the barracks. At the same time the.
neo-fascists have intensified their ment's assessment of the amount of support an official strike could expect.
Casting aside the whole armoury of struggle they could have called in to avert the smashing of the union at Armstrong's, they held out only one hope: an appeal to the ruling ciass s tailor-made unionsmasher, the NIRC, from one crisis to another without any worked-out plan and without Jepson to her former job. Neediess to say, he has so far failed in this noble effort.
Not content with capitulating to management's desire to rid itself of a troublesome shop-floor leader, Brother Shenton has turned in recent weeks to out-and-out scabbing.
The first sign of this was on 17 March when, with the aid of the employers' loudspeaker system and a convoy of coaches, scab stewards organised a mass picket of the Hull docks.
The dockers, who had maintained the blacking of Armstrong goods originally imposed at the Instigation of district officer Upfold, correctly refused to back down despite the pickets complaints that they were "interfering" in the affairs of other workers. The dockers' leaders have also bad to face strong and equally backwurd pressures from Shenton's office.
But this is not the end of the story. As soon as it became clear this end.
on Armstrong shucks. The branch also sent a resolution to the union's executive demanding support for the strike at Beverley, and mude an immediate donation of £25 towards the strike fund.
The example of Cowley needs to be tuken up throughout the car industry, especially at Longbridge, Dagenham and Halewood, and in the Albion and Leyland plants in Glasgow and Preston.
The nature of the opposition to such moves needs to be stressed. Within half an hour of the first lorry being turned away from Cowley, stewards received new instructions relayed from Beverley via Shenton' office in Hull to lift the black.
The Defence Committee set up in Hull to campaign for Jean Jepson's reinstatement is calling on workers throughout the motor industry to ignore such instructions, stemming as they do from collaboration between Armstrong's management and the T.& G.W.U. bureaucracy on exploit the referendum of 12 May to be greatly increased. need.
Messages of rupport and donanons, Parliament. The victory of the antidivorce front would severely damage the Socialists, the other parties in the coalition favourable to divorce, the left wing of the Christian Democrats, and the Communist Party and the workers movement in general. Simultuneously the room for manoeuvre by the fascists, who are to some extent the cutting edge of the anti-divorce coalition, would The Communist Parly's leaders have understood what is at stake and know that their basic strategy is being subjected to a severe teat. In the face of the new Rumor govern ment, and in the face of the rejection of all compromise on the question of divorce by the leadership of the Christian Democrats, the CP hus carried out a turn: Its conciliatory "opposition of a different type has been replaced by 'intransigent opposition'. This helps them to solidify their ranks and causes difficulties for the extreme left.
As we have said, vacillations arc possible on the question of divorce among the electoral supporters and even among the militants of the Communist Party. This has left the CP leaders with no choice but to politicise the struggle and present it as a test of force between 'democrutic progress' and reaction. The radicalisation of their opposition to the Goveroment also flows from this "order", Nevertheless, the thorough opportunion of the CP bureaucracy continues to show itself even in the orientation of the electoral campaign. The perspective of the 'historic compromise has fiot been abandoned, and the carpaign for the defence of divorce is carried out with timid and fundamentnily conservative arguments: divorce is presented as a solution only for pathoThe Italian Trotskyists are basing their campaign on the political consequences of the present confrontation, while at the same time seiring the occasion to explain their views on the family, bourgeois ideology, sexual repres sion, the liheration of women They conceive their struggle as completely distinct from that of the other currents who support divorce. Here they differentiate themselvos from the other orginisations of the revolutionary lett- from Lotta Continua to Avanguardia Operaia-who have not hesitated to participate in common demonstrations with bourgeois parties (including the Liberals) which support divorce, This position was pat clearly in the pamphlet distributed by the GCR Halian section of the Fourth International:
"Ture the battle on the tetercadum jato a general political controntation. NO to the reactionary attempt of the TARA SCARES SO COULD CR dissatisfied petit-bourgeoisie, the higots and the fascists into an anti-working class front If the abrogation of the divorce law Is approved, the bourgeoile will go forward in its attack to impose "austerity".
"discipline". We say clearly:
VOTE NO!
"No to all those who defend the boargeois concept of the family, which is an instrument for the oppression of women and the young, and which Is an instrumeet for the transmission of the ideology of the ruling class! For an anti-capitalist on toons to the struggle of the workers and students, no concessions to the "historic compromise", no going back on the strugglo fos the defense of wages and employment To help prepare the workers counter offersive VOTE NOT Bed Weekly 25 April 1974 Page 5