The Next Step: No. 46, April 1984

next step the No 46 April 1984 review of the Revolutionary Communist Party ...need a fighting future 20p Wasted youth... Miners against the state p9,10.

the

NEWS

Ireland Taking sides Speaking out Gerry Adams - the Harrods connection New Ireland Forum Victory to the Armagh women!

Free the Moores! Stop strip searches Racism Racism in Bradford

FEATURES

Editorial 11 State power 11 Banana skins Wasted youth 12 The Tories' Youth Training Scheme has created cheap labour and contained riotous behaviour. We call for an end to union complicity in YTS and for workers' control of real training schemes.

American imperialism 14 Reagan vs the Democrats Reviews 20 India: seeds of conflict Britain's rape of Greece 22 Letters The Programme of the Revolutionary Communist Party Order your copy now! payable to Junius Publications.

2 the next step, April 1984 next step No 46 April 1984 monthly review of the Revolutionary Communist Party Publisher Junius Publications Ltd, BCM JPLTD, London WC1N 3XX.

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Correspondence to The Editor, the next step, BCM JPLTD, London WCIN 3XX. ISSN 0144 - 350 X April 1984 Anti-racist contender Labour movement 9 The RCP hits the pits 10 10 The Irish revolution Marx ism and Labourism 18 The Militant myth Resistance in Palestine Mattick's Marxism The Hongkong connection 23 Activities

PREPARINCI

OF T PROGRAMMA

3%, Send 30 pence plus 20 pence p&p to Junius Publications Ltd, BCM JP LTD, London WC1N 3XX. Make cheques Fighting deportations On tour with the Sari Squad Fighting victimisations For communist councillors!

9 Miners: fighting divisions Miners and the Coal Board NUM left and right 16 James Connolly and Easter 1916

PREPARING FOR

PREPARING FOR

FOR

right. ta Chris Black (refley) The Irish Freedom Movement's 3 March 'Speak out for Irish freedom' demonstration was led by the republican Crossmaglen Patriots band from Glasfollowed by the gow, banner of Sinn Fein Britain's Birmingham Cumann.

March sponsors included seven Labour MPs: Joan Maynard, Jeremy Corbyn, Clare Short, Allan Roberts, Bob Parry, Ron Brown and Harry Cohen. Both Plaid Cymru MPs, Daffyd Ellis and Daffyd Wigley, gave their backing to the march. Other Labour Party figures supporting included GLC leader Ken Livingstone, Peter Hain and 60 local councillors. American black activist Kwame Ture sponsored from across the Atlantic. Nearer home. Sheffield Youth

SHERISH

a072 Riandy 1984 No bans on irish solidarity!

SPEAK OUT

IRISH FREEDOM!

We stopped the city on 3 March: the Irish Freedom Movement's march against bans on Irish solidarity brought Sheffield shoppers out to hear the band — and the case for Irish freedom Taking sides on Ireland Red Action, Movement, Workers Power, the Irish Solidarity Movement and Ireland's War support group were among organisations which backed our demonstration. Rank and file labour movement opposition to Sheffield council's ban on the Bloody Sunday march came in from bodies such as the Hemel Hempstead branch of ACTT, which passed a motion condemning the council's 'sordid attempt to suppress the of British right workers to march. commemorate publicly sympathise with Irish the 14 civil rights marchers killed by British troops in January 1972. Battersea and Wands- Trades Council worth passed a similar motion The IF march sparked room rorism Act! debate everywhere it was raised. In Bradford, an IFM protest brought a council meeting to a halt in uproar.

Typical of the arguments raised was that in Oldham, where Labour Party bureaucrats manoeuvred to keep the issue of the march out of the labour movement while.

IFM

supporters fought for a public debate with our opponents and won rank and file support.

Everywhere, who opposed our march car look forward to further from the Irish pressure Freedom Movement over the months ahead. And we look forward to calling on those who backed our demonstration to give practical support to the continuing struggle for Irish freedom.

Speaking out for Irish freedom Band from Glasgow. ration march. right to stand up against British terror in Ireland.

Ireland raged in They marched alongside republicans, Labour Party

NICHOOS.

urdue amomsts. Irish solidarity groups and contingents who had come from cities as far apart as Glasgow and Cardiff to support the march. Taking sides Others were less enthusias- Events in Ireland force tic. people to choose sides. The struggle over the IFMdemonstration caused controversy in Sheffield and everywhere it was raised. On one side stood the Irish Freedom Movement and anti-imperialists who support the Irish liberation struggle and backed the march. On the other side were those who support British rule in Ireland and did their best to undermine our protest. The strange bedfellows who opposed the march included (reading from right to left) Front, the National the police, Labour Party bureau- Communist Cas and Party of Great Britain. Of course these groups had their differences. But they shared a common hatred of those who challenge British oppression in Ireland. The Irish Freedom Movement demonstration was first called at the end of January, the day Sheffield council got the Home Office to ban the Bloody Sunday The first opponent march. to raise its ugly head was the National Front, which threatened a counter-demonstration on 3 March. Initself, the fascist march was irrele- Right-wing sects al-

YOBEL

ways promise to wreck Irish solidarity marches, but rarely manage more than a bit of pathetic Union Jack waving from behind a wall of police.

The real importance of the fascist march over the month that followed was as excuse, used by police and labour bureaucrats to attack the Irish Freedom Movement's demonstration. Sheffield police chiefs claimed they were incapable of handling both demonstrations and a Third Division football match in the city on the same day. Only days before the march, the police announced that the route would have to be drastically shortened or there would be no IFM demonstration. On

IFM

March, organisers tripped up this fancy footwork from South Yorkshire's constabulary strategists. We slowed the march down, then stopped it altogether at the busiest points along the On Saturday 3 March the Irish Freedom Movement brought Sheffield city centre to a standstill, as our 1000 strong demonstration against bans on Irish solidarity marched behind the flutes and drums of the Crossmaglen Patriots Back in January Sheffield city council had banned Sinn Fein's annual Bloody Sunday commemo- Last month the Irish Freedom Movement went back to Sheffield to make one point to the Labour council: you cannot ban the Irish War from British politics.

The IFM march was a victory for all those who demand the For a month the people of Sheffield had heard the IFM march alternately attacked and applauded as debate about the local media and labour movement.

Now hundreds of Saturday shoppers packed the pavements to follow the marchers' progress through the Yorkshire city.

Many jumped roadside railings to join the demonstration.

shortened route, where the band beat out republican rhythms while the marchers beat pots, pans and dustbin lids to draw the crowds around. Familiar contempt While police attempted to bully Irish solidarity protests off the streets of Sheffield.

city council leader David Blunkett used more subtle tactics to undermine the IFM march. Having burnt his fingers badly over the original ban, Blunkett was wary of further publicdebate around his actions. Instead, he sent out personal letters to all the Labour Party MPs and councillors who had the 3 sponsored March demonstration. Blunkett's letter claimed he had banned the Bloody Sunday commemoration because of the marchforganiattitude to the IRA bomb Harrods before at Christmas. Irish Freedom Movement and Sinn Fein supporters in Sheffield had insisted that bombings in Britain were a consequence of war in Ireland, and that the responsibility for all deaths lay with British imperialism. In Blunkett's words they had refused to change their position to the now familiar "understanding why such eventstake place", Under pressure from party executive member Blunkett, some Labour sponsors wilted and became 'unavailable' in the days leading up to the march. But Irish Freedom Movement supportersaround Britain used Blunkett's statement to build support for the demonstration. Arguing that the fact that condemnations of anti-imperialist violence were 'now familiar' within the British labour movement was part of the problem rather than positive solution, we won the support of rank and file members for the march.

SCAR = SCAB

Once it became clear that Blunkett's manoeuvres had failed, the Communist Party of Great Britain stepped in to play its traditional role as the left-wing cover for the betrayals of the labour bureaucracy. Local CP hack Steve Howell is presently under threat of being purged from his party for his links with the ultra-Stalinist Straight Left faction. But he still gets full backing when it comes to purging supporters of Irish freedom from the British labour Howell is secretary of the Sheffield Campaign Against Racism, paper body does

WE CE

nothing to fight racism in the city. It exists solely to give the impression that local concerned about the problems of racism. In return for their annual subscription SCAR is prepared to tees, dig the leadership of the official labour movement out of embarrassing situations.

The IF march threatened to embarrass the Labour council and Stalinist bureaucrats who backed the ban.

So, at the end of February, blatantly sectarian attempt to draw support away from the Irish Freedom Movement march, Howell announced a SCAR demonstration against the National Front. It was planned to start from the same place as the IFM march 45 Just minutes before the IFM march was due to set off. The leaflets and letters SCAR distributed about its march explicitly opposed the 'so called "Irish Freedom March" : SCAR made it that clear militant antifascists and supporters of Irish freedom were not welcome its march:

'THIS WILL BE A PEACE-

FUL PROTEST AND ONLY

ANTI-RACIST

SLOGANS

WILL BE USED'

In an effort to disguise its sabotage of the IFM march, SCAR dressed up the fascists anti- Irish binge as a demonstration in support of attacks The on Asians! National Front was trying to exploit people's feelings about the activities of the Provisional

IRA

in order to build support for their racist platform' and there had to be 'some form of protest' from those who believe in racial equality. harmony and Despite SCAR's attempts to cloud the issue, fascists and anti-imperialists alike were clear that the issue in Sheff- *Look at what happened when Britain introduced things like internment in Ireland. They got away with it because people didn't protest over here. This march is really impor tant If they get away with banning Bloody Sunday this year, they'll do it again and again.' Jane Mulkeen, sixth form student Birmingham

POLITICAL

STIS

ield on 3 March was Ireland.

The National Front announced its demonstration to Sheffield's Morning Telegraph as a 'Hang IRA murderers march' (27 February).

And as the SCAR and IFM marches faced each other across Caborn Corner, the local Asian Youth Movement appealed to SCAR supportters to join the Irish Freedom Movement marchers. 'Don't scab on the Irish people shouted our supporters SCAR march of less the than 200 people moved off.

But scab they did. Numbers game The Stalinists' lies and slanders continued long after the marches were over. The CP's Morning Star implied that more than a thousand people had marched with

SCAR.

It didn't mention JEM march A more objecive report the Workers Revolutionary Party's The News Line (which backed neither demonstration) estimated the SCAR march at a generous 400 *Sheffield council's ban was an act of treachery against British and Irish workers. We've got tostand up for the right to bring the debate working people in this country, to challenge things like our unions' support for Loya.

lists in Ireland.' Alan Cunningham, CPSA Manchester Rallying round the banners of Irish freedom: end of the march in Sheffield and the Irish Freedom Movement demonstration at more than 1200(5 March). The contrast between the of size and colour

OUT

march and the lifeless SCAR procession reflected the difference between a cynical manoeuvre cobbled together from the remnants of the labour bureaucracy in Sheffield, and a living campaign built by putting the case for Irish freedom to rank and file workers, unemployed youth, students, black and women's organisations. was the strength of that real support which enabled us to overcome opposition from the fascists, the state and the bureaucrats and hold a successful march. It turned our march into a victory parade for suppor ters of democratic rights.

Exercise your rights! The 3 March demonstration was an important first step But the campaign cannot stop there. At the postmarch rally, Irish Freedom Movement speaker Phil Murphy put point the

ASIAN YOUTH,

MOVEMENT

*There should have been one huge demonstration in Sheffield today. We're on this march because black people have been denied their and called criminals like the Irish."

Sheffield Asian Youth Movement clearly: Today you have successfully defended the speak out for Irish freedom, Now let's get out and exercise that right." In the coming months the Irish Freedom Movement will be exercising that right in support of the Irish We are liberation struggle. campaigning in defence of Irish prisoners of war, and against attacks such as the Prevention of Terrorism Act and Sheffield council's per manent ban on supporters of the Irish struggle using their However premises. much bureaucrats like David Blunkett and Steve Howell might wish it, the Irish Wai will not go away. We have to make sure that next time the establishment reaches for its dictionary of anti- Irish abuse and the official labour movement runs for cover, louder voices are heard among the British working class. Voices that are speaking out for Irish freedom. Eddie Veale 'Until the British state is defeated in Ireland we won't get far against bosses over here. But the labour novement treats Ireland as For intouchable me, Blunkett's ban was the last I'm a Labour Party SLIdW. member. But I won't be when my card runs out in May.' aolin Marsh, Astms Leeds the next step, April 1984 3

Keeping the pressure on Ireland on the Irish War. freedom from British rule.

Three officers of Border areas. Ulster Constabulary have also been killed by the IRA, two by a single landmine that blew up their vehicle on a country road in Coun- Down. One member of the crack SAS regiment was shot dead by an IRA unit in Dunloy, County Antrim as the undercover British squad prepared an ambush. assassination of Kesh prison senior Long officer struck at the heart of the repressive apparatus the occupied territory. In McConnell had been responsible for attempis tc force political prisoners of war to perform menial prison tasks. He was also blamfor organising beatings of the handful of H-Block prisoners who were recaptured after the Great Es- 38 men in Septcape of ember 1983. McConnell's incoherent last testament.

read out his funeral, at implied that the Government might welcome his demise because he had publicly criticised the Hennessy report into the Great Escape which let the British authorities of the hook.

Ambush The attack on Gerry Adams by a Loyalist murder gang was indicative of the 1984 style of the British forces in the Six Counties. The Ulster Freedom Fighters, a front for the Loyalist paramilitary Ulster Defence Association claimed responsibility for shooting and wounding Adams central Belfast.

UDA

The has a long history of involvement in sectarian murders, overlapping membership with the

UDR

and RUC and close links with the British Army. The ambush took place as Adams left a court where he being tried on public order charges. The time and place of the hearing was public knowledge and the area was saturated with police and soldiers uniform Reand in plain clothes. publicans Belfast had in good grounds for wondering whether the authorities had really wanted the paramil itaries to finish the job.

Assassination Other members of the nationalist were community not as fortunate as Adams.

The SAS unit surprised by the IRA at Dunloy shot two wounded republicans as 4 the next step, April 1984 The assassination of Long Kesh concentration camp deputy governor William McConnell and the attempted murder of Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams last month show that the British state is having great difficulty keeping the lid As the republican movement steps up the liberation struggle, the British forces and their Loyalist allies are resorting to increasingly vicious measures to stay in control. The Irish Freedom Movement is agitating in solidarity with Irish prisoners currently on remand in Brixton prison on charges arising out of past IRA bombings in Britain. This is a key aspect of our broader campaign in solidarity with the struggle of the Irish people for Since the beginning of the year the British authorities have sustained a series of serious blows in the occupied Six Counties of Ireland. By mid-March five members of the Ulster Defence Regiment, a Loyalist militia integrated into the British Army, had been executed by the IRA in the the paramilitary Royal they lay ground. on the Henry Hogan aged 21 and Declan Martin aged 18 were the first volunteers to join the IRA's role of honour 1984. Daniel McIntyre, a 28 year old unemployed building worker the victim of the first sectarian murder in 1984 at the end of January. He shot was three times in the head as walked home from social club in his native Lurgan, County Armagh. The Protestant Action Foranother Loyalist front ce, with well established links with the local UDR, claimresponsibility Three days later the British Army shot dead Mark Marron, aged 23, for joy-riding in the back seat of a stolen car in West Belfast. Stratagems The British government has a number of stratagems for deflecting public attention from its murderous activities in Ireland. One is the political solutions industry.

Ever since British troops invaded the Six Counties in 1969 politicians have been trying to disguise the brute force on which British rule depends through long series of political initiatives.

All the various attempted solutions, from the powersharing Tory executive to minister James Prior's Ulster Assembly, have almed to impress public opinion home and abroad that Britain is sincerely trying to bring peace and justice to the North of Ireland. All have provided merely smokescreen behind which searches, the house the beatings, the mass imprisonment of republicans with scarcely even the preof justice, and the murder squads continue their day to day routine.

Forum (see box) The is the latest charade to be acted out by Irish politicians while the bloodbath deepens. Now that the war has torn the pipedream of his Ulster Assembly apart, Prior is looking more favourably on the Forum. ( Any gathering of Irish politicians which recognises Britain's right to and ignores the brutality of the military occupation is welcome to the British authorities. Snatched Another device for distracting attention from terror in Ireland is the authorities" focus on the

'IRA

allegedly terrorists responsible for extending the war in Ireland on to the streets of London. As repression in the Six Counties intensified at the end of last year, a joint Scotland Yard /RUC operation snatched Tommy Quigley from a taxi in West Belfast and flew him straight to London's top terrorist interrogation centre at Paddington Green police station.

The authorities surrounded the police station with armed policemen in full military gear to gain maximum media impact. Television cameras relayed the scene to the nation; Terror alert as man is questioned' proclaimed the tabloid headlines. In a fanfare of publicity Quigley was subsequently charged with involvement the IRA's 1981 bombing campaign in London. Quigley has been brought back to court on several occasions and charwith specific responsged ibility for the Chelsea Barrfor the atacks bombing. tack officer Sir Stuart Pringle and for the Wimpy bar Street blast. Harrods Ever since the car bomb explosion outside Harrods before Christmas Scotland Yard's anti-terror squad has been keeping the issue alive by periodic arrests of Irish people around the country.

In the days immediately after the bombing the police took advantage of the climate of anti-Irish hysteria to round up and harass republicans and known sympathisers of the Irish liberation struggle. They have since thrown the net wider.

In January detectives ransacked the of an elderly Irish couple in North Wales looking for clues to the Harrods bombing. February they detained seven Irishmen in Reading to help them with their inquiries. No charges resulted but the raids kept Harrods in the public eye and anti- Irish prejudice on the boil.

Solidarity In mid-March yet another joint Scotland Yard/RUC snatch squad brought Paul from West Bel- Kavanagh fast to Paddington Green.

After a slightly receiving muted version of the Quigley treatment he was brought to court and charged with possession of firearms and conspiracy to cause explosions over a period which included the Harrods bomb.

Kavanagh was also charged jointly with Quigley for conspiring to cause explosions in 1981. The British media's skilful exploitation of the issue of 'IRA bombers makes it a central focus of Irish solidarity activity in Britain. The Irish Freedom Movement organised nightly pickets outside Paddington Green in solidarity with Quigley and Kavanagh while they were being held there under the of Prevention Terrorism Act. We protested against the use of the law to try to turn a national liberation struggle into a criminal We campaigned conspiracy. for wide support for Quigley and Kavanagh to challenge the establishment's show trials and manipulation of the Irish War for its own propaganda advantage. responsibility for civilian casualties resulting from IRA bombs in London lies squarely with the British state, which maintains a vast machine of terror in Ireland.

If Britain was not occupying Ireland the IRA would have no occasion to bring the war to Britain. The republican movement is putting intense pressure on the British state in Ireland. Britain's capacity to respond in the only way it - with more coercion could be gravely weakened if the Government came under more The object of the home. Irish Freedom Movement in taking up the cause of Irish prisoners of war - labelled as terrorists - Is to unaer mine the popular approval on which Britain's repressive policies have for too long been able to rely Jackie Reynolds Petrol-bombing the Brits: nationalist youth fight in Derry, let's keep the state on the rack over here The New Ireland Forum is a conspiracy by charlatans fool people in to try to and elsewhere) -8210 that a war can be resolved by shuffling paper and letting off hot air. But whatever form of words the Forum finally up, it won't fool the major protagonists of the Irish War - the Irish people and the British They have seen it all before. The Forum was launched by the Dublin Governand the northern ment Social Democratic and Labour Party in 1983. Its central purpose - and its merit in onush eyes - 1s revive the to moderate Catholic SDLP in the face of Sinn Fein's electoral advance. It has spent the past year in prolonged deliberations over constitu tional proposals to end the conflict in the Six Counties.

The Forum's first report has been postponed and postponed again because there is no constitutional formula that can resolve There are the conflict. three proposals on 980 6 table. Fianna Fail leader Charles Haughey and SDLP radical Seamus Mallon, who are sensitive to widespread anti-British sentiment Ireland, support the United Carry on at the Forum Ireland' option. Irish Taoiseach and Fine Gael FitzGerald Garret favours the joint sovereignty' option which proposes that the Six Counties administered from are London and Dublin together. Others have plumped for a 'federal' solution which would create a more 'Ulster' with

ZULUHOUS

looser ties to Britain. All these schemes have one thing in common are all irrelevant the war being fought out Six day to day in the James Prior in- Counties. dicated this when he made clear that the only option which he approved was sovereignty. By sovereignty', Prior joint explained, he meant joint security arrangements" The immediate extradition last month of INLA leader McGlinchey Dominic to the Six Counties after his capture in the West of Ire land indicates the sort of cooperation Prior "joint' While the has in mind. there is little war rages, scope for the SDLP to re.

concile the nationalist people to British rule. The Forum provides a slender life line for the SDLP and in another cover-up for British terror.

Republican women in Armagh jail face strip searches and screw brutality in their struggle for recognition as prisoners of war. Last month an Irish Freedom Movement delegation joined 400 women on the annual Armagh prison picket.

Cathy Barratt reports on our trip in support of the women in the front line of the Irish War.

national Women's Day. From the moment we arrived in the Six Counties on Saturday 10 March, it was clear that the protest was not just about women: it was about women at War. street fighting between nationalist youth armed with petrol bombs and Loyalist police toting plastic bullet guns.

the way to Armagh the next day, our bus was stopped and searched at an armed Royal Ulster Constabulary When road block. we reached the town and lined up tor the short march to the jail, the RUC were everywhere. Uniformed thugs surrounded the roadside rally outside the prison, laughing and jeering when a republican word socaker mentored that an RUC man had recently been charged. with rape. Resistance Inside the jail screws turned on sirens to stop the women prisoners hearing us chanting But we could their names. Anna Moore and her 19 year old daughter Jackie have been held in Castlereagh Barracks and Armagh jail since they were arrested last November and charged with four murders in the Ballykelly bombing of December 1982. Jackie is pregnant. Both women have suffered physical and psychological torture at the their Loyalist hands of On jailers. our trip to Armagh, wespoketo Anna's sister Marnie McDaid. *The

RUC

arrested Jackie and Anna up at their home in Bogside and took them Castlereagh for questioning about Ballykelly. They'd been questioned about the same thing six months previous. They didn't know who did it, organi- They were INno sation and the police had The RUC evidence. 110 Anna did wanted names. any they knocked her about, knocked her to the ground, back by the trailed her chopped her in the kidneys, slapped her head and face. They told Jackie didn't matter that she pregnant, she would get a hammering the same her mother had got. as They said not to worry if she had a miscarriage, they had a bucket handy and there wouldn't be any Jackie was in an aw-

HECOD.

Political status now Victory to the Armagh women. Armagh prison pickets are called to coincide with Inter- In Derry, we found ourselves in the middle of fierce On still hear the women in the prison singing in response to And the repubour cicers. lican women speakers at the tally had a warning for the security forces keeping the 'You are picket under siege. on the outside with the guns today, said Maura McCrory of Sinn Fein's women's "but your days department. are numbered. The women of the nationalist community in the Six Counties are undaunted in their resistance to British oppression, after almost 15 years of struggle on the streets, in the prisons and in their homes. The women we spoke to Free the Moores! Marnie McDaid ful state, crying for her mother. Then the police Anna that Jackie

TOO

had made statement admitting offences, and said if she gave them names Jackie would get off. So Anna said "TIl give you my own name then", and signed a statement thinking it would get Jackie out. But it didn't and they charged with were both four murders. "They were taken to court at Limavady near Ballykelly. The RUC told the local Loyalists they were coming. There were hundreds of people outside.

As Anna and Jackie came into the court they were "lynch them" shouting and throwing bottles and The judge said the stones. at Armagh had all suffered Women in- British terror. the republican volved in struggle risk death or im- Women prisonment daily. who are not directly involved live with tae consequences They face of British rule. unemployment, are desperately short of nurseries and have legal right to no abortion. On top of these everyday problems, they have to cope with British Army raiding parties which break up their homes and reduce children to nervous wrecks before they reach Women send school age. their children off to school not knowing if they'll get home without having their smashed faces by plastic And there is the

DUCES

constant fear that mothers, sisters, fathers, brothers, sons and daughters will bedragged off to jail without warning.

Since the British started to use supergrasses and showtrials. people frequently find themselves thrown in on the word of a jail just paid perjurer. solicitor wastalking rubbish when he complained that Anna and Jackie had been abused in jail. Anybody looking at them in court would have to be mad not know they'd been LU abused. 'After the court hearing they were taken to Armagh.

Jackie's baby is due in three or four months so that will be three generations in jail.

The baby will stay with her for maybe nine months, then we'll have to look after it. The rest of the Moores family have been abused and harassed by the RUC while Anna and Jackie are held. Jackie has been retused bail for a scan to check her baby is alright.

fear what the might happen outside the when court in Limavady they go back for their next Threats to unborn babies and RUC organised lynch mobs are what British justice means for nationalist the Six Counties. As Marnie MeDaid put it, "That's what we're up against. They can do exactly what they like and say "This is the law"? Send messages of support to Anna and Jackie Moore The Remand Wing, Armagh Prison, Armagh, County Armagh, Northern Ireland

AKE

AWAY

Women behind the wire: roadside vigil for Armagh prisoners Lifers Almost every woman we met in Belfast and Derry has a relative in prison. The British jails and detention centres Armagh, theH-Blocks, Castlereagh Barracks haunt every nationalist woman from her teens to her seventies: Briege Ann McCaughley has been under British lock and key since 1977, when armed police dragged her from her She was 17. Briege bed. was charged with 16 offences.

RUC told her she The would get between five and years, depending on 10 whether she accepted she was a criminal and agreed to abide by prison regulations, or joined the Armagh propolitical test Briege refused to admit to any crime, and wassentenced She to 10 years in Armagh. has suffered vicious torture during her imprisonment. On one of the rare visits she was mother allowed, Briege's Nellie couldn't recognise her daughter after screws had ripped out her hair and her head against beaten walls and doors. Brigette Maguire from Ballymurphy died recently after a lifetime in which British jails were never far from her Her husband Ned thoughts. had been imprisoned in Her son Crumlin Road jail. Ned was sentenced to 30 years by a Diplock no-jury court. Her second son Michael was sent down for 14 years, and his brother Thomas interned without trial. The only members of Brigette's family whom she did not have to visit in jail were her daughters, Dorothy and Maura. They were both shot dead by British troops blowing in 1972, while whistles to warn local nationalists of an Army raid. At 70, of Brigette the age Maguire herself was arrested, held at Castlereagh interrogation centre and threatened with incarceration in Armagh The RUC backtracked jail. when she promised to start a protest in the jail. Organised Nationalist are organised against British

SERVICE CENTRE S

• DOLORES

-O'NEILL

SUF STRICKNES

legal terror. Inside Armagh, republican prisoners maintain strict discipline. officers shout orders through cell walls in Gaelic to confuse prying Loyalist screws. Such organisation has been used to mount heroic protests. In 1980, 30 Armagh women went on a dirty protest for They lived in 10 months. cells caked with their excrement and menstrual blood, to draw attention to their struggle for recognition as prisoners of war. Three of them started a hunger-strike.

Outside Armagh, nationalist campaigning are against prison strip searches In Derry and supergrasses. joined 120 women to block the middle of the main road, in protest at the use of paid perjurers. Two British armoured cars crawled up and down the line of women.

There are 40 women priso- Armagh. Britain ners in denies that they are political prisoners and labelsthem Yet as ordinary criminals. every aspect of the Armagh women's treatment shows they are special category prisoners. Armagh prisoners live with a daily round of cell searches, switches from one part of the prison to another, and harassment from screws. Any protest against their treatment risks solitary confinement anne loss of letters and visits.

But the issue which causes the most tension

HENCE

Armagh is the policy of strip searching every prisoner each time she enters or leaves the jail. It's the sa me routine even if women are only going to a magistrates court just 200 yards away for a five minute remand hearing. prisoners Women forced to strip in a cubicle, the top half of which is open to the view of eight Prisoners or mine screws are provided with a sheet, which has to be opened to allow screws to 'inspect' them. Sanitary towels Ireland ident

MONEY CHANGE

to try to intimidate us off the streets. The British failed as they have done for the past 15 years. The Irish Freedom Movement gives full support to the women at war with British imperialism in the Six Counties. We demand that the British state recognise the Armagh

WE GE

prisoners of war. Our delegation organiser Ann Burton told the Armagh rally why we had come to support the prison picket. •We're here to show solidarity with the women fighting British oppression. In Britain we have a special responsibility support them - not just because we are women, but because we face a common enemy the British state. Victory to the Armagh women! Troops out now!' Stop strip searches have to be removed during the search One womar who recently objected to this was told by the prison doctor to hold a towel between her legs while she was Womer seated who resist searches forcibly stripped by brutal screws and face solitary and loss of confinement privileges. Strip searches are used to degrade and humiliate republican women priso- They are specia measures for special priso- In the first ners. six months after their introduction in November 1982 772 strip searches were carried out on the 40 That women in Armagh. compares with 1430 strip searchesspread among 1400 women prisoners in England and Wales Three Armagh defendants in the Christo.

pher Black supergrass trial searched 120 WEre times each as they attended Belfast High Court The Armagh womer appealed have PrIsonels for support from outside to stop the strip searches in 1984 the next step, April 19845

Racism Racism is the issue in Bradford. Next month's council elections look set to become a platform for further attacks on Bradford blacks. been the unlikely subject of a raging debate in Bradford ever since the Tory council's decision to serve it in schools last July. of every hue, and has fuelled attacks on the Asian community. Eileen McEvoy, candidate in the May elections, argues that the racists have been able to whip up anti-immigrant sentiments because for years they have faced no coherent opposition.

Conservative Party nationally.

in areas with a large immigrant population, the political allegiance of the Asian community is a more pressing con-

COLLI

Bradford's 50 000 Asians has forced the city council to refurbish its image on the sensitive question of race relations.

In late 1982 the council issued a 12 point plan to combat discrimination and the backing of the got Bradford's Labour Party. approach to race met with some initial public relations Representatives of success. the Inner London Education Authority recently spent a day in the city discussing council's Cacao policy. In Bradford, howcouncil's paper ever. the anti-racist policies have proa different kind of voked racial awareness than was intended - a white backlash that threatens to get out of control. 'When in Rome... Since September, school lunches in Bradford have included meat from animals slaughtered according to the precepts of the Koran. Islamic law demands that animals should be killed without pre-stunning. new caterme arrangements became the pretext for a racist tirade against the Muslim community. The Halal debate attracted more letters to the Telegraph and Argus than other subject in any 1983. Bradford residents complained that immigrants 'who choose to live in our must be prepared country 6 the next step, April 1984 Racism in Bradford A recipe for disaster Halal - ritually slaughtered meat - has The Halal debate has been a focus for racists Revolutionary Communist Party Winning the Asian vote is not a great concern for the But for Tory local councils Over the past few years, mounting pressure from to abide by our laws'. Lord Mayor and Labourcouncillor Norman Free argued that 'when in Rome, one should do as the Romans do - or the difference Free pay could said that he only provision of support Halal meat if Asian parents paid an extra five pence for school meals. Animal rights campaigners joined the fray, claiming that Halal slaughter is barbaric and immoral. insisted that their protesthad nothing to do with racism, and that their only objection was to the method of Halal slaughter. But their For denials were irrelevant. Bradford racists animal libebecame ration the excuse When for racist attacks. Kathryn Reynolds, the former coordinator of Bradford Animal Rights Group refused to pay her rates and barricaded herself in her house in protest she only added fuel to the anti-Asian The British campaign. National Party attacked Workers Against Racism supporters who defended the right of Asians to eat whatever meat they choose to and condemned the debate as a pretext for stirring up The anti-Halal lobby racism. reached such a pitch that Angry Asians protest: Bradford mosques demonstrate for their right to Halal meat the council was forced to debate the issue again on 6 March. Workers Against Racism supporters joined 3000 local Muslims on outside the demonstration After more than meeting. four hours of heated disthe council voted cussion, to continue its provision of Halal meat in schools. Two Labour councillors voted against. The attack on the right of Asians to eat Halal meat has a deeper significance. It is part of a much broader ideological offensive against community the black whether Asian, African or West Indian - and their religion and culture. The purpose of this assault on all things un-British is to whip up anti-immigrant prejudices and cohere a public consensus behind state attacks on Whether it is Marblacks. garet Thatcher complaining about the nation being 'swamped' or animal rights campaigners protestingabout Halal meat, the working class must resist all attempts to drive a wedge between black and white workers. Workers must oppose any attack on the rights of black people to continue their cultural traditions as an act of class solidarity. Schools for racists The Halal debate brought to a head the explosive situation in Bradford's schools, where harassment and intimidation of Asian schoolchildren have become rou- At Eccleshill School tine, pupils claimed that throughout 1983 they suffered daily abuse from white coming youths in from On 5 December outside. Asian pupils fought with white youths distributing British Nationalist outside The problem is the school. Revolutionary Communist Party candidate Eileen Bradford McEvoy is organiser of Workers Ag- Racism. She has ainst been accused of being 'anti- British' and 'unpatriotic for speaking out against the racists and defending the the black rights of community. Below she explans wuly sae isstanding in the May council elec tions and what she stands for. *The Halal meat debate has unleashed which everyone in Bradford has been aware of for a long time. The debate has merely given the racists the opportunity to step up their attack on the black community. *I think it's important to stand in the election because the real issues at stake in the debate have not confined to the fascists.

Some 45 teachers are taking early retirement because of the council's race relations policies. In February more 200 children than waKed out of Wyke Manor School protesting at staff discrimination and harassment. Wyke Manor was already under scrutiny after a supply teacher was suspended by the education authority for his allegations that staff memmade racist remarks bers about the black headmaster Since his Carlton Duncan. last the retirement year, former headmaster of Delf Hill Middle School has been British prominent in the National Party. Roy Honeyford, headmaster of Drummond Middle School, which is 86 per cent black, wrote in the right-wing Salisbury Review that multi-ethnic education lowers standards for white children. Throughout long the debate about Halal meat the Labour Party kept a low profile. Its inability challenge the racists flowed from its acceptance that the Anti-racist contender Vote McEvoy in May Nobody so far been lost. has been able to show why workers in Bradford should be defending the right of Asian community eat Halal meat. Attacks on the black community go back a long way in Braddebate was a legitimate one and its long history of tolerating racist practices. From 1945 to 1967 Labour controlled the council except for a short break of three Since 1967 the Tories years. have been in power almost but the continuously, allparty approach to race relations established under Labour has flourished. When Asians first went to Bradford in any numbers in the mid-fifties they were employed mainly in the wool textile industry. Neither the machinery nor the dirty and dangerous conditions had changed much over the previous 100 years The new arrivals found themselves working in the worst jobs. When the bosses brought in expensive new machinery to counter increased competition from Europe and Asia it was the Asians who were forced to work nights to keep the factories running. By 1964, eight out of every 10 nightshift workers were Asian, although they made up only a fifth of the total textile workforce in Bradford. Whites only Racism was never far from the surface during the sixties and early seventies, but the anti-immigrant lobby was not very vocal. It was only with the beginnings of the recession that the racists began to voice their views more openly. Meanwhile the Labour Party went along with the systematic discriemployment. -In 1960, the council's transport department endorsed a union call to limit the number of black workers to 23

COIL

Later the quota was abandoned for the lack of white applicants for the jobs, but blacks barred from were being inspectors. Among a platform staff of more than 100, more than half were Asians, yet there were no Asian

SOCCLOTS

Loca

TGWU

organiser Joseph Brogden went on television in 1972 to explain that no Asian busman is now capable of doing the job of inspector Brogden was also president of Bradford ford. Black workers have fought back, but no organisation has ever tried to convince white workers that they have a lot to gain by fighting back with them.

I'll be using the election as an opportunity to get that message across." A platform for antiracist workers • opposition to all racist legislation and immigration controls • workers defence against racist attacks, at work, at home, on the streets • rank and file action for jobs and equality token "positive discrimination gestures • trade union opposition to colour bars • no race checks in the NHS or on the dole • trade union action against police harassment City Labour Party from 1964 to 1970 and a coun Today, cillor for 15 years there are still only five black inspectors out of a total of 38, even though half the bus staff are black Passport to the dole The jobs that Asian workers came to Bradford to do are disappearing fast. Although they are only 15 percent of the population, Asians now account for more than third of the local unem ployed. The unemployment rate among black school-lea vers is higher than that of virtually any other city Within six months of leaving school last year, only 3.7 per cent of all black Brad.

ford school-leavers had found jobs Model race relations have done nothing for the black community's employment prospects. Council jobs are equally unobtainable for blacks. Last year a mere 534 of the council's 25 000 employees were black. The council's ethnic monitoring and positive discrimination policies amount to nothing when set beside its employment record and its racist housing policy which has meant that only five per cent of Asians live in council houses About 90 percent of the rest are forced to live in built run-down properties before 1919 Blacks in Bradford are threatened from all sides. It is time anti-racists exposed the ethnic posturing of a council which thinks it a great gesture to grant Asians the right to eat the meat that their culture demands And it is time to put the Labour Party on the spot for its failure to take a stand against racism in Bradford As the Halal issue threatens to take over the May local council elections, the will

RCP

be taking stand by fielding a candidate on an anti-racist working class platform. Local people the who can

SCC

dangers of racial divisions for the working class should join us in the fight to force the council to provide all workers with what they need

We're all special cases now Now that deportations have become an everyday experience for black people in Britain exceptional measures are necessary to fight them. Deportations is an exceptional campaign.

'AN

EXTRAORDINARY

CASE. These are the phrases widely used in the press and on television to describe Afia Begum and her year-long battle against deportation. Yet Afia Begum is a very ordinary woman. She has been pushed by the circumstof being ances ASlan immigrant in Britain in the eighties into taking extraordinary steps to safeguard herself her baby and daughter. After getting married in Bangladesh in Afia years for an waited entry certificate to join her husband in Britain. In March 1982, only three months after she gained her entry clearance, Afia's husband in a fire in a Brick died Her hus- Lane tenement. band's death did more than with a baby. It also meant certificate that her entry was cancelled. Afia became "illegal immigrant. All her appeals to the Home Office were rejected and year she issued LaST was a deportation order. with She had no alternative but to go into hiding — a course of which she action fully supported by Was Workers Against Racism and the Afia Begum later by Campaign Deport- Against ations. Despite police raids on relatives in several cities Afia remains in Britain and she is determined to stay Marching orders The plight of Afia Begum illustrates how the British state is clamping down the rights of black people Her cie is far from unique.

month Last immigration police deported Polat Hasbudak, a Turkish garment had worker who heen Britain resident since 1975. His children are 'British' and are allowed to stay.

Even the respectable middle class Pereira family, who have mobilised a Hampshire village in their support, have "illegal". All been branded pleas the Government to for clemency have failed and they too await expulsion.

The Tory government is adopting a more and more aggressive anti-immigration policy. Last year the numbentrants inte

CTS

Britain from the New Commonwealth and Pakistan fell by 10 percent to reach the lowest level since Commonwealth immigration was first restricted 1962. The Pereiras Begums and the of were only two more 2000 families to retheir marching orders last yeat. Tory immigration minister David Waddington has scornfully dismissed all legal and humanitarian ap- MPs, peals, lobbying by delegations and demonst- The only concessions the Tories have made have been to hardline racist demands - by introducing measures to encourage the repatriation of black people from Britain. The Afia Begum Campaign Against

WOMAN,

UNIQUE

No road back The scale of the Tory attack is unprecedented. It means that the sort of often approach succeeded in defending black people in the past is no longer effective today. Until recently successive British while taining tight controls on immigration, were prepared to make exceptions. Individuals could plead that their circumstances were peculiar, that they faced particular difficulties, or that made a distinctive they contribution to British soc- The Home Office was sometimes prepared to make concessions to special cases.

This allowed authorities to operate immigration regulations flexibly accordthe ing requirements of the labour market. It also helped to sustain an image of British fair play and concern for racial harmony But that was before the recession struck. Now Britain needs no more foreign labour and the Government wants to take a tough line sues of race and immig This ration. helps to force the position of black as second class citpeople izens in Britain and deepracial divisions in the working class. Hence 1984 Waddington is impervious to pleas for compassion on the grounds that Afia Begum's husband was killed and her father is sick, or that the Pereiras model British citizens. are *If they're black send back' is the them slogan that unites the of racists the Monday Club with the racists of the Tory Cabinet.

Blow for blow The Afia Begum Campaign Deportations Against has demonstrated a response to Waddington and the Tories that measures up to the We for offensive. appeal for Afia not support because she special but 1S because she is increasingly becoming typical. We appeal not for from the solidarity state, but for from the working class The Tories have made clear that they are ready to use their laws to round and kick up out black people, to break up families intimidate immigrants members of all ethand nic minorities. The Afia Begum campaign wants to make it clear that working class people are prepared te support Afia the way defying racist laws. The state aims to isolate black people, label them as 'illegals' and 'overstayers' and turn them into On tour with the Sari Squad 'Last week the Tory immigration minister had to go on television to explain why he is Britain. Now they are on the defensive going forward.' Sharmila Kumari of the Sari Squad Last summer a group of Asian women launched a series of protests which included chaining themselves outside the Home Secretary's house to draw attention to the plight of Afia Begum. try to raise support for Afia's fight to stay in Britain.

In Birmingham the Sari Squad addressed the International the fight to get involved received an enthusiastic reception from the demonstration police harassment of their community. In Coventry the Sari Squad made a flying visit to Asian strikers at the row over umon recognition Our aim is to make casts. the fight against deportations and immigration controls a rallying for cause the labour movement. We want to unite working class face of people state against Afia Begum

LOTTOL

and thousands other The Afia black people Begum campaign aims to. the turn on kicking Asian women out of and we are Last month the Sari Squad toured the coun Photographs: Chris Black (reflex) Women's Day march and rally. They called on more women against racism. They later called by the Kashmiri Defence Committee against recent Foleshill Plating Company who were recently sacked in a Tories' attempts to stir up racial tensions, by mobilworkers in solidarity with the victims of racist The laws. Tories have raised the stakes with their latest of ruthless It's up to us deportations. them that they more than have taken they bargained for. Nasreen Khan Home campaign. In Bradford, Wolverhampton, Cardiff, young people eager to get involved in the campaign.

AFIA DEGUM

The Sari Squad's next stop is Europe.

rallies in Paris, Bonn, Parliament. On Thursday 8 March 200 people attended the opening of a new Afia Begum campaign centre, to celeb- International Womrate en's Day. GLC women's representative committee Jenny Fletcher officially opened the campaign head- Brick quarters in Lane, East London, not far from the burnt out house where Afia's husband was killed.

Labour MP Harry Cohen, Grunwick strike leader Jayaben Desai and local community organisations addressed une packea mee ting. Two 'community pol- Racism In Manchester the women were joined on the platform by Anwar Ditta and a Labour councillor. Anwar, who herself fought a bitter six year struggle to bring her children to Britain, told the meeting that resolute defiance of the Office was the only way to win. The councillor Jo Holly called on the Manchester council to support the Bristol, Exeter and Brighton the Sari Squad attracted crowds of

NO MO,

DEPORTATI

Alia WILLI More than 50 women will be crossing the Channel for demonstrations and Brussels and Strasbourg. The trip Will culminate in a rally on 23 May at the European New campaign HQ icemen' discovered that the reception did not ex tend to them they as were escorted to the door Jayaben Desai reminded the audience that the wo men strikers at Grunwick had been let down badly by the Labour Party, and urged the Labour Party to give full support to Afia's fight. Pointing to the banners strung out street Hackney Asian Association spokesman Alok Bis stressed the import ance of involving local people in the campaign.

EPORTATION

the next step, April 1984 7

Labour movement employers. Coventry metal works and a London hospital.

hazards without union protection.

the Foleshill Plating Company struck for union rights.

Martin Stone of Coventry RCP spoke to their TGWU steward. •Conditions at work are terrible. One slip of the toot can put you in the chemical tank — a fatal acciwork 12 hour dent. We shifts with no meal breaks.

If we grab a sandwich or tea we eat at our machine or boss starts shouting.

ER P

Most weeks the boss makes work 60 hours, it's

LIS

either that or the dole. *The bosses were always dragging us about, treating us like slaves. We got fed up and decided to join the

TGWU.

The district official Ron Howell told us about the benefits and said he'd write to the company for recognition.' Pickets When the bosses got the letter they went mad. They told us we would have to meet outside if we wanted to discuss what to do next.

Next day So we went out. we got our dismissal notices in the post. 'The union tried to talk to the bosses. When We asked what can we do they We suggested picket. had never done this before.

The night shift were with us.

They stayed oul pickelig with us for two days. Then Our rights on the line: pickets at Foleshill Plating need solidarity to win 8 the next step, April 1984 Fighting victimisations Union busting has become an everyday activity for British It is not confined to highly publicised cases like Eddie Shah's Stockport Messenger and GCHQ Cheltenham.

In thousands of workplaces around the country employers are refusing to recognise unions and victimising union activists. But workers are fighting back. Revolutionary Communist Party supporters have been involved in two recent struggles against attacks on basic trade union rights in a Many Asian workers suffer long hours, low pay and health Last month workers at the union said they should go back to work because they hadn't been dismissed.

*We asked the union to get the night shift back out because every morning the boss drives a lorry full of what they produce past our picket, laughing his face off.

The union said no, if we did it our way we woud lose and they would drop the They said they had a Case. good argument for the industrial tribunal: "If the bosses took the night shift back.

why not you?"! Bitter The workers found out why not when the preliminary tribunal dismissed their case.

TGWU promised that The the fight goes on - at least until the final tribunal this month. *We are very bitter about how we've been treated. We're running out of money for our picket. The union says we haven't paid enough dues for strike pay. The TGWU is supposed to be setting up a tund, but like everything else it is very slow. We know now the only way to communicate with the boss is to hit his production, hit him where it hurts - in his pocket. The Foleshill strike is still

• SOLIDARITY

WITH TH

FLESHILL

PLATING CP.

WORKER

FIGHTING

FOR

TRADE

UNION

RIGHTS

RCP supporters have been down on the picket line arguing for bringing out the night shift as the only way to win. We argued that workers must reject the union's pipedream of an 'independent" tribunal. and rely on their own strength.

While the

TGWU

dithers over strike funds, Foleshill workers need to set up their own independent fund and get support from the labour If they begin to assert rank and file control now, they can make sure the union is worth joining.

Policing unions Since the end of the 1982 pay dispute, NHS managers have victimised hundreds of union activists. In February health workers at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington prothe victimicostel agalist sation of three West Indian ward orderlies and management's use of the police to discipline militants. Rita Maxim, a TGWU steward, Ethel Samaroo and Monica Cato were sacked for refusing to sign a three month contract after almost 20 years work at the West London Hospital. Management called the police to kick Rita Maxim out. She was only allowed to change out of her work clothes under close police supervision, then thrown off the premises That evening, shop stewards protesting against the victimisations were ejected from the local health

CUSTICE

authority by more police.

PIGHT

FOR

THE

RGHT

FIGHT

Dave Hallsworth stood as the Revolutionary Communist Party candidate in Ashton under Lyne at last June's General Election. Next month, Dave Hallsworth is back on the election trail Ashton in the local council polls.

Dave Hallsworth is no stranger to victimisations.

During nearly 40 vcar of working class struggle he has been imprisoned for organising a trade union in the navy, expelled from left-wing sects for opposing their opportunism, and victimised for uniting black and white textile workers in a mul itant strike over low pay and As secretary of Tameside Trades Council, still hes fighting the bosses victimisation of the working class: • "Divide and rule" is a thing the bosses learn in their cradles. Racism, sexism, nationalism, employment: these are the tools they use to split us up, to pocket one group of workers off from another and smash us a few at a time. If we're go. ing to win, we've got to bring back some of our movement's slogans, "an like injury one is an injury to all". Just voting for me won't ch ange anything. But it will show them that we're will.

The three month contracts are of management's •Part plans to undermine the St Mary's workforce and soften resistance to its planned cuts and privatisation schemes There has been a general clampdown on discipline and union activity at the hospital. Demarcation has been forcibly broken the new contracts demand that ward orderlies floors on top of their normal duties. Workers who are five minutes late face disciplinary action leading to dismissal. Management has paid particular attention to intimidating workers out of attending union meetings.

Positive In response to the February victimisations, the Joint Shop Stewards' Committee has broken off all ne gotiations and consultations with St management at This is a positive Mary's. move which supporters of the RCP have advocated at hospitals Britain. around But the shop stewards' oppo sition to the sackings met with only limited success.

Blackmail The shop stewards' committee called a day of action against the victimisations and police interference attracted support from hos pital militants, but failed to bring out the majority of St Mary's workers. Health protested WOrkers management had threatened to dock the pay and end the contracts of anybody who joined the stewards' action.

An additional reason for the poor response was workers' lack of confidence in their Vote RCP in May

AVEL

ing drive the out divisive politics of the of the parties past and build for the future. We're platcampaigning on a form of: • No cuts in council jobs or services: workers in Ashton need every job and facility we've got left. . And we can't afford any more rate rises to pay for them • Open the unemployed workers' centre: we've been campaigning for two years for an unemployed centre funded by the council and run by unemployed wor- The council has come up with a wreck of a build ing, but hasn't fixed it up or handed over control. • Fight racism: black workers in Ashton suffer dis. crimination in jobs and We're out to unhousing. ite the working class in a Black flay Rita Maxim: thrown out of work by police unions' willingness to confront aggression. Victimised orderly Ethel Samaroo revealed how local union officials had refused to back their fight for jobs: Our local branch secretary and our union official told us to sign the new contracts. They wouldn't stand with us. The union helps management blackmail all then me. old arent rep It doesn't rep. resent us. they told us." The militant shop stewards who called the day of action have tried to distance themselves from the officials approach. But even the stewards were compromised fight for the facilities we all need. • For a woman's right to work: that means free 24 hour nurseries, free abor on demand and an end to all discrimination.

Only revolutionary communist councillors can fight for this. Our Labour council goes along with cuts and rate rises be cause it's more concerned to balance the account books than to defend the working class. We're not interested what the bosses' system can afford we start from what wor kers in Ashton need. It's time had somebody we the Town Hall who's interested in meeting wor kers demands for more jobs and better services instead of giving in the Tory government's de mands for less spending. in workers' eyes, by their failure to take direct action against victimisa-

-BICVIOUS

tions of ancillary workers Combat RCP supporters at St Mary's have argued that the unions must confront the bosses scare tactics head-on, by the workforce uniting action against the new contracts and attempted victimisations. 1s the militants' responsibility to build that unity. They have to prove that the unions can act as combat organisations for health workers, rather additional policemen than for health service manage ment.

Fighting divisions against pit closures. of the miners' union (see following page).

effective. The key to overcoming these problems is the recognition of how much times have changed since 1972 and 1974, and even 1981 when miners won limited success through traditional trade union tactics. Drastic steps The desperate plight of the British coal mining industry in 1984 is an extreme example of the broader impact of the world recession on the British economy. Like any other capitalist enterprise, the survival of coal mining depends on making it profitable. Making mining profitable under prevailing market conditions means a drastic rationalisation of the industry, closures and redundancies. In 1972 and 1974 the oil crisis gave British coal mining a temporary reprieve. Under militant pressure the NCB could pay up higher wages wille is markets stablised - though it still had to shed thousands of jobs. Even in 1981 the Government could postpone contrentation with the mmers and buy time with higher subsidies.

The arrival of lan Mac- Gregor at the head of the NCB in September 1983 indicated that matters were reaching a head. Deepening recession meant a tightening squeeze on public expenditure subsidies for coal mining.

Industrial stagnation meant declining demand for coal at home, international competition intensified. At the the same time broader balance of class forces was shifting steadily the advantage of the TO Tories. Every retreat by the trade union leaders made Government more confident and more aggressive. Having picked off the steel workers and the healthworkers, the NGA and the staff at GCHQ.

the Tories have now moved in to crush the miners. High stakes It is no exaggeration to state that not only are tens of thousands of miners' jobs at but the very survival Issue, of the miners' union is at In the first week of stake. March, MacGregor announced a package of 20 closures 20 000 and redundancies over the coming year. But he has not bothered to refute Arthur Scargill's claim that his real intention is reduce the number of pits from 175 to 100 and the The miners have taken on the National Coal Board, the courts, the police and the Tory Government in a battle The miners are up against a more ruthless and determined assault than anything they have faced since nationalisation in 1947. To beat this onslaught requires a fundamental reorientation in the outlook and organisation The flying pickets that spread through the coalfields in response to the announcement of the latest wave of pit closures revealed the strength of the miners' organisation and their determination to win. Yet never have miners faced such difficulties in uniting behind a strike and making it number of jobs from 184000 More significantly for the NUM leadership, back in February Mac- Gregor announced that he intended to proceed without winning agreement. 'I can't wait for the union' he declared contemptuously.

The NCB and the Government have planned their tactics carefully. The

NCB

took advantage of the overtime ban launched by the

NUM

last November In protest over wages to intensify divisionsamongdifferent and face alcds workers, surface workers and winders in the same pits.

The employers have further tried to weaken the miners' resistance by offering substantial redundancy settlements to miners as young as 21. Meanwhile the Government and the police worked out their grand plan for a paramilitary occupation of the coalfields under computerised, central control.

The NCB advised its customers to build up stocks, waited for winter to pass and then moved in for the kill. Looking backwards While the NCB prepares for

NUM

a grim future, leadership is still living in the past. The NCB has responded to the crisis of the eighties dramatic with a change in strategy and tactics, with potentially catastrophic for consequences Yet the NUM continues to spout the Thetoric of the Unlike the bosses the miners' leaders have made no urgent preparation Since the miners' strike began RCP supporters have been distributing our miners" next step' leaflets, joining picket lines and for the collecting money We have also held public meetings in Dunscroft near Doncaster, Brimington near Chesterfield and Sheffield. in Three up time and ISSUES CalC time again at the ings and on the picket lines. Rank and file control: many miners are impatient of dec-

STACK

by isiveness shown the leadership and the alca planning and lack of Two classes, two picket lines: miners confront the police state PoTall cut at strike began with walkouts by rank and file miners in South Yorkshire over the acceleration of pit closures in the area While the local and national leadership followed on behind, militants attempting to spread the action immediately ran into the problems caused by the

NUM.

In Wales and Scotland South many miners were bitter failure of the about the national union to back action against pit closures in their months. in recent Some were reluctant to follow Yorkshire's lead. Divisions between miners threatened with immediate closure those and with guaranteed jobs have become particularly bitter between the Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire coalfields. Flying pickets have faced large scale strike-breaking, hostile local demonstrations and massive police repression. The result has been miner fighting miner, bitterness and disunity. The NUM has failed to give a lead to unite the The RCP hits the pits ordination at pit and area level. Most activists appreciate the importance of keeping financial control of the dispute at a local level. Most debate surrounds the link between the organisational problems of the strike and the outlook of the

DO TO GARL

NUM leadership. National action: miners are aware of the need tor a solid all-out strike -and of the barriers to achieving this given the splits their ranks. The vast In majority of militants are strongly against a national ballot this because been pushed by the right The barriers to victory miners. In the militant areas it has endorsed action already taken by the rank and file.

In the moderate areas it has maximum scope for given the workers to undermine unity and block effective nationwide action. Above all, it has failed to provide a coherent strategy to pull the miners together and to use mass meetings to draw the majority of miners into action alongside the mili- In response to the

LATS

courts and the police, miners' leaders have tried to limit the scale of picketing. Diversions The NUM has become too closely dependent the NCB to go on an all-out offensive Desagainst pite Scargill's denunciations of MacGregor, relations between officials and

NCB

management EC Badas close at national executive level. While most pits have been strike since mid- March, the

NUM

still represented on the National wingers in the coalfields and by the media. The militants younge. believe that 'picketing out' pits can moderate bring them into line for an allout stoppage. More experienced activists are sceptical of the chances of such tactics succeeding. But they are more inclined to follow the fatalistic strategy of the NUM leadership which simply allows regional divisions to take their course. RCP supporters are arguing for spreading the strike through rank and file participation, not by .the bureaucratic manipul- Consultative Committee, the top level body on which it meets regularly with the employers to discuss closures, redundancies and similar matters. Indeed one of the main aims behind the NUM leadership's backing for industrial action is to use the strike as a lever to force MacGregor to continue the collaborative approach that he has threatened to end. In early March Scargill threatened a national strike to force the NCB 'to return to the negotiating table'. The aim of the strike was not to defeat the employers but to make MacGregor 'see reason' regarding the NUM's constructive proposals for making British coal mining a viable industry The most radical action approved by the NUM leadership and colleagues its in other unions - - combined trade union sanctionsag imports ainst foreign coal is simply a militant extension its traditional policy of collaboration with the NCB. Instead of uniting miners against the NCB and ation of ballots or by elevating picketing out' into a systematic strategy which could prove coun terproductive. Women: familiar attempts by the media to promote women an anti-strike role in Nottinghamshire and the displays of chauvinism by many miners - have put the issue of women at the centre of the miners' strike.

Our supporters in the coalfields have concentrated on involving women in the conduct of the dispute, organising funds, creches and pressing local shops to reduce prices. Miners its customers to make the strike really bite, the import controls strategy unites miners with the NCB against Its overseas competitors.

The import controls campaign is a diversion from the sort of action required to stop the movement of coal in Britain and disrupt enersupplies to gy British industry. Control Thousands of rank and file miners have shown that they are ready to fight for jobs by any means necessary.

To win they need a strategy that measures up to the scale of the combined employers' and state offensive, and an organisation that can put it into action. A strategy for victory must begin by fighting all redundancies, state of regardless of the MacGregor's account books.

It must reject all restrictions on picketing and sympathy action, by the courts, the police - or by the union leadership. The miners also need an organisation that fights for their jobs, not for the British coal industry. The first step is to force the NUM off all standing committees in which it collaborates with the employers and the Gov- The miners need ernment. to take control of the disof pute hands OUt the of their area and national officials. They need to put an end to all the bureaucratic manipulations of local ballots, instructions and coun ter-instructions. Mass meetings pit level are vital to involve the mass of the miners in a dispute that promises to be long and hard It is also essential to extend rank and file activity national level. Delegations of activists should be sponsored to tour the coalfields arguing for all-out national action and wider sympathy strikes. "Picketing out is a militant response to the area divisexacerbated by the

LOTS

NUM's policies. But it is not an effective means of ensur ing united strike action. It cannot be a substitute for involving all miners in the strike and winning the argufor all-out action Sooner or later, a national ballot will be the only way guarantee united action by the miners against the NCB and the Government. It must be up to the rank and file to decide when and how this should be con The bureaucratic of the

NUM

leaders will lead inevitably the isolation of the militants and growing disillusionment the mass of miners. Rank and file control of the strike from pit to area to national level is the only guarantee of victory. Mike Freeman the next step, April 1984 9

Miners The fatal embrace The problems the miners face in uniting against the Coal Board have their origins in their leaders' long-standing collaboration with the bosses.

pit level, miners' representatives are locked into a machinery of consultation and negotiation with the employers.

the National Union of Mineworkers is tied to the National Coal Board by a common commitment to defend British coal. militant sections of the working class.

have always sacrificed their members' militancy to the interests of the British coal industry.

militant miners, flying pickets and violent controntations with the police. and file forced the NUM executive to back industrial action for better pay and conditions in the first national strike since 1926. In 1974, the organised might of rank and file miners led to the government. The miners emerged from the struggles of the early seventies with greater confidence and a decent wage for the first time in decades.

The

NUM

from the 1974 emerged strike fighting for a greater stake in running the British mining industry. With the election of a Labour government in 1974 consultation and negotiation procedures proliterated. Plan for disaster Social Contract Labour's meant state funding for the coal industry in return for union cooperation. In 1974, the NUM, the NCB and the Government launchedajoint, long-term strategy for the Plan for industry, mining The 1973 oil crisis Coul and the shortage of energy sources meant that the ruling class was prepared to invest Plan for Coal in mining. established long-term protargets, duction agreed annual productivity increases and pledged to get rid of un- Union agreement to productivity

GOS TES

increases was the price paid for large scale investment by the Labour government. Plan for Coal was a success story for the NUM bureaucrats and their approach to solving the problems of the industry jointly with management. But it was a disaster for rank and file miners. From 1974 to Labour's 1979, election defeat 1n

NUM

bureaucrats sat on with joint COLLeCS management and presided the destruction

UNCL

Under thousands of jobs. Colliery Review 1973 Procedure the NUM negotiated the closure of 40 pits Arthur Scarin five years. gill's Yorkshire power base lost pit after pit and more jobs than any other area The closures were concenrun-down and unproductive collieries. Union agreement to productivity deals strengthened regional divisions between the richer and poorer coalfields and sectional divisions different workers between in the same pit. From 1974 10 the next step, April 1984 From the national down to the And The miners have traditionally been one of the most But the union leaders The period from 1972 to 1974 is remembered as one of In 1972 immense pressure from the rank downfall of Edward Heath's Tory to 1977 the miners resisted all attempts to introduce area productivity schemes.

By November 1977 left-wing NUM leader Lawrence Daly and energy minister Tony Benn were exhorting the that

OTOVC

nationalised industry can outperform all others'. But the miners were strongly opposed to productivity deals which they knew meant disunity and deteriorating conditions. A record turnout of 80 per cent of the workforce voted by 56 per cent to reject the productivity scheme. However, the regional divisions fomented by the NUM were already apparent before the ballot. The more productive coalfields, which stood to gain from area inschemes, showed centive substantial support for the deal. The least productive areas, which stood to lose out, swung the vote against The NCB was acceptance. quick to exploit these divisions and a revolt against the ballot result in Nottinghamshire rapidly spread to Derbyshire, Leicestershire and other profitable coal- The NUM executive fields. needed no encouragement to overturn the ballot and endorse area agreements. Crumbled The Yorkshire, South Wales and Kent leaders could only respond by seeking an injunction against the NUM for sanctioning unconstitutional But the

CONCUEL

courts were not likely to take a stana on somening left-wing leaders were the not prepared to fight for When a High themselves. ruled Court judge against them, the militant areas had no power to resist.

NCB

reaped the The benefits of the new incentive scheme in greatly increased output. For the miners, NUM's acceptance of the the scheme sowed the seeds of the divisions that plague The bonus the union today. scheme electively the 1966 National Loading Agreement Power which had unified pay negotiations and ended local barover piece rates. gaining The 1978 incentive scheme not only divided miners in different regions, but also in different pits - and even on different shifts within the same pit. By late 1978 North Nottinghamshire miners were taking home a weekly average of nearly £33 in bonuses.

Wales miners were South only getting £8.50. The bosses first attempt to exploit the divisions that had emerged among miners 1981. came in February The list of 24 pit closures presented to the miners was the Tory government's bid to begin a thorough rationalisation of the coal industry.

Rank and file miners responded with a spate of unofficial strikes, leading to a call The for a national strike. 1981 strike is celebrated as a victory in the labour move- In reality it was a victory for the bosses and the union bureaucrats. The bureaucrats lined up with the NCB and used the miners militancy to strengthen their negotiations with the Tory government for more investment The Governand subsidies. ment backed down from an confrontation all-out and coughed up £231 m in investments and subsidies. The Tories' decision not to move in for the kill gave the Coal Board a breathing space and the miners a stay of execution. The great pretender Arthur Scargill was elected NUM president in 1982 with the biggest majority Miners voted for Scarever. gill because of his reputation for militancy and his advocacy of direct action in defence of jobs and wages.

But Arthur Scargill is not We're in the miners' camp: life on the Yorkshire picket line Control from above: Yorkshire NUM leader Jack Taylor appeals for calm outside the union's Barnsley HQ just a trade union militant.

most militalso the heis ant defender of the British coal industry and an inveterate campaigner against foreign coal and foreign oil.

Scargill has continued his defiance of the Coal Board Government, but and the his commitment to the industry has never faltered The miners' leader pledwould ged that he not with participate management about pit clos But behind closed ures. doors the consultation contclosures inued as the pit mounted. On the day that McGregor announced his latest plans for 20 pit closures and 20 000 redthe miners' nade cies leader still found time to the reach agreement Board agenda of on an to take the demands Government. The irreconcilable At the July 1983 miners' Scargill told his conference members that he was prepared to fight to the death necessary save the British coal mining industry. Scargill says that he viable coal indwants a and future for ustry British miners. This evades the fundamental contradiction between saving the coal industry and saving workers bosses jobs. recognise ine that a viable coal industry means productivity increas and large scale redundancies. When it comes to

GLASGOW

Tuesday 10 April 7.30pm Partick Burgh Hall Room 4 Burgh Hall Street off Dunbarton Road near Partick Underground the crunch, Scargill's subservience to defending the coal industry means recon ciling militancy with capitalist rationality. In Scargill's first year as president seven and collieries were closed more than 10 000 jobs lost From 1983 to 1984, 23 pits were closed, partially closed merged and 20 000 or miners lost their jobs. When there has been a real chance fight ( pit to Scargill's closures militant rhetoric has proved to be so 1982, much hot air. In when miners at Kinneil in battling Scotland were Scargill's against right hand man, NUM vice McGahey president Mick was inevitable said closure and called off strike action Class interests first Scargill and the NUM leadership have schooled rank and file miners to identify their interests with the interests of the British coal In the past, industry.

BOBE

outlook has led to divisions, defeats and demoral- Today. it isation. means for tens of thou suicide sands of miners. Only by bureaucrats' rejecting the approach collaborationist pursuing their indepand endent interests as workers will the

BESEECES

these divisions. The united in strength of the miners of their class indefence terests is the only weapon which can defeat the bosses.

Joan Phillips Meetings: Fighting Divisions

SHEFFIELD

Thursday 12 April 7.30pm Victoria Hall opposite Crucible Theatre Spot the difference Arthur Scargill's firebrand oratory might seem million miles removed from the moderate pronouncements of his predecessor Joe Gormley. But political its

CONCEI

little different. Left and the NUM have right in always been united in their defence of the British coal industry. The left is dis tinguished by the way in which combines its loyalty to brush minus with a rhetorical commitment to the interests of the working class. The triumvirate of Arthur Scargill, Mick McGaand Peter Heathfield hey which controls the union stands a long today tradition of left-wing influence in the NUM The Left alliance of Broad Communist Party and leftwing Labour officials first came to prominence in the Yorkshire, late six ties in Scotland and South Wales.

The Young Arthur The left criticised the old right-wing leadership which had ruled the NUM through the fifties and sixties for its pessimistic view of prospects coal inthe British for dustry. Scargill's most damning indictment of Joe Gormley and his predecessors was that they did not fight hard enough to defend the industry. The Broad Left's strategy was based on a more of optimistic the future of the coal in- Unlike the right, dustry. the left envisaged a bright future for the miners as coal acquired a bigger role as a national energy resource The left-wing leadership won rank and file support presented its because it the collaboration with NCB in the language of militant trade unionism. Scargill and his colleagues called for strike action and import controls government investment and subsidies. Wherealong right

TWCHL

with the rundown of the left said it industry, ERe fighting even harder was than the bosses to save But the British mining. and miners o pits closed went down the road just tre salie

State power Banana skins he British state is a formidable T machine. The thousands of police despatched across the country to block the miners' flying pickets moved swittly and effectively. The careful supervision of the operation from the National Recording Centre at Scotland showed the enormous resources that the security forces have available for dealing with trade union action. The scale of the operation was unprecedented in recent Yet it only revealed what memory. revolutionary communists have always argued about the coercive character of the state apparatus. The March events are only the latest of a series of measures designed to tighten up social control and limit the effectiveness of trade unions. The combined court and police assault on the NGA printers at Warrington, the destruction of trade unionism at the GCHQ Cheltenham spy centre and the introduction of a comprehensive system of vetting at the Ministry of Defence are aspects of the employers' offensive organised through the state. The rapid advance of state repression fully justifies the RCP's unequivocal hostility towards the state and its institutions. The courts and police are not only biased against the working class. In every respect they exist to defend the rich and powerful and to discipline those who threaten the establishment. The display of state violence in the coalfields shows the fundamental conflict of interest between us and them. The police are the agents of one class and one class alone. No matter which party is in government the security forces exist to defend privilege, property and capital. It is inconceivable that Scotland Yard's communication centre could be turned over to coordinating action against employers who are driving into the dole queues and denying people• the means to earn their livelihood. For the police disobedience means the failure to fall in line with the dictates of the bosses. A threat to law and order means disregard for the rules that allow the employers to make and enjoy their profits.

The courts are the same. The law is not guided by fine principles of jurisprudence but by the account books of the employers' class. Thus it is a crime to pursue the RCP's demand for the Right to Fight. Court injunctions are instantly available to prevent workers from organising occupations, pickets or any effective action to further their objectives. On the other hand Kent miners were immediately denied an n recent months the myth of Thatcher's invincibility has been shattered.

Divisions in the Tory ranks over issues as diverse as GCHQ and the wheelerdealing of the Thatcher family show that the ruling class is far from confident.

Unfortunately this reversal in the fortunes of the Conservatives is not the result of working class pressure over jobs, housing or health. The difficulties experienced by the Tories stem from the structural crisis of British capitalism. the police and turned back more than 100 miles away from a picket line, Striking workers can be stopped on the road and protesters can be detained on suspicion.

They can always find a law to suit the occasion. The law speaks the language of one class. Employers who have turned Yard parts of Britain into an industrial wasteland have no fear of being charged with obstruction, or with conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace.

nly those with a considerable capacity for self deception could now deny Marx's proposition that the state is nothing but the concentrated power of the capitalist class.

The demonstration of state violence in recent months has created a widespread climate of fear and even of hopelessness.

The sight of thousands of police moving into action with ruthless efficiency can lead to the conclusion that 'they have all the power and we have none'. But are the employers so powerful? Recent events have shown that the state has superior organisation and more resources at its disposal. The authorities have worked to a strict timetable and a carefully worked out plan. In contrast, workers have reacted rather than planned their actions. Since the two main * institutions of the labour movement - the Labour Party and the TUC - have stayed out of the fight - the only organisation available was makeshift and responsive. Even the well miners' union was caught off-guard by a well-planned assault and was unable to pull together a united response.

The difference in organisational capability is not attributable to technical and resource problems. The Conservative Party, the security forces, the courts and the employers are geared up ready to fight. The official labour movement is not. This is because the TUC and the Labour Party are not designed to be fighting organisations. More importantly the institutions of the labour bureaucracy cannot mobilise against the courts and the security forces for the simple reason that they themselves are attached to the state. They might not like a particular law or a particular government, but they are convinced that the state is the best instrument for pushing through the objectives of the labour movement.

The flying organisational weakness of the workers' movement has its roots in political confusion and a paralysing loyalty to the bosses' state.

While the Tories have contained the official labour movement, they have been less successful in reversing capitalism's decline. keep the system ticking over.

source of the tensions inside the Tory Party. This is why Thatcher is forced to make apparently incoherent policy decisions. In reality it is not the Government but the system that it tries to preserve that is unstable.

One of the most remarkable (and least next step police arrived at the pitheads.

unionism. The suggesting that strikes question survive the present crisis.

incomprehensible. organised resolved through and violence. capitalist class. B British Thatcher can only This is the erosion the overthrow of capitalism.

course of history. The problem is above all the political crisis of the working class. This is all too well illustrated in the bitter divisions that have wreaked havoc amongst the A parochial trade unionism emphasised regional differences and helped to limit the effectiveness of miners disastrous. even before the first coachload of The state's response indicated the bosses' recognition that they were fighting for their power. Workers have yet to achieve such clarity of purpose - at present workers are joining the battle merely as trade unionists. Hence the difference in determination, planning and ruthlessness. A society facing economic collapse has little room for trade Conservative Party's Centre for Policy Studies is now seriously be banned altogether in the public sector. Elsewhere employers are introducing company unions and no-strike agreements. When so much is at stake every industrial dispute raises the broader question of which side will prevail. It is this broad strategies - the question of class power - that the workers movement must address if it is to achieve the political and organisational unity necessary to Many on the left find the perspective outlined in the RCP's programme Preparing for Power unrealistic, even This attitude is understandable for a movement whose vision does not go beyond the aim of power. electing a Labour government in 1988.

But it is a criminally short-sighted attitude marked by an incorrigible resistance to learning from experience.

The issue of power is not one that we dreamed up on the editorial board of the next step. It is a central fact of life in present-day British society, forced upon everybody by the world wide crisis of capitalism. This issue will not be bargaining and negotiations but through confrontation We did not invent state repression and the employers' offensive they are the appropriate measures for maintaining the power of the ut can we prepare for power now? History has always been unkind to the exploited and the oppressed. It does not deliver power ready-made in the form of to weapons, wealth and other resources.

Nor does it give special dispensations talked about) developments is the growth of political volatility. Supporters of the next step report that throughout the country more and more people are prepared to look for new alternatives.

This response is welcome. But the of old loyalties does not necessarily lead to the concision that the solution to Britain's problems lies with Banana skins have never changed the The ruling class has to those who want to wait until the masses are ready and willing to move Instead it imposes the penalty of a shameful defeat on those whose watchwords are 'delay' and 'postpone'.

Lack of preparation always proves Against the plans and organisation of the British state it means defeat and retreat to an even greater defeat. Preparing for power does not simply mean planning to settle scores in the future, but fighting the threat to our survival today. We have no choice but to prepare for power now. Any other alternative merely represents an attempt to cheat history and to rely on the decency and generosity of the capitalist class. Preparation is above all a matter of politics. Our problem today is not that the workers movement is powerless but that it lacks an effective strategy The miners' flying pickets show the power of our class. One group of miners fighting another reveals the dead-end of traditional labour movement politics.

For workers there are only two The available. prevailing strategy of Labourism avoids the question of power and dissipates energy in a vain battle to reform the system. The strategy of revolutionary communism addresses all workers in a common struggle to overthrow the power of the capitalist class. Labourism means disunity, passivity and defeat. Revolutionary communism represents its opposite the struggle for unity through the fight for workers' The British state is only powerful as long as workers continue to respect its Parliament, its courts and its police.

Once workers refuse to recognise the legitimacy of the state all its arms and modern technology will not be sufficient to defeat a class fighting for its liberation.

We should respect but not stand in awe of their hardware. For almost 15 years the Irish people have stood up to the elite of the British Army equipped with the most up to date technology and latest surveillance techniques. Even the mighty United States failed to crush the yearning for freedom and dignity in Vietnam and it has yet to prevail over the masses of the Middle East or Central America.

Their power depends on maintaining our class in a state of insecurity confusion and demoralisation. But if we start to prepare now and plan out our strategy we can open millions of eyes to see the strength that we already possess From Warrington through Cheltenham Barnsley and Doncaster the inescapable message is that it is not too soon to embark on the road to power.

its problems, but unless it is forced to give up its power and wealth it can carry on indefinitely. Forget about banana skins and asking for reforms!

Workers only gain what they take without asking The May publication of the RCP's trade union handbook Taking Control is a major event. To the banana skin politics of the left it counterposes the perspective of taking back what is ours, and of ultimately expropriating the exploiter class. Take it! the next step, April 1984 11

Unemployment Benefit Attendance C Youth in crisis

SURNAME

official labour movement.

LABOUR CRITICS of the Tories are wrong Government of being unto accuse the about youth concerned With more than one and a quarter million people under the age of 25 let loose on the streets, the establishment cannot afford to be indifferent. of Manpower Services the and its myriad schemes is testimony to the importance the Tories attach to containing the rising reserve army of unemployed youth.

At the same time, under the guise of training, the Government is concerned to turn unemployed youth of cheap, casual and flexible labour-power.

Social Elastoplast Only two years ago Government provision of work and training for unemployed youth went under the designation grammes. They are special no longer.

word has disappeared from the MSC's vocabulary and so has any pretence that the temporary. measures are established in 1974 as the dole queues began to lengthen. A decade later, unemployment has made permanent administrative fact. Or, as The Times put it, the Commission has become a charlady mopping up omic change, a social Elastoplast'. The 1981 riots were justification enough for the Tory government to extend the MSC's provisions.

MSC director Geoffrey Holland commented in the aftermath of the summer disorders that the Commission was standing between a mass of adolescents and hopelessness: If it had not been for us we should have had even more than we had: a lot of alienated, under-developed young in a modern world.' While the rest of the welfare state is being cut back, the MSC is still growing as employment plummets. more than £2 billion is planned for 1985.

The Youth Training Scheme is the latest in a long line of MSC schemes designed to exploit the unemployed and attack the emsubstituting jobs ployed by. down living standards. ventures were the Job Creation Programme and the Work Experience Programme.

former subsidised temporary jobs for both teenagers and adults. spells in enterprises intended to give young people a better understanding of working life'

MSC

As the schemes led to extensive job substitution.

In 1978 the Labour government replaced the two schemes with the Youth Oppor-

(YOP)

Programme tunities aged 16 to 18 and the Special Temporary Employment Programme (STEP) for unemployed adults aged 19 and over.

Opportunities Programme 12 the next step, April 1984 On 8 February, the body of 16 year old Charles Tyrer was found lying face down in five inches of chemical slurry at the bottom of a tank in a Birmingham factory. Only a week earlier, 18 year old Sarah Canons was crushed to death by a tractor at a farm near Swindon. Charles and Sarah were trainees on statesponsored training schemes. Both were victims of a barbaric system, which has consigned a whole generation of youth to a life of misery on the dole and degradation as cheap, casual labourers on state-run training programmes.

For the ruling class, mass youth unemployment is a weapon to use against the working class. It is also a social time bomb. Joan Phillips looks at the impact of youth unemployment on the working class, and examines the state's attempts to contain the threat to social stability which it poses - with the assistance of the unemployment. CBI's special programme The staggering growth of paid employees. Commission into a vast reservoir * of YOP's existence. The Tories "special pro- The The The MSC was mass of the MSC a the spillage of econintroduced in a qualitative "The crude this major act of such a large sum oi pubne people social peace

LOSI

device Keeps ployment record Times, 2 September 1983) An MSC budget of driving and The MSC's earliest The YTS guarantees The latter provided work experience.

COOLE

for people The Youth aimed which

PHILLIPS

for 234 000 young people a year. By 1980, half the people finishing YOP courses were back on the dole. The chief executive of the unit admitted that 40 to 50 per cent of YOP places were just cheap labour, used to replace the jobs The biggest response came from small companies with less than 20 employees, which used trainees as cheap, unskilled labour and provided little or no training. YOP trainees received £25 a week and no protection from dismissal or victimisation. Seventeen teenagers died and 700 were seriously injured during the three years were eventually forced to abandon YOP. The scheme was inadequate to deal with the rising level of youth unemployment. The jobless figures had doubled under the Labour government, from one million in 1975 to two million by 1980.

Half way through Thatcher's first term unemployment hit the three million mark.

Government recognised that drastic measures were required to keep the lid on a potentially volatile section of the un- Anti-riot device The Tories' Youth Training Scheme was 1983. Falling September only a little way short of the conscription YTS marks of an entire generation, the break with the special programmes' of the past and a bench mark in British social policy. But if the scale of YTS is something new, its purpose is familiar: political impulse behind collective provision costing money is main-

YTS

anti-riot an 16 year olds off the unemand off the streets.' (The The introduction of YTS has been described as comparable in its social impact to raising the school leaving age. A Government Think Tank paper, leaked during last year's General Election campaign, stated that the essence of the proposal is to reduce the size of the labour force by raising to 17 the age of entry to the normal labour market.

The each 16 year old not in full-time work or education a place on a state-sponsored programme of training and Before its introduction, the MSC was aiming to fill 460 000 places by Christmas, involving at least 5000 employers and costing f1 billion a year.

YTS steps up the attack on unemployed youth in four ways. First, it enshrines the notion of youth as a permanent source of cheap labour power, whatever the level of youth unemployment. It has been accom panied by a drive to reduce youth wages, have declined steadily since 1975, destroy apprenticeships, and substitute youth for adult jobs. Second, YTS is all-embracing, covering not just unemployed 16 year olds, but also employed young workers, including apprentices. The comprehensiveness of YIS was underlined by the other MSC grants for school-leavers, as first year apprenticeship support and Unified Vocational Preparation. Third, the duration of exploitation has been extended from YOP's months, Finally, YTS is a further refinement of the state's containment and unemployed, pulsory - refusers stand to lose 40 per cent of miserly social their for six weeks to teach them a lesson.

Training for exploitation To disguise the scheme's and to dispel memories of YOP, the MSC and the Government have devoted considerable resources to promoting the training aspect of YTS. new initiative as part of a long-term process of equipping a new skills necessary to lead Britain back on the path to competitiveness. Employment minister Peter Morrison exposed the real purpose behind the scheme when he urged employers to take full advantage of the programme: Your return for becoming big sponsors the f1 billion scheme equipped and adaptable the foundation of your in the 1980s and 1990s.' The YTS aims to provide the bosses with inexpensive, inexperienced and adaptan able' workforce. training division policy document explained the object of training: The emphasis should be on meeting the needs of the employers rather than the needs of individmas Greater emphasis should be given to cutting back on occupational training where placing results are poor.' This 'market-oriented' approach to training is what inspired the proposals in the Government's White Paper Training for Jobs.

published in late January.

has provoked an outcry in the educational world. It plans to give the MSC control of a quarter of the places for job training in colleges of further education.

MSC infiltration into the field of educbeen proceeding steadily the last five years. however, a significant further ment into the education sphere. Propounding his philosophy chairman David is all about: Training should not be confused with educ ation. Training is about work related skills and is intimately concerned with employment. It is for this reason that training in this country must be employer-directed.' The White Paper intends to do away with an expensive and inefficient system cational training which has failed to deliver The the goods. further education system which cannot turn out people fitted for the world of capitalist exploitation The purpose of Training for Jobs is to reinforce the subservience of the unemployed to the demands of capitalism in crisis.

and recent studies

REWO

withdrawal of all such ence to 12 months. of the tronic: policing The scheme is virtually comworkers benefit

SEVELV

peripheral groups sharing,

-CONTACON

coercive nature The MSC has described the generation with the will be a well workforce which prosperity of 1983 The A recent internal MSC their time is up Thousands The White Paper over Training for Jobs is, encroacheducation,

MSC

Young explained what it of vobosses have no use for a

INITIALS

JAT

The creation of a permanent pool of floating, flexible and cheap labour-power which can be drawn in and out of production as when required has been described in Nicholas Bosanquet's After the new right and research conducted by John Atkinson at the Sussex Institute of Manpower Studies point to the emerg of two distinct strata of workers.

The first is composed of professional and highly skilled workers such as those employed in new technology industries eleccomputing and robotics. second consists of semi-skilled and unskilled lead a transient

CAN CIC

between temporary jobs and the dole. These include part-time, jobshort-term contract workers, suband youth trainees. The 'YTS is an anti- 16 year olds off record and off the (The Times) function of YTS and Training for Jobs is to prepare young workers for an itinerant life the dole and a temporary job YTS fall-out YTS has suffered from low takeup and a high dropout rate. The scheme was expected to place 460 000 school-leavers by the end it has attracted only 313 000 Government has responded by cutting back on the number of places in colleges and voluntary organisations and authorising the MSC to transfer £15 million from the YTS to its rapidly extending Community Programme. It has loosened the criteria for entry to YTS for all 17 year olds and disabled people up to the age of 21. The state has also penalised young people who refuse to accept a placement or leave before are leaving YTS schemes Dole office juniors: a year on the YTS, then it's b

ard

NI NUMBER

despite the threat of losing 40 percent of their dole money for six weeks. Nearly one in six of school-leavers who joined last year had left by the end of the year - a worrying figure for the Government. Employment secretary Peter Morrison admitted in February that about 48 000 people had left by the end of December. their schemes In Birmingham, less than 60 per cent of YTS places have been filled, and since the courses September 2000 have left the began in recent report by Birmingham scheme. The great training

NATHE,

The report showed explained why. astonishing mushrooming of private training agencies, which now provide 42.5 per cent of the total approved YTS places and 56.5 per cent of places with private employ- One private agency, Datasolve Educers. ation hires out its YTS trainees at £10 per week - all proceeds to Datasolve. The aim is quick profits out of organising to make training and work placements, an approach within the which is entirely Many private training agencies have experienced difficulties in placing their train- One, ADM, has undertaken ees. - Pitmans have also canvassing for places In a desperate drive to run into trouble. recruit sponsors, most trainees have ended iot device keeping the unemployment streets. in shops, small workshops, offices, where problems of job substitution, little training and poor conditions are rife.

not confined to substitution is Job Birmingham. In Hampshire, One training agency - Youth Training Resources offered potential sponsors the use of a pair of hands free of staff costs'. Another the National Institute managing agent of Hardware - offers sponsors 'extra workbut at no cost, the equivalent force of a year long interview with 'no long-term commitment'. In Coventry, more than 62 percent of the 2208YTS trainees work for managing agencies. Many agencies private their trainees to other organisations for £10 a week. Most are not overseen by manpower boards and monitoring of sponsors is minimal. the Government From the beginning, has used intimidation and threats of benefit 80X1 k to the UBO UB40z 47 12 loss to compel young people to enter YTS.

On 23 September the Department of Empand loyment first The

BONES.

centres and careers officers, telling them to report people who refuse to go on a scheme The to benefit managers. from the MSC warned school-leavers that they would face cuts in benefit if they refused to go on a scheme. Careers officers in and elsewhere have refused to Sheffield comply. Members of Sheffield Nalgo won't robbery, inform benefit offices when a young person an "suitable "without leaves scheme Despite the action of some trade unionists, however, the DHSS confirmed in February that it is already inflicting substantial penalties on school-leavers who reject YTS Some 783 young people had their offers. dole reduced in the month up to 20 December 1983 and 731 in the month up to January 1984. They lost 40 percent of their benefit, cutting it from £16.50 a week to MSC rules. £9.90 for 16 to 17 year olds.

taken so far, social services secretary Normblanket Fowler and social security Rhodes Boyson have ordered two investigations covering 59 towns and cities to root young offenders. out to the Department of Employment's Reg ional Benefit Investigation Teams ("Rabbits') the DHSS' specialist and units (snooper squads) which are already hounding the unemployed in Scunthorpe claimants have been targeted as potential social security scroungers'.

The first investigation - Unemployment Review asks benefit officers to visit unemployed people aged between 18 and 25 in 40 towns and cities. They are to be asked why they left jobs, with particular attention or small being paid to people financial who have -tew Government instructions tell advise about job prospects, help improve private morals, and inculcate good working habits the young people they among second investigation, by the DHSS Social Security Policy Inspectorate, involves interviewing young people in 19 towns and cities covered by the YTS. Young people are to be sought out if they have not been placed on a scheme, refused to go on a scheme, or joined a scheme and left it.

Eager partners For today's youth, For the personal calamity. is a collective disaster. Unemployment debilitates the working class, undermines its capacity to defend jobs and living stand-

RAY?

the recession. register. the MSC issued two docuwas a directive to job icularly in the inner cities second letter on the dole or YTS. offer' of a place o1 good cause. old men. as high for blacks as whites.

These are additional claims contro places like where 7000 out of 12 000 and Handsworth, cent. families living in commitments. officials to danger to the working class.

youth The visit. vision, movement demoralisation. Attacks sive. unemployment is a working class ment exercises. ruary Tory minister Tom first crats for their efforts:

BOX 3

and velopment have the opportunity preparation for working life'.

The union the operation something The youth of today Young people are bearing the brunt of Hor every one per cent reduction in unemployment the level of youth unemployment has risen by nearly two percent. The youth unem ployment rate is higher than the adult rate and always has been. The ratio has fallen slightly in recent years as a result of the many schemes which have kept young people off the unemployment between jobs. Some 1.25 million youth (under 25) are officially registered as unemployed - 39.4 per cent of the jobless total.

The overall percentage conceals pockets of soaring youth unemployment, part- . Knowsley on Merseyside has the highest youth unemployment rate in Britain - - 85 per cent of school-leavers are unemployed or on youth training schemes. Nationally, half of all those under 18 are either Young women suffer unemployment disproportionately to older women and to young men. Officially, women make up a little less than a third of the registered unemployed, but the rate at which women are losing their jobs is twice as fast as for men. And nearly half of all unemployed women are not registered.

The official unemployed figure for women aged 20 to 24 is 24.3 per cent, compared good enough: to 19.1 per cent for men. Over 17 per cent of women aged 18 to 19 are jobless compared to 10 per cent of 18 to 19 year Blacks also suffer disproportionately high rates of unemployment, especially black youth. Unemployment is twice For blacks born in the UK, the figure is worse almost three times as high as for whites.

In June 1983, Labour Research estimated that black unemployment in Greater London had risen by 211 per cent since 1979. The scale of the problem is evident on the streets of Britain's black innercity ghettoes such as Brixton, Toxteth where black youth when required. unemployment can be as high as 95 per Young people constitute an increasards, and increases divisions between black and white, men and women, old and young Mass youth unemployment poses a grave Unemployed not make an impact on public consciousness because they are at home.

Because their only experience of adult life is the dole or a state training scheme, and their only social intercourse with the telethey are isolated from the labour and and prone to cynicism on the unemployed require a concerted labour movement counter-offen- TUC and the The response of the official labour movement, however, has been to give full backing to the state's contain- In the debate on youth 22 Febunemployment in Parliament on King was the ment. bureauto congratulate the union and file I pay tribute to the work and leadership of the trade union movement and the TUC in the de- Youth encouragement of the Training Scheme. It does them great credit."

and In late August the TUC launched a hand- J00 al te book on YTS, claiming that the scheme was *an integral part of the (labour) movement's strategy for economic recovery and reconstruction'. TUC general secretary Len Murnothing despair. ray called YTS a 'major step towards ensuring that all young people on leaving school to acquire a sound happy bureaucrats

WETE

enough to be consulted by the Government over the introduction of YTS and to play a part in its implementation. Three leading members of the TUC sit on the MSC and five rejecting trade union bureaucrats sit on each of the cheap, 54 area manpower boards which oversee of the government schemes.

The TUC is anxious to be seen to be doing but for the unemployed, response reflects its own narrow self-interest. The TUC recognises as clearly as the Government the dangers inherent in mass youth unemployment. As long ago as 1980, ingly large percentage of the long-term unemployed, a trend confirmed in a recent report by the Policy Studies Institute, Long-term unemployment and labour markets. The customary definition of long-term unemployment is to be reg istered as unemployed for more than one year. In the past, up to ten years ago, unemployment was a short-lived experience through which workers passed Today unemployment is an increasingly prolonged experience.

Long-term unemployment began to rise steeply in 1975 and has grown steadily ever since. In February 1980 the level of long-term unemployment was a little more than a third of a million.

Today it is well above one million, more than 37 per cent of the unemployed. Of these, about a quarter are under 25 and half are under 45 The high concentration of youth among the long-term unemployed has been acknowledged as a problem by the establishment. One of the virtues of the myriad training schemes for the Government is that they have helped to keep young people's periods of unemploy ment relatively short - but not short enough. Last September, as the Youth Training Scheme got underway, The Economist warned that the temporary measures of the past were no longer *Unless governments decide to make temporary job schemes for the young into semipermanent affairs, more young people will be caugnt in the trap or tong-term unemploy ment. If so, when unemployment begins to fall, they will be left behind: unemployed unemployable and angry.? The real function of youth training and other special measures, The Economist made clear, is not to train young people for skilled work in permanent jobs, but to keep them circulating above the hard core of the long-term unemployed making them available for work as and Denise Taylor Len Murray posed the problem of how to keep unemployed youth on a tight rein: How can we ensure that unemployed young people do not become alienated from the trade union movement as well as from other institutions in our society and do not become easy recruits for extremist anti-democratic groups?'

To keep a grip on jobless youth the TUC has devoted considerable resources to extending its network of centres for the unemploy ed. It now runs more than 200 centres, many jointly funded by the MSC, and has initiated a TUC Action Programme to coordinate their work. The fact that so few people use them shows that most people on the dole regard them as irrelevant to their needs, and underlines the alienation of the unemployed from the official labour move- While the bureaucrats at Congress House have been complicit in the state offensive against the unemployed, some rank trade unionists have fought to defend them. Workers at Massey Ferguson in Coventry have forced management to give YTS trainees £74.60 a week, full sickness benefits, holiday and a permanent end of the 12 month period What we need The leaders of the 'labour movement have the unemployed except to offer The working class has everything to offer. It is up to the employed, organised sections of the labour movement to lead the struggle to defend the unemployed. This requires a break with the politics of the labour bureaucracy and a concerted fight against all redundancies, voluntary and compulsory, to defend existing jobs. It means outright all state-run seneme unemployed as designed to harness the and forcing the casual labourers, bosses to provide jobs at the wages we need We want our own work schemes under our control, financed by the state at the wages we decide. If workers take control out of the hands of the bureaucrats they have the power to transform the forgotten youth of today into the class fighters of the future.

the next step, April 1984 13

local world policeman White House has already begun.

But there are similarities.

elections. *AMERICA IS BACK' declared Ronald Reagan in the 'State of the Union' speech which marked the end of his third year in the White House. pressive statistics to prove American economy was back on its feet, and an army sergeant wounded in October's invasion of Grenada to prove that America was back as the guardian of democracy around the world.

days, rumours of a return to sent the money and stock markets into panic, while the eruption of fresh fighting Lebanon forced Reagan to announce the withdrawal of US marines from Beirut.

Despite the optimism of the election year rhetoric. has become increasingly fragile at home and abroad. Whether Walter Mondale or Gary Hart is elected in November, American imperialism has no to the unchallenged world way back dominance it enjoyed for 25 years from the end of the Second World War.

Domination and decline Reagan came to office in January 1981 against a background of the long-term decline of American influence. From the moment American intervention ended the Second World War the USA became the guarantor of capitalist relations around After the the globe. imperialist powers of Germany, Japan, Italy and France faced the threat of workers" revolt and social Marshall Plan pumped America's dollars to stabilise the Western economies.

American troops entrenched themselves in Europe and Japan to ensure political Once the peace' was won, stability. America redivided the world at will.

forties America in the every aspect of imperialist American diplomats wrote Japan's constitution. American economists set a meagre standard of living for working class. leaders founded puppet labour movement organisations to restrain the Western proletariat. The USA's monopoly on power dictate international law through the United Nations, and Western security through Nato. nated the ideology of the Cold War to put 14 the next step, April 1984 Support your This November, Americans will elect a new President.

and jet-setting candidates seem far removed from last year's British Reagan's problems stem from the impact of the recession, and not from the ineffectual opposition. Mick Hume surveys the American political scene.

the defenders Reagan paraded imeverywhere. that the Latin America. rivals. Within by US opposition. recession pansion of President's American power affairs loosened. Ronald Reagan, sion. America still power was on the wane. in Vietnam war the crushed bringing down collapse. out either at home or abroad.

1976 In dominated politics. Nixon and the German American trade union position. client the America dissemica's Muslim Captain America: the Democrats can't cope with Reagan's rallying call to defend US power The battle for the The million dollar television campaigns Like Margaret Thatcher, Ronald the seal on its position as world policeman.

Through the fifties, US troops became of imperialist interests They intervened to settle revolts in the Far East, the Middle East and America brooked no When the ageing powers of Britain and France tried to capture the Suez Canal from Egypt, they were humiliated America's political supremacy was built on the tremendous productivity and ex- US As the USA's capital. competitors rebuilt their economies and American capital lost its dynamism in the sixties, the USA's grip on international It was still the USA Vietnam to which had to intervene in contain the popular revolt against oppres- But this time the Americans got bogged down in a war they could not win.

ruled the world, but its In the early seventies the US economy suffered setbacks at the hands of its Western rivals as EEC industrial output surpassed America's for the first time America's political standing abroad was seriously undermined by its final defeat Arab states were now prepared to cut US oil supplies after America backed Israel in the 1973 Middle East war.

The Watergate scandal summed up the crisis of confidence in the American ruling class, exposing electoral dirty tricks and President Republican Richard Nixon. Nixon's bumbling successor Gerald Ford did little to restore confidence in the Washington administration, Jimmy Carter of the Democratic Party came up to Washington from Georgia's peanut country as a new broom to sweep away the debris of the Ford presidencies. When Carter was himself swept out of office four years later things were worse still for American imperialists. The dollar's decline to record low exchange levels in 1979 symbolised America's weakened economic The Iranian revolution of the same year underlined America's loss of control in the Third World. After Ameri- Shah was overthrown, fundamentalists captured mission turned to farce when US army helicopters blew each other up in the Iranian desert. Iranian hostages crisis, Republican Ronald Reagan was elected back the clock and make America great again. Enter Reagan Reagan made three promises for his plan the USA's economic restore political prestige. balance the nation's budget, and strengthen US defences. rearm remains intact and his government seems beset by problems Reagan's failures are not the result of policy decisions. his central dilemma in the face of world recession and the decline of American Like all Western leaders, Reagan power. has to protect his own national capital.

But unlike anybody else, he also has to safeguard conditions for capitalist production world-wide. Reagan needs to rearm and cut state expenditure simultaneously.

force American industry into cut-throat competition with its Western rivals while maintaining stable power relations among the imperialists. the Third World to ensure stability, without souring US relations with important clients volatile regions. about the economy and foreign policy reveal the tensions pulling US imperialism apart as a far more serious threat to Reagan's re-election than anything his opponents in the Democratic Party might Upturn guy From the end of 1982 to early 1984, Reagan gained ground over the Democrats by taking credit for the limited improvement in America's economy.

ment fell from a 40 year high of 10.8 per cent to eight per cent, as US industry's capacity utilisation soared from a record low of 68 percent to almost 80 per cent.

Inflation was cut from more than 12 per cent to less than four. carried the President's fortunes with it But much of the economic growth has remained superficial. depended on artificial stimuli such as state spending and consumer cars, houses and durable goods. Although real investment in industry has improved, too much of it is being spent on vehicles and light machinery rather than the heavy capital investments needed to reconstruct the economy. weakness, the state spending which helped spark the upturn now threatens to strangle This year, the state budget deficit will be more than $180 billion. predicts that the deficit will stay around the $200 billion mark for a few years but decline by the end of the eighties as prosperity returns for good. jections which reject Reagan's fantasies of permanent boom estimate the deficit at $325 billion by 1989 if nothing is done to reverse it. American capitalists have loudly against the growing deficits.

Government borrowing has kept real US interest rates up. dustry's access to credit for investing in productivity-raising technology.

encouraged foreign the dollar, inflating the US elections realistic levels. At the climax of the imports. President to turn and He would cut taxes, Today only his pledge to extends its borrowing sides. on all They are expressions of unlimited and nervousness vestors He needs to He needs to intervene in Election debates 'individual Unemploy- American power. The US upturn budget. Expansion has credit for economics Because of this underlying the

USA

White House Reagan The recently Opposition proits post-war status despite challenge for protested one leading High This has limited inrisks in the world'. It has investment in currency's havens. 30 per cent above Low investment and expensive dollars have combined to make US industry uncompetitive against foreign Last year America suffered a loss of $30 billion on its current account.

Up to now, trade losses have beer compensated for by foreign capital pouring into the dollar. But Japanese and European willingness to finance America's deficit cannot be taken for granted Leading bankers on both sides of the Atlantic have noted the potential for a rapid collapse of the dollar if capital is pulled out of the USA as America ove The demise of the dollar would bring a return to recession with soaring interest rates and inflation.

The tensions created by the prospect of deficit growth have caused ructions inside the Reagan administration among American Yet Reagan's ability to tackle the deficit is severely limited.

The bottom line Reagan has long declared himself an enemy spending and an 'getting government off the people's backs' In February he berated Federal (national) government as 'an alimentary canal with an appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

This is part of Reagan's brutal offensive against the working class in the guise of protecting rights and freedoms In defence of 'individual rights and freedoms' Reagan has promoted union busting (the right to work') attacks on abortion facilities (the 'right to life') and savage attacks on social security (freedom from government and taxation') Despite his ideological emphasis on restraining the state, Reagan cannot cut further swathes through big spending government departments. Hammering social security further or raising taxes are ruled out (until next year) by electoral considerations.

Cutting spiralling arms spending is made impossible by the broader problem, of maintaining Defence spending accounts for almost 30 per cent of Reagan's proposed 1985 It has risen from $135.8 billion to $237.5 billion in 1984, and is planned to reach $348.6 billion by 1987.

On paper, cutting arms expenditure seems one way to avoid growing deficits and the subsequent collapse of the dollar.

Yet in the real world, whether or not the dollar slumps is not a technical - question of dependent on balance of power between the imperialists.

In this sense the financial crisis makes Reagan's arms spending to strengthen necessary, and difficult to peg back whoever is in the The dollar's status as an investment currency was one indication of America's dominance after the Second World War renewed strength of the dollar does not mean the USA is back to It indicates that, America's decline no other imperialist country is yet in a position to world leadership. But as American bank review ob. serves, the dollar could fall very rapidly though a change in the perceived political In other words further decline in America's international standing could result in investment shifts out of the dollar and into other safe imperialist Rearmament is vital to maintain

confidence in the USA as world policeflowing in. and keep investment The 400 000 strong Rapid Deployment Force stands ready to protect American interests in the Third World.

generation of nuclear weapons has been used to keep the USA at the head of the Western Alliance. Far from solving economic problems, cutting defence spending would amount to America cutting its own throat. Reagan is trapped in a spiral of in- Yet all sides creasing budget deficits.

accept that there is little electoral mileage Democratic nere or une Reagan has set the budget debate outside the realm of party politics. declared that the deficit is too important to become 'a political football'. Reagan's bipartisan approach denotes his policies as those of the American capitalist class.

He attacks his critics as typifying the 'anti-business, anti-success which brought our country to the brink As loyal supporters of of disaster. American business and success, the Democrats have no alternative to the Government's counter-crisis strategy.

early opposition from leading Democrats, Congress passed Reagan's previous budgets with the major proposals intact.

cratic attempts to make the deficit an election issue seem likely to fall equally flat. Bloody bipartisanship Unable to challenge Reagan's economic the Democrats have policies at home, turned their attention to the President's conduct of foreign affairs. They have had little more success than with the economy.

America's long-term economic decline has forced Reagan to use marines and task forces to safeguard American interests American imperialists have traabroad. ditionally used the myth of the Soviet threat to justify their armed foreign ex- Reagan has adapted this theme cursions. to the crisis of the eighties, emphasising roll back the tide the need communism' in Central America and the The backstabbing, fluctuating poll war between Democratic presidential hopefuls Walter Mondale and Gary Hart stands in stark contrast to Ronald unchallenged Reagan's triumphal, progress towards the Republican Party Democrats have been nomination. deeply divided by the undermining of their traditional social base in the The Democratic Party is a loose amalgam of diverse interest groups. It encompasses everybody from sections of the American left and black workers in the cities of the North East, to racist "Dixiecrats' in the former slave states of the deep South. For 50 years the Democratic Party's bedrock support has come from a coalition of trade unions, liberals and blacks, first pulled together around President Roosevelt's 'New Deal' in the Great Depression of the thirties. The coalition was reconstituted through John Kennedy's New Frontier' programme and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society' plans in the sixties. Behind the hype of their public promises on civil rights, jobs and welfare, the Democrats pursued the anti-working class policies American capitalism needed. Democratic power often rested on corrupt "Boss' politicians whose party machines used bribery and brutality to turn out the ghetto votes. Over the past 10 years, deepening recession has put paid to the Democrats' dream of boom and expanding state The interest groups within services. the party have been pushed into conflict with each other as each looks to its own sectional concerns.

Democratic coalition has fragmented.

The party machine has increasingly been at odds with Democratic Party supporters, opposing the nominations of George McGovern in 1972 and Jimmy Carter in 1976. disastrous performance in the White House, the Democratic Party all but which had collapsed. Unions traditionally backed the Democrats financed Ronald Reagan in the 1980 Middle Hast imperialist aggression, but it is enough to disable his Democratic Party US The new War to justify and waved the Soviet bogey to

TONSIES

excuse its government's wars in Korea in the fifties and Vietnam in the sixties.

cannot break its ties with US imperialism and oppose Reagan's interventions today.

From his election, Reagan highlighted the crisis in Central America as the key area of international conflict.

had to "draw the line' against Soviet influence by backing the dictatorship in El candidates. undermining the Salvador and He has Sandinista regime in bloody consequences of American involvement in Central America have pricked the Democratic conscience over the past ree veals. vital cause at stake has limited the oppo- Henry Kissinger's commission on attitudes sition. last Central America heading Democrats. Its report made mild criticisms of the region's dictators for their poor human rights record.

Despite proposed the USA's murderous allies in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Today Central America, tomorrow the Demoworld. America's problems have increased over the past year, Reagan's administration has had to generalise the approach of drawing the line'. foreign policy has now become a matter of life and death for US imperialism Secretary Caspar Defence presentation of the latest arms budget proposals exemplified the administration's exhortation to its opponents: If we stop in mid-course we will only endanger the progress we have made in recent years and invite speculation by friends and adversaries alike that the United States can sustain neither its will nor its leadership.

Appeals to protect America's international standing have pushed the unpopular MX missile proposals through Congress. In an Walter 'Fritz' Mondale ment and repression refused to vote.

Almost 30 percent of registered Democrats voted Reagan and the Republicans won a landslide victory.

Since the defeat of 1980, Democrats have tried to pull what's left of their coalition together. The party machine's The control of nominations has been tightened. have taken a far closer interest in Democratic affairs as they suffer under Reagan. The Democrats' major problem is that the recession has hit After Carter's their power base harder than the Republicans'. In reviving their traditional supporters, they are reconstituting an alliance of forces with little influence left in America today.

It is a flimsy cover for Reagan's militarism. opponents 'freeze'. created the first Cold become increasingly dominance in the conventional forces. Democrats' to the The USA Beirut. radical Nicaragua. The dent

STICE

up his party's problems in Yet Reagan's appeal to the Reagan's difficulties: included year from the beginning.' But it a further $8 billion in aid for mistake of intervening. As international tensions and Every contentious issue of fluence. Weinberger's as possible. the equivocal Democrats. The Democrats "lucky" because Democrats divided Gary 'Kennedy' Hart Blacks suffering unemployelections to Unions and other groups in the campaign. bosses' union-busting from attempt to distance themselves most Democratic leaders now support the idea of a nuclear But their backing for it has conditional. more bombing. Democrats unreservedly support America's his failures Luck be a Democrat Reagan has survived major setbacks thanks weakness Every Democratic candidate for President called for US marines to be withdrawn from Political Yet when Reagan announced the pull-out in February, they failed to make any substantial political gains from the most serious reverse suffered by a Presithe Iranian hostage crisis His famed brought down Jimmy Carter. Democratic November. congressional leader Tip O'Neill summed exploiting While I and others acquiesced in the decision (to send in the marines) it became clear some time ago that the President's policy was wrong If Reagan's policy was wrong from the beginning, O'Neill's acquiescence made him as guilty as the administration for the And if that mistake "became clear some time ago', why had the Democrats made only general criticisms of the danger the marines faced and never set a date for withdrawal? The Democrats accepted Reagan's insistence that Lebanon was a vital area of US in- Afraid of accusations of putting party advantage before national interests, on Earth. O'Neill could only plead that the Democrats wanted 'to keep this as non-political Days before announcing the marines' withdrawal, Reagan could assert that he was 'not going to pay any attention of the opposition The pull-out which followed dent. was solely the result of America's inability to impose order on the masses of Lebanon.

Reagan claimed WaN Yuri Andropov's death no switched attention from the defeat in Former Vice-President Walter Mondale's roller-coaster fortunes in the primary decide the party's candidate for November illustrate the Democratic Party's problems.

Mondale began as firm favourite for the Democratic nomination.

Pundits pointed to the fact that organisations such as the AFL-CIO given (the American TUC) and the 250 000 strong National Organisation of Women had backed Mondale at an early stage In fact, what was taken for Mondale's strength showed up the Democrats' weakness.

The AFL-CIO backed Mondale in a desperate attempt to save the union leaders necks. Their disastrous record and the tactics have Lebanon, just as he was "lucky' last October when a coup in Grenada gave him an excuse to invade the Caribbean island and divert criticism over the death of 200 marines in Beirut than Reagan's real luck is having no opposition at home capable of exploiting The tired policies and unattractive personalities of Walter Gary Mondale, Hart or any Democratic candidate cannot stop Reagan being re-elected in November.

Yet a Reagan victory is far from certain decided in contests televised debates or money-raising com- The condition of American im perialism will finally decide whether Reagan gets back to the White House "luck' may not hold until The tattered Stars and Stripes which Reagan waves vigorously to frighten his opponents has seen better days. Reagan has tried to galvanise support around the His symbols of America's past glories.

aides are fond of stressing that Reagan started his fourth year in office as the most popular President since Eisenhower - the last President to serve two full terms, in the fifties. American business journals have dubbed new plans for a permanently manned space station as 'Reagan's Apollo'.

But the crisis of US power in 1984 is far removed from the halcyon days when Eisenhower presided over the Pax Americana and President Kennedy launched the Apollo moonshot programme as the ultimate symbol of America's dominance The collapse of the dollar or a new international crisis before the autumn could yet put paid to Reagan's ambitions.

Even if a disaster for US imperialism forces Reagan out, these problems will

USA

The dangers facing the today are beyond the control of any Presi- Any new man in the White House would have no choice but Reagan's desperate efforts to shore up America's position, in a recession that is respecter of past reputations for policing the world. reduced union membership to less than 20 per cent of the American Last month, the Supreme workforce. Court ruled that any employer could simply declare himself bankrupt, tear up his union contract and cut wages to suit his pocket. Union leaders are searching for political friends to help them out of deepening trouble.

The National Organisation of Women backed Mondale because its narrow legalistic approach to women's rights cannot cope with the reactionary prejudices stirred up by Reagan's campaigns against abortion and for Now that the Equal school prayers. Rights Amendment to the Constitution has failed, the women's movement has no alternative but to seek an ally in the White House. Mondale could give the impression of strength by enthusing the declining organisations of the women's and But his official labour movements.

brand of sixties liberalism seeking 'a fairer America' has little appeal to middle class voters driven rightwards under the impact of the recession, and no chance of inspiring workers under Mondale's primary fierce attack. defeats by Gary Hart

WEIC

Democrats consequence of the isolation from the social forces that count in the eighties. Gary Hart himself is a little more inviting prospect. He has posed as the new face of Democratic politics and tried to run a Kennedy-style campaign.

In fact, Hart's politics are a watereddown version of Reagan's full-blooded He will support for 'free enterprise.

go some way in the nomination stakes, backing of television companies desperate for a contest to keep viewers tuned in and save the millions of dollars they have invested Yet even in covering the campaign.

if Hart wins the nomination, he has little more than a 25 year age gap to Despite his hold up against Reagan. youthful packaging, Hart has to grapple with the Democrats image as yesterday's men. the next step, April 1984 15

Irish rebel, working class hero At Easter 1916 James Connolly led a Rising in Dublin. Mick Kennedy explains why JAMES CONNOLLY was a working class From his early socialist revolutionary. in Scotland, campaigning Irish establishment of Republican Party in Ireland and his trade union activities in America, to his leaderof the Easter ship consistent proletarian ran through his life. of Connolly's activity as a revolutionaryand the key to his relevance today - was his conviction that the class struggle in the form of the national Ireland took struggle against British domination. The of the Irish Socialist Repub-

CULCOLO

lican Party, published in 1896, summed up Connolly's lifelong position: "The struggle, for Irish freedom has two aspects: it is national and it is social.

be national ideal can never before Ireland stands forth nation free and independent.

because no and economic, the form of government may as one class owns as private property the of land and instruments all mankind derive their substance, which will always have the power that class enslave the plunder their fellow-creatures.' James Connolly was born in Edinburgh of poor Irish immigrant in 1868, His life falls into four phases, divided by his moves from one country to another. lived in Scotland, working as a labourer and a cobbler, and acquiring an education in Marxism in the socialist propaganda groups of the 1880s and He stood, unsuccessfully, as 1890s. a socialist candidate in local elections in 1894, and gained experience as a journalist, public speaker and political campaigner.In 1896 he was invited to become a full-time organiser for a socialist club in Dublin.

Challenging the Home Rulers Shortly after his arrival in Ireland, Connolly attempted to regroup the small and isolated socialist factions in the Irish Socialist Republican Party.

Connolly's party was outspokenly anticapitalist, and it presented a vigorous proletarian challenge to the conservative, middle class leadership of the movement for Irish Home Rule.

participated in the affairs of the Socialist International, taking a consistent left position against opportunist 16 the next step, April 1984 For Connolly domination, came first. through his The national Socialist Rising in 1916, independence, internationalism The guiding theme of the middle classes. that liberation. struggle Its realized until dence world the It is social and selling out what matter imperialism. so long to make the labour from faced two of mately trends. Until the age of 28 he years. the denouncing reformist

WE SERVE NEITHER KING NOR KAISER

BUT

the national question, the fight for Irish freedom against British first struggle came because it was only through pursuing the struggle against imperialism that workers could take control of the movement for and subsequently of an independent Ireland, out of the hands and assert their This did not distinct interest as a class.

should postpone workers fighting for socialism until after national It meant that they fought for their class interests through their independent organisations in the course of the domination. against foreign In particular it meant that the working class had to combat the tendency for middle class supporters of Irish indepento look after their own narrow concerns by compromising with Britain who could not those afford to stop short of the overthrow of Connolly lived and died in the struggle working class the leading He force in the fight for Irish freedom.

major obstacles which ultiand attempts frustrated his allowed Britain to divide and defeat the However, the obstacles facing the ISRP proved overwhelming.

In 1903 Connolly sailed for America, where he stayed for the next seven Building the unions In the USA Connolly devoted his energies to the trade unions and the socialist movement. He worked as an organiser for the syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World (the "Wobblies') and was actively involved in the controversies surrounding the problem of integrating the numerous immigrant minorities in the USA into a unified revolutionary working class movement time. Connolly During this began to establish a reputation as a propagandist. His popular Socialism made easy was published in Chicago in 1908, and he began work on Labour in Irish History. He also wrote songs Connolly and plays and poems. continued to take an active interest in socialist movement, European strengthening the He spoke tendencies. German, French and Italian.

He followed closely the rise of trade

IRELAND:

The world's first Red Army: Connolly's Citizens' Army could not prevent the betrayal of the Irish revolution nationalist movement and secure its grip over a partitioned Ireland after 1921.

The first was the conservative outlook of early labour movement in Ireland, the which was strongly influenced by British The second was the grip Labourism. over the nationalist movement exercised representatives of the middle the by classes, who constantly vacillated over how far they were prepared to go British rule challenging Connolly agitated and organised among Irish workers and peasants.

free them from the fatal influence of reformism and petit-bourgeois nationalism as a vital step national and social liberation.

The cause of labour The Irish working class at the turn of the century was small and divided.

that domination ensured economy remained backward and impo- Industry was concentrated in verished. the north-east, in the textiles, engineering and shipbuilding trades of Belfast, though there was some manufacturing and proin Dublin and cessing early trade union movement was The dominated by the moderate craft associations of the skilled Life of a revolutionary union militancy in Ireland and the formation of James Larkin's Irish Transport and General Workers Union.

In 1910 he returned to Dublin.

Power struggles Back in Ireland, Connolly resumed what he had begun with the ISRP.

He formed the Socialist Party of Ireland in 1910 and spent the next few years trying, ultimately unsuccessfully, to unite the forces of the working class around an anti-imperialist programme. girls and textile workers in Belfast, ironworkers in Wexford and transport workers in Dublin to build up the ITGWU. In 1912 he stood in elections in Belfast on a platform of socialism, national liberation and women's rights, but lost to the Unionist candidate. In 1913 he joined Larkin in leading the Dublin workers against the bosses lockout and founded the Irish Citizens' From 1914 onwards he Army. campaigned against British militarism in Europe and conscription in Ireland.

Connolly tookadvantageof Britain's war difficulties to prepare an insurrection in Ireland. On Easter Monday expansion industries, estant and north-east, the workers' Ireland. tant in He fought to towards achieving with British the Irish their the south-east. union matters. However, The workers. British firing squad. He agitated among mill biography. Connolly-Walker and service of transport and growing industrial con flict, led to an influx of more militant tram and rail workers, dockers and carters into the unions from 1907 onwards.

division resulting The most serious from British rule was that between Prot In the Catholic workers unions had developed more as organisations to protect Protesat the access to jobs expense of Catholics than as organisations to defend workers against employers (see The Andrew Clarkson and Phil Murphy, Loyalist working class, Revolutionary Communist Papers No. 7). . The trade unions in Belfast identified their interests They the Union with Britain. strongly opposed the movement for Irish Home Rule from the 1880s onwards The trade unions in Dublin tended to go along with the views of their employers, favoured a degree of of whom devolved government for Ireland under the British Empire. In general the unions north and south, attempted to cover up their political difference by emphasising common views on narrow trade Catholic sooner did no workers in Ireland begin to get organised 1916 he commanded the forces that seized the centre of Dublin and proclaimed an Irish Republic free from British rule. Betrayed by the vacillation of the middle class supporters of rish independence, the Easter Rising was crushed within days. Connolly was wounded and captured by the British Two weeks later, after a summary court martial, James Connolly was strapped to a chair and shot by a Reading about Connolly: C. Desmond Greaves, The life and times of James Connolly, Lawrence and Wishart, 1976 is a good general James Connolly: selected writings, edited with an introduction by P. Bereford Ellis, Monthly Review, 1973 is a useful collection of his pam- The phlets, articles and poems.

controversy on socialist unity in Ireland, reprinted in full by the Cork Workers' Club in 1974, is recommended reading for all British socialists. All are available on Irish Freedom Movement bookstalls.

and to fight for their rights, than they came into conflict with the existing trade union machine. mobilised dockers and orner in one of Belfast's biggest strikes.

moderate leadership of union in Britain betrayed the strike.

disgusted Larkin set up the Irish Transport and General Workers which soon became a mass the unskilled, predominantly nationalist When Connolly arrived back in workers. Ireland from America in 1910, he threw himself into building the union.

Loyalist trade unions Within a lew Connolly launched the Socialist Party of Ireland in an attempt to unite the Irish working class behind a coherent anticapitalist programme. him in to famous tamous William Walker, a Belfast trade unionist, Independent Labour Party member and a Loyalist. When Connolly put a proposal to the Irish TUC in 1910 that it sponsor a united party of the Irish working class, Walker puL support for the British Walker's amendment was carried and Connolly's "The unborn Labour Party of Ireland was strangled in the womb by the hands of the ILPers', declared Connolly.

declared himself a true internationalist because he denied the oppression of Ireland by Britain and therefore regarded the position of workers in Ireland as no different from that of workers in Britain.

He repudiated 'certain Irish propagandists, Connolly, 'because meaning insistence in viewing the class war as a national question instead world-wide question'. Britain for their privileged access to jobs, Loyalist trade unionists substituted abstract notion of the world-wide class war for the real form which the class struggle took in Ireland - the struggle against British domination. wanted socialism without challenging the major barrier to social progress in Ireland - British imperialism. Connolly observed that this was a unique conception of internationalism. Belfast'. ( It was a notion of socialism that required for its spread the flash of the sword of militarism, and the roar of the British 80-ton gun. Unfortunately, disguise loyalty to British imperialism with socialist phrases was not unique to It was firmly entrenched in the Belfast. official labour movement which although sympathetic to the cause of Irish Home Rule, was hostile to any threat to Britain's national The Dublin lockout of 1913 further exposed how the leadership of the British put its loyalty labour movement Britain before the interests of the Irish working class. loyers embarked on a concerted drive to smash the ITGWU, Irish appealed for solidarity from British trade Rank and file workers in Britunionists. ain made a tremendous response, sending money, food and offering their homes to Dublin's children look after strike was over. sympathetic industrial action to force the employers to give in and recognise the union. However the British TUC leaders were alarmed at the prospect of a workers' victory destabilising British rule in Ireland and encouraging action in Britain. mands for sympathetic strike action.

The cause of Ireland In the period leading up to the outbreak of the First World War there were three social forces behind the movement for Irish independence. but the one most implacably opposed to British rule in Ireland, was the working class element represented by Connolly.

Its forces were organised in the Irish Citizens' Army, a few hundred strong, formed to defend the Dublin workers in the course of the lockout.

minant faction was growing class of Catholic manufacturers and businessmen in the south-east Ireland who increasingly resented In 1907 James Larkin represented workers The Volunteers the dockers' 1n Union in 1909 elements middle classes. union of definite allegiances. of his return This venture led with amendment pledging Labour Party. narrowly ist forces. fell. proposal Murphy, and Walker favoured Sinn ed. of their more ol, as lt is, a Dependent or an further divided Walker forces in Europe. unique and peculiar to retained the Walker's attempt to Nevertheless, Britain, in interests. to When the Dublin empit be in their own country.

workers Volunteers. until the Many were eager to take more direct an Easter mobilisation. They headed off de- The smallest faction, Office. ion would succeed. The do- Irish workers made up of the of the Redmond's Irish by Ulster the of the Catholic After the Easter Sinn Fein, formed The A small number Murphy Home and supported The nationalist camp. Irish Volunteers. MacNeill refused to take advantage of the war to fight for Irish The much smaller forces around Connolly's Irish Citizens Army intransigently opposed British militarism.

*The Irish working class sees no abandonment of the principles of the labour movement in the fight against this war and all it implies; sees no weakening of international solidarity in their fierce resolve to do no fighting except Plans for a revolt at Easter 1916 were made jointly by Connolly and the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which had won considerable influence inside the Irish However, on the eve of the uprising the British authorities intercepted supplies of arms and ammunition en route to Ireland under the command of Roger Casement, who was later executed.

The MacNeill leadership of the Irish Volunteers got wind of the plans for a rising and issued orders countermanding the call for The result was chaos; the rising was delayed and disorganised and virtually confined to Dublin.

In Dublin the proletarian Citizens Army and the more radical elements of the Irish Volunteers seized a number of strategic points and issued a proclamation of the provisional government of the Irish Republic from the steps of the General Post Connolly was doubtful that the rebell- Yet he considered it vital to strike a blow against Britain when it was fully stretched in Europe.

The longer the war continued and the more were enucea to serve i the British forces the weaker he felt the working class would become. To the end he remained profoundly distrustful of his middle class allies in the anti-imperialist Many of Connolly's views remain strikingly relevant to Irish politics today. He was sharply critical of those - such as the Independent Labour Party in his day and the Militant Tendency and Socialist Workers Partv todar who imagined that Catholic and Protestant workers in Ireland can be united on trade union issues, just as though they were workers living in Britain: The doctrine that, because the workers of Belfast live under the same industrial conditions as do those of Great Britain, they are therefore subject to the same passions and to be influenced by the same methods of propaganda, is a doctrine almost screamingly funny in its absurdity.'

For Connolly it was only through the struggle against that the Irish working class could ultimately be united. Connolly was scornful of British 'gas and water socialists who came over to Ireland to urge workers to abandon their revolutionary aspirations and seek instead piecemeal bread and butter' reforms through constitutional channels. Then it was the Fabian socialist Bruce Glasier; today it is the municipal socialist Ken Livingstone: In order to prevent the Irish working class from breaking off entirely from bourgeois parties and from developing a revolu- In his address to the Citizens struggle. the before Army week Connolly warned his followers that it was up to the working class to make sure that the struggle did not stop at national independence, but socialist revolution: 'In the event of victory, hold on to your rifles, as those with whom we are fighting may stop before our goal is reached. We are out for economic as well as political liberty."

In the event, after a week ofstreet fighting and artillery more than 300 dead and whole blocks of central Dublin in ruins, the rebellion was crushed. Redmond and MacNeill and the rest of respectable Home Rule the joined with the spokesmen of the British ruling class in condemning the Easter The official labour movement in Rising. Ireland and in Britain remained aloof. At the Irish TUC later in the year the president asked delegates to stand in acknowledgement of those killed in the war in Europe and in the Rising in Dublin.

warned them that 'this is not the place to enter into a discussion of the rights and wrongs, the wisdom or folly of the revolt The British TUC ignored the Rising altogether, and the Labour Party conference report referred in passing to 'the calamitous outbreak in Ireland' as though the country had been afflicted by a disease, rather than shaken by an attempted revolution. From Europe, Lenin spoke out in defence of the Rising and condemned those who criticised it: Whoever calls such an uprising a "putsch" is either a hardened reactionary, or a doctrinaire hopelessly incapable of picturing a social revolution as a living thing...Whoever expects a "pure" social revolution will never live to see it.

Such a person pays lip service to revolution without understanding what revolution really is."

Partition Despite the defeat of the nationalist movement revived. Stimulated by popular outrage at the of the British suppression of the Rising, it came under the leadership of the middle With Connolly dead, his socialist classes. party stillborn and Larkin in exile in the USA, the working class became a marginal force in the subsequent evolution of the Irish national struggle.

section more moderate Griffith, Liam around Connolly lives!

SOME TOCONSON

to modern conditions: British imperialism to the wants of the future.

Rising, Treaty that was carried through to by Britain. which left since. movement politics. subsequent occupier. proletariat. British Labourism. British imperialism Irish revolution. Rising, the Given the savagery In 1921 the of Sinn Fein Cosgrave and tionary tendency, the Fabians sent their lecturer to Ireland, to induce the Irish working class to confine themselves to the work of municipalising, and to fritter away their energies and break their hearts on the the entire neglect of the essential work of capturing the political power necessary for The continuing vitality of the antiimperialist struggle in Ireland indicates that Irish people have taken little heed of the advice of British reformers Connolly was impatient with Irish nationalists who invoked an unbroken tradition of centuries of struggle against British rule as a substitute for developing a programme appropriate Traditions may, and frequently do, provide materials for a glorious martyrdom, but can never be strong enough to ride the storm of a successful revolution. If the to re-enact the old sad tragedies of our past history, it inust show itself capable of rising to the exigencies of the moment. It must demonstrate to the people of Ireland that our nationalism is not merely a morbid idealizing of the past, but is also capable of formulating a distinct and definite answer to the problems of the present and a political and economic creed capable of adjustment Michael Collins made its compromise with British imperialism and endorsed the partitioned Ireland. As Connolly had predicted, this ushered in a 'carnival of reaction both north and south'.

Over the next decade the bulk of the Sinn Fein opponents of the Treaty led by Eamonn de Valera came to terms with the political arrangements enforced on Ireland The Catholic middle classes made their peace with British imperialism. Partition has kept the Twenty-six Counties under British domination ever Once formed, the Irish Labour Party soon degenerated into separate The Northern and Southern fragments.

Northern party became a Loyalist rump before disappearing completely in the seventies; the Southern party became important only as the occasional coalition partner of the more reactionary of the two major middle class parties of Irish Only a small faction of intransigent republicans held out. They refused to acknowledge the political institutions Britain had created in Ireland by participating in the partitionist assemblies.

In every generation they have reaffirmed their commitment to the use of force of arms to drive out the foreign The decisive factor in the defeat of the Irish revolution was the lack of social weight of the Irish working class.

The backwardness of the Irish economy meant that at the beginning of the twentieth century Ireland remained a predominantly agricultural country with a weak industrial The character of British rule in Ireland ensured that the working class remained divided. Connolly's attempts to forge a working class party failed to overcome the resistance of an emerging labour bureaucracy and the influence of His feeble forces could not prevent the Irish middle classes from compromising one by one with and betraying the immaturity of the Irish working class during his lifetime, Connolly was in advance of his times. In a sense his outlook is more appropriate to modern Ireland than it was to Ireland 70 years ago.

Today Ireland is a predominantly urban, industrial country with a large and potentially all-powerful proletariat.

To realise its destiny in an independent Ireland, the Irish working class still needs the revolutionary working class party that James Connolly gave his life to build the next step, April 1984 17

The Militant myth the class struggle. We invite replies.

THREE THEMES dominate every Militant speech, pamphlet and paper.

wants to: Fight the Tories and end the ruthlessness of this Tory government and their masters in big business' (2 December 1983) Transform the Labour Party into a socialist party. For Labour in the eighties, *the only viable option is the socialist programme that has been mapped out by the Marxist wing of the Labour Party gathered around Militant' (16 March 1984) Overthrow capitalism and embark on the only course of action that could begin to solve the horrendous social ills workers face socialist transformation the society' (16 December 1983).

Many people are attracted by Militant's outspoken commitment to socialism. Yet closer examination reveals a major credibility gap between Militant's promises and its deeds in Parliament, local councils and trade unions. Honourable gentlemen Last June, four Militant supporters stood as Labour candidates in the General Elec- Two were elected to Parliament: Terry Fields won Liverpool Broadgreen and Dave Nellist became MP for Coventry South-East. Three days after his election Terry Fields spelt out what the Militant MPs would do at a Militant readers group in Liverpool: *Socialism will rule. But we have to struggle against the excesses of the capitalist system on the one hand and the inability of the Labour leadership on the other.' (Militant, 17June 1983) Over the past nine months in Parliament, Militant's MPs have been far from ready to struggle against the inability of the Labour leader Neil Labour leadership'. Kinnock's drive for party unity has subdued Fields and Nellist into loyal support for the front bench. The Militant MPs have developed a cosy relationship with the parliamentary way Unlike real left-wing MPs from of life. the past like Victor Grayson, the Clydeside socialists or the young Nye Bevan, who used their position to expose the parliamentary leadership's betrayas or unc Fields and Nellist workers movement, have settled in comfortably.

Militant MPs like Dennis Skinner and Tam Dalyell do more to expose the facade of Parliament than Nellist. At the end of last year, Neil Kinnock roundly condemned the violence of 4000 workers who fought with riot police outside the Stockport Messenger printing works in Warrington. While Kinnock gave in to the Tories' anti-union laws, Militant's MPs gave in to Kinnock. Both Fields and Nellist sat silent in Parliament, refused to challenge the Labour leadership's betrayal of the National Graphical Association dispute, and missed a golden opportunity to expose the inability of the Labour leadership' to defend workers.

MPs* adaptation to Kinnock Militant made their promise to take on the excesses of the capitalist system an empty The NGA was quietly allowed to threat. sink. Militant's MPs have allowed Labour's heavyweights to monopolise the major Fields and Nellist have political issues. carved out their own area of interest around the Tories' Youth Training Scheme.

The Youth Training Scheme is designed 18 the next step, April 1984 Militant has won notoriety in the media and respect from many on the left for attacking the Tories. But does Militant's bite measure up to its bark. Mick Hume looks at its record in the Commons, the councils, and to police unemployed youth and train Militant them as a pool of cheap labour (see page 12). Militant denounces conditions, £25 'wage' and drudgery as a "youth training swindle. But the focus of Militant's parliamentary opposition TS has been narrowed by its fear alienating the leadership of the official labour movement. In February David Nellist introduced a Private Members Bill on YTS to Parlia- Nellist proposed that YTS trainees should be unionised and paid a minimum of f52 a week. to the complicity of trade union leaders who sit on the Manpower Services Comof mission and other minister the slave-labour schemes.

call for unionisation went down well with the TUC bureaucrats, but meant little protection for practice isolated from the labour movement. In reality Militant is prepared to less than the accept even allowance. the CPSA negotiated a £37 deal for YTS trainees in the civil service.

Merseyside Militants Militant controlled Liverpool City Council • has emerged as the most vociferous local authority opposing the Tory attack on council spending. since it took control last May shows it has already forgotten its election promises, pared down and Labour authorities press, the council looks set to give up its fight with the Government at the first fence in deference to the Labour leaders.

In March, deputy council leader and Militant supporter Liverpool University's Gazette that the Government's assault on the city's spending powers had 'forced a realisation amongst many people that there is no way you can tinker about with the Tory system; it needs a fundamental change Labour came to power in Liverpool on a programme of no rate increases; 3000 council homes a year; £2 a week rent cut; no service cuts or privatisation; 1000 new reorganisation of jobs; the Little of this has been achieved.

practice, Militant councillors who promised radical change have accepted the Even nonconstraints of the system and merely tinkered account books. Fields and The improvement grants for almost 25 000 private homes, built before 1919 and basic amenities lacking waiting list stretches past 20 000, but little progress has been made on the promised new houses homes in Liverpool need repairs.

council did give tenants a £16 redecoration grant at Christmas. of the f2 a week rent cut it was elected a few tins of paint is a poor substitute for lowering the rents over 11 The Labour rule, in a city with the most expensive council housing outside London.

While unemployment in Liverpool's inner city reaches 40 percent (80 percent for youth) the council has only managed to create a handful of jobs with MSC help.

At a London Broad Left meeting for Nalgo delegates Hatton revealed how accepting the logic of capitalist administration had prevented Militant councillors carrying out their appalling Nellist turned a blind eye committees and ad- His who are in £52 weekly Last year, its supporters in But Militant's record spending like other And as we go to told Derek Hatton education. In about' with the authority's council has stopped handling programme: with all these things?' The housing Around 60 000 council The against the But that was instead Liverpool's grant since 1979.

A one-off handout to buy months of of needs. Derek on 19 March, council's budget day. €25 for 60 hours Youth Why Cowley is OUT Chann Selling out: hiding behind socialist headlines won't defend workers 'You tell me how can we manage the books In line with their narrow approach to council finances, Militant councillors have not asked for much in their campaign Tories' cuts. They requested that the Government give back €30m of the f120m it has taken from Even this made their proposed budget illegal, and future. caused enough right-wing defections to wipe out Labour's council majority. Faced with a Tory government determined to cut spending, the only way to avoid cuts Kinnock's in Liverpool would be to lead a campaign the working class action to force Government to provide what the city Militant organised labour movement rallies and demonstrations, and even called for a local general strike on the Yet the thrust of Militant's campaign has been to rely on the Labour Party leadership for support.

spokesHen By counting on Neil Kinnock to back them Militant's councillors have left Liverpool at the Tories' mercy.

Unity in Action Militant's Liverpool councillors called for the labour movement to unite behind them today, while Neil Kinnock called for Liverpool to unite with other Labour authorities for a joint campaign against rate-capping at some time in the distant The crucial difference was that whereas Kinnock felt no obligation to the people of Liverpool, Militant felt an irresistible obligation to the Labourleadership.

call for the unity proved Unable to instigate action independent of the party bureaucracy, Militant was forced to plead for official support.

Instead of exposing the Labour leadership's complicity in isolating Liverpool's campaign, Militant fostered illusions in the leadership's willingness to fight.

In early March, when Labour's front bench made clear that they were

Their Marxism and ours not prepared to back an illegal budget, Hatton still tell the students' Gazette that the Parliamentary Labour Party 'haven't come out against us and I am confident by the time the 29th (budget day comes they'll be very much in support. Only a week before the council budget vote, Kinnock told Liverpool spokesmen he would not make an idle gesture by supporting any spending plans which would be declared illegal. Even then, Militant councillors could only reiterate that they would 'continue to seek a declaration of support from the parliamentary leadership'. commitment to build a 'fighting alternative to the betrayals of the past was quietly shelved. A compromise budget of moderate cuts and rate rises now seems Hatton will doubtless blame the certain. right-wing defectors. But commitment to the Labour Party is the factor really responsible for the council's failure defend Liverpool's workers against the Tories. Union Militants Militant is the dominant influence in many trade union Broad Left groups.

has used this influence to promote the position of left-wing union bureaucrats within the Labour Party. This preoccupation has meant that the Broad Left has been anxious to avoid anything that might embarrass the left bureaucrats. Thus when potential embarrassments like rank and file struggles have erupted Militant union officials have done their best to contain them. The sordid record of Militant union officials is the flip side of the Fields-Nellist performance in Parliament. In 1982 the Broad Left won control of the Civil and Public Services Association Militant supporter excculive. Roddy was elected President. four months the new leadership faced strikes against staff cuts in DHSS offices in Birmingham and Oxford. The Militantinfluenced executive forced the strikers back to work by threatening to stop pay if they didn't accept a compromise Union leaders claimed they wanted to save their energies for a pay campaign.

But CPSA members had no confidence in a leadership which had proved unwilling to fight once, and voted overwhelmingly to accept the Government's miserable four percent pay offer. Having demoralised union activists and given scope for conservative views to flourish, Militant's Broad Left was crushed at the 1983 CPSA conference and left with only five out of 26 executive seats.

Last year, the Broad Left won a majority on the executive of the Post Office Engineering Union involved in a crucial struggle prevent the privatisation of British Telecom, which would put up to 100 000 jobs at risk. The executive hesitantly arranged selective blacking.

At the first threat of a court injunction being granted to Telecom management, the POEU called Biting the bullet: Derek Hatton will suffer cuts to preserve Labour's unity Militant claims to be Marxist but its political tradition is in fact that of Labourism. interests of the working class in overthrowing the capitalist state. Labourism expresses the interests of the official labour movement in reconciling the working class to the continuing existence of the capitalist state.

The difference comes to the fore Militant's most clearly over issues of imperialist oppression and democratic rights.

Marxists support countries and movements fighting for their aspirations against imperialist domination. They support the struggles of Militant's women, blacks, gays against state repthe capitalist state, and supporting them helps to unite and strengthen the working class. Marxist party in Britain today.

Adherents of Labourism on the other hand, tend to deny or obscure It imperialist oppression. equivocate or refuse to support national liberation movements and backward capitalist countries fighting against imperialist interference.

reduce the concerns of the working class to narrow trade union Issues dismissing struggles for wider democratic rights for oppressed sections of society as being of secondary importance. This approach protects the state from a broad anti-capitalist offensive from the labour movement and divides and weakens the Militant is a consistent advocate of Labourism. Kevin ON RACISM Militant denies the Within fact that black people experience particular forms of discrimination and off the action. in favour of the union was greeted as a victory by the POEU. Appeal Court reversed the judgement, the executive voted to end the dispute and accept defeat. Throughout the dispute, Militant and its supporters in the POEU leadership gave uncritical backing to the divisive strategy of selective action, which isolated active sections of the union ine allowed more than 1500 workers to be suspended. Militant encouraged illusions in the bureaucrats and called for •100 per cent trust and loyalty to the union's campaign and instructions POEU leadership' (28 October 1983).

The POEU When the union's hopeless to reached its inevitable conclusion and the instructions were to recurn to Militant could only assert emptily that "the fight goes on'. the POEU leadership had already ensured the fight didn't challenge the union and call for effective black. Marxism expresses the way. trade union action'. All such struggles challenge The RCP is the only They either They and contraception rights.

working class. among workers. ON The High Court's decision all-out strike action. But when the organise effective blacking.

and ing the action. from the the country to stamped on when campaign work, strike. Militant supporters in ballot was lost, the workers are now on the dole go on, by refusing to Militant's full support. the

COVENTRY

Tuesday 17 April 7.30pm Hare and Squirrel Pub New Union Street

NORTH LONDON

Tuesday 17 April 7.00pm Chris Black (reflex) (Highbury and Islington e)

SOUTH LONDON

repression simply because they are For Militant, blacks are in the same position as whites, whether as workers or on the dole: 'they are all unemployed both black and white, and they all have to fight in a common interests, The way to fight - as Liverpool councillor Derek Hatton made clear gressive. after condemning rioters (black and white) who attacked police in the city - was through 'proper Apart from the fact that most unemployed blacks are not union members, struggles for better wages and working conditions cannot combat job discrimination or police harassment. Militant's sectional trade union outlook fails to challenge the oppression of black people that undermines the unity of the working ON WOMEN Militant also refuses to acknowledge the distinctive features of women's oppression. Militant reacts against the individualist preoccupations of the middle class women's movement by reducing all problems facing working class women to the level of trade union issues. But it requires more than trade unionism to fight for nurseries, abortion facilities Militant views all efforts to fight for women's rights as divisive. In reality Militant's refusal to take up women's struggles is the divisive factor. It leaves women isolated from the workers' movement and allows sexist prejudices to flourish state. THE MALVINAS Militant's line on Britain's war against Argentina was to obscure the essential relationship between a major imperialist world More recently, 400 workers struck in early January, first against job cuts and then against closure, at the Scott's bakery in Liverpool. The bakers' union, run by Militant supporter Joe Marino, failed to to Labour. When court unions injunctions were issued against the strikers occupation of the bakery the union told leadership. its members not to resist eviction.

Six weeks into the strike, as rank and file action by anger threatened to get out of control.

Marino called a national ballot on spread- And even then, the strikers plans to send delegations around argue for support were the union claimed it could not afford the trip. In the end, the arrival of ballot papers was the first many bakers outside Liverpool knew about the Inevitably under these conditions, of the left. and 400 Scott's of Marino remains in control of the union, with A question of leadership Despite the Militant inspired Broad Left Organising Committee's commitment to fight for a determined and bold lead from the leadership of the trade union movement, it has turned a blind eye to betrayals of left-wing bureaucrats.

class.

MEETINGS

THE THATCHER THREAT AND THE MILITANT MYTH

Hare and Hounds Pub, 181 Upper St, N1

LEEDS

Wednesday 18 April 7.30pm St Matthews Meeting Place, Brixton Hill power and a country which, although industrialised, remained subordinate to the imperialist order. By labelling as "fascist' the regime sponsored in Argentina by American and British Militant made Britain's military aggression appear almost pro- Militant tried to give its position a radical edge by proclaiming its commitment to the working class of Argentina. But Militant is not read in large numbers in Buenos Aires. In Britain where some workers do read it.

the Militant message came over as a capitulation to the pressures of British chauvinism unleashed by the despatch of the naval task force. ON IRELAND Militant's approach to the Irish War is consistent with its overall political outlook Like the British state, it treats the Six Counties as just another part of Britain. Like the leaders of the Labour Party it pretends that the problems of the people of the Six Counties are those of unemployment, bad housing and poverty not massive military terror and the denial oftheright to self-determination Militant is as vehement as the gutter press in condemning the anti-imperialist struggle of the republican movement.

It tries to disguise its sell-out to British imperialism by emphasising its concern to promote unity between Protestant and Catholic workers around trade union issues. But workers will only be united in Ireland by combating the force that divides them - the British Militant's approach reinforces the British position and delays class unity in Ireland. Keith Tompson What matters to the Broad Lefts is that the unions should be run by officials committed to the Labour Party. In unions such as the CPSA and Nalgo, Militant's major activity is lobbying for affiliation When members of these come into conflict with the Labour Party, Militant backs the Labour Thus last year, Militant supporters argued against all-out strike Nalgo residential workers in dispute with Labour councils over pay.

Militant's claim to be a 'Marxist' tendency has no foundation in reality.

Its record shows that apart from its rhetorical excesses it remains very much in the traditional Labour left mould.

Moreover, a balance sheet of its activity in Parliament, Liverpool and in the unions shows that it is no more effective than other sections Militant tries hard, and many its supporters genumely But these aspirations are change society. Militant's dogmatic attachthwarted by Which comes ment to the Labour Party.

the Labour Party or the working class? Neil Kinnock or the workers of Liverpool? Militant's dual loyaity is an evasion of the task of building a fightback against the capitalist system.

When the crunch comes Militant puts loyalty to the Labour Party before loyalty to our

BIRMINGHAM

Thursday 5 April 7.30pm Digbeth Civic Hall

OLDHAM

Wednesday 11 April 7.30pm Mare and Foal Pub, Ashton Road

SHEFFIELD

Wednesday 18 April 7.30pm Victoria Hall, opposite Crucible Theatre Thursday 3 May 7.30pm Leeds Trades Club, Savile Mount, L7 the next step, April 1984 19

India: the seeds of conflict Anti-imperialist fighter: Subhas Chandra Bose Paul Scott, The Raj quartet / The Jewel in the in four volumes, Granada 1983, CrOWn pbk £2.50 each The lost hero: Subhas Chandra Mihir hose Bose, Quartet Books 1982, Pp318, hbk £15 INDIA LIES IN RUINS. The 'world's largest democracy" is being torn Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs. Dictatorship reigns in neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh.

least a quarter of a million people died in the struggle for independence in 1947. In different ways, both these books try to explain how the Indian people's tight for freedom from the British Empire was transformed into a nightmare of intercommunal strife that has continued until today. Although the accompanying television se- The Jewel in the Crown The Raj Quartet is a fine book. It examines the contucts among the brusa rulers or mala the Raj - over how to control their 700 million Indian subjects. With no settler population to rely on, the British used the Indian caste system to divide the population and maintain its rule.

After the 1857 mutiny, the Indian princes became Britain's principal the Maharajahs And there was always the baton and agents. During the Second the bullet to fall back on.

World War, however, the upsurge of nationalist sentiment could no longer be Sections of the Raj through repression alone.

argued for an accommodation with the Indian bourgeoisle to preserve us rule The British solution In The Raj Quartet the antagonism between Sarah Layton, a colonel's daughter, policeman Ronald Merrick reflects this ruling class debate. Layton and her friends defend the anglicised Indian Hari Kumar from Merrick.

They see him as the representative of a section of Indian society which had to be cultivated to respect the British way of life.

on the other hand, indiscriminately persecutes all Indians, whether they are bourgeois like or supporters of the Kumar anti-imperialist Indian National Army (INA). The novel gives a superb presentation of the turmoil of Indian politics through the eyes of the author, a true The INA is the only section of Busu Hoear Indian society that wins Paul Scott's complete contempt. Despite Merrick's brutality, the author portrays him as a hero. scott recognizes that Merrick's methods were necessary to pave the way for Layton's solution. It was this dual strategy that characterised the last days of the British Raj. "Progressive' British initiatives Stafford Cripps Clement Attlee and Viceroy of India Louis Mountbatten accompanied an orgy of religious strife between Hindus and Muslims, deliberately provoked by the British. Britain's encouragement of the partition of India laid the basis for the rise of the subordinate Hari Kumars who The question remains, how did they get away with it? The lost hero is a brave attempt to explain why. By 1947, Britain had no antiimperialist movement to contend with. Hindus and vusums were calling caen outers ultrodis.

and Mountbatten was the most popular figure 20 the next step, April 1984 in India. Mihir Bose gives a valuable account of how the anti-imperialist acreated. Subhas Chandra Bose was the son of a lawver from Bengal. with the Indian Communist Party, he evenpresident of the tually became Congress Party, working with Gandhi to secure nelan in debendence However, he viewed Gandhi's Satyagraha policy - non-violent direct action tactic. When war broke out, Bose understood that tactics should change to make the most of Britain's difficulties. opportunity to overthrow British rule in India.

Harassed by the British, he left for the Soviet Union in January 1941. up in Nazi Germany, he ended received little support for his attempts to organise Indian POWs captured in North Africa into an indian League to ight lor independence The turning point came with the fall of Singapore in February 1942 when the British oppressor lay prostrate at the feet of an Asian The anti-imperialist millions of Asians were Japanese victory. heightened in India. By Congress Party was forced to adopt a Quit India' resolution. that if they declared an intention to leave India, he would be willing to sign a defence pact with the Allies to safeguard India from Axis aggression. As usual, the British reacted by arresting the entire Congress leadership. Unusually, this provoked an upsurge of resistance that lasted a More than 60000 people were arrested, year 318 police stations burned down, 945 post offices were attacked and 59 trains derailed.

The British wreaked death and destruction, when RAF planes bombed rebel- held territory.

feuding By July 1943, Bose was in Singapore, orga- At nising the Indian National Army.

imperialists attempted to manipulate Bose for their own ends. lished a declaration for Indian freedom, they refused Bose access to sufficient resources to achieve this end. to a maximum of 30 000 soldiers.

1944 an exhausted force of 8000 INA were defeated by more numerous British forces at is insipid, Imphal in north-east India.

efforts, this was the INA's only action inside India. By June 1945, the British had released Congress leaders Nehru and Gandhi. On their release, the two leaders set out to vilify Bose, denouncing him as a Japanese puppet and a "fascist hyena'. Bose mysteriously disappeared after the Japanese surrender in August 1945.

Insurrection The INA had been militarily defeated by the British at Imphal, but the termination of the contained war raised anti-British feeling in India A five day general strike was fever-pitch. clared in Calcutta and a hundred Indians of all religions died besieging Delhi's Red Fort after the British tried the INA leaders - the British were forced to commute their sentences.

trial of a Muslim INA officer in February 1946 and the provoked a joint Hindu/Muslim insurrection The Royal Indian Navy mutinied, to be joined later by the Indian Air Force and sections of the army. In Bombay, 600 000 textile workers took to the streets and fought pitched battles with British troops for three days.

Shaken out of their squalid manoeuvres for Merrick, position and power, dominantly Hindu Congress Party and the Muslim League joined forces to help the British put down te insurrection British initiatives followed, -create tne maximum suspicion and envy be tween the Congress and Muslim leaders.

20 February 194/,

STITISE

Clement Attlee announced that Britain would transfer power to the Indians, if necessary as two separate nations August 1947, rivers of Hindu and Muslim blood flowed as the British sought to arrange the establishment of their own creations and anarkstan remembered in bose Is Netaji - leader - and millions await his return.

Bose was a heroic anti-imperialist who fought to the end for Indian independence from Bri- Yet there were no fundamental political differences hetween Bose and Gandhi the military defeat of the INA, Gandhi's Congress could Indian freedom and finished by sabotaging it.

The lost hero is an excellent account of the forreviews movement was of Greece Although he had close links Procopis Papastratis, British nationalist negotiation

PAPASTRATIS BOOK

- only as a usetul 1944. Bose saw the war as the THE LIeS. Refused admittance, where he aspirations stimulated by Anti-British feelings were August 1942, the Gandhi assured the British Japanese Although the Japanese pubbose s army was Testicted In spring Despite Bose's Youthful rebel: ELAS voluntee ful operations against the invaders.

The London was alarmed. the leaders of the pre- A succession of each designed to On leader LaDour propaganda purposes. From then on. up to India inata today a crackdown. -A TOTeT against Nazi Germany. easily dominate the struggle for blockade of Greece Andy Clarkson war? The Britain's rape years. towards policy Greece during the Second World War 1941-1944, Cambridge University Press 1984, pp 274, hbk£ 25 setbacks. presents a riveting account of British foreign policy towards Greece during the Nazi occupation from 1941 to late Using Cabinet, War and Foreign Office political correspondence and the memoirs of leading politicians and diplomats, the author unravels the course of events leading up to Britain's invasion of Greece in December At the end of the First World War Britain assumed control over Greece as part of its sphere of influence in the East Mediterranean. It intervened incessantly in Greek affairs to back up the country's fragile and detested monarchy The Metaxas dictatorship, which ruled Greece with an iron fist during the late thirties, was in stalled by Britain in an attempt to contain the growing struggle of the workers and peasants

EAM/ELAS.

next. Romania kill Nazi forces. Back The invasion of Greece by the Axis powers TeS STanCE

TONES

of fascist occupation the guerrillas controlled large parts of the country and mounted success- From swastika to Union Jack Not only had the Axis 1 Canal! powers occupied Greece but the invasion unleashed a social movement which presented a From grave challenge to the capitalist order.

the start, Britain aimed to reconquer Greece and at the same time contain or crush the popular movement against the regime.

Destroying EAM was no easy task.

Given that EAM/ELAS was involved in armed resistance against Britain's number one enemy, Germany, to go on the offensive against the liberation movement was out of the question.

Throughout the period of Nazi occupation the British had to maintain at least token military and political support for EAM, if only for To do otherwise carried the risk of strengthening popular opposition to Britain and cohering the liberation movement.

Britain solved thisapparently intractable problem by simultaneously maintaining token support for EAM/ELAS and setting up royalist and fascist armies in preparation for the eventual problem was how to reconcile Britain's long-term strategic objectives in Greece with the short-term exigencies of the war effort This proved a continuous source of tension between sections of the While the military and diplomatic leadership Chiefs of Staff (COS) wanted an economic the Axis powers, the Foreign Office was worried about the political repercussions, within Greece and abroad, if Britain was seen to be starving occupied Greece. The Foreign Office response to the blockade request illustrates the pragruling class matism with which the Batish managed such delicate problems: Is it important to have a healthy population of 7.5 million Anglophile Greeks to reinforce our position in the East Mediterranean after the can we new win equammy ine reduction of the Greek population by famine?

pros and cons must be very carefully weighed before we commit ourselves to starving Greece, and it must be borne in mind that the The effects on Greeks will not starve suenty public opinion in the United States of America will also have to be considered.

Foreign Office reservations were overruled, and Greece suffered famine and disease for three By 1944, despite Britain's efforts, the liber-.

ation movement had not suffered any serious -As soon as terman orces winterew it seemed inevitable that EAM/ELAS would take over the whole country. Britain's mission would have run into serious trouble had it not been for support from two unlikely allies Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union To prevent an EAM victory, British military and secret services negotiated a takeover plan Papa- German High Command. une stratis account reveals the extent of British/ German collaboration. In September 1944 the Foreign Office noted that it would be very 'awkward' if the German forces in Greece wished to surrender too soon. since we do not want them to collapse until we ourselves are ready to send in British troops. Arrangements were made for a carefully timed German withdrawal.

Arms and supplies were handed over to British forces to stop them falling into the hands of The so-called liberation of Greece rom the fascist invaders was in fact a simple handover from one imperialist occupier to the 1944 Churchill/Stalin agree- The October ment sealed the fate of the liberation movement The Soviet leader promised to leave Britain a free hand in Greece in exchange for guarantees of Soviet interests in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Britain was ready to move in for the Operation Manna In November 1944 the War Cabinet launched Operation Manna. Some 60 000 British troops invaded Greece to take over from the retreating Their brief was to 'clean up' the In December ational resistance movemer le British bombed and butchered their wa through Athens. The new invaders met with fierce resistance. The 'Battle of Athens' raged for over two months before ELAS was forced to sign a truce home, leading Labour ponuclan. Aneurin Bevan and Arthur Greenwood protested loudly against the savagery inflicted on the Greek people, well aware of the breadth of working class support for the Greek anti-fascist were murdering Greeks in the streets of Athens, the TUC sent a mission to Greece to investigate 'ELAS atrocities". the coup for The TUC's assistance in persuading public opinion that the Greek anti-fascist resistance was a gang of sadistic terrorists was greatly appreciated. Six later, after Labour's election victory, the conduct of Britain's intervention in Greece passed into the hands of the new foreign secretary, trade umon leader ernest bevin first public address on taking office, Bevin stated that Greece is essential to British interests in the Middle East' and that the troops should The Labour government pursued the war against the Greek workers and peasants until Unable to finance the war any longer, Britain moved out and the USA moved in 1949 EAM/ELAS was finally defeated, and the ground cleared for the ruthless dictatorships which ruled Greece on behalf of imperialism in the post-war period. Neil Kinnock's promise to return the "Elgin Marbles' and other assorted ancient treasures to Greece will hardly pass as compensation for the historic defeat of the Greek working class. Sabena Norton The spirit of resistance Abdallah Frangi, The PLO and Palestine, Zed Press 1983, pp256, pbk £3.95 The Palestinian Liberation Cambridge University Press 1984, Organisation pp 305, hbk £22.50 pbk £6.95 Noam Chomsky, The fateful triangle, Pluto Press 1983, pp481, pbk £6.95 SINCE IT WAS established under the auspices of the imperialist powers in 1948, the state of Israel has survived only through massive inflows of dollars, francs, pounds and deutschmarks, and by the savage repression of the native

Palestinian population both within and outside its borders. More than one minion ralestinians still live within lands occupied by Israel. Close to three million more live in refugee camps in Since 1948 the countries on Israel's borders.

wave after wave of military reprisals has been directed at these camps and at Palestinians inside Israel. But Israeli violence has only stiffened the determination of the Palestinian people to resist imperialism in the Middle East.

It is this spirit which fires Abdallah Frangi's book. The PLO and Palestine is not an academic history of the movement. It is a rough and ready account of the struggles of the Palestinian people to return to their homeland. It reads more like an oral history. Like most oral histories it contains eccentricities such as the opening section's attempt at Biblical exegesis to prove the right of the Palestinian people to occupy the land of Palestine. Frangi is a leading member of Al-Fatah, the key section of the account of that organisation's so his history skirts some of the more urgent questions concerning the wheeling and dealing which punctuated the formation and development of the PLO. Helena Cobban's history of the PLO is a more substantial point of reference for the inside history of the organisation.

10002S OLd dry academic study. It is informed by her own spell as The Sunday Times correspondent in Here she met Beirut between 1976 and 1981.

most of the major figures in the PLO and had to see the workings of the

ODDO LUILLY

organisation at first hand.

A history of retreats Cobban charts the history of the PLO from the foundation of Al-Fatah in the late fifties in the aftermath of the British and French attempt to grab the Suez Canal from Egypt in 1956.

She shows how Al-Fatah's pragmatic and opportunist leadership was never a match for the leaders of the Arab regimes. Although she gives no explicit thrust to her narrative, the history Cobban surveys suggests the driving force behind the From the start, Al-Fatah was PLO leadership. committed to non-interference in the internal Since most Palepontics of the Arab regimes.

stinian refugees were subject to one Arab ruler or another, this amounted to abandoning the refugees to the tender mercies of King Hussein of Jordan or President Nasser of Egypt. Financial support for Al-Fatah was sufficient to buy these regimes a free hand to deal with Palestinians within their own territories.

Even when King Hussein of Jordan embarked on the wholesale of Palestinians in Black September slaughter 1971, PLO leader Yassir Arafat resisted appeals for assistance until further delay would have robbed him of any popular base.

Even then he with hastily cobbled together an agreement Hussein which meant the withdrawal of Palestinian fighters from Jordan.

...* Training for war: Palestinian resistance lives on Cobban reveals that the absorption in 1969 of Al-Fatah into the Palestine Liberation Organisation, founded by the Arab states in 1964, marked the consolidation of the relationship between the Arab states and Al-Fatah. In return for millions of dollars and recognition in the Arab world and beyond, Al-Fatah delivered up the Palestinian masses into the hands of Arab diplomacy. The history of the PLO during the seventies is a history of retreats. Under pressure from Israel and its imperialist backers, and from its wealthy Arab backers, the PLO has moderated its demands. From the destruction of the state of Israel, Arafat has reduced his sights to 'even only Jericho'. Cobban's strength is her description of this She puts on display willingness to compromise.

the inner workings of the PLO which Al-Fatah dominates. She shows how the PLO's structure can accommodate the various radical Palestinian groupings such as George Habash's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

She shows how even explicitly terrorist groupings such as Black September have been unable to challenge the legitimacy of the PLO. None has been prepared to break with its programme of Most important of all, none has been able to win over the Palestinian masses.

Cobban reveals that the defeats suffered by the 1981 Palestinians in southern Lebanon in weakened the pressure on the leadership from She shows how the subsequent THe masses. abortive Syrian-backed coup in the PLO led to the organisation becoming virtually the personal property of the chairman Yassir Arafat.

Relieved of his obligations to the Palestinian masses, Arafat and his organisation have become little more than stooges of Egypt and Jordan, and agents in their attempts to arrange some compromise with Israel and the USA.

Nothing but despair The fare ful trian le is east homey coesimperialist "peace

BUTION

Chomsky surveys the ruins left by American policy in the Middle East and wonders if there is not perhaps a better way of doing things. He urges the American anti-nuclear movement to consider the potential for superpower confrontation in the Middle East. He applauds the PLO's He deplores the rewillingness to compromise.

jectionist stance of every Israeli government since the foundation of the state. But Chomsky dismisses the notion that support for Israel in Washington is restricted to the most right-wing He demolishes the myth that the politicians. Zionist lobby in US politics generates policy on He concludes that the US is the Middle East. committed to Israel out of its own interests and that those interests are paramount.

What is he He thinks it unlikely left with? recons that the US will change its Middle Eastern policy, although he tries his best to make the case that its interests can safeguarded just as well through negotiation with the PLO as through support Even if America were to withdraw for Israel. Israel have..the bomb! its support may Chomsky can offer little more than despair.

The Palestinian people have a message for professor Chomsky and for Yassir Arafat, somewhere on his futile shuttle between Algiers and They know that the USA will not Amman. withdraw its support for Israel, for to do so would jeopardize American interests throughout the Middle East. But they have every faith that the Palestinian people will recover from their setbacks in Lebanon. masses of the Middle East, they will drive the imperialist powers and their local minions, Israeli and Arab, out of the region forever. The spirit of resistance may have been stilled by the massacre of 800 or more refugees in Sabra and Chatila in 1981, but it has not been crushed.

John Johnson Voice in the Wilderness Paul Mattick, Marxism, last refuge of the bourpbk £5.50 geoisie, Merlin Press 1983, pp 321, PAUL MATTICK was a stimulating and sometheoretician times inspiring Marxism. Published after his death in 1981, sections of Mattick's last work remain true to the high standards of his previous studies. But the book is also a tragic reminder of the consequences of isolating Marxism. from the class struggle The early part of the book is a critical examination of issues raised by Marx's critique of political economy post-war in relation to capitalism. Mattick was always at his best confronting the anti-Marxist prejudices of bourgeois economists and the left. What these commenpresent as novel criticisms of Marx, Lalots Mattick exposes as a regurgitation of objections The best already disposed of before the war.

and reality. chapter in the book, "Theory demonstrates the relevance of Marx's theory of capital accumulation for an understanding of today's recession. Mattick had a long and distinguished record of defending Marxism against the prevailing revisionist trends. Even at the darkest hour, when the combined forces of fascism and Stalinism inflicted a grave defeat on the working class, In the Mattick stood out against the stream.

thirties when Marxism appeared an irrelevant dogma - transformed into an apologia for the - Mattick was one of the Stalinist bureaucracy few voices shouting defiance. It is remarkable that despite the pressure of political isolation, Mattick's work attained the level of rigour that it did. But political isolation did take its toll.

Mattick's writings reflect an aloofness from the class struggle and a reluctance to theorise about practical politics. In particular, Mattick reacted against the revolutionary Bolshevik tradition.

He ended up seeing all previous struggles against the capitalist system as bourgeois or reformist.

The second part of Marxism, last refuge of the bourgeoisie shows how Mattick finally became a victim of political isolation.

Mattick criticised the Leninist conception of the party. But unlike liberal critics he was too intelligent to ignore the problem of what forces were going to make the revolution, Mattick at east understood that the whole working class does not make a revolution. Although he rejected the necessity for a vanguard party, he knew that it is the active militant section of the proletariat that makes and leads the revolution.

Theory and practice: Lenin agitates in 1917 But a dislike of organisation and leadership led Mattick to reject the need for a party to cohere this vanguard. Sensing the dead end he had Mattick half-heartedly states that reached, revolutions must take place with insufficient ideological preparation'. This is merely a recipe for abandoning the prospect of revolutionary victory altogether. As the history of this century has proved, it is precisely in a revolutionary period that ideological preparation becomes a matter of life or death. In the end, Mattick drew out the pessimistic consequences of ignoring the problem of revolutionary leadership. party always justify their stance by condemning the notion of a vanguard party as elitist. What they are rejecting in reality is the task of fighting A world without leaders under to give a lead. capitalism means a world full of passive observers, for someone eise to make a It is sad that somebody as courageous move, as Paul Mattick ended up as an observer, and a theorist of proletarian paralysis.

When will the sun set? Gregor Benton, The Hongkong crisis, Pluto Press 1983, pp114, pbk £3.50 FROM BRITAIN'S SEIZURE of Hongkong Island and South Kowloon in perpetuity ir 1842 and 1860, to its capture of the New Territories under a 99 year lease in 1898, through the Opium Wars and the Chinese revolution, Gregor Benton brings us up to date with the options now facing the British state and the Chinese bureaucracy. There are still 13 years to go to 1997 when the British lease on the New Territories runs out. Media coverage of the colony's 'worst civil disturbances in 16 years', as riots broke out in the Kowloon Peninsula in mid-January, seems to belie reports of rapid economic growth and a booming export trade.

The value of Benton's book is in helping us to understand the real dimensions of the crisis in Hongkong, even if we do not follow his liberal strategy for resolving it.

Thirteen years is a short time in politics when the issues at stake concern the very foundations of the social svstem. Long-term capitalist investments, whether in industry or property assets, have a time horizon up to and beyond the turn of the century. A lack of confidence in the future will have a crucial impact on the The underlying cause of this lack of present. confidence has less to do with China's claims on Hongkong and more to do with the position of Lurking in the background British imperialism. too is a social force which both the British state and the Chinese bureaucracy will have to deal with - the Hongkong working class.

Time is running out Hongkong is a testament to British fair play and democracy - there is none. British imperialism runs Hongkong pontics, but has less and les: influence over its economic structure.

Hong kong is run by a British-appointed Governor.

There are no legally recognised political parties Colonial affairs are administered by an executive and a legislative council made up of appointed tycoons, mainly British expatriates.

Most of the five million population is excluded from any semblance of democratic consultation.

- a Gross Hongkong's economic success Domestic Product growth rate averaging nine per cent per year between 1970 and 1982 - has had little to do with the British.

built up by indigenous Chinese capitalists, including those who fled from mainland China Britain only accounts for six percent of foreign manufacturing investment, compared to a 3C per cent share for Japan and a 47 per cent share for the USA. America is Hongkong's largest overseas market for the crucial export sector of Only in banking do the British shand onomy Until 1974, kong on th sterling balances held in London accounted for up to a quarter of Britain's gold and foreign exchange Today Hongkong is a major offshore

•ICSCIVCS

banking centre with deposits worth some $54 British interests are heavily committed throughout the financial system, from banking to insurance and property business Despite its weak economic base, Britain has the job of negotiating the colony's future with the Chinese government. Thatcher took up the challenge 18 months ago, and the ninth round of the Sino-British talks took place in February The British were prepared to concede sovereignty over the whole colony in return for a guaranteed luture lor capitansm in general and brus!

interests in particular. The British state wants to protect its existing lucrative business, but it is also concerned to be in on the action if the Chinese market opens up to imperialism.

It is this factor which contains the potential fo instability. When China does a deal with the imperialists it can afford to leave a second rate power like Britain on the sidelines.

Some 7000 British and Gurkha troops are on hand to add weignt to britains claims Capitalism rules OK Hongkong means a lot to China. In 1980 the colony accounted for more than a third of China's foreign exchange revenues through its trading relations. The Chinese bureaucracy is concerned that these funds are not threatened the replication of its own stagnant social system in Hongkong. It is therefore more thar willing to accept a continuation of capitalist relations in the colony. China has already experimented with 'Special Economic Zones' on the mainland, areas within which imperialist investment is encouraged. The Hongkong dollar circulates widely in neighbouring Guangdong province.

Despite limited foreign investments so far, it is clear that market relations are beginning to impose themselves. The bureaucracy hopes to cream off the benefits of capitalist production to bolster its position within the crisis-torn Chinese economy.

But such policies, particularly if applied to monukone use can on eraceroate me ou reaucracy's lack of control over an economy it cannot plan.

SHOPPING CEN

Capitalism sets up shop: Guangdong, China China would like to encourage Americar and Japanese investment, both in its existing Special Economic Zones and in the proposed Special Administrative Regions for Hongkong.

The bureaucracy's concern is not to attract the technology necessary for economic and social development, but to save its own skin. The interests of Chinese workers, still less of the Hongkong Chinese, are of no consequence No alternative Benton correctly shows the direct link between Hongkong's future and the future of China as a whole he also draws out some importan points about working class consciousness in Workers in the colony have no Hongkong. political commitment to the British regime.

But the sight of bodies washed up on the shore after China's cultural revolution did not improve their conception of life under Stalinism either.

Hongkong workers are deprived of elementary democratic rights and have no organised means of expressing their political views. Gregor Benton uses this to support his call for a struggle for "full democracy' He hopes for a united struggle, combining the fight for demo cratic rights in Hong Kong with the movement of democratic dissent on the mainland.

But it will take more than a struggle for basic demo.

cratic rights to combat imperialism in the colony and its designs for China.

kewse une over throw of the Chinese bureaucracy cannot be led by "democratic dissidents', whose objection to Stalinism is their lack of political freedom, not the absence of workers power.

Tony Allen the next step, April 1984 21

Letters Out December Last troops Movement Alan supporter wyer was arrested in birmingthe ham and detained under Prevention of Terrorism Act. The Irish Freedom Movement, his friends,

CONSULE

organised pickets and publicity in protest against another attack on the rights of Irish solidarity O'Dwyer activists in Britamn who was released without charge shortly afterwards, subsequently wrote to An Phoblacht/Republican News to complain that the IFM's actions had endangered Reproduhis personal security. below is the text of the Irced ish Freedom Movement's reply to Dwver which has vet to be published in AP/R.V. Over the past five years the Irish Freedom Movement has organised support for more than 100 Prevention of victims of the Terrorism Act. Alan O Dwver is the first to object. Indeed he is the first person not to have expressed appreciation for our work. Many PTA victims have mneicateu now inev were encouraged by hearing chanting crowas outside their cells and how they welcomed getting early access to legal aid. Others have been pleased to see the pouct pressure from coming local MPs and councillors and from the exposure of the operaof legislation DressIve they often prefer to keep in the shadows. Before the Irish Freedom Movement began agitating against the PTA hundreds of Irish people simply disappeared in Britain as thev were deported to Ireland without any public Now arrests in every British city are followed On 30 January Mr Rahaman, who suffers from paralysis, was aragged from his bed and tro wit and the rest of downstairs. He his family were thrown onto the streets by the manager of the Maryland Hotel in Finsbury Park.

North London. on instructions from Tower Hamlets council's Homeless Persons Unit.

The Homeless Persons Unit had decided that the family Were

LO CLOS

because they naa nea tael Birmingham home seven months ago after repeated racial attacks.

As a result the Rahamans spent two nights sleeping under shelters and when they finally found somewhere to stay their two children had to be taken into For years Glasgow University Union has operated as a base for It is a hotbed of rampant chauvinism and racism. Queeron women s rigues protests nave been organised by the Board in recent years. On 1 March a group women protested against the showings of pornographic films in the union at lunchtimes. The women were set upon by a horde Several people, of lory thugs. including myself, were badly bruised. A black student was singled out for particularly 22 the next step, April 1984

ANGOLA

Bitter sectarians by demonstrations and publicity as the Irish Freedom Movement as made me ra moa seoual campaigning issue for the first time. Yet O'Dwyer claims that the Irish Freedom Movement was irresponsible and opportunistic' in releasing mis name to te press. Publicity in the media of the use of the PTA can be very effective in exposing how the.

Act is used and can help mobilising opposition. It impossible to publicise an unnamed person. In the cause of solidarity the IFM did release • Dwvers name to the press For the same reason leading Troops Out members of Movement revealed his name on radio and television. Yet O'Dwyer has chosen to denounce the IFM,for organising solidarity on his behalf, in the pages of the republican press. O'Dwyer's letter exposes a peculiarly petty Why is O'Dwyer so bitter attempts about public protest against his harassment under the The answer lies in his affinities with the Troops Out Movement. Ten years ago TOM set out to build an Irish solidarity movement in Britain, but its opportunist strategy has reduced it to an ineffectual rump. Not only does TOM organise no action against the PTA; it no longer even turns up to IrM protests acainst PLA are detentions sacades now confined to visits to Ireland - and attempts to discredit the growing success of the IFM building solidarity movement in Britain.

National Organiser Councils shame hospital for intensive feeding.

None of the family had eaten for four days because the DHSS has stopped their benefit.

When the incident came to Tower Hamlets council light tried to cover up its role in the affair by threatening the Maryland Hotel with legal action for The manager replied by threatening to evict 106 families, more than people, council-sponsored residence in his bed and breakfast rooms.

The council backed down and carried on with its seven-year arrangement for dumping homehis lousy Tamilies in boarding rooms. P Darr Workers Against Racism Glasgow University's thugs vicious physical and verbal abuse.

the Revoluun March tionary Communist Students at Glasgow University called a mass

GUU

outside the Buildings in response to this blatant provocation. More than 150 students came and the pro- With lest was a acal success. militant chants, burning of GUU membership cards and banging of pots and pans the students that the indicated chauvinist and racist filth at Glasgow University will no longer betolerated.

The protest was also attended by a contingent from the Glasgow College of Art led by its One of the most potent reasons for the next step selling as well is that its politics as it does show that Labourism is wholly has had its day and that what we stand for is an anternauve that oreaks will Labourism and consistently exposes its pernicious influence.

are attracting the to me, we growing audience for our ideas, that we are. It was with trep- Some idation, then, the front cover of the March issue which with its title Fight the Tories conveyed none of the bold indep that sense endence which usually distinus from guishes other left papers; it was a headline which one could have read on the of Socialist Worker/Organiser/Action and many others.

As I say it is the politics of the RCP which sells the next step and rightly so. Call me supernea shorsantee or what vot will but selling politics on the I have read your paper over the past few months, but I have searched in vain for your position", line' or whatever on the issue of animal liberation and I can't see how animal rights. you can ignore the most active, fastest-growing campaign British politics. Surely socialists must be against all suffering and -Treatment wiewer or Man or Let's have your views on Deast. the matter Robin Nall wancheste the next step replies We take our view of animal liberation not from any emotional objection to suffering, but from a materialist understanding of the prohistory. astor calve evolution gressive from one mode of production to another, In March the publication of Strathclyde Police Chief Sir Pat- Hamill's report

SICK

triggered a wave of hair raising headlines in the local press. Heroin addiction cluc sniffing in Glasgow were the hot topics. Everyone, local councillors, youth workers, trade union leaders and local left wingers pronounced themselves gravel disturbed' and 'worried' by the Anti-Imperialist Society.

Unfortunately, neither the Glasgow University Labour Club nor the Socialist Worker society backed the protest. But many individual members of all left We societies joined the protest.

will continue the fight for united action at Glasgow University so that we can drive chauvinism and racism off the campus for good. Mary McFarlane Revolutionary Communist Students, Glasgow University

ANIMAL RIGHTS

Has' the next step' gone soft basis crude anti-Toryism of should remam te province ol the reformist left. I eagerly await your reply/ explanation for what is to me, a confusing and lacklustre inwhich a paper of its ininside, loses none telligent and informative thrust.

David Watson Preston the next step replies The 'anti-Tory" thrust of the front page last issue of the of the next step does not mean that the RCP has abandoned For as long as significant sections of the working class are influenced by the politics of the official labour movement, the battle against reformism will be of decisive importance in building a revolutionary party.

However building a revol utionary party demands a recognition and a response the shifting forms of the class Animal rights higher form of society eg. slavery to feudalism to capitalism - has depended on humanity's increasing ability to master the forces of nature. Communism will represent man's ultimate control over nature. liberation seeks to free one part of nature from our control. It flows against the tide of history, and we oppose it as a reactionary sentiment. Our concern is the suffering and millions of people around the

WORE

technological meanoes such as vivisection which can help to alleviate their burden are welcome. Animal liberation has attracted svmpathy from mans But it cannot be on the left. posed as a class question. As an issue of morality, it is backed by people -from all sides of the Drugs-not the real problem evidence of a rapid increase in drug abuse among Scottish teenagers. It was reported that there were than 400 heroin addicts on a single Edinburgh estate. Last year the housing Solvent stirred up the same kind of public hysteria. The discussion about drug abuse is most intense in Scotaa because scoude Is one o the British regions that has been recession. The police chiefs, priests, trade unionists and liberals who lament the effects of heroin on Glasgow's and Edinburgh'syoung ignore the genuine and youth unemployment Write to... the next step BCM JP LTD, London WCIN 3XX

ROODO ALL

struggle. Two recent develop ments are important. First, the official labour movement has largely given fight the Tories. The TUC has form all Terren and the Labour Party's opposition is so ineffectual as to be scarcely visible. Second, the working class has lost confid the labour ence movement to an extent un precedented in half a century.

The Chesterfield by-election and recent polis suggest opinion little real recovery in Labour's popularity since last year's Gen eral Election catastrophe.

In these circumstances it 1s up to the RCP to give a lead to the thousands who hate the Tories but have no faith whatever in Labour's alternative. Hence 'anti the Tory tone of the next step's But don't forget that the major feature introduced by the cover was a critique of the Labour Party's failure to fight the cuts in local government.

political spectrum.

SOCHINE

involved in this movement are rubbing shoulders with those wholeheartedly support britains oppression or une trish and blacks In Bradford an animal rights campaign against Halal meat has won the backing of the fascist British National Party. their countes el Ireland, lan Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party which calls for republicans to be shot on sight, has condemned hare coursing as the lac that animal liberation is the active. fastest-growing

HUDE

campaign in British politics' is notable only as an indictment of the left's inability to organise on Animal the issues that count. liberation is the last refuge of a left-wing scoundrel. poverty. Their sympathy for the "poor addict' and their contempt unconcern at the real horrors of life in Scotland's cities.

Kids forced to stay with their parents cannot afford to because they move out. Kids who end up on the streets where they get drawn into prostitution and crime, or end up in cold. dirty rooms The sudden concern with the 'opiates people nothing but a cynical distractior trom the real culprits for the brutal conditions in which young people have to live. Mike Wall Glasgow IrISh Freedom Movement

OPPORTUNISTS?

SWAPO

fights on Congratulations on Andy Clarkson's timely article on South African expansionism (the next March). The step, essential argument, ie. that South Africa's expansionism broader nas a purpose in its attempt to теsolve the problems of recession South subordi- Alica nating the whole region to its rule must be grasped by all anti-imperialists. There is. however. one in accuracy which must be correc vis-a-vis the 16 February Lusaka "disengagement" agreement between South Africa and This is the assertion Angola. sion into Angola inflicted a setback for SWAPO forces. The facts are (a) that SWAPO has at never base nad a mutary Cuvelai - the nearest SWAPO settlement, where it has it hospital, is at Lubango; (b) not

SWAPO

combatan was killed or even inmember we dume these anacks SWAPO was not involved in the fighting at all Angolan made clear the statement to the United Nations Security Council and in SWAPO It is well known stale neat: that Angola harbours SWAPO refugee settlements and offers other facilities to the liberation movement. But the reason why SWAPO's struggle has armed continued, is that SWAPO combatants are able to operate within Namibia. with the support of the local civilian population.

This point sheds further light on the limitations of the Angola/ South Africa disengagement (1) Two of the conditions on which Angola agreed to talk to Pretoria, namely South Africa's commitment implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 435 (the Namibia independence plan and to stop backing Unita. have not beer The South African government stated immediately after the Lusaka talks that this could not happen this year, and that agreement on Resolution 435 was still a long way off; (2) While SWAPO has stated that it will not jeopardize the withdrawal of South African Angola, it na

WOODSTOR

pledged itself to continue the struggle until Pretoria agrees to sign a ceasefire and implement the United Nationsindependence South Africa has accused plan. SWAPO of acting to undermine its 'peace moves' through recent attacks, including that at Rietfontein, on the Botswana border, hundreds of miles from Angola, furnish yet excuse

TOT

another South African incursion into Angola. These points bear out the arguments in

CALKSORS

COT

cluding paragraphs, which indicate the need for anti-imperialists to support the continuation o SWAPO's struggle, to expose the the situation realties Southern Africa today and to campaign against Britain's bloody and plunderous role in the subcontinent. In solidarity Tessa Black

MOTORCOT

* This letter has been shortened

Meetings A Wednesday 4 April Why can't Labour fight the Tories?

COH

NO. 8 R

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BRADFORD REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNIST PARTY

PREPARING FOR

POWER

series of discussions of current Wednesday 11 April Why is racism a problem for the working class? All at Central Library, Princes Way, 7.30 pm Baby sitting available: contact RCP, c/o 6, Edmund St, Bradford 7 forAfia London N19 Archway e Women's liberation

LIVERPOOL

Thursday 19 April 1pm Women and peace Kate Marshall Guildhall Room Liverpool University

BIRMINGHAM

Thursday 26 April 7.30pm Women and Health Revolutionary doctor speaks Digbeth Civic Hall, Digbeth

NORTH LONDON

Wednesday 11 April 7.30pm Prostitution in Camden: kerb crawlers or Subscribe to text step Please send me the next step every month.

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problems Wednesday 18 April What is communism?

BENEFIT

Begum Dudu Pukwana Saturday 14 April 8pm till late Caxton House, 129 St Johns St, council cuts? Carolyn Price Prince Albert Pub, Wharfdale Road N1

SOUTH LONDON

Wednesday 4 April 7.30 pm Women and the miners' strike: Miners' wives speak out St Matthew's Meeting Place Brixton Hill

SHEFFIELD

Wednesday 4 April 1pm Lobby Sheffield City Council: No to Labour's freeze on nursery provision! D Tuesday 17 April Withdrawal Problems - Britain and Ireland Sabena Norton Tuesday 1 May Ireland's freedom fighters from Wolfe Tone to Bobby Sands Mike Wall destruction. Every Tuesday 3 April The Allies fall out: the Western Alliance breaks up

MAY DAY RALLY

Central L Highbury o The General Secretary

BM RCP

London WON 3XX or phone 01-274 3951 Kate Marshall will answer all enquiries by return of post

GLASGOW REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNIST PARTY

Making sense of the Irish War Tuesday 15 May Orange sectarianism in Glasgow and Belfast Mike Wall All at Committee Rooms Queen Margaret Union

HANDS OFF!

The last two in a series of five forums to discuss what drives the Western aggressors and how Western aggression is driving the at 7.30 pm, London, Bolsover Street, WC1 (Goodge Street tube) 1 May 610 oray Road, nea Holloway Road e Celebrate Workers' Day with the Revolutionary Communist Party!

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Activities Tuesday 29 May The fight for solidarity in Britain Alex Fraser University Avenue Glasgow 7 pm Third World towards Room 1F, Polytechnic of Central 10 April Who elected Ronald Reagan as world policeman?: American imperialism and the Third World War Stalls - Food - Music - Militant Miners Speak the next step, April 1984 23

next step

PREPARING FOR POWER 1984

Preparing for Power is a week-long series of talks, discussions, debates, films and fun organised by the Re volutionary Communist Party. It will be held at the Polytechnic of Central London from Friday 13 July to Friday 20 July. Preparing for Power kicks off at 7pm Friday 13 July with a choice of four sessions. Saturday brings a full agenda, with more than a dozen sessions looking at workers' struggles around the world The weekend will conclude with a full session on the theme - Is re volution possible in Britain? (Yes) Education The week continues with a dozen courses, each with its own convenor and a series of daily meetings. The idea is to build up a lively discussion and a well-rounded grasp of the subject within each group: • Introduction to Marxism • Problems of everyday life • Making sense of the USSR • Fighting racism • Marxist economics Sex and class: women's oppression • Problems of the British revolution Ireland - myth and reality ) Imperialism in the eighties • The remaking of the British working class • Investigating the world economy Every afternoon we will be having sessions of general interest, such as • Women and fascism • The General Strike • Confessions of a frustrated artist • The Chartists • Fighting unemployment • Gramsci and his followers • The Tory Party today • Marxism and religion There will also be special evening sessions, history, art and literature film shows and debates with political personalities. Entertainment • Dance to the music laid on by Ace Evans and his revolutionary sound system • Is football counter-revolutionary?

• Communist critics assess George Orwell, William Morris, Alexandra Kollontai and Berthold Brecht.

• Communist cabaret, revolutionary 'Mastermind', and what their papers say • The Great Debate: watch this • Final rally and a River Thames space boat trip We are also organising a football competition, video shows, swimming, a fully equipped creche, hot meals at reasonable prices and free modation in London. If you would like a copy of the bro chure send 30p (refundable) to the address below, or send in now for your ticket. Make cheques payable to RCP Association, send to BM RCP, London WC1N 3XX. All week Weekend Employed/Student 12.00 5.00 UB40/Unwaged 8.00 3.00 For more details call Kate Marshall on 01-274 3951.

PREPARING FOR POWER 1984

FRIDAY 13 JULY - FRIDAY 20 JULY

POLYTECHNIC OF CENTRAL

LONDON, NEW CAVENDISH STREET,

LONDON W1