The Next Step: No. 7, 14 February 1986

The TUC can't tns the nextstep Revolutionary Communist Party • 14 February 1986 • 30p

CHRIS BLACK

the Thatcher and the collapse of British capitalism pages 6,7 The Wendy Savage case page 4 Is the IRA sectarian? page 5 South Africa: Botha tries again page 8 7 fight scabs We need rank and file action to tackle scab unionism - in every union See pages 2 and 3

the next step Revolutionary Communist Party weekly • 14 February 1986 • No 7

TRUST THE

RANK AND FILE

he sequestration of the assets of the T print union Sogat in the high court this week is the latest echo of the miners' strike in the bitter dispute at Rupert Murdoch's News International. The print workers nave been altacked by a ruthless and calculating employer, backed by the government and the courts. Like the miners strike, the print dispute raises controversial issues for union activists.

Much of the controversy surrounds the role of the electricians' union in providing scab labour to do the jobs of 5000 Fleet Street workers, sacked by Murdoch after they went on strike against his plans to shift production to the hi-tech Wapping plant.

Many left wingers and activists support the demands of other union leaders for the EETPU to be kicked out of the TUC because of its role at Wapping. This approach, however, distinction between Ignores te union leaders and the rank and file. Indeed, by promoting the initiatives of left-wing union leaders, it appears to put more faith in the bureaucrats than in union members.

There is a direct parallel between the issue of the ballot in the miners' strike and the question of expelling the EETPU in the print dispute. At the start of the miners' strike many activists preferred to put their trust in Arthur Seargill's leadership, rather than campaign to win the support of the miners for an all-out national strike through a national ballot. They opposed demands for a ballot because they had more confidence in a left-wing union leader than in the rank and file. Militants were so contemptuous of ordinary miners that they avoided taking the risk of consulting them about the strike, and instead urged everybody to follow Scargill's directions. Similarly in the print dispute, activists hold ordinary members of the electricians' union in such low regard that they would rather follow the lead of radical bureaucrats, like Ron Todd of the TGWU, than appeal to rank and file EETPU members to tackle the problems of collaboration in their union.

Instead of campaigning for rank and file action against scab unionism, left wingers appeal for bureaucratic TUC measures to deal with this threat to our unions.

IN OUR HANDS

The Revolutionary Communist Party alone called for a campaign to win a national ballot in the early weeks of the miners' strike. Our objective was to put the fate of the strike in the hands of rank and file miners. A campaign around a ballot could have brought all the issues into the open. It exposed could have weren Scargill's strategy, which emphasised the common interests of workers and employers in the British coal industry. We called for a ballot as the only way to win rank and file workers to a strategy which rejected all concern with the industry, and accepted no constraints on the defence of workers' jobs and conditions. This approach could have united the miners and provided a basis for linking up the miners with workers from other unions, whereas the union leaders bureaucratic policy only deepened divisions.

For similar reasons, we oppose the call for the expulsion of the EETPU from the TUC.

This is not because we have any sympathy for the leadership of the EETPU and its strike-breaking tacties. We oppose the narrow focus on the EETPU because it lets the other unions off the hook. It avoids Publisher kevolutionary Communist Party, BM KCI, London WCIN 3XX S copyright Printer Morning Litho Printers Ltd (TU), 439 North Woolwich Road. London E16.

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Circulation 01-729 3771. Newsdesk 01-729 3771. Correspo LOnCOn WEI SAA. ON U14400 A 14 rebruary 1760. epistelco as a newspanet alte rOse 2 • the next step • 14 February 1986 challenging the sort of capitulation to the employers which has become commonplace in every union over recent years. The drive to expel the EETPU confines the whole issue within the trade union leadership. What is needed is a campaign against scab unionism throughout the rank and file of the unions.

Trade union officials and their radical camp followers are often inclined to look down their noses at ordinary workers, who at times annear to be more interested in reading the Sun than in taking industrial action to stop it from being printed. Yet, after a lifetime of working within the framework of union/management collaboration, union officials - even leftwing officials — have too much at stake in the old machinery either to break out of it or to embark on, direct action against it. Rank and file workers, by contrast, have no stake in the old system of collaboration and everything to gain by fighting to defend their livelihoods. In the end, a rank and file worker whose livelihood depends on fighting the bosses is more likely to take them on than the union official whose livelihood depends on situng around tables with tem.

THE FRONT LINE

The TUC response to the EETPU issue confirms the urgency of launching a rank and file campaign against scab unionism.

Whether the TUC finally splits, or, as seems increasingly likely, simply fudges itself into oblivion, the problem of scab unionism will not go away. The common response of the union leaders to the pressures of recession is to try to save their skins by sacrificing ours: whether Eric Hammond is inside or outside the TUC will have little effect on the advance of scab unionism in all the other

TUC

affiliates. While left-wing activists gather outside Congress House to urge on the TUC left against the EETPU, all the unions are jobs, accepting signing away Hexible working and making no-strike deals. Instead of lobbying bureaucrats, we need to campaign among rank and file workers.

The front line in the battle against scab unionism is now drawn in Wapping. A number of basic steps are essential to rally workers against Murdoch and his allies.

•Close down Wapping total blockade by post, telecommunications, gas and electricity workers — is essential to stop the scabbing Social security workers should ignore all restrictions and pay out maximum benefits to strikers. A campaign among the rank and file of the EETPU and the TGWU is necessary to target the class traitors responsible for organising scabbing and to put maximum on worKers support the print strikers. A national boycott of Murdoch publications would also help to keep the pressure up. • Shut down Fleet Street Token picketing of the Wapping plant is not going to force Murdoch to back down and other employers are already beginning to follow his example. An all-out print strike is the only way to stop them.

•One union in the print The damaging consequences of the sectional divisions among print workers have been fully exposed in this dispute. While it may suit the bosses and the bureaucrats to have different union organisations, a single union for journalists, printers, distribution and clerical staff is the only rational course for workers. indence to The Editor, the next step. BCM JPLTD,

FAREWELL THEN, FLEET STREET?

A BLEAK OUTLOOK FOR THE OFFICIAL LABOUR MOVEMENT

DOCKLANDS:

A UNION WASHOUT

M oves currently afoot threaten to turn Fleet street into a museum piece The Telegraph Group plans to cut its London production staff by half.

Meanwhile its 400 000 square foot printing works is being built on the Isle of Dogs The Telegraph plant is not finished, but that hasn't stopped Robert Maxwell's Mirror Group from trying to buy it. If Maxwell's bid fails he will probably select Docklands site for his another British Newspaper Printing Corporation. Maxwell needs no lessons from Murdoch in attacking the print unions. Late last year he threatened to shut down the Mirror Group altogether unless the unions accepted 'the manager's right to manage In November 1987 the Guardian • Wil transfer its London printing to a new £20m plant on the Isle of Dogs. And managing director Harry Roche wants a no-strike deal and widespread voluntary redundancies, in return for a 3.5 per cent non-negotiable pay

BESC

As Rupert Murdoch's rivals prepare to follow his move to London's Docklands - and his union-bashing tactics the Docklands could become a 'militant-free zone' In 1988 Associated Newspapers, which runs the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, will open a colour printing plant at the Surrey docks. Managing John Winnington-Ingram says he has a rough agreement with the print unions for 1000 production redundancies the He also wants to cut 600 departments. clerical jobs and get a no-strike deal.

The Financial Times plans to move to a new printing works at an undisclosed site on the outskirts of London. And Rupert Murdoch has just obtained planning permission to extend his Wapping plant.

The Tories have made the Docklands an attractive proposition for the press barons.

Since Michael Heseltine set it up in 1981, the London Docklands Development Corporation has spent £120m to attract private investment to the area, £35m of it on transport facilities, drainag Future plans include an f The government has designated the Isle of Dogs an enterprise zone, rate-free until 1992 with 100 per cent capital allowance on new building projects. In the Tory vernacular this sort of concession is known as priming the pump' Apart from the printing plants the biggest Docklands development so far is the World Trade Centre, built by Taylor Woodrow at St: Katharine's dock. But this scheme will be dwarfed if the plans for Canary Wharf are put into operation. This £1.5 billion scheme is planned to cover 71 acres on the Isle of Dogs. It includes 10 míllion square feet of offices, commodity trading floors and a shopping concourse as big as Paddington station. The banks behind the project believe it will rival the City as a financial centre.

Schemes like Canary Wharf have raised the value of land in the enterprise zone from £75 000 an acre in 1982 to more than Elm today. The press barons bought theirs cheap but have been slow to move in. Associated Newspapers and the Telegraph Group chose their sites in 1979, yet neither plant is onstream today. Murdoch's Wapping works was originally planned in 1977. For years it stood empty, nicknamed 'Hardy's folly' after the executive who gave it the go-ahead.

Only since the print unions' dispute with News International have the media stopped calling the plant a white elephant.

Murdoch hasn't always been so cocky towards the print unions. At Wapping.

alongside the new hi-tech equipment, he first installed traditional composing machines for use by NGA members. But with the print unions weakened by sectional rivalry, Murdoch opted for attack. His strategy has set an example for the other bosses to follow - all the way to the Docklands.

Fleet Street's 'move to the Docklands is picking up speed because Murdoch has shown the other owners "how it's done'. The other press barons may admire Murdoch (Maxwell doesn't) but they also fear him. In one year at Wapping Murdoch could save £60m, and the others will need to move fast to stay competitive The race is on to cut costs, to make every a legally binding union agreement into no-strike deal, and to put up the 'militants need apply" all the not

HOLICES

Docklands. Andrew Calcutt

ROP

The sequestration of Sogat's funds shows the bosses know the power of money. Help us get our hands on more power by rushing a donation to our fighting fund at BM RCP, London WC1N 3XX. Cheques payable to RCP Association

HOW TO TACKLE

SCAB UNIONISM

While the TUC agonises over how to deal with the electricians, Andrew shop steward at Ford's Dagenham plant; Jim and Terry, both members of a London branch of the EETPU which has been suspended by the union leadership because of its record of militancy; Tom, a Nalgo activist; and Ken, a Yorkshire miner who supports the miners' next step campaign Labour movement against the breakaway Notts scab union.

Rick: We need to draw a line and let the EETPU know they're on the other side.

What Eric Hammond's been doing is against everything we stand for. We have to take a stand against the electricians, as an example to the whole trade union movement.

Jim: As EETPU members we're in a Catch 22 situation. We don't agree with the sparks who are working at Wapping. They've been bused in from Southampton because the union executive knew our branch wouldn't stand for it. In fact some of our branch have been down to the picket.

THE PROBLEM IS THE

LEADERSHIP'

Terry: The EETPU's being scapegoated by the other unions, but it's not just our union that's scabbing at Wapping. It's TGWU members who are distributing the papers.

And Tony Dubbins and Brenda Dean were willing to make a deal with Rupert Murdoch even though it meant 2000 redundancies.

They're just fed up that Hammond's gone behind their back. But the sparks at the News International print branch in central London are on strike along with the other print unions. It's the leadership of the EETPU that set up the operation — and the leadership should have been kicked out years ago.

- the problem is the Rick: I can see that leadership. At Ford's the hierarchy has sold us out over the pay and productivity deal.

The officials recommended we accept job flexibility and arbitration, even though it's a disaster. gone the deal nas through now, even though 17 000 Ford workers voted against it. And when the district official came to my plant, I can tell you he wasn't very welcome.

The hierarchy have got our unions in their grip. Instead of being representatives they dictate to us. And if militants get in their way they come along and top them.

BREAK DOWN DIVISIONS

Ken: What you've said shows the need to the leadership right across the take on board. If we fail to do that the consequences could be very serious. For example, when were blamed for the the Notts miners formation of the UDM it wasn't inevitable that they went that way. The responsibility lies with the bureaucratic leadership, and the lack of a campaign to break down the divisions within the union.

Terry: That's our problem as well. The executive has divided our union into sections power, print, TV, contracting.

They should provide coordination nationally, but they don't. Calcutt discusses the problems of scab unionism with Rick, a TGWU Ken: Our officials don't provide anything.

The NUM's supposed to be a 'left' union but it's not much different to the rest. In my area one of the officials is even talking about a federation to include pit managers, the UDM and the NUM. 'If you can't beat 'em, join 'em,' is his attitude. But we're going to beat the UDM, and to do that we have to challenge the NUM officials.

Tom: The same kind of developments are taking place in my union. At the town hall where I work the council have implemented a 30 per cent wage deduction against library staff and the union says it's impracticable to take strike action. The union leadership has done nothing about a f250 000 inquiry by the council to find out where it can cut jobs. And the membership agreement Nalgo have just negotiated with council the exempts certain members from strike action, so effectively it's a no-strike deal — just like the ones the EETU has signed.

Rick: If we start by throwing out the electricians, wouldn't that be setting an It could change the whole example? direction of the trade union movement. In any case we would be flushing out the bad blood. Terry: But where would that leave us? We don't want to be affiliated to a federation of scab unions, we want to fight our leadership.

They've actually suspended our branch for Glasgow and Manbeing "too militant'. chester have also been suspended.

Jim: There's been eight strikes in London in the past two months, and the officials are worried about the level of discontent. But it won't be easy to crack them. Maybe we'll have to go to court to do it.

Ken: I don't go along with that — we saw what the courts are like in our strike. We need the unions to be accountable to rank and file members, not to the law courts of the That's why in the British establishment. miners' next step we argue first of all for an check-off. We don't want end to the management deducting our union dues, we want the union officials to have to answer to us before they get our money.

Terry: In our section we don't pay dues any more. The union is funded by management through what's called the joint industry Jim: In other words the union is bought and 'LEFT-WING' BUREAUCRATS LIKE RON TODD CANT STOP TWU MEMBERS CROSSING WAPPING PICKET LINES paid for by management. independence at all, you need a JIB ticket before any employer will take you on. And if they think you're militant it goes on the JIB computer, with the union's consent. Then you get victimised. Tom: That's a good example of how the less independent than ever arc no-strike deal before. Similarly each whether it's Ron Todd or Eric Hammond who signs it, effectively disarms the union It's a rejection of the tension there's always been in unions between collaboration and in favour of outright independence collaboration. It's also the result of the failure of old-style militancy

ONE SMALL STEP

Ken: That's really true. The NUM failed because it wasn't independent enough. For all his Tory-bashing talk Arthur Scargill based his arguments on the Plan for Coal on what was good for the British coalmining industry. And Ron Todd built his career by convincing TGWU members they would have to go down the road because Ford UK had to be made profitable. It's just a small step from there to Eric Hammond's 'new Teause when the TGWU Rick: At Dagenham recommended job flexibility and no economic disruption', workers were talking about ripping up their cards and forming a new union. People were so angry.

Jim: But how can we fight back effectively?

The pickets at Wapping are not achieving anything. It needs the whole of Fleet Street to come out. And what about the mass pickets at Warrington two years ago? All that did was prove to the Tories that they could take on the miners Ken: Among all the print unions there is a long tradition of sectionalism they've always been as much concerned to keep other workers out of the print as they have been to fight the employers. This sort of trade unionism just deepens divisions in the working class. To change the face of trade unionism, our first priority must be the political arguments to cut through these sectional divisions.

That means arguments that reject the preoccupation with profitability and productivity, and put a stop flexibility/redundancy deals in every single the next step • 14 February 1986 • 3

A RIGHT NOT A PRIVILEGE

Women

CAMPAIGNING FOR NURSERIES

'T he social services told me that unless you batter your child then you've chance." Margo's two-and-a-hall year fight was how for nursery facilities in Peckham began.

*They put me on the waiting list, but on the other hand they said I'd never get a place.

But I'm not unique. At Copleston (a local nursery) there were 80 on the waiting list."

Sarah, breaking out in gusts of laughter when I asked her if she'd managed to get a nursery place, explained places were so few and far between it was hardly worth looking.

But she was one of the lucky ones who had managed to get a childminder. Still she reckoned the situation was hopeless: might as well not work really. It's either work and pay for the childminder or not work and Have te same amount of money.

Winnie, a black woman trom south London, came up against a similar problem.

"There's a minimum of six months wait to get your children into a nursery. And then you have to wait until they're three and a half.'

When she finished her job as a nurse in December she found that it wasn't worth her while working. *I had to pay out f200 a

WENDY SAVAGE

ON TRIAL

onsultant obstetrician Wendy Savage was suspended from her post at the London Hospital in April last year because of alleged clinical incom- She now faces a specially Potence. constituted inquiry into the conduct of five Sciccic cases wiich locus attenton on 4 • the next step • 14 February 1986 month on my rent, plus my electricity and my childminder. So that left me f200 a month for everything else with two children.

'If women can't put their children somewhere safe, they can't go to work and women's role will never change,' says a south London nursery worker. Karen Williams looks at the problems of childcare It works out that I'm as well oll unemployed. But I don't particularly want to be unemployed." controversial issues in the medical management of childbirth.

It is clear that Savage is being victimised by her senior colleagues who disagree with her methods and resent her style. The way they have set about getting rid of Savage reveals the ruthlessness of the medical 'It's affected me a lot,' said Claire, now a student. Last year I did an access course designed especially for mature students so I just assumed when applied that there'd be some kind of nursery facilities. But there weren't any. I've paid for a childminder out of my grant which obviously led to financial difficulties. If I could have got a free place I'd have gone to college or out to work a lot earlier." According to the 1980 Child Care Act local authorities are supposed to promote the welfare of children under five — but only when home circumstances are 'grossly inadequate.

For the state the issue is not that women should have a right to go out to work, but that it has a duty to preserve 'social order'.

Even on such narrow criteria most inner.

city authorities have long waiting lists for "priority" The women's unit in cases. Southwark estimates that only 25 per cent of children in the borough get any form of care outside the home and this includes childminders, private nurseries and social services. As a result only around 1000 mothers of under-fives in the whole area are able to get out to work. The most recent establishment in dealing with doctors who retuse to abide by the rules of this exclusive professional brethren. More importantly however, the public preoccupation the case distracts attention from the cutbacks in the health service which are gravely damaging the already inadequate maternity and childcare services, as well as every other area of health care women need. Savage stands for a low technology, antiinterventionist approach to childbirth. She favours holding antenatal clinics in local surgeries with close involvement of GPs.

midwives and other community services.

Savage emphasises an approach to childbirth which takes account of the individual demands of her women patients.

By contrast, Savage's critics, led by professor Gedis Grudzinskas, favour a hitech, active management of labour. They prefer conduct antenatal clinics in to hospital and take little interest in the social and emotional aspects of childbirth.

While the doctors squabble among themselves, spending cuts are destroying the health service Although most people tend to feel more sympathetic towards the Savage approach it is in itself no more progressive than that of her colleagues. There is nothing wrong with applying technology to childbirth: on the contrary, the development of techniques such as safe caesarean section and fetal monitoring have played a significant role in reducing the incidence of death and disability in mothers and babies. While there may be a case for criticising the blanket application of these techniques, this does not justify the irrational hostility to technology that motivates many supporters of the natural childbirth movement. This reactionary campaign secks to turn the biological function of childbirth into a Nor is there any particular merit in "community as opposed to hospital antenatal care. Indeed this approach has been adopted in response to the inefficiency of national inquiry revealed that around one percent of three million under-fives have places in council day nurseries.

Another 22 per cent receive nursery education, but most of this is in the voluntary and private sectors.

Most mothers have to cope by themselves without even the possibility of nursery care until their children are about three.

Even then most of the time they end up forking out, or alternatively staying at home. The effect of the shortage of nursery facilities on women is dramatic: only five percent of mothers with children under four have fulltime jobs and only 18 per cent even have jobs in the low-paid, part-time sector. Most are lett at home looking after women children. The lack of provision of childcare facilities is symptomatic of the way women are treated in British society today - as part-time, low-paid workers who double up as childminders and housekeepers. Fulltime nurseries are essential if women are to be allowed to participate fully in society It is in the interests of both men and women that women should be able to go out to work too - with their children well cared for in a free nursery. •People should stop treating nurseries as a luxury for the privileged few, says Martina 'Nurseries are a basic need for any parent who wants to carry on leading a normal life and doing the things normal people do every day." If you live in south London come and join our campaign for free full-time nurseries We're holding a lobby of the Inner London Education Authority on 18 March. The councils are supposed to provide facilities — it's about time they started doing it.

hospital clinics, with their overworked and impatient staff, their shoddy facilities and In practice the long delays. community approach often means visits to both the GP's surgery and to the hospital for scans and other tests. In a rationally organised system it would make more sense to centralise services and organise them efficiently.

Savage and her supporters proclaim a woman's right to choose how she should have her baby. In reality all choices in the NHS are restricted by the shortage of resources resulting from more than a decade of government cuts. A recent investigation has concluded that the lives of mothers and being put at risk by severe as escre shortages of staff and facilities in hospitals throughout Britain. 524 A survey of revealed that there paediatrician to resuscitate babies in one birth in five. The availability of special neonatal care meets less than half the demand. While controversy rages about whether or not women should be allowed to choose to have a caesarean, the report 'serious deficiencies" in the reveals anaesthetic staff and facilities required to conduct the operation safely.

Last month the Mirror ran a feature on the case of 13-year old David Hillier who broke his leg in a car crash and was rerusec to eight hospitals, admission London because of cutbacks and bed closures. The 19 deaths from food poisoning at the Stanley Royd psychiatric hospital in Wakefield as a result of filthy' kitchens are a consequence of the cuts. The threatened closure of substantial sections of London's most prestigious teaching hospitals is another.

Since the Savage inquiry began, the gynaecology ward at the Mile End section of the London Hospital where she works has been closed, and the domiciliary midwifery scheme she set up has been discontinued The day care abortion centre at Mile End is under threat, and the hospital itself has long been under consideration for closure. The authorities are adopting Murdoch-style tactics: Ben Obiekwe, the locum obstetrician appointed in place of Savage, was sacked last month, allegedly for stealing toilet rolls to the value of £1.20. By the time the Savage inquiry is over, it is likely that there will be no job for her to return to.

While we have no sympathy for the attack on Savage, the real issue at stake is the wider attack on health services. We should avoid getting drawn into the internal squabbles of the medical profession and concentrate on lighting the cuts. Helen Swift

THE IRA ISN'T SECTARIAN

BRITISH PROPAGANDA IN IRELAND

IRISH REPUBLICANS FIGHT BRITISH TERROR, NOT PROTESTANT THEOLOGY dward Pearce, parlamentary columnthe Daily Telegraph, .OH supposed to have a good sense of So perhaps his argument that the IRA is a sectarian force, killing Protestants in Northern Ireland for their religion, is meant to be a joke. See if it makes you laugh: *The psychopathic conduct of the IRA, cooly clearing the ground in South Armagh by killing Protestant farmer after Protestant farmer so as to make that part of the North more authentically Catholic, has a ring of provincial Nazism to it.'

Just as the primitive peoples of South America cleared rain forests in order to grow food, Pearce implies, so the IRA savages of South Armagh are scything through the Protestant population to get their greedy Catholic hands on a few acres of farmland. (I don't understand what 'provincial Nazism' means, any more than I ever got to grips with the Daily Express idea that the IRA are 'bogfascists'.)

A USEFUL NOTION

Pearce is only one of many propagandists busy reviving the idea of IRA sectarianism. The recent anniversary of the incident nessataok Armagh, when 10 Protestant workmen were shot dead, was a good excuse for both sides of British television to produce programmes on nis useme s auseu noroR or ult British authorities to promote: brand Irish republicans as sectarian murderers, and you can rest assured that they on't win much sympathy from British people.

world that 'the troubles" are about bigots beating each other's brains out religious relics, and you can divert attention from the fact that the British government is waging a colonial war in Ireland.

In fact the IRA is not conducting an anti- Protestant pogrom. It is fighting a national liberation struggle to force Britain out of Northern Ireland and to unite Ireland as an independent nation. The IRA aims almost all its attacks at the armed agents enforcing British rule in Royal Ulster - the Army, the Ireland Ulster Constabulary and the Regiment. True, most of the people killed by the IRA are Protestants. But that is because of their paramilitary uniforms, not their religion; more than 90 per cent of both RUC and UDR members are Protestants. Accusing the IRA of being sectarian because it killed more than 20 Protestant members of the RUC last year is like saying striking Yorkshire miners attacked the Metropolitan police force in 1984 because they had a grudge against Londoners.

The British establishment has recently dragged out the old myth about the IRA being anti- Protestant The real sectarian murderers in Northern Ireland are the Britain has made the Protestants loyal subjects by guaranteeing them a privileged position over their Catholic neighbours in British terms of jobs, services and political power.

The Loyalists regard not just the IRA, but any Catholic, as a threat to the jobs and South houses which they exclusive property. Simply being a Catholic makes people in Northern Ireland the target of Loyalist abuse and possible attack by the brutal bigots in the Loyalist paramilitary Over the past 20 years they have gangs. committed around 600 horrific murders.

Most of their victims have been innocent Tell the civilians, condemned at random for the of being a Catholic in

CETHC

with Ireland.

DIFFERENT TARGETS

The events of the last few weeks, since the Anglo-Irish deal was temselves. Both the IRA and the Loyalist paramilitaries are opposed to the new Anglo-Irish agreement. wrongly see it as a step towards a united Ireland, the republicans rightly understand the accord as an attempt to consolidate Defence Britain's control over the North. Both have pledged to use force to make the British withdraw the scheme. government important difference, however, lies in the targets against which they are prepared to use force. Since the agreement was signed the IRA Protestant part of the city.

near Belcoo, Loyalist paramilitaries. consider to be their victim of sectarian teror"?

Northern steal Protestant land rights.

signed, speak for throughout the Irish War, Loyalists ruling class. The Loday has launched a successful military campaign along the Border, wrecking almost a dozen RUC stations and killing four members of the British security forces (and no civilians) this year. By contrast the Loyalist paramilitaries have threatened to car-bomb Catholic towns on both sides of the Border, and have shot dead two Catholic civilians.

The two most recent deaths show who are the cold-blooded sectarian killers.

• On Friday 31 January masked gunmen burst into a Catholic Belfast home, beat up 70-year old Annie Quinn and shot her son Martin as he lay in his bed; he died on the way to hospital. Martin Quinn was not involved in politics. He was murdered by Loyalists because his house happened to stand on a small Catholic estate in a • On Monday 3 February an IRA bomb County Fermanagh, killed John Early, a private in the Ulster Defence Regiment. Early was a Catholic, but to the non-sectarian republican movement Early was a soldier fighting for a foreign army of occupation, regardless of his religion. Atter the attack the IRA's Fermanagh brigade described him as 'the latest casualty British imperialist rule in Ireland', killed because he became one of 'those who carry arms to uphold British rule, a decision "taken by the individual concerned".

BRITISH SECTARIANS

Private Early had a choice about whether to join the British war machine in Ireland.

Martin Quinn had no choice about being born a Catholic. So which one was "an innocent Liars like Edward Pearce can write their rubbish about Catholic IRA men trying to The truth remains that the IRA is fighting a foreign power that has stolen the Irish pople's right Today, country. -there is one driving force for sectarianism in Northern Treland. It is the force that divided the contry and turned the Protestant population in the North into its local agents, the force that sustains the sectarian state built on the blood of Irish Catholics - the British This sectarian force is ably assisted by propagandists like Pearce, to whom anybody that takes up arms against the warmongering British government must be a sectarian, psychopathic Nazi Mick Hume

THE

PROPAGANDA

WAR

TURNING JAPANESE

Last weekend Neil Kinnock returned once again to his latest theme that Britain should use Japan as its role model for the future.

What Kinnock likes most about Japan is what he calls its 'social solidarity strategy".

This is presented as a harmonious relationship among workers, employers and the state, which allows "reducing costs by improving production. In fact it means class collaboration in more intensive exploitation. Kinnock proclaims the virtues of the Japanese industrial system, but he does not dwell on either the preconditions for the Japanese economic miracle or the conditions of the Japanese working class In fact the rapid post-war growth of Japanese capitalism was no miracle. It was the result of a number of easily identifiable factors. The Second World War devastated both the old economy and social structure of Japan and cleared the ground for thoroughgoing reconstruction. American domination and massive capital inflows provided the stimulus for acelerated industrial development. And most importantly, the working class was subjected to systematic repression.

For 20 years up to the end of the war.

the working class lived in terror under the imperial dietatorship which crushed all attempts at workers' organisation. The upsurge of workers' struggles at the end of the war was ruthlessly put down by the American forces of occupation. Through the fifties genuine trade union organisations were smashed and the modern company unions built up, usually beginning as organised seabs. The 'social solidarity' of modern Japan was achieved through the humiliation of the working class.

Imagine a factory where nobody has ever gone on strike and where nobody has ever been made redundant,' says the smooth voice-over on the Nissan ad. Difficult? Well he can't mean the Nissan plant at Kawaguchi, north of Tokyo, where 1000 workers are embroiled in a bitter dispute with the company over the proposed transfer of production to other sites. The alternatives are redundancy or moving into company dormitories 'like cells' The All-Nissan Auto Workers' Union, a body very strongly imbued with Kinnock's favoured spirit of 'social solidarity, approves the scheme, beeause 'plant consolidation and other measures to help improve productivity are to the benefit of both management and employees. Masao Kamaya, chair of the Nissan Kawaguchi Workers Fighting Plant Closure, says that the official union 'has become an oppressive organ helping the Nissan management enforce the plant closure against the wishes of most Kawaguchi workers'.

It seems that while Kinnock is trailing along behind Rupert Murdoch and Henry Ford and other British bosses in his enthusiasm for Japanese techniques, the old British disease of car factory militancy is catching on in Japan. All we need now is for British workers to take up the spirit of the Kawaguchi workers and throw out the 'After Japan' productivity drives and "quality circles", of the sort that have been introduced in Ford UK and many other companies in recent years.

Militants at Nissan in Japan are fighting to re-establish the independent unions that were crushed by the scab unions 30 years ago. While the Labour Party promotes the methods of the Japanese bosses, we should devote our energies to developing links between British and Japanese workers in the common struggle against scab unionısm the next step • 14 February 1986 • 5

GENTS

6 • the next step • 14 February 1986

AFTER THE TORY

TAKEOVER ROWS

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TO BE LET

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GENTLEMEN

THATCHER'S

BRITAIN

IS A BAD

INVESTMENT

rows escalated last week ou're finished, the magic's gone!'

squealed delighted Labour members in parliament last week, as Thatcher floundered through the tail end of the Westland leak saga and the row over her plan to sell off BL. Labour MPs and other little boys might believe in magic. But most people want a more substantial explanation for the problems confronting the Conservative Party. They will find it in the collapse of the British economy.

From the day she took office in 1979 to the day this week when top Tories were suggesting that it was time she left again, Thatcher's government has been an economic disaster. The Tories promised to revive British industry and rebuild the economy.

But their policies have had all the reviving qualities of last week's leak from the Sellafield nuclear plant.

The first Thatcher regime declared that it would 'govern by conviction' to beat the high unemployment and inflation left by its Labour Party predecessor. 'Monetarism' and 'managing the money supply' were presented as tablets of stone with which Maggie would lead Britain into the promised land. Behind all the jargon, Thatcher's aim was simple: to shake out industry, forcing inefficient firms and 'excess' jobs to disappear, and produce a slimmer, fitter British capitalism.

She certainly shook out industry, all but destroying Britain's manufacturing base by 1981. But Britain's entrepreneurs are still waiting for the promised reward for their sacrifices.

SOME RECOVERY!

British capitalism, the first fully-fledged industrial economy in the world, was too old and tired a dog to learn the new tricks Thatcher wanted to teach it. Under the pressure of the world recession it has crawled oft to its basket to decline quet v. It we are to believe the pro-Tory pundits, the British economy is now going through a period of recovery after years of recession. A quick glance at the figures shows the sort of stagnation that now passes for "recovery' in the panic-stricken circles of the British establishment: UNEMPLOYMENT is now officially at an alltime high of 3.4 million. That's not including the millions more the Tories have turned into "the invisible unemployed', through sponsoring cheap labour schemes like the new two-year Youth Training Scheme, and by wiping women who are tied to the home off the jobless register. INVESTMENT is the key factor in any talk of recovery, indicating the extent to which industry is being restructured and tooled up with new technology. The Tories boast that it has risen over the past two years. But the volume of investment is still 18 per cent below what it was when Thatcher crossed the threshold of Number 10. INFLATION has been Thatcher's success story. When their opponents point to the new industrial wastelands and ghost towns, the Tories drag out the falling inflation figures to prove they are on the right track.

Thatcher's current annual rate of 5.7 per cent might look good when compared with Harold Wilson's 20 per cent-plus ratings in the mid-seventies. But if we remove the British blinkers and look at other industrialised nations, like Britain's EEC partners, we find Britain still comes near the bottom of the inflation-beaters' league table.

Even the jewel in Thatcher's economic crown is made of paste. You have to agree with the Fleet Street financial columnist who commented last week that, If this is what happens at the height of a boom, it passes belief what will happen during the next recession." And that won't be far away. So far the Tories have used North Sea oil money to paper over the 'Can we tough it out?' Margaret Thatcher asked her ministers as the Westland Helicopters and British Leyland Mick Hume examines the Tories' crisis of confidence cracks in the economy. But now that a world oil price war is on, and the North Sea is passing its production peak, the crippled British economy is about to lose its most valuable crutch What has Thatcher to look forward to?

Not a lot. There is no economic recovery around the corner. The only glimmer of optimism in the latest Confederation of British Industry survey comes from the food drink and tobacco industries.

The crucial electrical and engineering sectors are "particularly gloomy'. Thatcher's new Britain is a nation of hamburger chains, "theme pubs and cut-price cigarette stalls — a long way from 'the workshop of the world' of yesteryear. The country that once took great pleasure in handing out "The sick man of Europe' labels to its weaker rivals has now got them stuck all over its own suitcase.

WINNING THE WAR

Given this background of economic destitution the question is not why Thatcher is in trouble now, but why has she survived so long? The answer lies in her successes on the political front. She has faced down or defeated all of her opponents, one at a time, and has established a right-wing climate of opinion in which her policies appear as the natural basis for British government.

Thatcher won the political war in two stages. First she got the establishment behind her by taking on the trade unions. Then she won wider public approval by stirring traditional patriotic values around the South Atlantic War and her law and order campaign - the Falklands Factor'. When Thatcher first took her axe to industry, the capitalist class was not happy.

The bosses' CBI promised her a bare knuckle fight' if she did not refrain from bankrupting its members. The punch-up never happened because the bosses quickly realised that Thatcher's broader political strategy of introducing anti-union laws and smashing strikes, like the steelworkers' strike in 1980, was their only hope of hanging on.

Yet until 1982 she was still hated by a public suffering under the new austerity. Thatcher changed all that through the war with Argentina, flying the flag fiercely enough to win Winston Churchill status as a popular, patriotic leader. The final stage in the consolidation of Thatcher's political position came with the defeat of the miners' strike last year, establishing the unrivalled rule of her "resolute approach.

FEET OF CLAY

Yet today, all of this is not enough to protect Thatcher. Whatever she may achieve on the political battlefield, in the end the viability of any British capitalist government rests on the economic performance of British capitalism. And here the recession is increasingly exposing that the Iron Lady has feet of clay. All of the convictions" Thatcher has espoused over the past seven years now lack credibility Take Thatcher's much-vaunted "hands off approach to industry. The idea was that the government should not intervene in the economy, but instead should concentrate on cutting state spending and privatising the state sector, to encourage competition and the 'entrepreneurial spirit. Leon Brittan rose to prominence as a forthright exponent of this "Thatcherite' approach. He fell from grace over Westland when it became clear that he had used threats, promises and dirty tricks to help prop up British industry Whatever the Tories may say in Westminster, it is now obvious that British capitalism cannot survive without state support.

The Tory crusade against public spending now looks like a lost cause. Thatcher's team has only restrained the government's

Kinnock forecast: wet and windy borrowing requirements through hidden tax increases (charging over-the-odds for public services) and selling off state assets for fast cash. They are already preparing their excuses for failing yet again to deliver promised tax cuts in the March budget.

Thatcher could pretend privatisation was about encouraging enterprise and competition when she was flogging relatively dynamic outfits like British Telecom. But last week's announcement of plans to sell the water industry showed she is only really in it for the money. The cracks and craters which regularly appear in the streets of Britain's venerable industrial cities are testimony to the decay of the Victorian sewerage system. There is little prospect of any real growth or competition in the water industry. The latest sell-off proves that privatisation is all about raising cash to cover the government's running costs.

Such admissions will win Thatcher few friends in the establishment. And middle class public opinion, receptive to Tory propaganda about the need for private entrepreneurs in industry, will be a lot less • happy with the idea of cost-cutting cowboys at the end of our drinking water taps.

MEAN STREET

The Westland and Leyland rows sum up the way in which Thatcher's economic pronouncements now command less and less public credibility and respect. Both centre on her support for selling key British industries to the Americans - Westland to Sikorsky and Leyland to Ford and General Motors.

These schemes amount to an admission, by *the government of national recovery, that British industry is incapable of standing on its own feet. British capitalism can only survive on the mean streets of a world in recession by selling its assets to the highest bidder. This is a realistic outlook from the bosses* point of view. But in the patriotic atmosphere she has done so much to drum up, it makes Thatcher vulnerable to accusations of treachery.

Economic collapse has exposed s the Tories get into deeper trouble, the Labour leadership is busy forecasting the end of Thatcher and the fall of the government. Neil Kinnock is less forthcoming about his own alternative. This is not surprising because he has very little distinctive to say. Kinnock's policies are increasingly borrowed from Tory wets.

In his bid to make Labour a respectable middle class party of government, Kinnock has brought party policy into line with what is acceptable to the establishment. Labour's plans for mild economic reflation, regenerating the inner cities and so on are now indistinguishable from those of the Alliance or the Tory wets.

Kinnock wants to promote himself as a more trustworthy guardian of British capitalism than Thatcher. On political issues he has little hope of success. He cannot compete with her in waving the Union Jack oT supporting the police. But on the economic front he is at least in with a shout.

Thatcher's hard-headed attitude to selling off British industry makes her vulnerable to accusations of betraying the 'national interest'. So Kinnock has thrown in his lot with David Owen and Edward Heath, labelling Thatcher as 'anti-British'. Last week he branded the planned Ford takeover of Austin Rover a case of American colonisation, and called for a British solution to the crisis. Kinnock's wet approach holds out little prospect of success for the Labour Party. It promises even less for the working class.

The first problem facing Kinnock is that no important spokesman for British capitalism believes that Austin Rover or Westland can solve their own problems, even with government support. They are simply too small and weak. The only serious alternative being offered to Thatcher's selloffs is for declining British companies to collaborate with foreign powers -for example, Westland works with European helicopter corporations and Leyland *Thatcherism' as a ragbag of hypocritical rhetoric and desperate measures. This explains why the government has become increasingly accident prone over the past two years, stumbling from one banana skin to the next.

It also explains the emergence of opposition to Thatcher's policies from sections of her own party, and the beginning of a bitter conflict within the establishment itself. The Tory wets, the radical bishops, the dissident lords, the Edward Heaths and Michael Heseltines have all, in one way or another, expressed their disquiet at the way.

cooperates with Honda of Japan.

Kinnock's other problem is that, even if he accepts that limitation, he is dwarfed by the other politicians pushing the same wet line.

Kinnock's attempts to play the establishment statesman look ridiculous next to the real article, like former premier Heath or onetime foreign secretary Owen. While they put the pointed questions to Thatcher and make British capitalism. house of commons. reached Thatcher has ruptured the fabric of British society without solving the problems of The establishment opposition to Thatcher has nothing new to offer. It is led by old faces with old ideas about increased state spending on industry, all of which were obsolete before Thatcher came to power. The Tory wets' newfound authority rests entirely on the declining authority of Thatcher's clique. Former premier Heath's sudden transformation, from embittered backbench malcontent to statesmanlike champion of the headlines with emotional outbursts on breakfast television, his windy sixth-form rhetoric is laughed at on the floor of the And even if Kinnock did emerge as the champion of pro-British Tory wet politics, what would be in it for us? In short, nothing.

Whether the companies we work for are owned by British, American, Japanese or Palace. to flight. British industry over the Leyland affair, has nothing to do with any change in his personality or politics. It is merely a measure of the depths the government's crisis has There are signs that the Tory dissidents may achieve some modifications in Thatcher's policies. The sudden decision to drop the planned sale of Austin Rover to Ford and the setting up of new task forces for the inner cities are two signs of Thatcher's loss of nerve. 'Maybe the Thatcher revolution is over,' suggested a recent Fleet Street feature. Yet while the wets might do enough to soften the government's image and save some face and some votes for the Conservative Party, their outdated solutions will do nothing for British industry.

As one major newspaper editorial put it on Sunday, the U-turn on Leyland 'may be sensible politics for nervous Tory MPs, but it makes a lousy industrial policy for the

DOWN THE DRAIN

Rumours that the search is on for a new Tory leader seem unlikely to come to much just yet. But it is clear that the collapse of British capitalism has brought Thatcher to the end of the road. The way the capitalist class has lost control of its crisis-ridden system shows the need and the chance for us to build a better way of running the world. But we cannot afford to be complacent about the struggles ahead. Whatever her economic worries, Thatcher still has the political weapons she has used to beat back all opponents over the last seven years. She can still win support for repressive measures by playing the racist and law and order cards she has used to good effect in the past. Challenging the Tories' grip on the outlook of wide sections of British society is vital in resisting the continuing offensive.

This will enable us to take advantage of the Westland-style crises that now promise to come thick and fast, as British capitalism goes down the (privatised) drain.

Martian capitalists, their survival depends on their ability to cut our jobs and living standards. As a top business paper said of BL last week, 'It is nonsense to pretend that keeping the company British would make unnecessary the redundancies that will be required to return BL to profit.' And energ) secretary Peter Walker, an opponent of Thatcher, proved in the miners' strike that the wettest wet is still an arch enemy of the working class Instead of biekering about who buys what, we have to make it clear that there is no capitalist solution to the crisis of British society. And whoever employs us, were not prepared to suffer to save their system.

Kinnock has tried to use the Westland crisis to expose Thatcher's contempt for the established conventions of British democracy.

and to promote his support for the parliamentary system. This only exposes his craven support for the status quo. The current crisis of establishment politics has proved that not only Thatcher but the whole "democratic' system is a fraud. The house of commons is just a shell where the government tells lies. 'Our proud tradition' of cabinet government is just a cover for the autocratic rule of a prime minister representing a capitalist elite. And, as business shark Alan Bristow revealed about knighthoods last week. "the nation's highest.

honours' are used by the establishment in a system of barter and bribery that fits just as naturally in Arthur Daley's used car sales room as into the state room at Buckingham Beneath the surface, the crony capitalism' which British commentators decry in the Philippines is not dissimilar to British democracy. Whether it's run by Thatcher or Heath or Owen or Kinnock, all capitalist government is based on corruption.

exploitation and oppression.

Waiting for the wets to get Thatcher is no use to the working class. We need our own party to put them all the next step • 14 February 1986 • 7

BOTHA'S NEW GAMBIT

Internationa

SOUTH AFRICA

NGRY YOUTH SAND ARMURDER MAINERAL

otha's 'Rubicon II' speech to the South African parliament two weeks ago was a major public relations success. Within hours of the event Western news bulletins declared that the end of apartheid was finally in sight. But the reforms Botha promised are neither new, nor - even if they are implemented - will they improve the living conditions of the oppressed black masses. A new passport is to be introduced on 1 July which will be carried by all South Africans. South Blacks are to become African citizens, even if they live in formally independent homelands. National Council' is to be set up to provide black stooge politicians with the opportunity to deliberate with the country's white rulers.

While he promises reforms South African president Botha is preparing new measures to defeat the black workers. Charles Longford reports 8 • the next step • 14 February 1986 These measures leave the coercive structures of apartheid capitalism intact. The Group Areas Act under which blacks are forced to live in designated areas, the pass laws which regulate the flow of black labour to the cities, blacks' exclusion from the right to vote and the panoply of repressive powers under which black workers are subject to deportation and norsocal. torture murder remain unchanged. Botha's new reform package can barely pass muster as a dressing exercise. It suggests that, window for the time being, South Africa's rulers are confident they can weather the storm of working class revolt without making real concessions.

EQUILIBRIUM

factors explain this new mood of Two confidence: the recent improvement in the performance of the South African economy and the stalemate in the black struggle.

In the final quarter of 1985 South Africa's earnings from the sale of gold - which almost half the country's accounts tor exports — rose by a third, boosted both by increased world demand and by the fall in the value of the rand, which means bigger returns from sales of the dollar-priced metal.

The gold boom, accompanied by increased earnings from the export of other precious and diamonds, has eased South Africa's financial crisis and brought fat profits for the mining bosses. Superficial it be, improvement in the may but fortunes of the South African economy has strengthened the hand of South Africa's rulers — both against their enemies at home and in negotiations with the West.

Under the state of emergency introduced last July the government has unleashed all the forces at its disposal to crush the black working class. More than 7000 people have been detained and hundreds shot dead by meetings, the security forces. Political whether indoors or out, have been banned.

The blanket ban on media coverage of the conflict in the townships has helped the the hiding government isolate struggle, its murderous 'cleaning up' operations in black areas from the glare of international publicity. Two weeks ago the police broke up a regular trade union meeting of 500 miners in Bekkersdal near Johannesburg in the process at least eight miners were shot dead, 31 wounded,52 detained and 250 interrogated.

The whole township was subjected to a curfew and house-to-house searches. It is with operations like this, repeated day by day in black areas across the country, that the regime has gradually been able to restore a degree of control over the townships. A 'violent equilibrium' in which neither side is able to prevail is how one prominent South African academic recently described the present state of the conflict in South Africa South African capitalism survives - at the cost of three blacks killed by the security forces each day. The relative success of Botha's containment strategy can be measured by the speed with which anti-apartheid rhetoric is going out of fashion in the West. Demands for reform and threats of sanctions have subsided, giving way to politeness and understanding in relations between the South African government and its Western backers. Four months ago the pseudo-reforms promised in Botha's Rubicon I' speech provoked universal derision.

Now his fundamentally similar proposals are being welcomed as important and inter esting by political leaders in Europe and Western investors are displaying America. growing confidence in the apartheid state's ability to hold the ring against working class revolt.

DIVIDE AND RULE

Behind Botha's talk about reforms, there lies subtle shift in government strategy. Liberalisation of the labour market is the new watchword in South African policy Changes in the pass laws and the intro duction of a common citizenship for all South Africans are part of a wider and vicious scheme to increase the scope for competition in the black labour market and thereby undermine the coherence of the black working class. In the late seventies the South African government introduced a series of trade union reforms and allowed some blacks to settle in urban areas to foster the growth of a stable black working class in industrial centres. Now Botha wants to reverse this process by re-integrating the black homelands into a single national economic planning framework. South Africa is to be divided up into eight or nine 'development which will include the formally regions The aim of the independent homelands. exercise is to open up the urban labour market, previously reserved for blacks with 'Section 10' residence rights, to competition from the unemployed masses, now exiled in the homelands. This way the government hopes to push down wages, undermine the power of black trade union federations like Cosatu the newly formed and foster growing tensions within the black working class.

INTOLERABLE POVERTY

The increase in violent conflicts among different ethnic groups in recent months indicates the dangerous potential of this divide and rule strategy. In the Western media incidents like the recent clashes between Zulu and Pondo people at the squatter settlement of Kwamakhutha near Durban - which left more than 100 dead and 20 000 homeless — are presented as a product of irrational tribal antagonisms. In reality they are the product of the intolerable Pore to destitution id in most care to live and in most cases consciously fostered by the authorities.

The conflict at Kwamakhutha erupted when thousands of new squatters - who happened to belong to the Pondo group arrived at the already overcrowded mainly Zulu-inhabited settlement.

bloodbath A ensued when the newcomers helped themselves to water from Kwamakhutha's single South African newspaper tap. Even admitted that the cause of the conflict was the "severe shortage of all kinds of essential facilities as well as fierce competition for (Weekly opportunities' Mail, WOrk January 1986). Botha's liberalisation strategy aims al widening the scope for tensions which can the black working class from the distract struggle against the apartheid system.

As unemployment among blacks rises above the 30 per cent mark (and 40 in the homelands), Botha is out to use market forces as yet another lever to perpetuate the domination of South African capitalism.

Botha's new gambit draws out the scale of the problems facing blacks in the struggle to defeat the system of oppression in South Africa. But by fighting for their independent class interests workers can beat Botha's divide and rule tactics.

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So there was no alternative - we had to produce a second, revised and updated edition. The first edition was widely welcomed for the way it linked the new morality with the wider drive to reinforce women's subordinate position in society. The second edition updates this approach and provides a powerful motivation for the fight for women's rights today. Still only £1.50 plus 40p p&p from Junius Publications, address below. Also available from Junius • The Irish War, the Irish Freedom Movement's best-selling handbook, the esential introduction and background to the troubles in Northern Ireland and our approach to bringing peace to Ireland.

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DOC

dynasty Rod Prince, Haiti: family business, Bureau, £3.50 Last Friday, president Reagan finally ordered Duvalier dictatorship Duvalier in 1957. Rod Haiti explains the

SIRIKER

mass protests that have departure to France. revolt in Haiti got out of America to protect its prevent other Western backvard. The extreme minon people makes Tor explosive upheavals.

DUTCH FILM

Paranoia in blue (director) army in Indonesia when Sukarno was tienting tor independence. Slale appdlalus

BERLIN

nation Peter Schneider, The wall A drunk stranded in the 'Leipziger Strasse.

HAITI UNDER BABY

The Duvalier Latin America Haitian president-for-life Jean Claude Duvalier, 'Baby Doc', to leave Haiti, bringing to an end 29 years of rule by the inaugurated by Jean Claude's father Francois 'Papa Doc' Prince's excellent study of background to the months of forced Duvalier's sudden Reagan moved swiftly to remove Duvalier before the hand. The USA is determined to contain any instability in interests in the region and to powers from interfering in its poverty of most of Haiti's six Haiti also has a long The Scorpion, Ben Verbong *There are forces stronger than us out there, says the girl to her beleaguered lover as the army and police close in. He has stumbled on some dirty business transacted by corrupt officers in the Dutch They thought that it had been forgotten, and now he is learning the hard way just how efficient a conspiracy can be when it is Concuaea Ton wt ue Divided city, divided jumper, Allison & Busby £3.95 middle of Berlin grabs a cop: where the hell I am?' 'Berlin 'No tradition of popular movements. It was one of the world's first independent black states after a slave revolt led by Toussaint L'Ouverture expelled French colonial rule at the end of the eighteenth century. The strength of this popular uraarton is evident in une survival of voodoo as a popular religion in the face of pressure from the official Roman Catholic church. Papa Doc was adept at appealing to national traditions - such as voodoo - to ensure a measure of popularity for his regime.

Papa Doc's populism made for an uneasy relationship with the USA. In 1963 the Kennedy administration supported an abortive invasion of Haiti by troops from the Dominican Republic.

It was not until 1966 that the US government became convinced that Papa Doc could uphold US interests in Haiti. The key to Papa Doc's power were the 'tontons macoutes' - the vicious militia formed during his Cev adelos politician. His regime survived through the brutal suppression of all opposition.

After Baby Doc succeeded in 1971, the Haitian economy expanded as it became a site tor us assembly plants preparing electronic components for re- Here we go again. If you missed Edge of Darkness, Defence of the Realm, Dead Head and Frankie and Johnnie, this is your chance to catch up on the struggle as paranoia. The Scorpion is set in Holland in 1956, not in Britain in the present, but it has a similar theme. In the blue corner the wellconnected forces of reaction.

In the pink corner a lone individual. The sort of odds to impart a positive glow of fear and indignation. The sort of odds they would like.

Ben Verbong has chosen a cinematic style from the period he depicts, a slow deliberate tilm noir rather than the fast-paced or surreal modes of some of these other thrillers. It might not be unfair to suggest that ne ust wanted to lned

YOU TARE LEAVII

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KARSCHES SECIOI

details, please', the drunk jabbers, just which country The 'wall jumper grapples with the agonised soul of the divided city of Berlin. In the West, a rotting mass of Wilhelminian tenements.

still bearing bullet holes as a memento to the city's export into the USA. Tourism boomed and the Duvaliers boasted that Haiti was set to become the Taiwan of the Caribbean. However economic growth had little impact on the majority of the population who continued to live close to starvation in the rural areas and in urban slums. It also came to a sudden end in the earl eighties, as recession hit nalu s leeole mausury are film like this and then chose a subject to match. Certainly the form is lovingly done and it looms over the content, even allowing for the comment he is making on the tightening grip of American culture. Actually it is more of a film bleu, with its smoky, brooding shadows iluminated trom time to time with deep electric reds. The empty out-of-season seaside town in a Europe flinching between the Soviet invasion of Hungary and the Yankee boom is a suitably apprehensive and hopeless setting. The film is always good to watch and the leading players Peter Tuinman and Monique van de Ven have the sort of faces which can carry every one of the close-ups turbulent past, coexists uneasily with the commercial glitter of the Kurfürstendamm. In the East, morose intelectuals gape out of tower-block windows across the barbed wire and watchtower-studded wall into the forbidden West.

Peter Schneider, novelist, radical essay writer and a resident of West Berlin, describes his observations as he wanders, a wall jumper, between the two parts of the truncated city, exploring the enigmas of the 'German- German' relationship. Schneider's terse prose and humorous vignettes are excellently rendered in this first English paperback edition. But The wall jumper is not only a good read. It provides a thought-provoking insight into the German left's growing preocupation with the partition of Germany.

the German left, inspired by the Vietnam War and other radical causes, attempted to revive anti-capitalist politics, etu wes nul aHouc But as the horizons of politica debate narrowed during the seventies, the

REVIEWS

tourism collapsed following the Aids scare and the bruta suppression of a series of revolts. For the time being the USA remains in command of the fate of Haiti. But the newly established six-man junta of soldiers, policemen and Catholic priests is likely to face considerable difficulties securing American rule in this turbulent island. OaSUSGH with which they are repeatedly tramed. The central character though is himself a bit thin. Verbong's promising first feature The Girl with Red Hair, about a women in the Dutch es sace contases ar interesting examination of a woman's motivation and resolve as she went about her deadly business. It is on this level that The Scorpion falls down. Why does a displaced, bewildered loser eneak ona usaulle exposure of some ex-colonial crooks? The biggest mystery of the film is why he didn't take himself and his girl off at the first opportunity, as she regularly suggests. When vou are as isolated as he Is there are some powerful forces out there. Pat Ford German left turned to nonclass issues such as nuclear war and ecology. It also rediscovered German nationalism. Schneider, who has written a number of essays on the *German question. reflects this trend. But the merit of his Berlin story is that.

despite himself, Schneider hints at the futility of this preoccupation. HIs characters from East and West Berlin discover they have little in common. In their attempt to escape the artificial structures of the post-war order in Germany the 'wall jumpers' are left searching for a 'no man's land between the borders' Schneider's book is a convincing portrait of the paradox of partition. But his lack of a wider perspective prevents him from discovering a solution. It e vuecoetu that sentimental identification with the German nation which is becoming dangerously fashionable on the German left. Sabena Norton the next step i 14 February 1986 • 9

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20D% It used to be Revolutionary Communist what?' or 'the next step? - I'm taking the next step down the street/ into this shop, followed by gusts of laughter. Now most people have got used to coming across the RCP and seeing tns sellers on the streets.

A lot of people read our paper and many are looking for answers to some pressing questions. It's no longer a case of 'who the hell do you think you are?

but more 'look at the way the Tories have dealt with the miners and the way Murdoch is taking on the what chance printers have we got?' Or people say, 'I know Neil Kinnock's not up to much, but what else is there apart from the Labour Party? Some even ask, 'Do you think a revolution could ever happen in Britain? During the last two weeks of February we'll be sending some of the party's best speakers around the country to answer some of these questions. This is part of a drive to raise the public profile of the party and recruit a new wave of supporters. The meetings are aimed at two groups of people. We want to give our existing pool of supporters a clearer idea of where the party is going and take up some of the questions they often come up against when selling tos or discussing politics with their friends. And we want to altract people wro Tave never been to an RCP meeting before, people who are tired of all the old parties and are looking for a real anemalive Is what you're doing realistic? is one of the questions which often Why the Revolutionary Communist Party? stumps RCP supporters on the street. Many people can see that the traditional left is going nowhere, but are not confident that we can do anything different. It's often easy enough to persuade people that RCP politics on some particular issue make sense. For example, in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, we have met little opposition at meetings organised to Tocus resistance to the scab UDM and the policies ot ine Num leadership. T Brixton people have been queueing up to sign Lambeth's left-wing council to break its links with the police and resist the swamp' operation which is resultine in intense harassment for black people. Even on the issue of Ireland, which the British left has alwavs tound so difficult, the Irish Freedom Movement attracted hundreds NOTTINGHAM Wednesday of people to the Bloody Sunday demo in London last week. Yet while many people agree that our approach on different issues is sensible, iney are omen reluctant to throw in their lot with the party as a whole. Some seem to regard having a party with the name 'revolutionary communist is itself a sort of self-imposed isolation which Is undesirable and unnecessary. We need to show them that it is only by having a party which is explicitly committed to changing the system that any of the policies of the RCP can count for anything in the real world. We meet many people who say they fully agree wit our bulleto ur women/Ireland/racism/the unions, but say that they would rather fight to persuade the Labour Party to adopt these policies. If only half of these people joined the RCP the Labour Party's collapse would be accelerated and the RCP would be well on the way to becoming the leading party in the labour movement. Others advise us not to make such a fuss about keeping our policies 'pure' and 'principled' and try to be a bit more popular. We aim to use this series of meetings to show that we're not principled out of a fetish for 'purity, but because we reckon that the working class needs a sharp edge to cut through the morass of establishment politics. We understand that before we can become a mass party we need to win a hard core of the most politically motivated opponents of the system. We need to convince people not only that the Labour Party cannot provide any way out for the working class, but that the RCP is a realistic alternative. The "Why the RCP?' meetings are planned to put the party on the line and all branches and supporters groups should be aiming for the maximum possible attendance. Come along to find out why you should join the RCP. GLASGOW Thursday 20 February 20-22 Langside Hall, S Langside Avenue, Govan Hill 7.30pm BRISTOL Friday 21 February ol verourgns community Centre, Horley Road, St Werburghs 7pm 26 February International Community Centre, Mansfield Road 7.30pm BIRMINGHAM Wednesday 26 February Carrs Lane Church Centre, Carrs Lane 7.30pm NEWCASTLE Wednesday 26 February Pickwick Room, The Red House, 40 Sandhill, Quayside 7.30pm EDINBURGH Thursday 27 Building, Picardy Place MANCHESTER Thursday 27 February Black Lion Hotel, Chapel Street 7.30pm LIVERPOOL Friday 28 February AUEW Hall, Mount Pleasant 7.30pm COVENTRY Friday 28 February Hand and Heart, Gosford Street 7pm BRIGHTON Wednesday 5 March The Unemployed Centre, Tilbury Place 7.30pm Calling Yorkshire! Last weekend nearly 100 people turned up for a day of discussion in Glasgow about the current state of British politics and the RCP's alternative to it. The agenda focused on the influence of Labourism in Scotland and on the Labour Party's opposition to the Tories at a national level.

Most people who came along did not take much convincing that Labour offered no solutions - they wanted to know about the RCP alternative. The fact London calling antiracists! East London Workers Against Racism needs active supporters. Asian schoolchildren at Morpeth school in Bethnal Green are getting attacked by local racists. Elwar is organising patrols from 3.30pm to 4.30pm every weekday to make sure the racists are kept off the streets There are a number of reasons why it is particularly important for RCP supporters to get involved. • We need to confront the For your diary • Saturday 15 February Edinburgh Blame the virus — not the victims!

• Sunday 16 February Wakefield Commemoration of Frank Stagg.

nunger smike maord wakenela riso

THE PARTYPAGE

that nine signed up as supporters at the end of the day shows that some were convinced and want to get involved in putting RCP politics into action. Now it's Yorkshire's turn.

The agenda in Yorkshire focuses on the issues raised by the defeat of the miners' strike, racism in the area and women in Thatcher's Britain. as well as the Labour Party and the ROP Ail tns readers in the Yorkshire area should come diong. argument that black people are responsible for rising unemolovment and overcrowded housing and explain how racism is used to divide and demoralise the whole of the working class. the idea of ordinary people taking full control over what happens in their areas, and challenge the way people rely on the police and other state • We need to provide • Monday 17 February London o late Benefit for Workers Against Racism 100 Oxford Street. W1 • Monday 11 February Glasgow 230nmi No cuts, no redundancies!

Protect at the Greater Gascow health board Bath Street • Tuesday 18 February Brighton Against Racism Anti-Fascist Action and police

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START MY SUBSCRIPTION FROM tns Saturday 22 February 10am - • 5pm Central Library Bradford ers Kinnock worth waiting • The pits: the UDM, the NUM and company Munionica • Racism: a knife in the back of us al • Fighting back - RCPstyle Tickets £2 (£1 UB40) Refreshments, childcare and transport from around Yorkshire available defence for black people against racist attacks as a practical example of what needs to be done on a much wider scale to combat racist violence Kenan Malik is organising a rota of volunteers - call him on 01-729 0414 Council of War Racism - how to fight it Sunday 9 March 11am Fairholt House Aldgate High Street, E1 Details from WAR, BM WAR London WC1N 3XX, or 01 729 0414 montonne erous chamber. Falmer Hous • Thursday 20 February Londor Meeting of all London RCP

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the next step • 14 February 1986 • 11

BABY DOC AND MISTER MARCOS

tnS Doc of "Baby he evacuadon T Duvalier by US airforce jet from Haiti to France last week triggered a wave of popular celebrations and those angry recriminations against associated with his regime. It marked the end of nearly 30 years of vicious dictatorship backed by the USA. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere and most of its six million inhabitants live in abject poverty. Seven out primitive of 10 Haitians work in the agricultural sector. One tenth of all children die within a year of birth. The country has little industry and its best known export 1s the disease Aids. The recession and the collapse of tourism have ruined Haiti's fragile economy. By getting rid of Baby Doc, the USA has succeeded in presenting itself as the liberator Haiti is within easy striking of Haiti. distance of Florida and the absence of any coherent opposition movement makes it fairly easy for Reagan's fixers to ettect a change of regime. The media make much of its proximity to Cuba, but Fidel Castro is too keen to avoid a clash with the USA to risk getting involved in the internal affairs of Haiti.

PHILIPPINES - NO

BANANA REPUBLIC

As expected, last week's elections in the Philippines have only pushed the country further towards chaos. As we go to press, both sides claim victory and all observers agree that ballot rigging, intimidation and corruption have been widespread. Despite clear evidence of his unpopularity and America easily replaced Baby Doc Duvalier when he lost control in Haiti. But the USA will

COME IN

have more trouble replacing its stooge Marcos in the turbulent Philippines, writes Andrew Matthews

STOOGES

outspoken criticisms of his record and his - even by US conduct of the elections observers - president Marcos, for years

-YOUR TIME

South-east Washington's strongman Asia, still refuses to go.

The Philippines is no banana republic. It has built up a substantial industrial sector over the past 30 years, largely through US investment. Modern industry and services now employ a majority of the population of 52 million, creating a large urban working

ISUP

Workers angry reaction to tne Class. contraction of the economy by 10 per cent in the past two years has helped destabilise the Another serious threat Marcos regime. comes from the guerrillas of the anti- American New People's Army. They have proved more than a match for Marcos inefficient and ill-equipped army, and now control large areas of the country.

The Philippines is at the centre of the strategically crucial region of South-east Asia. While the USA maintains key bases in the Philippines and a major military commitment, it is not within easy reach if things go wrong. The USA made Marcos the power he is today, but now that he can no longer control Filipino society, the Reagan regime is in some difficulties trying to replace him.

BABY DOC DOES THE

DECENT THING

The Duvalier family had total control of Haiti's finances, which it used as pocket money. A former minister reckons more than one third of state revenue was diverted into private accounts. Yet by the standards of Western high finance, or even those of many Western stooges in the third world, the fortune of $400m is modest.

Duvalier Baby Doc's narrow base of support was the mulatto business elite of Port-au-Prince, a band of small-time crooks, gamblers and At local level the unpaid 9000 smugglers. secret police of the 'tontons macoutes' ran protection and extortion rackets.

The USA had little difficulty in displacing Baby Doc and installing another pro-US dictatorship. His demise was announced in Washington a full week before he finally gave up and went into exile. The USA had no objection to the corruption of the Duvalier clan or to the terror waged by Baby Doc, and his father 'tontons him. The notorious before macoutes' have claimed tens of thousands of lives. But when repression could no longer ensure stability, the USA was forced to act Baby Doc and his family fled, leaving his henchmen to face the wrath of the people they have terrorised for decades.

MACOSASON

President Marcos is a much more difficult figure to remove than Baby Doc. Much of the economic and social structure of the Philippines is organised around the system of patronage Marcos has evolved over his two decades of rule law in the seventies During martial Marcos fortified his personal position. He ended the dominance of the landowning elite and power and wealth became dependent on his whims. Key industries and agricultural monopolies were handed over to family • Marcos friends or leaders in areas where wanted opposition silenced.

Marcos has created a corrupt network of *crony capitalism' that has made him one of the richest men in the world. The lowest town councillors in the most far-flung islands are often on Marcos' payroll. Getting rid of Marcos means removing the cornerstone of Filipino capitalism.

THE SPECTRE OF THE

SHAH OF IRAN

If displacing Baby Doc was as easy as invading Grenada, the difficulty of removing Marcos could precipitate a collapse of order in the Philippines along similar lines to the events in Iran in 1979.

In Iran the USA had backed the Shah's regime, which became Washington's most With his oil important ally in the region.

wealth, his dynastic pretensions and a vast Shah appeared repressive apparatus, the more secure than Marcos. But a popular movement rebelled against the corruption and pro-Western trends of his regime and before the USA could come up with an alternative, the whole system collapsed. As US diplomats survey the farcical vote count in Manila, the spectre of Tehran is not far from their minds. Stephen Solarz, the leading US congressman on Asia, has offered US assistance in overseeing an orderly transition of power and personal assistance to Marcos. He is telling Marcos to hand over to Cory Aquino and retire quietly to his $3m yacht. But the Us Marcos is not ready to accept invitation. His spirited campaign of election dirty tricks shows that he is ready to battle it out to the end Even if the official opposition gets in, the The USA's problems will not be over. Washington is that once biggest fear in people take to the streets to get rid of Marcos, they will not stop until they have installed an anti-imperialist government in Manila. A military coup may yet prove to be the only way to safeguard Western interests in the Philippines.

REP

If you like what you read in tns become an RCP supporter. We meet weekly around the country to discuss the issues in the paper and to plan action in the local area.

Phone Fenna on 01-729 0414 or fill in the form below. Name Address Telephone Send to BM RCP, London WC1N 3XX