or industrial groupings. The basis for the sectors was drawn up in the early 'twenties and has since proven resistant change. post-war neriod. as the composition of the working class Changed i coi ship and affiliations to the TUC have the basis election General Council has become anachronistic. The current debate about change is merely the union bureaucracy's response the changing occupational structures of the working class. The changes in occupations are a consequence of the mator dechne in manual workforce and the rapid growin in te tumbers of white collar workers. General Council membership, however, continues to reflect the ascendancy of the Relatively manual sinall unions like the Boilermakers, Sheetmetal Workers, Tailor and Garment Workers whilst other all have seats ing'. larger unions are excluded or do not have seats in proportion to their membership.

Many of the small unions have retained their positions through the patronage of the

TGWU.

the argest At present union bureaucrats the are squabbling over the practicability of the principles the POEU laid down by congress. The at the 1981 main objective of the change suggested by the post office engineers is that unions with 100 000 members OVer should automatically secure a place on General Connel The arguments between the vanous imon executves are not based on any substantial political differences.

the EETPU, The fact that Brotherhood begins at home make 16 the next step, September 1982 APEX and POEU are on one the miners and and transport workers are on other the former supporting change, the latter the desperate to delay it - is politically insignificant for ity. unions' rank and file. One leadership is proving no more combative in defending jobs and conditions than the and other. That the union leaders a major dispute over institutional change is simply indicative union of the political crisis they all Their lack of any independence from the machinery of the state and their inability to tackle the economic crisis politically forces them into reactive organisational changes designed to protect their material and financial base rather than prosecute the class struggle.

Illustrative of this react ive approach to organisational change is the current spate of union mergers or amalgamations. The busily building up its white the transport collar secaon, pulling unions Worke ac like the agricultural workers and textile workers into the empire and the print unions SOGAT and NATSOPA have merged, becoming recently SOGAT 82. In August the executives Boiler the makers' Union and the General and Municipal Workers Union agreed to amalgamate.

These mergers are simply financial upon sur- Dased vival; they have little to do with improving combativity in the face of massive state attacks. The proof of this is shown by the other method of gaining members: "poach- The health service dispute has seen COSE and NUPE making militant postures in their efforts to win membership from each other and from the RCN. In the wake of privatisation unions are stepping in to pick up remains of the workjobs with the contract firms like Grand Metropolitan and Pritchards.

Beneath the surface of the debate on the reorganisation of the General Coun cil lies the dark side of trade unionism organisational disputes by self preservation rather than class action. The squabbles between leadership of NUPE and COHSE during the NHS dispute shows the divisive influence of the union bureaucracy. agenda of The preliminary this year's TUC conference shows that there will be hardly any debate on racism and Ireland. Our readers will be glad to know that the TUC has not failed in its international duties. Conference will free delegates speeches resounding around a number of motions on Turkey, Iraq, Iran and El Salvador. When the health union leaders threatened to step up action in workers believed August many that the crunch had come. But for 'stepping up union bosses meant a more action' simply intense level of bureaucratic activmet union leaders Health with their colleagues from other unions and asked for support. By and signatures meant support they mobilisation the workers. When the print workers threatened to strike in support health of NHS employees leaders panicked. Spanswick, head of COHSE, demanded that the strike be called off lest it should offend public opinion. A worker at St Thomas's Hospital, South London sent us an account of a day on the picket line during the August five-day stoppage. 10.30am and there di c It's only ten of us on the picket line.

Not much hostility except from the medical students, who taunt racist with workers black abuse. Those on the line are from NUPE area officer Bob Hill "Responsible trade unionists won't stand for effective picketing Workers applaud as an oil tanker drives away NHS dispute-what a way to run a strike!

Sterilising Supply Central The storemen have Department. also been out but it was decided that they should go back so that shop everyone could back the CSSD appear workers by paying a weekly levy ruling. The dispute is conducted by a which Committee Monitoring consists of all the shop stewards for

COHSE

NUPE

and full-timers. The pickets are angry. Management had used its meeting with the Monitoring Committee to sneak in four vans loaded with supplies. Storemen who had refused to unload the vans were threatened with the sack. Police this time to prewere called in, vent stewards from collecting the levy from workers in the pay queue. Everyone is determined to stop everything from coming in.

An oil-tanker is turned away and soon after a lorry loaded with us: linen. A steward approaches The Monitoring Committee has allow all essentia decided to supplies in'. The pickets explode - everyone understands the implications of this decision.

After a lays down the line., screaming row the steward leaves the picket - never to return.

group Minutes and full timers stewards the latest enforce

NUPE

Hill, ared Bob officer, lays down the line - 'we must keep our side of the bargain responsible are Two women yell: If unionists'. we allow everything in we might as well pack it in'. Hill threatens next week's levy witharaw He is backed up by payment. Gaughan, the TWU can- Jim prominent Militant and venor All of a sudden, the supporter. oil-tanker is back. We link arms across the road while the stewards demand we let it in. Bob Hill and desperately Gaughan alt urging the driver to edge forward.

The driver declines the offer and turns around. Later in the afternoon, after on the the new shift vans line, a number picket One supporter allowed in. of the next step who turns away a walt Coffeemate lorry is jumped on by an official. After slow and patient The Trades Union Congress at Brighton this year takes campaigns and the sell-out of the train drivers union ASLEF. It's been a dreadful year for the union bureaucracy. Membership continues to fall, most unions are in deep financial troubles and there is no end to the recession in sight. The leaders of our unions regard the TUC as a 'national which attempts institution' to influence state policy on a very wide range of matters.

Unfortunately, for men like Murray, Basnett and Jenkins, during the last year, like the two before, the Government has simply refused to listen.

The union bureaucrats are, faced with Theretore. problems. Their leadership rests upon close links with the machinery of the state Union organisation is geared toward state institutions. At the top there is the National Economic Development Council (NEDC), consisting of CBI, TUC and Government. At the industry level the same tripartite formula applies to the Sector Working Parties. TUC representatives form a third of the bureaucrats of the Manpower Services Commission and ACAS. Even at local levels union bureaucrats sit on scores of Industrial Tribunals and local MSC committees.

The representatives drawn from drawn officials, trades councils and other union bodies. Union organisation is linked to the state apparatus at every single level. When it's quite apparent that the union bureaucracy can achieve nothing for its special members trom relationship the state, to activists begin to ask ques tions. The role of the union bureaucracy is thrown into doubt. This is reflected in some of the motions to this work the union bureaucrats are beginning to scent victory. Many are becoming demoral workers ised and many pickets are talking about packing the whole thing in A/week later the St Thomas's strike collapsed and the 25 CSSD workers returned to work. At the very moment when the workers' action had brought one of London's most prestigious hospitals to the verge of a complete standstill (with 500 unoccupied beds), union officials negotiated a sellout and forced the workers to accept it. Management put the squeeze on the bureaucrats who communicated threats of dismissal to the workers and assured them that the union could not support them in continuing action. As the NHS dispute drags on, more aggressive management tactics - victimisations, threats of servile and more dismissal manoeuvres by union officials, are combining around the country the longest running to strangle the militant dispute and most NHS has ever seen. Neddy and the carthorse years conterenc Some unions are calling place in the wake of failed for the TUC's withdrawal from the NEDC. The Fire Brigades Union and SOGAT 82 argue that in view of the Government's hostility to the unions, it is inappropriate to remain on

NEDC.

The Communist Party-led engineering staffs union TASS takes the argu ment a bit further: It is inappropriate for the movement be involved • LO NEDC with a government that rejects economic planning' (Morning Star, 2 Aug- 1982). The motions focus on the hostile nature of the Tory administration.

one has begun to But no question the union bureaucracy's integration into the big The motions merely state offer a pragmatic response to the fact that Thatcher has no time to consult union leaders.

The motions simply address themselves to the TUC'S position on NEDC. But as many union activists know, involvement in NEDC is just the tip of the iceberg. The unions are thoroughly integrated into the machinery of the state from top to bot- Any steps to reclaim the unions as organisations defend working class that interests must go well beyond the withdrawal from The TUC must be

NEDC.

trade forced to unionists from all the staterun bodies which at present preside over the most vicious attacks on the working class in the post-war period. To achieve this requires the unions to acknowledge that the real enemy isn't simply unyielding Tory Government but the capitalist state itself. Such a fundamental toward trade shift independence provides the basis for de realistic fending the interests of the working class.

IN JANUARY 1974 Barbara Castle was pre-occupied with the electoral prospects the coming of the Labour Party in General Election. Writing in her diary, she noted: I believe the vote in this country is polarising, not so much on class lines as on sex lines.

The pursuit of money increases is a masculine syndrome; the fight for the social wage is a propaganda should need...so concentrate less on wage demands and more on increasing the social wage.' (Cited in Over 21, April 1981) When that was written, Britain was in the of the miners' strike, the most grip militant and determined strike of the post-war period. One month later, in 1974, the miners brought rebruary down the Heath Government. The stage was set for a return of a Labour government committed to an alternative strategy to resolve Britain's crisis. This strategy had as its centrepiece a Social Contract and between the Labour Government the TUC. Campbell's contract In May 1981 Beatrix Campbell, feminist journalist and leading member of the CPGB, was grappling with the problem of how feminists could help the Labour Party win the next election. In the radical London magazine Time Out she wrote: *Over the next couple of years the Labour the women's liberation movement movement, •..and the trade unions have a unique chance to compose a new, feminist social contract. Not between labour and capital like the last one, but between men and women. And one which for the first time, would not be at women's expense.' (8 May 1981) The TUC is at present trying to formulate a new Social Contract with the Labour Party. Both sides recognise that controlling wage increases as the Tories have done, is an essential component of any anti-crisis strategy. But the labour movement leaders also know that the Labour Party will only be invited to govern if the class struggle seems to be a bit too explosive for the Tories to handle. So they have work out how, in those conditions, militants could be encouraged to swallow another round of wage restraint. This is where people like Campbell come in. By suggesting that an incomes policy can be progressive and in the interest of women, they ensure that future wage cuts are endowed with legitimacy. Since 1980, Campbell and her fellow reformist feminist Anna Coote from the New Statesman have been arguing the case for a feminist incomes policy. It must be rejected on two counts. Firstly, because it takes as its starting point the belief that the can be planned under interests of women, capitalism the and that incomes policies can improve the situation of women. And secondly, because a feminist strategy of trying to is defend women at men's expense divisive and therefore ineffective.

The 1974 Social Contract offered a new of between the strategy cooperation unions and the state as an alternative to the Tories' course of confrontation. But the goal was the same: solving Britain's economic difficulties through a reduction A feminist incomes policy?

Castle's contract Michael Foot and Barbara Castle celebrate the implementation of the Equal Pay Act The working class living standards.

in agreement for its Party won Labour measures in conditions where the 'pursuit increases' through industrial of money militancy had proved inadequate. Rampant inflation of around 27per percent eroded each increase won through strike action, rendering this strategy less and less convincing to the mass of the working class. Many trade unionists accepted the view that wage rises were to blame, and the solution required wage restraint.

if the Labour government, However, elected on a wave of radical opposition to Tory assaults on the labour movement, it was to carry through this measure, would have to offer the working class something in return. The Social Contract allowed it to do this. The union leaders were satisfied with their new role as confidant-cum-adviser back in the fold, to the government, discussing the best collaborating and But the way forward for them both.

working class needed something more tangible. The Labour Party offered social justice, an increase in the "social wage" and a redistribution of wealth and power in favour of working people and their families'. These vague promises were the pay-off required if Labour was to sell its attack on wage levels to a militant movement. The Labour Party emphasised the beneficial effect the Social Contract would have on the low-paid workers who didn't have the industrial muscle to keep up with inflation. They would benefit from flat-rate increases. Workers on state benefits, and housewives too, would also gain, because they had to face price rises Wilson, Calwith a declining income. laghan and Foot made full use of Castle's insight in their campaign to stress that the poor, the old, housewives and the lowpaid were being crippled by the "selfish' demands of the strong militant unions.

The Labour government cynically played begins at home "charity on sentiments. It addressed the worker as part of a family, as a consumer rather than a producer, and made what it could of the resentment which existed towards that the militant men, to conclude (female) low-paid workers and (female) and social commodities COnSUNCS services would gain if (male) trade unionists were prepared to tighten their belts.

women workers gained In practice, nothing from the Social Contract. The problem of low pay was simply generalised everyone was low paid. The that SU expansion of social services, improvement in benefits and pensions never happened.

A nasty experience Campbell begins with a few kind words She about the last Social Contract claims that in its early stages it allowed a redistribution of incomes within the working class. She argues that, in accepting a flat-rate increase, which meant real wage cuts for the higher paid workers, women workers benefited at the expense 'seventies, Campbell of In the men. claims, the TUC tried. to give priority to low pay' (New Socialist, July/August 1982) and a dangerous liaison was created between the low-paid and the TUC (Time Out, 8 May 1981). In fact the boot was on the other foot. No redistribution flat-rate increase made a occurred. A greater difference to someone on £30 a week than to a worker on f60 a week, but it did not match the rate of inflation for either. Furthermore, the worker on £60 suffered a significant cut in real wages. It is equally inaccurate to assume that the TUC had a special interest in helping the low-paid. All that happened was that every time the TUC was about to make public one of its shabby deals, it wheeled out Jack Jones to ramble about the plight of old age pensioners and the low-paid. In any case, low pay has nothing to do with the level of wages received by the better-off section of the working class. If for say the anything, wage increases, miners, tend to raise the wages of the paid. As one health worker on lower £46.44 a week remarked, 'If there were more men in the health service we might get a bit more' (The Guardian, 20 July 1982). In other words, our goal must be to raise women's wages to the level of which asks men to men's. Any strategy postpone wage rises till women can catch up is a recipe for £46.44 all round The sex struggle The Social Contract did not redistribute wealth towards women because this is impossible within capitalism. Women are a politically oppressed section of the They cannot participate working class. in social production to the same extent as men because they do the bulk of sociey's unpaid dirty work - housework. This includes rearing children and it prevents most women from working for as long as men (women's working lives span about 35 years, men's about 50). It also prevents them from doing full-time work or overtime consistently. As a result the sale of their labour power is restricted and therefore has less value. It is sold sporadically and more cheaply than male labour. No incomes policy can change this. But even if the Social Contract had redistributed income within working class this would be no the recommendation. The idea that there is only a limited pool of money to go around in wages is a Women's oppression prejudice that has held back the class struggle for decades. It has encouraged seek settlements at trade unionists to the expense of other groups of workers.

Recently pleas for special consideration for "special cases' have undermined prospects for united action. Campbell follows in the same vein, except that for her it is women who are a special case and should get more at the expense of men Coote and Campbell that there is a conflict of interests between and men in the trade union women movement' (Sweet freedom, 1982). Men have been a special case for too long, now women must be given preferential treat- The advance of working class ment. women will have to be at the expense of working class men. In Campbell's words, "Tarzan, your time is up' (The Guardian, 9 August 1982). Coote also insists on redistributing labour and wealth within the family (New Socialist, November/ December 1981). This follows on from the incomes policy idea. It proposes that housework and men should do more suggests that their wages should be taxed more to supply the revenue for bigger family allowances. If women want more wages they have to wrest them from male trade unionists. If they want less domestic work let the husband do it. If you need more family allowances get the state to hand some of his wages to you! The point is that we want and need all of these things, but why should the working class that pays? class always be the The bosses and their state must be forced to foot the bill, by the united action of workers. If we make them pay us more in wages and benefits and make them take on the burden of some of our domestic tasks by providing free nursery care all hours of the day and night, then we can begin to taste a sweeter freedom.

is little better Sharing our oppression than suffering it alone the apparent conflict of In fact, interests between male and female workers arises from the fundamental contradiction between labour and capital. The oppression of women is essential for the reproduction of capitalist relations. Cap ital gets the daily grind of housework done free of charge. It gets labour power of the right quality in the right place at the right time for the cheapest possible price. And it gets a divided working class.

benefits constitute the Together these necessary premise of capitalist production.

Working class men who accept this state of affairs help perpetuate the oppression of women. But do they really benefit from all this? Not really, because their slight material privileges relative to women are. far outweighed by the disastrous consequences of chauvinist prejudice. Men's failure to fight for women's rights harms male workers in that it keeps them divided and ideologically in tow.

Campbell elaborates on the war between the sexes in other ways. She claims want more money, that men always are interested in getting more women time; whereas men want to wrest ownership of the factories from the bosses, women are keen on organising the pro- These homilies have duction process. (continued on page 18) the next step, September 1982 17

Women's oppression Continued from page 17 been invented. It is true that simply women cannot do overtime to the same extent as men because they are too tied up in childcare. But why are there no facilities? It is not, as feminists argue, that men think childcare is unimportant.

The low priority accorded this struggle by the labour movement is a result of the greater sympathy the trade union leaders have for the profitability of capitalist than for the problems facing industry working class women. The TUC, which has been betraying women's interests since its formation in 1869, escapes criticism in Campbell's tirades. Yet it is corrupt labour bureauthe privileged, which has sought to encourage cracy divisions in the workforce. For example, in many workplaces during the seventies, the local full-time officials told the men that equal pay for women would be introduced at their expense. In the Leeds clothing strike in 1970, the unions negotiated unequal pay rises and were by thousands of women and resisted men workers. The experience of Women for Communism in industrial disputes contradicts Campbell's resignation to the divisions that haunt the labour movement. As the current NHS dispute shows, men are ready to support their sisters' often fight for higher wages and better con- However, often this support is ditions. derailed by the bureaucracy, with reactionary garbage about pin-money. Most men, even those who suffer from chauvinist prejudices, see women workers as allies and support their demands. Many support equal pay as one way to improve their wages, while also arguing for differentials to improve their own. Many men are confused and backward but at the end of the day they are the husbands, sons or brothers of working women and spontaneously support them. Women generally feel the same about their male colleagues.

Both sexes see that they have more in common with each other than with either the bureaucracy or with people of the same sex from other classes.

No more Social Contracts!

Though nominally from opposite sides of the right/left divide within the reformist camp, Castle and Campbell have much in common. Both of them have given a feminist gloss to the changing needs of the Labour Party. Neither of them has anything to offer working class women.

1974, Castle provided the insight which helped the right-wing bureaucracy to gain acceptance of a Social Contract working class The amongst reality of the Social Contract, and the of which has since crisis retormism developed, has left the Labour Party devoid of any credibility in that quarter.

Now Campbell has arrived with warmedup leftovers of Castle's ideas, smothered with a pungent radical-feminist sauce to try and cover the lingering bad taste of 1974-79 Labour Government.

Her the brief is clear: to put together a coherent left alternative for attracting the petitbourgeois strata of women's and community groups to which the Labour Party left is looking to revitalise the party.

today, when working class Precisely most need a concerted labour women fightback to achieve equal movement pay and to defend a women's right to Campbell has "decided that the time has come for wage restraint. The suggestion is ludicrous; but contained within it are the seeds of another four or years of working class sacrifice in five the interests of capital. It is the responsibility of class conscious workers to ensure that those seeds are crushed under foot, and that Beatrix Campbell never becomes notorious enough to have her diaries serialised in Over 21.

Kate Marshall 18 the next step, September 1982 AFTER FIVE months on the picket line fighting for trade union rights, the 60 Rulecan clothing from the womer factory in Runcorn have been defeated.

Raymond Rattle closed Rulecan boss the factory in July. Even the scab workers who crossed the picket line have lost their jobs. the next step has covered the dispute since it began early this year, mobilising support for Women for Communism's campaign in aid of the Rulecan strikers. Here we publish an interview O'Connor, one of the lead- Sandra ing National Union of Tailor and Garment Workers stewards at Rulecan, gave Carol Taggart of Women for Commto unism about this dispute.

*Tom Evans, one of the NUTGW Divisional Officers, had an appointment with Neild (the company liquidator) and Mr was very disturbed and dismayed at the thought of Mr Rattle breaking the agreement he made with us to open another factory. He said he was obviously not sincere! But the officials are still claiming this as a victory. Well, it's a very hollow victory - there are no jobs. I feel that if we'd done something different from what we did - with hindsight - 1 think we could have brought it to a successful conclusion. Sympathy and insults 'On the Thursday the week after the factory closed we had a visit from Henry Suss and Graham Wells (the new member of the NUTGW executive) and we also had a visit from the Deputy General Secretary - the first time they had shown their faces - as well as Tom Evans. They - thanks for gave magnificent speeches your support, and it's a great shame that we haven't won this fight, but you can claim a victory of sorts.

I criticised the DGS for (a) calling off the blacking when we were in a good position and (b) for not levying the membership or even sending out letters to the union branches to let people know and for not letting other unions know.

She said that "we were very disappointed in you too because you didn't maintain a 24-hour picket and because you couldn't keep us in touch with the numbers" classifying style (numbers which were needed Rulecan's products for blacking purposes). But the change- US feminism in retreat IN JULY THE Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) officially expired. The 10year long campaign waged by American feminists for legal equality has ended in Right-wing demoralisation and defeat. reaction killed ERA in the end - but the narrow legalistic focus of American femdoomed the campaign from the inism start. The alliance of feminists and liberal ERA proved an inpoliticians behind effective combination in advancing the position of women. The leaders of the American women's movement have not drawn the conclusion that the ERA campaign failed because of its petty preoccupation with constitutional change. On the contrary, they feel that they were not legalistic enough. Both the National Women's Political Caucus and the National Organisation of Women have promised to focus their future campaigns more within the "mainstream' of American politics. In other words, American feminists are prepared to abandon their ambitions of making major changes in the social position of women in return for minor constitutional reforms.

Lessons of the Rulecan dispute overs were so quick this was virtually off impossible. Anyway, they called official backing for the pickets once the factory was closed despite all the machinery still being in there. We were very, very annoyed. We came out in support of the union in the first place and they've let us down more than anybody.

Union inactivity 'Earlier on in the dispute, we were never made aware of the blacking being done by the USDAW unions at the mail order factories. We had very little word from the union leaders. They just spoke a few Derek Cattell, our full-time times to official, mainly to complain to him about the C&A pickets you were organising After the legal agreement was made with Rulecan, we were instructed from Head Office that we had just to keep up a token picket at the factory and courage help groups We trom other officially decided to call it all off, but We unofficially to keep things going.

felt it was the C&A pickets certainly that were the strongest card we had and they were bringing Rattle to the negotiating table. But the union, in the wisdom of the wise, decided we had to tone everything down until we moved into the new factory. At the time we were clutching at straws. While that offer was going I was in that we tone things down.

agreement With hindsight we'd have said no to that - definitely keep the C&A pickets and the mass pickets at the factory.

were no real con- "Anyway, there sultations on what to do. Henry Suss only came when we demanded it and we never ever saw Alec Smith (the NUTGW General Secretary). Instructions were passed down through the official. There were no consultations over ending the mass pickets, just instructions passed on.

Panic and confusion We didn't get any leadership at all, from the General Secretary down. We got some sort of lead from Derek Cattell although it wasn't always correct. He organised the blacking - and the union was very angry about that. But he panicked at quite a few of the suggestions we made. I sug gested we get concrete down between the factory gates to stop the vans going in and out. We could have stopped the vans easily, but he said "You can't do that! You can't do that!".

The conservative complexion of American feminism is illustrated in a recent book The second stage by Betty Friedan.

Betty Friedan's first book, The feminine mystique, written in 1963, was one of the most important influences on the then newly emerging women's liberation movement. The feminine mystique pointed out the isolation of the suburban housewife and articulated the anger that simmered middle class women in among the 'sixties. The feminine mystique was a product of the 'sixties - a time of relative prosperity when middle class women could experiment and expect important changes in their social status. The second stage is the product of the 'eighties - a period when the scope for change is limited.

Moreover, the intensity of the present crisis forces the middle class in a conservative direction. That's why Friedan, urging moderation, has to implore her sisters to come to terms with our position'. There must be no polarisation.

Friedan even suggests that slogans such as free abortion on demand have con- The women's problems *Apart from the union officials, most women faced problems from their husbands. We weren't bringing a wage in and they were annoyed at the time we spent on the picket line. They thought because you weren't working then you should be in the home. It was difficult looking after as well the kids in school holidays especially since wę couldn't afford childminders when on strike 'Money was a big problem. We had difficulty in finding bus fares to get down on the picket and this reduced our numbers. Picketing was affected mainly by finances and then through husbands not being understanding enough.

Solidarity The support we got from yourselves and the SWP was tremendous, but the local The was very disappointing. support union did nothing to get other members on the picket line, and the officials in London had the cheek to tell us to stay on it round the clock. We were invited to a Women's Fightback demonstration in but a collection only raised London, £12.01 and we ended up well out of pocket after travel costs. We weren't even allowed to speak at the demonstration! It didn't help us one iota, it was the C&A picketing that did the most."

Sandra O'Connor: We could have won.

notations of sexual licentiousness, not only affronting the moral values of conservatives, but implying a certain lack of reverence for life. Most feminists in Britain will be outthe new statements of their raged by But they should pause former mentor. and reflect on the American experience.

Feminism in the USA is different trom Britain only in form, not in substance.

The existence in Britain of a well-organised labour movement and class polarisation has influenced the evolution of British feminism. From the start socialism' and a considerable degree of anticapitalist sentiment shaped the ideology of the women's movement. But, its British rhetoric notwithstanding, the women's movement, too, has moved into - either into the mainstream politics Labour Party or alternatively down the path of legal reform. The radical demands of the women's liberation movement of seventies serve only as remindthe early ers of the past and markers of the movement's right-wing shift into the 'eighties.

Ann Burton

Rulecan solidarity I am writing to thank all those supporters of the next step who assisted the women at the Rulecan clothing factory in their 23-week strike. The dispute has now come to an end following the appointment of a liquidator to close the factory. In February the National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers made the dispute official following the sacking of 50 women who stopped work in protest against wage cuts and a We had evirefusal to recognise the union.

dence of some women earning as little as £30 a week. This strike has been a most significant with no tradition one A group or women of militancy continually picketed the company, held factory gate collections, organised mass pickets, addressed union meetings, and raised over £3000 in addition to official strike pay.

Such was the solidarity shown against Rulecan that the bosses were forced to use the present Tory "employment' laws when faced with secondary blacking. Supporters of the next step assisted the women by leafletting C&A department stores that were connuing to buy Comes from Rulecan which had been produced with scab labour. The leaflets urged shoppers to boycott the stores until Rulecan reinstated the women with union recognition. This action was decisive in bringing Rulecan to the negotiating table.

The result was an agreement drawn up by both the company's and the union's solicitors which gave a date for re-engaging the women on alternative premises with union recognition. Furthermore, it was agreed that if the date for reinstatement was delayed then the women would go on the payroll until commencing work.

At that moment in time, I believed along with others that the agreement was the result of intensive rank and file action rather than a substitute for it which Carol Taggart suggests in the next step, No 26, July/August 1982.

To correct Comrade laggart's report. it was unanimously agreed by all the women to suspend mass pickeung wulst warling to recommence work. Both the shop stewards and I asked supporters of the next step to refrain from leafletting C&A stores until we saw if Rulecan would honour the agreement.

As it was, some leafletting continued and it took some persuasion to get mem to accept the discipline of the strike and suspend this The company used the continuation of leafletting as an excuse for saying that we had oroken une terms or te agreement on a retur to work, although to be fair, if it hadn't occurred, they would have found another reason for justifying reneging on the agreement.

Clearly, they were stalling in order to plan a of voluntary liquidation.

CONUTE

Way However, these points are minor ones compared with the major lessons of the dispute.

The scabs have been rewarded for their "loyalty' by being sacked. There is even a doubt as to whether they will be paid wages owed to them. Obviously wanted to win back the women's jobs with union recognition, and we failed to do that. But Rulecan's plans to take advantage of Runcorn's high unemployment and create an anti-union sweatshop have failed To this extent the strike cannot be termed a defeat. It has also proved to be an illustration of how revolutionaries can win the respect of workers in struggle. Derek Cattell NUTGW Merseyside Area Officer Kate Marshall replies: Throughout the dispute Women for Communism and supporters of the next step pushed for the most militant tactics necessary victory. We kept up the C&A protests despite a court injunction from the company restraining us. Because we believed that union proposals to call off the blacking, and mass pickets and the C&A leafletting would weaken the position of the women on strike, we issued three strike bulletins arguing to keep them on. In the event, Cattell won the arguments for the union and we had to go along with the wishes of the women although we believed they were mistaken. Only one leafletting session occurred after the embargo, in Sheffield, where we had failed to inform them in time. If this had not occurred, the bosses would have found another excuse as Cattell points out. We have a different approach from the union bureaucracy. We too wanted reinstatement and union rights - but we believed that victory required mass pressure and not clever negotiations. This made unpopular with Alec Smith ('fringe groups), Henry Suss ('ultra left) and at times, even with Derek Cattell, but as he says we did win the respect of the women because we were able to offer more than bodies on the picket lines: a clear analysis and uncompromising aCLOI. Women's oppression: debate* In the correspondence below we publish an exchange of views between one of our readers and Kate Marshall of Women for Communism.

It is interesting that you begin your letter with a description of the left's response to the issue of women's oppression since the 'sixties. What of course is really significant is that before the growth of the women's movement, the left ignored the issue. Communists need not only to describe subsequent responses, but explain the reasons for the earlier inability of the left to recognise women's oppression.

It is not only capital which oppresses women - all previous class societies have oppressed women. Women are oppressed under capital in ways which are specifically necessary for the continuation of the capitalist mode of production. You tend to use structuralist language also throughout your letter; structuralism is. I believe, an analysis which is fundamentally anti-communist. It is not some abstract capital" people oppress which oppresses women women as agents of capital.

You attack left groups for giving prominence to issues like sexism, which at least you do not put in inverted commas as the next step does. which the working class is divided, and it is the experience of sexism which is often the first step for many women toward revolutionary communism. That many women, feminists, get no further than this first step, is as understandable as tne lact unat many blacks get no furthe.

than becoming virulently anti-white, especially given the record of most revolutionary left groups on the issue of women's oppression. It is still possible, in 1982, to go to a meeting of revolutionaries and trade unions (the setting up of the IFM) and to hear so-called revolutionaries publicly making sexist jokes. Why should women have faith in such an organisation? Would you make racist jokes, or claim that racism was just an ideology which would simply disappear when other issues were fought?

You say you attribute women's oppression under capital to the privatised domestic slavery that women workers carry out. This is only part of the explanation. Engels, and most of the early revolutionary thinkers who discussed Zetkin, women's oppression, Kollontai, etc were wrong in their analysis of the effects on women's position of large numbers of women becoming engaged in social production. The effects have in fact been to strengthen women's specific oppression under capitalism - her dual social production and in domestic slavery. Communists need to understand this, and the fundamental, attendant sexist ideology necessary to maintain it. You also say that working class men only benefit obliquely from this specific oppression. This is incorrect. They benefit from it quite materially. The point is not that men don't benefit in the present from women's oppression, but that it is not in the long-term interests of the working class as a whole. Although men get better pay, better jobs,

LETTERS

etc you say that they are still exploited. That you feel it necessary to state this, reflects your fear that to confront women's specific oppression is somehow to deny the exploitation of working class men. Only by understanding the relationship between the two can communists move towards a correct analysis. The Protestant working class in Ireland, the poor whites in the southern United States, etc are also exploited.

yet you have little problem (in fact, you are the only organisation capable of so doing) in showing that such groups still have a material advantage other groups, that they are Over in effect 'paid off" and the divisions between groups of the working class, whose long-term interests are the same, are used to weaken and divide the working class Revolutionaries, you write, must intervene to snowine unity or interests between male and female workers in fighting capitalism. But in the next step you have said that, for example, in Ireland, women must subordinate their interests in the wider struggle. Why? Such strictures, and many attitudes which emerge in the next step, imply that simply by involving women in anti-capitalist struggles, the fight against women's oppression is engaged. It is inconceivable', you write, that male workers could be consistent anti-capitalist fighters with their sisters without fighting women's oppres sion. The whole history of the international revolutionary movement, the main reason for the development of the women's movement in the 'sixties, all show exactly the opposite is true - that male revolutionaries were prepared to be determined and consistent fighters of while successfully the capitalism, ignoring oppression of women. You say that in fighting with their sisters male workers will begin to appreciate their broader political interests as a class in an independent way. But this is pure Only if led by a revolutionary spontaneism. vanguard, which has unflinchingly addressed will such issues, refusing to compromise. workers learn such class interests. The working class movement in the USA was destroyed again and again by the use of racism by the ruling class. The populist and agrarian movements of the 1890s fought together, black and white, for some years before being destroyed by racism. Their struggle together did not lead spontaneously to a recognition of their class interests. their experiences rather led them to believe that their interests were antagonistic (black strike-breaking, box stuffing with black votes, etc to return The RCP is, I believe, the only organisation in Britain with a correct analysis of the Labour Party, of racism and how to fight it and of Ireland. However, in its fear of adapting to feminism, it has failed so far to reach a correct analysis of the specific oppression of women under capitalism; if it fails to do so in the future it will be betraying not only women but the working class. CS Reading *This letter has been shortened due to lack of souce You claim that you are a Marxist, but distance yourself from the Marxist tradition on women.

You specifically attack Engels, and others, for arguing that the large scale introduction of women into social production was progressive.

You claim that women's oppression has been "strengthened' as a result of their oppression by capital, rather than been undermined by it as Engels maintained. In fact, prior to their remained isolated in their homes, engaged in privatised production and domestic slavery.

Participation in social production partially overcame this isolation and gave women wor kers the possibility of organising against their oppression. When we say that women are dually oppressed we are not looking at it quantitatively - oppression at home plus super-exploitation at work. The contradiction between the back ward, petty, degrading toil of domesticity, and the socialised organisation of production in capitalist enterprises (along with the privatised nature of appropriation), provides the dynamic for destroying the chains of oppression through the struggle for socialism.

Marx and Engels knew that women would never compete equally with men for jobs and wages because under capitalism they remained domestic slaves - constrained from selling their labour power on the same terms and conditions as male workers. In other words, the value of women's labour power is lower than men's. The Capital family acquires a new importance.

could assume that in return for her unpaid domestic work her husband or father would help to support her economically, sating for the lower wages the capitalist class paid to women. Having attacked this tradition you then the radical left of the 'sixties and criticise seventies as if they represent authentic Marx.

ism. In my last letter I argued that Marxism communism - ceases to be revolutionary Marxism if it neglects the fight against women's oppression. Yet you claim that because the left believed they were determined and consistent fighters of capitalism, that is what they were, despite the fact that they ignored women's oppression. No! They were not fighting capital.

ism consistently if they ignored oppression, be it in Ireland, discrimination against blacks, gays women. Since the 'twenties, the British or left has never even attempted to do this and restricted its objectives to the 'pure spontaneism' that you accuse us of. For example, the SWP is forever saying black and white unite and fight while refusing to challenge the union bureaucracy by exposing its compliance with the racism of the state. The RCP does in prac tice what you believe in theory. We raise and re-raise, argue and debate these issues precisely because they often lie outside the immediate experience of workers You say you agree with our analysis of the Protestant and white South African working classes. However, it is not legitimate to impose a similar analysis on male workers in Britain.

Male workers do not constitute a distinct social stratum, separate from their sisters. Although women are segregated at work, this separation is not carried over into every aspect of social and political life. Working class women live with men, they go to the same schools, pubs and churches. They use the same doctors and hospitals and live on the same housing estates. They join the same unions and support the same political parties. Feminist attempts to segregate women from the rest of society, in schools, or in a 'women's city' for example.

are nearly as reactionary as those who seek to isolate women from the working class by asking them to give up their jobs in the recession.

The reason why attempts to segregate men and women find very little resonance amongst working class women is because women tend to identify with their class rather than thei sex, as most of their experiences are shared by working class men. The social and political segregation of Protestants and Catholics in the Six Counties is entirely different. The continued existence of the sectarian state depends or separate housing estates, factories, forms of transport, political parties and trade unions.

neither an underlying striving for unity nor Shaner exererce class, which is why we have said that the fight cannot be conducted outside of the fight for national liberation. It is impossible to have a set of women's politics which Catholics share the same long-term goal. Maybe.

Lunes want dunned treland Protestants want the union with Britain. Men and women do not have such diametrically Women need and want abortion rights and contraception which is safe, adequate childcare facilities and benefits, more and better jobs. But none of these conflict with men interests or require a denial of any existing rights or jobs for men. In fact they are shortsections of the working class. The point of a fight against reactionary, philistine and chauvinist ideas about women's natural inferiority is to show this real basis for unity which exists now and has done ever since women entered social production with men in Marx and Eng els' day. the next step, September 1982 19

sponsors include: Jayaben Desa Anwar Ditta got Nasira Begum Tony Benn the Arthur Scargill Ken Livingstone Paul Boateng

SATURDAY 4 SEPTEMBER

Stockwell Rd, SW9 WAR presents a benefit

THE CIMARONS

THE RUTS

CARMEL

SON OF MAN IN ROOTS

THE CREAMIES

THE ALARM

Free to marchers. l/We want to march on/sponsor/make a donation to the WORKERS MARCH AGAINST RACISM, London - Brighton, 4-8 September. Name Address Tel No TU/Organisation No of marchers € enclosed Make cheques/postal orders payable to 'WAR' and send to Workers Against Racism, c/o Box 22, 136 Kingsland High Street, •What I would like to ask the TUC is to do for us?" "what are you going 1 have attended many conferences, and messages of support the But at women are still at the ovations. standing bottom of the pile. We have had enough!

day, black The strike at Grunwicks was an ideal leaders for the union opportunity of racism. though a lot of workers supported us, scourge the expose the union leaders let us down and we lost.

And today we are paying the price for these defeats. There will be no such thing as a trade union if we carry on ignoring the divisions that fragment our struggles.

*The problem is not. just one trade all the leaders While our rights are under it's leader, only concerned about union bureaucrats. topping up their pensions. What I'd like attack they are to tell the TUC is this: what about us? We are part of your movement too. And if you won't recognise our cause then we'll have to get rid of you."

LIVE ROCK ON THE FRONT LINE

6pm - midnight at Brixton's Fair Deal,

PLUS SURPRISE GUESTS!

Doors open 5.30pm. Tickets £4/£3 (UB40) LEEn received end of to al- But and Jayaben Desai

BRIXTON

•RACEN

FRIDAY 3 SEPTEMBER

MEET THE MARCHERS

Food, music, entertainment, accommodation in East London for marchers. 6pm onwards.

Phone 01-274 3951 for details.

BRICK LANE

SATURDAY 4 SEPTEMBER

RALLY AND MARCH THROUGH

EAST LONDON

Tell the fascists where to go!

Assemble 10am, Itchy Park (junction of Brick Lane/Whitechapel High Street, E1)

BRIGHTON

WAR

GET YOUR

Workers

T-SHIRTS

€2 plus

MAI

AGAI

RACI

WORKERS

MARCH

AGAINST

RACISM

Conference Centre, on the seafront Join the demonstration!

JOIN US!

JOIN THE MARCH

by return of post March Against Racism (Yellow or white, all sizes, 30p postage) BADGES (20p each plus 15p postage, Box 22, 136 Kingsland High (10 for 75p, £6 per 100) Street, London E8 or phone 01-274 3951.

Write to WAR,

SEND A CONTINGENT FROM YOUR

WORKPLACE, UNION OR

We've got miners coming from Yorkshire,

ORGANISATION

steel workers from Sheffield, car workers from British Leyland, building workers from Brixton, health workers, dole workers you name it, they're all coming on the march.

So is the Bangladesh Welfare Association, and many more black and anti-racist organisations.

Don't be left out. Make sure your organisrepresented. Bring your banners to Brick Lane, 10am, Saturday 4 September.

ation is WEDNESDAY 8 SEPTEMBER 12am onwards

MASS RALLY AND DEMONSTRATION

OUTSIDE TRADES UNION CONGRESS

Shaukat Darr and his family will be there, demanding the TUC backs his fight against deportation. The Heathfields strikers will be there too, demanding solidarity for black workers on strike. Add your voices to theirs.

IT'S STILL NOT TOO LATE TO

Send us £30 (or £15 for week-end only marchers) and we'll send you full details