The Next Step: No. 43, January 1984

next step Striking No 43 January 1984

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5. review of the Revolutionary Communist Party back

AMBRIÜGESHIRE ESSE;

20p

MIP•E

1983: the oldorder crumbles p12-15

the 4 Trela ne Irish Freedom Movement in Liverpool Trade union solidarity The myth of sectarianism Fighting British terror 7 Labour movement Nalgo residential social workers - rebuilding the union

KEEP THEM BOTH FLYING!

struggle in the twenties, holocaust of 1939 to 1945.

the welfare state. SPEED IS Vital! Order your copy now! Patriotic war poster 2 the next step, January 1984 next step No. 43 January 1984 monthly review of the Revolutionary Communist Party Publisher Junius Publications Ltd, BCM JPLTD, London WC1N 3XX.

Printer Morning Litho Printers Ltd (TU), 439 North Woolwich Road, London E16.

Typesetting and design Junius Publications Ltd (TU).

Subscription rates (for 12 months) Britain and Ireland £5, Europe £8.50 Middle East and North Africa £10 America, Asia and Southern Africa £12 Australasia £13 All cheques payable to Junius Publications. Circulation 01-274 3951 Correspondence to The Editor, the next step, BCM JPLTD, London WC1N 3XX ISSN 0144-350 X January 1984 Middle East and Central necessity for communism. 8 The Revolton try Comune The Revolutionary Communist Party met in conference last month to assess advances and debate future strategy.

Here, we talk to some new RCP members about their work with the party, and to the new General Secretary about making the party work.

FIGHT BACK WITH

THE PARTY OF

THE FUTURE

ROP

10 Wenure The nurseries we need Glasgow women fight for jobs Slump socialism The Depression, the war and the working class The last world recession ended in the Second World War. All the signs are that today's economic crisis is heading for the Third.

Slump socialism is a collection of articles from the next step on the class thirties and forties. It shows how the failure of the labour movement to challenge British militarism and British imperialism led the working class to defeat in factories at home as well as on battlefields abroad.

At a time when Joan Ruddock is proclaiming CND's 'patriotism', Slump socialism is a timely warning of how patriotic sentiments led workers into the The pamphlet also surveys developments in the Labour Party, the Communist Party and the trade unions, and the formation of Send 50p + 20p p&p to Junius Publications Ltd, BCNi JPLTD, London WC1N 3XX 12 Hunger and war Pope John Paul II was right when he said that 1983 marked a 'transition from the "postwar" to a new "prewar" stage'. Famine went hand in hand with rebellion in the Third World. Debt became the commercial Exocet, softening up the backward capitalist world for more imperialist plunder. The USA and its allies fell out on every issue from the high rate of the dollar to America throwing its weight around in the America. Meanwhile, the world wondered whether Andropov was dead or alive as the Soviet economy lurched towards a halt. We look at the break-up of the old order and show the urgent 16 British induses in 1283 British industrial decline acelerated in 1983 but the ruling class still came out on top. In this survey we look at how the Tories failed to manage the economy but managed to go on the offensive against women, blacks and the working class. We weigh up the balance of class forces and show how the working class can tip the scales in its favour in 1984. 21 Reviews Soviet foreign policy Working class hooligans Sri Lanka: divide and rule Sporting politics Ethiopia: the unknown revolution Prison protests 23 Activities Patriotic anti-war proteste

The unions and the law n the last three months of 1983 employers launched a flurry of iniunctions to block workers - industrial action. In the cases of Shell vs TGWU, Robert Maxwell vs Sogat '82, David Dimbleby vs NUJ, and Mercury vs POEU, recourse to the courts led to setbacks for the workers involved. The most significant conflict of recent weeks has been between Stockport Messenger proprietor Eddie Shah and the print the Graphical union, National Association. The Shah vs NGA dispute, which led to a broader confrontation between the official labour movement and the legislature, signals a new offensive by employers and the Government against the labour movement.

The outcome of the Stockport Messenger dispute, and of the conflict between the TUC and the state, was a hands down victory for Eddie Shah and Margaret Thatcher. The whole episode illustrates how the employers and their political representatives have adjusted to the world of recession, and the new balance of class forces brought about by mass unemployment much better than the unions. Ten years ago the antiunion legislation of a Tory government was defeated by trade union militancy.

Edward Heath's government finally collapsed in the midst of a miners' strike.

Today the Tories are much more confident and the unions are much weaker. The Tories have almost five years of successes against the unions under their belts, a series of increasingly draconian anti-union laws on the statute book, and a landslide election victory only six months behind them. The unions can only report declining membership, setback after setback on the jobs and wages fronts, and the humiliation of their party at the polls.

the Tory In the early seventies government stood aloof from the courts and the judges vigorously asserted their impartiality. Today the links connecting Tory Lord Chancellor Hailsham, Master of the Rolls Sir John Donaldson, the newspaper publishers and the employers' organisations are much closer and much The ruling class is less concerned to disguise its use of the law as a weapon against the working class.

In 1984 it is vital that we break out of the defensive and defeatist response of the leadership of the labour movement to the employers' legal attacks. To defeat class laws it is necessary to take class action, to mobilise workers against the employers, mel courts and welr government. The roles of the NGA and TUC leaders in the Stockport Messenger dispute indicate that we must also go on the offensive against the obsolete structures and politics that at present hold the trade unions back.

hah set up the printing operation S for his weekly free newspaper in Warrington early in 1983 with the intention of destroying the closed shop arrangements customary in the industry. When members of the NGA went on strike to enforce a closed shop he sacked eight union members. When the NGA sought sympathetic action from journalists, Shah went to the courts to block it. When NGA pickets surrounded the Warrington plant Shah again got an When pickets defied the injunction. injunction and massed outside the plant to prevent delivery of the Stockport Messenger, paramilitary riot police sealed off the area and stormed the crowd. Shah returned to court and the judges began sequestrating NGA funds for contempt of court. Its assets frozen and some £750 000 down, the NGA then sought TUC backing for a national strike to outface Shah and the courts.

Shah's action against the NGA was a direct attack on the rights of workers to organise in defence of jobs, wages and conditions. Supporters of the next step in the North West joined the Warrington picket lines at an early stage in the dispute. They were joined on the mass moke frothe end of the emberty Rap more from around the country.

trade union activists gave full backing to solidarity action with the NGA. However, the NGA itself was not fighting to defend working class rights as a matter of principle. It was preoccupied with safeguarding the interests of the union bureaucracy The NGA symbolises much of what is rotten in the British trade union movement. It is permeated by a narrow sectionalism and, behind an appearance of militancy, a profound subservience to the employers. The object of craft unions such as the NGA has always been to protect their members interests against the employers, but also against olner sections of the working class.

attitudes are not confined to history.

Writing in the December issue of Print, the NGA's official journal, general secretary-elect Tony Dubbins asserts the sectional response of the NGA to the introduction of new technology: 'The term "craftsman" commands a certain states in the industry, and in the eyes of NGA members sets them aside and apart from other non-craft people. closed shop throughout Fleet Street and in other areas of the industry has always been used as much against other workers as against the bosses. It creates a Catch 22: you can't get a job unless you're on the NGA list, but you can't become an NA member until you get a skilled print job. Traditionally the only way in is through apprenticeship backdoor methods which have ensured that women and blacks, not to mention unskilled workers, are kept out of the print'. The Dubbins article in Print is also due to appear in the employers' 1984 Newspaper Publishers Entitled 'Cooperation. the key to a formula for our future, it outlines the NA's continuing collaboration with management in the introduction of new technology into printing at the expense of workers jobs (through voluntary redundancy) and conditions (through "flexibility'). The NGA leaders have long pleaded for a consultative role in bringing in the single key' computerised process that removes most of the NGA's traditional typesetting Dubbins' central concern is not that print workers are under attack, but that the bosses are trying to ride roughshod over the bureaucrats The atmosphere currently being generated by statements in the national press on the basis of "we intend to have single keying even if it means doing away with the NGA" is most unhelpful in assisting the national leadership of the trades unions to play a positive role, and is creating a "siege mentality" in some quarters of our membership.' In union which has long fought for its exclusive interests, the bureaucrats are now fighting to save their own skins.

The NA's 100 000 members are now.

gravely threatened by new technology.

hext step pushing expanding freesheet sector pioneering new technology post-entry These his side, welcomed the courts. Handbook. functions. all-out strike calls. Murray has Only cut-throat competition among the barons of Fleet Street holds them back from an all-out assault on the union's 7000 members on the national press. The provincial newspaper publishers ahead with 'Operation Breakthrough' which aims to promote single keying at drastic cost to their 14 000 NGA members' jobs. The most immediate threat comes from the rapidly which includes Eddie Shah and his Stockport Messenger. The freesheets are well on their way to seizing a full 50 per cent of the provincial newspapers advertising revenue. Although the freesheets only employ 3000-4000 workers they are - and non-union operations in printing. Many, like Shah, will not even tolerate the closed shop customary throughout British industry. When Shah victimised his NGA members, the NGA leaders chose the Stockport Messenger as an issue on which to take a stand. But whereas Shah asserted his identification with the capitalist class by enlisting the courts and the Tory anti-union laws on the NGA displayed no correspondingly class conscious approach.

hroughout the dispute the NGA leaders insisted that their aim was not to beat Shah or defy the courts, but simply to ensure a negotiated solution at Warrington. They intervention of the government arbitration body Acas. The NA took on a dispute against an employer of the eighties to safeguard the agreements and procedures of the sixties and seventies. The NGA had no intention of broadening the Warrington dispute into a real fight to defend jobs or trade union rights. It wanted to make a gesture to the printing industry that the NGA was no pushover. It ended up merely exposing the fact that it was living in the past. The extension of the dispute on to the national stage revealed that the entire official labour movement was looking backwards in a situation that demanded an aggressive assertion of working class interests against the employers and the The NA's declaration of a 24-hour national print strike two weeks before Christmas to increase the pressure on Shah won the support of an influential section of the trade union bureaucracy.

At a key meeting of a top TUC subcommittee two days before the strike, the NGA got the backing of the TGWU, a equally group of smaller unions including Ken Gill's Tass and Clive Jenkins' Astms, and of Nupe and the NUM, to win majority approval. None of the union leaders seriously considered leading industrial action in support of the print workers.

Moss Evans for the TGWU made it clear the process." that what he had in mind was a gesture of support for the NA, not pulling the If workers dockers out. Clive Jenkins wanted the TUC simply to declare its sympathy.

The NA's Joe Wade was well known to be less than enthusiastic about his The left-wing union leaders, like the NGA bureaucrats, wanted to show their members that they were prepared to defend trade union rights. But, at the same time, they had no intention of taking on a fight with the Government.

Having made their gesture they needed somebody to get them off the hook. Len been hailed by the establishment for his statesmanlike demeanour in recent months. He further improved his standing with the media over his personal intervention to swing a specially convened TUC General Council meeting to call off the NGA strike hours before it was due to start. Murray was derided in the left press like a pantomime villain for his betrayal. But this was all part of the plot. He ought to have been congratulated for rescuing the NGA and the left bureaucrats from an exposed position. They would have been more discomfited if they had been obliged to go through with a strike which they did not want and which their limited objectives would have destined to ignominious defeat. In the event, Murray saved the day for the bureaucracy.

When Eddie Shah raised the stakes at the Stockport Messenger, the only appropriate response was to raise them further, to say that the working class should openly defy an anti-working class law and mobilise the forces necessary to reinstate the Warrington workers. But Murray proclaimed the rule of law sacrosanct and there was not one voice on the general staff of the labour movement to contradict him. For the Labour Party, Neil Kinnock and John Smith (who?)

echoed the TU's deference to the law that destroys a century of hard-won trade union rights. And the left proclaimed its irrelevance by holding its peace.

Arthur Scargill and Eric Heffer waited until the NA action was over before making speeches in support of it. The rest of the left endorsed the narrow strategy of the NGA and the TUC left and indulged itself in nostalgic memories of the great strike wave of the seventies. But the Stockport Six live in a different epoch than the Pentonville Five. Today the defence of workers' rights demands a systematic challenge to the fatal moderation of the entire labour bureaucracy.

n 1984 the labour movement must get up to date with bosses like Shah. The NGA leaders could have learned some useful lessons in their dealings with this new wave employer had they the wit or the class instinct to appreciate them. 'Every time we get to the winning post he moves it' exclaimed an irate Tony Dubbins at the height of the dispute. This is how workers should conduct their negotiations, always forcing the employers to their limit and beyond it. But the bureaucrats are so imbued with the spirit of compromise that they can only plead with the bosses to play fair as they put the boot in. Retiring NGA general secretary Joe Wade was outraged at Shah's unsportsmanlike behaviour: *Every time the NGA declared peace, Mr Shah declared war and all the NA's efforts to find a peaceful solution have been thwarted by Mr Shah who is evidently determined not only to win the dispute, but to destroy the NGA in give the employers the slightest breathing space they will exploit it to the utmost. The employers fight for victory. Only incorrigible losers and British trade union bureaucrats fight for pea ful solutions. The class struggle is a harsh teacher. It should have taught the leaders of the official labour movement that if you don't fight to win you can be certain that you won't win. It should have taught them that today, if you fight to secure reasonable agreements and decent compromises you will get smashed. The lesson of the NGA dispute for active workers in 1984 is that if you want to win you have to go all out for victory. To break our chains, we must be prepared to break their laws.

the next step, January 1984 3

Ireland *The British government is responsible for what the RUC, the no-jury courts their paid perjurers have done to my son That was Teresa Moore's angry response to her son Pearce's 20 month imprisonment in Belfast's Crumlin Road jail on the word of a supergrass. It summed up the theme of the Irish Freedom Move- November northern regional ment's *Fighting on

CORECICECC

Freedom'. More than crammed into students' union to debate the way forward for the campaign against terror. IN THE WEEK before the Liverpool conference, Pearce Moore had been released after Lord Justice Gibson threw out the evidence offered against him by grass Jackie Grimley. Teresa and Patsy Moore from Derry's Citizens Against the Show Trials campaign opened the Irish Freedom Movement relating Pearce's story. Pearce was picked up by the RUC and accused of membership of the INLA and taking part in a military salute at the funeral of a hunger striker During his 20 month detention, Pearce was offered a new life in Hawaii if he would turn supergrass.

RUC

told his mother, could go free if she admitted membership of a proscribed organisation. She refused.

As the trial approached, became desperate for Pearce to make a deal. It was obvious that petty criminal and psychiatric patient testimony, a tissue of lies concocted with the RUC, made unconvincing evidence against Pearce and 17 other nationalists.

Cats and rats Patsy Teresa told the conference that 'INLA informer' Grimley had lied his way into the British Army on three occasions, and then lied his way out of it again each time. Grimley pretended to be in Sinn Fein and the IRA before imagining he was an INLA member.

Grimley's evidence to the court was interspersed with how he shot a cat which interfered with his Sunday dinner. He finally blew the gaff when he admitted the RUC had given him names to which he added spurious crimes. Grimley implicated the Special Branch men who had paid him and allowed him to commit robberies in return tor his Teresa Moore told the conference how the police ran out of that court like rats' as Grimley exposed the corruption and lies of the show trials. Teresa and Patsy explained that seven supergrasses had now evidence and the use of paid perjurers to convict nationalists was under strain. But five of the six men cleared with Pearce were still in custody on the word of other supergrasses. More than 200 people were still locked up awaiting show trials. And even those freed could not relax. Patsy pointed to the case of Seamus Grew, released in late 1982 after a supergrass - retraction and shot dead within weeks!

an RUC execution squad. Expressing nis fears for Pearce, Patsy Moore drew out the constant struggle against British rule which is daily life for the nationalist community of the Six Counties: If you beat them one way they will try and get you another way. After the Moores received a rousing ovation, Bootle Labour MP Allan Roberts arrived to give his views on the way to oppose the Prevention of Terrorism Act and campaign for Irish unity. Allan 4 the next step, January 1984 Liverpool conference pulls 300 and the discussion approach bore for Irish violation 300 people COme Liverpool Polytechnic Irish War. British legal armed struggle direction' of SueC speakers observed by conference by a the British state. He refused. The Teresa, Pearce the police Grimley's initiatives and Liverpool confront the Counties. Six a practical foundation. bizarre anecdotes of it. activists discussed a perjurer. noted the good propaganda war union branches,

CND

retracted their groups, work in Irish Freedom memoration march. Scotland and Wales. Roberts tried to distance himself from the Labour Party's record on Ireland and present himself as an advocate of troops out'. But, as a number of contributors to Roberts' pointed out, all the hallmarks of Labour's pro-imperialist traditions.

Robert's opposition to the Prevention of Terrorism Act emphasised the Act's of civil liberties and played the issue of the PTA's use in the He identified the barrier to British withdrawal as the 'Loyalist veto' rather than the vital interests of British imperialism. He opposed the republican counter productive. Roberts' theme was that, after a 'shift in policy, the government British state could become the vehicle for uniting Ireland. Irish Freedom Movement that the treatment meted out to Pearce Moore was a better indication of what any British solution would mean in Ireland. Whether pursued Tory or Labour government, would depend on crushing all nationalist For the Irish Freedom Movement, the struggle to win Irish unity and independence was a struggle to defeat Practical problems The conference's afternoon workshops discussed the practical problems involved in campaigning around Ireland. The workshop on fighting the PTA assessed Liverpool IFM's campaign to make Merseyside *a PTA-free zone and the local work done The in opposition to PTA detentions.

workshop developed into a frank debate around the IFM's strategy - which puts the war at the centre of our anti-PTA concentrates on winning support from the organised working class.

IFM speakers explained that we stress our support for anti-imperialist violence to chauvinist consensus Britain which backs the ruling class in the We explained that our orientation towards the working class has No other section of British society has either an interest in opposing the state or the strength to fight In a workshop on Yorkshire Irish Freedom Movement's recent trade union delegation to Ireland, labour movement their experiences of trying to win working class support for the cause of Irish freedom. The conference made of IFM

MUSC

our handbook, An antiimperialists guide and video, The longest to raise the issue of Ireland in Labour Party meetings, students' unions, youth clubs and on the streets. We discussed our support of Irish political prisoners like Gerry McLaughlin, whose October release from Maidstone prison we marked with a mass early morning picket, and made plans to support the Christmas Eve picket of Wormwood Scrubs. The day after the conference the Movement was back in action on the Manchester Martyrs com- The Liverpool conference illustrated our success in building the Irish Freedom Movement in the north. But we have yet to establish the campaign on as secure a foundation in other parts of England, Several supporters who attended the conference went home to set up local IFM groups.

We want others who agree with our campaigning approach to consider doing the same and to get involved in building this month's Bloody Sunday march in Sheffield.

Offietal organ of the Republicar lovemen 'YOU ARE entering a war zone. Watch your step'. With that cheery farewell, the Special Branch saw off the Cairnryan Freedom Movement's union delegation to the Six Counties of Ireland. The delegation of 13 included members of the AUEW, ACTTS, NUT,

TGWU

Ucatt. and stopped, searched and interrogated before boarding the ferry. Dave branch secretary shocked by his first encounter with the British state terror which visitors to Ireland: *I didn't know whether I was in Britain or South America.

Our first stop was in Belfast, where we talked to Irish trade unionists and republican activists about the poverty and repression over which Britain presides in Our 'walkabout' the city. nationalist Falls Road with Belfast Sinn Fein organiser Joe Austin was tracked by an army helicopter which hovered directly above us, stopping when we stopped to talk to people and following again when we moved on. We spent Saturday evening in Belfast at the Felons' Club, where only those who have done time for their republican activities can be members.

When the delegation Derry, the troops were nowhere to be seen. But the massive fortresses and armed police reminded us that we were still in occupied Ireland.

Loyal unions In both Derry and Belfast the nationalist workers we met condemned the Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade the umons, movement in the Six Counties: Apart from the horror of the war, my most outis of the standing memory trade unionists' anger at the role of the Northern Ireland Committee in supporting the British occupation, Richardson of Middlesborough Council. Nationalist trade unionists explained how the Loyalist-dominated unions pose as the only 'non-sectarian' force in the Six Counties. act as extensions of the Loyalist Orange ensuring that Protestants have Lodges, privileged access to the few jobs left.

Where can working class from, asked one trade unionist we spoke to, 'while British rule makes one group

HERCANET

War zone walkabout: Belfast Sinn Fein organiser Joe Austin with IFM delegates Union solidarity at the Scottish port of Yorkshire Irish November trade of Ireland. The Counties. We were

AUEW

Bradford Simpson was confronts Counties. The Northern down the for rights Counties. showed the video The moved on to which patrol Belfast cussion prospects official labour have plenty of fighting republican Malvinas. Tom said Trades But in reality, the unions Irish The with one from North unity come

E TROYIGONAL CONDI

TO THE PEOPLL OF A LAND

of workers join with their bosses to keep out another group of workers?'. It was clear that the working class could only be united once Britain had been kicked out Ireland Committee Northern supports British law and order in the Six Derry

TGWU

and Trades Council member Paddy Logue expressed the unique character of the pro-imperialist union leaders in the North The NIC says there is "no ambiguity" in its support for the Royal Ulster Constabulary. In any country there's always an ambiguity in the relationship between the labour movement Six and me ponce toice, but now in the Ireland Committee has formulated British TUC's policy on Ireland -the Better Life For All Campaign' - which looks to Britain to provide jobs, housing and civil the Six the population of British solidarity At the end of our stay in Derry we Irish Freedom Movement longest War of young people. We explained to them how we use the video to open up dison Ireland within the British working class, to win labour movement support for the Irish liberation struggle.

Several of them were dubious about our of success. Our unions have accepted the pro-British view of the Six Counties presented to them by labour movement leaders in the North. Delegates like Tom Richardson of Middlesborough of first-hand ex DerIenCE British labour bureaucrats' support for imperialism in Ireland and the Along with Irish Freedom Movement supporters in British unions, Tom will be using the experiences of the delegation to win support for the Irish people: It is up to trade unionists who want to see Ireland free from British domination to prove those young men from Derry wrong'. Solidarity delegations can play a part in building that support.

Freedom Movement will be organising other trips this year, beginning West England in February. But the real work begins when the delegates get home and start arguing the case for Irish freedom.

Mad dogs'and Englishmen Blood on a church floor in Ireland makes good propaganda in Britain.

last November of three Protestant church elders in the Mountain Darkley, County Armagh by the 'Catholic Reaction Force was greeted universally as confirmation of British claims that the Irish War is a sectarian conflict between religious fanatics. stabulary linked Irish National Liberation Army commander Dominic McGlinchey with the "Catholic Reaction Force'.

RUC condemned 'Mad dog' McGlinchey as a 'blood-crazed psychopath who revels in shooting defenceless men, women and But an examination of the 12 children. months leading up to such shootings as the exception which proves the rule. mad sectarian gunmen is a 14 year old myth which disguises Britain's war against community Counties. APART FROM THE deaths at Darkley, 69 people died in the Irish War in 1983 (up to, the third week in The armed forces of the British Army, Ulster Defence Regiment Ulster Constabulary killed eleven.

more died at the handsof Loyalist paramilitaries. The forces of the Irish Republican Army and the Irish National Liberation accounted for Army Let's take a closer look at who killed whom in 1983 to get at the truth behind press hysteria about Irish murderers.

British terror Britain presents its troops and their local allies in Ireland as impartial peace keepers holding the line between factions. Yet of the 11 people the 'peace keepers' shot dead last year, 10 were Five republican Volunteers of Catholics. and INLA executed by the forces of the Crown.

British soldiers killed INLA Niall McGonagle in Derry last February.

The RUC killed McGonagle's comrades Brendan Covery and Gerard Mallen after August shoot-out in an County Tyrone. In December, the undercover assassins of the Special Air Services ambushed and killed IRA men Colm McGirr and Brian Campbell in their home town of Coalisland, County Tyrone.

As well as gunning down republican Volunteers, the army, UDR and RUC shot and killed five Catholic nationalists who had no connection with the armed struggle. Two of them were executed on the spot while allegedly running away from the scene of petty other three were murdered for the crime of being out on the streets in the nationalist areas where they lived.

July, 18 year old Martin Malone was shot at point blank range by a UDR patrol harassing a group of nationalist youth in Armagh. Ten days later, a British soldier shot dead Thomas Reilly as he tried to collect his dole in North Belfast.

November, 80 year was killed when an RUC squad fired indiscriminately into a crowded post office while supposedly chasing 'masked raiders in Pomeroy, County Tyrone.

The murder exposes the lie of British 'peace keeping'.

In 1983 as in each of the last 14 years, the security forces fought a ruthless war of occupation in the Six Counties.

single purpose was to crush nationalist resistance to British rule.

Loyal cohorts The one Protestant killed by the security forces last year was a member of the paramilitary Loy ans l Force. The UVF usually enjoys cordial relations with the army and police.

UVF member shot by the army last year was probably mistaken for a republican as The killing Lodge chapel, The Royal Ulster Con- The Darkley reveals The British notion of in the Six December). and Royal Eight 50 deaths. shot dead paramilitaries. the warring nationalist community. were summarily Volunteer Dungannon, other sixties sparked as a can often horrific brutality.

The County crimes. Armagh. At the end of Craigavon. in his pockets. shot down in cold blood. On 28 old Bridget Foster fast delivery round. worker Adrian of innocent Catholics Belfast. Their were involved in the war.

sectarian thugs of Loyalism.

Ulster Volunteer The Joseph Craven: another Catholic victim of Loyalist death squads he drove through Belfast carrying a gun.

Another Loyalist - John Molloy was on 12 December, in what seemed an internal feud between Belfast For the rest of 1983 the Loyalist paramilitaries played their traditional role as auxiliaries in the security forces' campaign of attrition against the The Protestant Action Force, a UVF front, shot dead INLA Volunteer Joseph Craven in December as he walked to the dole office in Bawnmore on the outskirts of Belfast.

It is highly unusual for Loyalist paramilitaries to shoot republican activists: they usually murder Catholics at random.

The dead joined more 600 innocent Catholics slaughtered by Loyalists since the civil rights movement of the off the paramilitaries Loyalist ideology depicts every Catholic Loyalist murder gangs deal with this threat through random and Two of the Catholics killed by Loyalists in 1983 were battered to death. In April, John McConville was beaten to a pulp in Lurgan, On 25 November, 51 year old Daniel Rouse was attacked from behind with a hammer as he walked home past the Loyalist Gilpinstown estate in Rouse was beaten with such ferocity that he died with his hands still The other four dead were In March, 23 year old James Hogg was shot in Armagh.

In May, Loyalist gunmen killed Catholic milkman Trevor Close on his North Bel- Armagh council Carroll was killed in November within yards of his home.

On 12 December, Loyalists shot dead 18 year old Catholic Anthony Dawson next to a police station, in the nationalist Short Strand enclave within Protestant East None of these six Catholic men The fact that Adrian Carroll's brother Roddy had been murdered by the RUC in December 1982, was enough to make him a target for the The Protestant Action Force claimed responsibility for three of the killings and a series of brutal attacks throughout 1983.

Typical examples of the PAF's sectarian atrocities were the car bomb which crippled a 32 year old Catholic and his five year old son at Armagh's shopping centre in The myth of sectarianism March, and the April bomb attack on a Catholic family in Belfast in which a 25 year old man lost a leg. tainted image as an even-handed police force, the RUC moved in on the PAF at the end of November. action only underlined the security forces complicity in the Loyalists' murder campaign. The 13 PAF members arrested and four charged with the murder of Adrian Carroll all turned out to be serving members of the Ulster Defence Regiment.

The tradition of between the security forces murder gangs is only the most obvious link tying Loyalist pogroms to Britain's occupation of the Six Counties.

sectarian blow struck by the Loyalist killers is a bonus for British imperialism.

The war against Britain The republican military campaign 1983 stands in stark contrast to the indiscriminate rampages of the Loyalist gangs.

The republican phasised that their enemies are the agents of the British state, not Protestants.

IRA killed 44 people last year. Thirty six were members forces. The IRA's strategy of selective assassinations eliminated 18 members of the RUC and its Reserve, 11 from the UDR and seven British soldiers.

of the eight civilians killed by the IRA were associated with the war.

these could be claimed as victims of sectarian attacks. The first civilian death last year was that of Catholic county court judge William Doyle, shot by the IRA in January for his part in railroading republicans into jail. British soldier's wife when she got in the way of an attack on her August, Derry businessman William Young met his end when he attacked an IRA Volunteer searching his premises for a reported army spy post. month James Truckle was killed in an IRA car bomb attack at his home in Portadown soon after he retired as a long serving captain in the Regiment. In December, Official Unionist Party law and order spokesman Edgar Graham was assassinated by IRA men on his way to work at Belfast's Queen's University. Graham had been a staunch champion of the use of supergrasses and theshoot-to-kill policy against nationalists.

home in freedom against Protestant population. informers. lians. cumstances'. another republican The immediate Darkley To shore up its identity. bility for Darkley. But the police in the Six Counties. atrocities. cross-membership Armagh. and the Every the Catholic name indicates sectarian neighbouring Tyrone. of forces have always em- The of the occupying Five services. None of Loyalist oppression. Catholic In May, the IRA shot a perialism. the husband. In most sectarianism. the The following Ulster Defence Defence say the same. Ireland The other three civilians killed by the IRA last year were postman Alan Price (shot in February while delivering in Ballineak, County Fermanagh) James McCormack (shot at his Bangor, County Down - April and motor accessories dealer Sean McShane (killed in a Newry betting shop in October).

All of them were mistaken for neighbours or workmates who were members of the security forces. The 44 deaths at the IRA's hands last year resulted from its fight for Trish the British state, not from any sectarian campaign against the The same was true of the six people killed by the INLA in 1983.

Two of them were members of the security forces.

Two more were INLA members shot as The remaining two were civi- The media presented these last deaths as occurring in unexplained cir- But the civilians' close association with one of the shot INLA informers suggests that they executed as British agents.

Dogs of war The November events at Darkley can only be understood against this background of year of warfare between the forces of British oppression and the fighters for Irish freedom. responsibility for the killings The remans ooscure. IRA and INLA both readily claim responsibility for their acts of war and even issue public apologies in cases of mistaken Yet both have denied responsi The machine gun attack on the Pentecostalist worshippers is not the first time Catholics have killed innocent Protestants But such attacks are rare and always in retaliation for Loyalist The best known took place in 1976, when 10 Protestant workmen were ambushed and killed at Bessbrook, South It is less well known that tivE Catholics had been murdered by Loyalists in Armagh on the previous day. Similarly, Force - Reaction as its the Darkley churchgoers in response to the Protestant Action Force's two-year campaign of murder and maiming in the counties Armagh and -OI The death toll of 1983 demonstrates that the republican movement and the Loyalist paramilitaries cannot be equated.

Sectarianism in Ireland is not a religious dogma which afflicts both communities equally. It is a feature of British domination carried out through Loyalist proxies The Six Counties state which Britain has imposed on Ireland is based on systematic discrimination against Catholics and in favour of Protestants in jobs, housing and Institutionalised sectarianism is the British mechanism for maintaining allegiance and nationalist Britain has encouraged Loyalists to vent their anger the threatens community. which their special relationship with British im- As the leading opponent of British rule, the republican movement is consistent fighter against In a secret end of year interview with Tribune, Irish Sunday Dominic McGlinchey admitted responsibility for 30 killings and 200 bombings.

But he condemned sectarianism and said that the only civilian he had killed was a police informer. The 'peace keepers' of the Ulster Regiment who pose the Protestant Action Force to carve up inno cent Catholics would be hard pushed to The only mad dogs in Ireland are Englishmen and the rabid sectarians in the Loyalist death squads.

Mick Hume the next step, January 1984 5

End British terror! Ireland

WHEN

AN IRA bomb blasted Harrods on 17 December, the Special Branch used the Prevention of Terrorism Act to raid Irish communities in Glasgow. ingham, Manchester and London. Screaming headlines emphasised the threat Trish bombers posed to the Christmas revelries of decent British citizens. were warned to be on the lookout for suspicious Irishmen. The police had paved the way for this outburst of anti-Irish hysteria by picking up West Belfast labourer Tommy Quigley • 'in

CO CON

bombing London campaign. Scotland Yard and RUC squad snatched Tommy Quigley on 2 December and flew him to London, courtesy of the RAF. He was held under the PTA at Paddington Green police station. 'Terror alert as man is questioned howled the Daily Mirror.

Tommy Quigley was special PTA cells at Paddington Green.

Outside, the police encouraged the lynchmob atmosphere by prowling around the carrying pistols prison and darkly about the possibility of helicopter jailbreaks. When no helicopters appeared the North London press and police against the Irish Freedom Movement's protests at Tommy Quigley's detention.

Irish Freedom cut through the hysteria

UPS

NOMI

college. Order from BM IFM, London WCIN 3XX 6 the next step, January 1984 The IRA's Christmas bombing campaign was the pretext for a wave of arrests under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. The Irish Freedom Movement led the resistance to the media bigotry and police terror against the Irish community War fever Britain. In Birmdate us off the street. Londoners ugly while Irish horror with with the IRA's 1981 A joint Sir had labour held the organisations. in force. muttering side the jail. skyline, the over turned their venom tinue throughout 1984. Movement supporters surrounding front of the Irish War. Cict

JUL NOW

Show our latest video on Britain's war in Ireland in your trade union branch, youth club or It includes extensive footage of war torn Derry and Belfast, and interviews with republicans and British trade unionists on their experiences of fighting for Irish freedom throughout 14 years of British occupation. Invitations for speakers are welcomed.

urish Freedom Movement handbook A guide for people in Britain who want to end the war in Ireland. Includes a section on war facts, a chronology of the struggle and a way forward for the solidarity movement.

• Video: 35 mins VHS colour £5 to hire @Handbook: pp138 pbk £1.95 + 50p postage London we held nightly pickets which warmed up the December evenings outside Paddington Green.

On the first night the police tried to intimi- On the second picket the constabulary was joined by an collection of fascists and Loyalists waving 'Ulster' flags and placards. Meanthe gutter press seized upon the Freedom Movement's support for the liberation struggle. The Mail quoted Irish Freedom Movement organiser Phil Murphy's declaration that the bomb attack on Marines commander Stuart Pringle (with which Quigley been linked) was 'an act of war.

Despite the efforts of the British state and the baying hounds of Fleet Street, our pickets went ahead - supported by several Irish solidarity movement and When Tommy Quigley was charged with conspiracy to cause explo sions, we were outside Marylebone court And when he arrived at Briton Prison on remand we held a protest out- The Irish Freedom Movement is prepared for many more pickets the year ahead. Christmas may come but once a year, but Britain's campaign of terror against the Irish will con- So must the struggle against the PTA on the home IFM New video The longest war om lent

STER

Smash the PTA: Manchester FM demands the Moores' release ON SATURDAY 26 November, Teresa and Patsy Moore from Against the Show Trials addressed the Irish Freedom Movement's 300-strong Liverpool major theme of the conference was how to fight the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Two days later, the conference supporters had a chance to put their discussions into action when the Moores were picked up under the PTA on their way home through Manchester Airport. Freedom Movement spent a day lobbying Liverpool MPs opposed to the Act and picketing Manchester police stations, the Moores were hurriedly shunted back to the Six Counties.

not before they had suffered the harass.

ment reserved for those detained under the PTA. The Special Branch picked up Teresa and Patsy as they tried to board the 4pm flight from Manchester on 28 November.

Teresa was told she had no right to a phone call as she had not been arrested, merely 'detained' without charge under the PTA. When Teresa refused to give her date of birth, charges under the section of the Act which removes the detainee's right to silence and makes it an offence not to divulge information. Both Patsy were interrogated about what had gone on at Liverpool, who they had stayed with in Manchester and who had taken them to the airport. graphed, had their fingerprints taken and the underside of their fingernails searched (for concealed explosives).

hours of this, the Moores were driven off to Manchester's Central Detention Centre for the night. Once incarcerated in the cells, Patsy was questioned again. to admit collecting money for the IRA his mattress and bedclothes were removed Forty nine year old Patsy suffer on the floor for the night.

another cell Teresa was subjected to similar maltreatment. have tablets prescribed by her let her doctor. HE

MOORES

SMASH

PREENION CF

TENORISM

MACT //

Conference speakers held Derry's Citizens campaign wind got conference. free zone for support. tested to the Home Manchester police After the Irish about the released and But Moore's Despite police station. she was threatened with Teresa and had enough. They were photo- After four across the Irish Sea. within the When he refused Our approach was left to In police really The screws refused to panicked the

PTA.

• THE

• MOORE RICH

Fo IR-

FRE

As soon as Irish Freedom Movement supporters in Manchester and Liverpool of the Moores arrest, we launched a campaign for their release We contacted Labour MPs who had backed our campaign to make Merseyside a PTA- Bootle MP Allan Roberts, who shared a platform with the Moores at our Liverpool conference, pro- Office and the Eric Heffer (Walton) Bob Parry (Riverside) and Bob Wavering (West Derby) all got on to Whitehall Moores' detention. Irish Freedom Movement supporters in Manchester took the fight for Patsy and Teresa the freedom on to streets. from the MPs and pressure solicitors, the police refused to say where the Moores were being held. At lunchtime on Tuesday 29 November, our Manchester activists went into action anyway.

We held a 30-strong picket of Bootle Street By Tuesday evening, we had discovered the Moores were in the Crown Square detention centre.

At six o'clock we launched a second picket outside the centre, this time of more than 40 people including supporters of Sinn Fein, the Labour Party and local trade unionists.

By five past six the Special Branch had They sneaked Patsy and Teresa out of a back entrance, whisked them away to Manchester Airport and shipped them home to the Six Counties.

The Moores' case was typical of the way the PTA is used to terrorise Irish people resident in Britain or travelling It is an attempt to intimidate them to keep silent on Britain's role in Ireland and thus isolate the war Six Counties The : Trish Freedom Movement opposes the PTA as a vital part of raising opposition to Britain's war in Ireland within the working class.

work As can Teresa Moore told us after her release, 'the campaign was definitely effective and the panicked. In 1983 police. In 1984, with growing support, we are out to smash the

Now let's change the union The residential social workers dispute was approaching a messy end before Christmas after three months of industrial action.

The acceptance of the shabby compromise of an 'independent' inquiry by the Nalgo leadership shows forming the union into a body that fights for the workers, instead concessions to the employers. Hackney Nalgo militant Mike Hope reviews the strike and its consequences.

RESIDENTIAL SOCIAL WORKERS are employed by local councils to run homes for children, old people and the mentally and physically handicapped. They have social services staff. They took industrial action to win a 35 hour week and better pay working About 25 000 residential workers are organised in Nalgo, but until the dispute began the majority had little contact with the Nalgo machine. This is partly because they work in small, isolated workplaces, but mainly because Nalgo has paid little heed to their interests. So why did Nalgo finally accede to demands for industrial action in September? The Nalgo leadership considerable pressure from the residential But self interest was the main

WOT

driving force behind its decision to give official backing to a ban on overtime and new admissions to homes on 12 September. Nalgo is widely regarded asa Town Hall union for Town Hall staff - it has no residential workers on its national executive vigorous pursuit of the interests of senior grade local government officers reflects the composition of the committee. Of the 47 local government lay members on the executive, six have chief officer status, and all but 11 of the remainder hold senior and higher management jobs. All but nine come from occupations closely associated with the management functions of the Town Hall.

The divisions in a union that contains both management and thrown into sharp relief during the course of the three month long dispute.

The Nalgo headquarters at Mabledon Place all has the trappings Britain's largest white collar trade union.

Yet the Nalgo bureaucracy is weak and ineffectual. Nalgo fears that it is losing out to rival unions in local government.

To have ignored the residential workers' claim might have provoked desertions from its ranks. Yet Nalgo is far too closely tied to the local government employers to lead effective industrial action against them. Leading from behind When is union in management, it is usual for it to break off all negotiations until the dispute is settled.

Not so for Nalgo. Throughout the dispute the negotiating machinery and so did the 1nTaC1 friendly relations with management. The bosses received cordial Nalgo President's reception half way through the dispute. The import- Nalgo officials attached residential workers claim on the 7 December national strike day.

The issue was the last item on the agenda at the National Joint Council talks in Belgrave Square. While Nalgo executive Brian Gabb offered the police member some friendly advice on how to control the demonstration outside inside it was sherry and quiche lorraine with the employers. Nalgo's strategy much responsibility as possible to the branches, yet keep control bureaucratic manoeuvring. At a national delegate conterence on 11 October, Nalgo officials rejected calls for an ali out strike the urgency of transof making other and conditions. was under local level. all-out strike 60-strong the militant committee. Nalgo's to give a lead officials The militants professional to push workers were Nalgo befitting persist with further responded dispute with papers face, days later. remained bureaucrats lead. invitations to Camden to the was indicated with Nalgo members, the talks, nationally to 'step up' was to devolve as through gesture. Christmas, in favour of selective action organised at a warned The bureaucrats militants that a national ballot for an would be carried because the more moderate sections of the membership would vote against it. At least with selective action, they argued, sections could keep the dispute going. The bureaucrats attempts to blame the more conservative members for the limited scope of the action were in reality an excuse for their own failure of strategy selective action was ineffective. It merely isolated and allowed both Tory and Labour councils to go on the offensive.

Councils took advantage of the dispute through reorganisations, sack militants, cut pay and worsen conditions.

Strathclyde regional council threatened to suspend the closed shop after the local branch threatened to kick scabs out of the union.Even if the vote is lost at the end of the day, it is always better to argue the case for all-out action than which is selective action ineffective and ultimately demoralising.

Nalgo's attempt to defuse militancy and keep control by putting the onus on local branches almost backfired. On the initiative of supporters of the next step, Hackney became the first area to impose a strict 8am to 3pm work rota and a ban on sleeping-in and weekend work from end of October. The bureaucrats by demanding a ballot. Hackney replied by threatening to throw the ballot papers in the bin.

No ballot sent. Not wanting to lose Nalgo gave official backing three Southwark and Lambeth, other branches soon followed Hackney's In early November, 2000 demonstrators invaded the London negotiations Town Hall, bringing the proceedings to a standstill. They followed this up with a two hour occupation of Nalgo headquarters. In angry exchanges and executive officials Hackney and workers from other branches barracked the bureaucrats for their failure to give a lead.

Terrified of losing control, the Nalgo bureaucrats changed their tactics. At the second national delegate conference on 17 November they again beat off calls for an all-out strike, but they agreed to ballot industrial action by imposing an 'office hours only regime.

The national ballot was the last cynical Desperate end the dispute the Nalgo leadership knew that its divisive tactics of the past Residential social workers

NALGO

P

YUP

Lobbying the bosses and bureaucrats: Hackney militants lead protests outside the Nalgo/ management talks two months made a 'no' vote almost certain. result announced December was an overwhelming majority against continuing industrial action.

In the closing stages of the dispute, the bureaucrats got together with the arbitration body Acas to work out a deal which be could not ever compromise. A joint inquiry into pay and hours is all that Nalgo workers have achieved after three months of action.

One Hackney worker argued that the final outcome could have been predicted from the start: 'As soon as you're talking about negotiations you're talking about compromise. There isn't a concept of negotiation without a concept of compromise. You make your claim and the boss either pays you or he doesn't. If he doesn't you go all-out." Labour sabotage Most residential workers recognise that their union was a major obstacle in the fight to win the dispute. An even bigger problem was left-talking Labour councils which used Tory tactics to smash it. To distinguish themselves from Tory councils began Labour authorities negotiations over local settlements. What was in reality an attempt to resolve the dispute in their own favour was presented in an anti-Tory wrapper. Communist Party supporters in Hackney and elsewhere argued strongly Labour's divisive strategy. stewards took the arguments to other branches which were deliberating about or not local deals were accepwhether This confusion table. influence of left organisations with some supporters among Socialist Workers' Party in vacillated between arguing for action and acceptance of local deals. The SWP's inability to argue decisively against local settlements was a measure of its lack of independence from left-wing Labour councillors. The Labour councils showed whose side they were really started threatening closures, suspensions and other disciplinary December Hackney council issued a letter to all residential workers informing them that by only working 8am to 3pm they were in breach of their Residential employment. Hackney responded to the threat to dock pay and commence with victimisations by voting for an indefinite strike. One the Hackney ot

RESUENTIAL

WORKERS

WANT PARITY

NOWI

nolgo 15 on "biggest joke around': deemed a Knight attempted to resolve by council the down with Nalgo. The residential urging a nead Revolutionary against Hackney ised closed reflected the isation. Nalgo activists. The between Lambeth all-out Second. represents workerslevels of the on when they action. On contract of in workers council's all-out strikers told the next step that Hackney council's claim to be a radical employer was the To me bosses are bosses, whether they're Tories or radical socialist councils. That means they're all bastards. I didn't expect this dispute to be easy, but then I didn't expect the level of hypocrisy that we've seen either.'

In Lambeth left-wing council leader Ted workers weaken closures and victimisations. On 6 December he copied Hackney and sent out a letter telling his employees to get back to normal working or have their pay docked and face suspension. In Southwark, the left-wing Labour police Instant called l Response Unit to smash up and close Hollies children's home complex. The police were kept on standby for 36 hours while the council 'negotiated' Changing Nalgo workers dispute has highlighted the conflict between workers' interests and the whole structure of Nago and its relationship with local councils.

Nalgo activists will have to tackle two key problems that the dispute has brought to First, we need to establish grassroots control over workplace organisation. This means enforcing 100 per cent trade union membership ourselves, instead of having a closed shop set up by council officials and union bureaucrats. The institutionalshop is an administrative convenience for the authorities, not an effective instrument of collective organdeals Ending the sweetheart Nalgo council also and the means breaking from all council-run campaigns against the cuts which invariably disguise attacks on jobs and services.

need union that not one that also includes the bosses. The vertical organisation of Nalgo which brings together all workforce from clerk to chief officer is a barrier to any militant industrial action. Nalgo is a union virtually run by management. If it is going to be of any use to workers we have to kick the bosses out of our union. Once we get the union in our hands, then we will be able to take on management - and win.

Public Meeting Friday 13 January 7.30pm Reclaiming our union Speakers from Hackney Nalgo, Roebuck Pub, 108a Tottenham Court Road W1 the next step, January 1984 7

The party of the future

RCP

Laura, Manchester When I found out that my brother in law, who's a sound bloke, was really bowled over by RCP politics, I thought I'd better find out what it was all about. So I went along to the Preparing for Power conference last summer. I agreed with the but I was worried about how arguments, it could all be done and how people could involved, get especially The women party's ideas on dealing with women's problems were the first things I remember talking my brother in law Housework and looking after kids struck me as the main thing that stops women getting into politics. So it's a really big problem for us to deal with.

I spend a lot of my time going round people who've bought the next step or heard about what we're doing and want to talk about our politics.

That's great because I get to meet all sorts of people with all sorts of experiences. But it also shows up the practical problems people have to overcome before they can get involved. I go to see women with a baby to feed and put to bed, and a parttime evening job to go to.

Or I might meet a man who works shifts and says he'd really like to know what the party's up to, but he's only around in the mornings. Obviously, they are going to have problems giving a lot of time to politics.

The way the party is changing to cope with this is to get more involved with what those people are already doing. If people are using the next step in their local cuts campaign or union or whatever, then they're helping build the party and win their own fight at the same time. And we give them all the help we can to do that. Last week I met a girl in Manchester who was trying to do something about getting a nursery at her college. So I got on a bus and went up there with her to get a meeting organised. I think it's really important that we respond to what's going on locally like that, to make sure everybody who supports the party gets the most out of our politics and we make the most of our supporters.

If we're involved in people's concerns like that, communism stops being just a nice idea that didn't work out in Russia.

That's how I thought of it at first, and other people 1 meet sometimes think the same. You get round this by showing them we're not a hangover from 1917 or a bunch of dreamers. We've got the ideas for the eighties. People are starting to see the sense of ideas in action from the RCP. 8 the next step, January 1984 RCP after conference Members gives us her views on the party's results and prospects.

Clive, North London If you try and sell the next step to black youth they tell you they're not interested in politics. But what they mean is they're not interested in what some bunch of councillors are doing on a police committee somewhere. Young blacks want to know what's happening in their street and what they can do about it. That's why I've found revolutionary politics have got a lot to offer West Indian youth. It's politics for action against racism, not just for some opportunist hustler to make a name for himself by telling the world how anti-racist he is at a public meeting.

I used to have some crazy ideas about setting up a non-capitalist black community somewhere. I didn't know anything about communism but I thought capitalism was something to do with whites.

Getting involved with the RCP made me look at things differently. I went down on to the picket line at Britains. Seeing white fighting alongside black strikers while the police attacked them all Joanne, Birmingham At first when I met someone from the party I thought communism was really mysterious, a bit 'naughty". Now it seems like common sense. I've always been interested Ireland because of my family connections, but I felt strongly about other things too. What I liked about the RCP was that it put a lot of things into words which I had always felt were right, but could never explain why.

I try to mix my work at college with what the party's doing. Raising RCP politics at college brings home to you how different they are. A lot of student politics is so boring, all bureaucracy and of the Revolutionary Communist Party from all over Britain met in London at the start of last month for their second national conference.

They adopted a new constitution, appointed a new General Secretary, and debated a new approach to turning the party outwards. But who are these people? And what do they do in the RCP? We talked to four people who became members shortly before the conference about how they got into the party, and what they get out of it. Opposite, our first General Secretary opened my eyes a bit to the way things work. As I got more into the politics I saw that you couldn't divorce racism from the system, you couldn't just go away and set up community independently because capitalism would still be there when you stepped outside.

You've got to change things, and that needs politics. beer. We make our politics imaginative, whether we're talking about Ireland or fighting the cuts. Last month we had 20 supporters delegated to the NUS conference; we held a fringe meeting with speakers from Ireland and made a real impact on a very dull event.

And we try and get students involved in our other work. We've just started a West Midlands NHS 'Right to Fight campaign against the health cuts. I didn't know a lot about this sort of thing but its really good to go to the hospitals and talk to the nurses and ancillary workers about what we're doing.

I think there's such a lot of scope for the party this year that I just want to get on with it. I want to learn a lot more about Marxism too. Of course I still like But I to go out to parties and unings.

don't do it as often because I've found out that a lot of what I used to do for fun' was just filling in time.

Now I've got a better sort of party to spend my time on. Les, Sheffield I was at this meeting where some radical lecturer was going on about the 'morality of capitalism'. I got really annoyed and had a go Anybody who has at mim. thought about knows there's no morality in capitalism, it's just us and them. So 1 blew up, I couldn't take all that mind-dulling talk. After the meeting I got talking to a girl from the RCP. She seemed to think the same way as me only a bit clearer. So I had a look at what the party was doing. The RCP and Workers Against Racism were always out on the streets Sheffield, selling papers and all that.

Local politics is usually about sitting in town halls, which is all wrong to me. I've been always keen on real politics. I started going to quite a few different meetings to make my own mind up. After about two years of reading the next step and going along to things I thought I've got to stop messing around and do something decisive'. So I decided to join. You couldn't do anything decisive by getting caught up with other parties. I thought the RCP was the only one that had any basis in reality, it hit the nail on the head.

The Labour Party has had Sheffield stitched up for years. They've foisted all sorts on to the working class around here.

I just couldn't swallow it. I'm never defensive when people ask me why we're against our 'socialist' council. I try and get people to question all the hot air about what Labour can do, but I think its the work we do ourselves that's really important for people to see what's right about the RC. It shows we're being effective when we hit a raw nerve about racism or unemployment and put the Labour Party under pressure. That's when people start asking the right questions about who's doing what. You've got to show people we can win. I just have a quiet chat with some one about anything that's going on in the world. If you've boned up a bit on a few things you can show people there's a different way of looking their problems and get them to take the time out to come to a meeting or whatever.

But I think the only way to get to grips with what needs to be done is to try out what we're saying by arguing it with You've got to get working class people. out and sell the paper. And you've got to be ready to question everything to make sure we're on the right track. That's what I did, and I'm sure we are.

New General Secretary At the KeP's nationa conterence in December, Kate Marshall was appointed as the first ever woman General Secretary of a revolutionary party.

She spoke to the next step about the job, the party and the year ahead. Why did the party choose this year's conference appoint its first General Secretary? The past year has seen dramatic changes in British politics - and important advances for the RCP. Over the last 12 months, really for the first time, we began to play a leading role in trade union action - in the NHS, the residential workers dispute, and in important strikes at Aire and at Britains in East London. We also Election and put down a useful marker The campaigns we sponsor Workers Against Racism - haveestablished themselves as the leading forces in Irish solidarity and anti-racist action in Britain.

While the rest of the British left has retreated around a disintegrating Labour Party, we've emerged as an independent Our growing experience of the class struggle is brought together in the pro- Preparing tor Power December adopted a new constitution based on the new programme and our aim to turn the party outwards in 1984.

are now in a position to make a more active response to events, to think bigger and really get out and build the party This is why the conference took the decision to appoint a General Secretary to build on our past gains and push the party into a more interventionist role in Already the growing response to the next step shows the potential resonance organise our working methods to bring them into line with our political develop-

RECREA

people who are open to RCP politics as fast and as fully as possible in party extend our range of experience of working class struggles and to spread the influence of revolutionary communist politics. The job of the General Secretary is to make What sort of practical changes are you The party is established nationally now in Glasgow, Cardiff and all the major English We're getting a lot of enquiries places about what the RCP is doing, and how others can get involved in all this. TIl We have to overhaul ouradministration use to organise our work or distribute our propaganda to people and so on belong to our national office. for the past few years is just too cramped to office and new technology to reorganise Obviously these changes are going to cost us a lot in terms of time and money. I'll try to motivate our supporters to help us meet the costs of making sure You've talked a lot about the differences you've noticed between the We're now a much bigger and more varied off there were only a few of us, all of about the same age and from similar back- Kate Marshall: phone call every minute, demo every weekend, the next step every month basic groundwork for the RCP's politics.

But it could only develop our analysis and strategy up to a point because we didn't have enough experience of real attract were small groups of individuals driving at on an intellectual level.

we are better able to offer the working class answers to the problems it comes up of the influx of new sorts A lot of people joined the party last of 17 and 18 year olds around us.

have more working class members and a higher proportion of women and blacks.

The greater variety of people with different backgrounds and jobs means we are in touch with a broader range of experiences, which helps us respond to outside events and key into what's new in much better social life these days.

have to encourage people to bring their experiences into the RCP even more as we turn the party outwards. Newer people often see tired old problems from a fresh expand our political committee to get What our new organisers lack in political experience they make up for in willingness to question everything, which propaganda. It is becoming much more responsive to current events. We have a and better all the time and a lot of pamphlets, books and supplements. Presnational party puts us under real pressure to come up with answers to a wider range of questions. We want to establish the next step as the paper workers use to organise their struggles around, whether its a strike or a campaign against war.

That means building up a dialogue with the working class through the paper. We want our supporters to see the next step as theirs, to write and tell us what they're doing and what they think we should do.

Keying into what's going on will also put us under greater pressure to distribute our propaganda better and more quickly to where it can have the most effect. The sciously selecting the issues we priorities in the paper and how we use porters to get more involved with the paper, using it to win arguments and influence events, selling it at work or to beyond the party's present connections.

You're the first woman General Secretary of a revolutionary party. What's the sig- It just shows that RCP politics can really fight for women's liberation. Just compare

THOVENCI

excluded from the leadership. Our party has always had a majority of women on through any false means like positive discrimination rules or any other sort of patronising liberalism. Our women leaders have won their place on merit, like everybody else. Its a good illustration of the point we've often made that women are not naturally withdrawn or docile. When we're training revolutionaries, everybody starts on an equal basis. Nobody has more than a partial understanding of politics and everybody is nervous. Confidence in your ability to win arguments After 1983 British politics will never be the same again.

election, but they have failed to stop the decay of British capitalism.

services and destroying workers remaining rights.

strategy, and no idea how to restore their links with the working class.

only realistic alternative for 1984.

RC Order your copy now! Send 30p + 20p p&p to

RCP

or lead struggles has nothing to do with sex. It comes as you understand RCP politics more fully and as you have to test their worth under the pressure of events.

So women can become just as good as men, just as quickly. In fact, I have a personal prejudice that women make the best revolutionaries, because they have a broader view of all aspects of life at home and at work. The RCP is making a real effort to get more women involved in our work. The conference appointed a new What do you see ahead for the party and the working class in 1984?

The party is set to grow very quickly now, I'm really convinced of that. As for the class struggle, I'm not a crystal ball gazer.

We don't just want to predict great events, If you want to find out more about the RCP and what we're doing in your area, ring Kate Marshall on 01-274 3951: write to her at BM RCP, London

PREPARING FOR

POWER

THE PROGRAMME OF THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNIST PARTY

no clear idea of how to revive their decadent system except by cutting jobs and election and has failed to provide any way of defending the working class against The leaders of the Labour Party and the unions have no coherent Our programme Preparing for Power begins from resistance to the Tory onslaught and points the way forward to a different sort of society. Never has the bankruptcy of the capitalist system and its repres- Never has the irrelevance of the Labour leadership The creation of a new party of the working class, committed to getting rid of the present system and establishing communism, is the Junius Publications, BCM JPLTD, London WC1N 3XX

Fighting to make it our union Women *IT IS A different employment climate now. It is no longer necessary to have a creche as an aid to recruitment'. This was Leeds hospital how Donnachie justified the closure He James' hospital nursery. reckon on the concerted opposition revolutionary communist women, parents and health workers, determined to fight this latest assault on women's rights.

In early November the district management team stated its intention to close the nursery on 23 December. Set up in the early seventies to attract staff at a time of labour shortage, the nursery was Leeds Eastern meant to cater for all Health Authority employees. fees have ensured that its main customers have been consultants' wives and administrative staff. The services provided by the nursery are inadequate. Nine nurses are employed to care for 63 children - 70 more are on the waiting list.

nursery does provide a vital service for nurses and ancillary workers, losing their jobs if the nursery is closed one working mother at the down. hospital told us: Closure of the nursery would mean a lot of hardship for us because I have to go out to I'd work to make ends meet. to give up my job and I just can't see how we could survive on my husband's wage alone. I've been to four or five council nurseries and they IT IS RARE these days for workers to win against cost-cutting bosses. It is more exceptional for workers to win without union backing. Yet 14 women cleaners at department store in

ANTOLS

recently beat their bosses despite union leaders' attempts fight. The women proved that even a small group of inexperienced workers can win if they take control of their own struggle. 7 On November the 14 women cleaners received a letter from management telling them that their jobs were to go by 3 December. The cleaners' work was to be contracted out to a private 10 the next step, January 1984 Women against the cuts all told me that I wouldn't be able to get my child in for at least six to nine months, and even then they couldn't guarantee a place Ian because I'm not a one-parent family and my of St child is not at risk of being battered.

did not On 18 November revolutionary communist women, Leeds women's group Leeds picketed the Authority to protest at the planned shutdown. We demanded 24-hour free nursery provision for all hospital workers and we argued against the schemes to save the nursery by making it self-financing. Labour MP Derek Fatchett and four Labour councillors on the health The high authority charges for full-time places from £25 to £35 week. commitment to keep the creche open at the expense of health workers jobs and wages, the health authority decided to But the suspend the January to consider the viability of a WhO TISK self-financing nursery. Some questioning the Labour Party's approach.

One worker told us that as soon as you start asking workers to make sacrifices to fight the cuts, the fight is lost: That idea is not satisfactory at all because

HAYE

if you start comparing and deciding which cut is better than the other where do you stop!

Next you'll be saying that to stop a children's company paying 40 per cent less wages.

The 14 women were being paid £1.80 an hour. The new contract cleaners were to get £1.10. The new arrangement was part Glasgow of the parent company House of Fraser's drive to reduce its wage bill. House of their Fraser, Britain's department store giant, owns Debenhams, Arnots and a host of other concerns. through a major restructuring and may be sold oft to employs a high percentage of women in badly paid jobs as sales assistants, cleaners and clerks. The traditionally docile union Usdaw with thirds of them women and many of them Do you want to • fight for women's liberation and against attacks on jobs, welfare benefits, nursery facilities and abortion rights? Then read Kate Marshall's analysis of women's oppression today and her strategy for winning real freedom.

Real freedom €1.95 plus postage (50p). Send cheques to Junius Publications BCM JP Ltd, London WCIN 3XX Polytechnic and hospital workers Eastern Health Labour Party's proposed an increase in the In response to Labour's closure. It reconvenes in workers at the hospital are Revolutionary ember, parents workforce. an

TOT

The company is going Lonrho. Fraser management dancies. 410 000 members, two dispute suspicions. organised noon, out union facilities, obstruction, women to stop their protests.

RCP supporters, for showdown with the

WOMEND

TO

WORK

Signing on for the right to work: Leeds revolutionary communist women ward being closed down, it's better to accept the closure of a geriatric ward instead.

union and and communist women health workers have begun to show that there is another way to fight the cuts. We have visited every hospital in Leeds, winning support for our demand for more and better nursery facilities. On 13 Decand health workers attended our public meeting to work out part-time - organises most of the Fraser The women's immediate response to the attack on their jobs was to prepare They set up an all-out strike. action committee to organise the fight.

As dues paying members of Usdaw the women expected full support from their union. They were soon disillusioned when one of the shop stewards was told by that the Usdaw district official Pat McCormack had been present at the meeting which agreed the redun- The union denied this emphatically, but its subsequent role in the only reinforced the women's How they won The women, who worked from 8am to protests outside the department store in their spare time.

They were soon joined by Revolutionary Communist Party supporters. Left withthe women made their own placards and collection tins, petitioned customers, and addressed the public. The women's militancy impressed the public, but not the union. When management began to complain about falling sales and the police threatened arrests for the union advised the Two weeks into the dispute, the union still refused to give official backing for an all-out strike. It was clear to everybody that unless the women took immediate action, their jobs would definitely be lost.

who had been taking part in the protests and raising support the cleaners in other workplaces, argued that the women had to force a bureaucrats. We worked out plans for a protest at the union's headquarters, should the officials has again refuse to defend the women's jobs.

The women gave the union an ultimatum.

WOTECT

They told Pat McCormack that with or without the union's support, the women would be out on strike the following morning and leaflets would be posted to to join. every workplace in Glasgow to request a plan of action. Many of them joined our picket of the health authority three days later, and are helping us to build trade public support for a mass picket of the health authority meeting on 20 January which will make a final decision on the closure. To keep the nursery open and to get more and better services requires uncomand, if necessary, strike action in every hospital in Leeds.

Jenny Morgan outside support. Within 15 minutes he arranged a meeting with management and shortly afterwards McCormack emerged with news that the redundancy notices would be withdrawn. Preparing for the future The outcome of the dispute was a victory for the women. But the women know that as soon as the Christmas and New Year sales period is over they can expect management to strike again. They are preparing themselves by involving other Fraser's workers in regular discussions to strengthen union organisation. They have drawn up a list of grievances, particularly concerning health and safety hazards in the store, to force the union to act. The women are also planning a fight for more cleaning staff to relieve some of the - the result of burden of their work chronic understaffing. The women at Arnots want to sort out their union too. The experience of the past month has made them determined to do away with the check-off system of deducting union dues. All the women said that they would prefer to see the union come down to the shop to get the money. This would provide the oppor tunity for regular discussions with officials and put them under pressure to take account of their members' interests. The women feel strongly about their position in the union as part-time workers. Under Usdaw's rules, part-timers are not entitled to the usual union benefits. Although their dues - at f1.48 a month - are not much lower than those paid by full-timers, they get very little for their money.

Classed as 'Group C' members, part-time workers do not receive unemployment, death, disablement, strike victimisation benefit. For a union which high percentage of part-time working members, this is scandalous. The are incensed that their union should treat part-timers as second class members. They will be fighting to make Usdaw into a union fit for women workers Sabena Norton

Patriots' corner should be seen as a patriotic "Labour party, which in no way contradicts our internationalism. Former MP Stan Newens, explaining how Labour can oppose US Cruise missiles and conventional support Britain's (Labour Weekly, 15 July) 1 hope the British despatch a Task Force to get rid of the invaders from property which is part of the Commonwealth with the same speed with which Mrs Thatcher despatched the Falklands Task Force last year.'

Arthur Scargill's witty retort to the US invasion of Grenada (The Guardian, 28 october Tory traitors? 'The Tory government has done more to damage the Royal Navy than the Argentine Air Force.' Michael Foot's eve-of-election attempt to out-Thatcher Thatcher (Daily June) "Mrs Thatcher is in danger of doing more harm to Britain's defences than Blunt, Burgess and Maclean all put together. If we sell off British Telecom to foreigners protect how are we to wartime?' Kim McKinley, UCW chair of British Committee Telecom Unions Journal, November) If you can't beat 'em... I don't want low morale in the armed forces.' Bruce Kent decides against CND groups in the army (The Times, 5 December) Join 'em CND and the Labour Party should face up to this maturely. national service is the price that has to be paid for a non-nuclear defence policy, then so be it.' (Tribune editorial, 8 April) We only wanted to be loved *The first person I saw in high office who remained humble, decent and still visibly loved by his fellow human beings.'

Ken Livingstone on why Pope John XXIII was the person who influenced him the most (New Statesman, 16 December) Low-life polemics 'But it is no service to British or Soviet workers to portray socialist life as problem free. That is best left to the tiny sectlets the that parasitise Soviet Union, and present themselves as though they sucked mother's milk from boil on the posterior of socialism.

every (Straight Left, January) Truth will out cut-backs, but them. forces Herald, 18 March) the Provisional IRA.' will government 7 Mail, ourselves in

(POEU

If some form of revolution increasing internally, Washington.' just as beaches on 25 October win on June 9. of the reputation 'There is a sense in which Labour councils have accepted not only the deplorable at least halfway have accepted the philosophy which lies behind Sheffield council leader and Labour Party conference star David Blunkett (Labour We've been trying for 15 years to disarm Labour's deputy Irish spokesman Clive Soley explaining what the left's dialogue with the republican movement is all about (Labour and Ireland, Vol 2 No1) Quotes year Ever wish you were better informed?

'After four and a half years the first the English speaking in Grenada...The Caribbean is thriving in the revolution solidity OT credibility and its growing abroad have undercut the threat from November's New Socialist hit the streets the US marines hit Grenada's 1 am confident that the Labour Party can Labour Herald reported Arthur Scargill's days before vote of confidence three Labour lost millions of others Tatchell's team are quietly confident.

The News Line, 24 February - the day Peter Tatchell suffered a landslide defeat in the Bermondsey by-election The art of the possible 'Roy Hattersley is more radical and more committed the majority policies than were many of his predecessors from the right.' Labour Coordinating Committee calls for left unity behind Labour's leadership (Socialist Organiser, every other radical left paper) 'Kinnock is a rotten opportunist who at a later stage might prepare his own attack on the policy gains of the left.

refuse to back him against Hattersley or Shore in the final analysis would be an ultra-left stupidity (Socialist Action, 17 June) of the 1983 The real friends of the family *Babies are expensive. If you give up your job, how can you manage without your income?" (Brides, October) *The pressure on young wives to go out to work devalues motherhood itself.

(Marxism Today, October) Law and order We believe democratic right to keep your own television for as long as you choose.

believe that under socialism crime will be illegal and we believe that crime is illegal now. Eurocommunist Pete Sheppard's contribution to the law and order debate at the Communist Party congress (The News Line, 16 November) Rose-tinted spectacles 'Jesuits elect of party (The Times, 14 September) 'Jesuits elect radical chief' 3 November and "Murray Scargill action. (The Times, 1 July) outside Parliament.' (Morning Star, 1 July) But to movernent.' (Morning Star, 28 June) job is to help you." Cop-outs member." August) defend it?' protesting movements.' use Tribune movements that it is a fundamental We Marxist analysis 'Running is not, sporting walking, on and so on. Morning marathon (18 April) little-known Dutch academic to be their new leader.

(Morning Star, 14 September) condemns political strikes and Murray backs action to defend rights "The truth of the matter is that in the last election, the Tories did not really win.'

Eric Heffer, who 'did not really win' only 6.3 per cent of the vote in the Labour leadership election (The Times, 14 July) 'We don't see the arrival of Cruise missiles as a failure for the Greenham Common Greenham stalwart Susanna Bowyer 'For a council like Sheffield, or one like Lambeth, just go into any council office and you will feel the difference. In most boroughs you meet some haughty bur eaucrat who obviously feels that the public simply exists to fit in with his or her plans. In Lambeth or Sheffield you generally find someone who thinks their (Socialist Action, 2 December) I'm no Marxist - just a Labour Party 'Red Steph' Grant of Socialist League anc Cowley witch-hunt fame (Daily Mail, 16 "Is the Labour Party trying to exclude from its ranks the people who can best Socialist Action editor Alan Freeman, Labour's refusal against to let Taria Ali be just a Labour Party member (The Guardian, 31 October) *The National Economic Assessment can be read any way you like.

Tony Benn on how a scheme to cut wages became a plan to redistribute wealth (Socialist Action, 22 April) 'Terror Act may be used against liberation the next step protesting, against the PTA's against Irish freedom fighters? No its possible use objecting against South African or Middle Eastern of course, the only There is swimming activity. amateur football, tennis and so editorial on London's Star the next step, January 1984 11

The old order crum battle for the right to establish a new world order.

THE US recovery seems to be leading the rest of the world's economies out of the trough of 1982. US gross national product was expected to show a three per cent increase for 1983, after a fall of almost two percent the previous year.

turnabout obscures the underlying weakness of the US economy. began from a trough well below the deepest point of previous recessions.

economy hits the bottom, the only way to And the recovery has already go 1s up. begun to slow down. dipped from three percent to 2.1 per cent but is not expected to fall below this figure during 1984. The main impulse for the limited recovery has come from consumer and state spending.

The Christmas craze for "cabbage patch' dolls is one aspect of the five percent growth in consumer spending during 1983. Government spending has helped buoy up pro- Despite cuts, welfare spending cost the US government more than $250 billion 1983. in The massive rearmament programme accounts for more than $200 billion.

But credit and government contracts are insufficient to sustain a recovery in the US economy. Indeed, they America's inability to compete in important sectors of the world market.

spending high borrowing. In 1983, Government borrowing amounted to $200 billion.

borrowing forces up interest rates.

encourages foreign investors to buy dollars, keeps the dollar high in relation to other currencies, and makes expensive and imports from its competitors Japan expects a $20 billion trading Cheap. surplus with the US in 1983. The projected trade deficit of $60 billion would mean a balance of payments shortfall of $30 billion for the USA last year. The missing factor econonic recovery investment. IS investment is down 1.7 percent since the third quarter of 1982, despite a surge of 7.4 per cent in the third quarter of 1983.

Most investment cope with consumer demand. Investment in the production of capital goods remains low.

Average profit rates of 54 per cent reported misleading. during the yeal earned in 1983 reflect the weakness rather than the strength of the US economy. Firms have cut back on investment in new plant, 12 the next step, January 1984 Last year ended with the EEC on the verge of collapse over a budget row, Nato near the end of the line after European attacks on US foreign policy, and Western bankers waiting with bated breath for Third World debtors to default. Here, John Johnson reveals the crisis behind the recent upturn in the world economy. On the following pages we show how, while US President Reagan tries to unite Nato against the 'evil Soviet empire', the empires of the West are preparing to do This dramatic The current uoturn When an Unemployment has 1983. growing productivity and electronic goods. serious structural weakness.

observed can exacerbate High govern-

SCUTES

West Germany

COVE CRE

the effects of the recession.

Government This level. American exports of the year. almost nine percent in 1984. in the American Overall has been in restocking to Profits other. at its close. machinery and equipment, and put mone!

in the bank - where high interest rates ensure a better return. Some companies haveresorted to cutting back on their foreign investments to stave off collapse at home. In 1981/2 the USA became a net importer of capital and more than $10 billion was repatriated from When the American overseas investments.

world's leading imperialist power starts to behave like a Third World country dominated by foreign investment, the writing is on the wall for the other capitalist states.

Europe and Japan Low profitability and low investment cripple capitalist economy. Japan suffered least from the deepening of the recession in It retained its position as the fastest imperialist Japanese economy. levels surpass all the other imperialist countries in certain key sectors such as steel, cars and machine tools, electrical But even Japan has come up against falling profit rates and The Economist recently that Japan's roads, were little education system and services better than in some Third World countries.

High government borrowing to cover growing deficits is draining capital from the private - the healthiest of the European economies - is beginning to feel While its exports are expected to rise in 1984, the rate of increase could fall to about half its current A boom in consumer spending kept order books full in the first half of 1983.

But this trend had slowed down by the end soared Unemployment November, the in highest figure since the Second World War, and is expected to pass 10 percent early Most economists predict stagnating levels of investment outside a few dynamic sectors in the West German economy.

The recession threatens to tear the European Economic Community apart.

At the Athens summit of EEC leaders in December, the wrangling over contributions to the budget exploded into a bitter row between Britain and West Germany on the one side and France and the agricultural economies The Athens summit was so acrimonious that no communique was issued The leaders of the 10 member states could not agree on a sufficiently innocuous form of words to conceal their bitter divisions. While the German and Japanese economies are in better shape than the USA, and the rest of Europe suffers, brink of collapse. Britain's economic growth rate of three per cent in 1983 is likely to disappear this year.

Britain's manufacturing base has collapsed since the late seventies.

became a net importer of manufactured goods for the first time since the industrial Industrial output is still more revoluon. than 15 per cent below its last peak in 1979.

The duration and intensity of the recession Marines goin where bankers fearto tread highlights the structural weaknesses in the economies of all the imperialist powers and demands a more direct response by the ruling classes. The three per cent fall in the real value of wages in the advanced capitalist countries in the period 1979-81 did its bit to cut labour costs. recovered sufficiently to stimulate new investment. More savage working class are the order of the day in all the advanced capitalist countries.

Fighting back The USA, Europe and Japan have also had to turn to the resources, markets and investment opportunities of the Third World to try to offset economic decline at home.

The US-Mexican border is dotted with thousands of component and textile which allow American and German businessmen to use cheap labour to produce goods for the US market. go blind after a few months working in the ill-lit electronics factories of Singapore are a vital componentofJapan'scomputerindustry.

Western Britain teeters on the to Pundits recognise that Japanese for compete In 1983 Britain Latin mic, the Third World. The barriers domination. dustrial belt than twenty years But profit rates have not the attacks on NICs' crippling their factories labyrinthine national The young women who The German car giant Volkswagen builds more than 50 000 cars a year in Brazil for the local and Middle Eastern markets.

The markets of the Third World are vital West German, capitalists. and manufacturers American the $20 billion Brazilian market. Britain's fourth largest export earner - unloads - the pharmaceuticals industry more than two thirds of its expensive and often untested drugs on African, Asian and The US American slum dwellers. aluminium industry would collapse without Jamaican bauxite. Zambian copper, Namibian uranium and especially Middle Eastern oil, are vital to the imperialists' survival.

To ensure their supplies of cheap raw materials and protect their markets and investments, the imperialists have stepped up their econopolitical and military involvement in Newly deindustrialising most backward countries in Africa, Asia and Central America are dependent on the export of unprocessed raw materials.

The recession has brought them starvation.

Newly Industrialising Countries (NICs) like Brazil, Nigeria and South Korea have found their subordination to imperialism reasserted through massive debts to Western bankers In the seventies the Newly Industrialising Countries recorded growth rates of seven per cent and more. Their rapid industrialisation and apparent immunity from the recession suggested that they had broken through the imposed on them by imperialist Rapid development in South Korea turned an area of paddy fields and near wilderness south of Seoul into an inof five million people in less Nigeria's capital Lagos developed so rapidly that the polluted atmosphere from the vast oil refinery has driven the Government out of the city.

The debt crisis has burst the bubble.

In the seventies Western banks were prepared make huge development loans to deve loping countries to build up their roads, railways and basic industries. Investors from Europe, Japan and the USA were attracted by this investment and by large working populations under repressive regimes.

The debt burden has halted the 1980s. 1983, Mexico announced that it could no longer pay the interest on its $80 billion debt.

Last year the Philippines and South Korea were added to the lengthening list of countries unable to cope with interest payments. Brazil has hardly been out of the headlines as its negotiations with the Inter- Fund, the World Bank Monetary and private banks have lurched from one sticking point to the next.

International financial institutions have

bles used lever of debt economic and social policies in the NICs.

underlined This has on imperialism. dependence Nigeria were recently ordered by the IMF to devalue their currencies, more expensive and swinging the terms of trade to the advantage of Western exporters.

The IMF has also demanded the elimination of food subsidies to lower the tax burden on This makes investment more companies. profitable and drives down workers living standards still further. loan agreement with the Brazilian government conditional on the passage of legal restrictions to keep wage increases 30 per cent below the rate of inflation.

apore, apanese inspired company unions have been introduced to contain pressure for higher wages. Trouble Debt bondage has trade. dependence payments consume almost 80 per cent of its trade earnings.

ments were rescheduled, they totalled 20 per cent more than it could earn.

trade has shrunk under the impact of the recession, and the protectionist policies of imperialist countries have cut off the NICs from their main markets. markets are dominated by Japanese, Euroand American manufactured goods.

Bedl The NICs are being forced into greater reliance on the export of primary products to earn foreign exchange to pay the interest on their loans. President of the Bank for Fritz International Settlements recently called on national assets and resources in exchange for a partial write-off of their debts.

Workers fight the new raw dealinthe Third World to dictate the NICs' Ghana and making imports The IMF made a new In Singpushed the NICs into countries Mexico's these Before its pay- World military dictator Their domestic November. The military developed debtors to hand over advanced governmen opposition. demand to in Asia, Ronald Reagan: Mr President, where will you strike next?

The masses in the NICs are being forced to pay for the crisis. Harsher labour laws, lower wages and higher prices have made conditions in the factories and shanty towns of The almost unbearable masses in the NICs have fought against the austerity imposed by imperialist bankers and their local dictators. In Chile the army shot into crowds of students, workers and housewives protesting at the tenth anniversary of of Pinochet's power. The Brazilian army and police fought a day-long battle with workers demonstrating against the imposition of the wages law in dictatorships which have ruled the NICs for the last 10 years are too rigid to cope with the present crisis. They cannot manoeuvre in the same way as the institutions in the political capitalist countries. Military rulers in Turkey, Venezuela and Argentina have already handed over to civilian elected forestall in an attempt to Brazil has elected a consultative assembly and General Figueiredo has promised to hand over to a civilian president next For the generals, the problem with liberalisation in the NICs is that a taste of formal democracy often prompts the masses real freedom. The democratic structures are unable to cope and the military has to step in again.

Famine The problem of instability which haunts the NICs is an everyday reality in the destitute backward countries of the Third World. The least developed countries have suffered most from the effects of the recession. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that more than 150 million people Africa and Central America are starving. The myth that famine is caused by nature was popular last year. In the summer The Sunday Times suggested that the famine in Africa and the floods in Asia which led to famine were the result of a cyclonic feature dominating the Pacific. In fact, the famine in Africa is a 'natural' result of its position in the world division of labour, and its conseof low level quently development. Of course natural disasters contribute to the misery of World. But the main problem is the social disaster of imperialist domination. Floods in England damaged crops in the spring, but Lincolnshire is not littered with camps full of starving children.

The boom in commodity prices in the post-war period masked the backwardness of While Third World farming. example, could sell its copper, it could earn enough foreign exchange to pay for food and imports compensate productivity of its agricultural sector. The slowing down of industrial production in the prices of raw materials. The backward coun tries of the Third World have been forced to cut back subsidies on imported food.

Drive to war Whatever Western causes of the famine in the least developed countries, they agree on its effects. Last year the famine provoked riots and insurrection.

In Bengal in north India Muslim tribesmen fought with immigrants from over wheat distribution. died as a result. In Pakistan's Sind province in March, food shortages prompted the most serious disturbances since the 1979 overthrow of President Bhutto. Sinhalese squatters moving on to a few acres of land near Tamil settlement inter-communal riots in Sri Lanka's history.

Governments in Pakistan and Sudan Salvador have resorted to terror to try to control. But maintain campaigns against the workers' and peasants' opposition have usually exacerbate the conflict. The Western powers have had to move in to re-establish the conditions for profitable imperialist exploitation.

The fragile state institutions of the Third World are unreliable defenders of imperialist Africa's hungerthe price of capitalist recovery investments. agricultural capitalist Military ican the Third refugee backward countries. the Middle Zambia, for Africa continent. client state in north for the low keeping order. countries has cut the its 'frontline" pundits say about the year ahead. America Central regon sa vital nome Bangladesh More than 30 000 Last provoked the worst backward countries from to Ethiopia and El ment's attempt development. -their murder only to served and Middle Eastern affairs. and relatively programmes, Third World is become Western During 1983 powers began to take the affairs of backward countries into their own hands intervention by European, Amerand shortly no troops is the final guarantee of imperialist domination. US marines, French paratroopers and British squaddies have already gone in to prop up the feeble regimes of the most The imperialists have launched another scramble for Africa, while threatens to become the Hast battlefield of the Third World War.

most unstable • The world s The imperialists have no local Africa capable of France's summer, Last President Mitterand flew 3000 troops back to the former French colonies of central Africa to reassert imperialist control over South Chad, the world's poorest nation.

Africa continued its terror campaign against neighbours. The masses of Africa can expect more of the same in the remains preoccupied with crushing revolts in the ravaged states of America and the Caribbean. The base which US imperialism cannot afford to lose control Reagan gave year, President massive economic and military aid to the pro-Western dictatorships in El Salvador and Honduras. Reagan sent three US fleets and thousands of marines to exercise on the border between the two countries as a threat to the radical Sandinista regime in Nicaragua In October, America launched its invasion of Grenada and crushed the New Jewel Moveat independent economic The importance of the oil and markets of the Gulf means that stability in the Middle East is another priority for American foreign policy. The tensions which tore Lebanon apart throughout the year called for direct interference from the West. Reagan moved in sections of his Rapid Deployment Force French and British dragged Italian, contingents along with them. But US naval bombardments and air strikes in the Chouf mountains failed to solve the imperialists problems. Western 'peace keeping forces are likely to play a progressively bigger role in Up to now, the imperialists have baulked at the prospect of intervening in the NICs.

The West is reluctant to take on a country such as Brazil with its 120 million people sound industrial base. The Western powers have been able to assert control through the mechanism of debt. But the growing resistance among the NICs governments to Western-imposed austerity rumours of a and sporadic 'debtors club' being formed to stand up to the imperialists, indicate that more drastic measures may soon be necessary.

The imperialists' drive to intervene in the the a consequence break-up of the old order. Britain, America, France and the other leading powers will more rapacious in their military adventures as the collapse continues. But, as we show on the next page, their actions will become less and less united.

the next step, January 1984 13

Western leaders pressed their suits but failed to iron out their differences It has been a difficult year for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

After twelve months of deepening rifts in the Western Alliance, Pat Roberts asks: How close is Nato to breaking up?

NATO CAN still hang together on some There was unanimous condemnation of the Soviet Union for shooting WelC support for Reagan's stonewalling on the missiles in central Europe, which led the Soviet Union to storm out of the Geneva France tried to grab the Suez Canal in sequent growth of national rivalries have taken their toll on Nato.

begun to think about the unthinkable.

its annual report, published last spring, International Institute for Strategic Studies openly questioned the future of *Should European public perceptions of the level of the Soviet threat fall, American policies sound more belligerent, and economic tensions increase, the Alliance would face a severe predicament, and collapse would not be out of the question (although quite what form collapse While the Institute was worrying about the mechanics of Nato's dissolution, some European politicians - like Greek Prime Minise whether they should be in daily Le Monde in November that logically we should leave the Atlantic Alliance.

Imbalance of power The emergence of the United States as Second World War was reflected in the international institutions set up at the Monetary Fund, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and the World Bank, was designed to regulate international relations under the tutelage of Washington.

The durability of these institutions expressed the influence America's economic power exerted over the rest of the im- There was no serious challenge to US By then hegemony until the late sixties.

14 the next step, January 1984 The Western Alliance The sick man Europe and Japan had recovered their new new markets, ecession defensive. leading and ical millence line by hyping up Cruise missiles in Callo. the post-war boom. thusiasm for Nato. tant to join offensive. Whipping While West penetrated The world the friendly comthe as To offset its flexed its military The siting of But the price has The Western Alliance It is only a During the past four anti-Soviet directed During 1983 Nato behind America. members clashed over several important America's military build-up in Middle East has been at variance with the approach of the European powers.

August Washington tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent France selling fighter aircraft and Exocet missiles to Iraq for use against about supplying the other side in the Gulf In Lebanon the differences were closest ally, was disturbed by American In September the USA put pressure on between Goukouni Oueddi and President Hissene Habre in Chad, and to loosen its warned that America's success could be •French-American rivalry in Africa is becoming as much of a threat to peace and stability on the continent as be humiliated when the American invasion of Grenada exposed the meaning- In November the tensions inside Nato negotiations with the Soviet Union.

which had Nato members at each other's question of nuclear "The disagreements between the USA and its European allies over what, if anything, to put on the table at Geneva as US missile deployment begins, emerged sharply last week at a Rome meeting of the Special Planning Groups, the forum used by Nato to consult over intermediaterange missile negotiations.'

Like other forums previously used by Nato powers to consult over military Groups became an arena of conflict among The greatest blow to Nato's cohesion November decision to reject the deployment of the new Nato missiles.

Social Democrat leader Helmut Schmidt was one of the principal architects of the

TUISE

the German bipartisan consensus on siting shows how much has changed in the last members supported the deployment of make America directly committed to the defence of Europe. Today former supporters of that decision voice their concern about Washington's finger on the button.

This growing unease with US military strategy was articulated by French Presidthe Mitterand in his speech at Franco-German summit in November Bonn. Emphasising the need for European defence, Mitterand drew a sharp distinc tion between European and American interests: Friendship with the United States should We cannot not be confused with subjection.

surrender the defence of our continent to an external country. Will it erupt? Mitterand's call for European defence the potential for Nato to indicates But Nato still functions and the collapse. Western Alliance is intact. Some observers have attributed this to a common fear of But even they admit the Soviet Union. that the Nato partners are pre occupied with the economic threat from In December the Financial each other carried an article detailing the Times lengthening list of trade disputes between the USA and the European Economic Community, from European farm sub- Talk of prosidies to steel imports. 'fundamental misundertectionism and standings' has already begun to cloud the economic relations between Nato mem- Far from uniting in a common bers. front with America against the Soviet threat, Nato members have been openly They are critical of America's posturing.

too fearful of Washington's real intentions to fall quietly into line.

Nato still exists because there is no clear alternative to American management The decline of of international relations.

the USA and the parallel rise of West Germany and Japan have disrupted the imperialist world equilibrium guaranteed for 40 years by America. This has created considerable instability, especially in the Third World where imperialist rivalries can be fought out with little regard to The increase in competition their cost. for raw materials, markets and profitable investments has unleashed a struggle to redivide the world. The main casualties have been the USA and Britain. But so far neither West Germany nor Japan, nor even France, have dared challenge American None of the imperialist hegemony powers is strong enough to replace the USA. Although the USA has lost out to its rivals it is still the largest and most imperialist Its powerful cconomy superiority in the military sphere is even In 1983 the USA spent more striking. more on weapons than the other Nato In any powers and Japan put together.

chief rivals trust each America's Case. other as little as they trust America. The rows over the EEC budget and the disputes which wrecked talks about a European defence force, show that the continental imperialists are in no position to present a united challenge to the USA.

The past year has underlined the trends towards Nato'sdisintegration. The Alliance only survives because it serves America's purpose and the other imperialist powers are not ready to take on Washington - There is no going back to the days yet. when Nato really meant something in The growing divergence of world affairs. imperialist powers interest among the cannot be solved within the framework of As economic stagnation and diplomacy. decay become more severe the rifts in the only widen and imperialist camp can deepen. We welcome the sharpening of inter- We have everything imperialist conflict. to gain from quarrels between members of this gang of murderers and thieves. At intensification of the the same

LASS CR

rivalries between the imperialist powers signals the dangers of militarism and war.

The people of the Third World have been the first victims of the power struggles in the imperialist camp. But as 1983 showed, wars no longer stay 'local' for very long.

It is only a matter of time before the existing balance of power is swept aside The task of by a protracted world war.

overthrowing our imperialist masters is more urgent than ever.

Andropov's planning fiasco ANDROPOV took over at a time of deepening crisis for the Soviet leadership.

In 1983 he launched a campaign against waste and corruption - and had the bonus of the best harvest for five years.

despite a slight rise in industrial production economic stagnation continues. Attempts to remove bottlenecks in key sectors only highlighted the chaos of the rest of the economy. Andropov's disappearance from public view reveals the profound internal problems of the Soviet system.

For years the Soviet bureaucracy has tried to compensate for low productivity in industry by the sheer mass of workers drafted into mines, plants and factories.

The only results have been underemployment and inefficiency in some sectors and permanent labour uction bottlenecks in others.

of mendous waste materials has resulted in a decline in the resources available for investment.

cumulative effect of a decade of falling investment is a persistently returns on low level of output and productivity.

These symptoms of the Soviet Union stem from the bureaucracy's inability to regulate the economy.

bureaucracy lacks the means to ensure an efficient distribution of labour, machinery and raw materials. Without the framework of workers' democracy there is no way to a planned establish working class is excluded from having any influence over decisions affecting Soviet Far from society. decisions about what needs to be produced Soviet workers are subjected to where, bureaucratic domination. the formal existence of a central plan the Soviet economy remains fragmented and chaotic. Andropov's crusade When he came to power, Andropov emphasised his determination to tackle the problems facing the Soviet Union.

made a series of hard hitting speeches pinpointing obvious defects in the economic promising to purge system and corruption. Andropov's populist approach was intended to evoke support for his regime among the masses. was clear enough: the problem was not the system but a few rotten apples.

Soviet leadership put the blame for the crisis on corrupt individuals and antisocial workers who shirked their responsibilities. anti-corruption Andropov's soon became a crusade. at the beginning of his leadership, he noted the importance of imposing a sense of urgency and discipline among Soviet Not waving but drowning: as ailing Andropov misses the parade, the Soviet economy gets sicker Yet workers: It is ness and shortages and prod- The trecorrupt officials, and manpower The class. crisis in the The been at work. The The economy. being involved in line workers Thus, despite in other plants. He it of replace Barkhatov. His message The message In a key speech The Soviet Union in a shambles Is Yuri Andropov dead? Whether or not he recovers from his mysterious illness, his attempts to reform the Soviet economy are as dead as Leonid Brezhnev, whom he replaced at the head of the Politburo in 1982 necessary to create conditions economic and organisational - that will stimulate good quality, productive labour, initiative and enterprise. Conversely, poor work, sluggishirresponsibility should immediate effect on the remuneration, job status and moral privilege of personnel...We must wage a more resolute struggle against all violations of Party, state and labour discipline.'

This authoritarian message provided the background to the launching of a law and order campaign in January 1983.

Senior bureaucrats denounced a few dismissed some from their jobs and even expelled a few from the Party. The main target of the law and order campaign, however, was the working Backed by highly publicised daytime police raids on bars, swimming pools and saunas the state media drew attention to the large layer of social parasites who were having fun while they should have Andropov's focus on the problem of labour discipline was a response to the growing insubordination of Soviet workers.

serious and prolonged shortage of skilled and unskilled workers has strengthened the position of the working class.

Factory directors are reluctant to discipwho take the line of the Russian proverb 'they pretend to pay me so I pretend to work'. The administrators know their workers can always find work Changing jobs is one of the few ways in which a Soviet worker can hope to improve his position.

The high labour turnover rate in Soviet factories is an additional problem for the bureau- An article in Pravda in January 1983 illustrated the problem of enforcing discipline on the factory floor. After first docking his pay for being drunk at work the company decided to sack a milling The machine operator called Barkhatov.

factory director then found he could not The bureaucrat was forced to approach the machinist 'cap-inhand' to offer him his old job back.

But Barkhatov had found a new job, and he I earned turned down the offer saying, 250 roubles a month at your plant, but they're going to pay me more.

In August last year, at the height of the law and order campaign, the bureaucracy promulgated a new law on 'stepping up work to strengthen Socialist Labour Discipline'. The new law penalised executives who failed to maintain imposed financial penalties and loss of holidays on workers for absenteeism and and made them liable for drunkenness, damage to tools and machinery.

The 'Socialist Labour Discipline' legislation had little impact.

with constant labour shortages had no of enforcing the new code.

Way behind the inoperable labour law came increased state repression The bureaucrats' attempts to tighten the screw in every area of social, cultural and political life were apparent throughout The threat of an even greater the year. use of force to discipline the working class sufficient to has been people to keep their heads down and work a bit harder. The experiment The problem for the bureaucracy is that tighter control over the workforce can only have a limited effect on the economy.

not an Kepression planning in a complex industrial economy like the Soviet Union. Andropov signalled his intention to carry thoroughgoing economic reform. In a new departure for the Soviet bureau- Andropov singled out transport, cracy distribution and energy as priorities and he demanded results. of competent technicians such as new transport minister Mikhail Gorbachev was taken as evidence of the regime's determination to force through reform and increase efficiency for Andropov's drive blocked by the inertia of Soviet state institutions. The bureaucracy along with change as long as it does not disrupt existing power relations. Any real improvement in the organisation of the Soviet economy threatens to undermine the bureaucracy's power base.

only two possible exits from the current seizure in the Soviet economy introduction of the capitalist market, or the establishment of workers democracy.

The problem for the bureaucracy is that either option means its own destruction.

Chance lost came into office with no in- Andropov tention of challenging the foundations of the Soviet system. approach to avoid conflict. The terms of his compromise came to light at the July Soviet Communist Party. responsive discipline, experiment, Directors faced The experiment is But of workers. part. qualitative it looks fine. persuade most cracy can manage. held back by alternative firms on Early in 1983 materials,

ESS DOLL

of programme He pulled no punches. The appointment half-hearted gesture generated by has evaporated. expects

SOCCE

change was will go There are buried quietly. the recampaign. succeeded He had to modify his system's problems. meeting of the Central Committee of the Party leaders agreed to make a few targetted industries needs of the Soviet economy. The central state ministries of heavy machinery and electrical equipment have been targetted for the local along with certain Belorussian industries in the Ukrainian, and Lithuanian republics. The bureaucracy hopes to stimulate output by subjecting these sectors to market pressures due to start this month. A special fund has beenestablished to re-equip and redesign the firms taking The aim is to achieve substantial improvements in production and production techniques by increasing output in relation to investment and increasing labour productivity.

On paper But it bears a striking resemblance to Brezhnev's abortive 1965 Experiments in isolated sectors of the economy are all that the bureau- As long as the trials last and funds and bonuses are allocated to the chosen industry, some improvement in performance can be expected.

But any industry which does surge ahead will be the mass of unreformed it depends for raw which services and components. directors of past As many experiments have discovered, they cannot insulate themselves from the inefficiencies of the rest of the Soviet economy. Any gains will be artificial and temporary.

The implementation of the Central Committee's July resolution will be a designed to keep things ticking over. The initial enthusiasm Andropov's appointment The bureaucracy no anything much from The tinkering with economic reform retreat from the Andropov experiment is a major setback for the bureaucracy. It shows that the Soviet leadership has no strategy for dealing with the social crisis Andropov's failing health has come in the nick of time for the bureaucracy. His proposals for economic reform can be The bureaucracy can avoid the need to put forward plausible policies while it takes on the easier task of putting together a new leadership. At the beginning of 1984 the Soviet bureau- The only cracy is back to square one.

difference is that it has lost the initiative gained from the momentum of Andropov's It has wasted 12 months exreforming and repressing and compounding only Frank Richards the next step, January 1984 15

More bark than bite Towards the end of 1983 media attention focused squabbles within the Tory Party.

Yet 1983 was a good year for the Conservatives. They won a landslide victory in the June General Election, and as Rob Knight shows, pursued their strategy to make the working class pay for the crisis.

'MINISTERIAL power to remove banana skins' was The Guardian's description of Whitelaw's new post William December. The appointment of Whitelaw to replace John Biffen as the coordinator of the Tories' public information policy was designed to curb the barrage of criti cism levelled at the Government since the General Election. Cecil Parkinson's extramarital indiscretions, a lacklustre Tory Party conference, Margaret mishandling of the Grenada crisis and the Government's clumsy presentation of its expenditure speculation that the Thatcher government was heading for trouble. Fears that the Government was losing its grip were reinforced by feuding on a whole range of issues. When Thatcher attacked the US over the Grenada invasion she was criticised by a number of Tory MPs. Fleet Street's most sycophantic Thatcherite Paul Johnson - bewailed the fact that the Prime Minister was guilty of 'a huge error of judgement'. His became 'a very ordinary woman occupying a position where ordinary virtues are not Public expenditure further fissures in the Tory party. Rifts widened when social services Norman Fowler attacked Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel drastic cuts. Government plans to abolish the metropolitan councils and close down hospitals met with opposition from Tory councils and local Conservatives. In early December former Foreign Chief Whip and Leader of the Commons Francis Pym called for 'wiser and more sensitive political leadership'. A later, Northern Ireland secretary exiled wet James Prior echoed Pym's leadership. calls for national Down and down These wranglings are are partly a consequence of the Government's 144-seat majority, and the arrival of 100 new Tory MPs at the House of Commons after the June General Election.

But Margaret Thatcher has little cause for concern. most striking feature The Cabinet and extra-Cabinet public spending was its tameness. Compared to the heated discussions of two years ago when embattled over Government strategy, this year's debate resembled a polite disagreement at a vicarage tea party. The behind the scenes debates in the Tory Party are not about to tear it apart, nor are there significant forces within the party which offer any real challenge to the Government's strategy. Compared to the internal strife that characterises ruling parties in Europe or the USA, the Tory Party is remarkably harmonious. But what really makes the dissension irrelevant lack of opposition capacity exploit the divisions to its own advantage. Thatcher's problems are not Pym or Prior and the 'wets'. They lie elsewhere.

The first problem for the Tories in 1983 was that the Labour Party's devastating defeat at the June election did not correspond to a positive popular vote for 16 the next step, January 1984 British politics internal on in early Thatcher's policy fuelled inner-party lacked government per cent ol the vote government former goddess majority in September, cuts opened what it wanted to hear: minister right.' Lawson's call for But Thatcher's approach of Secretary, British economy week and in dustry were deceptive. They "bare-knuckle fight' of ment. debate CBI's wets' and 'dries' were mance. consumer-based contident forecasts or an recovery. is the party with the incoherent

WELL ALL WIN WITH

THE CONSERVATIVES.

Winners by default: the Tories faced the press but little opposition Tory policies. It was this constraining factor which tempered the Tory attack on the welfare state and led to the media's post-election accusations that the Govern- "ideological thrust and strategic direction?. In the June election the Tories won 61.1 per cent of the seats, and gained a 144-seat majority, on 42.4 - a fall of 1.5 per cent from 1979. It was the lowest real proportion of the vote received by any with a safe parliamentary British history In an interview in the Confederation of British Industry's journal The Director Thatcher told the

CBI

*1 shall be a radical Prime Minister for my second term of office because I am radically strategy in the second half of 1983 indicated no radical departures. She simply continued the resolute the previous four years. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the Government's attempts to rescue the from the throes of recession - its second major problem area.

Muffled groans When 1983 closed, the Government and slightly more optimistic about the prospects for recovery than when the year began. At least Thatcher did not have the CBI and the Institute of Directors hammering the Government. The climate has changed since 1980 when CBI chief Sir Terence Beckett promised a with the Govern- The Financial Times noted that there has been a certain lack of verve in sparring recent with the Government. But while there might be less disagreement on fundamentals than in the early eighties, industry is far from.

satisfied with the Government's perfor- Recent Tory cheers about last year's expansion and the upturn just the corner barely muffled the British bosses' groans. The ruling class is aware that the economy is far from b paper on economic prospects in October stressed that the limited recovery was fragile and patchy and that it will be some time before we even reach 1979 levels of production'.

Worse still, the expansion of consumer spending which was the driving force behind the autumn 'upturn' caused a rise in imports and sent Britain's balance of trade into the red for the first time this century. Exports remain weak, production stagnant. Inflation and long-term unem- How they ruled in 1983 ployment are still on the increase and there are no signs of new investment.

In its November Review, the National Institute of Economic and Social search (NIES) was even more pessimistic than the Treasury about strength of the recovery in 1984. The National Institute predicted that output will be two per cent higher in 1984 than 1983, against the Treasury's forecast of a three per cent rise this year.

Industry's demands for government to reduce the tax burden and slash public expenditure became more insistent as the year progressed. The vagueness Tory General Election open major questions about the proper balance between public taxation. The new Cabinet's reluctance to tackle the problem reflected the Government's indecision about how far it could go without inciting working class disaffection. While the Tory Party conference at Blackpool in October problem of what to cut, where and by how much, The Times railed against the 'quietists in the Cabinet' who were stalling on the cuts. It pointed out that the 'consolidationist' trend that had emerged at the conference - which included former "radical' John Biffen misled. At the conference, John Biffen had hinted at the distinction between those seeking consolidation and those pressing for further radical changes. The *consolidationists' included all the wets like Prior, Pym and Walker, but also spending ministers like Heseltine and Fowler keen to defend their departmental budgets. The radicals, led by the Prime Chancellor Nigel Lawson, industry secretary Norman Tebbit, and transport secretary Nicholas argued that tax cuts combined with a crackdown on public spending were vital to get the economy moving.

rightly pointed out that the quiet life approach of the consolidationists would not lead to anything like a quiet life.

Delay and indecision in getting on with the job of reining back public spending did not avert criticism from position and succeeded only in putting the Government on the defensive.

Financial Times was quick to pick up on the inconsistencies in the Government's approach to the NHS: 'It is worse than useless to talk about cuts and then to add the invariable phrase course the health service is safe In mid-November Chancellor Lawson pledged to reduce public spending substantially. It is clear, however, that the Tories are not about to dismantle pillars they will April 1984. the Tories' strategy: Rethe likely the TUC side.' 1983. the ideology: of the The manifesto left spending and deliberated the aims' which dominated by centralised was gravely toeing on to it." British Minister on the issues of and right-wing shift Ridley The Times paramilitary the Op- The leadership of "of with us".? The

RCP

Nigel on the ruling class side.

of the welfare state like the NHS. Rather, continue the step by step approach which has already had consid erable success in the civil service, where the 14 percent staff cutback started in 1980 is on schedule to be achieved by Now the Government has announced a further slimming-down operation of six percent in the next four years from 630 000 to 593 000 by 1988 third problem for the Tories in assessing the scope for large scale attacks on the public sector has been the working class. The Tories recognise the potential for mass opposition if they proceed too far, too fast. Hence in 1983 employment ministers Norman Tebbit and Tom King pursued the cold class war approach of the last four years on the trade union reform front. King refused to commit the Government to a 'rushed and botched job' by outlawing strikes in the public services.

Before handing over to King and moving up to a higher office, Tebbit summed up Jim Prior and I have pursued a step by step approach, indeed we have tip-toed through the minefields - so far without treading on a mine.

Indeed the only casualties so far have been on Home ground The Tories dominated British politics in Throughout the year they • chose the subjects to be debated and the terms of the debate. The Sunday Times noted Tories' success in the sphere of signal achievement of the Thatcher years has been the way the prime minister has moved the political battle on to her terrain.

David Owen has discovered the radical potential of market economics and Neil Kinnock sounds more and more like a social democrat.

The Social Democrats have moved to a "social market' programme which echoes the Tories. In November the Labour Coordinating Committee's annual meeting agreed a resolution of long-term socialist endorsed an economy planning 'but also accommodating a market mechanism in some areas and admitting a 'small private sector. Thatcher hit the nail on the head at the Tory Party conference: The Conservative Party has staked out the common ground and the other parties are tip- The Tory strategy in 1983 was not to polarise society, but to shift the consensus politics to the right The Labour Party's capitulation to the Tories nationalism, law and order and family life is a measure of this The step by step approach to disarming the working class continued in 1983 because Labour could offer no coherent challenge to the Tories.

For the present the ruling class is marking time. But it has no long-term strategy for overcoming the crisis other than that of crushing the working class. The use of police at the Stockport Messenger dispute, and Home Secretary Leon Brittan's plans to build 10 new prisons, indicate the direction in which the Tories are moving. Former head of Thatcher's policy unit Sir John Hoskyns recently warned of the Tories' inability to deal with the crisis and the 'social timebomb' waiting to explode. The traditional the working class -па. abdicated responsibility for the battle.

is determined to rally the working class around politics that can stand up to the Tories. When the timebomb goes off the casualties must all be

Upwardly mobile bureaucrats: Kinnock and Hattersley All sections of the Labour Party have united in blaming the party's defeat in the June 1983 General Election on its failure to come to terms with the changing class structure of British society. Fran Eden looks at the changing composition of the working class and the myth of the well-off worker. The return of the Labour Party to the analysis and prescriptions of 20 years ago exposes its inability to rebuild a base in the working class of the eighties. NEIL KINNOCK emphasised the need for the Labour Party to change direction throughout his summer-long campaign for the leadership. He insisted that Labour must shift its orientation from its traditional base the male, 111 manufacturing working class towards a different section of society: We have given the impression that we are simply not attuned to the reshuffled class system since the fifties, to things like home ownership and taxation. We must convince the British people that we are in favour of success.'

It was apparent to all that industry now employed less than one third of all workers and manual workers were now outnumbered by white collar employees.

clear, however, it was less meant for the Labour Party.

Peter Hain and Harriet Harman, key figures in the nominally left-wing faction behind the 'Kinnock for leader' campaign, made the new orientation more explicit.

Writing in Tribune in July, they explained that Labour cannot afford to be only the party of the radicals and the poor.

To win elections Labour had to build a "new popular coalition', including middle class and better-off working class people.

Hain and his Labour Coordinating Committee colleague Nigel Stanley presented strategy document to the leadership on the eve of Kinnock's election, at the end of September. From close scrutiny of election returns and opinion Labour loses its grip Lost crucial support among professional and managerial employees, white collar workers and skilled manual workers.

They suggested that Labour needed to appeal to the 'upwardly mobile' section the working class. the upwardly mobile' worker has guided the Kinnock leadership through its first months in office. Volvos and videos Who are the 'upwardly mobile' workers?

Our surveys of trends in employment and living standards (see box on this and the following page) show little sign of any workers moving upwards. There are jobs for electrical engineers and professionals.

But the only openings for Thatcher's Britain seem to be as footballers, night watchmen and hairdressers.

A study reveals little evidence to support Kinnock's manual, notion of 'a new affluent working class.

Some middle class people have become more affluent over the past five years.

According to Treasury married man with two children £44 500 a year (five times the national average rise in income of 54 per cent since 1978.

For a worker on average earnings, on the other hand, the rise was 5.7 per cent. As every low-paid worker knows, 5 per cent of not much is not much of an increase.

Kinnock and Hain are impressed by the 'consumerism' of the working class.

Every Labour politician is preoccupied with the impact of Volvos on mining communities, the consequences of video viewing for proletarian consciousness, and the effect of home ownership on workers willingness to strike. less impressed. The highest manual wage earner only takes home about twice as much as the physical survival. To sustain this income a worker orlen nas to tou ana sweat lor long hours. High earnings usually include overtime and productivity bonuses. Even white collar workers endure stupefying 1C W labour and managerial harassment. Many workers regard their cars and televisions standards distant future. mass

CONSULO

shows that they concluded that Labour had cars, tea years The quest for subsequent of personal credit. differences workers in standard of living. of trends in incomes policy level of calculations, on wage) has had a real, after-tax good example. percent offer. abandoning Workers are much productivity. minimum necessary for strike action. continued on page 18 Paying the price Many people in Britain believe that despite recession and mass unemployment, workers who still have jobs have This rosy view never had it so good. underestimates the price workers are having to pay to maintain their living today, and the problems that are building up for the not-too- The latest Social Trends provides a of statistics, generally demonstrating rising incomes and levels of reveals that rea disposable income - the amount people tices. have available to spend - increased, tion taking account of inflation, by 12.5 percent between 1972 and 1982. It 14 million people took holidays abroad in 1982, one. million under more than in 1981. Purchases of videos, televisions and other household goods have all increased over the past However Social Trends also reveals that real incomes have stagnated over the past three years after rising in the seventies, and that much of the increase in consumption has been at the expense of savings or through hire purchase and other forms Social Trends, like many official and statistical surveys of living standards, provides only a partial picture. It lumps the whole of British society together and underestimates growing within society. It also fails to take account of the changing conditions within which people work to earn the wages to keep up their Yet it is here that the most significant changes Ehave taken place over the past few years.

In 1983 workers in general managed to win pay rises somewhere near the inflation. But they often made major concessions on working conditions in return for clinging on to a decent wage. The engineers' settlement shortly before Christmas is a deals. After months of negotiations, union leaders representing two million workers finally accepted a five They also agreed to participate in a working party with the employers with the objective of getting rid of restrictive manning practices, and introducing "flexibility' between jobs and flexible hours. This means measures to protect workers against excessive exploitation, turing workers into compliant servants of management in the drive to raise The employers also aim to introduce secret ballots to undermine workers' capacity to take effective In short, the engineers have got a pay rise that barely keeps up with inflation and, in return, have agreed that their factories.can be turned public almost into slave-labour camps.

workers The engineers' deal follows a pattern of increasingly punitive productivity deals over the past few years.

In the British politics sixties and seventies productivity frequently little made difference to workplace organisation.

They were often(simply a way around incomes policy Today they have become a brutal weapon against the working class Up to now they have not generally been aimed at reducing wages - hence wage levels have been They have, more or less maintained. however, forced through major reductions in manpower and staffing levels and the restructuring of working prac- The result has been the destrucof effective workplace trade union organisation and much more in- Fewer workers tensive exploitation. are being forced to work much harder more aggressive management and in worse conditions. Such productivity deals have spread in both manufacturing and, increasingly, in services.

Over the past ten years the proportion of non-manual workers covered by such schemes has doubled, reaching 17 per cent last year. The next stage is for employers to take advantage of the enhanced power that productivity deals have gIvel them, and try to curb wages. In the meantime, some workers have begun to pay the price for maintaining wages at the expense of conditions - with their lives. After a slow decline for many years the number of deaths at work rose to 256 in 1982. Almost half were in manufacturing industry.

The drive to tighten the productivity screw can be expected to claim more lives this year. A number of other trends that emerged in 1983 could lead to a sharp reduction in living standards in the year ahead. More than one million workers in the NHS and BL, and in a number of smaller firms (British Oxygen, Hoover, Caterpillar, International Harvester), have made long-term pay These established a fixed-rate wage rise for up to three years ahead As inflation rises again - and prices are already moving up more rapidly real incomes could fall far behind what workers need. Wage cuts as an altern ative to job losses or closure received widespread publicity at the Hyster plant in Scotland and at ICT's Hyde plant near Manchester. Wage cuts have been used more for propaganda value in areas of high unemployment than in a systematic attempt to reduce living standards. But they are an ominous indicator of future trends. Nurses and London dockers agreed to make pay rises conditional upon agreement not to undertake industrial action.

Politicians of all parties are talking about right to strike in key curbig une services. The threat that be denied the only may have to force decent weapon they wages out of the employers and their state looms menacingly over 1984.

the next step, January 1984 17

British politics continued from page 17 compensation for drudgery.

meagre However much they increase their wages, can never take home enough the Friday to escape returning to work on Monday.

Deepening divisions It is true that 60 percent of British householders now own their homes.

have become owner-occupiers Workers to high rents and escauc It makes housing. aTTe workers consciousness if they pay rent to a council or landlord, or pay it in the form of mortgage repayments Workers building concerned about the fact that one in six homes are unfit to live in, than about forms of ownership. leadership decided Bas resistance to council house sales. In any case few remaining council tenants can afford to buy their homes. Even if they had the money, they wouldn't buy the squalid housing on offer provided largely by Labour councils.

Labour's approach draws attention to divisions in the working class that have been deepened by the recession. Its quest for a new social base from which to launch its own revival has produced little result; but it seems calculated to further divide the working class.

Wide divergence in pay settlements last was concealed year does the 'upwardly What worker do for a living at the beginning of 1984? What will he or she be doing 1987 or 1988 when Labour will once again be asking for workers votes in a general election? In December the

TUC

presented a document for the consideration of the Cabinet ministers, top businessmen and civil servants on the National Council, the top quango on which the TUC is still represented.

predictions were based on academic surveys carried out at Cambridge and Warwick universities. must have made grim Kinnock's advisers searching 'upwardly mobile wards which to orient the new-look Labour Party. In the 12 months up to June 1983 the long-term trends of declining manufacturing employment, and stagnating employment in the service sector, continued apace. ularly heavy in metal manufacture, shipbullding, and metal goods production.

shed more than 7 per cent of its workforce in the year. were registered in public utilities (gas, water, electricity), and in clothing and footwear. There was an increase in jobs in only one manufacturing sector - timber and furniture. A one per cent expansion here followed a contraction of 7 percent in the previous three years. And employment in services, after peaking in 1979/80, has been dropping slightly over the past three However there are significant variations in the service sector. transport and communications fell by 9 per cent, in distributive trades by 6 per cent, and in public administration by 4 percent. ployment in banking, finance grew by 6 percent, up in professional and scientificservices.

Economic forecasts suggest the acceleration of these trends into the eighties.

According to projections made by the Warwick Institute of Economic Research, electrical engineering is the only sector of manufacturing that is expected to grow from 1982 to 1990.

This reflects the anticipated increase in demand for electronic capital equip- The rest of British industry

LECTE

especially textiles and clothing, metals and engineering 18 the next step, January 1984 necessity of local government of market get decent difference usually and imposing more The new Labour drop its less carming national average than four million. deepest The housing increases. By by the fact that The jobs of tomorrow mobile' laneous to expand. financial Economic Development The TUC's Their forecasts reading for for an suggest. constituency toonly transport and distribution.

ot tomorrow. Job losses were particdifferent mechanical engineering are expected Each Substantial losses class. administrators, tists, class people Last year jobs in anticipated. On the other hand eminsurance and and held there cies fill. industrial faces a gloomy average wage rises kept abreast of inflation Workers in the oil industry, some skilled engineering workers, and workers in gas, oil and electricity, got rises of 11 and 12 per cent. On the other hand, steel workers, manual workers and civil servants all got increases between nil and five percent. This results from a conscious strategy by employers and the Government to take maximum advantage conditions to enforce lowest possible wage rise. Employers and administrators have reorganised bargaining arrangements to strengthen their position, by introducing local bargaining local productivity deals. This approach has been followed both in private industry and in the public sector, where it has extended from steel and coal to the civil service. So while the better paid workers just about held their own, the lower paid lost out. The pool of those than two thirds of the has swelled to more and most dangerous division in the working class is between those with jobs and those out of work.

The gulf in income between households headed by somebody who is employed and those headed by somebody on the dole now stands at more than £50 a week. As mass unemployment becomes chronic, the duration of unemployment April around last one million people had been out of work for future. Prospects for the services sector public somewhat brighter; administration, professional and miscelservices all expected are However these projections merely extrapolate from existing trends.

They cannot anticipate the effects of a further sharp fall in profitability throughout the economy - or of a jobs in collapse on banking, insurance and finance.

Nor can they predict the effect of successively more draconian cuts in jobs in the civil service and local government.

The future for jobs in services could be much bleaker than present trends And these forecasts can see for public utilities, The 'upwardly mobile' sections of the working class are no easier to identify if we look at the projected occupational profile of the national workforce.

The Warwick figures predict changes in employment in 18 occupational categories between 1980 and 1990. The 10 that include to contract engineering craftsmen, both transferable and non-transferable craftsmen, skilled and unskilled operatives - the core of the traditional manual working The growth areas are in traditionally middle class jobs - managers and health professions, other professions, engineers and scientechnicians and draughtsmen The only real openings for working woud seem to be in "literary, artistic and sports occupations' - expected to grow by 26 per cent and in the private security sector, for which a 25 per cent expansion is The future is already taking shape.

Last September the Manpower Services Commission announced that despite a general long-term decline in job vacanwere a few in select occupations that took a long time to The growth points of the British labour market in 1983 were in jobs for electrical and electronic engineers and technicians, accountants, sales represenvocational and domestic housetrainers, This keepers and ladies' hairdressers.

is the constituency in which Kinnock and his advisers will be marketing the Labour Party, with an appropriately designed image, in the late eighties.

more than 12 months, half a million for more than two years, and a quarter of a million for more than three years. The cumulative effect of government changes in the rules for state benefits over the last three years has been to reduce the real value of unemployment benefit by more than f2 a week. Unemployment benefits in Britain are now a lower proportion of average earnings than in any other Western European country except Italy.

Unemployment statistics are likely to be upwardly mobile for the rest of the The Warwick eighties. Economic Research predicts a rise to 3.2 million by the mideighties, with areassuring decline to 2.9 million by the end of the decade. The Cambridge Economic Policy Group is more pessimistic. It reckons on a rise to between 3.7 and 4.2 million by light of 1988. In the admissions, Kinnock's advisers have questioned Labour's manifesto commitment to reducing unemployment to one million.

Further divisions problems for the working class movement.

The combined effects of recession and the Youth Training Scheme have set back wages and conditions THe workers. Last year, adult pay rises were four times higher than those for boys under the age of 18, higher than those for girls. Women and blacks have been ghettoised in low paying industries and in part-time work. The overall unemployment level for ethnic minorities in September of last year was 17 per cent (national average - 13 per cent), For black youth in inner-city areas it is nearly 50 per cent. The recession has sharpened regional differences. In the West Midlands, where industrial collapse has been most precipitate, earnings lag 13 per cent behind London levels.

Living in the past Labour's orientation to 'upwardly mobile' workers scarcely relates to real changes in the composition of the working class.

Kinnock's strategy is to play to the opinion polls and try to outdo the Tories appeal to self interest. This will require careful market research promises of tax cuts, material possessions and more home ownership. The LCC is currently working on this project. Unfortunately for the Labour Party, this sales pitch can only be made to a very narrow section of the working population. While is making promises Labour upwardly mobile few, the downwardly mobile many fragmented and demoralised and even more remote from the Labour Party.

It is illuminating to compare Labour's current attempt to overcome its decline with its previous effort, after the 1959 election defeat. A Tory landslide victory Labour over commentators; leading ponse. bemoaned political commented Institute of image mobile these grim present serious 1966 elections of young and three times late seventies to repeat Labour forward no compromised followed by the working class to The will become increasingly gave rise to a discussion of its class interests. Promotion prospects: even British football offers more job growth than industry strikingly similar to the recent debates.

Must Labour lose? asked two influential win? Can Labour was Labour intellectual Anthony Crosland's scarcely less pessimistic res Crosland noted the decline the traditional working class and its identification with the Labour Party.

He living the effect of higher standards and household goods on the outlook of workers in the newer industries and among youth. He the increase in owner on occupation and the effect of the welfare state on social mobility. He concluded that Labour should shed its cloth cap and try to relate to upwardly workers and the middle class As Crosland put it, 'in a few years time half the population would be middle class in occupation and more than half would be middle class in aspiration'.

In the early sixties there was some scope for Labour's new strategy. There was still some steam in the economy, and under Harold Wilson could project a dynamic, modernising approach to political problems. In the 1964 and Wilson succeeded in arresting what seemed to many to be an irreversible decline in Labour's fortunes.

But Wilson's success only slowed • the party's long-term decline in popular support. Wilson presented Labour as a 'natural party of government'. His government's attempts to make workers pay for the deepening crisis of British capitalism in the late sixties - and even more in the - further antagonised Labour's residual working class base.

Today there is little room for Kinnock Wilson's The

CHOCUVIC

leadership cannot pose as a credible alternative party of government because the ruling class is not convinced by its policies for reviving British capitalism. On the other hand, the party can put convincing strategy to any section of the working class. The left is so the party's with past betrayals, and so servile to the new leadership, that it has become isolated and irrelevant. At the end of 1983 the best Labour's 'hard left' could do was republish a toned-down version of the left programme of 1973. This mish-mash of promises of reflation and admissions of the necessity for austerity simply reveals the left's incoherence and inability to connect with the real problems facing the recession is transforming and dividing the working class. The working class does not need a party that makes narrow appeals to particular sections to advance its sectarian preoccupation with its own survival. The class struggle in 1984 requires a working class party that seeks to unite the working class in defence

Women workers suffered last year.

In three crucial areas and unemployment - women lost ground. Kate Marshall takes a look at family life under Mrs Thatcher's government. THE LACK of any dramatic shift of women out of employment and back into the home has disguised the real deterioration in women's position. Many observers have commented that women have not done too badly during the past four years of Tory rule. disproportionate burden of the recession carried by women has been hidden by their changing role in the labour market.

In the last major recession women were driven out of what was seen as a temporary position in production. women constitute more than 40 percent of the workforce, the recession has not displaced women on the same scale.

it has led to a sharp deterioration in their position in pay, job opportunities, parttime work and unemployment.

Women only The most recent statistics from the 1982 New Earnings Survey show that low pay is standard for women manual workers.

In 51 of the 53 industries quoted the majority of women workers earned less than £100 a week. entials between men and women have stayed relatively constant over the last seven years, the gulf between men's and women's earnings is as bad as ever 1983 women workers earned 74.2 per cent of men's hourly pay compared to 75.1 percent in 1976. in terms of gross pay, men in manual trades got £146.60 a week compared to women's t87.90. received £167.50, women only £108.80.

Although women's gross earnings per hour were about three quarters of men's, when we compare weekly wages women got only 65 per cent of men's wages because of lack of overtime opportunities for If we compare gross weekly

WONCE

earnings in the public and private sectors the situation is even worse.

manual women in the public sector grossed per cent of men's weekly women in the private sector got little more than half men's wages.

The recession concentration of women in low-paid, women-only occupations. ployment the tendency towards womenonly jobs is increasing. all female manual workers are employed catering, cleaning, other personal services. with just over 45 percent in 1975.

women's employment in these areas has traditional THereased women's jobs - for example in textiles and light electrical engineering declined under the impact of the recession.

This shift has occurred in the context of a general decline in job opportunities for women. There has been a fall in the number of women in full-time jobs from the pre-1979 level of 5.5 million to five The High Tory window on life: Thatcher's set imposes family morality from above - pay, jobs was opportunities dards has part-time jobs. In reality, the Today, when children. particularly hard. But had jobs. The decrease cent). Offices. employed if they are Although pay differmarried to or live with. In

CONTE

Whether This meant that, Over all industries men bliss mother. ideology in 1983. While nonfamily think tank, Group, wages, back to the individual. has intensified the In manual emaffairs in Sixty per cent of hairdressing and This compares As low-paid - have today. benetits. removed Although million in 1983. Part-time work, which the main cause of expanding job during the for women seventies, is now beginning to level out.

About 86 per cent - 3.5 million - of all part-time workers are women.

The Tory assault on working class living stanwomen with pushed more dependent children out of the home into About 30per percent of women with a dependent child under four years are in employment, of whom three quarters work part-time.

Seventy per cent of women with the youngest dependent aged 10 and over are employed and 59 percent of them work part-time.

At the same time, nursery facilities have continued to contract. Women who have had to go out to work to make ends meet have been forced to rely on friends, relatives and neighbours to care for their Unemployment has hit young women During the last 10 years 350 000 fewer 16 to 19 year olds was greater for girls (27 per cent) than for boys (21 per But these figures are deceptive.

Ever since the Tories changed the way the figures are compiled in November 1982, the official unemployment figures have included only those who are successful in claiming benefit at Unemployment Benefit Women no longer count as undenied benefit because they are assumed to be economically dependent on the men they are In this way. five per cent of men (106 000) and 14 per women (130 000) have been removed from the official jobless statistics.

they were housewives, workers or unemployed, women were in the forefront of Tory attacks on working class living standards in 1983.

The contradiction between the harsh reality of working class family life and the Tory government's rhapsodies about familial was apparent to every working The morals of a Tory There was a resurgence of pro-family In March, Thatcher's the Family Policy made clear its intention to shift the cost and responsibility for the family The Tories' drive to stir up prejudice against women and sex was only slightly tempered by the embarrassing revelations about industry minister Cecil Parkinson's extra-marital October. Tory ideologues glorified the family, while Tory attacks on the working class reduced family life to misery. Divorce rates rocketed as the pressures of mass unemployment, rising prices and falling living standards drove thousands of families apart. The number of one parent families has increased from 570 000 in 1971 to more than one million The Government reduced state from mothers the unemployment register and argued that support for one parent families meant "subsidising illegitimacy and immorality.

Victoria "mother or ten Gillick lost her case against the right of doctors to give the pill to girls under 16 without parental consent in August, her comeback in November was backed by Her appeal to the High Court 200 MPs. against the ruling provided a focus for all society's reactionary forces.

Telegraph came out strongly on her side: What remains of our civilisation is based largely on monogamy and the principle of parental responsibility'.

behind Gillick was designed to impose a new morality to limit women's access to contraception. In early December the Sex Equality Bill, which sought to combine and update the 1970 Equal Pay Sex Discrimination Act, was defeated in the House of Commons by 198 votes to 118. Under Secretary of State for Employment Alan Clark, speaking against the Bill, said that it was impractical, expensive 'and in many respects alien to public opinion'. Abortion rights too came under attack last year. The anti-abortion organisation Life took consultant Anthony Hamilton to court in September for alleged murder after an unsuccessful late abortion. a hysterical campaign raged in the gutter press against the supposed increase in sexually transmitted diseases. Herpes was the new horror story, AIDS was God's punishment for gays, and promiscuous women had only themselves to blame if they got cervical cancer.

portrayed relatively rare venereal diseases as major problems endangering the fabric of society. Tory ideologue Roger Scruton sought to reassert and chastity' (When triumph', The Times, 13 September).

No match The Tory right wingers won all the arguments in 1983 because they faced no real opposition. The Tories' back on liberal, medical or sociological The only effective reply to arguments. Gillick's anti-contraception campaign is to insist that the working class must fight for free and safe contraception for any woman who wants it. Last year only the next step took this view. Others defended contraception for youth on the grounds that it preserved the sanctity of family life. Caroline Woodruffe, chairman of the Brook Advisory Centres under attack by the Tories agency set the tone. Woodruffe explained that if Gillick won, 'the minority of girls in need of help would be deprived of it'. In other words, Woodruffe concedes that contraceptives need only be minority' of disadvantaged and black girls whom the state wants to discourage from having children. Other opposition to the right wing share many of the same prejudices. to stand up against the system in defence of women's rights. The liberals inability to fight Tory attacks and ideology was demonstrated in last year's campaign to save the South London Hospital for Women from closure The argument for keeping the hospital open as a service for women, by women, was that it provided choice.

British politics A year in the life of Margaret Thatcher's family The Daily sector.' The consensus if Act and the 1975 Sir Geoffrey. hospital Tories and the cuts. gynaecologist Common And throughout the year disruption, The media 'modesty, restraint creative intolerance must only way effectively weapons, opponents fell fighting 1983. Fighting TO1 During 1983 and the main an decadent, bosses. fighting given to 'the the Middle East, else where. voices raised in They are afraid The secretary of Wandsworth Community Health Council pursued this approach: 1 condemn the Government for ending freedom of choice. They say they believe the health service should be more like Marks and Spencer - offering the consumer choice - yet they are removing the choice from the state The campaign to stop the closure of the hospital argued that the facilities it provided were unique and should be saved, such as other hospitals St. George's in Tooting - had to suffer.

This approach won support from the Conservative National Women's Committee and Lady Howe, wife of Foreign Secretary But the campaign could not win the support of the working class or organise the action necessary to keep the hospital open. The only way the could have been defended successfully was by fighting for workers jobs and women's services, against the Cruise missiles arrived at Greenham last year, despite women's efforts to stop them. On one level the women at Greenham Common achieved some notable successes.

Using imaginative tactics and a campaign of they managed to attract media coverage and keep the issue in the public eye. But, ultimately their strategy for winning peace is doomed to failure.

To oppose the war drive requires more than a narrow attack on American nuclear weapons - it means taking on the system that creates them. The Greenham women's tactics would have far been better employed fighting against the wars that are going on today in Ireland, the Middle East and Central America.

The women and workers could fight nuclear and other was by standing with those against British imperialism in Another way peace, against Culs in women's jobs and facilities, and for contraception and abortion rights, can only be successful when carried out from a consistently working class perspective.

revolutionary communist women fought for anti-imperialist politics uncompromising. defence of women's jobs and services, against the oppressive morality of the During International Women's Week we organised demonstrations and meetings in solidarity with the women against imperialism in Ireland, Central America and Throughout the year we were involved in campaigns against cuts in abortion, nursery and health facilities for women in Wandsworth, Southwark, Islington, Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham.

In Manchester and Coventry we campaigned against attacks on women's right to state benefits. At Britains toy factory in East London, at Arnots in Glasgow and at Hindle Gears in Bradford, revolutionary communist women supported the struggles of women workers with the only thing that counts - working class politics.

the next step, January 1984 19

Tilting the balance From the first day of the year, the British Nationality when 1983 saw into force, came growth and consolidation of racism at all levels of British society. Yet as Joan Phillips argues, racism never became a controversial public issue.

RACE AND IMMIGRATION have long provided emotive causes for the British right. In the run up to the 1979 General Election, immigration featured prominently in the Conservative Party campaign.

Tory The manifesto immigration controls and party leader Margaret Thatcher made racist speech about her fears of the nation being 'swamped" by immigrants. 1979 campaign established the Tories as the supreme party of racial and antiimmigrant prejudice. The Torieseffectively squeezed out the National Front and the far-right groupings. other former fascists entered the Conservative ranks, the fascist organisations fragmented The June 1983 and declined. Election confirmed their virtual pearance. It is a measure of the Tories' new-found confidence that they no longer need to make a big play of the racist card. In this respect the contrast between the elections of 1983 and 1979 is striking. In last year's campaign the issue of race remained in the background. The Tories even had the audacity to make a bid for the black vote. Their patronising slogan says he's black, Tories say he's British' found little resonance, significant that they even bothered to try to appeal to black people.

The Tories" low profile on race is the outcome of four years of hard work.

Since 1979 the Government has managed to reduce immigration to an all time low, up its internal policing of black step people and pass Nationality comprehensive this record behind them the Tories face little pressure to demonstrate their racist credentials. Apartheid - British style The Tories have moved away preoccupation with regulating immigration to a direct concern with internal policing. Immigration control central for enforcing racial divisions. But after the implementation of the National- Act the Government had only to ILy tighten up the rules. rules have been interpreted rigidly. A new computer run by the Immigration Service Intelligence Unit has files on more than 300 000 people to assist state control. In July, immigration minister dington, announced that 'concerned about delays suffered by individuals. He therefore intended in future *to restrict the opportunities for MPs to intervene in immigration tightening up of immigration controls through rigid enforcement is significant, but it is overshadowed by the build-up of repressive measures directed against the black people who already live in Britain.

Throughout 1983 the proceeded to extend racial discrimination and harassment in most spheres of life. The control of immigradoes the movement of people in and out of the country, It also means creating a category of second class citizens, identified primarily by skin colour, who are subjected to tight internal controls. In January 1983 the police launched a series of passport raids in London were raided. Similar attacks were carried 20 the next step, January 1984 British politics Act the promised "firm an infamous The While many General disapout in the black authorities Labour but was potential family through Parliament a With Act. "illegals' Office Home was from a passports to prove is still status when Thus immigration school Thus in David Wadthe country for he was required applying for only after cases". The the London with a marriage licence. Government Westminster, important avoided. not be merely. controlling more than 30 homes the summer Racism and the state in 1983 British Airways announce the departure...

community in the Midlands. Over the 12-month period the issued 2000 deportation orders. The raids and arrests and interrogations were not simply about deportations. The aim above all was to create a climate of fear - to terrorise the black a whole. Immigration controls are by nature discriminatory they put in question the rights of every immigrant. Controls turn every immigrant and even black people born in Britain into "illegals. Police raids are designed to make sure that every black remembers its inferior and insecure position in British society.

"Fishing expeditions' - random raids by immigration police in search of are only one aspect of the system of British racism. The system has more pervasive methods of intimidation.

collaboration with the Department of Health and Social Security the year. A stepped up during number of surveys have shown that black people are often expected to produce their immigration a family registering with doctor, attending hospital, signing on for social security or unemployment benefit, getting on the housing list, or enrolling at college. Even the most mundane features of everyday life do not escape the eyes of the ever vigilant racist October it was revealed that it was customary in many parts of black people to be when to produce passports marriage icences. it was considerable publicity including questions in Parliament that Camden of Borough apologised to an Asian woman who was asked for her passport before being issued On the streets Although racism was not a major issue in on the streets and housing estates of Britain's inner cities it could Throughout the year black people faced the violence perpe trated by racist thugs. In the early part of the year the Walter Rodney bookshop in Ealing was twice attacked. In February an explosion seriously damaged the building Black People's which the Croydon During Action Committee was located.

occurred racist attacks throughout the country, particularly Heathrow the East End of London. The press and the politicians kept up a propaganda barrage to back up the racial violence on the streets. The media, especially local newpapers, continually empha- 'criminal' sised the Indian youth. The release of tendentious crime statistics in March led the London Standard to headline BLACKS AND CRIME' in one of many similar racist features. Politicians of all parties hotly debated the problems of law and order, all accepting the labelling of the victims of oppression as a criminal menace to be contained or suppressed.

These attacks met with resistance from black youth. black youth maintained a lively campaign over police handling of the case of Colin Roach's death in police station in Hackney. In May, people were arrested after violent clashes with police who National Front meeting in Tottenham.

On 4 June, a policeman was stabbed and a police car was Brixton in response to intensified repres And campaigns such as Workers sion. Against Racism and the group supporting the Newham 8 demonstrated a determination to organise against racist attacks.

The balance of forces However, despite some important antiracist activities, the ruling class in general managed to retain the initiative.

establishment felt sufficiently confident to publish the Policy Studies Institute's critical report on the Metropolitan Police in November. racist attitudes and language were expected, accepted and even fashionable' police. Metropolitan in the Commissioner Sir Kenneth Newman sidestepped the issue by arguing that the publication of the report showed that the police were prepared to clean up their The media own house. pursue the point. The confidence of the ruling class stems from the lack of coherent opposition to its policies. The opposition parties including the parliamentary left - have a long record of compromise on the race issue. Indeed many local councils are more interested containing resistance to oppression than fighting racism. The industry and the ethnic politics sector have been given great rather than funding soft side of the Times insisted The containment challenge on race, character of West That's why there debate about

FURY

OVER

Despite scores of arrests, For the bosses the doorway of a between British 35 were defending bosses. overturned in This is where comes in. necessity The fight racist campaign This survey showed that example. Police The responses to chose not to mobilise acieved Labour controlled race relations left boost by dominated local authorities.

The main contribution of various council backed quangos has been to defuse racial tension defend black people. A West Midlands Labour councillor spoke up for his council's radical policy of the community projects, on grounds that it had been 'overwhelmingly successful in defusing the tension which created the street riots of 1981' The race relations sector represents the British state. It co-opts and corrupts potential opponents and isolates the victims of racial oppression.

The ruling class is consciously fostering this approach alongside its more violent tactics. In September the editor of The that the community approach should continue while the riot police were kept on full alert: The fact that we have had two summers free from inner-city rioting should not be allowed to justify any dilution in the Govern ment's commitment to an inner-city policy which was forced upon it by the events in Brixton, Toxteth and Moss Side.'

more sober sections of the media emphasised the importance of a policy of avoid Ironically, this job is mainly carried out not by the Government, but by Labour run local councils in inner-city areas.

Since the Tories face no coherent the Government can determine the terms of the discussion was no real political racism Racism thrived at all levels of British society but since the Government called the shots public discussion was not about racism, but about policing, law and order, and Workers Against Racism The key to putting the racists on the defensive is to challenge the legitimacy of immigration controls, and the right of the state to discriminate against black people the crucial division is people and foreigners hence the need for immigration control.

For us the crucial division is between workers (black and white and British From a worker's point of view immigration control is nothing less than an attempt to divide our class. The assertion of the unity of class interests is the starting point for the fight against racism.

Workers Against Racism The most important achievement of WAR in 1983 was to popularise the for fighting immigration controls. As a result a growing number of anti-racists are no longer prepared to restrict their activities within a narrow legal framework, but are determined to laws by any means. The the of resistance against deportation of Afia Begum is just one Supporters of this campaign are prepared to defy the law because they recognise that immigration legislation is inherently racist and anti working class.

fight against racism cannot be effective if it is reduced to isolated instances of attacks and harassment. To be effective we have to opposition against the institutions and laws that legitimise racism and make racial oppression respectable. That's why our objective has to be to smash all immigration controls. This cannot be through legal The retorm. British capitalist state can only be British.

It is in its very nature to discriminate against the 'non-British'. Only the united power of the proletariat can get rid of immigration controls by organising against every manifestation of racist oppression.

Argnan rebels probe soviet technology Who's afraid of the Mongol hordes? The Threat, Hutchinson Andrew Cockburn. 1983, pp338, hbk £9.95 David Holloway, The Soviet Union and the arms race, Yale University Press 1983, pp211, hbk £7.95 Jonathan Steele, World Power: Soviet foreign policy under Brezhnev and Andropov, Michael Joseph 1983, pp287, hbk £14.95 WINSTON CHURCHILL once described the Soviet Union as a mystery wrapped in a raaie inside an enigma. He did little to unwrap it.

once the soviet union nad poured zu mullion German army lives into defeating the victorious imperialists had a new use for it. The Soviet Union was to be the guarantor of a weak and divided Germany. More than that, it was to become the Threat against which Europe would be united under US domination. Churchill was the most forceful and lurid exponent of this view. In a famous 1949 speech in Massachusetts he warned that Europe lay at the mercy of the Mongol hordes which unless checked would sweep across from the Russian steppes. The North Atlantic alliance was born.

developed to lorce - Japan into submission, became the totem of US domination.

Cockburn observes that they were used br Western governments 'to preserve an unbreakbetween Europe Hote sane States': 'Such a link would only remain the lynchpin of the Atlantic alliance so long as nuclear weapons were portrayed as the sole means of keeping the Red Army at bay.

Mongol hordes became de rigeur in every Nato salon. Cockburn has two objectives. He spends most of his book debunking the myth of the Soviet threat on the evidence of Soviet emigres York. He shows, interviewed in New instance, that out of 175 Soviet divisions only 58 are at full strength and ready for combat.

The '5.8 million servicemen' of Nato literature turn out to include construction brigades, civil defence and border guards, political officers, troops on the Chinese border and so on. Once these are taken out it becomes clear that roughly Pact

TITO

warsaw confront about the same number troops in Europe - hardlyenough for a blitzkrieg.

Moreover, the Soviet army is composed largely of conscripts who serve for two years, made layer

OT NUS

conscripts are likely never to fire a rifle during a harsh training programme which consists of little more than square-bashing. Their leisure hours are spent hunting for eau de cologne and antifreeze to drink for lack of vodka.

Soviet backwardness is equally reflected in military technology. Soviet Takeate because no engine has been produced powerful enough to drive a tank the size of an American model. The engine in the Mig-21 has to be sent away for overhaul every 300 hours because Soviet industry cannot refine and machine the metals to withstance extreme conair on inside a jet engine. There is even considerable doubt whether the complex fuse system on Soviet ICBMs would ignite if the military ever wanted to aune one aneer.

Military tactics are as much a problem a: technology. Despite six months of preparation, the forces mobilised to invade were from Kazakh construction brigades who had never trained as soldiers. They took with them anti-aircraft artillerv - but it was a veal before they realised that the Afghans had no aircraft. The new irrationalism Cockburn's demystification of the Soviet threat is subordinate to another objective. He emerges from the book as an exponent of the new irrationalism of Mary Kaldor's "baroque arsenal' or E P Thompson's 'exterminism'. In his view very found in any of the activities of the superpowers armea lorces. At the ena or the day cockburn shares the incomprehension of all those Soviet emigres with whom he ate pastrami in Manhattan cafes. Holloway's book has the merit of debunking the myth blindly dominating Soviet policy-making. He shows that while the High Command has played an active role in polities since the death Stalin, it has always been the party which has called the shots execution in 1953. It is the Politburo which makes the major decisions allocating resources between cerence consumonor ad vestment Holloway tries to explain these decisions on defence spending in relation to Soviet foreign policy. He demonstrates the necessity for the Soviet arms build-up if the Soviet Union was to participate in international summitry and win concessions on trade and technology.

of strategic parity was central to the Soviet bureaucracy's search for security. Khruschev speeded up the development of nuclear missiles and even attempted to bluff the United States into conceding the status of superpower to the Soviet Union. the soviet Union forced into wasting enormous resources which otherwise could have been used to strengthen the domestic economy, It was not until detente in the seventies that there was any significant economic pay-off. What Holloway is not able to do is show the the connections between the foreign and defenc policy interests of the Soviet state and the he comes is to point to the conflict between the bureaucracy's need for foreign technology and its tear of economic dependence, For all his realism he refuses to see the main drive to war rivalries imperialist powers and joins Cockburn in calling for 'alternative' defence policies for the West. The Soviet threat Nuclear is only mitigated, not banished.

SUIC

TROST

percepave account of Soviet foreign policy yet is World Power

- TNE

ne correspondent Jonathan contains a sober account of the Soviet Union's minor forays into the Third World. However, this is secondary to Steele's explanation of the relations between the Soviet Union and Europe and America and their ideological reflection in anti-Sovietism. Steele ama-bovieusin or the oo runng class walen sees a Red under every bed. In his view the Soviet Union has no 'master plan in foreign policy' but has spent the last 40 years in ad hoc improvis- He cites Paul Warke, Jimmy chief arms control negotiator to explain why: 'in my negotiations, I had the feeling that the for Soviets were more serious than we were...

because they recognise their political system is infinitely more fragile than ours.

Despite constant Soviet efforts, there was economic detente with the West until1969. On the Soviet side there was a strong economic troops motive. Soviet leaders therefore worked hard to of Nato obtain imports of technology and grain from the West. The United States, on the other hand, with looked more to short-term gains as the Soviet These Union had little to offer economically. Soviet gains from the 1972 SALT I agreement wer consequently limited. apply to new generations of nuclear weapons, so the Soviet Union still had to engage in a nuclear competition it could ill afford.

By the time of the next round of arms and trade negotiations in 1979 the United States had more pressing concerns. The agreement signed by Brezhnev and Carter was never ratified by Congress. Anti-Soviet rhetoric was now in demand to justify a new US arms reviews a Rapid region. The USA 'was falling back leadership Afghanistan in Western Europe and Japan' Soviet influence at any M11111

URDER

,OO POUNDS

REWARD

- literally in the case of Beria's . The goal Anti-garrotting gear was thus pectable pbk £5.95 that 'after ane closes between the time through the - i.e. more cost effective - 'original hooligans and Edwardian and late Guardian's foreign The book Steele. ridicules the extreme rowdyism. The word Carter's Bank Holiday East London, described by movement towards political and violent struggle The agreement did not the assistance of 12 constables.

street arrest

SALT II

"Boot Day in 1898, Race 'infested build-up. The fall of the Shah in February 1979 was the pretext for Carter to declare the Persian Gulf a 'vital American interest' and dust off the plans made by the Pentagon under Kissinger for Deployment Force to operate in the on the old bogey of a Soviet threat in order to reassert US over increasingly independent allies is at a lower ebb than time since the beginning of detente.

However, the growing strains within Nato and between the nations of Western Europe indicate that there remains scope for the Soviet bureauc racy to engage in its traditional diplomacy to secure it a few more years of power.

It is important to remember that its massive military machine is vital if it is to play that role.

Gareth Evans YOdI Class locations Geoffrey Pearson, Hooligan: a history of res fears, Macmillan Press 1983, pp283.

Hooligan is not just about street crime and volence. menarences me reva ent assumotio centuries of domestic peace, the streets of Britain have been suddenly plunged More into an unnatural state of disorder that betrays the stable traditions of the past. Starting with public order hysteria, Pearson takes us back in Teds of the fifties, •THe 'corner boys' of the Victorian years, the roughs' of the mid-nineteenth century, the artful Chartist dodger of the 1830s and 1840s to the unruly apprentices of "Merrie England".

He shows that contemporary complaints about containing the decline of the 'British way of life' have been echoed in every past generation. In every era we are consistently directed to an earlier, happies and more stable England. But if we go back in search of the 'golden age" we can find no time in modern history in which the decent British citizen was free from the threat of proletarian 'hooligan' made an abrupt entrance into common English usage in the wake of a turbulent August Bank Holiday cele bration in London in 1898. For the Victorian ruling class the most alarming aspect of the disturbances was that they testified to fierce traditions of resistance to the police in working class areas such as Hoxton in the News of the World as a low neighbourhood infested by a very dangerous class'. In one incident, a man described as a 'wooden-legged ruffian' kicked a policeman with his wooden leg. In the ensuing found it the policeman necessary to unscrew the man's wooden leg as response he wrestled him to the ground, striking him on the head with his truncheon. A crowd gathered and threw pepper at the police, causing such a commotion that it was only possible to get the one-legged prisoner to the police station with In a more typical case, when attempting a mob raised the cry of a hostile "Boot them" against the police'. In another police attempting to separate a man and a woman who were quarrelling were set upon by a crowd of 200 persons, who called out them", and they were assaulted and kicked'. On another occasion at Alexander Park founded which was said to be with a crowd of scoundrels and ruttians of the worst race-course stamp. wher police arrested a pick-pocket the constables were surtounded by a crowd who kicked them and brutally ill-treated them, and released the prisoner'. Pearson cites numerous instances of then found it assaults on policemen who necessary to draw their truncheons and fight their way out of a crowd.

*To think this is England Hooliganism' was invariably portrayed as the as an 'un-British' result of an alien presence, Victorian England ingeniously phenomenon. disowned the British hooligan bv giving him ar Irish name. But Pearson's numerous examples show that in many working class neighbourhoods hostility to the police was a remarkably cohesive force. Mass resistance to arrest was common. Even murderers could be the object of local sympathy. An attempt was made to rescue William Fatty' Gould when he appeared at the inquest in the Redcross Court murder case. "A savage mob' outside the court shouted their encouragement - Don't give way Fatty!'

Police informers were given short shrift. In one case, a suspected East End informer was visited by a crowd of workers who expressed their displeasure by burning effigies. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner's reports for this period give some indication of the extent of working class hatred for the police. Roughly one in four of London's policemen were assaulted each - 3444 cases were reported in 1899, when the constabulary strength was 13 213 men and 1949 sergeants. Pearson also describes more individualistic acts of hooliganism and rowdyism. He tells stories of gangs of 'roughs' waylaying cyclists and pelting them with stones. In one case a cowboy was brought before Lambeth court for lassoing cyclists - a kind of horseplay that must be stamped out at once said the magistrate. The police were also urged to take action against young boys throwing stones or spitting Irom London brages or boats and their passengers below. I find the spitting this year worse than ever, complained a gentleman in 1900. Almost every aspect of popular culture came under fire at the turn of the century. The music halls, professional football, the penny dreadfuls, the rowdy presence of working class people at seaside resorts and even in public libraries - all were condemned by the middle class. The bicycle craze of the 1890s gave rise to respectable fears that workers would gain access to upper class preserves on a large scale.

Learned authorities promoted the notion tha the push bike was a health hazard causing bicycle lace, bicycle nana ana bicycle toot as well as the dreaded Kyphosis bicylistratum or 'cyclist hump' which resulted if the handle bars were set too low. Evidence placed before the Physical Deterioration Committee even suggested that cycling was a threat to the nation's manliness, inducing varicocele of the testicles from the pressure of the saddle.

grievous allegations were brought against the bicycling "scorchers' who went too fast or too far - and barged into middle class leisure haunts. There were editorial fumings in The Times about the East End or suburban "scorcher", dashing along quiet country roads and through peaceful villages with loud shouts and sulphurous language. and reckless to life and limb'. Hit-and-run cyclists provoked heated confrontations in coroners' courts. When juries, cyclists, started defying the coroners' rulings and blaming the public for insufficient care, The Daily Mail launched an angry editorial broadside: "There were cyclists on the jury, we read, and this fact was a grim sound...steps should be taken to put these people down. The woman cyclist was an object of fearful contemplation, and there were snide allusions to the improper rational costumes women were adopting to facilitate travel by bike, as well as their recklessness in traffic.

- Pearson At mes. seems -Te celebrati working class violence, but he always stops short of taking sides. This comes out clearly in his discussion of the Morant Bay uprising in Jamaica in 1865. The revolt was savagely repressed by Governor Eyre. Six hundred men, women and children were- indiscriminately massacred, hundreds more were executed, and 1000 homes razed to the ground as Eyre's troops went on a three week orgy of hanging, torture, flogging and rape. In his observations on the 'morality" of working class violence in does state oppression, Pearson

STO

some fancy fence-sitting: Two wrongs do not make a right, although tney must necessary shut the balance in now we might approach such an inalienable moral precept as the "general belief that right and wrong are, after all, essentiallv distinct' In his final chapter Pearson draws out the historical lesson that 'friendly British bobbies" have never existed, and that the police have always been used as an instrument of class rule Yet he can still advocate community policing 'to be built in the future", of a sort that is not upon the illusions of the past" continued on page 22 the next step, January 1984 21

continued from page 21 Pearson's take sides informs Tal lite ambivalent and pessimistie conclusions he exposes many of the illusions behind the current law and order debate, Pearson clings on the middle class fear of working class widespread That leads to approval for the repression of the rebellious youth of today. Tamils forced to beg from tourists Divide and rule in Sri Lanka Satchi Ponnambalam, Sri Lanka: the national question and the Tamil liberation struggle, Zed Press 1983, pp273, pbk €6.50 WHEREVER THERE IS sectarian conflict in former colonies - Lebanon, Cyprus, Pakistan, East Africa - its roots can be traced back to the imperialist policy of divide and rule. Sri Lanka is no exception. Ponnambalam's book was written in the aftermath of last summer's anti-Tamil pogroms in Sri Lanka. The author is a Tamil the founder of both the Tamil Socialist Front in 1969 and the Podu Jana (ordinary people's) Party in the late seventies. The book is an attempt to provide a 'materialist. historical' analysis of the Tamil national question.

provides a useful account of Sri Lanka's political history, particularly in the post-war period. A materialist account, however, it is not.

Britain acquired Sri Lanka in 1796 when it seized the island from the Dutch. The Sinhalese Kandyans put up the strongest resistance to colonial conquest. Accordingly, the new British administration encouraged the Tamils to act as a counterweight, selectively bringing them into the colonial and public services. In the wake of the conquest Britain opened up the highlands and imported indentured lor export crops labour from the Tamil areas of south India to work the plantations. The Indian Tamils" worked and still work -in conditions for They starvation wages. divided from the Sinhalese by race and from the 'Sri Lankan Tamils' by class. Last summer's anti-Tamil pogroms were the bitter fruit of the maintenance and manipulation cicaton, communal divisions by imperialism. Ponnam balam sees conflict in psychological and sociological terms. For him history is rooted, not in the class struggle, but in the wishes and desires individuals. He attributes oppression of the Tamils, not to the divisions created by imperialism, but to the character defects of the Sinhalese people. Ponnambalam's arguments have much in common with the British left's superficial analysis of the Irish War. For the Labour left, the problem in Ireland is that the Loyalists are holding the British people to ransom. For Ponnambalam, Sinhalese nationalists play the same role in Sri Ponnambalam's analysis British In imperialism is a benevolent force.

independence in 1948 there was little conflict between the Tamils and the Sinhalese because they were held together by a common master wno was strong and impartial.

indictment of imperialism is that it failed to face up to its moral responsibilities: The British government is guilty of the gross betrayal of a million people who had toiled and produced the wealth for the British to rule the colony." History depicts imperialism in a less flattering light. When Britain granted independence to Sri Lanka in 1948 the indigenous bourgeoisie was very weak. The economy was stagnating. Like most backward capitalist countries, Sri Lanka exported a few agricultural commodities - tea, rubber and coconut - and imported just about everything else, including the bulk of its food and all manufactures. Deteriorating terms of 22 the next step, January 1984 trade meant an ever increasing debt burden, his rising inflation and greater immiseration.

While Faced with itancy, the Sri Lankan ruling class used the divisions created by imperialism to its advan- Tace public Indian Tamils to the colonisation of Tamil areas, the installation of Sinhalese as the official organised pogroms, anel Joan Phillips launched a violent offensive against the Tamil population. The failure of the United National Party's 'open-door' economic policy - designed to encourage imperialist investmentlate seventies resulted, in savage cuts in working living standards and the destruction of working class organisations. The UNP used anti- Tamil chauvinism to win support for these measures. The result was last year's pogrom.

The role of the working class leadership in supporting anti-lami chauvinism sha meti collaboration, the Sri Lankan Communist Party has had an abject history. It supported the imperialist war effort and at independence it backed the UNP, the party entrusted by the British with safeguarding imperialist interests.

When the Communist Party combatting anti-Tamil sentiments was electorunpopular it adopted a policy. The main Lanka Sama Samaja Party Years behind the Communist Party in its capitulation to Sinhalese chauvinism. In the seventies both parties, as members of the United Front government, were instrumental in working class militancy and oppression of the Tamils.

Ponnambalam is unable to provide any real critique of the left because he shares its belief in using the bourgeois state to create a properly organised socialist society. The problem with the CP and the LSSP was not their failure to unmask the the United Front Ponnambalam would have it. Their real failing was that, like Ponnambalam, their politics were not fundamentally different from those of the bourgeoisie. Sporting politics Garry Whannel, politics of sport, Pluto Press (Arguments for socialism) 1983, pp117, pok £2.50 THE MOST ESTEEMED sports commentators of the quality press have often turned their hand to other aspects of civilisation.

become rhapsodic the Manchester Guardian, or as music critic. More mellifluous radio commentary mented by his wine column in The Guardian.

As Garry Whannel implies, the striking feature of this idyllic world of sport is not so much that politics is missing, but the absence of any element of reality at all.

The general air of fantasy in sports commentary was well illustrated in a recent television appearance of C L R James. Now in his appalung nineties, West Indian James once also wrote for The Guardian on cricket. He also collaborated with Leon Trotsky on matters of American and Caribbean politics and has written many books of on history, politics and literature. He told his British late night chat-show audience and spellbound studio guests, including former England captain Mike Brearley and half the Race Today editorial collective, about the Hammond walking out to bat in a test match in the the late thirties. For James this spectacle represented not only the epitome of English civilisation but one of the most sublime moments in his long life, Whannel rejects the 'all human life is there' school of thought on sport and places himself firmly in the rival academy of concerned liberal opinion. Not for these people acclaim for Graham Pollock's cover drive: "does it reflect or enhance life? Pollock is South Africa, South Africa is apartheid and Before the sporting isolation of South Africa has been a highly successful political campaign. It has certainly allowed the nations of make moralistic gestures against South Africa to placate guilty liberals at home. Trade with The main and investment in the apartheid regime has carried on apace. There is no need to get your pea stuck in the whistle to make the point that sport and politics are inseparable.

apoplexy over Jesse Owen's triumph at the 1936 Olympics to Jimmy Hill's frothing about violence on the terraces every Saturday, it's obvious. International sport has long

DICELY

been ritualised warfare. When moves from stadium to battlefield sportsmen are expected to play their part. Generally they do their patriotic duty, but sometimes they renege. Muhammad Ali's eloquent explanation of his refusal to join the US army in Vietnam was that "no Vietcong ever called me nigger'.

But whether they mounting working class mil- From the disenfranchisement of the state school of Cardus and Arlott, writing better reports. in the has been Even by Stalinist standards of class discovered that "Sinhala-only' Trotskyist' party the was only a few Deposed emperor Haile Selassie crushing revolution enforcing the Zed Press 1983, pp 301, pbk £6.95 Ryszard Kapuscingk Books 1983, pp164, hbk £7.95 real class character of the new government as mass Kenon Malik was an excuse. Blowing the whistle: the Neville wax lyrical, turn elegiac and the left had wanted to find it as cricket correspondent o the paper's Arlott's recenty Jonn was comple- Soviet Union's sight of Wally slaughter of peasant, for all sections of the left.

of principle the West to Americans in defending the From Adolt Hitler's was incapable substance une contes revolutionary

TOT

-The book is welcome serve or not there is no getting war or politics out of sport.

Whannel tries to develop an overall socialist attitude to sport' by challenging the aesthetic orthodoxy with bourgeois sociology. Blowing the whistle contains some good anecdotes but lacks any substantial analysis of the place of sport in modern capitalist society. The aesthetic Brian Glanville • He and Geoffrey Green has at least the merit of courtiers, Alan Harding of rule. regime which The unknown Seatened Rene Lefort, Ethiopia: an heretical revolution?

emperor, Quartet ETHIOPIA'S 1974 revolution passed almost without comment in the West. Yet half a decade later the revolution in Iran generated a of literature and was the discussion in left-wing circles in Europe and America. Lefort tries to explain why the Ethiopian revolution was ignored. He dismisses the notion that ignorance of conditions in Ethiopia For almost a year before the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie Western journalists had been reporting the famine in northern Ethiopia and the political situation in the country. For almost 30 years Ethiopia had been America's policeman in the Horn of Africa, patrolling the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. It had the largest army in Black Africa and played a key role in American strategy in the region. The capital Addis Ababa was the headquarters of the Organisation of African to oppression. Unity. There was no shortage of information if Lefort's explanation of the left's reluctance to discuss the Ethiopian revolution comes very close to the truth. He argues that although the Provisional Military Action Committee, the Derg, claimed to have made a socialist revolution, it promulgated a cardinal heresy. The Derg asserted that the army could make a socialist revolution and safeguard it until the working class was sufficiently mature to claim it. The horrific consequences of this position put the Ethiopian revolution out of bounds for Western left-wing analysis. At a time when the Stalinist left was getting used to Eurocommunism and the rest of the left was enjoying the early seventies boom in militancy, they did not want to tackle the hard political question of social upheaval in the Third World. The embarrassing switch of allegiance from the Eritrean national liberation struggle to the Ethiopian state, and the mass ne began to worker and student activists by the Derg posed awkward questions The silence surrounding the Ethiopian revolution is an indictment of the left's opportunism.

The slaughter of nine out of 10 activists and the street battles between the army and the revol utionaries defied the left's narrow understanding of imperialism. That the Derg overthrew the Revolutionary brutal Selassie I regime and became an ally of the Soviet Union was enough to stamp it with anti-imperialist credentials as far as Militant's South Atrican sister paper Inqaba ya Basenbasi was concerned. Cuban army engineers replaced borders established at the end of the Second World War. This hid the continuity between the old and the new himself. regime. Even the money to finance the Ethiopian Reeve army continued to flow in from America. The Soviet Union's contribution has been minimal.

The domination of the country's agriculture by coffee plantations controlled by US giants like problem for General Foods was barely interrupted by the revolution. The left's belief that imperialism was restricted to formal political control meant of penetrating the of imperialist domination. Understanding Ethiopia's backwardness as a product prison of imperialist domination, and its consequences movement, remains beyond the grasp of the left to this day. As a contribution to ending this silence, Lefort's surprise. Like Lefort, Kapuscinski is a journalist celebrated for his reporting of the Third World.

His project is more limited than Lefort's. The result is, however, more satisfying.

His book is simply a collection of interviews with survivors from Haile Selassie's court. Kapuscinski sets out to recover pictures doomed to destruction' and make an 'exhibition of the old art of governing'.

succeeds admirably. The words of the ministers and functionaries convey suffocating ritual of the palace not just the but also the absolute necessity of this method One of Kapuscinski's informants asks: 'How do you reform without everything falling apart? How do you move something without bringing it all tumbling down?'. Although he does not deal with the post-revolutionary directly, Kapuscinski's informants suggest the likely outcome of any revolution not able to obliterate the old regime and build a new Ethiopia. It is no surprise to learn that the chairman of the Derg - Mengistu - now occupies the same place as the old emperor inside the same ritual of court life. Only the personnel and titles have changed.

Kapuscinski's main strength is the way in his informants" fear of the uprising against the emperor reflects its obverse - the enthusiasm of the population. One dignitary expresses his outrage during the early stages of revolution when it was impossible for him to walk the streets of Addis without being every beggar saw him. Kapuscinski's is a remarkable book. From what appears to be an odd angle he gives a stunning impression of a country in revolution.

John Johnson A triumph of the will Alan Reeve, Notes from a waiting-room, Heretic Books 1983, pp203, pbk £3.50 ALAN REEVE broke out of Broadmoor psychiatric prison in August 1981. A year later, 1982, he shot his way into the headlines, killing a Dutch policeman in a raid on an Amsterdam off-licence. His autobiography surveys almost 30 years inside Britain's barbarous penal system and his struggle against it.

Heretic are to be congratulated for printing what other publishers refused to touch. Reeve's book highlights the limitations of personal experience in formulating a political response Reeve's description of his early life and his career in a variety of borstals is a good account of the emotional annihilation of workers under capitalism and the state's response to those who crack under the strain. Reeve's account of his estrangement from his soldier father and his self-effacing mother shows an acute perception of the tension between suffocating closeness and terror of separation inherent in the form of family life foisted on the working class.

Reeve's attempt to resolve this tension in petty defiance of authority graduated into acts of antı-social violence and murder. The state's answer to the violence generated in the social relations it protects is more violence. From his early teens Reeve was treated to an intensifying regime of brutality. Reeve fought back against the thuggery of the borstal screws and the brutal hierarchy they cultivated among the prisoners to keep order in the prisons. By the time he reached Broadmoor see the need for a broader opposition to the prison system. His own resistance became a focus inspiring other prisoners to resist the barbarity of the 'nurses, and doctors' attempts to restrain prisoners with drugs. Reeve developed agitational work inside the prison designed to disrupt the smooth administration required by the authorities. The Broadmoor Gay Liberation Front and the Action Committee of Broad moor were able to win concessions from the authorities. Home Secretary William Whitelaw twice refused to release him because of his political activities, even though his applications were backed by prison governors and psychiapolitical strategy evolved by Reeve depended on the heroism of Reeve - was contined br narrow perspective of fighting back against his oppres sion. He admired liberation movements like the Irish liberation struggle because they were a the state. He identified with Maoism, transmitted to him through the gay movement, because of its stress on the heroic individual. But he could not go beyond mere oppositionism to an understanding of the need for a class struggle against the forces behind the system. His other

CSSOCRTONUTE

prisoners was merely an appendage to Reeve.

the spanner in the works. The denouement of this strategy in a Dutch psychiatric prison is no Alex Simms

Victory celebrations outside Southwark Crown Court: the magistrate dismissed all charges against the Sari Squad, arrested in a protest for Workers Against Racism Activities 17 January 24 January 31 January 7 February 14 February discussions on vital issues facing the workers' movement. Every Tuesday at 7.30 pm in the University of London Union, Malet Street WC1

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Individual subscription rates (for 12 months) • Britain and Ireland £S Europe £8.50 Middle East and North Africa €10 • America, Asia and Southern Africa £12 • Australasia £13 Why capitalism has reached the end of the road Their state - and ours Seeing through ideology The working class lives! Communism - the realistic alternative Frank Richards introduces a series of five public Living Marxism Begum be and police Subscribe to next step the next step is sold on streets, housing estates and in bookshops throughout, the country but if you can't get it in your area, use this form to make sure Libraries and institutions please add £5 to the above rates.

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We won massive support for our campaign to stop the deportation of Afia and defended many other blacks facing deportation and harassment from the British state. We organised physical defence for black families under attack by racists and fascists, went on the offensive against brutality. Workers Against D

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Thursday 19 January The day after...will women be oppressed after the revolution?

Thursday 26 January Porn and prejudice: the roots of sexism Thursday 2 February Women and the new morality Thursday 9 February Fighting for real freedom Afia

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Venue: Western Bank Sheffield 10 London WC1N 3XX Transport to the conference leaves on Saturday 28 January from: MANCHESTER: 8.30 am Manchester University Students' Union, Road LIVERPOOL: 7.30 am opposite Rockford wine bar, St John's Rd, Liverpool 1 LEEDS: 8.00 am Dortmund Square:

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Monday 23 January 7.30 pm Angel Hotel Bridgegates No more Bloody Sundays! The anniversary of Bloody Sunday is an important day on which to protest against Britain's war in Ireland. It is a day to remember the dead and declare solidarity with those still living and fighting for an independent and united Ireland. Join us in Sheffield March

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MAKING SENSE OF IRELAND

Yorkshire Irish Freedom Movement Sheffield 10,30am 28 January Supported by Joan Maynard MP What's in it for Britain?

From civil rights to anti-imperialist war Britain's machine of terror What about the Protestants?

Sex, drugs and religion in Ireland From Wolfe Tone to Gerry Adams Building the Irish Freedom Movement The fight for Irish freedom in 1984 Mick Hume Ann Burton Sheffield University Students' Union Overnight accommodation available for those going on the march €1.50 registration fee. (£1.00 unemployed). Make cheques payable to Irish Freedom Movement. For tickets and further details, ring 01-274 3951 or write to BM IFM, Transport Row Cafe, Podmeadow Oxford

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