The Next Step: No. 48, June 1984

next step No 48 June 1984 mining communities of Notts and Scotland.

like on the picket lines: running strikers down on horsewhatever comes to mind. There are no limits to the miners' strike. Police operations extend far beyond the line. Away from the TV cameras, police launch paramilitary Notts raids on mining beating isolated militants through the streets and kicking their way into strikers' homes.

Meanwhile, secret police infiltrate pit Villages to target and knock out the militants. The state is not just out to win an industrial dispute.

It is determined to smash the strike, and finish the kicked outreview of the Revolutionary Communist Party Nothing to loseall to win There are no holds barred in the miners' strike. The establishment has thrown the rule book out of the window. The Coal Board and the Government are willing to do whatever is necessary to crush the miners' union. They have unleashed a wave of state terror against the miners. Police operations on a scale unseen for 50 years have become an almost daily oceurrence in the There is no law in the miners" strike. Police do as they back, arresting them by the hundred, charging them with miners once and for all. Warfare Faced with this scale of attack, striking miners have nothing to lose by giving as good as they get. We need to be as ruthless in defence of our jobs as the bosses are in defence of their interests. It is clear that narrow trade union tactics cannot the bitter class

BEAT GE

warfare the state is waging against us. The issue of class be cannot Power resolved simply through pickets and demonstrat- Afia Begum the fight continues p2,3 ions. We need to raise the level of our response to match the state blow for blow. The employers are defending their right to run their industry as they see Miners are defending their right to the jobs they need live. Between to equal rights, force decides.

Who rules? Today most of the force on show is with the state.

But the latent force which can swing the balance is the untapped power of thousands of miners and millions of workers in other industries. In a political struggle with the state, that force can win even bigger battles than the miners' dispute. the courts and the Government Ten years ago, in the middle of a miners' strike, Tory Prime Minister Ted Heath said the dispute demanded answers to the A spectre is haunting 20p Miners against the state: the strike can unite the working class in a political battle with the police, 'Who rules?'. question: Today that question is posed more sharply still.

Workers who are dominated and exploited by the Europe pl2,13 Miners at war capitalist class have nothing to lose by rising to Heaths challenge We have everything to win. Sarsday gehort

DEUTSCHER, GEWERKSCHAFTSBUND

the

NEWS

Racism 2 Afia Begum - they took her away 2 Deportation countdown 3 A battle lost -- a war to win Miners' strike 4 Three wasted months 4 Ravenscraig: winning unity 5 Striking out 5 Outcast women 6 Labour and the miners 6 RCP election success

FEATURES

Editorial 11 A few home truths 11 Internationalism Class struggle in Europe 12 Workers divided Miners' strike 14 Has Britain become a police state?

15 The fight for a national strike Imperialist war moves 16 Target Libya Reviews 20Workers' defeat -- Labour's opportunity 22 Letters London E1. 2 the next step, June 1984 next step No. 48 June 1984 monthly review of the Revolutionary Communist Party Publisher Junius Publications Ltd, BCM JPLTD, London WCIN 3XX.

Printer Morning Litho Printers Ltd (TU), 439 North Woolwich Road, Typesetting and design Junius Publications Ltd (TU).

Subscription rates (for 12 months) Britain and Ireland £5, Europe £8.50 Middle East and North Africa £10 America, Asia and Southern Africa £12 All cheques payable to Junius Publications. Circulation 01-274 3951.

Correspondence to The Editor, the next step, BCM JPLTD, ISSN 0144 - 350 X June 1984 Imperialism 7 CND meets ET 7 Smash Apartheid! Ireland of Ireland? 8 IFM action Women 10 Abortion in Scotland sarustays Labour and the EEC India: things fall apart 23 Activities Support the Heathrow 21 The Heathrow 21 were arrested trying to blockade the airport and stop Afia's deportation. Now they face heavy fines designed to warn off militant anti-racists.

Don't let the state intimidate anti-racists off the street! Rush donations to the defence fund at the Afia Begum Campaign Against Deportations, 114a Brick Lane, Afia has been deported but the Afia Begum Campaign goes on, fighting for the rights of all victims of the immigration laws. Join us! Drop in at 114a Brick Lane, or ring 01-247 7848.

7 Summit's up with Reagan 8 The cause of Labour - or the cause 9 War reports: Baker and the Forum 10 Part-timers under attack Nauti 18 Breaking up is hard to do Liberals in England, war in Ireland Pic: Andrew Moore

THURSDAY 3 MAY

cops.

FRIDAY 4 MAY

at 10am".

SATURDAY 5 MAY

ing the plane to stop her.

THEY TO

Deportation countdown 6am: Five immigration police drag Afia Begum out of her bed in an East London hideout and off to Harmondsworth detention centre, near Heathrow.

6pm: Hundreds of protestors march from 111 Brick Lane, where Afia's husband died in a fire more than two years ago, to vent their anger on the local 'community Brick Lane blockade: Afia's supporters stage sit-down protest 12 noon: Protests continue all day outside the Home Office and at Harmondsworth.

Tory minister Waddington turns down MPs* appeals for a last-minute reprieve 6 pm: Five hundred demonstrators hold another vigil, and march through Brick Lane with a message: *Be at Heathrow tomorrow Hats off to Afia:helmets fly as Heathrow police wade in 8 am Heathrow: Two hundred demonstrators throw Terminal Three into chaos for half an hour as they try to stop the flight. Police move in, arresting 21. Afia is forced on to the plane. Sari Squad members dodge immigration police to board with her.

12 noon Amsterdam: As the plane refuels Afia tries to alight, demanding temporary asylum in Holland. Dutch immigration police take the unprecedented step of board- This way out Mrs Begum: immigration police force Afia on to Flight BG004 - Afia is due to be deported

OLICE

OK HER AWAY

A battle lost-a war to win

DAILY

Mirror MOMENT The

MIRROR

unwelcome IT IS typical of epelled a her guatier on. Thatcher Master of racist day AFTER A TWO YEAR fight to remain in Britain 14 months spent hiding - it seemed inevitable that Afia would win. The campaign mounted her 1n defence gaining new was support throughout Europe as well as in Britain. Its success inspired to follow suit and take a stand against deportation. But Afia's campaign was defeated. Office Home minister David Waddington decided that enough was enough; Her Majesty's Government could not tolerate such flagrant defiance of the immigration rules. The embarrassing prospect of bad publicity for Britain in Europe finally torced his those who come here.' 14 May) On Wednesday 16 May, 30 Asian women set off from East London for a weeklong tour of Europe. This was their determined message enthusiastic audiences in Paris, Amsterdam, Bonn Frankfurt and Strasbourg: *We have come to Europe to seek your support for our sister, Afia Begum, who was deported to Bangladesh on 5 May. Like millions of foreign workers throughout Europe,

ATTA

was an illegal entrant. When arrived in Britain in 1982 the Home Office declared her entry certificate invalid - because her husband had been killed in an East London fire. gues hand. Waddington calculated that when it came to the crunch the 75 Labour MPs who had lent their support to the Afia Begum Campaign would do nothing to oh. struct the course of justice.

Waddington guessed right.

Angry When the came, a defiant fight was waged by Afia's supporters East London. Two nights running, the Brick Lane area echoed to the sound of hundreds angry demonstrators marching through the

SUCCES

Local police who tried to stop them WelC aside. •We live in one of the most densely populated countries in, Europe... the country simply could not support all would like to (Repatriation minister' David Waddington, The Guardian "Afia went into hiding and defied the immigration authorities for two years before they finally arrested and deported her. "This courageous woman has inspired thousands of victims of Britain's immigration laws to fight

TOT

their rights. And she is determined to continue her Afia wants you struggle. to fight for her right to

EEC

an country, from where she can campaign to be reunited with her family in Britain.

•Will you help her? We are under no illusions about your We governments know that from Mitterand's France to Kohl's Germany, thousands foreign OI Angry Asians in vigil over arrest of woman By Pat Healy, Race Relations Correspondent of Budd 373 0013193122 Throughout Britain demonstrations and protests were held the instant that news of Afia's arrest arrived.

More than 50 Asian women disrupted the 3 May local election count in

CODE C

Birmingham. In Liverpool a Tory rally was broken up by Afia's supporters. The campaign's office was packed with crowds flowing into the streets, as women's groups, black organisations and anti-racists from round the

- COUL

poured into Brick Lane to offer their help. Muscle But the forces the campaign could not WeTe enough to stop Waddington On the defensive: David Waddington To the workers of Europe workers are being driven out of jobs and homes. *We when Afia was deported immigration police throughout Europe cooperated to make sure she could not get off the plane before it reached Dacca. *We know that the demand by Britain's racist bigot, Enoch Powell, for 'concerted Europe-wide action' against illegal immigrants is fast becoming a reality. *But this is all the more reason for you to support We must match the solidarity displayed by our rulers with our solidarity - the solidarity of workers.

Arrests as widow is deported legram

04 MAY 1934/192

ZCZC BLN7306 RHE

OEXX CO NLAN 033

LEERSUN 33/32 4 174

ASIR BEGUR CAMPAIGN

1149 BRICKLANE

LANDON/ES

CONKISSION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS DECISION

TEN VANDENHEUVEL ME

in his tracks. The violent scenes at Heathrow were unprecedented but insufstop the plane cient to leaving Airport workers asked to take action to delay the flight. They tried, but more as a gesture of solidarity than in the belief they could do anything. In short, campaign are had not generated enough working class backing - did not have the muscle - to the Home Office. acreat And when the crunch came, that was the only way to win. Pitiful The battle but there is a war to win. The *We must defend every foreign worker in Europe from the witch-hunt their employers and governments are unleashing. We must defend the women of the immigrant communities who double bear the burden of sexist and racist immigration laws. *This is our message to the workers of Europe. We have not. come to beg mercy from the politicians and the lawyers. We know our real allies, our only hope lies with you. Let this tour be the first step to building the solidarity we need. Fight for Afia's right to return - and all foreign workers right to stay!

HOME OFFIC

CONTACT MINISTER OF JUSTICE BUTCH GOUERNNENT FOR TENFORAR

STAY IN NOLLAND FOR MRS BEGUN NEXT MONDAY PENDING EUROPER

campaign has not ended with Afia's departure. Throughout the month of May public debate raged between Waddington and the Begum Campaign over Alla our demand, Smash all immigration controls! Traditionally it is the racists who initiate discussion about immigration. Now the tables are turned and it is the anti-racists who are establishing the terms of the debate. Waddington has been put on the defensive. In a pitiful article in The Guardian, he justified immigration controls on the grounds that Britain is 'one of the most densely populated countries gesting that any illegal immigrant who wants to can come to these shores?' what (The Sari Squad's Rezia Begum, Radio 4, 15 May) Sari Squad departs for Europe in Europe The campaign has opened up a debate which anti-racists cannot afford to lose. If we win the arguments against immigration controls, then links will be forged with working new allies in the class in the struggle to make . these racist laws inoperable.

Resistance To win we have to make immigration controls a public political issue. That's why the campaign is taking its fight to Europe and not letting Afia be erased from the public memory. That's why we intend to fight every deportation and build resistance to all controls on immigration. 'Surely you are not sug- 'Yes. That is precisely we are suggesting? the next step, June 1984 3

Three wasted months Miners' strike As we go to press, the miners' strike is in its tenth week.

After nearly three months on strike 80 per cent of miners are still out and determined to win.

further away than ever (see also pages 11, 14, 15).

More than 40 pits are still working and coal, oil and electricity are still getting through to industry. The Coal Board and the Tory government, backed up by the police, are taking advantage of this disastrous increase their situation We need to take attacks. drastic steps to prevent serious setbacks as the bosses move in for the kill. Wayne, two Andy and from Armyoung thorpe, Yorkshire, spoke to Joan Phillips aboutthestrike, the problems they face, and the measures necessary Why is this strike so important? We're fighting for Wayne: In the seventies Now it was about wages. we're fighting for jobs. sooner lose maybe seven or eight hundred pounds now, work than lose 33 years because I know one thing if these jobs go, there'll be The collapse of solidarity action at the Ravenscraig steel works in Motherwell, was a serious Scotland, blow to the miners' strike.

The divisions within the of coal, Triple Alliance steel and transport unions over the blacking of coal supplies to Ravenscraig rebankruptcy of flect the the union leaders strategy.

the Responding NUM's appeal for blacking.

steel union leader Bill Sirs declared that he was not prepared "to see the steel industry crucified on someone else's altar. Ravens- Echoing Sirs, Tommy craig

CORVETOL

Brennan summed up the which political outlook miners' the and unites but steelworkers unions, which prevents them from joining together in a fight for jobs: fighting for *They are the future of their industry.

remember we but doing exactly the same tor Many Ravenscraig workers who identified with the miners fight against pit

GOSLIES WCIC

that their leaders were right. In a plant union meeting on 9 May half the workers were in favour of coming out to support the miners. Branch officials quickly this idea and it defused was not put to the vote. Rank and file steelworkers at Ravenscraig wanted to the but support their instinctive sympathy could notbyitself challenge the bureaucrats' arguments that the miners' action was threatening their jobs. Confusion The response of the miners' union only added to their confusion. In early April 4 the next step, June 1984 Yet victory seems none anywhere else in Don-

CHOICE

If you lose this one Andy: you lose your union. They're really going to kick you. The union's going to get walked all over. I mean now they knock on the manager's door but if we lose this they're going to nave to knock and wait for them to say "come in" So, how are you going to win it? What are the problems? Wayne: We'll win it by up the picketing stepping and support from getting workers other power workers, railway workers. We've got to be even more militant and use different tactics like the French lorry

NUM

president Scottish Mick McGahey announced that two trainloads of coal would be allowed into the plant daily to keep the furnaces going. Ravenscraig needs 900 tonnes of coal to keep the working. The furnaces two trainsbeganby bringing in 2600 tonnes a day, and then the trains got longer.

file Rank and miners demanded action from the NUM leadership to block On 27 the coal supplies. Triple Alliance April the cut back the supply to one enough trainload a day to keep the furnaces going but not enough to continue production. The steel union demanded more coal, but did not get it. It ended by cooperating with BSC management and agreeing to accept deliveries byroad.

2 May From onwards. of lorries began

SCOTES

bringing coal into Mother- On 4 May, the rail well. unions put an end to the But card train deliveries. carrying members of the TGWU continued to drive through the their lorries picket lines. Mass pickets outside the plant failed to halt the lorries in the face of a large police presence, and on 11 May the

NUM

caved in and agreed to recommence the train deliveries. The confusion at Ravenscraig is adirect consequence of the union leaders' poli- Bill Sirs and tical strategy. Arthur Scargill are not that far Both share a apart. fight for commitment to the future of their respective industries. The only difference is one of presentation. grovels Whereas Sirs British Steel before the Corporation and urges his members to make sacrifices We need more men drivers. on the picket lines. There's only about 100 men here picketing out of about 1200 - we need to get the others involved too. We need to get the Notts They're not all men out What good is it scabs. standing on the picket line and shouting "scab"? You've political have the got arguments with them to per suade them to come out. But how could you get a without national national ballot? Andy: We're not against But we've democracy. already had our votes in our why do we need areas, one? another Wily should another man be able to vote you out of a job?

Problem is now you can't get near them to talk to them because of the police. first. Places like did at Ollerton were more or less closed down in the first few weeks. Now, I think you ve got to go round the welfares Winning unity to safeguard the industry, Scargill threatens the NCB with industrial action to investment in win more coal. But whatever their tactical differences, the political strategy shared by Sirs and Scargill has the same consequences GRaNITOUS forsteelworkers and miners.

Thousands of steelworkers have lost their jobs over the last few years. In 1981 Ravenscraig narrowly avoided the axe when the Government withdrew its closure plans. In return the union agreed to produc tivity schemes and changes in work practices to help get the industry back on

ILS ICCL.

Four years ago it took 10 man hours to make a of steel - now it tonne But bending takes tour backwards

OVCI

productivity and help the hasn't secured bosses Ravenscraig workers jobs.

Threats Steel British In April, Chairman Corporation Robert Haslam announced plans to get rid of 15 000 and close jobs In

NSCI

down two of BSC's five steel plants. integrated Ravenscraig is high on the The proposals hit

LIST

BSC's of the are part corporate long-awaited Haslam hopes plan which take the BSC to the will ultimate goal of achieving a fully commercially viable steel business Steel union leaders have used the threat of closure to justify their scabbing to miners and to their the own members. Ravenscraig convenor Tommy Brennan if the steelargued that supported the workers they would be miners cutting their own throats.

Two steps back: NUM leaders have restrained miners action and talk to them there. We've got to try to get to speak at their branch meetings if they'll have us and get Yorkshire delegations of Scottish miners, cause and that's the only way you're going to get them out. What sort of leadership do you think you're getting?

Is the strike effective? Andy: No, they don't know what's happening In reality, the union leaders cutting steelworkers are throats by putting the inindustry terests of the before their responsibility the to support The bureaucrats' arguments just do not make sense to workers who

STAVE

done their bit to make the industry profitable during the last three years, and still face the threat of redundancy. Jobs first The only way that steelworkers will be able to look future forward to a Ravenscraig is by fighting what they need and for forgetting about the state of the employers' account books. The Ravenscraig fiasco has exposed the weakness of the NUM's approach to the miners strike. Miners experienced leaders have convincing CHicane. steel leaders to take solibecause darity action, about their arguments defending the steelindustry accord with the are NUM's commitment to coal. Future Throughout the miners strike the NUM has emphasised that it is fighting for the future of the British coal industry. Scargill says he wants a production target of 200m investment tonnes,

HOC

existing and new pits and an end to coal imports Ian MacGregor maintains that he is fighting for the future of British But coal mining. he that under understands capitalism coal mining subject to the laws of the That's market and profit. pushing for why he's ground, there's no coordina- You need to elect tion. delegates from your pit to send to an area committee action with to coordinate The rank and other areas. file have got to get organised.

Wayne: Up here, when we made our accisionwi

COUL

branch to go picketing in Notts wehad Sammy Thompson from the Yorkshire executive telling us we couldn't.

high volume, low-cost industry with a future capacity of 100m tonnes. About 80m tonnes of output is already profitable or within reach of being But just over protitable. 20m tonnes of output is To a chronic loss-maker. make the industry viable means cutting back on uneconomic, loss-making pits.

MacGregor's first step is to the loss-making reduce capacity by about 4m tonnes to 97.4m tonnes in the coming year and reduce manpower by 20 000. Cloud nine Scargill is famed for his ability to churn out tables and statistics on the economics industry. But his insistence industry can be that the without profitable made closing pits and slashing jobs is just not on. Profits in coal require higher proredundancies ductivity and pay curbs. Instead of trying to be a better businessman than MacGregor, Scargill ought to be fighting for his members' welfare. The economics of coal are MacGregor's problem. ha: nothing to do with what need to live on. Whatever the state of the pits, miners still need jobs to pay for food, housing the other necessities and of life. It is suicidal to base the cause of the miners on the economic viability of coal The miners' production. case is independent of the NCB's attempts to balance It is based on the right to work and the Only if these right to live rights fought for as inviolate can workers be united. Joan Phillips But we'd made our decision and told him where to go We've got to get organised Like the and take control. Al stoppage - that was our idea and they didn't like it Andy: I think the reason why people think that the miners have got a lot of muscle is because in the last two strikes they had they And I think that's

WOLL

why our union - our union - just thought that leaders automatically miners would And it just showed strike. they're not militant like that, it's a myth, it's got to be And when worked for there's no grassroots organisation it just doesn't work.

makes all the de- Who is it just the cisions here, branch committee? get our Andy: we They orders from Barnsley. just come and say "be here time in the a certain morning". We get here in the morning and they tell us where we're going. panel Wayne: Doncaster meets every week and our there few they've give them And not only bollockings. ours, there's a lot of other branches done the same. What about the Labour Party? Do you think it's given you enough support?

Well they're not for Andy: the working class are they?

They're not for the working class but they claim to rep- But we know resent us I mean, it was they're not. us the inthem that gave with Tony centive scheme I watched Benn in 1978. Neil Kinnock on the telly day and everythe other thing he said about the Tory government in this strike But exactly true. Was everything he said, he'd do it himself if he was in power.

They all pee in the same pot.

By pursuing a policy of vacillation and moderation, the leadership has under-

NUM

mined the potential to take forward. The the strike problems discussed by Andy Wayne highlight the and of the major weaknesses its union leaders strategy: to overcome the inability divisions between miners in different areas and to involve the mass of striking miners in action; and its failure to effective organise action and solidarity from workers in other industries National ballot While recognising the probof regional divisions lems

the During past month the Revolutionary Communist Party has gone allout build support for miners strike, on the working

SUCCES

estates and in workplaces England, Scotland and Wales. Solidarity In Birmingham's Selly Oak and Dudley Road hospitals RCP supporters have instituted regular food collections for famstrikers ilies at Keresley pit Coventry. Our street meetings outside the city centre supermarkets attracted large crowds and generous donations of food from shoppers. In Leeds, our early morning factory gate collections gave us the chance to discuss the strike with engineering and other workers as well as raise money Yorkshire for miners. We made contact with the Upton miners wives group and organised a stall for them at Leeds Trades Council's May Day festival. In London, Bradford and Manchester we took striking miners of the on a tour workplaces and ar- CUeS ranged between miners and enthusiastic workers. RCP supporters were on the scene when local strike Supporting the miners: RCP supporters march in Mansfield continued from page 4 and lack of rank and file control, Andy and Wayne argued against a national But a campaign for ballot. a national ballot led by the rank and file to win all-out could have strike action the problems of OVErCONIC the passivity by involving strikers in the mass of running of the dispute. also provided the only basis for overcoming the regional divisions that have prevented a national strike and crippled effective action. The failure to address problems means that these the strike has lost its mo- The divisions have become entrenched and the potential for achieving unity through a campaign around a national ballot for all-out action has been wasted. As the strike enters a new phase we need to ensure Striking out leader Colin Dixon and his 16 year old son Darrell pulled of their

COUL

car in the centre of Oller- Colin ton and arrested. and Darrel were manhandled into a waiting police van and Colin's arm was badly hurt, requiring hospital treat- Fighting harassment With Colin's father and another miner we chased the van through police roadblocks all way to Mansfield police where angry Ollerton miners joined us in a picket. As a leading strike mil- Colin Dixon was alitant, ready a marked man, and was arrest

TIS

Thira since the strike began. On the Mansfield the WaY LU police van radioed the police station with the message: assignment over, we're on our way. After vocal protests from local miners Colin was released on strict bail conditions. But he still subject to intense harass- On May ment. he was stopped twice by the police; once on his way to get permission

COVE

visit his mother's grave, which

NCB

BICAL

property; and again at the cemetery. This is the treatment miners have come to ex Revolutionary Co rank and file control at a local level to counter the Coal Board and the Government's attempts to smash us.

We need: • regular meetings: these are necessary to get more miners involved in the strike and to end the 80-20 percent split between the passive majority and the active minority. • strike committees: the day-to-day running of the strike must be in the hands of those whose livelihoods depend on its outcome rank and file miners, women and workers in other unions.

• an accountable union: we need a union that is accountable to the miners and the working class. For years the NUM has worked closely with the Coal Board, cooperthe day-to-day management of the industry.

We need to put an end to pect from the bosses army of occupation in Ollertor.

The RCP will continue to resist police attempts harass and frame strike activists. In Leeds, RCP supporthave also experienced

CIS

harassment from the police. Our 'support the miners motorcade through the city centre was constantly stopped by the police and its occupants threatened.

Local miners have given their backing to six suppthe orters of step. arrested on a working class estate while arguing for solidarity with the strike.

Pickets and meetings RCP supporters have joined miners' picket lines in Notts, Lancashire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire and the Ravenscraig steel plant Scotland and attended 111 demonstrations in Barnsley, St Helens, Mansfield, Cardiff and elsewhere. we held a On May meeting in Cole Street Working Men's Club in Scunthorpe which brought together rank and file miners 17 and steelworkers. On May, miners from the North Notts and North Derbyshire area came to our Mansfield meeting to discuss the problems of the strike and how to begin extending rank and file control.

TORY

EPIS

Crard the union's involvement in the extensive network consultation committees and procedures and break links off all with the employers and the state. • a living wage: we need to carry on the fight for a nationally negotiated wage equal to the rising cost of living, divisive an end to area incentive schemes, a sixhour day and early retirement (with immediate replacement) on full pay. The conduct of the miners' strike has exposed the union leaders inability to lead an effective fight for jobs and the folly of leaving our future in their hands. Although increasingly difficult, it is still possible to reverse this trend and take the initiative. But this depends on taking control of the union from leaders who are not able to lead us.

BERSHF

NORTH WF

• On the march, but out of the running: miners' wives have no say From the start of the miners' strike the Revolutionary Communist Party has argued that it should be controlled by the people whose livelihoods depend on its outcome-rank and file miners and their wives. Women in the mining communities have got involved in the dispute in large numbers. But the Labour and trade union leaders have made sure that their role has been confined to servicing the strike, rather than having a say in the running of it. Supporters of the RCP have been involved in women's action groups in the Midlands, Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Kent, and Scotland. At Hatfield in Yorkshire, Keresley in Coventry and elsewhere our proposed

SUS PULLED

that women should be represented on the strike committees with the men. And we argued that there should be regular mass meetings to facilitate discussion open and to guarantee an accountable leadership. Many miners were happy for their wives to join women's committees. But they drew the line at women sitting on the strike committee.

Only NUM members should be allowed this privilege, they argued. We pointed out that women in mining communities had as much stake in winning the strike as any

NUM

member. And they were just as willing to fight for it. Enthusiasm Our arguments got a good response from many women who were keen to do more than just cook dinner for picketing miners. In April, RCP supporters joined wofrom Edlington and other Yorkshire villages on a women's picket at Ollerton pit in Nottinghamshire. We got through the police roadblocks and turned back several cars and a score of We also Ollerton miners. made contact with the wives of striking Notts miners, and the Ollerton women's group established within was a week regular and began women's pickets. Women at the Polmaise in Fallin, Stirlingcolliery decided to set up a miners' wives organisation after RCP supporters visited welfare. The miners Polmaise women have played a dynamic role in winning support for the strike. On 20 April five women

COVENTRY

MINERS

WIVES

SUPPORT

Outcast women went to Glasgow with the Labour Party women.

RCP to address students at the university and the School of Art and collect money for the strike. The following week a dozen women joined an RCP street meeting in Glasgow's Argyle street that raised almost £400 for the strike. Clampdown The NUM bureaucracy has encouraged the spread of women's support groupsbut on its own terms. The union leaders recognise the importance of having the women on their side in a strike beset by divisions and discord. At the same time, they have consciously sought to restrict women's activities. Betty Heathfield, wife of NUM general secretary Peter arrived in Sta- Heathfield, veley to keep her eye on the women's action group.

She caused ructions in a meeting called to discuss social security when she tried to get the women to cenall their money to tralise Chesterfield before having it channelled back again. Stifled Like the union bureaucrats, Betty Heathfield discouraged left-wing sentiments and advised women to stick to cooking, distributing food and giving advice on welfare rights. Some women left the group after it became clear that any independent action would be stifled. It was the same story at Keresley Coventry By in the end of the first meeting the group had decided to do a sit-in at Bedworth dole office, march to Nuneaton demand free school and meals for miners' children from the council. At a meeting the following evening, however, organised to make placards for the demonstration at Bedworth, councillor Labour Party Irene Jones took the chair and pretended that the first meeting hadn't happened. Soup kitchen Jones told the two dozen women that she was there to set up a soup kitchen and if they wanted something else, then they should look When the meeting broke up in confusion a group of women decided that they wanted to set up a women's strike committee to pursue some of their original ideas.

Again this was quashed and a women's committee was established dominated by Miners' strike The Labour Party and the trade union officials have constantly tried to narrow the scope of the Keresley women's involvement in the strike. When the women decided to join the 4am picket line after the Easter break there make sure that LO wasn't a mass return to work the strike committee told {them not to bother. The consequence of the NUM and Labour Party's bureaucratic manoeuvrings is that women have been excluded from playing role in the strike. Their traditional domestic role has been reinforced rather than challenged. Throughout the strike. women have had to cope their. childeare and with domestic responsibilities on magnified scale, many spending several days a week the miners' in welfares. cooking for picketing miners.

Several women's groups have responded angrily to the union's attempts to contro their tinances and through this, their activities.

In Edlington, the action group fought hard to keep itself financially independent and in Church Warsop, in Nottinghamshire, the women's group refused to let branch officials inspect its books. Control The mass turn-out of women from all over the coun try at the 12 May Barasley demonstration and the picket line arrests of Ann Scargill and other miners wives illustrate women s determination to make the strike win. Arthur Scargill told the Barnsley marchers that they were witnessing new phenomenon': 'our women are not just helping the men in the kitchen they're with the men on the picket lines". women have a lot But to - offer than enthusiasm for picketing Free from the influence of the NUM rule book, they have the potential to change the direction of the strike.

But the NUM leaders who now applaud women's mil itancy have excluded them from any role in the running of the strike on which their livelihoods depend. When miners challenge the bureaucracy's attempts to stifle women's creativity they will be step nearer to reclaiming their union for the rank and file. Fran Eden the next step, June 1984 5

Miners' strike not for political objectives.'

(Roy Hattersley, Weekend World, 29 April) Keeping politics out of the miners' strike has been the overriding concern of the Labour Party leadership.

spokesmen have insisted that the battle between the miners, the Coal Board and the Government is nothing more than an ordinary trade union dispute.

disavowal of Labour's the political nature of the struggle only miners partially motivated by desire for electoral respecta- More important for bility. Labour's leaders, the strike long-estabthreatens labour lished division of between the Labour Party and the TUC. Division The Labour Party was set up by the trade union leaders the early years of the century to take politics out of the workplace and into The role of the Parliament. to deal trade unions was struggles economic over wages and conditions, and no more. For a party committed to maintaining the status quo this division of labour was the best means of keeping the working class out politics and the system out of trouble. Politics was to be the preserve of politicians, trade unionism the diet of the working class. The dilemma facing the Labour Party is that today this division becoming increasingly difficult to sushas tain. The recession brought class conflict into the Compelled to make ever more swingeing attacks on jobs and living the bosses have standards, had to resort to the police and the courts to force the working class into submission. In a battle which neither afford to lose, side can every trade union struggle threatens to raise broader political questions about the police, the law, the sysefficacy of tem, and traditional trade union methods. Labour's response to the miners' strike reflects this has the CrISIS within the official labour movement. Bad timing The miners' strike couldn't have come at a worse time for the Labour Party. Under Kinnock's leadership Neil Labour has been fighting to rebuild its shattered electoral base and project itself as a united, credible alternative to the Tories. On the eve of the May council elections Labour's deputy leader Roy Hattersley 6 the next step, June 1984 No politics, please *This argument, this battle, this strike, is not an ideological strike. It is not about revolution, the nature of society or overturning the government. The strike is about the coal industry. The strike is for industrial objectives and Labour miners" observed that the strike posed grave electoral dangers for the party. And The Times commented that *the group that stands to lose from sharper most politicisation of the dispute will be those who aspire to with lead a Labour Party pretensions to constitutionality' Too hot to handle In the early weeks of the Kinnock's tactics strike as little as were to say possible or ignore the strike altogether. The Labour leader rejected three opportunities for an Opposition Day session on the dispute and set his face against calls for an emergency debate in Parliament. Labour's silence on the ribald provoked matter from the media comments from striking and anger One Kent miner miners. warned Kinnock of a mu- "He's the captain of tiny': the ship but he doesn't give a toss about us, all he cares about is votes'. Labour MPs did When venture out of their cocoon to make minor forays into parliamentary debates, was only to call for conciliation or to the condemn violence and intimidation of mass pickets. In a debate on pit closures Labour's 12 spokesman Stanley energy with Tory Orme pleaded Peter secretary energy and Walker to intervene bring both sides together in meaningful discussion'.

Keep it legal distance the

AMOUS LO

party from any action that might alienate public opin- Labour leaders repeation, condemned violence, edly and intimidation earliest pickets. At the Labour home opportunity Gerald affairs spokeshlan Kaufman stuck the boot in the miners" flying against pickets. 'We condemn all ViOlence in all circumstances.

includes. violence That in pursuit of industrial disputes, even when it occurs who feel people impotent in the face of the destruction of their jobs.'

At a speech to the Scottish

TUC,

apparently "support" ot the miners. Kinnock began by pressing for an initiative to end the echoing right-wing strike, Terry union bureaucrat Thatcher Duffy's call for to intervene and bring both sides together. He emphas ised that the trade movement had never *sought, adopted or encouraged the use of intimidation, and denounced picket line violence and illegal action.

On the fence By early April, the Labour Party was coming under increasing pressure to get off the fence and say where it stood on the miners strike.

repeatedly under- Kinnock mined attempts by Labour press for an left wingers to debate in Parlemergency iament. Kinnock eventually by solved his predicament announcing a 'safe subject for debate-the erosion the civil liberties through extension of police powers.

Even then, Labour leaders terrified that they

WOES

would be unable to restrict the debate to this congenial territory. mobilise Rather than labour movement resistance to the state offensive against Labour the miners, the debate Party preferred to of civil the infringement it implied. liberties that But it still refused to take sides with the miners against the bosses and the state.

But even Kinnock's lukeutterances were too right much for Labour wingers such as Peter Shore and Gerald Kaufman, who disapproved of his clearly 'support' for the strike.

While the Labour leaderbets, the ship hedged Labour left refused to challenge the party line-or lack of it. Asked what he thought about the party's disappearing act every time it was confronted with the strike, Tony Benn backed Kinnock to the hilt: I am concerned to do the job that I was elected to do and not to criticise others.

If solidarity is the order of the day, it means solidarity with the party as a whole and its elected leadership.

It is vital that nothing that is said or done now Labour should weaken the alternative to Thatcher.

Crisis The increasingly bitter character of the miners' strike (Yorkshire miner, Armthorpe, 27 April) has thrown the crisis of the official labour movement After into sharp reliet. months of prenearly two tending that the strike wasn't happening the Labourleadership was forced to take it more seriously. TUC's inability to The play any role in the dispute and the increasing fragmentation of the miners union compelled the Labour Party to step in as a surrogate for the national trade union The Labour bureaucracy. leaders dreaded the consequences of the break-up of the miners' union - a bastion of Labour Party support for more than 70 years - more than it feared the odium of the media. No matter how much the Labour leadership might loathe Arthur Scargill, cannot afford to stand it back and watch the disintegration of the official labour movement. In late April the Labour voted in executive Party favour of a weekly levy of constituency party members in support of the miners; a Building support for the miners was a central feat- RCP's local of the election campaigns in Ashunder Lyne and ton Bradford Hallsworth, who Dave candthe

RCP

stood as Ashton idate in General Election. year's contested a seat on the council in St Peters ward and won 135 votes. He visited strikers the local Moorlights fac from with miners tory Hatfield in Yorkshire and factory gate organised Ferat Massey meetings guson in Trafford Park. The RCP election team doorstep cancombined on working class vassing estates with food collections for the miners. The election campaign opportunity gave us to press our demand for workers' unemployed centre, funded by council and by the unemployed. agreed to the Having years centre nearly the council ago, IS Sull "looking for sites'. Labour council leader Roy Old. ham told us 'it's no good about complaining Speaking no evil: tight-lipped Hattersley fears backing the strike will cost Labour votes "It is political. It's not just to shut the pits down — it's to defeat the working class as well, that's why it's so important to the Government. That's why they'll do every thing in their power to see we don't win."

resolution, but paper gesture nevertheless. Prominent Labour Party spokesbecame less guarded men about commenting on the dispute. Gestures At the same time, the Labour left began to devote more resources to the strike.

The left's community activists got involved in collect lopment.

and food and ing helping out at miners' welclubs. Their token fare of solidarity were gestures designed to restore some of lost credibility with rank and file miners.

sudden switch Labour's stubborn silence to from restrained support indicated a desire to back the miners without offending the middle As Roy class electorate. Hattersley pointed out in a debate. Labour's television rhetorical commitment the working class should not be taken at face value: None of us should have rhetoric against

OLI

us... I mean, speeches to Election success at Ashton: RCP won four per cent of the vote delay'. We will be com. plaining, however, in July in a demonstration outside Hall with the the Town local unemployed.

RCP

McEvoy, Eileen candidate in Wibsey, Bradford, got 90 votes. We held gate meetings tactory Metal Box Renolds and for the and raised

LEUC

Yorkshire miners for We also arranged visit striking miners Bradford's the nurses hospital, View

HOTHES

which is threatened with closure, and for the nurses to go to the miners' rally in Sheffield. the mass audiences are not like Dead Sea Scrolls that you analyse word by word. Opportunities For the Labour Party the politicisation of trade union disputes is something to be feared and fought against.

Revolutionary For the Communist Party, welcome and positive deve- The scale of the capitalist offensive means that today mundane even most struggle over wages and concannot be resolved ditions the bosses' expense by traditional trade union methods This means that workers are looking for answers that Party and the the trade union leaders cannot them, and are more give open to political alternatives.

that the And means potential for developing a coherent working class rethan sponse stronger ever before. Nasreen Khan

HEATERE

ROPE

We demanded free allday nursery provision on the •massive Buttershaw and a lively camp. aign is now under way And we argued that workers must oppose attempts to fuel a climate of anti immigrant hysteria by de- Bradford Asians' fending right to eat Halal meat. and Brad- Ashton In ford workers were keen the miners' discuss and the other polstrike And 225 of itical issues. they them showed that preferred revolutionary politics to the tired argu ments of the Labour Party.

Top US gangster in London (and a French one, and an Italian one, and a British one...)

This month, Ronald Reagan is in town for the West's annual economic summit. Reagan's visit has provoked protests from opponents of his bloody wars in Central America and the Middle East. But he is only one of the seven imperialist pirates who will sit down in London to discuss the division of the booty of the Third World.

friction between the European powers and America in the run-up to the summit. • Trade: shrinking world markets and industrial collapse have sparked fierce competition and prompted moves towards protectionism in every Western capital..

dustry are pending in Congress. Current tensions over transatlantic trade centre on subnew technology and sidies to old steel and agricultural sectors. • Finance: the Third World debt crisis tops the summit agenda. European

BOW CI

rail against America's high interest rates, which threaten the stability of Western banking by pushing Third World debtors towards default, and deprive ment-starved Europe of capital by Contiattracting nental to Us hanks. Castl 'You don't print money any was more vou import it former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt's attack on American statesmen earlier this year. The near-collapse of the Continental Illinois bank of Chicago last month did nothing to re- For CND, Ronnie Raygun's" Cruise missiles are the gravest threat to peace The and in Il1e Billain. peace movement has prothe mised biggest civil disobedience protest since the sixties' when Reagan is in London on 9 June.

CND

long argued that British imperialism should get rid of nukes and stick to conventional defence. The rise of Emer- Technology systems gent has convinced CND leaders that it is now practicable to dump nuclear weapons and still defend Britain.

A recent CND brochure extolled the virtues of non- War East Timor/Indonesia Philippines Iran/Traq Lebanon El Salvador Chad Namibia Ireland Malvinas fight want peace, Street. Just how to divide that booty has caused considerable More than 100 legal controls to protect American inlieve these tensions. European capitalists are Reagan's also at unitary taxation, which impedes their attempts to set up shop in the USA. • Detence: economic competition spilling

OYCE

into military matters. Reag an has tried to stop European hi-tech sales to East Europe because they could aid the Soviet defence buildup. Tearing Conflict over America's role as the West's military policeman has prompted calls for independent Continental cooperation on rearmament - "Eurodefence'.

Dormant defence bodies like the Western Buropean Euro- Union Nato'S an a group have re-emerged. CND and ET nuclear defence by calling on Britain to refuse Cruise' in favour of a computerised fire barrier in Central Europe. This enthusiasm for conventional weaponry is not confined to CND. Imperialists-from all Western powers-have always used them to press their way around the Since CND started world. in the fifties, nobody has been killed in a nuclear hundreds war. of thousands have died In imperialist-backed wars fought with cruder versions of the conventional weapons CND now applauds. Some of the West's wars (From the start of CND to 1983) Deaths 250 000 100 000 100 000 000 000 30 20 000 8000 2 200 1800 Some of these wars have been raging almost since CND began. All of them are still going on. If you against today's wars-whether they're sponsored from the White House or Downing Emergent technology EI is a bone of contention between Europe and America. As a sophisticated system of ET is an attractive onry, alternative to nuclear ar- But, as The Economour. mist noted, Nato's headache is how to 'get the new equipment into the field without tearing itself apart.

The for Europe snag is Washington's control over ET. Mitterrand of France, Kohl of West Germany and Thatcher of Britain don't like the idea of spending $10-$30 billion tooling up Europe with American hardware. They are pushing hard to open up a two-way transatlantic arms trade. about mili-

HITSUCELS

tary technology reached a head May over plans In for a Nato frigate to be built by all member coun tries. The Pentagon produced a list of last-minute qualifications to safeguard America's 'intellectual property' while allowing the US defence department access to Europe's technical knowhow. The American conditions were withdrawn after a barof European protest rage indicated that Continental imperialists were no longer willing to accept Washington's dictat. *Three years Europeans would ago, the have accepted (the qualifwithout a murmoaned one US ofmur, but there is a very ficial, different spirit now. Clash Europe's 'very different spirit' towards America medifrely reflects the very ferent world the imperialists control are eighties: a world in. the The gang's all here: imperialist bosses are in London to share out the loot wracked by recession where the survival of one capitalist power depends on the defeat of another The debates dividing Socialist Mitterrand, Tory Thatcher and Republican Reagan at the summit are not about "socialism vs imperialism' or vs evil'. The questgood the is only whether ion policeman of Third World countries is to be a Washa Paris ington cop, darme or a London bobby. Upstarts Europe and America are divided over who gets the biggest share of the take, their deterbut united in mination to keep the Third World under imperialist domination. Britain is as keen as anybody to meet the challenges facing imperialism to- Last month's defence day. White Paper set a budget of £17 billion - the biggest per capita arms bill in Western And Thatcher will Europe. be pushing an international anti-terrorist code - directed against Third World up- - at the 'economic starts summit. Thieves As economic and political competition among Western sharper, powers becomes the road from the summit downhill towards the Third World War. But it is a road the imperialists will travel together. Western politician Every Ronald is a warmonger. Reagan only the most rapacious because he has the lose. Our job is most not to differentiate among the gang of thieves ass- London this embled 1n month, but to oppose them all. On 2 June PW Botha befirst South comes African premier to set foot in Britain since Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of Apartheid, came in 1961 to rally support against South Africa's expulsion from the Commonwealth. still South Africa is banned from the forums of world diplomacy. But Botha's visit to Thatcher is the latest step in the apart.

heid state's reintegration into the imperialist fold.

Trappings South Africa's ostracism from the international has always been a elin formal affair. It has not massive interfered with Western investments in industry and mining there.

nor with regular exchanges Western between ments and the apartheid regime. But today even the trappings of isolation - such as the sporting boycott are dispensable While Britain, Botha English rugby team takes the field in South Africa.

Intervention The West's new cordiality towards Pretoria has nothing to do with Thatcher and Reagan being racists (which they are) or Botha being a liberal (which he isnt). It is prompted by the effects of recession in Southern Africa, and South Africa's position as the continent's only imperialist power. underdeveloped The Imperialism Smash Apartheid of Southern economies Africa are torn by drought and stagnation. The poten tial for social upheaval is immense. The West needs a local policeman it can rely on to control the region. As one establishment journal ob 'regimes may fall, serves, intervention and be invited'. It made clear West is relying who the on to intervene: "South Africa is the only power in the area with the wealth and strength to prevent this process degenerating into starvation and civil war.'

Pretoria's recent successes in shooting and bullying its black neighbour states into subservience has encouraged Western imperialists to open their doors to Botha Liberation We condemn Botha's visit London give full and backing to the liberation struggles in Southern Afri ca. Thatcher's warming rel ations with the Pretoria re.

gime indicate that British imperialism is a vital Western prop on which apartheid terror rests. Building an anti-imperialist move. ment in Britain would be a mighty contribution towards liberation in Africa.

As the imperialist club unites to maintain oppres sion, so the international proletariat must unite against it. Together, work ers in the West and the struggling African masses smash the apartheid Call State the next step, June 1984 7

The cause of Labour Ireland On 3 May the Labour Party swept the Tories out of office in Birmingham. The very next day the new Labour council tried to sweep the Irish Freedom Movement off the city's Newly elected streets. Knowles withdrew council facilities for the Irish. Freedom Movement's 5 May commemoration of the death of Bobby Sands (see box). "a pity that, in a clash between such 'undesirable elements, there might be damage to the statue of Joseph Chamberlain, and might be possible contamination of water in the fountain. The real motivation for Labour's attempted ban had little to do with the prospect of grubby fascists being dunked in the fountain. or of swastikas being scratched on the monument to a nineteenth century British imp- Knowles* erialist. concern was to defend the British imperialists of the eighties insulate Birmingham and from the message of Irish freedom. For once. Labour's right wing was taking a lead from the left. Back in January radical Labour counci leader and party executive member David Blunkett had banned the annual Bloody Sunday commemoration march in Sheffield. Blunkett too blamed fascists for the ban. But his action was a response to hysteria whipped up around the IRA bomb at Harrods before Christmas. and the refusal of local Sinn Fein Moveand Irish Freedom ment supporters to comply with his demand to con- Three years after Bobby Sandsdied on hunger-strike, the 5 May anniversary of his death was marked by protests throughout Britain and Ireland. In Lurgan, County Armagh, a crowd of local nationalists stormed the RUstation. And and Birmingincondon crowds of local Irish Freedom Movement supporters confronted and police harassment state bans. London: an IFM motorwith flags cade тестостее huge. of

DICTUCS

Bobby Sands raced from Brixton in the Soutn Kilburn the north, taking the case for Irish 8 the next step, June 1984 -or the cause of Ireland? Labour leader Dick Knowles used the threatened National Front counteran excuse for his ban. He thought it demn this outrage Strange At first sight see ms strange that Labour'sattacks anti--imperialists are OH coming at a time when the party, through the Labour Committee on Ireland, is at the toretront ot what remains of the left's Irish solidarity movement. Stranger still. left-wing solidarity activists have eft ectively backed the bans. The same people who herald the advance of the LCI also uphold Labour s assault on supporters of Irish freedom.

When the Irish Freedom Movement launched a campaign against Blunkett's atdemocratic rights. tack on the committee of the Troops Out Movement wrote to assure him of their •We support. accept and share" affirmed TOM's national leaders. your criticisms of the Revolutionary Communist Party and Irish Freedom Movement their conduct around this demonstration' 'However, they pointed out, the public IFM action freedom in speeches, and papers leaflets hundreds Saturday shoppers. Despite police harassment throughout our driver was locked in a police interrogated and breathalysed in Camden Town) the motorcade won support wherever stopped. Birmingham: our Bobby Sands commemoration was threatened with being banned by the new Labour attacked by council and But our protest rally and march into the ahead. city centre went Labour boss Dick Knowles suggested hold our We in Lands had the at large seen ban 'as a denial of the right of people to commemorate Bloody the events of Sunday" TOM advised Blunkett to 'circulate' his position to 'relevant organisations. Shortly afterwards, the Labour Committee on Treland gave up two pages of its paper to allow Biunkett to set forth his reasons for the Bloody Sunday ban. Cover Both TOM, and the LCI have accepted Labour Party bans on Irish solidarity The same une do uncy dr stepping up their own act This apparivity on Ireland. reflects ent contradiction the two sides of Labour's approach to the Irish War today. the Irish War nears As the end of its fifteenth year the British establishment is increasingly keen to stamp out all opposition in Ireland British terror and at home. has been stepped up in the and the 'tem- Six Counties, provisions of the porary Prevention of Terrorism Act made permanent to further these ends. Labour Party bureaucrats have accepted the dictates of the establishment. They have acquiesced to repression in the Six Counties and cracked down on opposition in their localities. But such behaviour undemocratic them vulnerable leaves to End. Irish Freedom Movement speakers promised Knowles

WCEC

Birmingham to stay. Manchester IFM supportoured Ashton and LeTS Oldham with labour moveand ment speakers, were held throughtests Yorkshire. Now the

OUL

struggle moves on to the 29 May protest at Lambeth when Magistrates prisoners Quigley and Paul Kavanagh Nalton (Trinity trial, and are put on Sinn Fein's 3 June picket of Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight. Three years after Bobby Sands' death, the fight for the rights of Irish POWs continues. attack. To cover its flank, the Labour Party has allowed the LCI to take on a more active public role. It has been able to do so because the Irish solidarity activists who stood for Parliament Labour leaders in the seventies are now loyal party members. The party leadership and the LCI have established a working division of labour.

The LCI has been given some room to manoeuvre. In return, its leading members have concentrated their energies on casting Labour as a potentially valuable friend of Ireland Decline The Labour Committee, on Ireland claims to be the 'new face of Irish solidarity work in Britain. Yet it numbers lot of old faces among its leading members.

Virtually the entire leadership and activist core of the Troops Out Movement is now in the Labour Party Many members are local councillors or local party officials. In 10 years all that has changed is the name of the organisation TOM's merger with the Labour Party stems from the failure of its approach to solidarity work. TOM has been in decline almost from the moment it was formed Birmingham IFM remember Bobby Sands Ken Livingstone presumes to tell the Irish to give up their fight for freedom in the early seventies. Its demise was due to its fear of challenging public opinion and organising against the imperialist consensus that influences all sections of British society Rather than confront this consensus TOM looked for a way around it by appealing to middle ground' sentiments. TOM specialised in evading the cause of the war and sought support on marginal and dubious issues like the cost of the war to the British taxpayer, the erosion of civil liberties and the unnecessary use of vio- But as the lence. war es. calated, the search fora midground proved elusive die and TOM's support dwind- When led. the republican hunger-strike of 1981 polarin Britain,

SCOE

TOM all but shut up shop That same year the Labour left won a party coneventual Irish reunification The promise of 'freedom tomorrow' has a long tradition in the Labour Party It is a typically cynical ploy, given Labour's support for repression today. But it was enough to inspire the rump of TOM. Irish solidarity activists joined the Labour Party and the new Labour Committee on Ireland. Troops Out Move- The ment now eXIStS Oly On producing a littlepaper, 53 read bulletin (with All British subscribers). activity is channelled into the Labour Party, through the LCI. And its demands have been cooked up to suit the taste of its hosts in the labour bureaucracy. Block Motions to this year's LCI conference indicate how far to the right the old solidarity movement has moved.

The motions are grouped under two headings: organising to win the block votes, and deepening the dialogue' 'Organising to win the block votes' sums up the LI's attitude to solidarity work within the labour movement.

Labour left wingers regularly raise Ireland at union branches and trades councils.But their obsession with paper resolutions means that influbureaucrats encing takes priority over winning rank and file trade unionists to the cause of Irish It need not be freedom. said that the LCI does absolutely no work on the streets of British working class communities Aware that opposing British imperialism is not a popular idea British labour bureaucrats LCI's union lobbyists avoid the central issue of the war.

Removed The Labour left has organised a series of labour move ment conferences for tiny audiences of solidarity move ment and union leaders. Fach successive conference has been further removed from the reality of events in the Six Counties. When seven nationalist protestors were shot dead by bullets during the plastic hunger-strike of 1981, Labwas silent. Two years

OUL

later, in the middle of an RUC/British Army shoot-tokill campaign which murdered a dozen nationalists with lead bullets, the LCI held a conference-against plastic bullets. When the furore over Britain's use of supergrasses was at its height last year, Ken Tony Benn joined Livingstone on the platform of another conference to "speak out' against nothing in particular, and support 'peace through democracy

Little room for manoeuvre THINGS ARE HOTTING up inside the occupied Six Co- Two recent reports unces. - the Baker Review of the Emergency Provisions Act, and the New Ireland Forum report - point to the pressures that are turning the heat on British imperialism.

Sir George Baker's review of the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act a succinct summary of current British strategy.

Criminalisation Baker notes that the Government wants to end terrorist crime' through the "application of the law': "This some is called by the policy of criminalisation (horrible word). This

MCCLES

that terrorists are already criminals and will be treated as such regardless of their motives. They will not, for example, be prisoners of war as they would like.'

Baker prefers his jargon a trifle less vulgar, but his report endorsed the legal terror of criminalisation.

The EPA's powers summary arrest, no-jury Diplock courts, convictions on the word of supergrasses put hundreds of have republicans behind bars. iô In May, reputed republicans were sent down on the word of a supergrass: one, James Doherty, got 315 years and 10 life Mean while, sentences. the biggest supergrass trial to date got under way, starring self-styled INLA informer Harry Kirkpatrick. Baker's recommendation is for more of the same. Support While the EPA's 'conveyor belt" system of justice carries more republicans off the streets and into the H-Blocks, te noon that the Irish liberation struggle is a criminal conspiracy is being undermined by the growth in electoral support for Sinn Fein. Baker's report suggested Britain could put a stop to changing this by the law to emphasise Sinn So as 'IRA ter- Fein's links with rorism'. But Sinn Fein's This year the LCI's campaigns have reached new heights of absurdity. While the war intensifies (see above) the big issue for the left is opposing the manoeuvres of a handful of Stalinists who want Labour to set up shop in the Six Counties. Escape Labour left wingers admit that these talking shops are inadequate. But are a start. fact they are a barrier to effective solidarity work in labour movement. Paper initiatives around peripheral support in the nationalist ghettoes rests on precisely that link with the liberation

SELLEELC

No legal manoeuvre can reconcile the nationalist community with British oppression. Britain has to resort to overt repression in an effort to crush republican resistance. Baker Britain's concern to create the conditions in whichethe RUC no longer require the support of the Army in enforcing the law. To create these 'conditions' Britain must first smash the IRA.

The IRA's increased activity during recent months shows, however, that this goal further away than ever. Smouldering From mid-March to late April, Derry RUC logged more than 300 petrol bomb allacks on pollce in the city. Many involved the new "super job' petrol bombs glass sweet jars holding a gallon of fuel. These can instantly

RUC

or

COVE

army vehicles in flames, eating up oxygen and stal- The Cause of Labour (cont) issues provide an escape route for union bureaucrats.

'Our union doesn't need to support your campaign for "Troops out now" ' they can tell anti-imperialists, 'we're sponsoring the LCI conference against plastic bullets. Talking The LCI wants to deepen the dialogue' it has begun with Sinn Fein. Leading LCI figures like Ken Livingstone have met republicans in Belfast and brought Sinn Fein speakers to Britain. This has been hailed as a great Keeping it hot in Derry: nationalist resistance drives British imperialism into a corner ling engines. On 8 May the IRA in Derry used their new missiles to attack two British Army Their landrovers. smouldering occupants were forced into the line of sniper fire. Private Neil Clarke was shot the third Brit killed by the IRA this year.

At the end of March, military police sergeant David Ross was blown up bomb as he by a 2001b drove round the outskirts of Derry. month later A a similar attack backfired.

Richard

IRA

Quigley was killed by a concrete block thrown 60 yards by the bomb he had detonated next to two. British Army jeeps in Foyle Street, Derry. Quigley was the fourth volunteer to be killed in action since January. Away from Derry, the IRA killed three members of the security forces two Regiment Ulster Defence men in County Tyrone and a Territorial Army officer in Newry, County Down within the space of five days at the beginning of May.

advance for the solidarity movement. But dialogue' in itself is neither a good nor a bad thing. What counts is the of their content conversations with Sinn Fein. In its meetings with Sinn Fein the LCI has condemned the national liberation struggle and advised republicans to give up their guns in return for negotiations. The LCI wants the republican movement to concentrate on electioneering and 'community politics. Livingstone Ken even claims that Sinn Fein has "developed a full programme of social reform akin to that

SKIA

Days later, on 18 May, massive explosions killed two RUC men near Camlough County Armagh, and two Ennis- British soldiers at killen, County Fermanagh Inescapable The IRA's continuing fight for freedom made Sir George Baker's endorsement of

EPA

a foregone the conclusion. The continuation of the war, Baker explained, had driven him to the sad but inescapable conclusion' that the incidence of terrorist that there

SUCI

little for LOOm Masoeuvre'. 'Little room for manoeuvre' neatly characteris- Britain's problem in Ireland today. The New Treland Forum, the latest attempt to find a negotiated political solution to the war, Cosmetic The Forum began as the establishment Catholic parties' response to the rise of Sinn Fein in the North It was an attempt to come of the British Labour Party.

Far from changing Labour into an anti-imperialist party, the LCI is trying to convert a national liberation movement to Labour's pro-imperialist traditions. Fear The LI's acquiescence to attacks on anti-imperialists is the flipside of its loyalty to Labour. In his recent interview with the LCI about the Sheffield Bloody Sunday ban, David Blunkett summed up Labour's worries about the Irish war: My view of the situation was affected by my concerns about the Irish Freedom Movement. I think they use the issue of Ireland to pursue their avowed aim of smashing the Labour Party? What really worries Blunkett Freedom is not the Irish up with a cosmetic initiative to restore credibility to the Social Democratic and Labour Party's constitutional nationalism in the Six Counties The Forum report warned that constitutional politics were on trial in Ireland: 'a unless framework' for the SDLP could be found, 'more extensive civil conflict was inevitable.

The report put forward three for this framework: a unitary Irish state, a federal Ireland, and a scheme for joint authority over the North between Dublin and London. nationalists Southern rhetorical insistence that the unitary state was the Forum's preferred option brought predictable howls of condemnation from British and Loyalist spokesmen, who made clear that British rule was not negolable More sensitive elements of the British and Loyalist establishments noted positive developments in the report. The Irish parties had • conceded that unity could only come with Loy- Movement, but the Irish liberation struggle's potential for exposing the hypocrisy of his party. The IFM's 'avowed aim' is to win support for the Irish people's fight against the The Labour British state. Party's avowed aim' is to defend the state on which its plans to govern Britain depend. That's why bureaucrats like Blunkett hate Irish freedom fighters and cannot stomach anti-imperialist movements on their door- Having made their step. peace with Labour, the Irish solidarity activists of yesteryear have to go along with its bans and proscriptions on anti-war activity. Demands The LCI's pretensions to be the leading force for Irish solidarity Britain are groundless. The tired clique Ireland alist consent - ie never. And alongside half-baked ideas about joint tourist boards, the plan for joint authority proposed increas ed cooperation with Britain on security. This is the only sort of joint operation which interests Westminster.

The cooperation Britain already enjoys from the South in its war against the republican movement was illustrated last month, in revelations about

SAS

assassins operating the Twenty-six Counties during the seventies. More of the same is likely to be top of the agenda Margaret

TOI

Thatcher's proposed talks with Irish premier Garret FitzGerald this summer. Winning the war against the IRA is the only solution they have to discuss. War There can be no negotiated political solution to the conflict in the Six Counties.

The Daily Telegraph's John O'Sullivan recently put all the hot air about the Forum's political solutions perspective. British policy, divided into he noted two parts. The 'formal public policy is the search for a negotiated compromise. This cannot be found: 'parties with directly opposed views on the very existence of the state cannot share power. "The real British policy' O'Sullivan continued, 'emerges by default. *The everyday business of governing' continues: A factory here needs a subsidy; a new road is demanded in this district; the Army is asking for a new form of antiriot gear. Ministers take these decisions almost automatically.

While the talking shops the British and go. COnC state machine gets on with the job of running its war in the Six Counties. That is the division of labour between the New Ireland Forum and Sir George Baker. After almost 15 years of the Irish War, the British state has no room to do anything else Eddie Veale of TOM members at its core has given the basic demands of a movement for Irish freedom. The woolly motions on 'eventual British withdrawal' which they put to Labour conferences never raise the demand for 'Troops out now. And the negotiated British solution they propose through 'deepening the dialogue' with Sinn Fein goes against the anti-imperialist call for Self-determination for the Irish people. For us the demands "Troops out now' and 'Selfdetermination for the Irish people' are not negotiable.

We will carry that message to where it counts-among rank and file workers. And as in Sheffield and Birmingham, we will not allow Labour politicians to drive anti-imp.

erialists off the streets.

Mick Hume the next step, June 1984 9

Women ATITSANNUAL conference in mid-May the National Union of Public Employees v ted for national industrial acuon to support the strike 90 women cleaners at by Barking Hospital in East London. yet in the same breath as he approved this Nupe's strategy. assistant general secretary Ron Keating admitted the difficul ties of putting our action where our mouth is. Keating wasn't exagger- Nupe would like to use the Barking strike as a showpiece to tout its defence of its women wOrkers. But the union leaders know that they cannot deliver the goods. Front line Nupe has 700 000 members — two thirds are women and half are partare hospital timers. Most ancillary workers, cleaners.

catering staff and council manual workers in the front line of the attack on the public sector. Women make up 85 per cent or 3.5m of Britain's army of part-time workers.

growth The in part-time work was the main cause of expanding job opportunities mainly in the - for women in the seventies. Today. 40 percent of all female employees work part-time low-paid. women-only jobs. But even these limited opportunities supplement tor women to their family income are now being drastically curbed.

Across the country, public sector employers are tearing up of employment and national Thousands agreements. women workers are being given ultimatums to accept cuts in hours and pay or get the sack. Under pressure Nupe is under pressure to resist this offensive as its membership is being decimated. But the union leaders are more concerned to protect their relationship with the employers and the state, and to preserve their conand negotiating machinery, than to defend their members interests. Behind all the rhetoric about fighting private contractors at the Nupe conference in May. the union bureaucrats set out to sab.

otage rank and file action against privatisation. A motion calling for a campaign against privatisation opposed w ds. by the union leaders. And so was a resolution demanding a TUC boycott of all 10 the next step, June 1984 Nupe support All mouth, no action Government consultation bodies. including the National Economic Development Council. The Nupe bound up are so with the state that they cannot contemplate severing links with its machinery of collaboration. To cover their backs. the union bureaucrats made exabout their failure authorise industrial LU action. The national officials stressed the problems involved in persuading their to support meaners Hos- Barkıng pital. They blamed other public sector unions Cohse and the GMBATU for obstructing campaigns against privatisation. Nupe bureaucrats blame their members unions for their own failure to give a lead. In reality, the union leaders are too tied the state closely to lead a fight for jobs against it. Disastrous. The union leaders reliance on the state means that they to the look courts and other mediating institutions, not to the rank and tie to defend jobs and conditions. strategy has had This disastrous consequences tor women workers in the public sector as several recent disputes involving school dinner ladies in Birmingham.

Hertfordshire and East Sussex indicate. From 1979 to 1983 part-time jobs for school dinner ladies fell by more than 11 per cent and fulltime jobs by more than 55 Now local per authority employers are moving in for the kill: 5500 staff • Birmingham: were sacked and offered new contracts involving cuts in pay and hours, abolition of holiday retainer (half durung holidays), Day abolition of laundry allowance and free dinner. Union High Court action in March blocked the council pending judicial review. mid. April, the courts ruled that the council acted unconstitutionally but said that it could reintroduce the cuts following the scheme by correct legal procedures.

• Hertfordshire: from March 1976 to September 1983 4000 the council slashed March 1984 the jobs. In counci offered new contracts to 4100 staff involving a 17 per cent cut in pay, reduction in hours and elimination of holiday retainer Staff were given until 6 April to contracts. accept the The unions applied for a On 16 judicial review. April the High Court ruled that the council had every right to reduce wages and change conditions of work to make economies. • East Sussex: in March the council decided to dismiss its 1800 school meals staff and offer them contracts involving a 20 per cent wage cut and inferior terms. Nupe again applied for a judicial review and again the decided in the COuL council's favour. • Somerset: the council abolished the retaining tee The staff's appeal to an industrial tribunal was successful. • Merton: 350 staff were sacked in spring 1983. Pri- Sutcliffe YaLe COLLaCLO! Catering took on 240. The unions strategy of defending jobs and pay through appealing to the courts was doomed to fail- The ure from the start. not likely judges were grant something which the unions were not prepared to fight for themselves. the Nupe But

GMBATU

bureaucrats haven't given up yet. They now considering the possibility of an appeal or referring individual cases to industrial tribunals claiming unfair dismissal. Meanwhile,

GMBATU

members East Sussex have been advised to sign the new contracts. And the union side of the National Joint Council is trying - through committee room to challenge broceeures local authorities which breach the National Joint Council Agreement. The are more concerned to preserve the national negotiating machinery and stop coun cils abrogating national agreements man to organise workers against the cuts.

Showpiece motions such as the conference decision to back the Barking women, and legal bluster about 'unreasonable behaviour" cannot defend women workers' jobs. The only way that the women at Barking hospital dinner ladies and school nationwide can secure their jobs is by organising solidarity action from their fell- Nupe and

GMBATU

members and from workers in other unions. Instead of the state to relying on women's jobs and protect conditions we have to rely workers' strength to defend them against the state's oftensive. Claire Gilmour and Debbie Palmer "Glasgow's miles better say the grinning bubble men on hoardings all advertising over Glasgow and London For women in need of an Glasgow's miles abortion, rotten bloc of the church, the state and the medical profession makes Scotland in general and Glasgow in particular - an abortion-tree zone • More than 1000 Scottish women were forced to travel south to expensive English abortion agencies last year for want of facilities in Scotland • Glasgow's well-equipped Western Infirmary refuses to consider abortions because of its consultants' prejudices • Anti-abortion agencies in Glasgow been have given parastatal status with support from local councils and government bodies • Leading Party Labour figures are prominent campaigners against abortion.

Top consultants in the West of Scotland are renowned for their anti-abortion attitudes. While NHS hos- Glasgow's pitals such Western Infirmary won't touch abortions, all of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service's cases are referred south to England. These prejudices are selfmedical perpetuating in where doctors' careers depend on echoing opinions. Innocents Bigoted opposition to aborconfined tion to doctors. A broad consensus covers almost every section Scottish establishthe Anti-abortion agencies such as Life and Spuc have public offices in Glasgow Alongside these well-known campaigns, the Society of Innocents the (Glasgow) pursues an insidious war agallist abortion The Innocents use religion to support their campaign against women's rights.

Abortion in Scotland Family christening group? No, underground anti-abortion cell in Scotland Innocents abroad With messages of goodwill from the Pope, they have interdenominset up an ational pro-life cell movement. This is essentially an underground network of anti-abortion agents. The Innocents claim more than 150 operating cells. Teenagers have been recruitof ed into cells in scores schools in the West of Scot- Members land. are given responsibility for 'keeping a sensitive watch for any preg nant woman, married or single who may be in need of pro-life cell support. Cells follow press women to through unwanted pregnancy to birth rather than have an abortion. Intrigue The Innocents" efforts to police women's lives are not only supported by the government of the Vatican City Labour Party - controlled Regional and Strathclyde Glasgow District councils and the Manpower Services all -provide Commission, for the Society, effectively backing its antiabortion intrigue The Labour Party Lord Provost Dr of Glasgow, Michael Kelly, is the man who instigated the *Glasgow's miles better' campaign to give the city's tarnished image a new gloss and attract investors to Glasgow. Anoth of Dr Kelly's pet projects is already plastered all Strathclyde public transport: advertisements for the Society of the Innocents. While indivprominent , are a it forefront of the anti-abort- Labour as a ion campaign, party has tried to dismiss the issue of abortion in Scot.

land as 'divisive". Strath clyde regional Labour coun cillor Katherine Adams summed up the party's fears: The Labour Party of course take been able to because of strong stand either Labour cannot 'take a stand" in defence of abortion rights for fear of alienating reactionary sections of its support. Unity Revolutionary communists Glasgow have no such fears. fighting for For us. every woman's right to free abortion on demand is not divisive. It is vital if we are lay the basis for real working class unity, by giv ing women the chance to get involved in the movemeni instead of being tied to the home The anti-abortion sensus in Glasgow endorses mothers Reactionary prejudices Scottish which tie workers to the church and state off.

ensive against women's rights can only benefit the estab ishment, preparing the way for further cuts in women's jobs and health facilities.

Revolutionary communists have begun to challenge this consensus by campaignabortion ing for free demand. We have organised lobbies Labour council to of the demand an end to its sup port for anti-abortion agencies, and support for extending abortion facilities. And we are fighting against the medical profession's veto on abortion in the West of Scotland. On 5 May, we organised a lively counter-demonstration to a Life march through Glasgow. We will continue campaign agalnst thos who use religious bigotry to justify women's oppression No bishop, doctor or Labour councillor has the right to dictate how working class women organise their lives When Scottish workers take fight for abortion up rights, we will be closer to building a movement which campaigns for workers right control how we live That's the way to make Glasgow miles better for all of us.

Jenny Graham and Kerry Dean

A few home truths Internationalism W e are witnessing some of the working most significant class struggles in more than The miners' strike a decade. in Britain, the occupation of Citroen factories by French carworkers, and the strike and lock out of German metalindicate the international workers dimensions of the present upheaval.

country after country hundreds of thousands of workers are prepared to Yet resist the employers offensive.

to fight despite this determination back, unless the conduct and leadership of these struggles change the workers involved will be defeated.

In every instance the strike movement has been monopolised by union leaders cannot or will not take the measures necessary to win (see pages 4-7 and 12-13).

Nowhere is this clearer than in the miners strike. It is always unpopular to criticise and sow doubt about the likely outcome in But to ignore real the midst of a struggle. problems would be to evade responsibility As matters for the future of our class.

stand at present, we are faced with a miners' strike that could go on for a considerable period of time, but one that cannot be won by its existing leadership with its existing strategy. It is clear that such an outcome would not only represent a crushing blow to the miners - it would also have a devastating impact on the entire British working class.

plainly is not to be defeatist but to face facts as they are, and not as we would This is particularly like them to be. important now - for it is still possible to alter the course of the strike and avoid de Cal. he ruling class is prepared to sit T this one out for as long as is By turning the screw Crosal y. the establishment hopes that the of striking gradual impoverishment miners will take its toll. By building up and intensifying police operations and victimising militants, the bosses hope to demoralise the pickets and deter anybody else from supporting the action.

this is going on, the Government can sit back and pontificate about its non- The Tories involvement in the dispute.

plan to keep a low profile and not to initiate any negotiations until they are sure that significant groups of miners are hungry, demoralised and vulnerable. In the meantime, MacGregor has been nternationalism is a word often used but a principle rarely honoured by the official labour movement. Yet our discussion of the European working class highlights basic similarities between class relations on the Continent and in Britain. Whether at home or abroad, the struggles of our class have been hijacked by union bureaucrats whose interests are at variance with those of the rank and file. Many of the struggles taking place are being manipulated to strengthen the prestige of the fat cats in the union bureaucracy. At Citroen in France, the communist union leaders have organised a strike and occupation to improve their bargaining position at the expense of other union the assigned the task of probing for weak spots. He is trying to appeal to local and regional differences, make deals here and there, and set one group of miners against another.. The bosses have made all the running.

Instead of building political support for the miners, the Labour Party has cast itself in the role of honest broker. Stan In Orme and Neil Kinnock have been discussing with Scargill and MacGregor to see if there is any common ground for negotiations. front bench has been appealing to Thatcher to preside over negotiations Asking Thatcher to mediate in the dispute is like asking the general of an opposing army to see the point of view of both who sides in a war. to play this 'disinterested' mediating role, but Thatcher has made clear where she stands. The miners do not need mediators.

They need 100 per cent support from the labour movement. However, matters go much further. labour movement are not simply unreliable 'friends' Their search for compromises and mediation, best illustrated by Kinnock's agenda for negotiation, represents the open road of betrayal.

Negotiations under present conditions with coal moving relatively freely and more than 40 pits working mean that miners would be negotiating from a position of weakness. To speak It isessentialthat minersreject Labour's attempts to open sell-out talks between the NUM and the Coal Board.

should tell Kinnock and the rest in no uncertain terms what is expected of a party that miners have helped finance for decades: not fence-sitting but full support - in deeds, not words. Since labour movement leaders cannot be trusted, the miners must appeal to other sections of the working class This is crucial to carry the directly. struggle forward. The fiascos at Ravenscraig and Port Talbot show that behindthe-scenes negotiations between union officials lead only to stalling and facesaving compromises. In terms of closing While down industry and making the miners strike bite, these deals have been 100 per

COUSCIOOD

he miners strike has lost its T momentum. become more difficult to win federations. What is despicable is the union leaders' use of immigrant workers for their sordid ends. Immigrant workers are the militant section of the French working class. Despite racist attacks and a Government-sponsored deport them, immigrant workers have fought back time and again. At Citroen the union leaders are using immigrant workers as strike-fodder. Less than a day after the strike began, union officials indicated that they were prepared to compromise. Far from wanting to defend immigrant workers, many union leaders accept repatriation as a solution to their problems — so long as they get better financial compensation. next step the labour movement. been lost. want the miners to win. has to be mobilised. The rest of the Labour industries for practical support.

Labour leaders may want them. miners must not be given up.

The leaders of the official working victory prospect. the mass of his members. Miners D not be ignored. As a result it has attitude to the strike. the support of other sections of

SO SU

to After almost three months the initial wave of support has subsided and much enthusiasm has Under the influence of their own leaders, workers who at first wanted to do something positive have been pushed to the sidelines as passive observers.

Hundreds of thousands of workers still But this support dispute. The only people who can activate the tremendous potential that still exists for winning new allies are the miners themselves. It is essential that delegations of miners visit rail, transport and power workers to address them directly. It is necessary to bypass the rules and approach activists in other The divisions among miners have become more entrenched. Many strikers the strike. have now given up hope of getting the Nottinghamshire miners out, and argue dinners. that the struggle must continue without But the fight to win the Notts Whether we sixth week like it or not, as long as 40 pits are becomes a remote well happen. The NUM leadership made a grave mistake by backing away from a national ballot at the outset of the strike. Scargill's refusal to consult the rank and file showed that he lacked confidence in the cause of the miners, and in his ability to convince Rather than organising a campaign to win the support of the Notts miners, Scargill simply wrote them off. The tragedy is that in the early stages of the strike a ballot could have been won - and the strike could have received considerable support from Notts.

uring the first six weeks of the strike, the RCP argued vehemently for a campaign to win a ballot for a national strike.

We argued that the Notts men were misguided and influenced by the most backward of leaders, but that they could Although there are many class traitors among the Notts NUM (not least in its leadership) the Notts miners cannot be dismissed simply as scabs.

Even today Notts miners at work are refusing to take on the lucrative extra work resulting from the strike and are keeping to the NUM's overtime ban.

The failure to mount a campaign in the Notts area means that those at work have become increasingly set in their Today, it is no This cynical betrayal comes at a time when black workers throughout Europe face racist attacks. In recent local elections in Rotterdam, a racist party demanding the repatriation of immigrants received 10 per cent of the votes and won eight seats. The European tour by the Sari Squad comes at just the right time. The racist offensive across Europe has to be fought on a Continent-wide basis. Antiracists and working class militants have to overcome their national parochialism and give top priority to fighting the growing attack on blacks and immigrant workers.

The struggle of the international working class is the theme of this year's Preparing for Power, a week-long public conference organised by the Revolutionary longer possible to win a ballot for an allout strike. The reason for this does not only lie with the Notts miners. The failure to close down all pits has prevented the strike from moving forward.

While the strike should have been closing down power stations in its second week, miners were still preoccupied trying to stop pits from working in the second month of the This drawn out conflict has strengthened the passivity and fear of those striking miners who are not involved in the picketing. Many strikers blame the Notts men for the existing state of affairs. But they should be blaming the NUM leadership Today the Notts leaders stand side by side with Scargill, yet only a few weeks ago they were doing their best to sabotage MeGahey has changed his mind about picketing Ravenscraig more often than Scottish pickets have had hot And Scargill himself only got directly involved in the dispute in its Scargill has promised that this strike could go on until December.

This may But a protracted strike lasting for months cannot benefit workers.

With every month strikers become more impoverished and more desperate to survive. The longer a dispute, the more it tends to lose its dynamism. That's why successful actions have always been ones where workers marshalled all their forces quickly and went for the kill, forcing the employers to give in. Long disputes like the 1926 miners' strike produce martyrs and victims - short strikes like the ones in 1972 and 1974 lead to victories.

We have one last chance to win. To do that miners have to escalate their action.

approach other groups of workers, and take control of the dispute themselves.

More effort must go into Nottinghamshire.

Many who are still at work will not be But there are swayed by arguments. those who will be and others who can at least be neutralised. This is the only way to minimise the influence of the hard core of scabs. The miners are no longer only fighting pit closures. They are also confronting the state - the police, the courts and At present these forces Parliament. represent a major threat to the strikers.

But by challenging the state, the struggle against that threat can become a focus for uniting wider sections of the working class and the oppressed. We have nothing to lose, and all to win Communist Party. This unique forum for getting educated and sharing practical experiences will bring together miners from Britain, anti-racists from Europe and activists from every sphere of struggle.

If you are tired of rhetoric, easy solutions, and evasions of unpleasant truths, but haven't got all the answers, you should be there too during the week 13-20 July (see page 23 for details).

Internationalism may be a familiar word. But it is an almost forgotten political outlook within the working class For revolutionary communists, , internationalism means fighting for the defeat of our own ruling class. Preparing for Power is a conference for everybody who wants to get into that tight.

the next step, June 1984 11

Continental class str sarustags Nati

1.MAI

DEUTSCHER GEWERKSCHAFTSBUND

Plant closures and police strike-breaking are not confined to Britain. Throughout Europe, employers have gone on the offensive against the working class. They have forced through austerity measures to restructure basic industries, throw millions of workers on to the dole and reduce real wages. Anti-working class laws have been passed to limit the right to strike and to weaken the unions.

Regions like the steel-producing area of Lorraine in France, the shipbuilding city of Bremen in Germany, and towns like Cadiz and Sagunto in Spain have been devastated in the process. But the working class has fought back - shopfloor militancy is on the increase and strikes have broken out in industries across the Continent. Frank Richards examines the different aspects of the class struggle and outlines the main problems facing European workers.

The extension of austerity measures has intensified a wave of working class protest throughout Europe: France There were more than 200 000 redundancies last year. It is expected that another 400 000 workers will lose their jobs by the end of taking the total number of jobless 1984 past 2.5m. Last year French workers faced a real cut in their wages. This year the Socialist government is trying to hold down pay settlements at five per cent. These policies have had a major impact on the unions. The

CGT

- the largest union federation - has lost about a third of its membership since 1975. Of those still in work only one in five Strikes have erupted throughout French industry during tae past taree

HOLLIES.

The most bitter dispute is in Lorraine. where 30 000 steelworkers face the prospect of unemployment. A one-day General Strike in Lorraine on 4 April was solid virtually every sector was shut down. Since then pitched fought battles have been between steelworkers and police. On 20 steelworkers barricaded the April main Ardennes and only dispersed highway in after police fired on them with tear gas.

In early May, mainly immigrant carworkers occupied Citroen factories in Aulnay-sous- Bois, Nanterre and Levallois in protest at proposed job losses. Public sector workers organised days of action during May.

Italy In Italy there are 2.4m unemployed - 10.2 per cent of the working population. Led by Socialist premier Bettino Craxi, the Government has turned the screw on the wor- The object of the attack is the King class. automatic wage-indexation system, which guarantees pay rises in line with inflation.

The Government's attempt to reduce these rises for a second time led to the largest proletarian demonstration in post-war Italy.

700 demonstrated in March against the Government's pay curb. A strong sense of anger and frustration is still prevalent on the shopfloor.

Spain In Spain 18 per cent of the workforce is unemployed 2 335 000 workers. The Socialist government has put the boot in hard against the working class. Prime Minstepped up repression ister Gonzales has 12 the next step, June 1984 D under the guise of new anti-terrorist laws.

Gonzales has used the state machine to in dispute. The capitalist attack workers class scored an important victory at the end of March at the INI state steel company in Sagunto, where a work-in against the closure of a blast furnace was defeated after 230 employees were sacked. In Madrid a strike of Metro workers was broken up by troops.

Yet Spanish workers are far from defeated. In the first quarter of this year there were three times as many strikes as during the same months of 1983. A one-day General Strike at Vigo in Galicia in February attracted over 300 000 supporters. On May Day workers stayed away from the Bilbao rally addressed by Prime Minister Gonzales.

More than 100 000 of them attended a rival parade in Madrid. Greece The Socialist government has pursued a vigorous austerity programme. Last year's curbs have been complemented by pay anti-strike legislation which makes Thatchmoderate. er's employment laws look With a rate of inflation above 20 per cent living standards are falling fast. Despite the Government's attempt to clamp down on rank and file militancy, workers, especially in the public sector, have struck back.

Led by those in the public sector, there have been more than 200 strikes since the beginning of the year. West Germany West Germany has one of the most domesticated trade union movements in Western Europe. But with 2 253 000 - or 9.5 per cent on the dole, thousands of former moderates are turning into militants. Rank and file pressure has forced the union leaders to A campaign for a 35-hour week org act. IG Metall, the metalworkers' has received widespread support. After months of token strikes, the printworkers struck in April. The violence used against the printers pickets in Stuttgart, Offenbach and Cologne only drew more for the strikers cause. metalsupport workers ballot for an all-out strike in May showed an overwhelming majority in favour of action. Unless it is sabotaged by the union this strike promises be bureaucrats. Germany's most bitter and protracted dispute for decades. The employers responded to the strike with a series of lock outs.

Arbeitsolatzgarar THE OUTCOME OF the present wave of working class protest is far from clear. Militants in Europe face formidable obstacles: • No combat organisations: The European working class has no political parties it can rely on to fight for its interests. This problem is not unique to the Continent. British miners have come to understand how little they can expect from Labour, the party to finance. European parties they help which have their base in the working class are often in the forefront of the employers Socialist presidents and offensive. ministers in France, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Greece boast of their realistic austerity The communist parties are not much better. They often vow to resist the attacks. But their opposition is restricted to declarations, carefully couched so as not to rock the boat. Even this facade of militancy won't work for the French Communist Party (PCF) while it remains the junior partner in the Socialist Party-dominated coalition government. The absence of working class parties that are prepared to fight creates immense problems for militants. It means that groups of strikers are often left to their own devices and threatened with isolation. The end result is that protest action is never transformed into a clear political strategy. Like the British miners, European workers often end up fighting on the narrow plane of trade when the bosses are fighting an all-embracing class war. • Ineffective unions: Continental trade union organisation is weak. The number of unionised workers is falling and shopfloor The organisanon is virtuany non caisieur.

union leaders have been playing a cautious game. Like their British counterparts, union leaders on the Continent have been reluctant wage a struggle against redundancies to and pay curbs. Instead they have opted for

SIE

WARTI

SECHOI

HU

WEHRT

EUCH,

Workers divi face-saving measures designed to maintain with the rank and file. their credibility Yet rank and file pressure has forced the union leadership to take action of sorts.

In Italy, the upsurge of mass protest against the Government's pay curb caught the union leadership unawares. The Italian Communist Party (PCI) dominated union federation the CGIL - moved in fast to take the lead and thus retain control over the protest.

In Lorraine the same thing happened. The French Communist Party's union leaders had to organise the action for fear of losing an important base of support.

Reformist union leaders have been able to divert industrial action towards diffuse symbolic gestures In France a whole series of days of action involving separate groups of workers have been organised. These have had the effect of dissipating the struggle Steelworkers demonstrated alone in Paris On 4 May workers from Renault in Paris marched on their own. On 11 May, the CGT organised an ineffectual day of action for public sector workers. And on 24 May the unions organised their protest Tal way In West Germany the union leadership is even worse. Instead of fighting redundancies when they happen and fighting for higher pay, the DGB, the West German union federation, has organised a campaign for a 35hour week. This is a cynical move designed to retain control over the rank and file and strengthen the position of the union bureaucracy. Workers are being used as fodder to give union bureaucrats more clout in their relations with the employers. Thus of token action, German

LET ORLES

metalworkers have voted for an all-out strike, only to see their union leaders indicate that the objectives of the campaign are all neg- Three days before the launching otiable. IG Metall chair Hans Mayr promised that his union would try initially to limit the strike damage to avoid jeopardising further negotiations'. With union lead-

uggles Legen egen ogen ided rs like these, West German workers will leed to rely on their own strength to gain ny positive results. Fatal divisions: As in Britain, European vorkers are deeply divided. But unlike here, european workers are often organised in eparate trade union federations pend more energy fighting each other than he employers. This is a particular problem Italy, Spain and France. Two nion federations - the CISL, close to the hristian Democrats and the UIL, linked to he Socialist Partysupported the Government's attack on automatic wage-indexation.

he communist-backed federation, the CGIL, pposed it. Only the capitalist class profits rom such divisions. In Spain, the Socialist Party's federation, he UGT, has been used to undermine worers* solidarity. In the public sector wage egotiations the UGT asked for a pay rise eight per cent while the Communist arty-influenced CCOO demanded 10 per ent. The Socialist Prime Minister has been ble to use the UGT's loyalty to isolate ilitant trade unionists and keep ettlements down. The situation in France On May Day, the even more terrifying. orking class was presented with the specacle of three separate parades organised by ifferent union federations. The umber of demonstrators showed that the aditional occasion for a display of woring class solidarity and strength had been urned into a day of disunity and demoralation. To make matters worse, these divions represent no real differences in outok. In France, union leaders jealous to reserve their institutions have launched campaigns to stress their distinctu DICILY The socialist CFDT has declared its ommitment to a shorter working week, hile the communist CGT has argued for position to the Government's austerity lan. Neither of these rhetorical objectives During the past 10 years socialist and communist parties in Europe have moved steadily to the right. They have become compromised and find it difficult even to pay lip service to their old radical promises. British workers familiar with the vacillations of the Labour Party will be surprised to discover that the Labour left is far more radical than socialist and communist parties These European parties are going through an unprecedented are their basic identities as parties.

Austerity socialism The socialist parties have emerged as the establishment's preferred party of government in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece. countries have been assigned the task of restructuring the winning working class acquiescence to the harsh austerity measures that necessarily follow. very successful in pushing through these policies. But they have become so involved with the running of the capitalist system, that they now risk losing their working class electoral base. As a result the socialist parties are faced with a crisis of identity and of ideology. Most socialist parties have attempted to compensate for their lack of working class appeal by trying to gain middle class support, or by shifting attention to diversionary issues such as nationalism. Greek premier Papandreou has been the most consummate practitioner of this approach.

Every time he is in trouble with workers, Papandreou the Turkish threat to Greece, or gives a speech denouncing US imperialism. But such blatant opportunism can only go so far. It cannot solve the socialists' underlying problem. The Italian Socialist Party has become almost indistinguishable from the establishment parties. Its only distinguishing feature is the regularity and vehemence with which its leader Bettino Craxi de-

HOLLICCO

militants. Craxi has decided to go a step further and reorganise the party as a genuine pro-capitalist movement. Under the label of 'new socialism' Craxi wants to organise a party which can attract support from all classes in Italian society. The three day Socialist Congress in Verona on 11 May was designed to give the party the necessary facelift. committee was replaced by a national assembly of 400 members. Why? To show the world that the elimination of the 'oldwhich fashioned Marxist structure represented the party's commitment to middle class Italian values. Such clever gestures are unlikely to give the Italian Socialist Party any real coherence and identity. End of socialism? The meanderings of the French Socialist Party are particularly Mitterrand government is pursuing a policy roughly in line with that of the Thatcher administration in Britain. don't know how to reconcile this with past election promises, nor what to put forward as policies for the future. Socialist Party publications are full of articles with headlines like What has gone wrong?', "Where are we going?' and The crisis in the Party. wage The reason for this introspection is straightforward. As the Mitterrand gov.

ernment pursues the ruthless policy French capital requires, it becomes increasingly difficult to give the term 'socialist' any small meaning. In an interview with Liberation 10 May-the third anniversary of his anything for rank who suffer attack after attack while their leaders try to outmanoeuvre each other.

One important problem that has paralysed the European workers' has been the employers special offensive against immigrant workers.

know that racism is prevalent in the unions and that immigrant workers are often isolated. In France, the Government and the election victory explained just Continent. on the economy crisis. At stake Socialist governments in these capitalist system and Until recently they have been admit it. The communist not far behind. business, colleagues austerity acceptable to workers.

organises a gesture against By failure. simply their appeal to the of the working class. communists and trade union Ere electoral party. 60 000 today. The party's central icipation the During instructive. The Party leaders on and file workers employers establishment has combines which patriation. In

SOVC ECLE

that The employers its The party's over - President Mitterrand where he is heading. Mitterrand made it plain that he wants nothing to do with the 'old style' socialat ism. After rambling on about social justice he denounced the twin evils of economic liberalism' and 'collectivism'. Since economic liberalism existed for only a brief interlude in nineteenth century France, the aim of his statement was clearly tc indicate that state intervention in the and social life had gone far enough. With one sentence Mitterrand distanced himself from a founding principle of French reformism. Mitterrand did not simply deprecate the traditions of his party, he also outlined a new approach.

Why, he asked, should 'modernisation, enterprise, and innovation' be monopolised by the right? Mitterrand answered his own question. The objective of modernising the capitalist economy, he announced, should be the policy of the Socialist Party. For all practical purposes this has long been the policy of his party, but Mitterrand finally had the good grace to ness and One step behind parties of Europe are The seventies saw the evolution of the strategy of Eurocommnatives unism. The aim of Eurocommunism was

PCF

to win respectability for parties that were once revolutionary. To prove they meant communist parties in Italy, France and Spain joined their socialist in a joint effort to make cabinet. Eurocommunism has been a disastrous distancing themselves from their radical traditions communist parties the lost their distinct identity and milant secuons At the same time the middle classes weren't interested in these new, respectable left-wing parties.

They already had the socialist parties to serve their interests. As a result the Eurocommunist parties lost much of their electoral base to the socialists. In Spain PCE was virtually destroyed as an Its membership plumthe meted from 240 000 in 1977 to less than Since Mitterrand's election to office, the PCF has ceased to be the dominant party of the working class. French communists have lost credibility through their frequent political turns and their part- Coalition against government the past year the PF has lost No red necktie for Mitterrand: French socialists want to drop 'old style' reformism have exploited this division to pick on immigrant workers. The French worked out a scheme redundancies with re- April Citroen announced 409 immigrant workers had 'agreed' redundancy/repatriation package. When Michelin announced 4000 job cuts it expressed a wish to avoid too many compulsory redundancies by inducing imloca counci elections in areas that have voted communist en bloc for more than 50 years. The most recent blow has been Noisy-le-Grand the "Red Belt around Paris. On 6 May the PCF lost control of this council: the right-wing Gaullist candidates gained 53 per cent of the vote in this working class area To reverse their decline the communist • more leftparties have begun to adopt wing rhetoric. Even the PCE, which used to make the British Labour Party look positively revolutionary, has begun to speak the language of the class struggle.

their desperation politicians have even reverted to the Stalinist postures of the past. Thus after years bitter denunciations of the Soviet Union, the PCE has rediscovered the old virtues of the "Moscow line'. The Italian and French parties have not gone so far, but they have moved to adopt a more strident proletarian tone.

The new militancy of the communist parties does not represent any change in their political outlook. What they have done is to appeal to the sense of bitter.

frustration that workers feel towards their socialist governments. It is calculated re-establish the communist parties as distinct alterto the socialists. Until noW they have not been too successful. The faces a major credibility gap. Its attacks on Government cuts and redundancies ring hollow while four communist ministers continue to sit in Mitterrand's Nevertheless there is a danger that, in will their desperation, militant workers forget the past and look for solutions from the alternative, left-wing party of class: for that is what the Tung communist parties have become. It is a danger that must be avoided, if the European working class is to find answers to the problems that it faces.

The difficulties faced by the socialist and communist parties are not temporary. They indicate that these parties are either going to transform themselves or face disintegration. The signs are that opted for socialist parties nave while the transformation, communist parties remain immobile and face the prospect of slow disintegration. Workers should shed no tears for these parties.

Instead, it is not too soon to begin to build parties that will provide the European proletariat with an effective weapon the capitalist class currently wreaking havoc across the Continent.

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CARDE

OIS MITTERRAND

migrant workers to go home. France is not unique. Immigrant workers in other European countries face similar problems The difficulties faced by European workers highlight their lack of political leadership.

There is no organised leadership waiting in the wings, and the European proletariat is faced with the prospect of its old political parties disintegrating under the impact of the recession. the next step, June 1984 13

the Old Bill and the miners Has Britain become a police state?

Or was it ever anything else? Helen Swift investigates. ON MINERS' PICKET lines and working class estates around Britain, the state is gearing up to police the crisis. Many on the left blame the extension of police activity on Thatcherism gone mad.

reality what we are seeing is an approach to policing which is both rational and necessary for a capitalist class determined to maintain its domination over society.

Policing is conducted on two levels - the ideological and the operational.

the past month we have had plenty of of how the using both to its advantage Social control As Metropolitan Police Newman likes to point out, policing is about social control. cannot rely simply on coercion.

tive control requires public support for or at least acquiescence to - the rules of The present gale churned out on behalf of the police and repeated ad nauseam by figures is designed to consolidate a broad consensus behind law and order and the Every time there police. about the police, law and order problems are emphasised and the real social issues are pushed out of sight. The Police Bill currently going through Parliament represents an encroachment on basic democratic rights.

provoked considerable Yet, as the miners' shows, the police do more or less what they like anyway. Bill's provisions for increased powers of search, arrest and harassment will simply legalise what is already an everyday part of police practice. of the Police Bill is that it helps to consolidate a climate of reaction, to justify the increase in repression During the month of May the ruling class manipulated law and order to good effect.

embassy siege provided a golden opportunity to justify increased police action.

minor event was blown up into front-page news for weeks. lation was bombarded with one message there are new dangers facing society, and the police stand between decent folk and the breakdown of Typically, the police were presented as the victims, lacking protection against the heavy odds that they face.

For weeks the miners' dispute was overshadowed by into the 'tragedy' of St James Square. All this effort paid handsome dividends.

the middle of May the could present the repression of miners pickets as an untortunate response to pithead violence. were no match for Leading Labour politicians simply rambled on about the threat to civil liberties and demanded respect for the law.

class brushed Labour's aside. Labour leaders who had demanded nore protection for the police atter the Libyan embassy affair were in no position to expose police brutality against miners.

Even those like Tony Benn who took exception to the attacks on the miners civil rights were victims of their own illusions. There is nothing sacred about civil rights in Britain. stable society can enjoy rights as it wants. ways subordinate to the capitalists right to exploit and oppress. right to strike is always circumvented by laws and regulations, whereas the right to 14 the next step, June 1984 In During establishment is chief Kenneth Social control Effecorder. propaganda necessary LO establishment regardless of the law. is a debate arrested by the police. serious charges. It has rightly and concern dispute he law as The present Police the subsequent charges. ment's interests The real significance arrested. with travelling the consensus around forced to The Libyan increased 'pit violence. defend the capitalist class.

Day after day, the popuoccasion. the police and civilisation. was far from embarrassed: endless investigations By establishment for the establishment. The opposition parties of his class. offensive. The ruling feeble protests reference. of the story. domination So long as everything is as much civil field on l May. But civil rights are alto deter That's why the The new Bill Dixon of Dock Green need not apply: police have stepped up terror to deal with the crisis scab exists without any qualifications and enjoys the full support of the state.

Criticising the excesses of the police does not challenge the prejudices backing law and The only effective opposition to police terror is one that argues that the miners have the right to take any measures defend their livelihoods, Class war So far more than 2700 miners have been During the early weeks of the strike, they were charged under public order offences like obstruc- With the tion' and 'breach of the peace.

passing of time, the police pressed more On 15 May 57 miners were charged at Mansfield with rioting an offence that has an unlimited sentence.

Most such is irrelevant. of the time there is no relationship bethe circumstances of arrests and The establishdictated that the 292 Scottish pickets travelling in six coaches to the Ravenscraig steel works, had to be Since they could not be charged coach' the police announced that they had been 'reassess tactics' in the light of The police can do what is necessary to They can get on with the job while politicians and the judiciary interpret the law to suit the Thus when it was discovered were using undercover agent provocateurs on picket lines, Home Secretary Leon Brittan *Exception has been taken to the use of The purpose of police officers in plain clothes.

that is simple and wholly legitimate: it is to enable the police to identify those who are engaged in or threatening violence."

Coercion is a 'wholly legitimate exercise Brittan's forthright defence of his case indicates that he will stop at nothing to secure the concerns Thus the police can control the movement of pickets on the motorways, tap telephone conversations, detain miners and photograph them for later Special CID squads are now prowling pit villages in 'high intimidation areas. And magistrates willingly provide bail conditions to stop miners picketing.

The public face of policing is only part Covert police operations reveal the more insidious aspects of class The media went to great pains to publicise the right to work demonstration by Notts miners in Mans- What went unreported was the massive police operation designed entering striking miners from Mansfield for the counter-demonstration.

Police used three foot long batons to drive 800 strikers out of town, and chased isolated groups of miners across fields. Just to get the message home, the police tied a miner to a tree and used him as a punch bag. During the rest of the week the police rampaged through several Notts mining Houses were raided and indivivillages. dual militants intimidated.

official had his arm broken before he was locked up. Even more brutal tactics were used against Scottish miners at Hunterston coal terminal in Ayrshire, mounted police charged the picket line and trampled miners undertoot.

Police harassment has not been confined to pickets. collections for the miners have been harassed and arrested under trumped-up charges. Dozens of the supporters have been detained in York- In Leeds, our supporters were told sulle. that they faced immediate arrest if they organised more food collections.

Class power The miners' strike has highlighted the real role of the police. are rightly disturbed by these events have been thrown into confusion.

been much speculation about new police tactics and moves towards a police state.

The escalation of police activity does not mark any qualitative departure from the

PREPARING FOR

•NEI

AGITATE

past essential. One branch today al e behaviour. On 8 May Workers organising Ireland. can regulations. Rather next step style of rights. our class. Many on the left who There has won gains. and struggle. Order your copy now! Send 30 pence plus 20 pence p&p to Junius Publications Ltd, BCM JP LTD, London WCIN 3XX. Make cheques payable to Junius Publications.

Whenever conflict went class beyond the boundaries of a narrow industrial dispute, the police were prepared whatever tactics they deemed Compared to the police riots which met marches of the unemployed in the thirties, the forces of law and order operating on their best To understand the potential for police brutality it is more useful to examine the everyday experience of black youth in the inner-city areas, or better still to look at the violence applied against the nationalist community in the Six Counties of In these situations class coercion proceed uninhibited by rules and than worry about a new policing, we shou consuel ways and means of organising our class We can against the violence of the state.

be sure that the employers will take every measure necessary to enforce their control, without regard for fair play or civil Our only defence is the power of The better our organisation, the more ruthless our determination, the more we will be able to defend our hard- Real rights are never given away by parliaments and courts - real rights are those that have been fought for wrested from the state through The Programme of the Revolutionary Communist Party

Real problems demand real solutions.

Pat Roberts explains the revolutionary communist approach to the miners' strike. FROM DAY ONE it was clear that the miners' struggle was not an easy one to win. The problems were formidable. While the miners were unprepared, the establishment's attack was based on a carefully planned long-term strategy. While the miners were divided the Coal Board, the Government and the Police were firmly united behind the common objective of smashing the NUM. While the miners were fighting a defensive industrial dispute, the bosses had launched an all-out class war.

And while the miners had limited resources and practical support the Coal Board had the full power of the capitalist state at its disposal. Every dispute in the class struggle raises political problems which, if ignored, bring ucleat in their wake. What has united all sections of the British left during this dispute is their evasion of the problems facing the miners. Instead the left has opted for empty sloganising and dishonest, or at best, over optimistic, reporting of the conduct of the dispute.

The left simply called for victory to the miners' or argued to 'step up the action' and 'stop all coal'. The more isolated sections of the left demanded a General Strike. Others, like the Socialist Workers' Party, called for more picketing.

The slogans all sounded fine.

The problem was that they were wishful abstractions that simply begged the question. The real problem was not stepping up the picketing. The problem was more fundamental -how to win the mass of miners to actively participate in the strike, and how to heal the divisions between the different coalfields. Those who are active in a strike do not have to be convinced of the need for more picketing. And those who are hostile or have a passive attitude to the strike are only bemused at calls for more pickets. Slogans for action may come from the heart, but they remain abstract demands because they do not address the real problems facing the strike.

If you are going to speak simply from the heart you might as well go the whole hog and demand a General Strike. Better still, it doesn't cost any more to ask for socialism. Sometimes when times are hard communists have no choice but to advance objectives which they know are unrealisable, but which nevertheless give an indication of what they would like to see.

But to portray such proposals as realistic

TAKING CONTROL

A handbook for trade union militants TAKING CONTROL outlines a Strategy for reclaiming our unions and rebuilding them as effective fighting organisations alternatives for a group of workers in struggle is to replace the real world with the world of fantasy. In. fighting for a national strike. the Revolutionary Communist Party is the only party that has attempted to go beyond the plane of abstract sloganising and address the real problems facing the miners. From the outset the RCP identified a number of key problems that had to be confronted if the strike was to be won. • The problem of regional action: relying on an area-by-area strike deprives miners of a centralised leadership and a national focus. • The picketing out strategy: as a tactic, flying pickets are an essential component of effective trade union action. But they are a tactic, not a strategy. Flying pickets alone cannot be a substitute for a political campaign to unite the workforce.

• Divisions within the NUM: the differential area incentive schemes mean that divisions among the miners are considerable. This was clear on the first day of the strike. It remains a profound problem to this day. • The politics of collaboration: the NUM leadership has put forward a policy which equates the fight against pit closures with the saving of the coal industry.

Every NUM publication justifies the miners' ase on the grounds that the industry is efficient and viable. Rather than simply fighting for the interests of miners regardless of its consequences, the NUM wants workers to take responsibility for an industry that is not theirs. This preoccupation with the concerns of the employers can only be to the detriment of the miners.

• The bureaucratic conduct of the struggle: bureaucratic control characterised the conduct of the strike from the beginning. The twenty week long overtime ban that preceded the strike was designed

OUT

SOON

FROM

JUNIUS

The fight for a national strike to show the world that the NUM leadership doing something to was at last protect its members. Once the strike began the officials were in full control.

The rank and file were used as picketing fodder. Behind the scenes negotiations with the bosses of the steel WOTKerS union typified this approach.

it mean that the potential power of the miners was never activated. These problems were highlighted during the first six weeks of the strike by the refusal of Scargill and his colleagues to take responsibility for the fight.

During this period the dispute was conducted on a regional basis which ensured that regional differences would be consolidated. It also meant that the NUM bureaucracy could retain control without being responsible or accountable to rank and file strikers.

Scargill preferred this course of action to the organising of a national strike-because a national strike required a national ballot And Scargill knew that a national ballot could not be won through bureaucratic dictat. It could only be won through a campaign based on anti-capitalist Hass politics. Fighting for unity this situation, the Revolutionary Communist Party adopted the position of organising a national campaign to win a national ballot for an all-out strike. Our approach was straightforward Regional action is doomed to defeat, and can only exacerbate parochial tensions. A campaign for a national ballot would necessarily politicise the dispute. It would force all militants to address the question of why the miners were divided. Since unity cannot just be declared but has to be fought for, campaigning for a ballot had the potential to make militants adopt policies that would provide the basis for unity.

The dead end of the NUM's economic arguments about the viability of the coal industry would have been exposed.

The NUM's commitment to making the coal industry a going concern has deepened divisions between miners in uneconomic pits in South Wales and productive collieries in Notts. A united NUM can only come about if it declares that all miners have one interest, and that their interest is at odds with that of the NCB For all miners have to live, regardless of the profitability of their pits.

The second reason why the RCP adopted this position was because a campaign for a national ballot for an all-out strike was the most practical way for the rank and file to take control over the strike.

The exercise of bureaucratic control depends on keeping the rank and file fragmented from region to region and from pit to pit. This isolation gives the NUM leadership all the power it needs to con trol the strike. It can take all the credit and blame others for failures. The bureaucrats' scheme has worked with remarkable success. The lack of progress in the dispute is not blamed on the NUM leadership, but on other groups of miners. A campaign for a national ballot would have involved delegates militants organising mass of meetings at the pitheads. It would have involved discussions to convince the less militant areas, and it could have overcome all the isolation and passivity. In rejecting the idea of consulting all miners.

the NUM wrote off a section of its members and ensured that the strike could make no real headway The position the RCP adopted was designed to address the real problems faced by the miners. It was universally condemned by the British left.

Their argument was simple. The Tories and Mac- Gregor want a national ballot, therefore the RCP is just as bad as they are.

Thus according to the misnamed Workers' Revolutionary Party, the RCP's policy 'no different from Thatcher's or that of the capitalist press' (The News Line, 19 April). Alex Callinicos of the SWP repeats this powerful argument: It comes as some surprise, then, to discover that these ultra-revolutionaries actually agree with Neil Kinnock (and lan MacGregor Cane Margaret Thatcher) in calling for a national strike ballot. Yet there it is in black and white in the RCP's "strike special"' (Socialist Revien, May) It is obviously easier to find the RCP guilty through association with Thatcher than to challenge the substance of our arguments. This method of debate may serve the purpose of bolstering the confidence of SWP members, but it simply evades the problems of fragmentation and disunity in the coalfields.

The failure to actress • or even recognise - the central problem of the strike means that the SWP is reduced to wishful thinking dressed up as militant rhetoric.

VICTORY

VICTORY

TO THE

TO THE

Rearguard party: SWP tails Scargili The make-believe left Callinicos calls the ROP's position abstract propagandist. Callinicos feels strongly about this point, for he cites 'Russian Marxist Georgi Plekhanov' on his behalf. Unfortunately. Plekhanov for that matter Callinicos has nothing to say as to why a campaign around national ballot is abstract.

All that Callinicos can say is that such a ballot would be lost. something abstract can he is something that the philosopher Callinicos has not yet explained.

He will have to do better than cite Plekhanor to solve this one. The SWP's alternative of 'encouraging organisation and initiatives from belon and 'more picketing' is abstract precisely because it does not relate to the political problems that prevent more miners participating in and controlling the strike Resounding declarations cannot change the outcome of the strike.

On the contrary, they imply that the strike can he won without a change in its political That's why Socialist Worker is reduced to making technical suggestions better organisation of picketing, more rank and file involvement etc.

These suggestions, helpful as they are, prove irrelevant unless the rank and file are won to a course of action which is politically independent from that of the

NUM

leadership. The RCP's strategy in contrast offers not simply technical, but political solutions. The evasion of real problems places the left on the side of those who will profit from leaving the conduet of the dispute on its present course.

The SWP has muted its old criticisms of Scargill Instead, Socialist Worker now tells him how to consolidate his leadership of the strike. It believes that asking Scargill to set up strike committees constitutes i powerful critique of the NUM leadership The rest of the left has followed suit. Till the last day of the strike they will demand more action, more picketing more solidarity Anything goes so long as it does not challenge the policies of the NUM leadership. the next step, June 1984 15

Target Libya and the Middle East.

THE

SHOOTING OF

policewoman Yvonne Fletcher by a machine gunner in the Libyan embassy in London in April triggered a wave of anti-Libyan jingoism in the press and in Parliament. The Government took advantage of the climate of hostility fomented by the media to intensify its harassment of foreign students Dozens of Libyans resident in were expelled from the country others were turned away at air and ferry ports. Home Secretary Leon announced that he would require good evidence that the presence of any Libyan in Britain was 'conducive to the public "There is no lack of precedents for the use of embassies as bases for the surveillance, intimidation and even elimination of dissidents. (The Times, 18 April) Tory MP for Buckingham George Walden's comments at the height of the Libyan embassy seige are apt.

Embassies have always been used as agencies for the control of students and exiles from the parent country.

In the past, Britain has turned a blind eye to the activities of the Libyan people's bureau in hunting down opponents of the Gaddati regime, as it has not wanted to jeopardise Britain's economic interests in Libya. As Walden makes clear in his article, Britain's outrage over the shooting in April was caused by the killing of a British police The 11 Libyan oppositionists injured in the incident were barely mentioned in press accounts of the siege. Libya's is not the only embassy which Britain has allowed to carry out acts of terrorism against dissidents.

16 the next step, June 1984 Whose funeral?: the West used WPC Fletcher's death to further its plans to send Gaddafi to an early grave The Libyan embassy siege in April and the diplomatic war which followed it enhanced Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's reputation as the world's number one megalomaniacal terrorist. But, as John Johnson shows, the myth of the mad colonel' is an imperialist ploy to disguise the West's carve-up of Africa good before they were permitted entry.

He also announced that he was considering measures to limit the right to demonstrate of foreigners resident in Britain.

Ever since he came to power in a military coup in Muammar Gaddafi has been a target for the invective of Western politicians and press. He has been depicted as the leader of international terrorism', responsible and for fomenting instability as far afield as Brittan the Philippines, West Africa. The governments of Sudan and Egypt blame Gaddafi for the growing opposition Diplomatic dirt The Turkish embassy has provided backing for the fascist "Grey Wolves" in their campaigns against left-wing students in Manchester, Birmingham and London. established a network of 'cultural' organisations which control the political activities of Iraqi students in Embassy this country. organise poetry recitals to which all Iraqi students are invited. Those failing to attend or failing to clap at the right moment can have their grants withdrawn and face deportation back to To supplement these gentler Iraq. pursuits Iraqi consular officials in Manchester have been known to attack opponents with chains and iron bars.

But Britain has little to learn from Third World embassies. embassies in the Third World organise terrorism against whole countries.

Libya itself has been a victim of British attempts at destabilisation.

Gaddafi came to power in 1969, Britain and the USA had already decided to ditch the Sennussi King Idris. They persuaded the commander $1m through its Mexican Caribbean'. FBI is influence 1969, Libya's leader manipulation. In claimed process. Central America and Western hostility within their borders. Just replacing the monarchy. The Iraqi embassy has officials They almost succeeded. insanity. of British forces in British coup. Before British embassy. before the US invasion of Grenada last October, a Caribbean statesman claimed that Libya was channelling more than embassy to 'finance terrorist organisations in the Washington leads the anti- Libyan crusade. Reagan has declared an unofficial war against Gaddafi, and the carrying out an investigation into allegations that Libya has tried to American affairs by giving money to black nationalist groups. This well orchestrated campaign against Libya is not restricted to propaganda and media 1981 the US Sixth Fleet conducted exercises in Libyanwaters in the Gulf of Sirte, shooting down two Libyan jets in the Europe's soft underbelly towards Libya has little to do with international terrorism.

its Egypt, of Libya's armed forces to seize power and forestall a more radical regime Within a few months of Gaddafi's coup, the to thwart British embassy was at it again. During Africa. negotiations over the withdrawal of British forces from Libya, senior military officers in the Libyan government were encouraged to oust Gaddafi.

forces. The Western press has always been highly critical of Gaddafi for his support for Idi Amin in Uganda.

Gaddafi's association with the Butcher of Kampala has often been taken as sufficient proof of Gaddafi's own Yet Amin's brutality was precisely the quality the British were looking for, when the Chief of Staff East Africa summoned Amin in his nightclothes and instructed him to prepare to replace Ugandan president Obote in a The centre of operations for Sisters" 'Amin's coup' in Uganda was the Italian It stems from the fact that Libya has upset too many imperialist plans, particularly in the Middle East The key to Libya's prominence in world affairs is its position in North Africa, on the edge of the Middle East.

Its common border with Egypt, the chief Arab power in the Arab-Israeli contlict, makes Libya of vital concern to American strategists. Its position at the apex of France's sphere of influence in northern means that Libya and western Africa also preoccupies French politicians. Libya has become a focus for the struggle between America and France, as Washington tries to bolster its flagging influence over Europe and Paris leads the call for European independence. Libya has long been a pawn in the imperialists carve-up of the Middle East and North Africa. In 1912 Italy took control of the territory at the behest of Britain.

Britain wanted to create a buffer between Egyptian possessions and French territories in western Africa and keep France at arm's length in the Middle East.

During the Second World War Libya was the focus of Italian ambitions to invade Free French and De Gaulle's forces hoped to establish their challenge to German imperialism by invading Libya. At the end of the war Britain occupied the former Italian colony French ambitions in North But after stormy debates in the United Nations, Britain was forced to recognise the independence of Libya and accept American troops into the territory alongside its own occupation This confirmed Britain's replacement by America as the leading imperialist power in the Middle East.

Irritant to imperialism The discovery of oil in Libya in 1961 made the country an important area for foreign investment and gave the local middle class an opportunity to assert its interests. It also had an unsettling impact on the oil industry. The late discovery of Libyan oil allowed newer oil companies break the virtual monopoly of the established oil corporations - the Seven in the Middle East. An unprecedented 14 companies, including the oil firm AGIP, state bought concessions. This new found wealth gave the aspiring Libyan capitalist class considerable power.

The closure of the Suez. canal after the Six Day War between the Arab states and Israel in 1967 left Libya and Nigeria as the only sources of quality oil east of Suez, close to the major importers in Europe. Libya had a 2000 mile advanover Nigeria, and the start of the tage Biafran war blocked all exports of oil from Nigeria. By 1969 Libya was exporting 150m tonnes an increase of 225 per cent in three years, making it the third largest oil exporter in the world. The benefits of oil went into the hands of a tiny Libyan elite, fronted by a puppet monarch. This provoked unrest and the growth of a popular nationalist movement which eventually Colonel Gaddafi to seize power in a 1969 military coup. His regime has been an irritant to imperialism ever since. Within a year, Gaddafi had closed down American and British bases in Libya.

His nationalist crusade enjoyed widespread support. One international commentator recently in consolidating Gaddafi's support at home: *The removal of the regime was in itself enough to predispose most Libyans to the new rulers. Their nationalist achievements the expulsion of foreign bases their militant and and extraction of higher prices from the oil comand their forceful advocacy of the Palestinian and anti-imperialist causes hilarated a people long fed-up with the old regime's deference to foreign powers.' (Third World Quarterly, January) This was bad news for Western interests.

A radical regime in Libya would serve an unsettling example to the surrounding region. worse, Gaddafi's rise coincided with the beginning of America's decline in the France immediately exploit this new situation.

pean powers soon followed.

Western rivalries France saw the expulsion air force from Libya as an opportunity to gain new sources of energy and larger share of the growing Libyan market. Before the quit the country, deal to supply Libya with 100 Mirage jets and Maitre 530 air to air missiles.

To underline its success in getting one up

USA,

France agreed to train on the Libyan pilots and support crews at the soon to be abandoned American Wheelus airbase. France's relations with not been tree of conflict. iovan ambitions in the region - particularly in Chad - have threatened French interests.

But Libya's position between France and its former African Empire has enhanced French eftorts to keep on the good side of Gaddafi. Thus between 1981 and 1983 French imports of oil from Libya quadrupled. Libya now supplies about five per cent of France's oil needs. Other Euro- Tanks in Tripoli: Gaddafi rearms in response to imperialist pressure pean powers with Libya. Libya. American power. to use oil a year, Tripoli as campaign. Gaddafi. allowed Libya. has operated all out business with Tripoli.

noted its importance approach to Libya'. its role in Egypt, successful - exdirect military European support. And to make matters vided another intervention in Libya. began to Other Euroof the US American troops had France announced a of anti-Libyan list intervention increased Britain. Libya have the underdeveloped world.

tav and Britain - have also sought to extend their economic ties Washington never forgot its humilgrowth of And the Europe's economic stake in the region is a painful reminder of the decline of Washington has tried the threat of a radical regime in for limiting the an excust influence of its imperialist rivals in the area. This is the basis for the anti-Gaddafi America has sought to pull its European rivals into line behind its pursuit of For the past five years the USA has been trying to galvanise the Western powers to join its campaign to destabilise Throughout this period America an economic boycott. American firms are forbidden to carry At the end of Januaiy Reagan passed a memorandum to top government departments urging them to take a lead in preparing a strategy for developing a sophisticated, discriminating an serious marmater expor control In other words, America wants to persuade its allies to starve Libya into submission.

Reagan has not restricted his measures to economic warfare. America has boosted Sudan and Somalia, citing the threat from Libyaas justification.

As well as providing assistance to Libyan opposition groups America has exercised The US navy regularly sails inside Libyan waters. Until now these measures have failed to win Indeed, American provocations were criticised at a Nato meeting of foreign ministers in 1981.

hat's wow the London embassy siege was a godsend for America.

It has proimperialist excuse tor Fight British chauvinism The international campaign against Libya is part of a wider plot to assert imperialist The camcontrol over the Middle East.

paign has nothing to do with terrorism.

It is about oil, markets and investment.

Every anti-imperialist must be on guard and be prepared to expose and resist this sordid campaign against Libya.

The wave whipped up around the embassy siege aims to secure British workers acquiescence to imperia- Gaddafi and against of foreigners in repression By comparing Gaddafi to former Argentinian president Galtieri, and linking him with the IRA, the British media has sought to encourage the chauvinist sentiments mobilised behind Britain's wars in the Six Counties and the South Atlantic.

Our approach to the conflict between the West and Libya must be the same as our approach to the battles for the Malvinas and Ireland: to take sides against British imperialism, and reject the British establishment's attempts to blame its victims for its own crimes against the masses of Gaddafi is often dubbed 'the mad colonel' because of his unpredictable shifts of Yet Gaddati's "irrational' actions policy. are only a response to the pressures from the imperialist powers and the instability of Libyan society. objective is to Gaddafi's development in Libya and economic secure his own regime. In order to pursue this objective, he has divisions and weaknesses imperialist camp. He used the advantages of Libyan oil and the disunity of the oil companies to achieve higher prices and higher production in the early seventies, and later forced the oil giants to accept nationalisation of 70 percent of the industry during the oil crisis of 1974.

Gaddafi's military threat is a myth. He has built up the Libyan army. But most is excess Libyan population, excluded from the highly skilled jobs created in the oil industry and the construction boom in the seventies. Although imported a quantity of military hardware, most of his army is incompetent to use it.

In 1973, two years after taking a delivery of jets, Gaddafi t'ren ch that the planes were still sitting idle their hangars: we have Mirage planes.

the biggest air force in North Africa and the most modern planes, but these have no pilots. There are no pilots'.

Libya's attempts at establishing closer relations with its neighbours have included proposed mergers Tunisia in 1974 and Syria in 1980. All of these efforts were made to strengthen Libya's weight in the international arena.

Libya's small and fragmented population less than four million in a territory seven times the size of Britain that on itsown it is too weak to participate in international affairs and resist the pressure from imperialism.

Libyan support for Third liberation movements is mostly rhetorical It is designed to shift America's prewith occupation aesla balising Libya's backing for Sudanese rebels and for Egyptian opposition - first to President Sadat and now to his successor Mubarak - 1s a reaction presence of America in those countries Sudan and Egypt are important bases for the Rapid Deployment Force, key to any American intervention in the Middle Fast.

Libya's involvement in conflict was also designed to cause as much difficulty for the USA as possible.

By the Green Book well as being a response to imperialist pressure, Gaddafi's foreign policy serves to cohere support for the regime at Libya's native home. deeply divided between the cities Tripoli and Benghazi on the Mediterranean coast. The rest of the country is occupied by the traditional Sahara desert, themselves split into dozen factions. On top of these traditional divisions there are hundreds of thousands of foreign workers, many of whom are from Europe, Egypt, Morocco, They constitute at least 35 percent of the country's worktorce. national institution the regime can rely on is the army. But Gaddafi has survived a number of challenges from disaffected groups within the army and has tried to broaden his popular base. He has done this by settingup revolutionary committees directly to himself, and by answerable skilful manipulation of the ialist and democratic aspirations of the His Book masses. Green notions of democratic institutions and socialism within Libya and exhorts the Libyan masses to imperialism. struggle against himself has officially retired from public life, adopting the style of a bedouin and living in the Azizia But he retains the reins of real power in Libya. The survival of the Gaddafi regime during the past 15 years has rested on its Inside Gaddafi's Libya society redistribution promote exploited the those attempted generations. Libya's merely to absorb the Gaddafi has complained with Egypt in 1971, World Libya. to the growing military been forced to Lebanon the population of tries curtailed. Arab tribes of the but most hailing from Tunisia and Turkey. Libya today. The only difficulties Britain. Nor are "insanity'. anti-imperpromotes been make a determined Gaddafi barracks in Tripoli. of Gaddafi's strategy called ability to broaden its base of support. To counter imperialist pressure Gaddafi has mobilised the lower sections of Libyan against the old elites and the privileged. From 1978 onwards the regime limited private wealth and organised a of resources through the state sector. Welfare rights were extended and progressive social policies implemented. These measures, more radical than other Arab any country, evoked considerable support for the regime particularly from the younger However. these policies have been seriously undermined by the decline in oil revenues. Libyan exports slumped from 1.7m barrels a day in 1982 to little more than a million in 1983. The foreign exchange oil brings in has fallen from $15.7 billion in 1981 to $9 billion Gaddati: Tighting domination, not derangenten in 1983. With falling revenues, Libya has draw on its to finance the building of its vast prestige projects, such as the irrigation works in the Sahara desert and the massive industrial complex at Ras Lanuf.

Food imports have been slashed to try to conserve foreign exchange. There have been riots in Tripoli and Benghazi as a result of food shortages at the people's supermarkets'opened in 1979. Foreign workers have had their rights to remut part of their salaries to their home coun Imperialism, not insanity Gaddafi's vendettas against foreign-based dissidents are motivated by his fear of the impact they may have on the increasingly unstable situation inside Libya.

The armed attack on military barracks in Tripoli in May shows that all the elements of violent social upheaval exist within Gaddafi's gun-running to Europe and his bombing and shooting of his opponents is evidence of his growing The threat from at home the exile community is enhanced by the support given to it by the USA and by Gaddafi's policies are not irrational Gaddafi's they dictated by They are forced on Libya by imperialist pressure. In the past Gaddafi able to play off imperialist rivals against each other and attempted to pursue a strategy of economic nationalism. This strategy has reached its limit Economic fragmentation and imperialist pressure have had a devastating on Libya. All the signs indicate that the imperialist-inspired campaign of destab- The collapse ilisation will be escalated.

explains his sounpredictable stance in world the next step, June 1984 17

Labour and Europe Parliament. position of British socialists.

RADICAL stalwarts haveaccused Labour's leit spokesmen of fudging by dropping the call for withdrawal from the EEC. In reality, the only principle which has ever guided the left's approach to Europe has been the need to defend the interests of British capitalism.

move from opposition to acceptance of the Common Market reflects the shifting focus of British interests in the years since the Treaty of Rome established the EEC in 1957. The Treaty of Rome created the EEC against the background of post-war reconstruction of European capitalism.

provisions set up a framework of institutions and agreements which would allow Western Europe to make the most of the prevailing economic boom: a European customs union, free movement of labour and capital within the community, common tariff against external imports, funds for education and infrastructural projects, and an association French and Belgian colonies.

Continental

COURTS!

democratic parties were initially suspicious of the EEC. American-inspired imposition on European freedom. By the late fifties, however, the continuing boom had convinced most of Europe's left that the Common Market was beneficial to their national capitals.

Social democratic organisations such as the German SPD became ardent fans of the EEC. While West Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the lands joined together, Britain stood aloof.

Despite its displacement by. America as the world's leading imperialist nation, the British establishment carried on the pretence that it could still operate as an independent power. Britain still had the Commonwealth, close with the countries of the European Free Trade Association, and its 'special relationship' with the USA. What need had British capitalists to embroil themselves in Continental affairs? Britain's illusions in its own status were soon shattered by the shifting balance of power between the imperialists. six ties, Britain's economic position had declined sharply against British The been politically humiliated by its unsuccessful attempt to capture the Suez Canal from Egypt in 1958.

America's President Kennedy told Tory Prime Minister Harold forget any ideas about a special relationship and get into the Common Market.

18 the next step, June 1984 Tony Benn and Roy Hattersley 'think the same' about the EEC, declares the Labour Party's literature for this month's elections to the European Today, Labour's left and right are together campaigning for Europe. Yet for the past 10 years opposing the EEC has been the defining So what's changed? a principle' The ment saw Its the Common Market, between social and They saw it as an 23.3% France, Italy, Nether- Developing trading relations Countries intr Develope dEconomios 22 By the advent of the its European establishment had In 1961, Macmillan to A humbled Macmillan accepted Britain's weakened position and applied for entry into the EEC. Although its efforts to join the EEC were to be thwarted for 10 years by the veto of France's General de Gaulle, from 1961 onwards the British establishwith its future bound up European cooperation. Always a bit slow on the uptake, the Labour Party took a bit longer to reach the same conclusion.

The best for Britain Labour opposed early Tory attempts to At the 1962 take Britain into the EEC party conference, right-wing Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell inade his famous rallying call to defend Britain's past traditions of glorious isolation from Europe and control over its former colonies.

Entry into Gaitskell warned the party, would mean 'the end of Britain Eastern Bloc 4.0% Developing

EEC 28.9%

Countries Western Europe 45,2% 14.6% ed Economies 27.5% 1970 Eastern Bloc 4.9%

EEC 32.8%

Western Europe 509% 1970 Imports Britain's trade has shifted towards Europe and made EEC membership vital for British capitalism as an independent European state, of a thousand years of history' "the end of the Commonwealth' and Gaitskell's speech earned Labour reputation as an anti-Europe and chauvinist party. attended the conference told pro-Market German SPD leader Willy Brandt that he "felt throughout Gaitskell's as if the doors at the back of the hall might open at any moment and Queen Victoria come striding in'. Yet Gaitskell's rhetoric was misleading. certainly chauvinist and committed to defending British interests to the last.

But it was not opposed to Europe on principle. The byword of Gaitsell's speech was 'if were met, Labour would back British membership of the EEC had to be right for Britain.

Getting the terms right has defined the Labour leadership's Europe. In the beginning, Labour wanted were a continued close relations Common wealth. By the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson's attitude changed as the pattern of Britain's Eastern Bloc 2.0% Developing

EEC 37.2%

Countries 29.3% ther Developed Economies 19.5 Exports 1982 Eastern Bloc 1.5% Developing Countries 9.0%

EEC 50.8%

North America 15.6% Western Europe 65,.4% 1982 Brewing

VOLS

*the its ingly subordinate role. A Danish minister who speech the Labour Common Labour was on EEC membership. 'If certain conditions But the terms British crises of the seventies. approach to the terms of guardiltee back on its feet. with the mid sixties Britain's power. British interests. Western Europe 49,2% In backing for the ABS. bring and their promoted defending the British establishment. problems alone. by everybody nationals to the EEC. the Common national regeneration. Throughout trade and investment shifted away from the Commonwealth towards Europe, and as America forced Britain into an increas- Accusing the USA of putting Britain into 'industrial helotry" Wilson applied to join the EEC in 1967, only to be thwarted by de Gaulle's 'non'.

Since Britain joined the EEC in 1973 has attention to securing reforms in Britain's contribution to the EEC budget and the Agricultural Policy. In 1974 the new Labour government renegotiated the terms of British membership The following year Wilson gave full backing to the 'vote yes' lobby in the referendum Both Wilson and his successor James Callaghan accepted that EEC membership was vital to protect capitalism during the recurring They sought only to get the best possible deal for Britain from its Common Market partners The Labour left, however, had other ideas about how to get the British economy A national solution The left wing of the Labour party has distinguished itself from the right by pursuing a more chauvinistic defence of position an independent as The Left's opposition to the EEC was expressed in its bromotion of the Alternative Economic Strategy. The AES was an attempt to formulate a national solution to the crisis of British capitalism.

The left blamed foreigners for the problems besetting the British economy and sought to mobilise public opinion behind the Labour Party's chauvinist defence of The Left hoped to use its anti-EE stance to rally support for the return of a Labour government.

1973 the left won the party's The programme committed a future Labour government *a about fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of wealth and power in favour of working people families. But in practice it an alternative strategy for wealth and power of the The AES emphasised Britain's ability to solve its economic Blaming international finance and foreign capital for the British crisis, the Labour left wanted Britain to isolate itself from world crises by imple menting protectionist measures such as import and exchange controls and by planning its national economy.

The AES political thrust was to galvanise chauvinist opinion in defence of British sovereignty, which the left claimed had been infringed from American multi- Withdrawal from Market was the logical consequence of the left's programme for the seventies, friction

within the EEC over trade and the budget contributions grew at the same time as the left advanced within the Labour Party.

Withdrawal from the Common Market became a popular demand within the official labour movement.

the EEC became the defining characteristic of a socialist. your attack on Europe, the higher your credibility in labour left circles.

member of the Labour Party old guard such as Peter Shore, renowned for his advocacy of wage restraint, earned a leftof-centre reputation for his defence of Britain's independent interests against the

EEC.

The left campaigned for a 'no' vote in the 1975 referendum membership of the EEC. Cabinet ministers, including Tony Benn and Michael Foot, broke with the leadership line and issued a statement declaring that continued membership of the EEC would be 'markedly unfavourable for the "But the real disadvantages' economy. they warned, were 'political'.

power to Brussels would undermine the legitimacy of Westminster.

implored the British people to TeDes ignore those who warned of the dangers of withdrawal: *A far greater disadvantage to our legitimate economic interest, to the continued unity of the United Kingdom, and to the of democracy in this country arises from our continued membership of the EEC.'

The left's call to safeguard the independence of British imperialism struck a with the remains of the Empire chord loyalist lobby. supported Labour in the 1974 elections of its commitment to the EEC because referendum, echoed the left's sentiments.

Powell condemned British entry as 'a declaration of intent country's sovereignty, Elsewhere, the however, failed to mobilise public support for its chauvinist campaign. result showed overwhelming support for the

EEC,

and the Labour government fended off successive attempts to turn the officially the Market. But after Labour's defeat by the

EEC.

the the recession world. rialism redoubled its support of 1981. absolute control its members. and the interests: Britain is now in law and practice a colony of this new embryonic federal West European state. The economic and industrial price we for pay abdicaton Is now becomme apparent.' In a year when the brutal defenders of British imperialism crushed uprisings by oppressed black youth in Britain's inner cities and murdered 10 republican hungerstrikers in the occupied Six Counties of Benn bemoaned Britain's 'colo- Ireland, and liberation struggle to free Britain from foreign domination. Out of government and in need of a policy facelift, the Labour leadership was prepared to adopt the left's anti-Common Market line the same line it had long kept off official party platforms.

standing anti-Marketeer and new Labour leader Michael Foot saw the advantages popularity. Opposition to The more vociferous divisions opened up leadership Even a was the campaign's achievements. on Britain's place m Seven Labour today' A shift of The Cabinet practice made clear Enoch Powell, who had European alliance. sin ce • years studies' to surrender this stage by stage. Labour left gone along The referendum the past, out of Europe. Common that friends in Europe. collapse of British First, win a wet Tory. March. EEC expenditure. full. called for a 'national almost $1 allocated. Longfor Labour's internal stability and public Opposition the

EEC

provided Labour with a distinctive policy with which to present itself as a more loyal upholder of the Union Jack than the Tory government. It could also unite the party's left and right, and smooth the by the deputy Benn and contest between Denis Healey. Labour's 1981 conference pinnacle of the withdrawal Conference voted to commit the next Labour government to pulling Britain out. Such was the apparent enthusiasm for the new campaign that even boring John Silkin, less than a week after being pushed into last the deputy leadership poll, brought the house down with his appeal to delegates to 'unite against the Market But even as the applause rang in Silkin's ears, anti-Marketeers were already getting cold feet, as we noted at the time: "The irony is that some of the EEC's opponents take the maintenance of the interests of British imperialism so seriously that they are beginning to have qualms about withdrawal.

Because Europe now accounts for about half of Britain's trade, pulling out obviously poses Already Labour is embarking on "detailed studies"of what an exit from the the *always 'detailed Labour's of logic The left has with this development. is in need of In recent years two developments have brought home to left-wing economists and politicians the futility of arguing for withdrawal from Europe. the deepening of the crisis on a world scale has made it clear that there is no national road back to recovery. Second.

Recent ructions over Britain's contribution to the EEC budget have shown Neil Kinnock to be nothing more than Kinnock's demand for a 'square deal' for Britain is only a more radical presentation of the Tories current strategy in Europe.

The latest EEC summit folded in European leaders went their separate ways, at loggerheads over the level of spending on Common Agricultural Policy support for farmers, and over the size of Britain's promised rebate on its budget payments.

Common Market spending on agriculture has long been a major bone of contention within the EEC.

It currently soaks up two thirds of all The $14.2 billion allocated to farming this year stretched the Community's budget to the Even that figure is likely to be less than actual billion expenditure. All the member states are agreed on the need to reform the complex agreements by which money is But Britain alone insists that any reforms must save money immediately. Thatcher's intransigence on this issue reflects the British establishment's discontent over the Labour has found no popular resonance for its anti-European sentiments.

1983 General the recession. when affects every any more. communist Bob Europe, pointed importance for in France, all-European level'. need for strategy. was canted by tegy. ports are Community politics vast amounts of EEC cash paid out to French farmers. At the March summit Thatcher curtly advised the Market to 'put its house in order before embarking on any discussion about raising expenditure. The 'order the Tories have in mind is one where Britain pays less into and gets more out of the EEC At present, Britain contributes 21.1 per cent of the budget and receives only 13.4 per cent of EEC revenue.

Thatcher wants Britain's contribution cut by three quarters. The best offer so far from Britain's partners is a 50 per cent reduction. In the heated debate about these figures in March, France and Italy vetoed a previously agreed rebate of £450m to Britain.

The Tories stormed back to London threatening to withold all British contributions until the £450m was paid. Anxious to avoid a serious rupture with Britain's European partners, a coalition of spokesmen from all sections of the British establishment told Thatcher to calm down. As the voice of British business, The Economist, noted, Thatcher has got her priorities right. Minister may be a British nationalist recession. As the

HOLE

matic British politics. for Labour. the crisis popular war. The Margaret xenophobias. latched -Rowthorn out the Since Labour's capitalism of forgotten With the left Lavoul claimed, was 1t What had talk the Rowthorn pean spokesian the EEC framework. itional approach interests. produced Out of counter-crisis Out of crisis The debate over hot up, exports. The left capitalism.

EEC

second, but Europe competition. The British Prime The second motive behind the Labour left's alliance with Europe was a prag response to developments The anti-EEC campaign had tried to whip up nationalist support But by the summer of 1982 was clear that the left's appeal to prejudices could not compete with the patriotic consensus the Tories had cohered around the South Atlantic "Falklands Factor allowed Thatcher to focus chauvinist sympathies more clearly; it also forced Labour Party left wingers to revive old desperation they In on to anti-Americanism. and began talking about the need for Britain to be part of a neutral Europe, standing between the superpowers'.

The enemy is at home defeat last June and Neil Kinnock's takeover as party leader, withdrawal from the EEC has become a Under Kinnock the dream. has finally round

•COC

to understanding what the British establishment knew in 1961 and the Labour right had accepted by 1967: in Kinnock's words, 'Britain's future, like our past and Today the present, lies with Europe.

is not about pulling out, but of getting 'a square deal from the Common Market and a new deal for Europe.

In other words, the left's opposition to the EEC has been narrowed to 'getting the terms right'. The establishment press has expressed surprise at Labour's Euro- Robin Cook's call for *a new Messina' - a summit to redefine But Cook and Kinnock are in tune with the left's tradto defending British They have merely adapted Labour Party policy to suit the facts of life for British imperialism in the eighties.

Despite the protestations of Labour's hard left fragments, there is no socialist principle of withdrawal from the EEC.

British membership is between two alternative strategies for regenerating British capitalism.

Today the 'in' lobby is ascendant.

Tomorrow, as rivalries between the European powers the 'out lobby may well win out. If it does, we can be sure the Labour left will change tack again to keep in step.

British workers need a different approach.

How British bosses arrange their trading We relations is their concern, not ours cannot allow debates over the EEC to distract us from the fight against British In or out of the Common Market, our enemy is at home.

John Dowling and James Wood first, a European second', but she is European enough to believe in the necessity for a strong Europe, caught between a Russian adversary and an American ally whose support cannot be counted on forever. Moves to find a compromise are under way.

This month's EEC summit is likely to be stormy, but there is no danger of Britain jilting its European partners.

The Tories are not interested in breaking up the EEC. Like Kinnock, Thatcher is fighting hard to 'get the terms right for Britain. Labour's call for 'a wider Europe' is in line with the free trade agreement which came into force this year between the and the remaining members of the European Free Trade Association.

The only difference between Labour's patriotic policy for 'a socialist Europe' and the Tories' ruthless defence of British interests is one of presentation.

Both sides of the House of Commons are British nationalists first, Europeans European enough to believe in the necessity for a strong the next step, June 1984 19

Workers' defeat - Labour's opportunity Labour backed Britain while workers slaved Behind the lines: East London Julia Bush, Labour 1914-1919, Merlin Press 1984, pp254, pbk £5.50 Ross McKibbin, The evolution of the Labour Party 1910-1924, 1983, pp261, pbk £6.95 Robert Griffiths, SO Davies: a socialist faith, Cromer Press 1983, pp311, hbk £9.75 Dick Geary, European labour protests 1848 - 1939, Methuen 1984, pp195, pbk £4.25 'HOW DID THE LABOUR PARTY break into the existing two party system?" asks Julia Bush in her study of the rise of Labourism in East London during the First World War. Labour's breakthrough was indeed dramatic.

Before 1914 it had only one or two MPs - by 1924 13 of the area's 14 seats were occupied by Labour politicians. Bush points to the emergence of a 'new political leadership' and the steady build-up grassroots organisation with strong trade union links before and during the war as the answer to her question. Howshe neglects the wider context of workever ing class defeats that paved the way for Labour's electoral advance, in East London and nationwide, in the inter-war period.

Wartime partnership Bush's local researches provide some insights into the pre-1914 labour movement and its the First World War.

ICOOLSE CO

challenge the myth that the war provoked a deep rift between jingoist and pacifist Labour leaders. Although East London's industry was backward and its workers impoverished, it contained most left-wing factions as well as some org and the new unions of the unskilled. The Social Democratic Federation, later the British Socialist Party, had several branches and an active membership in the area. The British left has always held it up as a model of sectarian revolutionary fervour. The Independent Labour Party was also strong in East London, it is generally identified as the forerunner of the mainstream Labour eit. However as Bush observes, there was little to separate the local BSP and the ILP in practice. Indeed there was a considerable amount of overlapping membership and joint activity on the ground. In their propaganda both advocated improved welfare services rather than social revolution and both were working towards independent working class representation in parliamentary and local bodies. In their political outlook, basically

DUSH

come uces.

BOTE

Were reformist. The consequences of this convergence became clear during the war when, *long established habits of as bush notes cooperation and the urgency of immediate practical issues blunted the edge of sectarian politics. The outbreak of war did lead to a division of opinion in the East London labour movement. On the one side local trade union leaders 20 the next step, June 1984 such as Will Thorne and Ben Tillet took a staunchly patriotic, pro-imperialist stand. They backed Britain all the way against German and supported the formation of the National bocaust rally as a breakaway trom the bor On the other side the prominent East London ILP leader George Lansbury took a pacifist stand against the war. A small faction of largely Jewish immigrant socialists adopted a revolutionary anti-war position, which was supported in East London by Sylvia Pankhurst's Workers' Socialist Federation.

W nile a small minority of socialists campaigned for the defeat of British imperialism, the vast majority either supported Britain or adopted Lansbury's middle of the road pacifist view.

Bush shows that after a brief wave of jingoist fervour, attacks on immigrant shops and anti-war protests, most socialists abandoned active opposition to the war. Socialists like Lansbury, who had long campaigned for peace and against war in general, agreed to suspend anti-war activity the moment a real war broke out. As Bush puts it, with unintended irony, 'the majority of socialists had acknowledged in August 1914 that the present time was unsuitable for direct propaganda on the war question. Anti-war socialists continued to work closely on day to day issues with pro-war socialists. By the end of the war Lansbury even went to the lengths of pleading successfully on behalf of the jingoist Thorne with East Ham socialists who had refused to endorse him as their parliamentary candidate. Lansbury acknowledged Thorne's virulent patriotism but claimed that he fully supported "Labour and socialist principles.

The Labour and socialist principles' held in common by Lansbury and Thorne were a commitment to ensuring equality of sacrifice among British people while the inter-imperialist conflict continued. Pacifist socialists joined Patrone wade umonists on committees set up by Government to integrate workers While some representatives into the war effort.

workers were marched off from recruitment centres on Bow Road and East India Dock Road to the slaughter in Europe, others were driven like slaves in factories at Old Ford and Silvertown Workers were less enthusiastic than their leaders about the equalit or sacruice on which Labour insisted in Britain's hour of need, Many took industrial action to prevent falling working living standards and deteriorating conditions during wartime. Socialist leaders pacifist as well as patriotic, were hostile to such unofficial action. As Bush concedes, rank and unionists were sometimes more erase sympathetic to strikes than well known socialist opponents of the war and the Government.

Labour's pacifists did not dare to oppose the war, so they ended up collaborating with the bosses to force workers to pay for Britain's imperialist ambitions. Bush takes a positive view of the official labour movement's role in subordinating the working class to Britain's war machine. She comments enthusiasticallv that the Government's appreciation of Labour's special importance and expertise in certain matters began to permeate down to local government. And she notes with evident approval that trade union leaders "could be found hobnobbing with ministers and generally being taken into the Government's confidence. Bush is sharply critical of Sylvia Pankhurst who intransigently opposed both the war and the patriotic union leaders. On the other hand, jingoist officials like Thorne and Tillet are complimented on their "astute pragmatism' and their toughness 'at the negotiating table'. The Labour bureaucrats were able to win certain concessions and to advance as a direct result of the Cancers. pressure of rank and file militancy on employers and on the precarious wartime coalition government. Labour's rise At the close of war the working class still presented a serious threat to the capitalist order in Britain. Yet workers attempts to establish shop stewards committees in East London on the Clydeside model came to nothing. The war had further weakened the revolutionaries while strengthening the labour bureaucracy. In 1919 the combined forces of the state and the exengineering workers union smashed the East London Workers' Committee.

Within a couple of years mass unemployment had returned to East London and the The post-war wave rest of the country. unofficial strikes had been contained and the employers were in a position to go on the offensive. Major national strikes, notably reviews the workers and engineers, were crushed and the Government launched a new wave of terror in Ireland. The Labour Party was the major beneficiary of the defeats suffered by the working class from 1914 to 1921. Its advance began in local elections and continued in parliamentary elections, greatly • extension or voung rights in 1918. With every setback to workers' attempts to make their own future by taking on the employers and the state, Labour's project of subordinating the working class to British capitalism and making itself an alternative party of government gathered momentum. Behind the lines is essentially an apology for the emerging labour bureaucracy. Yet its focus on the class struggle in one area in a cruncal period does reveal some or tne real forces at work, despite the author's prejudices.

study of the Ross McKibbin's electoral rise of the Labour Party considers the same question with which Bush begins, but on a Its publication in paperback national scale. is welcome. McKibbin emphasises the signif icance of the expanded franchise brought about by the 1918 Representation of the People Act. This meant that in the General Election of that year 80 percent of people were voting for the first time. McKibbin also draws attention to the central importance of the trade unions in providing the Labour Party with an organisational base in local areas and a link with the working class Unlike Bush, Mckibbin is not influenced by any particular loyalty to the labour bureaucracy. He shows how the Labour Party was able to take advantage of the war to develop its local and regional organisation, to strengthen the central control of the executive and tighten up its administrative apparatus. His analysis of Labour's adoption of its 1919 programme.

including the celebrated Clause Four state ment of socialist objectives, reveals how the party was moving away from the working class to seek electoral respectability.

Social pacifist: ILP leader George Lansbury The new constitution gave unprecedented bureaucratic

COL BOLTED

The block vote system was consolidated and trade union representation on Labour's executive increased - by the end of the war this included the four leading jingoists from the right wing of the TUC. Clause Four, McKibbin concludes, was inserted in a constitution that contirmed the triumph of the unions and the defeat of the socialists'. The Labour Party became a vehicle for the trade union bureau cracy, not a mass organisation of the working class. Mchibbin explains why the lelt has no excuse for complaining about the betrayals of its party: If it is objected that it has not secured the cause of socialism or even the "true" interests of the working classes, the answer is that it was never designed to do so.

McKibbin's detailed survey of by-elections and local elections, trades councils and party institutions, throws much light on the devin this period. He is right to conclude that 'by the end of 1924 the Labour Party was recognisably the same party that we know today.

However, like Bush he ignores the broader context of working class defeats on the political front at the outbreak of war, and on the trade union front at its close, which allowed the bureaucracy to forge ahead. One man whose life story encompasses the defeats of the British labour movement in the twentieth century, and their consequences, was the Welsh socialist SO Davies. SO Davies went to work in the pits at the age of 12 in the last years of the nineteenth century. He later succeeded in getting a university degree under the auspices of the nonconformist church and became official in the miners' union in 1918. In 1924 he became vice-president of the South Wales Miners' Federation, a post he held until he was elected MP for Merthyr 10 years later. He espoused every cause of the Labour left from the thirties until his death in 1972. After the war he became a strident Welsh nationalist and a constant critic of the Labour leadership. He was expelled from the parliamentary party from 1961 to 1963 for his stand against nuclear weapons, and in 1970 the national executive backed a local move to oust him as parliamentary candidate, SO Davies stood as an independent and won a crushing majority over the official Labour candidate. The key moment in Davies political career was the conflict between the miners and the Government between 1921. As miners agent for Dowlais he campaigned vig orously against acceptance of the Sankey Commission by which the Government tried to buy time to hold off the miners demands in 1919. But the moderate miners leaders recommended acceptance. When the Government reneged on its promises the momentum of the struggle had been lost.

This setback set the scene for the major defeat of 1921, the collapse of the Triple Alliance and the wage cuts and longer hours

IT DOSTBON

throughout the coalfields. Membership of the South Wales Miners' Federation fell by half between December 1920 and December 1921.

The defeat of 1921 was compounded in 1926 when the General Strike ended with further wage cuts and victimisations of militants. Within a year, a scab miners' union was gaining members in South Wales and miners were joining the first of the hunger marches to London.

Griffiths gives some flavour of the bitterness of the miners defeats, of the hardship and poverty or the twentes and thirties and the repression carried out by employers, police and courts. Yet he fails to do justice to the sense of betrayed aspirations of the South Wales miners who preferred soviets to nationalisation at the end of the First World War and firmly intended to pursue the example of the Russian Revolution in Britain.

South Wales miners formed close links with the Bolsheviks and played an active part in the Red International of Labour Unions. Yet by the mid-twenties the miners hopes were crushed in one aspect of a wider defeat from which the British working class has yet to recover Davies refused to join Communist the farty when it was formed in 1921, sticking with the ILP. However, he visited the Soviet Union in 1922 and he remained a Communist Party sympathiser for the rest of his political career, later loyally following every twist and turn of the Stalinist bureaucracy. In 1937 Davies moved from South Wales to London and followed the Labour left in emphasising international issues at the expense of challenging British capitalism at home.

isolated from his proletarian origins, Davies became more and more of a maverick, Griffiths gives undue credit Davies' post-war pursuit of the petit-bourgeois fantasies of Welsh nationalism.

Nothing expresses better the consequences of the defeat of the working class movement of the early decades of this century, than SO Davies' retreat into the parochial obscurantism of the Welsh nationalist revival in the twilight of his years.

Workers' rise, Labour's defeat McKibbin makes the point that the British Labour Party was the rock upon which European social democracy was already building its fortress against Bolshevism' before the end of the First World War. Dick Geary's survey of the European labour movement helps to put the class struggle in Britain in the broader context international of the post-war revolutionary upsurge. This book is now available in paperback to a wider readership.

Geary is better at dismissing various superficial theories of labour protest than he is at providing a coherent analytic framework himself. However, he provides a useful brief intro duction to the emergence of trade unions and political movements in Europe. He also gives some insights into the particular factors that have made the British labour movement one of the least successful at endangering the rule of capital. The early and organic development of British capitalism, the continuity of governmental institutions, the relative reluctance of the ruling class to resort to repression, the stability of the middle classes and their moderating influence on the labour movement are all part of the explanation.

These four books all illustrate in different ways now the Labour farty s rise is the othe side of the coin to workers' defeats. When workers rise again the Labour Party will be an early casualty. Mike Freeman

The strange death of liberal England Brits hammer Ireland, Curtis hammers BBC Geoffrey Bell, The British in Ireland: a suitable case for withdrawal, Pluto Press 1984, pp119, pbk £2.95 Liz Curtis, Ireland: the propaganda war, Pluto Press 1984, pp336, pbk £5.50 Ireland: the key to the British David Reed, Larkin Publications 1984, pp436, rever. non pbk £3.95 THROUGHOUT 15 YEARS of the Irish War, uberals in Britain nave tried to bulla a move ment to help stop the bloodshed.

by tallure, they have admitted their mabity to convince British workers of their case and looked instead for ready-made willing to support their cause. prominent members of various books by groupings, talled irish sondarity So W miserable end to which this strategy has brought their movement today. Bell's The British in Ireland Geoffrey is the latest addition to Pluto's Arguments for socialism' collection.

series, it is an argument for the Labour Party.

Bell believes that Britain should quit Ireland.

But things are not that simple: the Irish question is a complex' one requiring complex answers.

the establishment's argument that a British withdrawal could provoke a civil war between warring religious factions can neither be conclusively proved nor can it be disproved'.

Bell avoids coming down decisively on the side of the Irish people against Britain.

struggle 'may not be acceptable behaviour' to 'outsiders, 'but surely it is understandable.

Bell reduces British socialists' responsibility to unconditionally support the struggle for Irish freedom to a question of liberal sympathy.

For Bell, the Labour Party is the place to build on that sympathy. Bell bemoans the fact that popular support for Britain's war against Argentina showed just how deep are the roots of national chauvinism in the British working class. "The strength of this prejudice', he wails on mates cocain hare to maine in Brital This is the defining outlook of a radical liberal.

to be won te workers are too opposing the British state, so let's forget about them and look elsewhere. Looking elsewhere invariably means confining Irish solidarity work to an internal debate among Labour left wingers. Bell accepts the conditions of working within the Labour Party, and lowers mis nor zons to what is acceptable to labour movement leadership.

He dismisses the demand for "Troops out now' as a thing of the past. Bell is keen to take account realities of the eighties.

The reality of the eighties is that the British establishment is more committed than ever to controlling Ireland. In Bell these conditions, recognises the left's impotence: the final demand in his programme for withdrawal' is for 'the calling of a 32-county constituency assembly to set the terms and time scale for Britain to pull out.

But what happens between now and the calling of such a talking shop? And how long will this ume scale allow Delore brutam witeraws.

Bell's new programme bears a striking resemblance to existing Labour Party policy: Irish independence in the long term, negotiations in the medium term, continued British occupation In giving up the demand for in the short term. Troops out now' and refusing to take sides in the war. Bell and the left have condemned the Irish to further British oppression.

Liz Curtis is a leading member of the rump of the Troops Out Movement. Her book, Ireland: the propaganda war, has been acclaimed by leftwing critics because it fits in perfectly with the left's preoccupation with the media as the source of establishment power.

What the papers say Curtis details the media has distorted events in Ireland to back up the military and discredit the republican move- Her book is punctuated with quotations neut such as ITV chair Lord Aylestone's remarks on the "independence' of independent television: Britain is at war with the IRA and the IRA will get no more coverage than the Nazis got in the last war. Such attempts to denigrate republicans are standard practice for British gutter journalists. the victims of British imperialism as bloodcrazed psychopaths and justify British barbarism around the This is not the cause of British oppression but only one reflection of it. Yet for Curtis, the media is the central problem. She imagines that if people knew the real facts about events in Ireland, they would call for an end to the But facts alone come anti-imperialist movement. If British workers remain convinced of the need to crush the republican movement, they will support British rule no matter what excesses Curtis can expose.

The real problem is the political one of how to workers break brush state. class support for the Irish self-determination - and their right to fight for it. Curtis ignores this problem because she is not talking to the working class.

audience is middle class whose liberal outrage she hopes to stir against the 'double standards' of the British media The only progressive forces she can identify are a handful of radical journalists determined souls who have been willing to brave the establishment's wrath'.

advice she can offer to those concerned about the Irish War is that it is worth phoning the broadcasting companies to complain about - - programmes. or praise Frustrated repression is the strategy of the British establishment, Ring up the BBC' has become the rallying cry of the Troops Out Movement.

audiences It is patronising rubbish to suggest that These three in the press or see on the television.

TERe binds the working class to the British state is not The Sun, but the influence of Labour Party politics, which murders Irish nationalists as a force that can befiefit British workers.

the grip of Labour, Curtis endorses it. The British people, she claims, control government policy in Ireland through elections to Parliament. The impacation is clear change the government. who have suttered at the nands or recent Labour governments are unimpressed by the chorus of liberal approval for this strategy.

Marx, Stalin and Livingstone The armed In Ireland: the key to the British revolution, David Reed has produced a theoretical analysis based on a crude misinterpretation of Marx's writings on Ireland. changed his position on Ireland, from one of believing that Ireland would be freed in the British revolution to one of believing that there would not be a British revolution until workers took up the fight for Irish freedom.

For Reed, two change of mind. class lost its revolutionary drive' and a section the 'labour aristocracy" - was permof itbought off by imperialism.

anently the Irish national movement assumed revolutionary forms. conclude that the stunted British proletariat could not make its revolution without the assistance of Ireland. that today's "revolutionary forces' cludes from which a solidarity movement must be built lie outside the organised working class, the official among black youth and prisoners.

Marx never held the views attributed to him by Reed's rewriting of his work. He changed of 'the his view of the importance of Ireland through developing an understanding of the influence of chauvinism in the working class. Marx identified the unity of British workers and bosses Labour against the Irish as the biggest barrier to the development of an independent working class movement. able, material problem Reed suggests, but as a political problem which revolutionaries had to confront by arguing the case for Irish freedom within the British working class.

of liberals like Reed to take up Marx's challenge leads them cations for dodging the issue.

It is absurd to confine efforts to build a solidaritv movement to isolated black vouth and those incarcerated in prisons.

Like Bell and Curtis, his real audience is the Labour left. British imperialism cannot play a progressive role in Ireland'. Yet he accommodates to Labour

LICS

settle the Irish War on Britain's terms.

way in which the British ing of defeating British imperialism.

freedom. Fleet Street has always depicted Things fall criminal thugs globe. apart cannot build an from their allegiance to the That means winning working people's right to Her chosen "public opinion, Left's confusions let Gandhi survive 'a few The only Mutanta pp327, pbk £7.95 hbk £19.95 While increased is ready to erupt. read evervthing they What to fence off Bangladesh. portray the state that Far from challenging to alter Britain's role, Irish nationalists revolution. Reed notes that Marx million population are factors influenced Marx's First, the British working The partition of India, Second, This apparently led Marx to Since independence From this Reed consupport for its programme independence and socialism) neo-colonial state as d bound to He did not see this as the insuper- The inability to dream up theoretical justifimotivated Behind his the democratic revolution.

Reed repeatedly asserts that left figures such as Ken Livingstone who propose a progressive British solution for the Six Coun Reed's only criticism of the Livingstone trend is that it is 'numerically weak.

The logic of this argument is that socialists should build support for the Labour left's attempts to In writing off the working class, liberals in Britain have written off the prospect of build- Sickened solidariti and

HHOYCHHICHL

We reject 'Cultural their approach, but welcome their admission of their own irrelevance to the fight for Irish Mick Hume and imperialism was faith in the did the Banerjee, India's simmering revchoconner olution: the Naxalite uprising, Zed Press 1984

THE HOMELAND OF MAHATMA GANDHI

Indira Gandhi's Indian government presides over a country where separatist tendencies are violently asserting themselves in the provinces of Punjab and Kashmir.

War with Sri Lanka over the position of its minority Tamil population is a growing threat Nearly 1600 miles of barbed wire is being used In March, Indian police massacred 600 striking dock workers and their families in the port of Paradip, Orissa state. The prospects for revolution are ripening, yet India's revolutionaries" are split into myriad sects, unprepared to meet the challenge. In his comprehensive account of the Indian insurrections of 1967 to 1972 Sumanta Banerjee charts the changing fortunes of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist).

Banerjee's critical appraisal of the period and the influence of Maoism - a radical form of attempts to draw the lessons of 1972 the failed uprisings to prepare the Indian left to face the renewed capitalist offensive.

Three major problems confront the Indian First, although India achieved formal independence in 1947 it is still an economically backward country, dominated by imperialism. This lack of development is best reflected in the stagnation of Indian agriculture have The second problem is the social weight of the working class. The great majority of India's 700 industrial peasants: workers make up less than 10 per cent of the total. Finally, Indian society is bitterly divided into separate groups: religious, racial and caste.

warned his which set subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1947, continues to undermine the class struggle.

Looking for friends the Indian communist party has faced difficulties in winning mass India's formal of elected wraunton

ITS

government meant that the CP's programme bourgeoisie. for a democratic revolution (as opposed to did not achieve much resonance among the Indian masses. The CPI attempted to overcome this problem by describing India and the Indian bourgeoisie as comprador - ie a section of Indian society whose interests are intimately Like every Stalinist imperialism. party in the Third World, the CP's defining characteristic has been its relentless search for a progressive section of the national bourgeoisie which will stand up to the imperialist powers, ally itself with the masses and develop Indian capitalism as the first stage of the revolution. Every split in the CPI has been urban by a disenchantment with the failure of this strategy, and the search for an alternative section of the bourgeoisie to pursue During the thirties and the Second World War, as it gained influence within

WORKUS

class trade union organisations, the traditionally pro-Soviet CPI sought to ally itself with the nationalist Congress Party. In a reaction to its the Congress incorporation into Party and also to Soviet leader Khruschev's calls for peaceful co-existence with the West, the CPI split and a new section, the CPI (Marxist), was established in 1964. The CPI(M) quickly accommodated to progressive elements within the national bourgeoisie and began angling for power in the states of West Bengal and Kerala.

with by these compromises the bourgeoisie and stimulated by the Chinese Revolution' of 1967, Charu Mazumdar and his followers split from the CPI (M) and began the struggle to organise another party. The new CPI (Marxist-Leninist) 1970, based its programme on the recognition that India was 'neo-colonial", the state was made up of the large landlord: "comprador-bureaucrat capitalists the Indian government was a lackey of US 'Soviet social-imperialism and The CPI (ML) argued that the task of the party "People's Democratic lead the Revolution', the main content of which was to be the agrarian revolution and the abolition of feudalism. Mazumdar defined all sections of the national bourgeoisie as comprador and put his rural peasantry and the urbar petit-bourgeoisie. The role the working class was subordinated to these 'revolutionary' elements. Mazumdar advised the urban working class to leave the cities and fight the landlords alongside the peasantry. Mazumdar was unable to politically challenge the Congress Party's grip on the peasantry: rejecting political campaigns as reformist, he advocated execution of the landlords to gain peasant support. The Maoists made the most impact among the despised aboriginal tribes and scheduled castes. The CPI (ML) made no attempt to counter the prejudices whipped up by the Congress and other establishment parties among the ordinary Hindu peasants against these oppressed sections of Indian society. Nor party try to combat the ethnic divisions among Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs across the The struggle of the peasantry against the landlords is an omnipresent feature of Indian society. Usually, these campaigns are isolated and sporadic. In 1967, however, the intervention of the CPI (ML) and radical students from the Calcutta colleges precipitated a coordinated series of local land struggles from The one end of the country to the other.

spark was lit in Naxalbari on the North-East Frontier. The Maoists spread the -Naxalite uprising to the forest tribes of Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh. By 1970, the guerrillas claimed to have liberated 8000 square miles and half a million people in Andhra Pradesh. In 1970, the Calcutta slums erupted in response to a Pitched battles police assassination campaign.

were fought in the streets with the paramilitary police. On 12 August 1971, 100 youth were butchered at Baranagar, Calcutta. Altogether, some 1800 Maoists were killed: 100 were slaughtered in prison riots. By 1973, 32000 CPI (ML) activists were being tortured in prison.

Mazumdar was murdered in prison in July Lessons unlearned The Indian left has never recovered from the 1972 defeat. Nor has it made any serious attempt to assess the Naxalite experience and the reasons for its failure. The only criticisms of Mazumdar. Liberals are condemnations denounced his "addiction' to violence and his authoritarian methods. But rarely has Mazumdar been condemned for making concessions to the bourgeoisie. Despite his previous denunciation of the whole of the bourgeoisie as imperialist collaborators, Mazumdar members against alienating the business class in Calcutta: We should remember that, all businessmen are not our enemies. On the contrary, after the establishment of a liberated zone, these business communities will get in touch with own business interests. the in their majority of the business community will come with us. They are a large part of the national Banerjee's critique is to be welcomed as a serious attempt to deal with the Naxalite experassessment of the Indian ience. However, his Maoists is limited. Banerjee's, condemnation of their adulation for China is less a critique of Stalinism than a dismissal of "foreigners" and their ideology. And while he acknowledges that the CPI (ML) 'underestimated the contribution of the working class, Banerjee continues to elevate the peasantry as a revolutionary force in India. But the clearest lesson of the Naxalite experience is that no section of the Indian bourgeoisie - from the business class, to the petit-bourgeoisie, to the peasantry can lead the struggle against the capitalist system. The working class is the only social force which has a direct interest in destroying bourgeois society, and which is capable of winning the poor peasantry to the cause of revolution behind its political leadership. This is the precondition for bringing India's simmering revolution to the boil. Andy Clarkson the next step, June 1984 21

Letters Irish labourer Tommy Quigley has been held or remand in Brixton Prison since he was tested unded BEse joint Scotland Yard/RUC snatch squad in Belfast last December.

Charged with 'conspiracy cause explosions, Tommy's trial 29 May. begins on Freedom Movement will be demonstrating outside Lambeth Magistrates Court from 9am.

Below we reprint extracts Tommy's Irom including details of his wife the Gerate s arrest under PTA after visiting him in April.

When they arrested Geraldine they were asking her questions about things she had written in her letters to me. They went out or taen way to try to and degrade her. They also hoped it would discourage her and the rest of my relatives from visiting me. But Geraldine and my mother came over again last week. sne was distressed at the time,

Y CLY

but she was back on her usual form by the time of the visit.

So the Forum Report is out at last. It was leaked that much it was hardly worth reading we had already heard all that was in it. I don't think it will be able to Hume though. save I heard he and Morrison had a real slanging match on Ulster TV, but I didn't find out what was said by the pair or tem.

The cracks started to appear in their as CUrSeS LIS

SUOIL

opened his Nobody seemed to get excited in this country about it.

The headline of the next step Wasted youth.. need a fighting tuture was only a foretaste of the clumsy patronisation which characterised the article on youth In this latest unemployment. edition the RCP's ot paper the vanguard read how: For today's youth, unemployment is a personal calamity Unemployed youth do not make an impact on public consciousness because they are at Because their only ex perience of adult life is the dole or a state training scheme, and their social only intercourse with the television, they are isolated from the labour movement and prone cynicism and to demoralisation.' Having discussed the nature of unemployed youth's (i.e. our) plight. the next step goes on to reveal 'what we need' (who is mous we.). It is up to the employed, organisea secrons of the labour movement to lead the struggle to defend the unemployed..

workers... have the power to transform the forgotten youth of today into the class fighters of the future. Gosh! Golly! Have you got plans for us. Thanks for letting us know. Actually we are a little confused as to why you occasionally sell your paper outside the dole office since our role in your scheme of things is apparently that of being led (and thereby transformed). It is not altogether clear what we are expected to do other than watch telly and wait for the initiative of the vanguard to trigger the 'organised employed

SETU

leading us. 22 the next step, June 1984 Prison letter The reaction in the Free State was concier serenE there treated it press as the of the century. I would like to have seen the way it was put across on the TV. I have not seen a TV since I was lifted and the news is the only thing I miss I was looking at the Baker report myself. It's amazing what a change ol name can do loI "The Protection of the

YOU.

Peoples Act. Swap "Protection' 'Oppression' and they will for have got it right. Sick isn't it.

You are right the St James Square incident came at a very convenient time. It was a good distraction from the miners' But if they hadn't had

SITIKE.

that they would have invented something else. Did see that creep Elton John Poland? He wasn't doing any stunts like that when he was in South Africa the other week. And now Maggie has invited Botha. Mavbe she is looking for hints on how to control her non-whites. By the way, thanks very much for the Easter, card. Whenever I go to court I see the RCP posters all over the place ger it goes on, the more bitter it will get. I was reading about of the similarities this some strike has with the 1926 strike, but I've every confidence tha this strike will not end the way the 1926 one did. Tommy Quigley 'A' section Brixton Prison Frank Richards in his review of Mattick says: Critics... always condemn the notion of a vanguard party as elitist. What they are rejec ting in reality is the task of without leaders under capitalism means a world full of passive observers, waiting for someone else to make a move. Accusations of 'elitism' miss the point. Not only are we all apparently condemned tO passive observers unless leaders stand up, but those of us that reject the stance of vanguard leadership for ourselves are accused of cowardice. Like other groups that the RCP deigns to regularly pontificate to, the unemplovee you are and payt been organising ourselves and fighting our enemies for reasons that are only too plain to us.

Telling we are impotent us cripples until given outside help from the brave, outspoken leaders is not going to impres us. We are not waiting for you to make a move - much as you We don't need to believe that. reject your politics from fear of but because being led is clearly not the cure for passivity and apathy. If you wish to write about us in such an condescending manner - like so much high meat that needs cooking - you would do better papers to yourto keep your selves and not stand around near dole offices. Eight unemployed Islington, North London There are a couple of points raise from the April issue of the next step. Firstly, the article on James Connolly, we nave the

RCP

(Trotskyist) covering for Trotsky's complete misunderstanding of the and 42008 question the working class relation to struggle for socialism. He wrote: "An all-Ireland movement such as the nationalist dreamers had expected failed to mat- Irish enanse. Coursee did not stir The Irish bourgand more influential stratum of the Irish intelligentsia, held aloof. There fought and died only the workers of Dublin, together with some revolutionary enthusiasts from the petitbourgeois intelligentsia. The basis for national revolution nas disappeared even in backward Ireland. was Trotsky who called the Easter Rising a 'putsch.

Len In alone Rissignificance of the Tea ing. from Lenin quote you use is directly attacking Trotsky, but you refuse state that. Secondly, I feel that your position on the question ol is animal rights completely reactionary. Of course our is the suffering and

CONCENS

oppression of millions of people around world. However, vivisection is not helping alleviate their burden, Only about one per cent of all vivisection is car- Organising the unemployed the next step replies: Your letter implies that you are quite satisfied that the unemployed are organising effective resistance to state attacks.

never have the unemployed been as isolated as they are today. Groups of unemployed people are attempting to fight back against attacks on social security benefits, harassment of claimants and so on. vast majority of the unemployed are not organised at all.

At the the official labour same time. movement has made no attempt to campaign for the unemployed.

Nowadays it can't even repeat its past cosmetic exercises such as the People's March for Jobs.

To deny that there is a problem means reconciling here unemployed to their present situation. • Your comments about "leaders' and 'elitism' miss the Nobody is condemned to be a passive observer anymore than someone else has a natural right to lead. Leadership means fighting not just as an unem ployed worker but as an anticapitalist worker. It means not Just responding to individual experience but to the experience of working people as a whole.

As fragmented units - skilled and unskilled workers, unemploved. women. blacks etc we will never win against a Write to.. Trotsky, Ireland and animal rights ried for out human need. une rest is lot unings we do as cigarettes, not need, such make-up etc. This part of vivisection is used solely for the purpose of making profit-and therefore of the capitalist system, Anitreated barbarically mals are in vivisection centres for the of human greed. You are very naive to think or vivisectionists want to alleviate the the oppressed burden of people over the world! The capitalists want to keep them suffering and starving so they can come to make pronts out of them. I would like to point out that wholeheartedly supthe right of Asians in port Bradford to eat Halal meat.

In this case, the animal is killed for food. Very different than killing one to pro.

duce a new kind of hair spray something like

IRA/INLA

also support the and the immediate withdrawal of British from the Six Counties. look forward to -YUu printing this letter and answering the have

DULLES

made. Sean O'Hara, Bradford the next step replies: The interests of the working class are not served by covering up Trotsky or anybody else, As it happens, unted capianst class and Its state. We can only be successful if we approach every struggle from the point of view of the entire working and te oppressed. Responding to one particular employer or of oppression is not enough. That is the justification tot our approach It is not patronising to be me acutes the unemployed face defending themselves. It is not of the unemployed being inherently non-combative, Dut a mae or soone power The unemployed are forced into a fragmented and isolated exist- For most, it is a struggle just to survive. Although the also divided in embloved det many ways, by virtue of their position in producuon mey are better able to defend themselves.

The employed are stronger because they have something to fight with. We demand that the employed take up the cause of the unemploved and organise with them because they have every interest in fighting the divisions that unemployment causes in working class. We want workers to tight for jobs whatever the cost to the system, so that we may rid ourselves of it altogether. next step BCM JP LTD, London WC1N 3XX the article on James Connolly - mennon all of But Trotsky. you introduce an old Stalinist myth that Trotsky called the Easter Rising a 'putsch'. The from Lenin which you rerer to attacks "K.R., who be happens to Karl Radek not Leon Trot- Trotsky sky. misunderstood real significance the Rising but he did not condemn it. As you must know, since vou cite from his art icle, Trotsky refers to the Irish rebels as heTo of Dublin defenders the barricades'. Trotsky In later years corrected his errors and understand the came importance of the struggle for Irish independence. 1921 his statement in indthere can be no doubt teates. where he stood: 'The British socialist who Talls to support by all pos sible means the uprisings Ireland, Egypt and India against the London plutocracy-such a socialist deserves to De branded with infamy if not with a putter Under capitalism, vivisection, like anything else, is carried out solely for profit. A system that treats human beings with the utmost barbarism obviously has no consern about how it treats this we are in agreement. Where we disagree is whether or not we should be

WCOCHCE HALY RECOR

unobjectionable. Through such experiments humanity learns about life and develops products that it needs. Unlike you we do not presume to decide for others whether make-up or hair spray or anything eise is necessary. Animal rights is an absurdity. It absurdity that you implicitly through your selective approach to these rights. According to you, animals have the right not to be killed for make-up but have no rights when it comes to our stomachs. Next time you bite into your hamburger, pause for a moment and ask vourself whether the animal you eating ded in the knowledge that its rights had been fully realised. Unique I am very impressed with the work of the RCP as i've toll owed issues of the next step and read various publications of (Revolutionary Comm-

YOUIS

unist Papers. An anti-imperialist's guide to the Irish War, Real Freedom, among others). As a student political adelate economy at the New School, i recognise the significance and uniqueness of the RCP and its theoretical work. Revolutionary politics do follow from Marxian Since there is no economics comparable party in the States any were eise, 1 look lor ward to going over to the UK in the future (if I can get the cash). In the meantime, I await the next issue. JM Morton New York Strategy The May issue of the next step will doubtless be very contro versial among the rest of the left. But I thought it was the best issue I have ever read. The miners' strike has shown in the clearest possible way, the division between the "socialist left and the communist approach of the next step. The radical left - Socialist Worker, Socialist Action, Militant etc are so relieved that a strike is actually happ ening that they have no wish to rock the boat and criticise its conduct. The left are willing to make jokes about MacGregor and Thatcher, but they are terrified of attacking the dis astrous strategy of the British labour bureaucracy. This is con- Sisten wan une way they att ack American imperialism but keep silent about the crimes of British imperialism, especially in Ireland, seems that these groups quite happy to see worare kers' control pass over to the NUM executive. If the NUM bureaucrats achieve their objective of getting MacGregor round the negotiating table they will doubtless stitch up some compromise deal. And without doubt, the left will call this a victory. The only victories we can expect from we ramical len for the union approach are bureaucrats, who strengthen their strategy of knocking on the boss's door until he lets them in for some meaningful dialogue' about how to sell their members down the river. By restricting workers' aspirations to a pit here, a steel plant there and per cent next year, the

- SIX

radical left make Scargill and Sirs' approach revol utionary. They allow Liverpool's Militant counci to assume the mantle of Bolshevism simply because it pays some workers the minimum union rate. The strategy of the next step is a great deal more difficult than the simplistic and dishonest solutions of the rad.

ical left. But unlike them, offers to do more than slightly delay the crushing of our class. The time for sitting back and allowing events to tak place out of our control is over Simon John. South London Bang on Your paper remains excellent and the policy adopted on the miners strike is courageous and bang on. I think you would strengthen the argument if you put more emphasis on Marx's theory of crisis, which obviously underlies all RCP politics - but which isn't explicitly stated in recent issues of the next step. What about a series popularising Marx's Capital and explaining the basic categories. Enclosed £50 cheque. V. Phillips Todmorder

PREPARING FOR POWER is an annual conference organised by the Revolutionary Communist Party.

year are the specialist courses. You should choose one in group 1-6, and a second course in group 7-12.

Meetings

SHEFFIELD

Friday 1 June 7.30pm Gaddafi - loony or hero? Friday 8 June 7.30pm Ronald Reagan comes to town Friday 15 June 7.30pm Today's police state Friday 22 June 7.30pm The class struggle in Europe All at Mailcoach, West Street

PREPARING FOR POWER 1984

Friday 13 July - Friday 20 July 1984 rolvtechnic ot centra ondon New cavendish street and Marylebone Road (Saturday 14 July only) For subscription rates see page 2.

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MANCHESTER

Lobby the council for an unemployed workers' centre!

Tuesday 3 July 4.30pm Ashton Town Hall Wellington Road year it will be held at the Polytechnic of Central London between 13 and 20 July.

Each session will be introduced by the convenor, except where mentioned.

1. of political economy 2. (convenor Alan Harding) Hallsworth) Johnson) 3. (convenor Kate Marshall) Labour Party? Britain (Keith Tompson) (convenor /nez Landa) Middle East 5. rebellion (Mike Freeman) 1969-1984 1974 (Andy Clarkson) Counties (Phil Murphy) Subscribe to text step Please send me the next step every month I enclose a cheque/postal order for £........

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BIRMINGHAM

Thursday 7 June 7.30pm Ronald Reagan's war drive Digbeth Civic Hall Digbeth Wednesday 20 June 7.00pm the next step supporters group. First meeting of new group to discuss the June issue Old Bull's Head public house Digbeth Introduction to Marxism. (convenor Frank Richards) Historical materialism Scientific socialism and the critique Marxist theory of ideology Paris Commune (Kate Marshall) Marxist theory of the party Problems of everyday life.

The problems of the individual Bourgeois morality and sexual freedom Media and culture Work and the sale of leisure (Dave Growing up and youth culture (John Problems of the British revolution.

What's special about the British The limitations of the British left Working class action in post-war Scottish nationalism (Mike Wall) Building a revolutionary party today Imperialism in the eighties.

Imperialism in a world of recession South Africa (Charles Longford) Latin America (Charles Longford) Sub-Saharan Africa (Andy Clarkson) Ireland - myth and reality (convenor Keith Tompson) James Connolly and the 1916 The changing face of the Irish War The significance of the UWC strike The struggle in the Twenty-six

REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNIST PARTY

NORTH LONDON

Thursday 7 June 7.30pm Whose world, whose economy, whose summit? The RCP and Reagan's visit Roebuck public house Tottenham Court Road (Warren Street e) The main attractions each The anti-imperialist movement in Britain 1969-84 Marxist economics. 0. (convenor Sabena Norton) The origins of capital and the social relations of capitalism What is surplus value? How the working class is exploited (Helen Simons) The theory of capitalist crisis State intervention, inflation (Tony Allen) What is imperialism? Taking control (Convenor Mike Freeman) Who is the working class?

What is the labour bureaucracy?

Employment and unemployment Wages, bargaining and shopfloor organisation Trade unions and politics Making sense of the Soviet Union.

(convenor Frank Richards) Russian Revolution building a new society (Phil Murphy) The rise of Stalinism Soviet industrialisation and the Great Purge The national question in the USSR (Andy Clarkson) Where is the Soviet Union going?

BM RCP, London WC1N 3XX, or phone 01-274 3951.

politics please write to: The General Secretary

BM RCP

London WC1N 3XX or phone 01-274 3951 Kate Marshall will answer all enquiries by return of post

SOUTH LONDON

Wednesday 13 June 7.30pm Ronald Reagan comes to town St Matthew's Meeting Place Brixton Hill SW9 (Brixton e) This (convenor Ann Burton) (Cathy Barratt) society (Carol Taggart) Britain - has it a future?

(convenor Judy Harrison) - Britain and Europe credit and racism (Eileen McEvoy) experience 11. The world economy (convenor Phil Murphy) (Tony Allen) market Allen) - problems of Inside America 12. (convenor Mick Hume) Race in Simpson) If you are interested in attending Preparing for Power please contact Kate Marshall, New brochure includes details of all sessions, evening events, entertainment, creche, accommodation, convenors, agenda and reading list. Please send 30p for the brochure or £12 (£8 UB40) to register for the week (free brochure included with ticket). Make cheques out to RCP Association. Weekend or part-time tickets also available.

Join the* RCP If you would like to join the Revolutionary Communist Party or would like to know more about our activities, publications and

FIGHT BUCK

THE PART

THE FUT

Activities

IRISH FREEDOM

MOVEMENT

Tuesday 29 May 9.00am Free Tommy Quigley and Paul Kavanagh! Protest at Lambeth Magistrates Court Renfrew Road, SE11 Sunday 3 June 1.00pm Picket of Parkhurst Prison Isle of Wight (organised by Sinn Fein) 01-274 3951 for Ring transport details Sex, feminism and women's liberation Two theories of women's oppression How women spend their leisure time Family life and sexual oppression Sexist myths and their roots in The women's liberation movement in 10. Racism and immigration.

From immigration to repatriation Bradford: a case study in British Racism and the black response - the US experience (Zaro Costello) Three strategies for fighting racism reformist, separatist and communist Racism and fascism - the German How the world economy was formed How international is capital?

State intervention and the world World banking and finance (Tony Prospects for the world economy The unique class structure in America American politics (Gary US imperialism and its rise The working class in post-war America Assessing the Reagan administration the next step, June 1984 23

Crush world terror! Reagan's wargames are only the beginning PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN is in London this month for the tenth annual economic summit. at the massed Western press, his agents slaughter the oppressed masses Third World. In Central America, US troops are digging in for a long stay in Honduras, as Reagan pours millions of dollars into the region to back the murderous dictatorship in El Salvador and undermine -the radical Nicaragua. regime in Middle East, Reagan has pulled out of Lebanon, but he is preparing to send a warfleet to the Gulf, as the Iran-Iraq war threatens to cut off oil to the West. Behind Reagan's diplomatic posturing summit, helicopter gunships and machetewielding death squads are the reality of America's international relations in eighties. But Reagan is not alone. Every Western politician assembled in London this month™ is prepared to go to any lengths to protect imperialist power. troops are embroiled in Chad and throughout Central Africa. British armour reinforce lands, and more than 30000 members of the Crown forces continue Britain's bloody occupation in the Six Counties of Ireland. The debates at the summit are not just about economic issues. power. The pressures of recession have forced the imperialists into fierce competition over their spheres of influence.

Now the question is: which of them is to be the dominant power holding sway over the Third World? It is a question which can only be answered in an international conflagration. The West's leaders will be taking a day off this month to visit Normandy for the fortieth anniversary of the Allied invasion during the Second World War.

back to the serious business of preparing for the next imperialist confrontation.

The imperialists are preparing for war.

We must begin preparing a movement to stop them. We need a movement which is not just anti-American, but anti-imperialist: a movement prepared to fight for the defeat of every imperialist ruling class starting with our own. ment which does not just oppose individual weapons, but takes on the capitalist system which is driving the world towards If we are to build that movement, we need to work out our strategy now. The Revolutionary Communist Party's annual summer conference, Preparing for Power aims to map out the way forward for the working class. Preparing for Power is a week of education and entertainment, running from 13-20 July. debates and discussions cover every aspect imperialism OT and

LOUC

struggles against it. Turn to page 23 for full details. If you want peace, come to Preparing for Power. mongers means preparing ourselves to take their place as the class that controls the world. hext step review of the Revolutionary Communist Party While Reagan smiles of the In the at the the Thousands of French Millions of tons of Fortress Falk- They are about Then it's We need a move. Its courses, workers' Stopping the war-

PREPARING FOR POWER 1984

FRIDAY 13 JULY - FRIDAY 20 JULY

Polytechnic of Central London, New Cavendish Street, London W1 Send 30p to the address below for the conference brochure with full details of the week's events PREPARING FOR POWER is a week-long series of discussions, debates, films and fun. There are a dozen specialist courses (see page 23) plus many extra sessions of general interest, film shows, great debates and dancing, all rounded off by a boat-trip down the Thames. All week Employed/Student £12.00 UB40/Unwaged £8.00 Make cheques payable to RCP Association, send to BM RCP, London WC1N 3XX For details of accommodation, creche facilities etc, ring Kate Marshall on 01-274 3951 The Western leaders' summit is a thieves' kitchen to carve up the world Weekend £5.00 £3.00

PREPARING FOR POWER 1984