The Next Step: No. 15, 22 April 1988

TIME TO END THE IRISH WAR-see pages 3, 10 and 11

HANDS OFF PALESTINE!

HANDS OFF RAN!

Revolutionary Communist Party Weekly US IMPERIALISM and its Israeli allies are on the rampage against the peoples of the Middle East. • On Saturday, Israeli agents pumped 100 bullets into Abu Jihad, military commander of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, in a raid on his Tunis home. Then Israeli troops shot dead at least 15 Palestinians and wounded more than 100, during protests in the occupied territories. These were the latest bloody blows which the Israeli state has tns the next step-15 A PALESTINIAN WOMAN IS BEATEN BY ISRAELI THUGS FOR DEMANDING FREEDOM FOR HER PEOPLE struck against the oppressed Palestinian people in an attempt to put down the fourmonth uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. • On Monday, US warships and helicopters attacked Iranian oil platforms, boats and frigates in the Gulf. This is an escalation of the US intervention in the Gulf, where its battle armada has been making intimidatory moves against Iran since last year. The USA and other Western powers are behind the upsurge of violence. They helped create the state of Israel by robbing the Palestinians of their arm Israel today as their local agent in the Middle East. During his recent of state George Shultz insisted that Washington backed Israeli rule on point of a gun. The bullets which riddled Abu Jihad's body were bought with US dollars. Support our fighting E1 fund pay for your tns 22 April 1988 homeland. They support and 'peace mission', US secretary Palestinian soil. And that rule can only be exercised at the

WE NEED A

REVOLUTIONARY

PROGRAMME

FOR TODAY -

reassert Western control in the Gulf since the fall of its other main Middle Eastern stooge, the Shah of Iran, in 1979. First the USA tried a helicopter attack on ran in 1980, then it encouraged Iraq to start the Gulf War.

When these aggressive tactics failed, Reagan tried to buy off Ayatollah Khomeini's regime in the infamous arms-for-hostages deal. Since that scam was exposed in the Irangate scandal, the USA has returned to gunboat see pages 8 and 9 40p to heel. The British government is on the side of the oppressors in these conflicts. Thatcher has condemned the PLO as 'terrorists who must be defeated, and sent British warships to back US piracy in the Gulf. We should oppose all such imperial adventures, demand the immediate withdrawal of Western forces, and support the Palestinian struggle for selfdetermination, as the only path to a just peace for the masses of the Middle East.

CAPITALISM CAN CUT BENEFITS, BUT NOT DOLE QUEUES

he government's wide- 1 social security system came into force last week. It is clear that they substantial cuts in the paltry living standards of millions who receive state benefits. Opponents have the Tories callous condemned the ot underprivileged. Reciting cases of impoverishment and suffering can pull on heart-strings, but provides no basis to resist a government that save Cass capitalism. The Tories have failed to solve the problem of state spending.

Thatcher came to power with grandiose promises to slash a spending bill that absorbed 43 per cent of national income in 1979.

Apostles of monetarism insisted inere was no hope lor Brush capitalism as long as mammoth drain on its resources Yet 1982 remained. by spending was eating into almost 47 per cent of national income.

government gave up promising to and began cut spending. tax-cutting auverase privatisation policies instead.

SLOWDOWN

The economic upturn which took off in 1983 allowed the Tories to sustain a convincing countercrisis without tackling Renewed growth state spending. automatically raised tax revenues.

Together growing receipts

WILS

from privatisation after 1984, this enabled the Tories to reduce state borrowing government of fiscal discipline.

But state spending as a proportion below the level inherited from the previous Labour government until last year — hardly a testimony to financial rectitude. Broader economic trends lie behind the renewed determination to cut spending. The imminent slowdown in the British economy promises to close options for raising MOTe month's budget estimates tax receipts for soverend 1988/89 assume four

OCT CORE

growth for the British economy this year. But this has already been revised downwards after manufacturing output fell three per cent in February. with which policyirequenev makers revise their sums shows that they do not really know what 2 • 22 April 1988

SOCIAL SECURITY CUTS

WHY THE TORIES

WANT US TO SUFFER

will happen economy. Nevertheless, recognise that growth is slackening, and that they must cut back the burden of state spending on profitmaking. There are good capitalist reasons why the benefits system should be the main target of the Tory cuts programme. This year's social security bill of £48.5 billion unemployed, low-paid, disabled aged and others third of all government current British spending. Furthermore, the cost, the capitalist class derives only marginal economic returns.

EXPLOITABLE

Sixteen per cent of the social security bill goes to the registered unemployed. This money contributes to maintaining an available exploitable reserve this power. More than two thirds of benefits, however, go to the sick, disabled and elderly state whom are incapable of rendering any employing class. The admission by to Tory ministers that the British and pensioner has joined the list of legitimate targets for attack says more than treasury statistics ever could about the parlous state of British capitalism. Along with the aged, the young will suffer from new rules. Unemployed youth between 16 and 25 years of age face cuts in dole and rights to housing benefit.

Jobless are an target for cuts in welfare benefits.

They can be pressurised to stay on compened to stay home with their parents, or forced to migrate to find low-paid work.

As the state abdicates responsibility for welfare provision, working class families - are expected to find individual ways to care for the young, the old and the sick. Tory ministers are not afraid to admit the hard-nosed capitalist logic behind the Junior social security Michael Portillo has said that the LaSt "burden" of more old people in Britain is one believe can we advised people retirement to make UK own provision.

MORALITY

The Against this, leading opponents Tory policy morality of the Thatcher regime.

British The official opposition hangs on to coat-tails they the England clerics in calling on the government to show some passion. We need to see the Tories for what they are trying push measures decline capitalist organise accordingly. The millions who will suffer from the benefit covering cuts are not isolated individuals.

une sick communities. The only solution is to organise to get rid of those who despite rich by wealth that we produce. Tony Kennedy most of -ENe benefit

ODVIOUS

THE Handsworth Peoples - especially women Campaign is standing two candidates in the May council elections on a platform of opposition to cuts in jobs, services and social security benefits, and resistance to the poll tax, police harassment and benetit cuts all forms of racism. A recent minister police clampdown on the black community, conducted as a two-day drug cleanout, which we don't confirmed the importance of support. He making opposition to police approaching harassment the focus of the their election campaign Peoples Campaign have themselves been subject to racist police harassment dressed up as action against question the drugs and crime. In August last and defying the Tory law. Scottish received people'

DEDUCTION

Where the it won't of Church of deduction of the comsecurity benefits. - a government through the essential avCl and to Strathclyde registration officer, They are members of working class tax register scrounging off the of court.

HANDSWORTH, 1985: POLICE HARASSMENT IS STILL THE ISSUE

Members of the Handsworth

SCOTTISH LOCAL ELECTIONS

SMASH THE

POLL TAX!

oth the Scottish Labour Party Scottish National the Party have made the poll tax the focus of their May local election campaign. But both have shown that they have no intention of Last week the SNP announced that it saw next month's district eleculons as a relerendum on te pol tax. The party withdrew from the TUC's cross-party campaign against the poll tax because of will its refusal to consider a strategy of non-payment. The SNP promised to lead a new non-payment campaign if mandate the elections. The SP's leave it to the approach postpones fight against the poll tax to a future which will probably never come.

SNP

already has council seats it has made clear that defy the district council the SNP agreed with Labour that illegality was not an option for opposing the tax. In the Grampian region SNP councillors voted with the Tories to appoint poll tax colectors and to arrange for the tax from social Meanwhile, the Labour Party has continued its legal moves against the tax. On Tuesday the Labour Party's 'Stop It' campaign took Jack Wood, region's poll tax The . to court. campaign argued that there should be no more canvassing for the poll until the courts had established the legality of using postcards to speed up the registration process. The case was thrown out

HANDSWORTH PEOPLES CAMPAIGN

Police off our backs year campaign member Rob was arrested and charged under the Public Order act after daring to ask police what they were doing prowling around the Handsworth Single Homeless Action Group Centre.

By the time the court case came in December the police stories. They accused Rob of being a trouble-maker and working in a centre used by police lies were too much even Tor tue uage to accept and une case was dropped. But the police have not dropped their vendetta against Rob. They put his workplace under surveillance, and began to harass other members of the irony Labour- Is that controlled Strathclyde council Mr Wood to collect the employs poll tax. Even as the court case was going on, Labour councillors were meeting with Jack Wood. Council leader Charles Gray said he was in sympathy complete with the position of Mr Wood and his staff because of the laws they are obliged to implement. For the Labour Party the feelings of the scabs who collect the tax more alC important than those of the workers who will pay it.

DEFIANCE

The anti-poll tax campaigns of both parties are a cynical exercise to cover up their complicity in already implementing the Tory tax. We need to organise a mass working class campain of defiance linked to campaign of non-implementation by council workers. That's the message of the Revolutionary Communist Party candidates in the Glasgow district elections. To smash the poll • organise collective resistance • break the Tory law • build united campaign of council workers, community groups, women working in the home and the unemplovec • organise against the snoopers Ward

DEREK OWEN

Crosshill Ward will be using the election campaign to popularise this and begin DancIng working class resistance to the tax.

If you want to smash the poll tax, get in touch with the campaign at: PH8 340 West Princes Street, Glasgow.

Carol Taggart Handsworth Peoples Campaign.

On 6 April Paul and Keith were surroundeu by police ds tney got out of their van to get a couple of patties at the fish and chip shop on Villa Road.

Keith was caught in a cul-desac, and police claimed to have a ganja bag which he was supposed to have dropped. The two were held for eight hours in thor nil ponce station and strip-searched twice. When Pu asked what he was there for, the police replied - with Hal hike yours, wial do you expect? Stefanie Bostor * The names in this article have been changed. the next step

H ammersmith town hall was councillor Mitchel Fein McLaughlin, Labour leadership candidate Tony Benn and John Fitzpatrick of the Irish Freedom Movement spoke out against the British occupation of Ireland. The fact that the meeting was a victory over went ahead Tory councillors who tried to ban it and gutter press journalists who vilified it as a terrorists convention.

The fact that it attracted and inspired more than 600 people was a big bonus. speakers agreed that All the should British troops Ireland, although some differed about how this could be achieved.

TRAGIC

Benn started with a Tony proposition all could agree with.

*This meeting is about how we can bring peace to Northern Ireland.

He pointed out that every British initiative has failed, and that the da come contation that Britain could make to end the violence in Northern Ireland, with all its tragic loss of life, would be for parliament to enact legislation that would fix a date when Britain would end its jurisdiction.

*Then the government should open talks with all sections of all communities to discuss how best the transfer of power could be achieved. It is a tragedy that the Labour Party in parliament should bipartisan re-adopted a Have policy by supporting the Irish agreement absolutely failed.' Benn suggested that his own Northern Ireland (Termination of Jurisdiction) Bill provided the best way ahead: Recently members of the Campaign Group presented a bill that would terminate British jurisdiction in Northern Ireland on 1 January 1990, to open up the possibility of talks about what would follow.'

'TRAITOR'

John Fitzpatrick, speaking Freedom the Irish Movement, demanded the immediate sledge-hammers sing crowbars 60 officers from the elite PT18 squad of Metropolitan Police took 60 seconds to storm a house in Clapton Way, East London, last Thursday.

Though they raided the 'shebeen' at 5.38am, they brought the blearyeyed press hacks along to record the raid. Blinded by powerful Dragon lights, the 70 occupants were forced to the ground and restrained with the latest in 'handcuffs' - plastic wire that cuts into wrists. inside.

COe were discovered. Twenty black youth were evenarrested, and five of these were later charged one witn a weapons offence and the others with possessing drugs. The next day, the newspapers screamed that one was the Godfather of the Black Mafia, the top Yardie in Britain. Chief ,superintendent Crawford told the press that the both black and local community, white, will applaud our actions.' By fears manipulating gangsterism, and turning a stagemanaged raid into a media event, hoped to legitimise police higher-profile policing within the black community. Their aim is not crack down on drugs. prepare public opinion for more violent police action black youth. the next step leave drawal of British troops. 'Nobody needs convincing that the here Irish people are Anglodemocratic rights. Nobody here has convincing that needs nationalist communities of the Six Counties contain freedom fighters and not terrorists. He argued that ordinary people in Britain should support the Irish freedom struggle. *Earlier this week in this town hawas accused by a lor councillor of being a traitor to my country, because I sent a letter of solidarity to the relatives of the republicans @killed in Gibraltar.

for Does he seriously believe that I owe my allegiance to Queen and withand Her

COUL

PHOTO-OPPORTUNITY

and the George Yardie The police might claim that they are acting on public concern about drug-pushers. But the racist motives but to behind their aggression are revealed contrasting the Hackney raid against by with another drugs story that made Majesty's denied their Britain I owe my allegiance the stand, and they and "An injury injury to all."

DECISIVE

Fitzpatrick people Britain Majesty's persuaded out of Ireland,

POLICE RACISM AS

SNAP: POLICE TERROR BECOMES A MEDIA EVENT

the papers on the same day.

youth seaside home -

NIA IS STRENGIN

MITCHEL M'LAUGHLIN

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: LIZ CURTIS, TONY BENN, OLIVER DONOHUE (CHAIR), MITCHEL MeLAUGHLIN, JOHN FITZPATRICK

600 AT HAMMERSMITH IRISH MEETING

TROOPS OUT

government and army? To me, Her government the government has 1S political wing of the SAS, UDR and RUC. As a trade unionist in working people everywhere, to all those struggling against oppression.

Our movement has values which a idly by. Tory councillor will never underinclude "The keep working class has no country" one is an government argued that many In this Fitzpatrick, estimated what it will take to end the Irish War. 'Britain will never be it will up to the •• cannabis average they could everything' There

SKULLS

The true purpose members Met's Way house. Steven King, a 19-year old white from Teignmouth in Devon had allowed his parents' detached and other riot gear. Pippins' - to be used for the supply and use of drugs Andy Clarkson decisive only be forced out. No British ever considered Derry pulling out for more than a split second. Even if parliament agreed, it still wouldn't happen, because the British state proper - that is primarily the police, the Army and - would not stand They are determined to control. Fitzpatrick noted how, just before the First World War and again in 1974, British Army officers had refused to obey orders they believed would undermine British state control in Ireland.

context, argued *The oniv torce we have which is capable of standing British state, the only .... while they were away on holiday last August. King and seven of his friends most admitted possession of drugs like and LSD, plus criminal damage and theft. A sword and knives were recovered. King was put on probation for two years and fined €100, while his friends were fined an of f60. Even the state prosecutor made allowances for the high-spirited behaviour of King and his friends. Christopher Bennett informed the court that while the accused were hedonistic youth with a shocking disregard for property...

not Compared to Hackney's blacks, King and his middle class friends got The off lightly. Indeed, the police had only become involved in Devon when King's own parents had returned from holiday and called them in.

mileage for the the establishment in publicising state repression of rich white kids.

of the police raid/photo opportunity was to pave the way for the sort of action against black youth which the Met's elite squads are really trained for. PT18 chosen for their alC strength. As Crawford put it, •We go in to intimidate. Many of the unit are former paratroopers. They are based at the Public Order Training Centre in Hounslow, which houses anti-riot facilities. To prepare for their big performance in front of the press the PT18 unit rehearsed the assault 10 times on a mock-up of the Clapton When not occupied in breaking black skulls, PT18 the 5000 police members are training officers to use plastic bullet guns force which is capable of providing assistance to the Irish people, is tne working class in uni country. That's where our solidarity must be based and directed. Fitzpatrick argued that we could win working class support for Irish freedom by appealing to people's self-interest. because 'the Irish people and ourselves have a common enemy in the British state.'

BLOODSHED

Sinn Fein councillor Mitchel MeLaughlin stressed that the Irish people do not welcome he present oh more blo debel.

Thatcher, Irish people deeply regret all deaths. We do not want this war, but it has been forced upon us by the fact that resolutely refuses to Britain disengage from our country. Britain imported violence into our country and the resulting opposition to Britain is a direct result of Britain's imperial adventure.

British For Mc Laughlin the atrocities and the killings of recent symptoms of the months are Britain's continued injustice of *The primary issue, the one on which socialists cannot be ambivalent, is that Britain has no peaceful role in Ireland. For people there Irish something obscene about Thatcher cronies and her waxing moral about the deaths of two soldiers in Ireland. The woman who sanctioned the sinking of the Belgrano who supplies weapons to reac tionary regimes, who supports apartheid, who established death squads in Ireland, who approved the US bombing of civilians in Libya and who has presided over the most anti-working class regime in memory is hardly a person to be of seriously in morality.'

THROATS

Derry councillor touched on the problems of building a solidarity movement in this country, and the arguments about •Many in armed struggle. Britain have such an inflated and hypocritical notion of their own democratic system that it sticks in their government is as oppressive.

as violent and as ideologically tinpot Central American dictatorship. •Whether Britain cares to admit it or not the tactics of the IRA exactly similar to those employed by other national liberation organisation. Resistance is the same in every occupied country and no one on the outside has the right to criticise the methods of freedom-loving peoples In treland. Inke other • forms ol the armed is struggle, struggle political about achieving the demands for national set. 32-county determination and Irish republic." Liz Curtis from Information on Ireland also spoke. Elaine Grey 22 April 1988 • 3

he working class in Britain and throughout the West has suffered a series of setbacks years. setbacks have strengthened those who argue for moderation, and strategy defensiveness. The Revolutionary Communist Party takes a different We believe that these setbacks are the responsibility of the old parties and union machines of the official labour movement. In Britain the Labourist tradition has exhausted itself and can no longer relate to even the most modest aspiration of the working class. The exhaustion of Labourism in no way undermines the potential of the working class to change the world. The RCP is committed to the of independent working class movement. Only a movement which recognises that the interests of workers cilably opposed to those of the employers can fight effectively in the struggles ahead. For RCP, working the politics cannot be reduced to trade the affairs of the unlonism or workplace. Workers must take a stand on every issue and express an independent point of view if we are to liberate ourselves. The fatal flaw British Labourism is that restricts workers" horizons economic matters, while it allows me employer Class to monopolist debate. Workers political define every problem from our point of view and fight for the rights of every section of society if we are to constitute a politically independent class. While the RCP supports the fight for real reform or improvements in the lives of working class people, we believe that no durable gains can be won within capitalism. The RCP argues that the overthrow of capitalism provides the necessary precondition for the liberation of the working class and of society a whole. The British state exists to protect the wealth and privilege of the capitalists. The aim of the RCP is the destruction of this institution which maintains the conditions for We believe that the exploitation. state cannot be used for any progressive ends. The attempt to use the soft side of the state - local government, inner-city partnership, police authorities simply reg mises me state as a whole and thereby strengthens the authority of the main coercive instrument of the The RCP believes that workers have no nation. British workers snare me same Interests as exploited in other countries. British workers have nothing in common with the emplovers and must resist appeals patriousl chauvinism. As internationalists we recognise that the enemy is at home.

power around the world, the only international role it can play is that of the oppressor. The class struggle is inextricably 4 • 22 April 1988

WHAT WE FIGHT FOR

RCP

linked to imperialism. The RCP supports all anti-imperialist struggles. Workers who live in the imperialist heartland have a special duty to back those fighting against the British oppressor.

Thus we fight for the immediate withdrawal of British troops from Ireland and determination. We opposed Britain's colonial war in the South Atlantic, the and support Malvinas islands to Argentina. We British and oppose interference in the Middle East. We the destruction of the support Zionist state in Palestine and of the apartheid regime in South Africa.

We uphold the every struggle against imperialism.

The RCP is a fervent opponent of all forms of British militarism, nuclear, and 'non-nuclear' alike. The RCP believes that the fight against oppression is central to the construction of all working class movement. must defend the oppressed if we are to fight for our own liberation. This is why the RCP is wholeheartedly fight committed The struggle

LACISEL

emancipation of women is another fundamental issue for the working class. Wenreservedly oppose any form discrimination lesbians and gays and call for the decriminalisation of homosexuality.

Workers must take a stand on these issues, not out of because it is in our class interest to fight for the fullest extension of democratic rights. must Workers need combat organisations capable of defending our interests. The existing organisations of the labour movement singularly unsuited for this task. The RCP believes that the Labour Party is a bosses' organisation that should be fought and exposed. Despite its working class Labour Party has always followed the dictates of the Whenever Labour has been in office, as it has always betrayed the hopes of workers. The RCP is against giving anv electora support to Labour.

Workers need a party that is 100 per cent our own and only responsive to proletarian interests. The existing trade unions are heavily bureaucratised and incapable of representing the aspirations of their that rank and file trade unionists should fight to take control of the movement. Trade unionists should organise across the workplace and industry and demand that we run our affairs. Rank organised committees industry-wide basis could ensure that the unions truly the their members. The RCP's revolution in Kritain and inter.

We believe that this nationally. and perspective is no less essential in Eastern and the Europe Union than in the West. Only the working class has the capacity to liberate humanity. contribute realisation of this objective.

Nellist had struggle against changes last Labour's left anoLaer selfwithout even having the was try Western of the social security without success. same principles in silly. the past trom Maxton, independent siders, Workers commons was wholly out of character.

against for the the House. against altruism, but

SUI

a lifetime. the capitalists. The issue the parliamentary 1922 were The ReP argues many on the lett today. impact. In house of file and belong to Scottish aim is social the Tories anything. parliamentary Soviet had, nothing practically to the

NO POLITICS

OR PASSION

he tribunes of the Tory Party reported with relish Militant MP David 'ruined" the Labour Party's attack on the government's social security week by getting thrown out of the commons. In their enthusiasm to recount how wing had scored own goal, the media omitted to say that Nellist had been thrown out of the Hous word of reproach to the government. All he had managed to do nine times to interrupt Tory John Moore's lame defence It is ironic that the media should get so excited about a pertormance which can best be described as Today's parliamentary left has got none of the instincts, guts, anger or style of its predecessors.

MPs like Victor Grayson, the independent socialist give Colne Valley, James slal veh one of the Red Clydeelectrited the house of named with their passionate orders attacks on the establishment.

Nellist's performance last week In his five years as the allegedly firebrand MP for Coventry Southeast, this was the first time he had managed to hold the attention of Grayson had such contempt for parliament that he hardly ever went there during his period as MP from 1907-10. But he made a bigger impact with the three speeches, eight questions and three interventions that were the of his three-session parliamentary career than Nellist will in on Saturday, comrades. centre of at the controversy last week - poverty - is one that has always motivated The left. Clydeside MPs who were elected in angry about the inflicted working people and capable of denouncing capitalism in a way that shames disruptive tactics made a dramatic famous outburst which got him barred trom the commons in 1923 Maxton accused the Tory government of being murderers when

CRUTCH

they moved to cut off free milk to children. By Nellist cannot get it together to call Today's left is so subservient to procedure that it does not dare out a loot out ol place. Nellist explained apologetically that he had not expected to be *named' by the Speaker. Grayson but for

SCOT

convention. He caused a sensation on one occasion when he rose from the benches to demand that the question of unemployment should debated immediately. After

PARLIAMENTARY

TROUBLE-MAKERS

the more the eight requests for him to sit down Grayson said he was willing to leave "because I feel degraded in a company that will not consider the unemployed'. But he was back the next day to force the issue on the House once again.

Class. lo a chorus of voices shouting 'order", Grayson replied 'I will not order chamber that in a the people wholesale. When the chairman of committee disobeying him the

LOT

the chair, Grayson HARRY McSHANE No mean fighter HARRY McSHANE, the last of the Red Clydesiders, died on Wednesday 13 April at the age of 96. He was buried in Craigton cemetery, Glasgow surrounded by 400 McShane's passing Is particulary poislat givel the present political scene in Scotland. An activist and class fighter all his life, McShane stood head and shoulders above the leaders of the labour movement today. Born into a Catholic family in 1891, facing discrimination at every turn, he : rose to become a skilled engineer, and a skilful organiser of men. Involved in the Glasgow shop stewards' movement during the First World War, McShane attached more importance te the anti-war movement. He stood alongside internationalists like Lenin and fellow Clydesider John MacLean, who argued that the working class has no country and, therefore, no reason to butcher one another for a cause that was not their own.

The 1916 Easter Rising in McShane, who agitated for Irish freedom among British workers throughout his life.

McShane joined MacLean's Tramp Trust Unlimited which travelled Scotland propagandising on issues such as the fight for Irish freedom and spreading support for the Bolshevik Revolution. In time McShane became the crutch on which MacLean leaned as pressures on the two revolutionaries increased. Jail sentences affected the two leaders in different wavs. The years he spent in prison mulling over the defeats that followed the war made responded You may name me, you cannot shame me.' On his way out Grayson urged other MPs to walk out, denouncing parliament as a House of murderers. There is political no distinction between left-wing Labour M's over the generations But the parliamentary radicals past had class in anger their hearts. Even a committed parliamentarian like Aneurin Bevan had Tree ceo manne of the left put whole together today. The one-time MP for Mid- Ulster. Bernadette Devlin. cannot be put in the same bracket as the Labour left. She, was rendered speechless by the lies told by home secretary Reginald Maudling after British paratroopers shot dead 14 Bloody rishmen on Sunday 1972. So she strode across of house commons and smacked him in the face. All the left can do today is make noises at the Tories. They would never dream of having a go at Labour leaders for their craven accommodation to the government.

Neil Kinnock has often been seen nodding approvingly at Nellist's speeches. This is a far cry from somebody Grayson who luke refused to bow to the Labour White Cades nobody on the Labour benches would back his challenge to the government on unemployment, he told them You are traitors to your You will not stand up for your class. You traitors.

Speed the day when we have parliamentary charade with Grayson's passion, and who have the revolutionary politics to go with it.

Joan Phillips prospects for revolution. He refused to join the new Communist Party of Great Britain in 1920, and instead declared the need for a separate Scottish Communist Party and Scottish independence. McShane finally -broke with Mac ean over his nationalist ideas, and stressed the need for a united all- British party.

COMMITTED

McShane was a committed, if critical, member of the Communist Party of Great Britain for three decades, playing a prominent part in the National Unemployed Workers Movement of the inter-war ycars. Allel d series ul disagreements-McShane finally left the party in the fifties, but he did not give up the struggle against the system. At the age of 62 he went back to work as an engineer at Harland and won shiovard, and continuec his political activity in the union, tne trades council and the peace movement. champion of his class to the end. but the long experience of defeat left its mark. Last year he declared his conversion to the sectional cause of Scottish nationalism, as he came to see a local Scottish assembly as a way forward for the working class. was a mark of the decline of the Scottish labour movement from the days when the Red Clydesiders took on the police in George Square on Bloody Friday, 1919, and forced the government to send tanks into Glasgow to defend capitalism against the revolutionary anger of men like McShane. Derek Owen the next step

the next step

IMPERIALISM OUT OF THE

AS VIOLENCE BREAKS out in the Middle East again, we must take sides with the Palestinians and Iranians under attack from the USA, Britain and Israel. Western statesmen and media commentators try to sell us simpletons explanations of the cause of the Middle Eastern conflicts. They talk of 'Arab terrorism' or Muslim fanatics'. They claim that US attacks on Iranian targets in the Gulf are a one-off response to the collision between an American frigate and a mine. They tell us Abu Jihad, assassinated by Israeli forces on Saturday, was one of the shadowy figures responsible for 'orchestrating" Palestinian unrest in the occupied territories. These explanations serve to remove events from the broader context in which they occur, and to disguise their true cause imperialist interference in the Middle East. Conventional wisdom has it that Western imperialism ended in the third world when the old colonial flags came down and those of independence went up. But this confuses colonialism (the direct military occupation of a country, with imperialism - the economic and political division of the world between oppressed and oppressor nations. In the Middle East, the USled Western powers have maintained their domination over the masses without resorting to colonialism through controlling local economies, manipulating religious and ethnic divisions and sponsoring client regimes. When their authority is challenged, the imperialist states have been ready to intervene militarily in the Middle East. Sometimes they have done so by using proxy forces, as in Israel's wars against the Palestinians and its Arab neighbours. Sometimes they have launched covert operations, as in the 1985 car-bomb planted in Beirut by an ex-SAS man on CIA orders, which killed 73 people in an attempt to assassinate a Muslim leader. And sometimes the Western powers have intervened directly, as in the joint US/British air-strike against Libya in 1986, and the current US/British/French naval expedition in the Gulf. Today's most prominent conflicts in the Middle East result from the Western powers' latest, and most desperate, attempt to reassert their authority in the region. It is the next step Revolutionary Communist Party Weekly significant that the fighting is taking place in Palestine and the Gulf. This reflects the problems which the USA is having with the two states which traditionally formed the pillars of its power-structure in the Middle East - Israel and Iran. The state of Israel celebrates its fortieth anniversary this week. It was created in 1948, with Western support, on land stolen from the Palestinians, and has survived ever since by denying the Palestinian people their right to national selfdetermination. Israel has received immense political, economic and military backing from the USA. In return, it has acted as the guarantor of Western interests in the region.

Iran was the other top US agent in the post-war Middle East. In 1953 the American and British secret services sponsored a coup which ousted Iranian premier Mossadegh and reinstated the Shah as Iran's ruler - on their behalf. Through the sixties and seventies, while the USA retained almost unquestioned global power, the Washington-Israel-Iran arrangements worked well for the West and kept the Middle East enslaved. But the arrival of world recession, the decline of US power and the subsequent upsurge of popular resistance have shaken things up. The Shah was toppled by a popular insurrection in 1979, and replaced by the radical Islamic regime of Ayatollah Khomeini. This delivered the single biggest blow to imperialism in the Middle East since the Second World War. Since then, the USA has tried several different tacks to win back its influence over Iran. It encouraged Iraq to attack Iran in 1980. But this only increased instability by beginning the long Gulf War, which in turn entrenched Khomeini's position inside Iran. Since then the Western powers have tried to contain the Gulf conflict by selling tonnes of arms to both sides.

Meanwhile, the USA attempted to make overtures towards ran in the arms-for-hostages deal. Since this backfired, Reagan has returned to rattling his sabre at Iran and giving more open aid to Iraq, in an attempt to bring Tehran back under.

Washington's influence. This week's clashes in the Gulf are the consequence, not of an Iranian mine, but of an American campaign to undermine Iran's independence.

The last few years have also

MIDDLE EAST

1982 to drive out Palestinian existence against the fury of year, and complain about the attacks on Iran. The 'self-defence' which the imperialists exercise is the interests across the globe.

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No 15 exposed the limitations of Israeli power. Israel invaded Lebanon in guerrillas based there. It presided over the massacre of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Beirut camps, but was then driven back by Shilte resistance. When the USA led a Western military force in to police Beirut in 1983, it too was blasted out by the Shites. Israel has been forced to retrench its position. Now it is faced with a new upsurge of Palestinian resistance in the West Bank and Gaza, which it occupied in 1967. The latest clashes are not simply about the death of one PLO leader. They reflect the increasingly violent methods which the weakened Israeli state must use to preserve its Palestinians who can sense a change in the mood of the Middle East.

Every aspect of Western policy, whether economic, military or diplomatic, is directed towards the end of securing domination. Thus Tory minister David Mellor could go to the occupied territories earlier this excesses of Israeli terror, in an effort to win Palestinian support for a Western solution. Yet this week Mellor the diplomat became a warmonger again, defending US Of course the Western powers do not announce their Middle Eastern policies as 'imperialist interference'.

Thatcher and Reagan both dressed up the latest assaults on Iranian targets in the Gulf in democratic language, talking of the need to protect the freedom of the seas and to exercise 'the right of self-defence.

But the 'freedom' they seek is their freedom to commit acts of piracy in the third world. Thatcher showed no such concern for navigational freedom when she threw a 200-mile exclusion zone around the Malvinas islands and sank the Belgrano for daring to come near it. Reagan displayed the same attitude when his agents mined Nicaraguan harbours.

protection of their exploitative Imperialism is responsible for the problems and the suffering in the Middle East. It follows that the defeat of the Western powers and their Israeli agents holds out the only hope of peace and progress there.

This is why we must take sides with Editor: Mick Hume the Palestinians and the Iranians against the oppressors. There is no room for fudging in this conflict.

We must support the Palestinian people's right to complete national self-determination. This does not mean encouraging them to settle for some sham homeland alongside Israel. While the Zionist state stands, Palestinians can never be free. Its destruction is the precondition for their liberation. We cannot allow Palestine's fight for freedom to be corrupted into a Western-sponsored 'diplomatic settlement' designed to preserve the interests of the imperialists by saving Israel. In the Gulf, we must defend the Iranians against US/British aggression. Many people are wary of taking such a stance because of the reactionary character of the Khomeini regime. But even in his worst moments, the Ayatollah cannot match the imperialists for sheer barbarism. If the Western states succeed in pulling Iran back under their power, it can only lead to even more backward and vicious measures against the Iranian people. We should take sides against imperialism in the Gulf, not because there is anything progressive about Khomeini, but because a defeat for the Western powers would be a step forward for the masses they seek to enslave. If the USA, Britain and the rest of the imperialist gang regain control over the region, it will seriously set back the prospects for real progress against all of the oppressive regimes in the Middle East. Our demand must be for the immediate withdrawal of all Western forces from the Gulf. The rising tide of violence in the Middle East shows how imperialism is dragging the world into a dark age of death and destruction. We cannot afford to stand by and expect to be spared the consequences. Taking a stand against imperialism in the Middle East is not a question of being charitable to the third world. It is in the direct interests of ordinary people in Britain and the West to support the struggle against the governments and ruling classes which dominate us all. The force which holds down the British working class is not an Islamic republic, but the British state. Our enemy is not in Tehran. Our enemy is at home.

22 April 1988•

week In the

IRISH

WAR

• Monday 10 April: Senator Joe Kennedy, realising that attacking Britain was the way to get publicity in Ireland, told a crowd of 400 people in Wexford that the British have no right occupying the North of Ireland. • Tuesday 12 April: Northern Ireland secretary Tom King criticised the moderate nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party for holding talks with Sinn Fein. Meanwhile, the Irish Times reported republican sources expressing anxiety that the SDLP's true motive for participating in the talks was to 'cause disunity in our ranks. The Royal Ulster Constabulary's annual report revealed that 1987 had seen the highest level of repubnican allacks on crowa forces since the hunger-strike year of 1981. In all, 93 people died in war-related incidents. • Wednesday 13 April: Two RUC detectives were injured, one seriously, when IRA volunteers ambushed them near Armagh town. The IRA later claimed that the two detectives were invo ved in the assassination of eight volunteers in Loughgall in May 1987. After the Loughgall ambush, Crown forces claimed that they had wiped out the IRA in East Tyrone. The volunteers who carried out the attack on the detectives were members of the East Tyrone brigade of the IRA.

Despite numerous raids and weapons seizures by Crown forces, the Derry brigade of the IRA attacked an RUC patrol with armour-piercing blast bombs.

Renegade republican Dessie O'Hare was sentenced to 40 years imprisonment in Dublin for kidnapping dentist John O Grady last year. In his speech from the dock O'Hare wished that his actions would reverberate until bloody war is waged against the Northern British and their Southern allies. • Thursday 14 April: In a speech in Glengormley, Peter Robinson, heir aspirant to Democratic Unionist Party leader lan Paisley, voiced Loyalist frustration at being ignored by the British. Like a spoiled child threatening to leave home, he said the Loyalists would have to start thinking about independence if the British continued to ignore their proposals for devolution: *They have had the outline of the Unionist proposals since January without a squeak or a squawk." In an ominous warning to nationalists, he said •We've noming tent to concede, all we can do is fight to claw something back." An IRA active service unit attacked an RUC patrol with a 'drogue bomb' near Omagh in County Tyrone. The armourpiercing grenade failed to explode.

• Saturday 16 April: The RUC published its officers' code of conduct. Attempting to square the demands of the criminalisation policy with the reality of waging war against the nationalist people, it delicately points out the RUS dual role of providing a service similar to that of other police forces in the UK and at the same time, protecting the state from periodic armed and violent subversion'. The Stalinist Workers Party opened its Ard Fheis (annual conference) in Dublin, trying to distance itself from its violently anti-republican paramilitary wing. Mark Reilly 6 • 22 April 1988 G agnez (win with the outsider') Proclai Le Pen, leader of the Front National and the far-right candidate In elections. Le Pen is an outsider with no chance of entering the Elysée Palace, but he has played a central role in political tenor 'The key Can all prestachual election Alain Juppe, campaign manager for Jacques Chirac, and leading right-wing

BESICE

candidate, electorate.' As the main candidates compete for votes from racists.

immigration has become a major issue in the campaign.

PITCH

At an election rally in Lyons last Thursday Chirac, Gaullist Rassemblement Pour la кериопеие (KrK). temperature of the campaign by making a pitch for the tar-right vote. He warned that a vote for the presidential incumbent Mitterrand Was 'What immigration. expect after 1988 if the socialist is Chirac re-elected. audience, will be a return to the immigration of Casy between 1981 and 1985 with the right to vote for foreigners.

In a direct appeal to Le Pen voters he added that those who reproach us for not having done enough since 1986 to fight against crime illegal immigration about this before 24 April.

Mitterrand campaign aides hit back the following day by accusing Chirac of 'twisting' the president's ideas. Mitterrand, they said, would never give the vote to foreigners as long as Frenchmen opposed such a measure. The reason acerbic exchange, emergence of race as a major tactor in the election campaign, lies in the political arithmetic of the presi dential race. and Chirac's need to win the support of Le Pen voters in the second ballot.

CONTENDERS

Under the French system the winning candidate must receive more than 50 per cent of the vote. If no candidate achieves an majority ballot, the two leading contenders fight it out in a second ballot two weeks later. Mitterrand and Chirac face different problems in achieving and ority. Mitterrand is comfortably in the lead the opinion around 35 per Supporters of the other left-wing candidates are certain to transfer their votes to the president in the ballot. second combined vote of the lett is only around 48 per cent. Mitterrand has to win support from the right if he is to retain power. He has therefore distanced himself Socialist Party and projected an avec outsider the election presidential influencing the Ine the 1o admitted the prime is the Front National leader raised Francois

VOLC

France can of being image told his above politics. the y cal capable of France Unie'. successful. been and should think electoral weapon, statesman-like and for the in particular, electoral Lne polls with cent of the vote However, the from the

FRENCH ELECTIONS

CHIRAC PLAYS

THE RACE CARD

This Sunday French electors go to the polls in the first round of the presidential elections — Kenan Malik reports on how racism has emerged as a major issue in the campaign The a stalesman between Mitterrand claims to be in the tradition of Charles De Gaulle, and taces former argues that he is the only politician *La maintaining cratie This strategy appears to have Opinion polls predict that Mitterrand will receive between 52 and 55 percent of the vote in the second round. Chirac's sudden resort to using racism as an forced Mitterrand to abandon his pose and start round grubbing around for racist votes.

Chirac has a fight on his hands.

the prime

THE MITTERRAND GOVERNMENT CRACKED DOWN ON IMMIGRANTS

VOLCIS

has appeal

CHIRAC (LEFT)

HAS ADAPTED

HIS CAMPAIGN

TO APPEAL TO

LE PEN (BELOW)

say year and vote is split three candidates. addition to Le Pen, Chirac also Raymond Barre, who is supported by the centre-right Union Demo- Francaise (UDF). Chirac with around 25 percent of the total vote to Barre's 15 and Le Pen's 12 should win through to the second for with showdown Mitterrand. His chances in the runoff, though, are not so certain Barre has already declared his support for Chirac in the second and his supporters are expected to transfer their vote to Pen, minister. Le Pen. however, has refused to endorse anv other candidate. in an opinior poll published in Le Monde last week, only 26 percent of Le Pen Chirac wallice

SCC

installed as president, and 17 per cent plumped for Mitterrand.

COURTED

Chirac has long recognised the electoral threat posed by Le Pen and has courted his supporters Last September he accordingly. argued that 'Le Pen's voters hold views that are very close to those of the present majority. His hardline interior minister, Charles Pasqua, introduced a series of draconian measures to deal with "immigrant crime. At the same time Chirac has been careful not to alienate middle-of-the-road voters.

Until last week's speech, Chirac had avoided making race an issue in the campaign However, his failure to close the gap on Mitterrand and his lacklustre to Le supporters ren persuaded Chirac that he had no choice but to play the race card.

The political arithmetic of the presidential contest has forced the candidates to say where they stand on immigration, but the political climate established in France in recent years explains why racism should have become the decisive • Le Pen's influence on the eventual outcome is the result, not of the technicalities of the French electoral but of the system, adaptation of all political parties to racism. As Le Pen points out I aloud what think in private. Over the past decade Le Pen's message of France for the French' and his openly racist platform have won wide support. Le Pen came to 1983 prominence when In Front National ousted the socialist administration in Dreux, a small town near Paris. . The following the party made a major breakthrough in the European elections, gaining 10 percent of the vote. In the parliamentary elections of March 1986 the Front National again won 10 percent of the vote 33 seats national in the assembly. In Marseilles, once a socialist stronghold, a quarter of the voters supported Le Pen.

ADAPTED

All political parties have distanced themselves from more extreme aspects of Le Pen's his platform adapting to wine racist policies. Chirac denounced Pen's statement that the holocaust was a 'minor detail' in history, but his 1986 assembly election campaign differed only in detail from Le Pen's. In dozens of local councils Gaullist and Front National representatives cooperate openly. The leaders of the Communist and Socialist parties have been more vocal in their attacks on Le Over the past year the PCF has made strenuous attempts to recruit immigrant workers and cut an anti-racist image. But it was the racist policies of the joint Socialist- Communist administration which ran France between 1981 and 1986 that paved the way for the rise of Le Pen. government's The Mitterrand response to the growing success of the Front National was to denounce Le Pen's 'nazi policies while introducing even tougher curbs on immigration. After Le Pen's win at Dreux Mitterrand's immigration minister expelled 3500 Georgina Dufoix immigrants held in French prisons and announced a comprehensive package of anti-immigrant Communist Party measures. leader Georges Marchais welcomed the measures and argued that they 'constitute the first step for solving this problem. Chirac's use of the race card shows what a powerful hold racism has on French society. So long as to adapt the left continues to racism, politicians like Le Pen will continue to pull the electoral strings the next step

TONY BENN'S

SOCIALISM

THE RCP'S REFUSAL to support Tony Benn's bid for the Labour leadership Is less revolutionary than it sounds. Your arguments against Benn that his politics are outdated, that the left has had its day, and that it is impossible to revive socialism in the old labour movement - echo the arguments of Kinnock and the right. What's wrong with looking to the past for aSWeS- AIl SocidS: need to learn the lessons of the past and apply them to today. Even the RCP looks to the past with its constant reference to Marx, Lenin and Trotsky. Tony Benn's strength is his ability to use the experience of movements from the Chantis to CND to show the way forward for Far from being backwar- ooking Benn and Heffer are reviving

RACIST AT WORK

DHSS WORKERS at Hither Green, South London, came out on strike last week over the employment of Malcolm Skeggs, a wellknown fascist, in a local OCe wo vees ao0 Lewisham concil sacked Skeggs, then a concil employee, after pressure Toedoed government union. Now Write to tns, BCM JPLtd, London,

WC1N 3XX

the next step the spirit of socialism in very difficult conditions.

Their campaign provides

LLC TOCS COURO WICH

socialists can rally and rebuild the movement. As the Chesterfied conference showed, socialists are not short of ideas. What we need is to turn those ideas into a living campaign. While the RCP keeps asserting that 'socialism on with the job of buiding an alternative to the Tories. As tns argued last week. it would be unrealistic to declare the RCP as an alternative to the Tories: real alternatives are forged in the heat of the struggle.

You're right - - and that's why Benn will lead a socialist renewal, while the RCP sits on the sidelines echoing innock Dave Murray Liverpool the CPSA is backing a similar campaign for Skeggs' dismissal. The willingness of DHSS workers to take action CELIKe Skeggs is a positive step.

employers to sack him is a dangerous move. Giving employers the power to even if they are racist simply makes it easier for them to attack all workers. The workers who called on the concil to sack Skeggs two years ago are now facing the sack themselves. Lewisham 700 to 800 workers in the next 12 months as part of its cuts programme. It is also pointess looking to management to take the lead against racism. It's true that Skeggs views on black people are abhorrent. But do we really believe that bosses at the DSS who have introduced race UCCK ce Uue discriminatory measures oveSOcK people at heart? The only way to deal with racists in the workplace is for workers to take direct action gainst them. No matter how many times filth like Skeggs emerge from their holes we need to ensure that workers not management - deal with them. Sean Thomas South London FOR OVER A WEEK now households throughout Scotland have been receiving their poll tax registration forms.

Special snoopers have been employed to ensure that no Pandora name is left off the list. But the registration drive has not been going as smoothly as the authorities have been making out. In Barread and Neilston the snooper was met by a crowd with a megaphone annoncing her arrival and letter-boxes were blocked so she couldn't

TOO HARD ON KING

I FEEL that Alan Harding's assessment of the life of Martin Luther King was a itte harsh. t's true that King's moderate Christian QUOOK LOWes OCCK CV rights allowed the state to manipulate both King and the movement. But in 1968, before his murder, King had begun to Unes ane mcte waele nature of the civil rights O U

BODIES EA

CO U R

CCHO CE

WALKOUT FROM FAB

WE HAVE BEEN attending Fight Alton's Bill campaign meetings in Bristol. At the beginning lots of women came along but by last weeks meetine there was only a handful. Four of us wanted to discuss the disappointing turnout both at these local meetings and at the national demonstration in March and to work out how we could reverse it The rest of the group were not interested. They letters page

STOPPING POLL TAX SNOOPERS

deliver the forms. Similar action has taken place in Govanhill. In Glasgow's West End a snooper was torn up their forms. But that action is still movement was changing. He realised that the future of black civil rights was connected to the broaderbased fight for economic lustice acainst the capitalists of the United States and indeed the world. As Alan wrote, King died while defending the pay and conditions of sanitation workers. It was

O U R

CUR

EBO DIES

OUR

CHOICE

wanted to talk about how we could celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the 1967 Abortion Act. When we argued that it's women's rights by detending an act that dic not give women the right oc Con We WeC! with abuse. The others said we shoud be kicked out of the group if we did not detent the o Act We found this ridiculous given that we made up frightened off by protesters and left behind a package of forms and other material which showed that large numbers of people had been abusive and Many people are willing to take action against the poll tax.

coordinated. Simply failing to Fran fill in registration forms will not Glasgow stop the poll tax. The Tories then, after he had made the transition from civil justice to economic justice, that he became a serious threat to corporate America and so was murdered. None of us know what direction King would have taken if his Calce du nl ee u short, but he cannot be O sisse os somere who shifted his political

BODİES

O UR

CHOICE

ONT ALTON'S BILL

O REDUCTION IN TIME LIMIT

Tall une meeling The attitude of the group showed why FAB has failed. In the end we walked out of the meeting clauc Wel it was not interested in beat Alton. We intend to not by building a statue to David stee but bu opposing all restrictions Kaylib Chavez Bristol can get their information through other means. And isolated resistance will simply allow the authorities to identify the militants in every street.

What we need is collective resistance to the poll tax.

People who want to fight must get together and work out a collective response. Unless we do that all the anger that people are showing now will be wasted. stance merely to protect his position at the head of the civil Mark West Yorkshire

SOUTHERN

STRUGGLES

I WORK in an insurance office in Bristol and every Saturday for the last month l and afew of my friends have been going to show solidarity with Bifu workers at Sur Alliance who are fighting tor union recoonition The bosses there have been verv heavv-handec and will only accept a minoritv statt associatior which has no ingevendence trom management. The level of anger among Bifu workers is very high but they have received little support from their union. They are acutely aware of the them in winning the dispute and in convincing other workers to support management's ruthless GLuCeweve failure of Bifu to support increasingly isolated Despite what people think even workers in the relatively prosperous South have been forced to fight back against the offensive. In my experience of talking to people at work it is becomng meredsing) clear we will only succeed by building radical new alternative to the sort of labour movement organisations we have at present. Dan Bristol 22 April 1988 • 7

he Transitional Programme, which was adopted at the founding conference of the Fourth International September 1938, was completed by Leon Trotsky 50 years ago this month. It is clear from his writings that Trotsky considered the programme as his movement's "most important conquest". Over the past 50 years it has become the definitive documentof the Trotskyist movement. To this day which locate MOSL O LaSaLOOs samoallons Trotskyist the nemse ves in tradition accept the Transitional Programme as their major programmatic statement. From its inception the Marxist suessed

MOVCMCHE

Stressee developing importance coherent political programme. The fundamental problem facing those concerned with developing revoluuonary programme Is apparent mismatch between the day-to-day of SugeIes working class and the fight proletarian power. The classic expression of this problem was the minimum-maximum programme of Social Democracy which took shape in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The minimum-maxımum gramme divided the activities the party between the day-to-day struggle for social reforms within capitalism (the minimum) and the propaganda struggle for socialism (the maximum). This separation of immediate struggle from the final goal meant that the fight to build a new world had no practical expression in the activities of the social-democratic parties.

In the end, Social Democracy justified its practice by evolving a theory which contended that the gradual accumulation of reforms would eventually lead transformation of capitalism into socialism. The logical corollary of this standpoint was the idea that socialism was inevitable. organising the working class for for unnecessary.

LENIN

Many revolutionary critics of the the minimum-maximum approach understood that Social Democracy had made its peace with capitalism.

The Polish revolutionary Luxemburg that arguea programme would be a miserable scrap of paper' if it could not direct the action of the proletariat every moment' towards the road to socialism. Despite her valid criticisms, however, Luxemburg failed to laborate an alternative to the minimum-maximum programme.

Lenin provided the solution to the problem posed by the minimummaximum approach. 1917 he outlined a In April programme which overcame the division between bread-and-butter struggles and the light for the seizure of power. The theoretical basis for this solution was Lenin's analysis of imperialism. characterisca impertansm

TRIS

epoch of transition, dating from around the turn of the century, in which capitalism could no longer fulfil consistently the elementary aspirations of the working class. In the age of imperialism there is a contradiction between the basic needs of capital and the interests of provides

WORKS

obiective foundations for revolution. While the theory of imperialism provided the scientific basis for Lenin's programme, the practical experience pre-revolutionary Russia provided the impetus for the codification of a new perspective. deca v CaD aus" acquired its most acute manifestation in Russia. Lenin grasped the solution. Rather than counterposing the partial struggles of workers to 8 • 22 April 1988 the the use fight for socialism, Lenin the demonstrated that the two late inextricably linked. According to Lenin, the consistent defence of the immediate prointerests of workers provided the of point of departure for posing the question of proletarian power. The main slogan of the Bolsheviks - *Bread, Peace and Land' — was in itself modest. But in the course of pursuing these demands, workers came to see that their realisation required the overthrow of the system.

The programmatic innovations made by the Bolsheviks during the course of the Russian Revolution offered a solution to the minimummaximum problem. Was a revoluuonay biog dulie based on a system of transitional the demands. Unlike@mınımum transitional ones do struggles and workers

OECEVES

OCOaBeCCe for fight socialism. Was transitional slogans demands which

O OTOLE

the remote from experience of the working class.

Transitional demands are based on the premise that a capitalist system cannot fulfil even Rosa the most elementary needs of the working class. 'our situation the fight for the defence of living standards can lead the *at 1917 contirmed In many resistance put "1 ne Lenin Thesis an grammatic of immediate the

CONTROL

based on the tact that thev are defensive in form and offensive in content. Thus workers who see the need to detend their class over specific issues, but who are not yet al C The solution demands, not restrict limited for revolution. can learn the need

US C

Nor are for the HaA UI of struggle. goals everyday demands is of critical importance.

decaying their own direct at stake. and that in this class. the question world, the question of the unemployment, demand which The unions and

ENG

of the proworkers the to while ensuring wage remained the same as it was under the old working week.

the broad The question andu the for control of industry economy factory committees and tionary trade their unified convinced of the practical necessity working masses." dictatorship of the proletariat through the experience The defensive form of transitional contain The mass of workers will engage in struggle only if they believe that pe eve esel. interests Through the experience of struggle this defence of working class interests is transformed into an offensive against the capitalist movement. Anther key feature of transitional demands is that they raise working class control. Transitional slogans do had not merely put forward demands, they suggest that the working class has to work out what it is fighting for and organise in such a way as to achieve its objectives. For example, the demand for a 'sliding scale of Communist hours", adressing the problem of Transitional not simply a demand for work-sharing. It is a requires trade national other proletarian organisations to decide how work is to be divided up. Committees of representatives would regulate the distribution of work, that the average The control is the -OI emphasised in the Thesis on Tactics: previously. *Concrete slogans that express the economic need of the working lascIsi, masses must lead to the struggle essentials the - control based not on a plan to organise the bureaucratically and Thesis on Tactics. under the capitalist system, but on revoluunions. Only the creation of such organisations and coordination within the different industries and areas makes possible the organisation of struggle the Transitional demands thus raise the question of workers' control and the a perspective for creation of proletarian organisations through which this control can The death of Lenin and the ascendancy of Stalin in the mid- 1920s transformed the Communist BLOd teLOs! The degeneration of international communist The movere was expressee e a programme. By the late twenties national communist parties abandoned the transitional than perspective and replaced it with the old minimum-maximum programme.

Trotsky's great achievement was to retrieve the historic gains made in the revolutionary phase of the International. His Programme IS restatement of Bolshevism. Under the the banner of the Fourth Inter- Trotsky fought to continue the revolutionary tradithe tion through a new generation of class fighters organised around his Transitional Programme.

RESTATEMENT

Transitional Programme is very similar in its construction to Thesis on Tacties discussed the Trotsky added new observations on the problems of Stalinism and the impending world war. But in all Transitional Programme differs little from the The main departure made by Trotsky from the Thesis on Tactics was to emphasise the need to link specific transitional demands to each other, and present a 'system of transitional demands, to use his words. Trotsky was concerned that an overall programmatic perspec- WE

THE TRANSITIONAL

PROGRAMME

PROC

was written by Leon Ti Frank Richards looks at wi Transitional Programme repre and its relevance f tive should inform the struggle for specific objectives, and therefore stressed the links between various demands. Given the abandonment of this perspective in the past, Trotsky was right to insist that revolutionaries should forget the relationship between specific demands and their relationship the programme. The Transitional Programme is a valuable restatement of Bolshevism for revolutionaries today.

However, programmatic importance is open to question problem with the Transitional Programme is that it is a restatement of past gains rather the product of distilled

CHOCEC CC

Revolutionary programmes cannot be written by individuals in the same way that articles can be scribbled off by journalists. Programmatic •development always the concrete expression of of struggle and

CA CLICHCE

with engagement working une class. The best that can be said of Transitional Programme that it is based on the experience of the Bolshevik movement. As the which discussion preceded its publication indicate, the document was the work of one man Trotsky. Sometimes published under the misnomer Discussions on Transitional Programme, in reality these were educationals in which Trotsky explained the subject to his supporters.

LIMITATIONS

The Transitional Programme is piece of propaganda that demonstrates a particular approach rather than a real programme.

Trotsky's correspondence reveals the literarv. as opposed to the practical-political, character of the programme one or the The discussions in Bicoa atol Founding Conference of the Fourth

NEED A

RAMME

FOR

ented

TODAY

International, on 20 March 1938, Trotsky proposes the following: 11) demands; transitional 2) question of democracy; 3) war; 4) manifesto on the world situation'.

The fact that Trotsky literally programme out стелтем nothing accounts for the limitations of the end product. Trotsky had no choice but to The write a programme. Opposition to Stalinism was too isolated to engage in the kind of that would experiences provided the foundation for revolutionary programme. criticism can be attached to the literary propaganda produced by Trotsky. Our criticism of Trotsky is that he confused his followers who mistook his document for a real programme.

Trotsky

COLE DICE

Trotsky confusion. understood that system of transitional demands only made sense from the perspective of mass work.

Fourth International was in no position to engage in mass work.

Unfortunately Trotsky gave credence to this perspective when 30 August 1938 he argued: on 'Henceforth Fourth the national stands face to face with the tasks of the mass movement.

The Transitional Programme is a reflection of this important turn.

Trotsky was too realistic believe that mass work was an Given his melalepon. scattered forces, such a perspective variance with reality. WaL Trotsky must have hoped that events would soon put mass work on the agenda. Unfortunately his followers were less discriminating and vie wed the Programme as a perspective relevance for immediate the class struggle. discovery major that a programme must always be concrete. A programme is not an of anticipation of the future, but the summation of trends in the present. Unable to concrete Left Trotsky sought to fill the gap by writing something for the future.

in one of his last statements on the have Second World War, Trotsky wrote that 'our transitional demands will No gain great popularity. In effect, Trotsky was demands were

CHOL

at all.

SACRED

Trotsky characterised transsitional demands 'stemming from today's conditions and from today's consciousness of wide layers of the working class The and unalterably leading to one final conclusion: the conquest of power by the proletariat'.

an admirable way of summarising the subject. This fundamentally different from the Interone above, where Trotsky tried to argue that his transitional demands would 'gain great popularity" in the future This idea of a programme-into waiting is at odds with the basic of premise programme. If Lenin had argued 1914 that the demand Bread, Peace and Land' would gain great popularity in the future, would commend him foresight and not for his tran- Transitional valuable restatement of the movement. The present generation of revolutionaries would do well to study it. One Trotskyist movement is that it has come to regard the Programme as a sacred text. Those sections of the movement which identify with the views of Trotsky have simply adopted this document in its original form and sought to apply it Others who are less complacent take the starting point, but suggest that it should be concretised or elaborated.

sense only from the point of view of distinguish between a revolutionary programme and a written text. A programme is the product of a experience colecave Only this experience of struggle in both its theoretical and practical aSOCOLS programme sitional, and of paper.

TODAY

Some advocates Transitional that it is based on the objective tendencies of the imperialist era, and therefore has an enduring relevance. In a general sense it is undoubtedly gramme is based on the objective trends of the epoch. However, any specific moment in the history of capitalism cannot be reduced to the general trends of the epoch.

Over the past 50 years there have been many cycles of upturn and downturn, periods of social upheaval and of have relevance periods. To have an appreciation of the nature of the epoch is not sufficient; revolutionaries must work out the specitic trends un operation at any one time and the appropriate programmatic solutions relevant to the period. The confusion about the relevance of the 1938 programme reveals a Transitional of depressing failure to come to terms with the strategic tasks at hand.

the Today revolutionaries are in no position to fight for transitional was demands. Such demands are only relevant for mass struggles and, at stage, Marxists 38919 revolutionary authority to engage in this work.

The Revolutionary Communist Party programme, and other revolutionaries is to win the most advanced section of our class to the banner of Marxism. It is not possible to jump over this stage and begin mass work.

saying that his conscious workers are organised around a proletarian programme it will be impossible to influence a wider layer of workers. The basis for a real transitional programme will evolve only bridge interaction between the workers vanguard and the rest working class. For the RCP the question of the programme is critical. The main problem that needs to This is be solved today is the elaboration of a programme that can serve as a conception focus for the minority of workers who want to fight. programme to build a proletarian vanguard. Our immediate aim is to break a section of workers from the dominant political influences which shape the labour movement.

Through leadership will be created - one revolutionary that stands 100 percent for the independent interests of our class and one that can eventually offer a history revolutionary his whole of the working class.

the For all its flaws Trotsky's 1938 Programme is a of the revolutionary of the tragedies of the Transitional today's conditions. their Such a dogmatic approach makes which fail to of struggle. Budd-bashing. - provides the basis for a that is truly tran- How Just pee of the Programme argue true that the proboom and depression. all these Dacking bound the Union Jack. lack the first task facing the unnory, black most militant and through the of the of life. We call this a process a new alternative for the propaganda war Sacrificing Zola IT'S THAT TIME of year again.

Liverpool are about to be crowned champions, the heavy roller is out at Lords, the Mars Bar masochists have run themselves silly round Tower Bridge. And it's time to go Zola Last Friday, the International Amateur Athletics Federation African-born, British passportclutching runner, of breaking the spirit of its rules by attending a sports meeting in South Africa. It asked the British athletics authorities to consider banning ner tor a year. And if Britain won't consider it? Then the lAAP will 'consider' banning Britain from Ever since she was spirited tuto brital tour years ago 0g the Daily Mail, Budd-bashing nas become une Tavounte sport for anti-apartheid protesters.

Black African statesmen first took it up as a soft way of attacking British complicity in apartheid. The British left soon cottoned on that it's a lot casier to wast buad Man to bash British bosses who are What most upsets antiapartheid protesters is that Budd should run in British colours. Just as they consider that British trade with South Africa besmirches Britain's good name in tae word, sc they believe that Budd in a red, white and blue vest demeans For the British establishment the latest bout of Budd-bashing is a problem. They are outraged that a bunch of tinpot dictators' could presume to push Britain around like this.

"No country in the world", thundered the Sun, . can be allowed to dictate to Britain over sport or anthing else.

And most definitely not 'an dominated alliance'. establishment agrees that Budd is not worthy of being British. Not, mind you, because of her affection for her anartheid homeland. That would make her eminently fit to wearreu, wilte anu blue. No.

they consider Budd to be an unit emissary because sne nas proved to be downright useless herself to be less than enamoured of the British way Budd was flown to Britain in 1984 by her friends on the Daily Mail. She was the wunderina or world atnietics the barefoot waif who promised to gain glory for a nation whose sportsmen seem to win wins elections. To ensure that Budd could run for Britain at the Los Angeles Olympics the authorities whisked her through Heathrow immigration and into British citizenship with greater sneed than she has since achieved on the track. Budd has been a great disappointment. Aside from tripping up Mary Decker at the 1984 Olympics, she has failed Rothermere did not fly her 6000 miles to keep getting beaten by a bunch of foreigners And it's not just that she is a loser. buad made it clear that she didn't consider Britain as home and kept flying back to the veldt at every opportunity. *She is no more British than Dr Fu Manchu, stormed Tory MP Robert Adley last week. Adley, chair or une all-bars parliamentary British-South Africa group, added that she has consistently cocked a her British passport to further the political and pecuniary ambitions of her sponsors. The Independent accused her of regarding the Union Jack as a "flag of convenience' The Daily Telegraph summed up the establishment dilemma.

*The question is whether we should give up the Seoul Olympics on Zola Budd's account...or sacrifice Zola Budd on the Olympics' account. It went on: We do not like the tactics that have been used to confront us with this dilemma. But taking all thines into account. in particular the fact that Budd will win nothing in Seoul], Miss Budd's career is the smaller sacrifice.' In fact, both the British ruling class and the Buddbashers have got it wrong. Who better to wear the Union Jack than a racist loser? There could be no better symbol of a nation which nas rampaged its way around the third world, stamped on black rights anc done its utmost to maintain white supremacy in rrerora and which now survives on the returns from its parasitic foreign investments. Whether or not Budd runs for Britain, will make no difference to black people in Britain or in South Africa. The British ruling class might be willing to sacrifce Budd to be able to compete in Seoul, but it nas no intention of sacrificing its stake in Botha's bloody regime. And as black footballer Cyrille Regis has discovered, Lord Rothermere's services are reserved for whites. Regis, a be ineligible to play for England in this summer's European championships, because 25 years is not long enough for a black person to become British. Regis came to Britain in 1963 and took out a British passport in 1977. Under the new Nationality Act he had to apply again for British citizenship. Unlike Zola Budd though, black people have to wait up tors months to be declared fit to wear British colours. Kenan Malik 22 April 1988 • 9

TIME TO END

THE IRISH WAR

'Time to end the Irish War' dayschool. Here we reprint extracts from Mick Hume's opening plenary speech on British strategy T he contlict in reland is the longest war which the British Army has fought this century. It is also the longest-ever confrontation in the 700-year struggle between the British Crown and the rish people. Since "the troubles" began in 1969, seven British governments - Inree Labour ana tour tory have pursued various strategies were supposed to end it. WICe They have tried all of the tricks learned through Empire-building, and achieved nothing. On the military/legal battlefield, British governments have used evervthing short of Cruise missiles in the attempt to defeat their Irish CS gas, rubber bullets, plastic bullets, lead bullets. Chieftain tanks, armoured cars. Chinook helicopters, public Bloody Sunday, massacres like private executions like the Stalker affair shootings, internment without trial, no-jury computerised surveillance, crude torture, strip-searches, supergrasses and the SAS. In the political arena, British governments have supported one sham "democratic" institution another an effort alter stabilise the occupied Six Counties Protestant Stormont parliament, the power-sharing executive the Convention.

Ulster Assembly and the Anglo- Irish agreement. Today we cansee these wo strands of British strategy being pursued alongside each other again.

The shootings in Gibraltar and the dismissal of the Birmingham Six case are followed by another round or ponacal ininauves and talks with the Unionists and the moderate nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party. Yet for all of these British twists and turns and tacacal manoeuvres, te war continues. After 19 years of struggle, the British state is no nearer to pacifying Ireland than it was when the Labour government sent ine troops on to me streets that Thursday afternoon in August and promised that would be back in their barracks by Ine weekend. There are two basic facts about the Irish War which ensure that it continues, and which dictate the pattern of British strategy. First, British imperialism cannot win And second, it cannot afford

ROCK

One week last month, anybody with a television set will have seen a dramatic display of the reason why the British authorities cannot win the Irish War. You will have seen republican of the people well-armed beast Loyalist murderer out of Milltown and then disarm two British so evers we unreatened another funeral three days later.

Those people are the rock on which every British attempt to win the war is dashed to pieces. Their bitter resistance to British rule, and driving aspiration for freedom, can impose its will in Ireland.

Against opposition of this sort, have used to defeat their mainstream opponents at home are useless.

The Tory govern Cat frighten the republican people into submission by threatening them as it has done. tor example, with British trade union leaders. Thousands of Irish nationalists have complete conas the British law, tempt tor symbol of foreign power, and are more than ready to confront it.

The most dramatic example of this in the Thatcher years Wasne hunger-strike for political status in 1981, when 10 republican prisoners of war died rather than accept being branded as criminals The sacrifice they were Britain. prepared to make in the struggle to expose the lie of British law and order can best be illustrated by one 10 • 22 April 1988 of to they West fact. If they had buckled under to British legal svstem convicts' uniforms and served their time. those would not only be alive today alf but one of them would be free.

Neither can the Tories simply abolish republican resistance through a stroke of their legislative as they

OCH.

troublesome bureaucratic

GLC.

bodies like the the government

THODHCHE

discussing the introduction of a oath for non-violence government ciccuons, to uy lu dispose of the Sinn Fein councillors. caused by When this idea was year, the people of West Belfast responded immediately by electing republican represenby the city council. latives to spirit of Irish resistance is real and popularly based; it wished away by paper-pushing at Westminster THE CONFLICT BETWEEN BRITISH FORCES AND IRISH NATIONALISTS CANNOT BE ENDED BY COMPROMISE In to defeat Irish 10 hunger-strikers through military existence and resilience of the IRA.

demand for Irish freedom, ensures that this is not a viable route to have abolished British authorities British greatest-ever success against the At the is police staged local the detectives embarrassment operation pushed last 19 years, imminent defeat of the IRA.

The almost here the be groaning these circumstances, the reply British government can only attempt republicanism force. Yet the armed expression of the victory for Britain. Last year the scored IRA, when undercover troops and ambush ELlE Loughgall and shot dead eight conceded, republican volunteers. Last week the IRA replied by shooting two of moment From time to time over the past between Irish nationalism ministers have been stupid enough to predict the Into could not Every time thev do so. vou can experienced Sir Humphreys of the civil service "No. minister. no" they await the spectacular military

IRISH FREEDOM MOVEMENT DAYSCHOOL

On Sunday the London Irish Freedom Movement held its which the IRA invariably sends to such displays of misplaced British arrogance. More realistic representatives ot British imperialism have long been aware that they cannot win. Go right 1970, April nationalist people of Ballymurphy here estate in Belfast staged the firstever riots against the British Army.

Labour home secretary James Callaghan announced that petrol bombers would be shot. He also however, that "some problems you cannot solve, you have to live with. This is one I think we have got to live with." At the when the contradiction British imperialism and first exploded confrontation, the British rulers recognised that they crush the nationalist Many people have tried to point out to British governments over the years that, since they cannot win, surely the sensible thing to do out? This get would -De -LO underestimates what is at stake for the British authorities in the Irish War. They cannot afford to admit defeat and withdraw from there, for fear of the repercussions over For the Irish War is being fought out within the borders of the British state itself.

The British ruling class is paying the price for its past strategy of Ireland the integrating "United Kingdom" The Six Counties come within the direct jurisdiction of the British state. This means that the war in the North of Ireland is unlike any other colonial struggle. It threatens not just the government's international prestige, but its national power base

LESSALE

The guns of the IRA are pointed straight at the heart of the British Empire. As Harold Wilson once said, the war is not in Britain's backyard, it is in the front room.

the next step

And as Margaret Thatcher discovered at sam one October morning in 1984 sometimes it even enters the hotel bathrooms of the British war cabinet. To withdraw from Ireland and dismantle the state would irreparable damage to the power of the British establishment throughout the "UK". Because the British state is not divisible; you cannot destroy one part of it and expect the rest to remain intact. Suppose the striking miners had driven the police out of Yorkshire and seceded from the state. Does anybody imagine that the Tory government would have been able to ignore this defeat for the state and carry on lording it over the rest of us regardless? It would have an lause@ cedented political crisis. And the same goes for a defeat in the Six Northern of outes which are ruled by the same state as the rest of the "UK". It would strike a mortal blow against the British establishment.

COLLAPSE

The authorities understand that they cannot afford to their deteated Ilave Sudle dismantled in Ireland. That is why they sent the troops there in 1969.

There is a popular misconception that the troops went in to separate warring religious communities. In fact the Loyalist mob attacked the district of Derry in August 1969 was led by the Royal Constabulary - te tc red wing of the state machine.

was defeated by Bogsiders, nationalists elsewhere rose up in support, Unionist regime at Stormont was in danger of losing control. Thus the Labour government was faced, not with a sectarian conflict, but with the impending collapse British state authority in Ireland under the impact of nationalist resistance. was why I nal troops went in, and that is why they remain there still. The British government cannot win the Irish War, but neither can it afford to lose. So what can it do?

The answer has become embodied in a strategy known as "containment" - a combination of military and political measures designed to hold the conflict down at what British called

ESSS SLO

acceptable level of violence". This involves fighting the campaign on three fronts — Northern Ireland, Southern Ireland and Britain itself.

HONED

Within zones War or the North, the British seek to limit the effectiveness of the republican through

HOVCICAL

narahne campaign of coercion. And in the rest of Ireland and in Britain, the imperial authorities seek to stem any support for the republican struggle by political manoeuvres designed to portray the IRA as isolated trouble-makers Britain as an even-handed peacemaker. In other words, strategy means contamel waging a dirty little war on one front while trying to disguise it on the other two. The Tory government has taken this strategy to new lengths over the past nine years.

Within the core republican areas of the North, the Tories have honed their military strategy to deal with the more efficient IRA of today.

This has meant a higher profile for the SAS. It has also meant reorganising entire British Army along SAS lines, with more emphasis on surveillance selective assassination. The Royal Ulster Constabulary has undergone a similar transformation, and now has its own elite execution squads. The result has been an increased emphasis on shootingto-kill in last Tew beginning with the six killings in Armagh in 1982 which have since been the centre of the Stalker affair. the next step The latest shoot-to-kill campaign differs from carlier ones in that it is directed

HOIC

against known republicans. About two thirds of those shot dead by the British forces since 1982 have do been IRA or Inla volunteers.

contrast, more than half of those killed by the British forces since 1969 were uninvolved natonalist civilians. The now use the death-squad rather than the court to deal out "justice" to Irish republicans. Last year the number of republican suspects Chats wc pan e armed struggle tell to its lowest for years, while the number killed rose to a near-record leve.

POPULAR

This ruthless unprebrought some military success for the British state. But it also has Ireland, negative political The experience of up-front British oppression over recent years has hardened republican support committed nationalist areas.

big and determined turn-outs at

IRA

funerals manifestation of this. The cohering of public support for the IRA and brings increased political pressure to bear on the British state within the Six Counties. It also embarrasses the British outside of the North, suggesting to more people in Ireland, Britain which and around the world that "the Bogside troubles" are a conflict between a colonial power Ulster liberation movement. this The containment, the the brought the other strand of their initiatives" designed to re-isolate TR Pi the republicans and restore Britain's credentials as a force for democracy.

One part of this Tory political ploy is the continuation of the criminalisation by the last Labour government, branding republicans as gangsters terorists and all-round men of evil the to discredit their struggle as a conspiracy. searching for a teti carsenti of Ol lt 1s give the impression that the British government is doing its best to bring peace. Tories set up the Ulster Assembly in 1982 and signed the Anglo-Irish agreement with Dublin in 1985.

"an and the and years, protestonany sollay dull! do away with British authorities

US CI

effectiveness of each The most 1921. It divided the approach has of a democratic effectively 50 years. ramifications. criminalisation policy seventies. The ment's just one Gerry movement. aler mes sation parked and a popular reforms under threat to agreement, Tories undermine have - the "political Northern their experience of British rule.

EXHAUSTED

campaign. begun The other Pictence force for progress sinks •o this end the local conflicts nationalists, the

SUPPORTERS OF IRISH FREEDOM FILLED SUNDAYS DAYSCHOOL

Their current "talks about talks" with the constitutional parties in the North have the same diverimperialism The problem the British authorities face. however is that these paper political initiatives cannot the reality of oppression. They cannot suppress the tensions inherent within the sectarian state of Northerr Ireland for long. Thus each British initiative contains the seeds correct the ol its own destruction. And the successive stratagem within Ireland is becoming shorter and shorter-lived.

successtu ritist political initiative was partition in republican movement, created the impression Ulster Defence settlement, and become ended large-scale resistance to British rule for almost Loyalist Contrast this to of the In 1976 the crackdown which accompanied the Labour governwithdrawal of political terorising status for republican prisoners did munity. severe damage to the resistance Says Adams later admitted that this was the closest the Britain has come to defeating the Protestant IRA. Yet just five years later, the British war effort. hunger-strikes against ciminalian explosion of public support for the IRA and the It's a similar beginning of republican electoral success. In 1985 the Tories tried to put the lid back on by promising the Anglo-Irish independent which helped to republican support. Only two and a half years later, according to polls, 81 per cent of nationalists disal C enchanted with the deal and say that it has made no difference to protect Today. al due clcHls In objective terms, it ought to be The thousands harder now than ever before for the Tories to keep up containment and disguise the true haracter of the war. As each political initiative becomes exhausted, the credibility of Britain's self-styled image as a lower among nationalists. It should also of the British be harder today for the Tories to pose as neutral umpires refereeing between the Loyalists and with is this: Dublin. Events over the past 19 British vears have shown how active Is une most player in the conflict, pulling together the Loyalist community and the Southern the SLaLC cominca euroml againsı ine Northern nationalists. It is now clear that the Loyalists are British agents, not an independent community. British claims that they would anti-Catholic discimination of the old Stormont regime have been fully exposed.

Protestants continue to have privileged access to jobs, housing and power in Northern Ireland. In return, the Loyalist militias of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the Regiment have the frontline of the imperialist British forces in many parts of the Six Counties. And the paramilitaries launch sectarian attacks, like the recent murderous assault on tha publican funeral in Belfast, which play a useful role for Britain in the nationalist com- When Margaret Thatcher "I am a Loyalist." nobody should be left in any doubt about relationship between the community and the

SUBJECTIVE

story with the Southern Irish state. For than 60 years Dublin governments have tried to pretend that they are from Yet Britain. today it is clear that the Republic is still a British satellite, operating under London's influence as part of the British war machine. In 1969 they the Dublin government sent troops to the Border and said it would Northern natonalists. under the security of the Anglo-Irish agreement, the pretence is over.

of Irish troops patrolling the Border work handin-glove with the British occupation forces against republicans. In 1970 Charles Haughey was accused of running guns to the IRA. Today as Dublin premier, Haughey launches joint operations under the direction secret services to intercept tons of IRA arms.

The contradiction about British strategy which we have to grapple at a time when all objective factors suggest that the truth about the Irish War should be clear, many people in Britain and elsewhere in Ireland are as confused as ever about events in North. Ideas about religious conflicts, British peace-keeping and IRA "terorism" still dominate the debate over here.

. This is due to purely subjective factors: the lack of a political movement in Britain - and indeed in the South of Ireland that can hammer home the truth about the Irish War and the reasons ordınary people should support the struggle for Irish self-determination.

Bulding such a movement in Britain is the task to which the Irish Freedom Movement is committed.

The lesson of sureying British strategy now clear. saold British imperialism is not in the of strength in Ireland

DO OT

the over-confident nouncements of Tory ministers might suggest. It is trapped in a cycle of oppression and resistance, fighting a rearguard action to save its skin. Its containment strategy is at full stretch. It is no nearer to defeting the nationalists than it was 19 years ago, and its task of disguising the truth about the Irish War is becoming harder. The one thing in Britan's favour is the lack of active opposition in Britain and the South. Too many people in Britain who are concerned about Ireland focus problem. They wrong indulge in windy debates about whether the Northern nationalists are doing something, wrong "should they have killed those two soldiers at the funeral, shouldn't talk» Put down their guns and Let's be clear that the nationalists are the least of our problems. Their determined resistance is the guarantee that British imperialism cannot bulldoze its way across Ireland.

Their ability to strike fear into the hearts of the British establishment - as evidenced by the panic reaction to the deaths of those two soldiers should be a cause of inspiration, not of regret, to the rest of us. Our job is to address the real problem of their isolation, by campaigning to create a movement for Irish freedom that can break through the political wall which the British state has constructed to contain the Irish War. 22 April 1988 • 11

the other side

BLACK AND

WHITE

A BLACK MAN walks into a b&b. 'Sorry, love' says the lanolady, noting at une moment.' Minutes later a white man calls. 'A room? This way.'

The black man applies for a pub job. 'Sorry, the landlord tells him, 'the job's just gone.'

It mysteriously reappears when the white man walks in. The black man tries to enter a night-club. 'Sorry,' the bouncer tells him, 'couples only. A few minutes later the white man, single, breezes in. Each was a scene from Black and White, a BBC documentary on racism in Britain. Two reporters, one black, one white, spent two months travelling around Bristol with a television camera peeping out of a The prejudices of those doing the filming were as revealing as the prejudices of those being filmed. Tim Marshall, the white journalist, concluded that *Britain is not a "wholly and deeply" racist society. Geoff Small, the black reporter, was taken aback that it was so. l never doubted I would be discriminated against, he wrote but at that time I would have been reluctant to guess how bad it would be.' What particularly upset both was that the 'nice' people were often the most racist. 'I would never have suspected, laments Small. There is a deep-seated prejudice in Britain, especially among middle class journalists, that racism is the product of small-minded individuals. Small and Marshall expressed this favourite prejudice to perfection. They were incensed at the attitudes of landladies and night-club bouncers, but they largely ignored the official racists who make petty racism acceptable. If they had bothered to dig a bit deeper in Bristol itself they would have discovered that racism is institutionalised from the top down. When young blacks in St Paul's resisted police racism, the authorities accused them of being wanton criminals. When Chanan Singh was attacked by racists in a Bristol pub, the police charged nim with Malcious woundis When black activist Kuomba balogun got a Jow, nome secretary Douglas Hurd forced his employers to sack him.

When Kamaljit Singh was retused a joo because newore a turban, the government- Racial Equality refused to help him. When Ahmed Chowdhury flew into Bristol airport last Thursday, immigration officials refused him entry. Britain is a wholly and deeply officialdom designates black people as a propiem. vutere does the problem start? With te nice landlauy in Asnicy who turns away blacks? The 'nice receptionist at the employment agency who bins the application forms? Or the 'nice' officials at Bristol airport who mark blacks down as second class citizens, and the 'nice' men in the home office who tell them that it's alright to do so? Claudia Jones 12 • 22 April 1988

[KUWAIT

SAUDI ARABIA

BAHRAIN

uwait seems to more deserves given its stature in Middle Eastern The hijacking of Kuwait Airways flight 422 has brought the tiny oil-rich state into the news.

The Archbishop of Canterbury's special envoy. kidnapped in Lebanon negotiating a deal involving the same 17 prisoners the hijackers want meleased from Kuwaiti jails.

Last year Kuwait made the appeal to the USA to start its reflagging operation in the Gulf, precipitating the build-up of Western gunboats in those war-torn waters.

It is not immediately obvious why Kuwait should be embroiled in such conflicts. Oil wealth has made it one of the richest countries on earth: its citizens pay no taxes, enjoy heavy government housing subsidies, and pay nothing for medical care, education or local phone calls. On closer inspection it becomes apparent, however, that many of the forces which are pulling the Middle East apart centre on Kuwait.

Among the country's vast pool of migrant workers are thousands

CAUGHT

CROSSFIRE

IRAN

PERSIAN GUL

ARAB

MIRATES

attract than Iran. politics. Iraq War. Terry Waite, was while social structure is the hostes K U422. The positions. 700 000 citizens privileged. incomes and generous married every child they have.

DISCRIMINATION

archaic system. considerable, prices. Investment

KUWAIT

IN THE

the West's favourite sheikhdom a focus for $6 billion exceeded wealth sufficient the regime without

OMAN

Kuwaitis. Shites radicalised by • the

OCCUS

of the upheavals in Some 400 000 members of communities living in Kuwait; and Kuwait City is only 100 miles away from some of the fiercest fighting in the Iran- At the top of Kuwait's rickety Al-saban family which has ruled the Emirate since 1752. Three members of the 1200-strong clan are among the aboard the huacked Kuwaiti Emir, Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah, while his close relatives dominate key government Kuwait's Most of are relatively well as the Al- Sabahs, a handful of merchant families control business life. But too small to even ordinary Kuwaitis enjoy high welfare provision. To encourage Kuwaitis

SHIITES

to have more children the state gives couples $7000 when they get and $140 a month for Kuwait's massive oil wealth has played a vital role in sustaining this Although still earnings have fallen to less than half the record $17.7 billion set in 1980. Luckily for the Kuwaiti regime, returns on an estimated $85 billion worth of targeted Iran foreign investments have helped cushion the effect of falling oil intervention of earnings release KU422 hijackers, Kuwait, have Daniel Nassim explains why been on has become unrest in the In Middle East in 1986 probably oil revenues. But oil alone has beer off stave unrest. Indeed, the importation of migrant labour to man the of industry has had a destabilising effect on in the More than a million migrants easily outnumber Kuwaiti nationals.

The economy could not function foreign anass ve imput, yet expatriates are barred from owning property and denied most of the benefits available to The 1985 revealed that Kuwaiti nationals make up 19 percent of manpower while migrant workers contribute 81 per cent. The largest are Palestinian. Egyptian and Iranian. There are also growing numbers from South and East Asia. Some 30 per cent of as non-nationals were born in Kuwait.

A combination of privileges for Kuwaiti citizens and discrimination against migrant workers has helped keep the country on an even keel since the Second World War.

When oil production started in 1946 Britain was the ruling power in Kuwait, and it took advantage bring Indian labourers into the country. When Britain left Kuwait that the pro-Western Al-Sabahs would keep control of their former 1979 colonial possession. Although it is play much regional role, Kuwait remains the West's tavourite Cut state The status quo is now threatened by domestic strife. Kuwait's large Shiite population, radicalised by the experience of Iran in the past decade, is a particular source of turmoil. After the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979, thousands of Shiites joined anti-American demonstrations on the streets of Since then the Shiite community in Kuwait has been angered by the way the West has and inspired by Western Shiite resistance to inebanon December 1983 17 members of the whose pro-Iranian Dawaa Party, demanded by was bombed the of American and French embassies in killing five people and injuring 37. In 1985 Shites were involved in a near-miss assassination attempt on the Emir, and since been involved in bombings of Kuwaiti oil refineries and seaside cafes. While migrant workers have been at the forefront of Shiite unrest, Kuwaiti citizens have also The authorities have reacted swiftly and brutally deporting 26 000 Shiites in the year following the assassination attempt Whole Shiite the neighbourhoods have been bulldozed and their residents kicked out of Kuwait — at the rate ol 600 a month last year their Tailed contrast to the unrest attempts to contain among Shiites, the authorities have been fairly successful in smothering Palestinian militancy. Kuwait's rulers have taken care to give vocal support to the Palestinian struggle They donate large sums to the PLO on the condition that it does not interfere in Kuwaiti affairs.

While this quid pro quo has worked well past, there are signs that some Palestinians are becoming sympathetic to radical Islam.

The Kuwaiti regime has not managed to seal itself off from the Gulf War between Iran and Iraq.

At the same time as it confronts growing dissent from indigenous Shiites, Kuwait faces the prospect of the Gulf conflict spilling over For almost within its borders. eight years Kuwait has looked on nervously at its larger neighbours fighting it out at enormous cost to human life. regime has ine supported Iraq right down the line a bulwark Iranian expansionism and the spread of radical Islam. Over the past two years the prospect of an Iranian breakthrough has frightened Kuwaiti rulers and brought Western forces into the Gulf.

Kuwait's rulers have done everything possible lo insulatt themselves against the Gulf War.

They have pumped money into Iraq to keep it fighting in the war, and doled out generous helpings of aid to moderate Arab regimes in the region. Kuwait was instrumental in getting Egypt, disgraced by its treaty with Israel, peace accepted back into the Arab fold at the November 1987 Arab summit.

GULF WAR

Iran's steady advance in recent years has made Kuwait desperate for the West to intervene directly in the war. The Western powers have their own reasons for weighing in against Iran, but Kuwait's pleas provided a convenient pretext for getting stuck in. Western leaders are also concerned about securing their own oil supplies and Kuwait's massive investments abroad.

If Kuwait fell it would have a destabilising effect on the whole region. Kuwait became especially anxious about the Gulf War after Iran's capture of the Fao peninsula in February 1986, and its renewed offensive against vessels travelling to and from Kuwait. In autumn 1986 the Kuwaiti regime started making overtures to the USA, but Washington was at first reluctant to get bogged down in another nowin situation in the Middle East.

Several factors led the US rulers to change their minds. embarrassing Irangate The revelations of October 1986, which the USA was shown to be involved in covert arms deals with the Islamic republic, put pressure on Washington to mend relations with the Arab regimes February 1987 Iran looked set to take Iraq's second city of Basra, a development which raised questions about the future balance The power in region. following month the USA agreed to start reflagging Kuwaiti tankers.

Kuwait is well and truly caught in the middle of the havoc wrought Western intervention in the Middle East. the next step

A s we go to press it looks like front Michael Dukakıs will be the winner of the New York primary to select the Democratic Party's nominee for president. But his victory will have been won at the price of deepening divisions black and between the party's Jewish supporters in the city. The York campaign seemed to New avoid issues like the economy, jobs Instead, and

OCHCHILS

aleutel was focused 5700 miles away on Israel. Jews make up 10.6 percent of the population in New York state, but they cast a quarter of the votes in the Democratic primary. To block candidates usually try to outdo one another to prove their support for This year, attacking black Israel. candidate Jesse Jackson was seen as the way to woo the Jewish voter They have not forgotten the time when Jackson referred to New york as hymetown, nor ne une when he embraced PLO leader Yassir Arafat in front of the TV cameras. Ed Koch, the notoriously racist and loudmouthed mayor of New York, last week made sure *Jews and other nobody forgot. immy Breslin, New York City's most renowned journalist, said the primary contest whipped up *the most outrageous and unbelievable flurry of race-baiting and religious name-calling' since the nineteenth century. The sectional politicking created an ugly atmosphere and reopened old wounds the Jewish and black DeLWeCH communes. For over a century US rulers have manipulated einnic and racial divisions to keep the working class divided. Hut conflict between Jews and blacks is much more recent. In New York it dates back to the late 1967 teachers' strike was one of the most intense racial conflicts hit the next step supporters of Israel, he said, 'would be crazy to vote for Jackson'.

Dukakis made the obligatory pro-Israeli statements, but refrained from accusing semitism. He didn't really have to - there are plenty like Koch to stir things up. In a last-ditch effort to stay in contention, senator Albert Gore joined Koch on the anti-Jackson bandwagon.

Gore commended prime minister Yitzhak Shamir's vicious handling Palestinian uprising in the or the West Bank and Gaza. Gore toured the predominantly Jewish area of Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, the voters didn't think he could deliver. 'Dukakis has a better chance of beating Jackson, Blanche said housewife *That's enough for me. Jackson apologised for *Hymie' remark and said that if he was elected he would not negotiate with Arafat. insisted that he supports the right Israel as the centre of democracy in the Middle East'. But Jackson's appeal for forgiveness did not fall on sympathetic ears. Jackson's views on Israel have no bearing on his black community. Hundreds of blacks followed Jackson down the garbage-strewn sidewalks of Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard in Harlem. Blacks make LOUIS FARRAKHAN'S NATION OF ISLAM HAS DIRECTED BLACK ANGER AGAINST JEWS JEWS v BLACKS? Northern city. At the time more than 50per percent of students, but fewer than 13 per cent of the teachers, were black or Hispanic. Moves by New York state to give local school boards more decision-making power were opposed by 19 Jewish teachers black predominantly Brooklyn. The teachers protested against the hiring of black principals from outside the city. When the 19 were transferred out of the district Albert snanker, une leader or te United Federation called a strike. and Hispanics rallied Blacks behind the school conflict led to racist semitic outbursts on

US PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES

SPLITTING NEW YORK

Politicians set Jews against blacks in this week's New York Democratic primary James Malone reports Party's primary York. Jackson is likely to have taken nearly all black votes this 'Koch has Week. blacks and Hispanics, explained Jackson of anti- Jackson organiser Wendell Foster, 'that anything Jackson only Jackson supporters. Tennessee But when Wachs. his Jackson has always and relers ic support in the Teachers American district board to reinstate the teachers.

QUOTAS

Jews the of Teachers, action programmes. spend board. The for and quotas both sides. Jewish New voters in alienated Democrats says against Party's he adds fervour to MICHAEL DUKAKIS LOOKS SET TO WIN, BUT THE WORKING CLASS WILL BE THE LOSER system, minimum quotas Traditionally American the

TENSIONS

opposition Jewish-black Leslie Campbell, a black radical and coordinator for the African- Association, white society, caused uproar when she read an antisemitic poem over the radio. Some 11 000 out of 55 000 UFT members tried to keep the schools open, and in the end the courts forced the local and blacks were to be at odds throughout the seventies over of all duve The riots of City 1968 prompted the US government conflict. schemes and establish employment blacks. Outspoken groups opposed the quota young The Democratic Party. hierarchy found the Jewish-black conflict useful as a way of undermining walk Jackson. But if it goes too far this split holds some dangers for thi The Democratic traditional coalition of were Jews, blacks, and organised labour around big-city machines has been which brought condemnation from Jackson: Jewist resistance to affirmative action and of inclusion for furore blacks into law, medical and other professional schools — which Jews historically viewed as a means for their own exclusion - has put black and Jewish interests in conflict."

Jews and blacks had cooperated in the face of the and anti-semitism Both society. groups believed that by sticking together they could limit the pressure from the right. Before the teachers' strike Jews and blacks formed a liberal bloc inside the Democratic Party.

Jews were prominent in the black civil rights movement of the sixties, providing funding for organisations such as the National Association for Coloured Advancement People. Jewish machine politicians used to deliver a solid bloc of black By the late sixties the civil rights movement had reached an impasse The emergence of a militant black apart. power movement split both the black and the traditional Jewish businessmen and shopkeepers were much more involved in the black ghettos than any other section of and the inner-city Jewish-black exacerbated tensions. The black radicals refused to follow the traditional political which Eldridge Cleaver referred to as the Jewish malia, and would have nothing to do with the Democratic Party. Middle class Jews felt threatened by measures which would have blacks competing with them. Ine neavy concentration of the two minorities in New York heightened the underlying conflict helped to accelerate the fragmentation of the fragile coalition that to this day makes up the Democratic Party.

Black-Jewish relations reached a fragmenting for some years. Today the Democrats need every Jewish and black vote they can muster.

Indeed Jackson's job is to ensure that blacks vote for this openly pro-capitalist party, even though it accepts the deep-rooted racism in US society which ensures that he is unelectable

THEME

In the city where subway vigilante Bernhard Coet: Wal hailed as a hero for shooting four blacks, and where Howard Beach mob murdered a black youth last year for daring to 'their streets, the issue of racism did not get a mention in this week's primary campaign. But the tensions between Jews and blacks of every debate low-point during the Democratic campaign of 1984, when Jackson's adviser Louis Farrakhan caused a with his outspoken antisemitism. Farrakhan's Nation of Islam draws its support mainly from the most downtrodden blacks who have little faith in middle class black black business empire based on black beauty aids and toothpaste is hardly the stuff inspire the i to masses. But his hostility towards Jews, who have often served as the mediating link between the black community and white society, part of a message aimed at giving black people something immediate to vent their anger against.

LUMPING

Many commentators have argued that Jews and blacks have much in have both common because they faced the prejudice of American By lumping racism and

SUCICLY

anti-semitism together they fail to specific about the see what Is experience of blacks and Jews, and keep them the prejudices which While anti-semitism has the potential to become a significant force in US society, racism is the overriding problem of the moment.

Racism is all-pervasive in the USA.

promoted and backed up by all the agencies of the state. As a social blacks group are systematicall excluded from employment and discriminated against in every walk of life. This is the most important barrier to the development of leftwing politics in the USA today.

When politicians stir up tensions between blacks and Jews all workers The US establishment sulter. encourages workers to tink themselves first and foremost as of a particular ethnic members group rather than as members of the working class. Unless these crippling divisions are fought, the working will ever important contest in the class struggle. 22 April 1988 • 13

C Desmond Greaves, Liam Mellows and the Irish Revolution, Lawrence and Wishart, £7.95 Liam Mellows has long been regarded as one of the founding fathers of left-wing Irish republicanism. His Notes from Mountjoy at the 1922, are often cited as evidence of the continuation of the socialist tradition in Irish politics after Connolly's acau. in lack, altnough Mellows is often identified as the leading radical in the Sinn Fein of his day, Connolly's influence on him was marginal. He joined the middle class irish Volunteers rather than the cruzen Army, and commanded the volunteers in Galway during the 1916 Easter Rising. After the defeat of the Rising, Mellows escaped to the USA where he organised support for the Irish cause. His return to Ireland coincided with the last phase of the war of independence and the truce between the IRA and Crown forces. The great value or a Desmond Greaves' biography, first published in 1971 and now out in a second edition, is that it contains a detailed account of developments in the working class in Ireland and how they related to the national struggle in the period up to 1922. The destruction of British rule unleashed forces which threatened the fabric of capitalism in Wall Street, Oliver Stone (director) Nobody can accuse Oliver Stone of not being topical.

Wall Street appeared in the states nard on the heels of last year's Black Monday brash. when I saw it in New York a few weeks ago, it was still profitably tapping a bullish anti-yuppie mood. And now, on the eve of its release here, the real Wall Street appears as if it is about to oblige again. The Dow Jones index dropped 101 points in one day as week. Bud Fox is a young. squeaky-clean stockbroker trying to make it in the dizzy turmoil of New York's financial district. To be a 'player' in Manhattan, where me res seabe the sky, he has to borrow money yet again from his dad, a shop steward who repairs planes for one of America's many foundering airlines. When Pop tips off Bud that the Federal Aviation Authority is about to clear the airline's name over flight safety, and blame its suppliers instead, the young Fox knows he's on to something. With the help of insider information us sore He Has soon got himself high up the greasy pole; and as we all know, what goes up must come down, especially on the stock market nese devs. Coming from the director of the excellent Salvador and the 14 • 22 April 1988

IRISH REPUBLICAN

the whole of Ireland. Workers in the towns, inspired by the Russian Revolution, seized factories, mines and workshops. They ran up the red flag and declared soviets in several places.

The Limerick Soviet was the first in April 1919. Greaves describes what happened: "The trades council declared a general strike. Fourteen thousand workers downed tools. No goods were moved nor services rendered without a permit from the trades council....The entire administration passed into their hands, with the mayor and Sinn Fein councillors following them in everything. In the countryside, peasants taking advantage of the breakdown of British law and order seized land and divided it amons tie landless. These sideeffects of the war against Britain threatened the Sinn Fein leadership's programme of building an independent Irish canitalism. Measures were taken to restore order. Republican courts

MICHAEL DOUGLAS: GEKKO BY NAME AND NATURE

FINANCIAL FILM

disappointing Platoon, Wall Street contains few surprises, dramatically or politically. Nevertheless the pace is agreeably frenetic, the characters credibly reptilian. The film's weakness, most evident in its denouement, derives from its perspective of reviews page

THE LIFE AND TIMES

OF LIAM MELLOWS

and police returned land broke up picket lines. In many cases, middle class Sinn Fein supporters supported the British in restoring order. With

INSIDER TRADING

Democratic Party populism. Fox (Charlie Sheen) uses his tip-off to earn Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) a lot of dough: modelled on the infamous Ivan Boesky, buys shares in the airline cheap, sends a coded message to the each passing month it was becoming obvious that the middle classes were too weak to control an explosive situation. As Greaves puts it: They feared imperialism and Wall Street Journal that they're about to rise, and cleans up. Douglas gives a fine performance as the cynical entrepreneur, telling Fox to cut his ingratiating sales rap, buy a new suit, and wake up realities of the money market. America, he they feared the people. they feared CraSHess. So they called a halt: The chambers of commerce passed their resolutions. Country merchants, cattle dealers, manufacturers from their natural superiors, agrarian and financial, the cry for order and for the peace which alone could assure it.' As Dail Eireann assembled to discuss the partition Treaty in December 1921, claims Greaves republican police and Black and Tans were arresting Wexford farmworkers on strike for trade union recognition. deserted the Republic en masse and supported the Treaty, republican forces hesitated, trying at all costs to avoid civil war.

Mellows' dawning interest in the working class can be traced from the fall of the republican headquarters at the Four Courts in Dubin. the first engagement of the civil war. After he was captured by the pro- Treaty forces he noticed the demeanour of the citizens. "The workers weren't with us', he confided to Peadar O'Donnell. This realisation of the isolation of the anti-Treaty forces made Mellows rethink his strategy. The fact that Mellows could be identified with Connolly says more about the destruction of working class politics after the Easter Rising than it says about either of the two men. Whereas blithely informs his democracy - it belongs In a climactic speech to me Valent shareholders, he sways his audience by telling them that the greed for which he is notorious than the exercise of market forces. They cant fault his logic: in the old tors or rich avarice is not immoral; it is just how things Even after the Crash of 1987, this kind of directorial message is still strong stuff in Reagan's America. But while the share price displays are exciting and bristling, and Gekko's war room' intriguing, the end of the film is more than a little lame. As the government's watchdog, the Securities Exchange Commission, gets on Fox's trail, he also falls out with his upright union-man dad, (Martin Sheen), who knows that dismember the airline in me pursuit or burck bucks.

And a decent British investor (an hilarious cameo by Terence Stamp) appears on the scene to complicate the denouement. For all Stone's insights into ruthlessness at the top, ne cannot, in the end refrain from a purely moral indictment. For him Gekko's vice is 'shorttermism - getting into and out of a business for Connolly sought to train Ine working class TOI leadership of the liberation movement and to maintain at all costs the independent interests of the working class, Mellows sought to win over the workers to a middle class programme when it had become obvious that its formulators had abandoned it. This he Notes from Mountjoy: The programme of democratic control the social programme adopted by the Dail coincident with the Declaration of Independence, January 1919, should be translated into something definite This is essential if the great body or workers are to ve kept on the side of independence. This does not require a change of outlook on the part of or the republicans, adoption of a revolutionary programme as such.' Greaves mistakes Mellows' concern to bring social and economic issues to the foreground for a real understanding of the role which could be played by the working class. It is, however, impossible to judge how he might have developed had he lived. In December 1922 Liam Mellows was executed by the pro- Treaty forces who betrayed the Republic, in one of the most brutal and bitter acts of the entire Irish struggle. Mark Reilly money nund ploughing funds into plant and employee training. Yet this narrow critique of banking capital embraces not only the Democrats and Neil Kinnock, but the Wall Street Journal itself.

None of them recognise profitability of US capital, each investor can only afford to think short-term.

To portray a British capitalist as, by contrast, a far-sighted provider of resources is absurd. The absurdity is underlined by the tact that what he is offering the workers here sonditions and a 20 per conditions and a cent wage cut, in exchange for the promise of a job, and a hope and a braver for the tuture This is the reactionary Democratic world of progress through givecontract-style deals pioneered by sel Lee lacocca under the Carter administration of the seventies. Inadvertently, therefore, Oliver stone contirms that radical Democrat thinking the rapacious employers behind George Bush. Like the decline of American capitalism, Wall Street is fast-paced and entertaining. As Gekko observes, everybody on 'the Street' has some kind of inside data to sell: there are no honest capitalists. Gemma Forest the next step

SUPPORTERS SHOULD

WORK IS ALREADY well under way for our Preparing for Power conference 1988. Early ticket sales indicate that this year's conference should be our best yet. Already over 350 people have bought their tickets, well ahead of the registration figure for this time last year. This means that the conference will not only be bigger but also better informed because people have registered earlier, hopefully they'll have had the chance to find out more about the Revolutionary Communist Taleva Several courses at Preparing for Power are designed for people who are, as yet, relative strangers to the discussion of revolutionary politics. But while the summer school provides an excellent introduction to the politics of the RCP, it is even more rewarding if people

BUILDING

A NEW

OPPOSITION

CARDIFF: Wednesday 27 April 7.30pm. The Comet, Meteor Street

ALL-LONDON RCP

SUPPORTERS' MEETING

Thursday 21 April 7.30pm Friends House Euston Road AS

WOMEN AND THE NEW

MORALITY

GLASGOW: Monday 25 April 7.30pm. Policing the Family. Hillhead Library, Byres Road. the next step

BE PREPARING

FOR POWER

attending have experienced the party's work and found out about the courses and sessions they want to attend beforehand. This year we are running a wider variety of week-long courses than ever Detore. some are specifically designed for people who are untamiliar with left-wing politics. Others assume a degree of familiarity with the subject under question. If you plan to attend the beginners' you'll need to beforehand. For that you'll need one of the reading lists that will be issued with the full conference brochure. his makes to get the maximum benetit trom the high-eve introductions. The earlier you register tener you have to prepare. The second advantage in registering early is that

RCP PUBLIC MEETINGS

LIVERPOOL: Thursday 12 May 7.30pm. Trade Union Centre, Hardman Street OXFORD: Wednesday 4 May 8pm. Committee • Room 1 Town Hall. St Aldates NEWCASTLE: Thursday 28 April. Open forum — Their Morals Not Ours, Fight for Women's Rights.

Education Centre, Trewhitt Road, Heaton. it's cheaper. The cost of registering increases as the conference gets closer. If you've already registered and decided which courses you want to zolow cort st back ane wait for July to come around. Inere is plenty you can do to contribute to the success of the conference. me man oo is to get even more people to come along. The obvious people to get along are your friends, workmates and even your relatives. It's important to talk to them about the summe school now, betore they book their summer holiday in Spain. Every year we have dozens of people writing to our national office asking for information about events later in the year because they'll be away for Preparing for Power. Catch your mates before they commit themselves to anything else. If you already sell them copies of tns, you should have no SHEFFIELD: Friday 29 April 7.30pm. SCCAU Centre, West Street (opposite The Limit). WAKEFIELD: Saturday 23 April 2pm. Unity House, Westgate

TAKE SIDES

IN THE

IRISH WAR

DURHAM: Tuesday 26 April 7.30pm. Video show: The Funeral of Larry Marley. Durham University, Room 143, Elvet Riverside.

GLASGOW: Thursday 21 April 7.30pm. Organised by the Irish Freedom Movement. Govanhill Community Centre, Daisy Street. NEWCASTLE: Wednesday 27 April 7.30pm. Lonsdale Pub, Lyndhurst Avenue, ouse west Jesmond Metro. party page problems explaining why London is the place to be for the last week in July. If they are unfamiliar with the RCP then sell them a copy of the paper and explain that Preparing for Power is 'tns in the flesh'.

Your local branch will already be planning how to publicise the conference more broadly. They'll be organising stalls to promote the conference at colleges, major local workplaces, at social events, and local festivals (there are lots of these in the spring) even in town centres Postering in bookshops, radical venues should already be well under way.

But you probably know good places to poster that other supporters haven't discovered. If you can help, get in touch and phone (01) 729 0414. We need all the help we can get. Anne Burton Glasgow RCP dayschool Sunday 15 May 1pm-7pm The best way to make sure you get tns every week is to take out a subscription.

A subscription from anywhere Address in Britain or Ireland will cost you £26 a year. So don't miss out - fill in the box today.

BECOME AN

RCP

SUPPORTER

• North v South and other divides • A critique racism • Europe:

REVOLT ON THE CLYDE

Govanhill Community Centre Daisy Street

SUBSCRIBE!

Name Postcode Phone Send to BCM JPLtd, London WC1N 3XX Name Address Tel Postcode Revolutionary Communist Party summer school Friday 22 to Friday 29 July Central London

PREPARING FOR

POWER

Specialist courses include: Introduction to Marxism • Problems of Marxism • World capitalism after the crash • Ideology and the battle of ideas • An introduction to the Irish War • Women's oppression and liberation • Other strategies for revolution • The RCP and the problem of revolution • Traditional brands of British socialism • War and revolution in the Middle East of political economy • The changing face of imperialism • The roots of a content! Plus more than a hundred workshops on issues ranging from sex education to South Africa • debates • films and entertainment Hansport mom around Britain. accommodation in Londor ana creche tacities avallable

TO GET A DISCOUNT ON YOUR

TICKET, REGISTER BEFORE 1 JUNE

Until 1 June, the full week at Preparing for Power costs only £22 waged/E14 unwaged: weekend tickets are £ 13 waged/£10 unwaged until the same date.

For tickets. or for a free programme with full details. write to Preparing for Power. BM RCP. London WC1N 3XX. Or ring us on (01) 129 0414. Cheques payable to RCP Association Please send me tns for 12 months starting at No..

Stop Paty the

WOMEN

Alton NED Bal

'ABORTION

* RIGHTS

22 April 1988 • 15

SCOTLAND:SMASH THE POLL TAX! - see page 2 Make the lories Udy Revolutionary Communist Party Weekly poll tax benefit cuts health charges ins the next step-15 THIS SESSION of parliament has been the toughest test of Tory resolve yet, as the government faces growing dissent over its brutal policies. The trouble is that all the pressure on Thatcher is coming from critics in her own party worried about the effect of her policies on the government's standing, rather than from an opposition movement channelling the anger of ordinary people in an onslaught against her government. Monday's revolt by backbenchers against the poll tax showed how Tory dissidents have hijacked the opposition to the government. Conservative MP Michael Mates' amendment to the poll tax legislation would have made little difference to the millions of working class people who will be expected to pay it. Yet the Labour leadership instructed its MPs to give their backing to Mates as if A motley alliance of Tory wets, Ulster Unionists, Democrats, Owenites and

THATCHER: RUTHLESS

Labourites cut the to 25. Support our fighting -El fund pay for your tns 22 April 1988 The Labour Party's support for Mates' minor adjustments to the community charge shows that it has accepted the poll tax law in all its essentials. In Scotland Labour-controlled councils are already preparing to implement the tax. Neil Kinnock's idea of building an opposition movement to the poll tax amounts to clinging on to the coat-tails of reactionary Tory politicians whose concern is defending the party which is implementing it, not the people who will suffer it.

On every issue, from the to their punitive social niggardly new health he were the people's saviour.

government majority down

WHY TORY

BENEFIT CUTS

CAPITALISM -

see page 2 Tories' poor-bashing budget security changes and their charges, the Labour Party is content to form the shadow of an opposition. These days Labour MPs are to be heard echoing the nit-picking criticisms of Tory backbenchers and the appeals for charity of Church of England bishops. But Labour's bid to become the Tory Party's conscience cannot save the working class from becoming the government's kicking post.

We need a new opposition,

MAKE SENSE FOR

40p

MATES: MINOR

one which will fight under its own colours and which is as ruthless in defending our class as Thatcher is in defending hers. We will never win if we pin our hopes on a party which pretends that the way forward against the government lies with hasbeens on the Tory backbenches. But if we put our trust in our own people and begin to organise their anger against the class of parasites which is bleeding them dry, we can stop the poll tax and begin to make the Tories pay.