Socialist Challenge No. 123, No v, 1979
The scan: sc-n123-nov-29-1979.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)
Uncorrected machine reading of the whole issue. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from the scan and has not been corrected or cut into articles. Each page gives the headlines first, then the columns in order, so one article runs on into the next. Expect misread words. Use it to find things; quote from the scan.
Page 1 scan of this page
Socialist Challenge STOP THE SELL-OUT ATLEYLAND
ON TUESDAY afternoon Terry Duffy, president of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, and the rest of his union executive sabotaged the defence of their own member, Derek Robinson, the convenor at British Leyland's Longbridge plant.
They agreed to the demands of Leyland boss Michael Edwardes and instructed their members at Leyland to go back to work -without securing the re-instatement of Robinson, who had been victimised the previous week for his union activity.
Instead the union has,decided to launch its own 'inquiry' into Robinson's activities. In other words, at the behest of the Leyland bosses, Robinson's own union is to put him on trial.
Even if Robinson is declared 'innocent", Edwardes has said that he will not necessarily accept the verdict, and that Robinson will not automatically be re-instated.
What is sure is that if the inquiry goes Robinson's way it will be much more difficult to mobilise Leyland workers in his defence at some later date.
All who have agreed to this 'compromise' have compromised one of the basic tenets of the trade union movement - the defence of its members. Any political organisation which agrees to the inquiry will be committing political suicide.
Now it is important to rebuild the struggle against the victimisation and press for all-out Leyland strike action; to demand the inquiry is boycotted, to organise and explain to the Leyland workforce what the real issues are.
Ever since trade unions were formed in this country the ruling class have tried to smash them. Through the years they deported trade unionists, banned unions, ordered their police to attack pickets. As recently as the Heath government trade unionists were locked up in Pentonville jail.
The sacking of British Leyland convenor Derek Robinson brought that tradition up to date. The Leyland issue is not a personal» power struggle between Robinson and Edwardes. Nor is it a conflict between one
stewards' organisation. At issue is the matter of class against class.
him as 'a man with the guts to fight"; the Tories let it be known that if Robinson was
and sack 100,000 workers.
such threats then had the nerve to turn around and accuse the Leyland workers of 'blackmail'.
anti-union management and a single shop
All the usual ruling class rabble rallied behind Edwardes. The Daily Mail described attack.
re-instated and Edwardes resigned then the government would make Leyland bankrupt
crisis,
Adding insult to injury those who made
The mass sacking threat is a bluff, but that it has been made shows how seriously
YTIMIDATION
Socialist Wi
the ruling class views the Leyland struggle. They know that if Edwardes can get away with sacking a union convenor, then every union convenor in the country will be ripe for
And now more than at any time since the war, the bosses and their political representatives are out to attack the right of working people to organise; because British capitalism is heading for a massive crisis and it needs to make workers pay for that
To quote the Daily Mirror again: What happens to British Leyland in the next few days could well be symbolic of what happens to all of us in the years that lie ahead.,
Absolutely right. The ruling class knows what is at stake at Leyland. So should we.
No 123 29 November 1979 20p
US
HANDS
OFF
TRAN
AS WE go to press Washington continues to rattle its sabres. The leaders of US imperialism confront a real dilemma. They have been publicly humiliated and insulted by the leaders of Iran, who have called their bluff by refusing to capitulate to US pressure as long as the Shah remains in the United States.
If the United States intervenes militarily, even for the purpose of a limited raid, the consequences would be far-reaching. The whole region could witness mass mobilisations demanding an oil blockade of the West. But if the US does not intervene, its credibility both at home and abroad will be further reduced.
For us the choice in this conflict is clear. In any clash with imperialism we stand with the people of Iran. This support is and must remain unconditional.
Our task in the event of any outside intervention will beto help mobilise the broadest possible solidarity against the United States. We will do sc despite our strong disagreements with Khomeini and the Islamic Republic. For at the present time there is room for only one slogan: US HANDS OFFIRAN!
Page 2 scan of this page
Requiem for the NEB- the passing of a lap-dog
OUR POLICIES
Capitalism is in crisis. The leaders of the Labnur Party and the trade unions offer solutions that are in the interests not of the workers but of the capitalist class.
Socialist Chailenge believes that the two vital tasks confronting revolutionary socialists are:
• To build broad-based class struggle tendencies in opposition
class-collaborationism in labour movement. These should be non-exclusive grouping together militants holdine a wide range of political views.
• In begin to fight for the creation of unified democratic revolutionary socialist organisation which can. an application of untied
begin to be seen as an alternative thousands workers engaged in struggles.
Such an organisation should be based on the understanding that:
The struggle seeks to unite the fight of
I workers against the with that of other oppressed layers of society -- women, black people, beration. This socialism can only struggling be achieved by creating new organs of power and defeating with necessary means ine power of le capitalist state. P infinites more democratic Our socialism
• than what exists in Britain today, with full rights for political parties and currents that do not lake up arms against the socialist state. The Stalinist models of socialism in the USSR and Fastern Europe have discredited socialism in the eyes of millions of
throughout the
We are opposed to them and will offer full support to lentine for socialist bemocraty•
The interests of workers and
on a world scale. Capitalism only created
market. has created
politics. Thus we light for working
class unity
scale. This unity will in the long
run be decisive in defeating
the imperialist regimes in the West
and the brutal dictatorships they
sustain in Latin America, Africa
and Asia.
In Britain it implies demanding
the immediate withdrawal
British troops from Ireland and
letting the Irish people determine
their own future.
The Communist parties in Europe are in crisis, Neither 'Eurocommunist'
the pro-Moscow wings have any
meaningful strategy
overthrow of the capitalist state.
Neu revolutionary socialist parties
more necessar!
helore. Conditinns
more favourable than over the
preceding three decades. Bus such
parties only be
rejecting sectarianism and seeing
internal democrats not as a luxury
hut as a vital necessit!.
the right to organise factions and
etells.
If you agree with these principles
want
activilies hy Socialist Challenge
supporters in your area, fill in the
form belor and send it to us.
interested
information about activities in my
aret
• I would like additional literature
and enclose 50p to cover costs.
(Delete if not applicable)
Address Socialist Challenge 29 November 1979 page 2
the and
through
on capital invested
socialism
bosses
their
all all
world.
all those
world
world
international
both ПОГ
than ever today are
built by
This means
Solihull. Here Socialist Challenge. involved
I think could
in more
needs more guts
Ideas supplements particularly and Party
EDITORIAL
ONEset of industrial barons have replaced another on the National Enterprise Board. Rolls Royce has passed from NEB control to the department of Industry. Is this anything to be excited about?
It was Tony Benn who set up the NEB in the heady days of the Labour government in 1974-5. It was, and remains, a central part of the strategy of Labour's left wing. The bosses were unwilling to invest, the NEB would provide the money and make sure that the grateful bosses were accountable to 'the public'. Key sectors of British industry would flourish. Unemployment would decline as the whole economy started to take off.
There was one small problem with this schema 'and that was profits. The low level of profitability
in British manufacturing industry remains the fundamental reason why the bosses get cold feet and take their money elsewhere. To reverse that situation the employers have to jack up productivity and in a situation of no growth in
STEVE GRIFFITHS works at Rover
are views on
Socialist Challenge about be agitational.
We're often spot on with the issues —
as in the Dobson scandal and the
recent centre page spread about Tony
Benn at the Labour Party conference
— but the we don't always put them
over in quite the right way. The paper
I've enjoyed reading the Battle of past the debates on Faction the because it gives you an
overview of what kind of socialist
organisation we're trying to build.
It's surprising the issues you get
feedback on in the factory. The photo
that Socialist Challenge printed of a
woman having a backstreet abortion
attack on the working class.
The ALL OUT
TO WIN
SMASH TH
WARDE
The paper needs more guts
| created a stir. Somebody pinned it up
the wall nex! all pornographic pictures of women. For the whole week an argument raged
the rights and pornography article with it was clear and hard and provoked such arguments.
The women's question is always a source of controversy. Should. women be on the line! (A third of the workforce building cars are women at Rover.) When it comes to layoffs women come under fire
We sell Socialist Challenge outside
confed people leave meeting. In the factory we mainly to Labour Party members and other workers who are interested in socialist ideas.
The numbers we sell depend on our strength in the factory. Since I Hickey's been a senior steward we've
the British economy that meant speed-up and sackings. The NEB's money was welcome but it did not meet the bosses' central need — an all out
But whatever the prospects for the NEB in its early days, they were never given the chance to be tested. Benn's Industry Bill was gutted in the Labour cabinet and Benn himself was replaced by Eric Varley in the post of Industry minister.
NEB changed its nature. It became a combination of a butcher's shop and laboratory. 'Lame duck' firms like British Leyland, Alfred Herbert (the machine tool manufacturers) and Rolls Royce were to be rationalised in a programme of closures, redundancies and speed up.
British Leyland in particular was to be parcelled up in lots and some of it sold off, like the MG plant in Oxford, others simply thrown in the dustbin as with the Triumph plant in Speke. Large holdings in companies like Ferranti obtained in exchange for
OINT
imposad to beregular with sales and increased sales. chase people up.
A paper like Socialist Challenge is of important when The union movement is being threatened as it is at the moment at Leyland. You need to know the facts about what's happening in other plants and details of what management and the Tories are upto.
We have inside information that the management's already got Tory finance and support for what they re upto and that's why they dare to take the us on. sell We sold dozens of papers in the town centre on Saturday afternoon.
The headline attention and they decided to buy.
The •dispute al Pat ising the city. People want to KOW We 0Z
understand what it means.
under ferocious pressure at Leyland.
The NEB was
with mass action to defend Derek Robinson.
Haymarkci, Bristol 6.
Thursday
Donations Change ty
247-97
COVENIKI
Picardy
GRAVESEND:
LEILEDILI
7.30pm, Speaker
HACKNEY
HAMILTON saturday For
¿eve and centre Middlesbrough, whole trade upstairs in Spencer Street
DUNDEE
GLASGOW
IN IRAL
building a
grabbed peoples
Leyland is polar-
Congress
| cash would be progressively sold off. At the same time a puny attempt was made to keep up with the technological advances in the silicon chip industry i with a number of small research firms being set up.
The more the project progressed the less the need for the NEB. So now British Leyland will follow Rolls Royce out of the NEB fold. Socialists should not mourn what amounts to the passing of the NEB under its new lap-dog management, but
The Tory attack on living standards is reaching top gear. There will be no honeymoon period under this government. They have dealt with the vacillating bosses of the NEB with contempt. Shop stewards whom they consider an obstacle will be
never solution to unemployment either in its pink or blue cloaks. The solution rests in resisting the Tory offensive starting
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CHALLENGE
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Report 1. For venues and further
Page 3 scan of this page
HOME NEWS
massive crisis.
British Leyland' by making
pian.
own propaganda about militant minorities.
the major figures in the dispute. MOSS EVANS — pragmatic leadership MOSS Evans, the £7,000 a year leader of _ransport and Workers Union, has shown a greater willingness to stick his neck out in this dispute than Terry Duffy, though Derek Robinson is a member of the AUEW and not the TGWU.
The West Midlands committee of the Transport Workers union has voted to make the strike official. Evans says waiting for the AUEW to meet 'out of courtesy' before he gives the go ahead to official actíon.
Welshman who Methyr Tydfil during the years of the depression, Evans came to the Transport Union in 1977 and is gaining a reputation for being a left wing trade union leader because of his support for the lorry drivers and now for Robinson.
Footsteps
Rather Ilan following footsteps of his all powerful decessors, Ernest Bevin Jones, he has adopted a more open, quiet style of rule.
This stand has not unambiguous, however. When elected to the post of general secretary
Has Mick
the Knifé
gone toofar
this time?
THE sacking of Derek Robinson, a shop steward and a Communist Party member at Longbridge, has plunged British Leyland into a
Having won a seven to one vote in the ballot for his plan to 'save
25,000 Edwardes obviously reckoned it was time to stick the knife into the shop stewards movement to ensure the smooth implementation of his
But Edwardes seems to have been foolish enough to believe his
Not only the workforce but even trade union officials have been outraged by such a calculated victimisation. Here we look at some of
Evans —will he survive
when things get too hot?
General Issuca a code oI
drivers strike, discipline members who the code.
regional Pragmatic
The is merely Labour Party 'pragmatic'.
grew up
power in
trade unionist.
in the DEC and Jack back down.
been
The along the line.
workers redundant, Michael
you supported the social contract. He
practice to stop secondary picketing during the lorry
although he did not disobeyed
His position on democracy in the
was also rather
Moss Evans was not prepared to challenge Callaghan head on because as ne said at the time Callaghan has to do his job and I have to do mine'.
Trade union leaders like Evans may back all-out strike action in this dispute because if Edwardes can do this to Robinson he can do it to any
Evans can't stand by and watch his base get smashed.
But when things get too hot and the prets starts to accuse Evans of 'challenging parliamentary rule' he'll
That's why workers at Leyland should welcome official support but keep the pressure on Evans all the way
MICHAEL Edwardes, the £50,000 a year boss or brush Leyland, threatened to resign rather than see Derek Robinson reinstated.
He knows what's at stake in this dispute. He doesn't want a strong shop stewards movement in Leyland to muck his plans for 'streamlining' the car industry and making the workers pay problems of the bosses.
Sir Michael Edwardes, knighted by
- Labour LOVELLECT heroic services to capital not labour, is no newcomer to trade union bashing.
Chloride
As head of Chloride Batteries in 1977 he attempted to sack one in ten of the workers despite the fact that the company made a profit of f20 million also seresy trading commat
secretly trading African subsidiaries. Edwardes, course, comes from South Africa. His membership of the Rand club, 'very rich, very exclusive' is a fitting symbol of his years serving the regime.
The solution Edwardes has for British Leyland is a simple one. Everytime the workers cause 'trouble'
threaten them with sackings. He closed down Speke in Liverpool, he threatened to cancel £32 million worth SINGLICHI Bathgate Lothian truck plant, dealt wịth denouncing Fraser as a 'wrecker'. Jeopardy
Now he hopes to isolate Robinson in a similar fashion by putting the £300 million loan from government in jeopardy.
He's not prepared to skimp and save himself, though. He told the Sun in January that if the top rates of tax were not changed he might become a tax exile after his three year contract
up. wonder he Joseph's blue eyed boy!
be gox
Duffy - snuggling
up to theTories
TERRY DUFFY
has
British
for the
of
apartheid
more
The by the Keith - no surprise that he's the media's darling
cinderne
right.
'going
fairly redundancies membership
Duffy's Frank Chapple, Boot
members Socialist Challenge
TERRY Duffy. a Reman Carto
from the back constry, reacted in, Robinson's sacking. "ll books fashion Derc dark for Leyland. I am disappo that we have this disruption at a when everything was begin
This disruption' is one of his em members being sacked for darin speak out against managcrest.
right fee happy offer proposed by Edwardes.
Notorious
By Monday he was still vacillatin about whether or not to defead li
Sir John Boyd, general secretary of the AUEW, was advising him not to rush into a hasty decision!
reputation as right winger is notorious. He settled for a useless offer from the employers i the recent engineering dispute wher he could have got far more.
He tried, unsuccessfaily, to merg his union with the EEPTU led b
another right-miy trade union leader.
The vote to elect the leader of the Labour Party by the conference was lost due to Duffy's presence of mind - despite strong feelings among his
about Labour Party democracy. He wants to snuggle up te the Tories. It's not surprising he's the darling of the press.
Thankfully Duffy comes up for election next year. Let's hope membership see sense and give him the boot this time.
29 November 1979 page 3
Page 4 scan of this page
Derek Robinson: a figh
BRITISH LEYLAND management last week issued a summary dismissal to Derek Robinson, senior convenor at BL's Longbridge plant. This is not a decision that was made lightmindedly.
Derek Robinson, have dubbed "Red Robbo', is certainly the most powerful shop steward in BL, and arguably the most powerful shop steward in British industry.
Robinson is the Longbridge, the second largest factory in the country, with 18,000 workers following him. He is recognised as unofficial lay leader of the whole of BL. through his position on the British Leyland Shop Stewards Combine Committee — an unofficial body of all BL shop stewards and of which chairperson:
The ostensible reason for Edwardes' move in sacking him was the production of the
strike
MONDAY 19
BL management announces sacking of Derek Robinson and the disciplining of three other members of the unofficial BL shop Combine Committee.
There is an immediate response in Longbridge; Robinson's own plant, where 7,000 day-shift workers walk out demanding his reinstatement. The shop stewards meet and decide to mount pickets of the entire plant to cusul c that there would nightshift.
The company is well prepared, and IS distributing throughout the BL plants explaining es cuts.
The first of Edwardes' divisive arguments wheeled pamphlet was in the
Hault Combine Committee,
officially recognised union body, the sacking was not as a result of union activities.
That night the pickets are: solid;
only a handful of workers report for
work. Eleven thousand workers are
now on strike to defend Robinson.
The Leyland Action Committee,
with socialist militants from several
BL plants, meets in Birmingham to
discuss the situation. It considers that
the fight to defend Robinson has to be
linked to a fightback against
Edwardes' plan.
TUESDAY 20
The Leyland Action Committee has
produced 4,000 printed
calling for all-out strike action in BL
By 6.30am they are being handed out
the picket lines and receive an
entmusiastic response
A meeting of BL shop stewards
had already been planned to be held
today to discuss the company's wage
OTECT. There's little
Howarde timed the
coincide
meeting.
The wage offer is 5 per cent with
numerous strings, including complete
mobility of labour. If it is accepted it
would remove all powers from
shop stewards.
Our mistake
Socialist Challenge.
our crol.
Socialist Challenge 29 November 1979 page 4
whom the popular press •What
the Upper similar elected leader OI
pamphlet
Robinson is manner.
Count down
to an official
By Pat Kane and Jude Woodward
British Layland
the
stewards no
leaflets
out: the of the nO: Robinson/ SO attend the meeting,
longer a BL emolovee
for reinstatement for Robinson.
Both the
the son's
to defend him.
can leaflets pressure
Canley
the Edwardes' plan.
doubt Jaguar workers sacking with this strike to 24,000.
all-out strike action in BL
BL Engineering UNION
LAST week an article by Pat Hickey appeared on the front page of
At the head of the article he was erroneously described as deputy convenor at Rover Solihull. He is in fact deputy senior steward at that plant. We apologise to those who were mislead by
Combine Committee pamphlet 'The Edwardes' Plan and Your Job', with its somewhat belated calls for militant action to defend jobs. The offending paragraphs are on page 13 entitled can you do?' What management no doubt were the references to Clyde Shipbuilders with calls 'Work-ins and occupations.. prevent closure.
But Robinson himself has indicated that the was not ine real sacking, and he is right. The decision to sack him was clearly not a spontaneous reaction to the appearance of the pamphlet; Robinson is far too big a fish to take on in such an ad hoc
The decision to sack him must have been taken at the highest management level Edwardes himself — and almost certainly with
EDWARDES PLAN
and your job
himself attempts to but Be security guards refuse him entry to company property on the grounds that he is no
The stewards meeting is lobbied by hundreds of BL employees calling
of the offer and
wage and the conditions that go along with it are rejected by the senior stewards at the
They also demand Robinimmediate reinstatement, but incy donor cantor albul sunke actor.
The senior stewards leave it up to the leadership of each plant to organise whatever action they
for organised BL-wide action is building up. A mass meeting of 6,000 workers at Canley votes to take indefinite strike action
would be one of the first plants to close under the next stage of
At about the same time, 6,000 Lovel wI fools, bringing the total number on
KONIRSO tells the press that 'this is a dispute we intend to win', but he makes no mention of
In London, the executive of the
Union Robinson's - is discussing his case.
government Robinson's
'upset
for don't get away with it.
reason for the
on it.
assessment demands his reinstatement, but holds back from making the strikes official.
Terry Duffy, president AUEW, says that this is because BL
won't send a enough team' to negotiate with him. The executive's statements imply that it is more concerned about the "future of the company' than in detending the leading steward in the AUEW.
Discipline
Pat Hickey, a senior steward at th Rover plant in Birmingham, return from the meeting on pay with 700 copies of the offending pamphlet on the Edwardes' plan which he then distributes on the line workforce, Hickey considers, should at least know what Robinson sacked for.
At 3pm Hickey is called in by the works manager for a disciplinary hearing. Management quickly structs foremen to stop sales of the pamphiet. Workers in the plant are threatened with the sack for reading the pamphlet in their breaks. But management is forced to back down. Hickey's disciplinary hearing is first
postpa d thing Derek robiher.
evening Derek shares the platform with McLennan, general secretary of the Communist Party, at a public meeting held by the local CP: Robinson makes a somewhat uninspired speech about himself, calling for whatever support is necessary. Unreasonable
He denies that his sacking is due to the pamphlet, explaining that it has a lot more to do with Edwardes plans
productivity deals mobility. To show that management
being unreasonable. points out that he had gone to them himself two years ago with similar proposals.
backing. The battle remstatement will not determine the future of the unions in BL for the next period but represents the first fierce blow in the Tories' attacks on the trade unions.
That is why it is not just the task of BL workers to ensure that Edwardes and the Tories
There is now tremendous pressure on both the main unions involved in BL to make the walk-outs and shut-downs official.
Edwardes would prefer it if they didn't -he may even have had high hopes that Terry Duffy, the right-wing president of the AUEW, would refuse. But Edwardes is not depending
organisation in BL. He is hoping to turn his 7 to PICKETS at Pressed Steel Fisher plant Castle Bromwich, Birmingham
WEDNESDAY 21
the By this morning the "strong shocked by the strength of support that Robinson announcing: 'We Robinson in the full knowledge of the consequences, and we are now riding
The Birmingham Post estimates that the company has already lost 15 million in production through the dispute.
At the Castle Bromwich Press Steel Fisher plant, maintains his tough line by sacking The Keyworth, drawing up a plan to save the plant. was castie bromwien Is anolner plant le be closed under the Edwardes' plan.
After a stewards in- plant convenor, says: "These sackings have WAKS OIL unleashed all the built Edwardes' plan.' proceeds to vote for indefinite strike
meeting of Committee that afternoon calls for a Robinson day of action on Monday with Birmingham. But the senior stewards have to tell their members that there is still no clear national line for action to unite BL workers behind Longbridge.
That evening the district committee calls for the strike to be made official, as does TGWU Region s With 139 Labour MPs calling for immediate reinstatement, mounting pressure on Terry Duffy job and Moss Evans to make the strikes official, but they have yet to make a Robinson move. stewards call a mass meeting with a resolution for a token stoppage only.
over only
shopfloor union organisation.
organisation won't resist speed up mobility at plant impossible to impose.
assault on manufacturing industry.
out, all out -the stakes are very high indeed. strike
company is
has . received, sacked Derek
who has
The will stop
Edwardes off.
director,
Alf baccalls. Wood. the into
Edwardes. anger and up over the The workforce
movement.
the Combine
following leadership
The
AUEW
describes what committee.
Cals
there 1s we were
At the Rover plant, the senior
1 ballot victory on the 'survival plan into a victory in an all-out confrontation with the
That's what he needs to impose the rest of his plans on the BL worklorce, the 'yes' vote in the ballot does not mean that shopfloor union
and joh leve and make them
If Robinson goes, then no shop steward in ine land would Teer sare. r would open up a
the shopiloor across
The BL workforce appears to be rising to the challenge, but they will need all the suppor they can get. It's time to reassert a fundamental principle of the trade union movement — one
because in this particular game They have avoided holding any sort of meeting where a proposal for all-out could pul forward. 24-hour strike is supported.
THURSDAY 22
Today dawns with the Birmingham Evening Mail continuing its support for Edwardes by running a front page story on Derek Robinson's brother continued working. The paper fails to mention that he has said work as soon as Int strike is made official By now 37,000 BL workers are on strike and many thousands more laid
The Leyland. Action Committee issues another leaflet calling for an extension of the strike action, and a mass meeting at Longbridge to turn it opposition It also calls for flying pickets to shut down the rest of BL Messages of support are flooding in from all sections of the trade union Len Brindle, vice chairperson of the Combine Committee, narrowly loses a vote for immediate action at his plant in Preston. The lack of clear from Combine Committee or the unions nationally is paying dividends for management. company. taking every opportunity to get its message over It's pay day, and, Ken King - until recently a steward at Longbridge happens when the workers go to collect their money 'All the plant gates were locked and sent to the West works canteen for the pay our "The directors were there giving each and every one of us a load of pamphlets and a pep talk on the BL happy family. They only took in six at a time and the queue stretched a mile or two'down the road.
Page 5 scan of this page
t we mean to win
All photos: JUDE WOODWARD (Socialist Challenge)
'Foremen wenr up and down the queue saying that it the gate they would through.'
That night Moss Evans is in West Bromwich and he is lobbied to make the strike official. Evans says that it is just a matter of 'rubber stamping' as far as he was concerned.
Heexplains: 'I think BL has made @ schild • Mistake in sacking Robinson. He is not just an AUEW member, but has been elected by all.
WAITING to hear whether the TGWU district will make the strike official at Longbridge on Friday IT IS official, so the 'official strike' placards are rapidly made
people came to march them before.
Mr to take pickets to the next executive council meeting,
MOZI
door. the shop stewards at BL to represent them, and therefore we (the TGWU)
The Leyland Action Committee meeting in the evening is a big success, with mititants from all the BL plants in the Midlands, many of whom had never. been to an unofficial meeting
The meeting arranges for coaches
AUEW • 40 see if
CHAMBERS
| Duffy can carry on ignoring hundreds of his members outside his own front
NS.
PUBLIC MEETING PAT HICKEY
PAUL SHEVLIN SHOP STEMARE, JAGUAR COVENTRY 730 THURSDAY 22 10 (BRISTOL SEET
Ioo. KICK O
ballot.
result.
plan that 82 per cent had voted in favour of.
FRIDAY 23
decision of the committee will be. the radio that it has made the strike official. A cheer goes up on the picke line at Longbridge. rush off to the stewards hut to start making 'official picket" placards;
MONDAY26
This is the day of the demonstration in Birmingham, and over four thousand trade unionists arrive to show their solidarity steward. Delegations come from all over the country
town hall, Derek Robinson, with speakers from the TGWU, French CGT, calls for official backing 1o fight for reinstatement
fight between Edwardes and myself. I am just a victim of an attaid on the trade unions from the highest laz!
solidarity ai the rally. ino praciene remain.
Terry Duify isn': there and at ice ALEW evacutive is noi represented.
Len Brindte, convenor at the BL plant in Leyland, Preston. doesn't make this official he's even more stupid than I thought.
Maximum the maximum solidarity other trade unionists. Al the moment they stand between anti-working class every one of us
different political currents to clearly express their views within the broad trade union movement. striking - for the right representatives interests of the workforce and not kow-tow to the bosses.
That's why every section of the trade union movement has to bring pressure to make the strikes official and keep them that way. No sell-out!
Leyland has to be brought to a complete standstill and that means boycotting all goods to and from BL plants. Every trade unionist should find a way to support the BL strikers Messages of support and financial contributions Secretary Leyland Committee, 4 Lea Lane, Cookley, Nr Kidderminster, Worcs.
Edwardes- super-democrat
THE SENIOR stewards in the BL Jaguar plant in Coventry have been under pressure to hold a mass meeting so that the workforce could reject Edwardes' measly 5 per cent pay offer. They knew the workforce would rejeet it, but they thought the BL management would not accept the decision of a mass meeting. So they decided to hold their own secret
•Management were approached for help, but they refused to provide any facilities. The stewards even had to make their own ballot boxes. Numbered papers were issued and scrutineers were appointed to oversee the distribution and count so that management could not discredit the
The result was a 92 per cent rejection of the pay offer - 5023 against and only 448 for. Michael Edwardes is taking out adverts in national newspapers explaining he is justified in sacking Robinson as he opposes a champion of democracy will ignore the Jaguar ballot result!
ENikirs are column inch
LAMBETH Fairholt House Everyone is waiting to see what the
TGWU regional Mozamone
Al lunchtime the pickets hear on Harris
10am-5.30pm
Several people
NILAKAGLA with the victimised BL
Al a packed rally in Birmingham
along the AUEW/TASS.
Robinson says: This is not just a
Despite the tremendous shea of
TERNATIONA
says •lf Dufty Taüt • 2.10 ITE LIT
Leyland workers bave to recene
from all
Tories offensive and
They are fighting for the right of 004533
They are of elected fight for the Cour 01-722 014
Jack Adams.
Combine TU
Emertainment Group Doubtless this new
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Fightback
mecting to discuss the curs being mate:
Lambeth Town Hall, S Decembe
speakers: Lou Lewis, Bi Bouring.
Campaign Against Health Cur
TOWER Hamlets Campaign
Public meeting with lan Mikardo MP • Persiat
Huntingford, Rose Knight (NACI. Tie + De
1.supm. cuy or London Poly Siudent i Sare
Whitechapel High
Nearest tube Aldgate East
A LUTA CONTINUA. One-day cotierezie re
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PLUTO PRESS is looking for outside editors # rich scurrene saned and area general realis I to exterid into relate intellectual and political life, confident in dealine Contact Michae Kidion. Patroommission basi
7 Chalcot
BOOKS for Southern Africa comrades.
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BRENT VAL.GO Campaign Benctit on Thur
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Demand'
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The cartoon on page 7 of last week's issue was by Corinne Pearlman from the NCCL publication First Rights, reproduced with permission.
Socialist Challenge 29 November 1979 page 5
Page 6 scan of this page
OUTSIDE the hospital the picket line makes it clear who is in control at St Benedicts. Volunteers are needed to help on the picket rota. INSIDE the daily routine is only interrupted by mass meetings and the
- defend our services
HOMENEWS
ICL retreat at
Dukinfield
3y Andy Blundell, hairperson at West Gorton 1C roup ASTMS
he determination of workers at the nternational Computers Jukinfield plant and olidarity action have forced IC to ut back its closure plans, with the oss of 900 jobs.
They have agreed to put the 90 lays notice 'on ice' for 28 days to llow the unions to set up a working
and then reconsider lecisions in the light of their report.
One can hope, of course, that this s a play to allow the company to vithdraw the notice without. losing ace. But it is far more likely that the ompany see it as one step back so as o take two steps forward!
There are very real dangers that a oint working party could become a articipation exercise, cceptance by the unions inevitable' redundancies, or that the Iternative will be posed in terms of ow the unions can make the plant viable' for ICL
As this week's Socialist Challenge ulletin explained, our alternative to he vorking week throughout ICL.
It went on to warn against seeing he 28 days as a.'Christmas truce and rgued that the time should be used to ontinue the fightback by organising upport in ine local labout movemen nd the community for the ound in the battle.
With a limited victory under their elts Dukinfield workers are now in a rosition to build links Manchester factories lundancies and develop a vide fight for the right to work. Ford offer
By a Ford Worker IN A surprise move last Friday the Ford motor company 59,000 workers increases of around 21.5 per cent. For the majority of workers company's original offer of £ll on basic rates was increased to giving a new weekly £89.52.
Although the unions' for £30 and a threshold clause, there is ittle doubt this will be accepted.
ook a nine week strike last year to achieve an increase half this size.
The major drawback is a further
ncrease in the disciplinary
nentary Payment' by £1.52 to £25 a
week. This is aimed at weakening the hopfloor because any
lispute for 5 minutes or attending a
shop meeting will lose a further £3 to
t4 in wages.
Why did Ford increase its offer by
'A in the space of a week?
'MORE for defence,
schools'. That was the way
Financial Times summarised the
Tory White PaDer
Expenditure for 1980-1. In all 4.3
per cent is to be cut from projected
education expenditure.
£200 million
withdrawing subsidy
school meals and milk. On top of
the cuts made in the Budget of 12
June this will mean the closure of
millene and schools in
areas.
Access to further
will become more
working class youth
Education Authorities
reduce or abolish discretionary
awards as a means of further
trimming their budgets.
In higher education there will
0e d similar effect
decision to culack
numbers in the universities by 6 per
cent, the attempt to introduce 'full
cost fees' for overseas students and
the general trimming of budgets in the polytechnics.
Students in many areas have
socialist Challenge 29 November 1279
is so high on
targets:
La further factor.
Ford can
Limited widespread increase its market
having major
- for a few months anyway!
ambiguous. company agreed to meetings: working achieve a negotiated working time. company's would commencement of the New
ending in
next year's claim.
Whose choice?
not.
Gillian Brear were next
Annual General secretary, Jamie with other facing re- LOU
district influence.
they action
policies of Jamie Morris
offered its
wage the NHS when I am LUIS
it? £15, grade rate of
hospital
their pay claim.
'Supple- thạt they
worker in
does not have a rule book.
Students fight education cuts
for the attacks. strong demonstration Public cuts in Bristol on 15
will be 'saved' by
from tions and services.
many
education on 14 November. difficult for
as Local
ILEAS racist fee increases.
no lusion that ce
given the section of the student body.
student
• and their policies.
page 6
One reason is that labour turnover
the 29,000 strong
running at 40 per cent per year in the assembly plant — that the company is falling far sort of its production
The Leyland dispute was probably
With a big slump predicted in the car industry in 1980,
seize this opportunity to share without. dispute or discontented workforce on its hands
Whether any progress has been made towards a shorter working week
unIons and series of "To consider changes arrangements necessary to reduction without reducing the competitiveness, which from the Agreement to be negotiated in November 1980°. The job now will be to make the 35 hour week the main element in
DO MEMBERS of the National Union of Public Employees have the right to elect a shop steward of their choice? Most NUPE members think so, but if NUPE branch secretary Jamie Morris gets his way, they will
In October, Dave Norman and
elected mously to represent their sections at Westminster Hospital. At the branch
Meeting, the Morris, advised to "ratify" the democratic election of these stewards - claiming that they were a disruptive
The 'disruptive influence' of Dave and Gillian couldn't perhaps be that
consistently argued for and low pay?
Could it be that their opposition to the
who is quoted as saying that 'it would be hypocritical of me to oppose cuts in
implementing councillor in Tower Hamlets' — has something to do with
It was Jamie Morris who called off all action in the branch when a well orchestrated press campaign, coupled with pressure from the worn esters,
workers Westminster for taking action over
At that time he was opposed by the stewards concerned.
Their full-time offider told them
could appeal against the branch decision through the union's National Appeals Committee. However, when they used this procedure they were told by General Secretary Alan Fisher that there is no right of appeal against decisions taken by a branch. 'This means NUPE effectively
already begun to respond to these
One third of the 10,000 goginst the November consisted of students and school
At Oxford Polytechnic students have already occupied in opposition to deteriorating condi-
In Lambeth on 7 November
school students walked out of two
schools to support the march to
Westminster. In Manchester 30X0
students marched against the cuts
In many other areas students in
further and higher education have
organised occupations acainst the
These
constitute a cut and students have
Tories
going to stop at attacking just this •
In Bristol one of the chants of
demonstrators was 'Education for
the working masses, not for the
ruling classes'. If there is to be any
hope of realising that then we have
to start by kicking out the Tories
Health workers take control deliberations of the occupation committee.
i Occupied to
By Pete Cooper
the St Benedicts
Merton, Агея 1980.
Excuse facilities.
away!
diabolical the area.
Nick force -
and building Direct Works.
movement
to fight alone'
PATIENTS are still being admitted to
130 bed geriatric hospital — despite the decision of the
Sutton and Wandsworth Health admissions from 23 November.
The hospital is now being run by a workers council who, with the help of local doctors, are exercising control over admissions and discharges. That way they hope to stop the hospital being run down for closure in July
Artbur Hautot, secretary of the accupation committee, told me how the Authority tried to move a patient out last weekend. The patient is 82, and twice he has been moved to Kame Home, only to be sent back to St Benedicts because superior
It was just an excuse', Arthur, 'they will try and discharge people only to admit them somewhere else later. We stopped the ambulance at the picket line, explained our case, so the driver turned round and went
One nurse told me, 'We think it's
— I only found out about the plan to close when I heard it on the radio'. All the nurses at St Benedicts are in a union, but even the unions were led to believe that there was to be no closure. As late as August a health authority circular tried to give the impression that St Benedicts would be part of a new 'integrated' service for
First step
Williams, Secretary . of Battersea and Wandsworth Trades Council, insists that the St Benedicts workers have taken the first step in fighting cuts and must be supported by the rest of the labour movement
'We are under no illusions aboul the occupation — the longer it goes on the more likely it is that the health authority will remove the patients by
as at Hounslow hospital.
We are helping with the picket rota, trying to build up a telephone tree,
building up links with WUTKCLE fighting cuts
'We are saying to the local labour come out
November to show solidarity with St
and thi Direct Works
because they are in the forefront of
fighting the cuts, and must not be left
Page 7 scan of this page
Cuts, rate rises, or fight the Tories?
HOMENEWS
Der Bors.
booh-keepers? After trovernment asked unem ment curs. it cuts are relecleo. nov can services Doic
..2. an he. i; areas
iralne vidis lenants and residents
3.02*
Ine way in which rateable value is 1'iu resuits in hignest rates tor
The
- Esidises local services through the method of the rate support This is partly assessed on the basis of the rateable value of the area with high levels receiving less support.
So, despite the fact that some inner city areas are in greatest need of
support, they Working Chas these areas get stung wherever they turn: they pay higher rates and rents and receive relatively less government support for services!
Cop out
An increase in rates is yet another cut in living standards. In Islington, for example, the average
2OL0O 4> per Labour councillors who seek to resist public service cuts by upping the rates will face working class tenants with a 100 per cent rate rise and an increase in rents. That's at least another £5 a WCCA.
How can councillors gather local support for their anti-cuts stand if the working class is presented with LUIC bill! Already, right-wing Labour seizing on this to justity
Garry Southgate, Islington council has attacked the idea of massive rate increases because it involves 'poor families paying biggest lax increases most of them haveever known'.
Of course, his plans for a ten per
•ut in serces show how serious heisabour defending us against Tory policies. But the anti-cuts councilors
all. the tabour
maintain services.
TOr with
and will accumulated Interest
budget. government
grant.
— nOse
get less
people In
rate week.
hope to
councillors. are
cuts in
leader of
the
CLAY CROSS LI:
challenged to provide adequate funds
and extend social think
Supporters of Ted Knight object he asking where will the money come
. zac TOT
....i..c... stage ande for building fron banks
insurarce companies. ror they have to pay interest on the debt
by payments amount nearly 45 per cent of Islington's total The
April 1980, its total oulstanding debi will be £401 million, courts.
Lambeth Labour leader Ted Knight.
WILL NOT
IMPLEMENT THE ACT
fricileik.
lining the finar: soon more Ire bul desperit on services lor inc workine class, Just
where people of Islington could do with £401 million! payment of interest
Equate will kindly to he seizing
will councils with the problem of paline
bulang materiais and
oiher things needed to keep services afloat.
Banks will attempt to regain their
"investment' by action through the
courts to claim council property, or
freezing their CUNTENI stopping wage and other payments.
Government will respond calling in the commissioners and the
Lambeth makes a stand
thereby implement 10 give cuts of 4.5 per cent.
At that group meeting
Management Committee
resigning. of what about
La fight. i start, Labour WILl the backing parties necolo unk uo win ane local
members who will he in the firing line when councils go bust.
Party cooperation needs to spread io other unions, and support built up in social the labour movement so that there is a rapid response when the courts and commissioners council. In the past miners have taken action defend account Scargill has promised the industrial support of miners to fight the cuts. by Opposition will through local struggle. But it cannot rest there. Many Labour councillors LAMBETH's Labour council recently decided it would not implement cuts in spending
reversing previous decision culs. Bill Bowring, Councillor in Norwood, Lambeth, explained to Socialist Challenge what happened. 66 annenced Lam bete moved faster there When cuts in the rate support grant were other boroughs in a way which a lot of us disagreed with very strongl!. The leader got use Here carm oree comer and the Director of each Directorate, and this was done in secret, and told them to produce plans
This was then presented to the Labour group as a fait accompli so that there was no alternative other than to bankrupt the council
there were only councilors who voted goainst those cuts
There was an outcry in the Labour Party, and at the next Norwood Labour Party General
Plan Wilson myself put forward a motion which called for no cuts, no rate increases, and said Labour councillors should do everything possible to resisi the cats up to ane moong l necessar
The reason we put that forward was that we were told that if the council failed to make interest payments then the Director of Finance could immediately move in and fake over the finances, that if we did something illegal then commissioners would move in to implement the culs, What we wanted to do was make the issu‹
councillors went for principle asclear as possible.
As the Norwood GMC Ted Knight had a
borough. councillors, the 01 a. Lauvul
Government level MelE
with a latoes ihe Tory
chopped,
striking nurses.
gather
sector much to everyone's surprise we won. Labour The leadership of the
Labour Parties. got a clear majority. clone dea
(VIl and referring to possible resignations.
wele belg what they will do al lne ene of the year
are big rate increases and perhaps some cuts
Labour in office. as lne reams or cais. them out, is the same.
Socialist Challenge 29 November 10*
so socialism is not
The root of ou • porter society's ar= allocated. These decisions are taken a
unrave! the knots site:
This has to y hand in hand ait a triti mu the tor mak: that, Labour Gorenness comes up with something better char Callaghan's version of cuts Unrealistic left rhetoric? Nor ai all. The miners strike brought doms the last Tory Government. Just think what combined by pube workers, miners and workers could do to Thatcher. resolution supporting cuts being carried ou There was a very bitter struggle in the GMC ar
council called a delegate conference of all four constituenc
The motion passed at the Norwood Labour Party GMC went up to that and there were two motions saying cuts shoukd be resisted but there should be rate increases and there was a motion supporting the cut The majority of the councillors fought for the position of implementing cuts, but again we
It has to be said that the council leadership - much to its credit — reversed the decision k carry out the cuts when they saw the grass root feeling. The council is not carrying out the programme that we were before the cuts, but it is felt that this will lead to a large deficit at the
We lost one battle however, in that the last
took out the part of the resolution We regard that as very important. Quite a lot of mone! was saved by the council during the period cuts
implemented but it's not certain
The council leaderships position is that in law the deposit will have to be found out of the rates and we think that what will be proposed
My opinion is that the issue is not whether as some put it, it is better to have a Lahnur council implementing cuts than a Tory council and that what we have to do at all costs i keef
This is a false argumes wheeser care y
Page 8 scan of this page
Cuts, rate rises, or fight the Tories?
HOMENEWS
By Dave Burn, Islington NALGO
THE TORIES have Labour Councils with a dilemma. Should tHey book-keepers? After all, the Labour Government asked them ment cuts. If cuts are rejected, how CAlL • services be paid LOVE HeLl funds trickle?
answer Labour councillors like Ted Knight is 'socialism on the rates'. This strategy of rate increases is both reactionary and a tactical disaster.
Labour councils tend to be elected in working class and inner city areas. Domestic rate increases working class tenants and residents hardest.
The way in which rateable value is assessed results in highest rates for.
subsidises local services through the method of the rate support grant. This is partly assessed on the basis of the rateable value of the area with high levels receiving less support.
So, despite the fact that some inner city areas are in greatest need of
subsidy. Working class
gel stune wattever baey turn: they pay higher rates and rents and receive relatively less government support for services!
Cop out
An increase in rates is yet another cut in living standards. In Islington, for
LI10 payment Is around £5 per Labour councillors who seek to resist public service cuts by upping the rates will face working class tenants with a 00 ner cent rate rise and an increase in rents. That's at least another £5 a week.
How can councillors gamer local supportior tnel anu-cuts stand if the working class is presented with the Dill! Already, right-wing Labour seizing on this to justify services.
Garry Southgate, Islington council has attacked the idea of massive rate increases because it involves "poor tamilies biggest tax increases most of them
Of course, his plans for a ten per cent cut in services show how serious he is about defending us against Tory policies. But the anti-cuts councillors
need to answer his objections.
confronted
system. Rents and rates
Thatcher's frozen and
to imple-
services.
for with
will Cuts bankruptcy before 1980 is out.
will hit and insurance comoanies.
Interest
budget. By governmenl
- those
they get less
people in
Lalc WEEK
hope
some councilors are
leader of
payllig LUC
CLAY CROSS UD.C.
WILL NOT
IMFLEMENT THE ACT
The answer will not be found by administering the present rate support
should be the Government challenged to provide adequate funds
and calend SOLa think
Supporters of Ted Knight object by asking 'where will the money come
from to pay for these services?' True enough, a freeze on rates, rents and
COUCES Will Loans
One response is to challenge head for on the stranglehold of finance capital over local government. Councils have to raise funds for building from banks
. ror this they have to pay interest on the debt
by payments to nearly 45 per cent of Islington's total The
April - 1980 total outstanding debt will be f401 million,
Lambeth Labour leader Ted Knight.
an increase of £260 million in 6 years. With Thatcher's increase in interest rates, things can only get worse.
Soon more money will be spent on lining the finance house coffers than on services for the working class. Just
what the people of Islington could do with £401 million!
But this payment of interest is inadequate by kindly To the sening or vili protas. The financiers will not take
will be withheld, councils with the problem of paying
wages, building materials and other things needed to keep social services afloat.
Banks will attempt to regain their "investment' by action through the courts to claim council property, or
freezing TACT current stopping wage and other payments.
Government will respond
calling in the commissioners and the
Lambeth makes a stand
thereby implement
other boroughs
to give cuts of 4.5 per cent.
Management of WHat
by mobiising une workers movement. social services skies. We don't get anything without a fight.
As a start, Labour with the backing of local of non- Parties, need to link up with the local council workers members who will be in the firing line when councils go bust.
This trade facing Party cooperation needs to spread to other unions, and support built up in the labour movement so that there is a rapid response when the courts and LOIHESSONCE act council. In the past miners have taken action defend account Scargill has promised the industrial support of miners to fight the cuts. by Opposition will through local struggle. But it cannot rest there. Many Labour counciliors LAMBETH's Labour council recently decided it would not implement cuts in spending —
reyersillg . previous decision cuts. Bill Bowring, a Labour Councillor in Norwood, Lambeth, explained to Socialist Challenge what happened.
66 When cuts in the rate support grant were
announced Lambeth moved faster than in a way which a lot of us disagreed with very strongly. The leader got together the chairperson of each committee and • the rector of each Directorate and this was done in secret, and told them to produce plans
This was then presented to the Labour group as a fait accompli so that there was no alternalive otner lan to bankrupt te council. At that group meeting there were only councillors who voted against those cuts.
There was an outcry in the Labour Party. 'and at the next Norwood Labour Party General
Committee Wilson myself put forward a motion which called for no cuts, no rate increases, and said Labour councillors should do everything possible to resist the cuts up to and including if necessary
The reason we put that forward was that we were told that if the council failed to make interest payments then the Director of Finance could immediately move in and take over the finances, that if we did something illegal then commissioners would move in to implement the cuts. What we wanted to do was make the issue
Labour councillors were for principle as clear as possible.
As the Norwood GMC Ted Knight had a
These attacks can only be resisted
strength
The money for because won't fall from the solutions.
councillors. the way Labour
unions. Its tell
and Labour
sure chopped, against the
striking nurses.
gathe what sector much lo evervone's surorise we won. The leadership of the
Labour Parties. got a clear majority
— muca to its creat
feeling.
end of the year.
revering to possipie resignations
what they will do at the end of the year. Labour in office.
them out, is wut salte
OOUNCILLORS
have tied themselves in knots over the funding of local services. This is they try LU. find local
Socialism is not possible in one borough. The root of our porblems is society's resources are allocated. These decisions are taken at Government level.
Local Labour councillors cannot unravel the knots without linking up with a labour movement challenge to the Tory Govenrment. This has to go hand in hand with a fight in the trade unions and Labour Party to make that, once the Tories are Labour Govenrment comes up with something better than Callaghan's version of cuts.
Unrealistic left rhetoric? Not at all. The miners strike brought down the last Tory Government: Just think *combined by public workers, miners and car workers could do to Thatcher. resolution supporting cuts being carried out. There was a very bitter struggle in the GMC and
council called a delegate conference of all four constituency
The motion passed at the Norwood Labour Party GMC went up to that. and there were two motions saying cuts should be resisted but there should be rate increases, and tere was a molon supporting une culs. The majority of the councillors fought for the position of implementing cuts, but again we
It has to be said that the council leadership
- reversed the decision to carry out the cuts when they saw the grass roots
The council is not carrying out the programme that we were before the cuts. but if is felt that this will lead to a large deficit at the
We lost one battle however, in that the last GMC took out the part of the resolution
We regard that as very important. Quite a lot of mones was saved by the council during the period cuts were being implemented but it's not certain
The council leaderships position is that in law the deposit will have to be found out of the rates and we think that what will be proposed are big rate increases and perhaps some cuts.
My opinion is that the issue is not whether, as some put it, it is better to have a Labou council implementing cuts than a Tory council, and that what we have to do at all costs is keep
This is a false argument as the reality of cuts, whoever carries y
Soçialist Challenge 29 November 1979 aze 7
Page 9 scan of this page
FOR CLASS NO
Were all
red moles
THE BANSHEE yell ot "Traitor"'
rakn n e orasinoer aro n
response the revelations
AnnOn!
surprising as the fact thar banshees do
yell.
Dans e rrime aininier apportunil!
lett-w ingers with her remark that our
lask now is to guard againse their (the
spies"] counterparts of today' adds an
ideological dimension to the attacks
the organisation and
standards of the working class aiready
launched by her gorernment.
But it is the response from the left
w'nich #TE(taE
"spring," suid an editorial
Morning Siar.'
isomething we abhor
and oppose' *o moles there.
upriyht Rritish huro-l ommunists
aiming to be as patriotic as the citizens
on the Dail! Telegraph lin fact, more * Labour MPs have been falling over themselves do dennunce spies and aftirm their loyalty lle
Dennis Skinner put himself in the front line, barel! managing to raise his voice louder than thal Tories in placing traitors on a par with mass murderers. Blant's HUMUSe AIl was sufficient Willie Hamilton to describe him as a "creature'.
The social democrats and their feliow travellers in the Communist Party hasc a touching heliei in loyalty io 'their nation. which the! suspect ihe establishment does share.
Hence their concern corer-up nser Blunt, with MPs such as skinner describing Thatcher as a "common or parden nark" for lipping
nrmner kinight betore her annuuncement in the Commons.
Peregrine Wursthorne editor of the Sunday Telegraph. spell nut the ruling class's vien of loyalty in an article published a fortnight before nen» of the 'Tourth man' broke. Il was headlined: "When treason can be right'.
That. in case you hadn't guessed. i H a LE MCl ECH representing the interests of working class were elected.
'I could easils imagine mysell beins lempied into d disposition under a labour government dominaled by the Marxist left,' Worsthorne wrole, 'Soshocking might he its programme... that it became quite natural lo start looking to the L. nited States for succour.'
There would be no question of fourth or fifth men when it comes to those co-operating with the CIA. commented, 'since Iheir number will. I trust, he too numerous to count.
This is no pipe dream admirably frank description of how ine caprransi class acis whenerer its rule threatened by government. During the government in Chile, for example, when the armed forces were riddied with CIA spies. American imperiaism gave every possihle assistance to the Chilean bourgeoisie in destabilising the gnvernment and preparing the coup which established the brutal dictalorship.
Worsthorne and the rest of the class he represents are fully prepared to carry ihrough a similar scenario in britain, snoulo ine delence of their property and rule require it. U'nlike lae social democrals, melr royany Is nod to 'their' country, for the class lhinks internationally, but to their class.
And unless the workine class can be won to thinking likewise, prospects for socialism are grim.
That's whs all socialists MOles. placing ligally proletariat, nationalls and internarlulart, auyre cousuaidis orle nation state • - which was. in any case. altalioi dl lHc uwurcrone.
Socialist Challenge
of abour as
threaten
living
instructve
in the
became convinced that heiping juse was the best anti-fascism.
Mts ana ine persuading
British
led to his undercover activities.
of the
alltged
for
War
in 1939.
rightis was helping.
not
ior
(the Russians
deputy
the policy
declared: peace in our time.' remotely
the
treasonable
The
but an
elected
Allende
caCll
ruling
the
are red
Title 29 November 1979 page 8
what? And why not?
Communist Party member, and intelligence gatherer for the Soviet Union, says that he was won to the Marxist interpretation of historv in the mid-'30s, and that about the same time he
the Russians way aid the LAUSC of
Although this information was volunteered in his statement on Wednesday of last week,
media have been too busy about Blunt's SuPOUSCU treachery to mention the circumstances which
It's not exactly an oversight, since a river of blood ran through Europe at that time, and much of the ruling class in Britain did their best to aid Hitler's Third Reich in the hope that the Soviet Union would fall victim to the Nazis: The British establishment is not anxious for the working class to be reminded of such delicacies.
Among the first British troops to march into Germany towards the end of the Second World
kavmond williams. the writer, who had become a member of the CP while he was a student at Cambridge University
Williams recalls that the Nazi SS officers he
to detain liberated concentration camp said to him: 'Why did we ever get into this ridiculous war with each other when it is so clear who the common enemy is?'
were in Berlin). Williams reported these remarks to his army superiors, who told him: "They could be right, old boy.
Peace with honour
Bourgeois historians are happy to discredit
of appeasement pursued by Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister who returned from a meeting with Hitler in Munich in September 1938, waved a piece of paper, and
'Peace with honour. I believe it is
That was six months after the Wehrmacht goose-stepped into Austria announcing: CIn Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer.' Schuschnigg, the Austrian Chancellor, had attempted to prevent the invasion by trying to hold a plebiscite on
George Smiley, the mole-catcher in John le Carre's spy story, is — we're led to believe. - some kind of national hero. By the same token, Anthony Blunt, the real-life mole who has just surfaced, is depicted as a traitor. GEOFFREY SHERIDAN asks: Traitor to what? For
Austria's right to self-determination.
British ambassador in Berlin described this as an 'ill-conceived and ill-prepared folly', which happened to coincide with the Führer's view.
Foreign Secretary over the appeasement policy, estimating that no more than thirty of the four hundred Tory MPs shared his view.
The bourgeois appeasement was a genuine but misguided determination to maintain 'peace' in Europe. It was nothing of the kind. Even after the German invasion of Czechoslovakia and Poland; many of these politicians hoped that Nazism would be a bulwark against Bolshevism.
British empire
The bourgeois appeasement, most Churchill, shared that hope but recognised a greater danger; that if the Nazis overran central Europe, they would be in an extremely strong poșition to threaten the British empire and its super-profits. concern posed by German imperialism, not the regimes imposed by fascism. had watched with admiration the destruction of the working class movements Germany when Mussolini and Hitler came to power.
The establishment's historians, benefit of hindsight, deride Chamberlain. For the working class, it is another matter. In the midst of the Russian Revolution, baboonery of Bolshevism' and then sought to send British troops to join the White Russians in the civil war.
General Strike had been to call for martial law.
Some saviour of the people.
Opposition to fascism, both in continental Europe and at home in the shape of Oswald Moseley's Black Shirts, was the issue which along with unemployment galvanised the left in Britain in the '30s.
Mass unemployment was the progenitor ot fascism, and it was the decision of the 1929-3 Boyelillictil ART historian Anthony Blunt, by appointment to the Queen. It's the fact that he betrayed her cl
This was when Anthony Eden resigned as
historians tell that politicians opposed particularly Eden and
was for the competition
The British establishment
Italy and
with the plaise Churchill and
'Winnie? had talked of the "foul
His response tó the 1926 fo cut unemployment
leadie woich folapion tor Lahe Narionai leading to the formation government, led in succession by Macdonaid Baldwin, Chamberlain, and Churchill. These gentlemen continued to cut working class living standards, and did nothing to shorteri the dole queues.
Organising on these issues, as well as taking up cultural questions, thrived at Cambridge University in the '30s. Between 1932 anc membership on the campus rose from a dozen to over a hundred, and continued to grow after tha: and to include Anthony Blunt.
During 1936, with the battle of Cable Street against the Black Shirts and the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, anti-fascist committees dotted the country.
For Blunt, Philby, Burgess, Maclean and many others, the issue could not be more clear cut. Mussolini and Hitler were arming Franco against the Republican government in Spain. The Soviet Union was aiding the Republicans, • wulc National government
blocked of the was pe
constitu fascism'
Tho: period Trotsky Internat the communst warts ASSCOSIT
Whi mid-'34, its WOTKer
imperia Stalin's disarme the rise alliance Stalin's trapped aulante The notion ( logically the Hi
in Britain 1939-41.
Page 10 scan of this page
T COUNTRY
Act to free information!
shipments to them. Hence Blunt ad that 'the CP and Russia
firm
Only
o broke from Stalinism in that n the miniscule ranks of the opposition Third would, of course, qualify that
existence of the Soviet Union as a
was indeed a bulwark against ne Its Nazi son of 'social fascism' which had resistance of the German CP to ler, by preventing an anti-fascist the social democrats, and then = to 'popular HORESH which European CPs into crippling the bourgeoisie. af these murderous policies, the talism in one country, led quite most cynical development of all: alin non-aggression pact i the defence of the Soviet
THE TORIES have not had a lot of
luck with their legislation. Last week,
in the wake of the Blunt
Margaret Thatcher
thé Protection of Official
țion Bill, already
House of Lords, was being dumped.
The government could hardly do The Blunt 'scandal'
been blazoned around the world, and
Andrew Boyle,
Climate of Treason first brought the
facts to light, declared
proposed [dW would
publication of such information
Britain illegal.
In fact, Boyle was only able to
write his book by using sources in
washington. The
situation is that authors
journalists who have sufficient funds
are travelling to the American capital
in ordér to from
government documents about
hes and policies
governments.
Here, the Official Secrets Act seals
up virtually all information concern-
the the civil service, te mantary, lne
secret service, and just about every
other aspect of govenment affairs.
Defunct
The now defunct Protection of
Official Information Bill,
showed all the signs of being dreamt
consideration, including the sacrifice of workers' movement
and popular frontism, reality to defend the Soviet Union.
Anthony Blunt's
counter fascism, was Stalin had left open
information the To
the war years.
The notion
of,
on behalf of the workers' states. up by civil servants, greatly extended
affair, announced that the courts Informa- publishing it.
has In the United
DOOK been aken
Information Act. that the
the about him or herself,
held on federal, government files.
absurd
and who was because of his activities CIA has the
Courts
documents which Whitehall.
bureaucracy was to be placed above every other
The internationally, then making 'peace' with the Third Reich was no obstacle. As with the policies of social fascism'
the pact did nothing in
loyalty survived this development, and since the Third International had systematically undermined mass action to
The took the one route that - passing on intelligence Kremlin. *Spying something of an exaggerated description of this activity, because many intellectuals, scientists, and workers freely handed over secrets during
the of socialism in one country Hitler continues to take its toll. The CP in Britain now applies this doctrine to Britain rather than the Soviet Union, which is why it joins with the Alec Tories in denouncing any present-day 'treason'
would have the powers of officials to classify information, and prosecute those
Even mentioning that you thought blatant. your phone was tapped would have
States, a step towards the public's right to know has with the Freedom of This gives all individual access to any intormation or about any organisation s/he belongs to thal is slale, COCA
Thus, for example, Philip Agee expelled from Britain against th obtained copies of telegrams sent from the US embassy in London about his deportation.
against As in the Blunt case, the American legislation also provides access to tinance, about domesuc and foreign policies and activities- While the discretion that can be exercised by the authorities in revealing details can be challenged in the courts (in which, incidentally, the judges are elected), the legislation infar from perfect. But which it's a far cry from the clandestinity of
NEVILLE Chamberlain (top) waving
piece of paper he signed with in March 1930. Il donated
Czechoslovakia to the Third Reich.
George Smiley (above), played by
Guinness latter-day
catcher and defender of British ruling class interests.
Last week's backdown on official secrecy by the Tory government does not mean that new legislation will be much more bberal than the defunct Bill; merely that it will be a little less
Secrecy - In the affairs industry, finance, and the state itself
weapon capitalism, for allows bourgeoise lo formulale lEs plans against the working class of its 'own' country and others in a way most beneficial to their realisation.
The myth that elected governments, at least, know what's going on has been exploded by the Blunt case. When the secret service granted Blunt immunity from prosecution in 1964, the Prime Minister of the day was not informed. And that Prime Minister, Lord Hume, was a Tory.
Countless historical examples in Britain and elsewhere, show how the state apparatus routinely conspires
left-wing capitalist societies, quite apart from the secretive decisions of business and
which will defend interests againsi those of the working class and its government.
That is why we should demand the opening of all the books of companies and the banks, and why we should call for a Freedom of Information Act
makes all files government and the state open to inspection.
By Alan Beard illegal if the Bill came into force.
fundamenta inconsistencies
the Bill. Of
reactionary change.
Ancram said
from what he called a interpretation to
abortion.
Assessment
A proper
associated with
found that the risk of having abortion less
at a very late stage).
as two doctors agreed.
would then be left wide
can longer approach of magicaily
Act, which is interpretation relative, to increasing the
and individual doctors.
Horrified
was
pedestal: the must be maintained.
that
that she wants an abortion?
people want the Bill.
truly
Many case.
their.
indicate the opposite.
'Pressures'
when they quotes a
The irrationality
of Corrie's
anti-abortion Bill
THE ABORTION (Amendment) Bill has been put forward to change the 1967 Abortion Act. According to at least one esumate two-lnirds or tne abortions carried out now would be
The thinking behind the Bill shows within itself. This was clear after a meeting
Ancram, Edinburgh South and co-sponsor of
Louse, even if the thinking was more self-consistent, the measure would still represent a very
the intention in changing the '67 Act was to get away
*statistical 'individual' interpretation. The '67 Act allows a woman to have an abortion if two doctors are willing to agree that the risk of continuing with the pregnancy is greater than the risk of having an
assessment of this involves considering a large number
comparing risks pregnancies and abortions that have occurred in the Past in a systelal, ant contrent way
Professor Peter Huntingford of the London Hospital did just that and
an developed than the risk pregnancy associated with pregnancy (at least as long as the abortion is not carried out
therefore followed that any woman who wanted an abortion should, according to the Act, legally be able to get one, so long handicapped.
The Corrie Bill removes this basic criterion and makes abortion legal
decision only if there is 'grave or serious' risk to the health of the mother. This
open to interpretation by doctors. The doctor
adopt sensible Huntingford but is to decide whether a risk Bill will "serious' by "judgement' based on his clinical experience and point of view.
The relative criterion of the 1967 amenable . to largely because it is be replaced by weight of the prejudices of
tion. duced by
It is as though Parliament, having unwittingly found a situation it could
Quick, the doctor must be back on his
The religion of medicine The
In face of this it is rather amazing which
'objective', but he claims that the notion of 'injury' shows this. But why is intury being used as a criterion al all? Why should the criterion not just as well be that the woman has decided ive"!
The proposers also claim that the 'Spirit' Bill reflects social values, that most
incredible that something can be 'objective' and yet be devised to reflect the moral values of society at the same time: not thai the Bill does reflect what people want the gap.
overwhelming opposition to it from all quarters and the very large demonstration against it in London on 28 October strongly
The
tons in
Michael Ancram also says that he is trying to get rid of the "pressures' on women. According to him women are being persuaded to have abortions
ease of a woman who Socialist Challenge
OVER (in
DEAT
BODIES
German megsles during and had an abortion which, it is said, she later regretted.
He ignores the fact that a child born to a woman who has had German measles during pregnancy is almost certain to very severely
The is serious in wishing to remove the 'pressures' from the woman then logically the woman should be allowed to take the
hersell, with little interference from others as possible.
Impossible
The proposers also say that the
make the availability of abortion more 'uniform'. However,
Black of 'uniformity' in the
he power sherconstit
consultants variations in NHS facilities through.
It is almost impossible to obtain NHS abortions in some parts of the country and this is very often because powerful local doctors are anti-abor-
'Uniformity' could be introremoving the dictatorial powers of consultants and making Inore laculues avanable on lne Nro not by arrogating even more arbitrary powers to doctors.
Bill also seeks to severely curtail the actions of the charities
provide abortion NHS fails. The proposers claim that there is a "financial incentive' to send people for abortion. This must be the only time that the Tory • Party has come out against 'financial incent-
In practice the charities provide a service, at a cost, because the NHS is failing to carry out its proper task But the sponsors haye no intention of ensuring that the NHS expands to fill
The proposers of the Bill claim to agree with the 'spirit' of the 1967 Act. If that is true then it is clear that the 'spirit' they have in mind is a
points made have concentrated on self-contradic
the thinking behind le Abortion [Amendment] Bill. The rea Issue is whelmer or Hot socry ben i to act in an even more repressive ma! towards women land, less directly men also] than it already does. Ta resounding answer from both wond and men must be a decisive "No!'.
29 Notember 1979 iee9
Page 11 scan of this page
10,000 MARCH AGAINST
HOMENEWS
ANTI-RACIST
NEWS
Aeysha must
stay.
AT least one of the Tories' election pledges being fulfilled Oxford. Already since the election four Asians have been threatened *ні е been deported. The 9-year-old boy, Akram was allowed to stay only after a massive local campaign.
Now another 'illegal' immigrant is threatened. Seven-year old Aeysha Khatum came to Britain in July. She came with her adoptive mother, Mrs Rojob, with whom she has lived since her mother died five years ago. Mrs Rojob came to join her husband, who lives and works in Oxford. Now the Home Office want to send Aeysha back to Bangladesh, where she has no one to look after her.
Over 70 people - and BBC Nationwide cameras - attended a public meeting on 14 November
the Multi-racial Action Group alliance black and organisations, trade unions and other anti-racist groups). The facts
outlined Oxford CCR chairperson Alan Griffiths, who described the case as 'the worst he had ever come across'.
A t- asian described how England used to need cheap labour' and encouraged immigration. Now that they are no longer 'needed', they
instanced the notorious virginity tests. A delegate from the trades council tied in the attacks on black people with the attacks on working class, and emphasised the need to oppose the government.
final decision from Home Office is expected in the next few days. Plans are being discussed to oppose the decision if
goes against us. A Socialist Challenge sooporter suggested al the public meeting that transport unions at Heathrow and elsewhere should be approached to seek their cooperation opposing Aeysha's deportation.
'Karaa' rights
upheld.
SEVERAL weeks ago Marwinder Singh Marway was walking with two friends in the High Street in Hast Ham. London, when they were attacked by two white youths. During the fight Marwinder's metal bangle (called a "karaa'
it has religious significance for Sikhs) fell off his hand. He caught it in his hand and punched he hit back with 'karaa'.
Soon the fight stopped and the Aslans went to a barber's shop. A mob gathered and attacked them
Marwinder was hit head and needed several stitches. But when the police arrived they arrested Marwinder and charged
classified offensive weapon.
During the trial the prosecu. usea a wole wilness admitted that he was 'prejudiced against Pakis'. The jury took two minutes to find Marwinder not guilty, bur the judge refused to award him any damages.
Being black, should regard himself lucky that
sent down for months. The judge did not actually say this, but there is every chance that he thought it.
Socialist Challenge - 29 November 1979
By David Wax and Asha Patel THE
have fourth, a
demonstrators • Dogar,
Trafalgar Square.
from London,
mobilisation
workers from the Rover
Sikh, Pakistani, Kashmiri organisations. Black Oxford
(an Workers Party Asian
banners, placards
by
almost entirely absent.
demonstration.
Black of support speaker
trade
She member.
the constituency
were also represented.
Tory
dignified but
the
place every day.
continuing show
the magistrates court.
Mother
in
The first speaker
has been fighting since 1975 to reunited with
were not allowea to loin her. Nazis attack Holborrow ON 15 November a fascist hoodlums when
his
'Labour and the Cuts'.
Iwenty Nazis over the
Fiye comrades
stitches. The re-organised for 29 November.
who
Resource Centre,
dozen people Place with cameras. were caught in the back Marwinder
six
partially the
the British Movement тестина. page 10
'We're here to stay
RACIST LAWS
mass demonstration against the racist immigration laws took place last Sunday. Over 10,000
assembled in Hyde Park at midday and marched off to
The overwhelming majority of the demonstrators were Asian workers -
the Midlands, Yorkshire and also Glasgow. It was a
taken place without the efforts of the two major Indian Workers Assoctiations. A larce continent of Asian
plan Solihull marched behind their union banner. Also there in force were many
Bangladeshi, and
The Communist Party, Socialist and International Marxist Group were represented by
and several hundred members. But the traditional base of the Anti Nazi League was
It was from beginning to end a black workers'
Many commented bitterly on the
from the labour 'There are only half a dozen trades council banners on the whole march', commented an Asian
unionist and Labour Party Apart trom kover and a Ford Langley banner, the only other
NALGO, the NUT, and NATFHE.
Labour parties
The mood of the march was
militant. Inere was anger against the deportations taking
There was hostility towards the media for ignoring the plight of the Southall 342. Thousands of placards demanded an end to the
trials at Barnet
the
at Trafalgar Square was Anwar Sultana Ditta, a mother of three from Rochdale who
be her children. She married her husband in Pakistan in how 1968 when she was 15, and returned to England four years ago. Her children
The Home Office is challenging the fact
group of broke up
meeting organised by the Socialist
Workers Party in Brixton where
Paul Holborrow was speaking on
invaded the
meeting with truncheons and iron
bars and attacked those present.
treated
hospitat and one had to have 120
By chance someone overheard
a Nazi in a public call box talking
about plans to bomb Union Place
printshop. Last Saturday night a
stayed in Union Three Nazis garden
wiring up a bomb. The police were
called and the Nazis were arrested.
The growth in Nazi violence is result of
competition between the NF and
for
STOP TOY that she is their mother.
After her speech Sultana, now in tears, told her story to Tony who took detailed notes and promised to raise the matter in the House of Commons.
Avtar Jouhal and N S Noor, the leaders of the two IWAs from the Ivucianas, attacked government and the immigration Acts. Tariq Ali, speaking on behalf of
International Marxist Group, stressed how important it is for black people to make it clear that "we are here to stay.
Tony Benn spoke in support of Labour Party policy for repeal of the 1971 Immigration Act, and explained
"capitalism crisis seeks to divide workers through racist and sexist measures'. He argued that all those campaigning on different issues needed to come together with
Support the Leicester 87! Quash the Convictions!
Release the jailed anti-racists!
Disband the SPG!
Price 20p
Published by the Anti Nazi League on behalf of Leicester April 2tst Defence Committee, this pamphlet describes the events that led to the arrest of 87 anti-fascists during the last general election in Leicester.
RASM STOP
LAVS- TORY
TRIAT
Tony Benn got special applause when he referred to the struggle in Zimbabwe.
common purpose; special applause greeted his mention of the struggle in Benn Zimbabwe.
Suresh Grover (Southall Defence) stressed that platform speeches from Benn and other Labour lefts were all very well, but what was their record of action? What had they done to defend Tort the Southall 342?
Paul Holborrow stated that 'the fight to Derek Robinson and the fight against
rain are the same, omie See
Kadri (Standing Pakistani Organisations) emphasised that it was instructive that the vast majority of black.
But the demonstration can only be small continuing campaign to mobilise the black communities against the racist and sexist laws is necessary for any By John Boran
anti-nuclear campaign (ANC) had its launchine conference in London. SUg prople from a
many and alliances responsed lo the Irom rnerey 2000.
coordinate the anti-nuclear campaign Britain. The opened by of the Yorkshire NUM. saying its task was to win the battle of ideas against nuclear organisation would coordinate activ. its but retain the autonomy of the
The tolerance wa *Stop nuclear power * Reduce eneroy wastage
alame.
ITTLBWOODS
HERK!
ISTOP
RA
HERETE lasting impact.
detention
Against of the ANL disappear after reinstate MOT
while Sibgha have to of communities movement.
demonstrators WCIC
beginning. the Asian bridged in
Anti-Nuclear Campaign
will grow and grow
ON SATURDAY 25 November the
huge variety should consider Fenlogy Party and the Young Liberals to the alternative energy
call problem
The aim of the ANCis to unile and
conference was Arthur Scargill, president
disarmament by Britain. The
civil and military technology. programme agreed by the
*Develop alternative energy pro-
Sochair Chalinge
IDEPORTATIONS
STOR
SOUTHA -ТОР
THE
Photo: G.M. COOKSON (Soclalist Challenge)
Sh
TRI
Six thousand people have been imprisoned since 1973 under the 1971 Immigration Act. This figure does not include those who are locked up in
centres Harmondsworth, where 5,128 were detained in the last year alone.
It would be tragic if the Campaign
Racist Laws were to this demonstration in order to ensure that the deportations are fought CARL will
be built 1n the black and the labour
One weakness which needs to be remedied was the virtual absence of West Indians on the demonstration. The gulf between the West Indian and
communities must order to maximise the impact of black people on national politics in this country.
* Guarantee employment during
the changeover.
The conference and the formation of the ANC are a step forward for the anti-nuclear movement. But now i
whether its time should really be spent on promoting 'energy gap', which misses the real
- the political reasons to the development of nuclear power as a method of stabilising energy supplies to the West and protecting energ! security from both the miners and th oil producing third world states.
The demand for unilateral nuclear
Britain shouid he incorporated into the campaign of the ANC. as il makes the link hetween
Now having won the Yorkshire NUM to an anti-nuclear stand the campaign should turn to the other sections of the trade union movement to win fnem lo ine same posion
Page 12 scan of this page
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Page 13 scan of this page
STOP CARTER'S WAR DRIVE
By David Franke!
THE UNITED STATES is closer to war today than at any time since the. end of its military intervention in Vietnam.
Using as pretext US-provoked seizure: of embassy and sixty-two hostages in Tehran, President Carter has carried out a steadily escalating series of measures that have already reached the level of warfare. And there is no indication nae une escalatons over
Carter's •steps included:
A ban on demonstrations by Iranian students. The blanket refusal
demonstrations in Washington goes far beyond any of the measures attempted even at the height of the war in Vietnam.
* An oracl, issued November, requiring all students in the United States to report to the Immigration and Naturalisation Service for possible deportation. Hundreds of Iranians been ordered to leave the country.
Internment
aven Us guverncil questioned the constitutionality this racist round-up, which singles out Iranians solely on the basis of their nationality. Such a step,
the internment of Americans during World War II, has
before been prate lilc.
*On 12 November, Carter ordered a halt to ail oil imports from Iran, indicating at the same time that he would welcome similar moves by US allies.
Also on 12. November, from the Pentagon's Rapid Deployment Force carried out manoeuvres" at Fort Hood, Texas.
*A more direct ihreat announced on 13 November when a nuee o muereen US and warships, led by the US aircraft carrier Midway, began manoeuvres in Luc aadta *And on 14 November, USL SOlEN OI TAN
announced the biggest step yet with the freezing of all Iranian government assets in US-owned banks within the United States internationally.
Freeze
Despite denials by Washington, the effect of the freeze was to give it a stranglehold on Iran's foreign trade.
Television news alounig the freeze
showed film- clips Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour to illustrate the precedents for Carter's action. The message to the American people was to be prepared for war,
Carter's
aconbalyle has been a flood of articles commentary in the capitalist media intended to sucker the American. people into going along.
The impression conveyed by the mass media,
nowevel, represent ine real mood American workers. Pro-war demonstrations have been organised mainly
right-wing groups such Jewish Defense League and Behind the Veil
BEHIND THE VEIL
Iranian women's photography
Talk, slides, films. Women only,
creche available.
2-14 December, 3-6pm
Women's Arts Alliance,
Cambridge Terrace Mews, Lon-
don NW1
Socialist Challenge
INTERNATIONAL
the
the US
American
economic
have
for such
repressive
10 Iranian
have already
lawyers of
CHAUSCC IE
Japanese-
carried out in
troops
'readiness
was
ATENSO
generally been tiny.
Carter
- both and turnouts Press International November, had hoped for as many marchers'.
programmes
Iranian of the
ULOVCH and
does not
of
the Young Southeastern
sang patriotic songs,
tion anywhere in the larger than
Nations: 10 Although
been the workers are 29 November 1979 page 12
*This nation lives by the rule of law,' commented the Wall Street Journal Amerícans for Freedom. They have
Fifty right-wingers turned out at Brooklyn College in New York on 14 November to be met by other students chanting 'Down With the Shah'.
Two other anti-Iranian demonstrations in downtown New York drew
and thirty. United reported the demonstration of 200 in Dallas on 16
noting that 'organisers 10,000
NE RICH LOVE IT OR LENE With the exception of one action illegally Oklahoma State University, where UPI claimed 2,000
there has not been a single right-wing demonstra- tribunal
United States TneaatoDer action wornes welcoming Fidel Castro to the United
SUlle trade union bureaucrats have lined up behind Carter, those who have gone out of their way to express support have States.
exception. American opposed o. a
Vietnam-style war. In the midst of the crisis, polls show a clear majority opposed to armed intervention.
As the days go by there is growing sentiment for returning the Shah in order to secure the release of the hostages and avoid demonstrators in ental allu Iranian government have appealed to
American people, and appeals are having an effect.
Tyrant
In the most dramatic example yet of this consciousness of the need to reach out to the American people, Khomeini declared that women and blacks among the hostages would be released. He pointed in particular to the 'pressure and tyranny' suffered by blacks in the United States
Despite the false impression of unanimity among the American people that the capitalist media is alicılle CUlLYCY compelled to respond. As the editors or te yrail street Journal noted on 14 November, 'within the US voices are already being raised suggesting that the Shah is after all some kind of tyrant and thief, not worth the safety of 60 Americans'.
Tribunal
With typical hypocrisy, Journal insisted that 'this nation lives by the rule of law', even as Carter was
banning demonstrations, deporting students, and freezing Iranian assets.
Turning to the idea of a public
investigate the crimes, the Journal expressed its real
*And make no mistake, if we negotiate some kind of compromise invoking some international tribunal, we would be giving our assent to a propaganda forum against the United
It would be tantamount putting US governments of the last 26 years in the dock with the Shah...
Moreover, the sages of Wall Street continued, *think example must look to the Saudi royal family and how the humiliation would affect its opinion of the US and its willingness to find Both some accord with the forces".
their
THE World Congress of the Fourth International, issued the following statement.
THE US government economic power and threatening to use its vast military arsenal to impose HoDeraus meres n lan.
In an arrogant response to the demands oI. Ine felt masses for the return of the Shah and
the wealth he plundered, the US rulers nave escalalea Inell aggressive moves A fleet of US, British, Australian and New Zealand warships has been activated the American troops have been placed on the alert in the United Siates. Carter has ordered a boycott of Iranian oil and has frozen more than $6 billion in assets held by the Iranian government the in the United States.
A chauyinist war hysteria is being whipped up by governments around the world to justify these This campaign MOCS.
Iranian masses Shah's reactionary religious
blames the Iranian people, especially the heroic oil workers, for the energy crisis contrived by the imperialist oil monopolies.
Right-wing hooligan attacks on Iranian citizens in the United States dECi being used
to impression that American
want to go to war against their, Iranian brothers and sisters.
Street administration, Hub laser measured tions.
may go
Millions
and demanding
what the happen countries. Rebellion
mass media is
registered by the
regime
Africa, and
Many InO[C Vietnam.
their way. meetings,
workers
bit how the
Shah's further and peasants
people anti-American
day.
US hands off Iran !
meeting in Belgium,
imperialist
Is using ils
WOrtO
advisers.
Iranian working Carter
Arabian Sea were
thousands
equality, imperialist ano capitansı media
class.
portrays the banadihirs y,
fanaties.
mobilise
Cacale the
workers
Sea!
From the point of view of the Wall
Journal and the Carter liver of sixty
a1 c small change when aLdISl such consideraWashington is determined to keep the pot boiling. The US ruling -class fears that the revolution in Iran
beyond the limits of the capitalist śystem and spread to other countries in the Middle East. It needs a pretext for military intervention.
workers, soldiers, students, and urban poor have been . demonstrating in Tehran and other Iranian cities against US imperialism
the return of the Shah. They are the living example of
capitanst ruers in other Middle East
Part of the hysterical tone in the
due not just to the deepening of the revolution in Iran, but also to the broader advances
: world revolution From the downfall of the Pol Pot
Kampuchea, the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua, the advances of the black liberation struggle in southern
the successful uprising against the Gairy regime in Grenada
ine imperlalisls are oeser Dy lns nightmare of a world in rebellion.
American workers are opposed to
Wals like the UTIC But Carter and his superiors on Wall Street were to have
workers would soon fighting and dying once again for the protection of US corporate profits.
Whether Carter succeeds will be determined largely by the political struggle within the United States Socialists there are already countering
U yt through public picket lines, election campaigns, and discussions with co-
Line mines. mills, and plants. At the same time, the greater the mobilisation of the masses in Iran, the harder will it be for Washington to move against them.
It is in the interests of the workers
of the entire world to pecple in heir spragle wira ts
their struggle with imperialism. That is the task of the
But neither the American working class nor the workers and oppressed
around the world want an military HeLvetvl They know the Iranian people struck a blow for freedom around the
they threw the butcher Shah and his imperialist
calls the Iranian people "terrorists'. But the real terrorists in Iran have been the imperialist powers who armed the Shah to the hilt, and the CIA and Israeli agents and the SAVAK agents they trained, who
responsible for tens inniold of deaths and numbers of torture victims
Today the Iranian masses are fighting to extend the revolution that ousted the despotic regime of the Shah, to win full social and economic -
and to end imperialist interferençe. They deserve the fullest solidarity from the world working
The World Congress of the Fourth International calls on all. workers organisations around the world to
broadest possible campaign of action against Washing. ton's military threats in Iran.
Retürn the murderer. Shah to be tried for his crimes!
Give back the wealth stolen from the toiling masses of Iran!
US hands off Iran! Withdraw the imperialist fleet from the Arabian
Page 14 scan of this page
INTERNATIONAL
VEOPLE might be forgiven for not knowing much about the situation in Nicaragua today after the Sandinista-led popular uprising which overthrew Somoza in July.
The struggle reconstruct devastated by Somoza's seorched-earth policy; the growth of popular defence committees and the for a 200,000-strong growing unease of the bourgeoisie about the radicalisation encouraged by the Sandinistas (FSLN) - none of these have merited coverage in the 'quality' papers. press (Morning Star, Worker) has only followed sporadically.
The first task is to break that silence and establish the need for solidarity. Whatever the disputes existing the 'revolutionary capacities' of the FSLN, wę can all agree that the best conditions for a socialist outcome lie in unconditional Nicaraguan people againstblackmail attempts to tie aid to FSLN political concessions.
Out second task 1s. to solidarity. We need a huge. campaign based on LOHHILLLLOO around iwo Solidarity with the Imperialist hands off Nicaragua! By Dave Kellaway
THE COUP in Bolivia launched by Colonel Natusch on collapsed 16 days later weight of mass working opposition coupled with from US imperialism.
Bolivia now has its first woman president. idia Gueler. committed to 'democratisation' and backed by the US and all but one of the main political parties. But the problems which led to the coup remain.
countries, has a history marked by an infernal cycle of mass struggle/coup/ mass struggle/democratic class struggle/coup. parues or lls own capable DI wIlfig mass support, the bourgeoisie has turned repeatedly to the armed forces.
This happened in 1971 with the bloody coup led by Colonel Hugo Banzer to overthrow the regime, which had taken a series of anti-imperialist measures and establisued a popular asselllly •
Continuing unrest — including one DElWU mass upheayals the overthrow of Banzer last year. A "democratic opening' backed by the US was proclaimed, and announced for July 1979.
But these resolved nothing for the ruling class. The popular reformist UDP [Popular Democratic Union] got a slight majority ahead of 1 The let and era de eicone soers
had long been predicting some move by the military. Leaders of the peasant unions were calling on the tradé unions to set up anti-fascist defence committees. But all warnings were lust words - no one had a clear strategy to prevent the army striking.
Natusch at first tried to present his coup aș a radical, populist one with a left image. But no one believed what he said. Everyone knew he had been a minister in Banzer's government. So the whole country rejected the coup. Luck
The Bolivian Confederation of Workers (COB) called general strike. 1 ne only good luck that the Bolivian workers have had in recent years is that there is only one central trade union federation, so this had a big effect. Congress refused to
1CLUzISe presiacit.
At this point Natusch ran out of democratic ideas. He shut Congress down and declared martial law."
COB replied with another 24-hour genera. strike and mass demonstra•
country
militia; the
Even much of the left Militant and Socialist
events there
left about the
Said to the imperialism's
organise that international
non-exclusive
main slogans:
Nicaraguan people!
How the Bolivian coup
ran out of steam
1 November
under the
class hostility UCULlEr Without stable
Torres Moyement] INAIOIAI
crisis and rising led to bring Banzer to dAICNADRIEIA ASAIRA
elections Confederation of
front
which these
a 24-hour
TAeN
Natusch
Al lil
The
The work done in Britain since 1973 in solidarity with the Chilean people should make it easier to appeal for support in consolidating the first successful popular uprising for twenty years in Latin America — particularly since it's possible that if the process is not consummated in a socialist solution we could yet see another ride.
to
ment
and action.
the MNR [National Revolutionary
and Banzer's ADN But the compromise Guevara government was paralysed in face of the economic
that mass demanos to justice. This was
But mass action from the central trade union federation, the Bolivian
Workers [COB], was decisive. It reinforced opposition
Latin American countries, and the US
withdrew all aid and
"The whole country rejected it'
On the third day the army began firing on demonstrating workers. One
workers were killed in Cochabamba,
whole country, involving the miners
members of a traditionally right-wing union. They cut off all petrol supplies and stopped even the right-wing lorry drivers from working. No buses could run in La Paz - whenever one tried to come out onto the streets the people
fighting broke out in La Paz.
completely unprepared for it.
people rushing out and pounding on
assaulf on the COB and miners trade
union headquarters, using nelicopt- 4rv ers, machine gun emplacements and bazookas: Perhaps as many as 3-400
End the silence
SOLIDARITY
WITH
NICARAGUA
Chile in Nicaragua.
Already threatened to release its tin stocks onto the world market in order to wreck the Bolivian economy.
The Carter Plan in favour of "democratic openings' clearly
teeth! But the confidence of the masses will not allow the Gueiler government an easy
Her first fask is to meet IMF terms for resolving the economic crisis. The imperialists and the ruling class hope
trade on Gueiler's credentials and
May 1980 elections.
supporting this
but fighting to
CINACU
alternative to crisis will be
power of the imperialists the 'progressive bourgeoisie':
militant of the Trotskyist organisation Vanguardia Obrero of Bolivia and a regional delegate of the COB, describes the mass struggle that erupted against the Natusch coup and the possibilities it holds for the future.
among the top officers over the coup. General Padilla, the commander in
involved in its preparation and so
Barricades
issued a statement declaring that they were from the people and supported the COB. In the La Paz working class areas the police even went around to the young people who were buliding Hurry up! The army will be here in twenty minutes!', and then ran off
Every political and trade union
Natusch would go. But by the seventh
lealOn CCLLEZV difficult. There were food shortages in the cities, and the COB decided to
Britain the Coordinating Committee (NCC), modest resources, has done valuable work in getting bulletins out and setting up committees in a score of cities. The country has been
has renewed populist
ILASN
governl-
the
class
the
1945
Natusch --
guarantees over civil liberties. On 7 November the strike ended, martial law was lifted, and Congress allowed to. meet.
But the response of the militant sections of the working class — the miners, petrol workers, bank workers. tactory demand that the COB explain why it had called the reaffirm their willingness to continue the struggle.
The COB was forced to go around and explain to workers that it had not recognised the government, and that this was only a truce to workers to prepare sulbglc So completely isolated.
All the left including the Trotskyists completely unprepared struggle, however. During the general strike there was clandestine radio station set up or a single underground paper published. There was no organisation of armed resistance.
The political level of struggle was so high that if any party had been able to show how to solve these problems it would have won widespread support. But now we know what we need and
South East (Rivas).
approaching organisations
conference in March.
pamphlet
and it is hoped to
movement.
01-2266747).
Nicaraguan with quite
the Nicaraguan his government collapsed after 16 days due to mass opposition
most
workers (woo lu
support can
strike off and to
Bolivia.
allow the for further
Natusch was still
of the
political parties Press/Inprecor
were Other for this
not single
10p postage,
be made
Socialist Chailenge . 29 November 1979
divided up for the purpose of direct links with different centres in Nicaragua on aid projects: Scotland (Masaya), North (Esteli), Midlands, Wales and the South West (Matagalpa), and
However the NCC is the first to admit that it needs to broaden out and root the campaign it the labour movement. It aims to do this by
prominent individuals and sponsor an appeal for solidarity with Nicaragua and a national
Particular work is underway in the health and education unions to establish links with the health and literacy campaigns in Nicaragua. A
on women in Nicaragua is being prepared for work in the women's movement
arrange a tour with representative from the Nicaraguan women's
Socialist Challenge supporters can build solidarity by affiliating to and getting their organisations to sponsor the NCC NCC c/o 20 Compton Terrace, London N1 (te
*The I1th World Congress of the Fourth International decided to make solidarity with
revolution its number onc international priority. Full details next week.
what we have to do. Our immediate task is to prepare the masses to defend themselves in the coming struggles And for that we are in need of all the international help and y solidarity we can get.
•Resolutions and messages of be sent to: Nemesio Terazas, Casilla -3630, Santa Cruz,
Intercontinental Press/Inprecor CARTER'S war threats against Iran are the central theme of the latest issue weekly Intercontinenta (Vol 17, No 43) major features in this cover the campaign against uranium mining in Australia and the fight for affirmative action in Canada.
Individual copies cost 30p plus but subscriptions work out much cheaper at fll for a year (18 issue), £6 for six months (24 issues), oi £3 for 10 weeks. Cheques/POs shoulo "Intercontinental Press' and sent to: IP/I, PO Box 50, London NI 2XP.
page 13
Page 15 scan of this page
LETTERS 328/9 UPPER STREET LONDON N1
LETTERS published on this page will normally be cut to at least 400 words, to ensure that the maximum number of readers can express their views.
Anonymous letters will not be published unless there is a very special reason, but real names will be withheld from publication on request.
No problem like
'no problem'
THE Communist Party District Committee in Southall organised a meeting last week called 'Socialism and Youth' with speakers from Komsomol, the Soviet youth movement. I thought it would be interesting to go along as I have never been to the USSR, or heard anyone from there speaking.
Unfortunately, the average age of the audience was about 40 plus, and the all-male delegation from Komsomol were (being generous) in their thirties.
The meeting was getting rather boring and predictable, so when questions were asked for I asked why the speakers weren't young people, and then also asked about democratic rights in the USSR. Specifically, what was Komsomol's attitude to homosexual rights, the legalisation of cannabis and the distribution of Trotsky's writings.
The answers were most enligntening. . Apparently there is 'no problem' of homosexuality in the USSR 'although we do have some of "them'". Funnily enough, there is also 'no problem' of cannabis. The question of free distribution of political literature was dealt with as a question of dissidents 'undermining the state' and was never answered.
Komsomo has older peon e running it because really you can't expect young people to run an organisation of 40 million members. One of the speakers asked me if I would seriously consider 'leading an organisation of 200,000 people', so I said "Yes, Paloveto!' (what else could I say!).
The Komsomol delegation woul be tournig Lne coantry lor tac next couple of weeks, and I'd recommend people to watch out for the meetings and go along armed with a few questions. No problem!
HILARY DRIVER, Southall
Nuclear risks THE RISKS from nuclear power appear so overwhelmingly obvious that there seems no point in talking about anything other than how to get
The pro-nuclear people say that any one of us is much more likely to die in a car accident than from a nuclear accident. Taking an analogy with car accidents may help to clarify the class interests in the whole debate:
*Should one drive dangerously fast?
The answer depends on the urgency of the journey, which has to be weighed against the risk of not getting there at all
What if there are others in the car?
Do they have the same urgent reasons for making the journey? Do they trust the driver to inform them and look after their interests? Do they have an equal say in the speed?
* What about the other road users?
Shouldn't they be consulted — assessing risk is clearly a question of democracy.
Nuclear power development is being forced ahead by capitalism for
overcoming dependence on OPEC countries; overcoming vulnerability to miners' wage demands; access by governments in colonial countries to plutonium trom spent tuer export of nuclear capital from imperialist countries to colonial countries (though this is now slowing down).
Some of these interests contradict each other. All of them are clearly opposed to working class interests.
We know from experience (Windscale, Harrisburg etc) that the nuclear industry cannot be trusted to contal ce msks or to keep us auly informed.
Socialist Challenge 29 November 1979
However to deal with the whole question of nuclear power by demanding that the technology be abolished is to deal with the dangerous driver by demanding the destruction of all motor vehicles.
It won't necessarily stop the capitalists reaching their goals by other means and may leave us without a technical resource that, used rationally, could perhaps be valuable to us. But we haven't had a chance to decide.
Cost-benefit calculations are
always done on the basis of their benefit and our cost.
But we must not reject out-of-hand the possibility of rational decisions on nuclear safety — that would be to reject the possibility of acmocrauc organisation.
CAROL RUSSELL, Oxford Greetings to African families MANY of your readers may recall that in April this year a young South African, Solomon Mahlangu, was executed in Pretoria, despite unprecedented international appeals. This Christmas the Mahlangu family. and thousands of other families in South Africa will be remembering their relatives who have died or who. are imprisoned for their political
May we once again invite your readers to send greetings for Christmas and the New Year to the families of political prisoners, detainees, the banned and the banished in South Africa, Namibia and Rhodesia. Such greetings are seen as an expression of support and concern, and are deeply appreciated by the recipients.
Lists of the above are available on request from the Anti-Apartheid Movement, 89 Charlotte St, London WI.
ABDULMINTY, Hon Sec, Anti-Apartheid Movement
Splits and fusions THE SPLIT in the United Secretariat of the Fourth International is important to revolutionaries not simply because of the revolution in USFI is the organisation of a large proportion of the world's revolutionaries.' of us outside the USFI an opportunity to look at how differences are handled
The USFI handled this situation badly. To say that to call an 'Open Conference of the Trotskyist movement' is to say the the USFI is dead is a piece of logic that overrates the USFI. The USFI doesn't equal the Trotskyist movement, and in fact the USFI has been calling for unity, what then is wrong with calling a conference?
Obviously the BF and LTT are not children, they knew that by calling this conference independently of the USFI they were going against what the majority wanted to do. But why did the majority give them satisfaction by expelling them?
The BF and the LTT could have been forced to split at the World Congress. It would have been sufficient for the USFI to have issued
untimeliness and basis of the conference and making clear that the issue would be debated politically at the World Congress.
More worrying than this revealing
• page 14
tactical error is the analysis of Phil
has betrayed revolution in practice. The two examples are Lenin and the Second International in 1914, and, Trotsky and the Third in 1933. The implication is that even if
international which indicates it is unreformably counter-revolutionary they shoutd not split until this has been shown in practice.
The comrades are historically inaccurate. Prior to 1914, Lenin saw himself as the defender of Marxist orthodoxy in Russia, hence his unwillingness to siam the door and block the return of the Mensheviks to the revolutionary ranks. When in 1914 Lenin received a copy of Vorwarts carrying news of the betrayal, Lenin assumed it was a
In 1933, the betrayal of the German revolution by the Third
it was unreformable and thus he finally recognised the need to build a new Intenamonal. luc polntis tuat the betrayals in practice changed the analyses and on the basis of these analyses they split.
Thus comrades Hearse and Packer misinterpretation of history a principle which is then uncritically applied to the USFI today. This method of analysis has more in of the WRP and Sparticist League than with Marxism as a critical and selt crițical method of analysis.
those members of the ISA and Big
its dogmatism.
STEVE PREW, Hull Pollyanna politics ONE can appreciate that in a short article it is not possible to explain problems in detail, and therefore some propositions tend to become rather simplified. However, Jude Woodward's article (1 November) seems to go beyond such considerations.
She says: '... the first thing required is an immediate increase in wages, pensions and unemployment This split gives those pay. This will... ensure that more money circulates in the economy, leading to greater commodity sales and hence to an increase in economic activity.
works. This means reversing the cuts
of public works, in health, education, housing and so on, under workers' control.'
Next, '... weshould call fora reduction of prices of essential commodities, coupled with releasing extra resources for investment by radical taxing of the rich and cutting defence expenditure.
'Other elements which posea workers' solution to the crisis include the sliding scale of wages and social expenditure to ensure that people's standard of living at least keeps pace will Illallonl... of foreign trade coupled with workers' control of industry and the direction of investment so that it is in • the interests of the working class.'
Since she goes on to suggest that even more could be done if the working class took over and ran things itself, it would seem that all the
Hearse and Dave Packer. According to these comrades, it is only justifiable existing system. to split from an international when it
revolutionaries have an analysis of an
taxing of the rich. forgery by the German General Staff!
of the slump
International showed to Trotsky that
siluanon as lically Is
class.
common with the dogmatic sectarians
It can only support the view of
Flame who have attacked the IMG for
from state bower
Aboriginal
liberation
And: Secondly ... useful public
independence. and embarking on a crash programme
In Australia:
are out of work Weneed a monopoly
AND ANYWAY, above is meant to be a series of demands within a framework of the
But, it is not a capitalist myth that increased money incomes coupled with a constant production is inflationary, it is a reality. Since wages are supposed to be increased this will lead to increased costs for producers, but on the other hand it is proposed that incomes from the sale of 'essential commodities' (which "constitute a considerable part of consumer spending) will be reduced - reduction of prices — and at the same time there will be a radical
The rich are those who - by and large — receive their incomes from the realisation of surplus value in the form of profits from the sale of commodities. So what is being proposed is that profit margins should be further squeezed at a time of falling profits because of the onset
This is to be followed by a demand for investment to be made in the interests of the working class, but when was investment ever made upon such a criterion under capitalism? At a time of falling investment - the
— Lo rurtne squeeze profits is hardly likely to induce capitalists to invest for their own benefit, let alone the working
Again, I may be told that workers' control of industry is being demanded. But this is pollyanna politics. There cannot be overall workers control of industry whilst the capitalist state remains in being, other than for the briefest moment.
The alternatives are either partial into the system, or workers control which is a prelude to and an integral part of democratic socialist planning, i.e. the removal of the bourgeoisie
Reluctantly, I must say that I rarely have seen such a melange of reformist-keynesianism and ultraleftist ideas being put forward in a
KEN TARBUCK, Hovi
ACTIVISTS of the National Aboriginal Liberation Front of Australia are starting the Aboriginal Information Centre in London (c/o Box 19, 136 Kingsland High Street, London E8). We aim to create an awareness of the problems and political struggle of black Australians, and to raise political and financial support for land rights, self-determination and economic
*Only three out of ten aboriginal children live to the age of five.
*90 per cent of aboriginal adults
The Revolutionary Communist Tendency is launching a regular review, the next step. next step for the working class. For the RCT - because it will tron in the labour movement. For the working class will point the way forward from the struggles of today to the next stage in the struggle for state power.
Send orders for the next step No 1, cheques and postal orders to Junius Publications, BCM JPLTD, London WC1V 6XX. Single issue 20p (+8p postage), subscription for ten issues £2.80.
Public rally to launch the next step, the first revolutionary working class paper in Britain since the 1940s. Speakers: Mike Freeman, Sabena Norton, James Wood. Friday 30 November, 7.30pm. Holborn Assembly Hall, John Mews, Northington St. off Grays Inn Road
REVOLUTIONAR
*One-third of prisoners are aborigines... who make up only 3.3 per cent of the population.
*In education, all children are still taught that Captain Cook was the first person to set foot in Australia.
" I here are only 63 aboriginal graduates out of a population of about 500,000;
In Queensland:
*Aboriginals live in reserves worse than concentration camps.
*All demonstrations have been banned since September 1977.
*Union strike funds are outlawed
*Strikes are illegal if the government declares that the workers are involved in 'essential services'... and strike leaders jailed
Weare therefore organising : picket of Queensland House, , 293 The Strand, London WC2 at 10.30am on Saturday 1 December. The struggle of the aboriginal people is anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, the struggle of black and oppressed people around the world.
TOMMY SMITH, BINDI WILLIAMS From a hospital bed Dear Comrades, I WOULD like to thank the innumerable individuals, IMG branches, and friends on the left who have written to me sending their greetings and get-well wishes following my accident. It is not possible to reply to each one individually, so perhaps these comrades will accept my thanks via the paper.
Readers will be pleased that I have made my first regular reader on the nursing staff, and we are mustering support for the local campaign against health cuts.
Yours, BOB PENNINGTON.
Bob Pennington in action — get well messages and greetings can be sent to him c/o Socialist Challenge.
This is the next step for the RCT and the
• of our propaganda and sharpen our interven
- because it
Page 16 scan of this page
ATALE OF TWO WORKERS'
UNDER REVIEW
PAPERS
the mass media and create media of its own.'
is right.
could be launched. of Hull News.
By Colin Robinson
*THE TIMES is read by people who run the country; the Guardian by those who think they ought to run the coutly, ine Express Dy readers wild think the country ought to be run as it used to be run and, then, of course, there's the Sun • read by people who don't care who runs the country as long as they have big tits.'
Glancing through the Rupert Murdoch's sleazy tabloid it is difficult to avoid some sympathy with Cyril Plant's analysis of newspaper at the 1976 TUC Congress
It is difficult to believe that the Sun is all that remains of what was once tue grealest mass working Class paper this country has ever seen — the Daily Herald.
Particularly at the moment, when trade union leaders such as Hans. general sectary TGWU are calling daily land when Eyans at least committed in than saying that his contribute a minimum of £250,000 a year] it is instructive to consider the rise and fall of the old Daily Herald.
The Herald began life in 1911 as a strike sheet produced by compositors who were locked out of their London
It was a time of
on militants
By Noel Hibbert, member, Hull Trades Council
THERE were just two issues of Hull News, a weekly paper launched by Hull Trades Council on 19 October, before suspended because of advertisers and media.
The role of Hull News was to challenge the bourgeois press monopoly and to articulate the interests of tne working class connullyl a popular fashion. Class struggle politics were at the centre of the paper's politics and its finances came from the unions and advertising.
Over 16,000 copies of the first two. issues were sold, but the local business community refused to sit back and development. First, from the same stable as the Daily Mail -offered reduced advertising rates to the clients. of Hull News. initiated over the local radio and television saying we were a characterisation that the editorial committee did not adhere to.
The consequence was
'WHEN the history books are written they will show 1979 10 be a turning point in the determination of the labour movement to confront
That was Tony Benn's prediction at a conference on 'Workers, Unions, and the Media' held by the South-east Regional TUC earlier this month. The evidence of that conference alone suggests that Benn
Nearly four hundred trades unionists were delegated to the conference; speaker after speaker came to the microphone to suggest action to counter the mass media's uniform hostility to the workers' movement and its love for Tory policies, and how alternative media
The SE Regional TUC now intends to urge all trades councils in the South-east to hold similar local conferences, to encourage the trades councils to publish local bulletins or newspapers, and to call on the media unions to examine complaints against the bosses' media.
Establishing a mass labour movement press, locally, will present a range of political and financial problems, which hit two such projects. Here COLIN ROBINSON records the rise and fall of the Daily Heraid and NOEL HIBBERT reports the temporary demise
The Daily Herald-when
page 3 boosted strikes
dockers, builders, and miners extensive strike action.
groups
nearly pages of
the Sun anti-labour and
taken shape. Socialist Moss The Herald's of the committedly for a workers' strike hard'
words, would banner "The
emancipation of women.
The Limit Publishing great
Why Hull News should be based
executive
publication was by local watch such a the Hull Daily Mail
Then a smear campaign
'communist paper,
Lual leading
nationally and upheaval in working class politics
railway workers were all involved in
There was a glaring need for means of communication between the
struggle. The Daily Herald; launched as a daily the following year, consciously aimed to fill this gap and its early circulation of
300,000 copies daily showed it could do so. The era of mass working class newspapers had begun in 1896,
Daily Mail, setting the pace for the
anti-union mass media of today. By 1914 all the main many features of the present day press had
politics socialist: "Strike and was its slogan on the industrial front, and Parliamentary proceedings were reported under the
House of Pretence'. effort Pares were given over to the strugele of the Irish and the fight for the not
Despite its healthy circulation, the Herald soon hit financial difficulties.
Company which ran the paper [so called because
THREE
FOR LONGHILL
YEAR
LOSERS
WAIT
advertisers began withdraw venture, in particular large car dealers. The trades council discussed several responses to this attack: to reduce circulation and dilute the politics; ask the dockers in Hull, among the main financial backers of the paper,
to impose a car embargo; or to find alternative
The
No. 1.
To "ONE AND ALL."
We sound and ruraour?
What in this that all men bear,
ator is drawior pour.
nartbing ou
of the abora, that sobia Old Englial: Printer, Williams Morris, who treated peper of our own. David Lloyd-George had said of the Herald 'This is the limit'] consisted of a group of left-wing MPs and trade union leaders, and • was not funded.
The paper had been launched with a working capital of just £300. In an early appeal for funds surpassing even the freneticism to be found on the back page of Socialist Challenge, Ben Tillett, the dockers' leader, headed his article At Once, At Once!' and on one occasion bailiffs were physically prevented from entering the paper's offices by the editorial staff
Times were hard, and willing though the readership may have been,
were scraping by unemployment benefit or strike pay. Neither was the paper very popular
the large companies controlled advertising revenue.
Nonetheless, thanks in the main to of Lansbury, editor at the time, paper survived as a daily up to the outbreak of the First World War. The chauvinism whipped up for the
proved obstacle, however. The Herald could
compete with the fervour of its competitors and became a weekly during the war years.
As the war continued, and under the pressure of solidarity for the Russian Revolution [which the paper
sources of revenue
course of action.
up.
Hull Trades errors that
of a "council' an obstacle potential.
from the of anchoring
• WIO WEIC £4,000.
adverts
LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25, 1911.
is a Labour Party in the Honso, and it bolie
On we march, thani-me, the workeri Is the biended woul of battl
50—48.
Yours, tellow workers, in the conquer STRIKING PARAGRAPAS.
LEADE
joyously welcomed], the Daily Herald shifted from towards revolutionary defeatism. well the continuing editorship of Lansbury the paper went campaigning for the struggles of the workers' before which had plagued the paper before Ine war relurned will a vengtance — and for the same reasons.
Cap-in-hand
Lansbury was forced to go cap in hand to the TUC and the Labour on Party. Both had opposed the Herald in its early days — the TUC had even launched a rival newspaper, the Daily. who Citizen, which collapsed within a year of its launch. certainly weren't about to fork out George cash without editorial control. the Consequently, took over the paper in 1922, Lansbury ceased to be editor war verallt mouthpiece right-wing General surprisingly, the new-look Herald was militarist not as popular as its predecessor, and with a falling decided it could no longer support the paper.
In 1930, 51 per cent of the shares sold to
The last option was decided as the best
This has meant a suspension of publication while a reservoir of funds is built
Was it a mistake to rely on advertising as an important source of finance? Is it naive to expect such delicate animals to survive in the desert of the big press dinosaurs?
Council made a number of should borne launching alternative local newspapers
Much of the debate revolved around ideas
'party' paper Challenge supporters argued that Hull News should be a mass circulation working class paper that popularised the politics of struggle as against class collaboration.
But experience shows it 1S everyone concerned with the project has a clear political conception of this. Unfortunately the 'mystique of professional journalism became
to the paper realising
We decided, I think correctly for the initial period, to raise finance from both trade unions and commercial advertising, with the objective
the newspaper politically and financially in the workplaces
Over forty shop stewards committees and trade union branches were
However, if a mass circulation 20,000 was to be achieved, it meant taking
from We should
aily Gerald.
this a tbreat?
One of the
Iserabers
a pacifist position
At the end of the war and under
hack daily 1964. movement, But it was not the financial troubles
complete
The labour leaders 1 ism
Socialism the TUE
and the paper -edition of the -£2.25 Council. Not
TAnd all
circulation the TUC
Odhams Press
tuned into competitive markets.
Unfortunately,
paper succeeded.
mind Anchor
Socialist number of
this way an class established between
essential that offensive.
invited to sit its full committee which directed the
labour movement.
the National strikes raising of rather than those have "professional journalism'.
Socialist Challenge . 29 November 1979
PRICE ONE HALFPENKI.
We are norprised to soo, in oan of the lett Association that omployera vlo concate the incan tor mace to suffor for their kosaurity. newspaper and magazine conglomerate headed by millionaire shipowner Sir John Ellerman. In 1961 Odhams was bought out by Cecil King's Daily Mirror empire, which 'revitalised' the paper, changing its name to the Sun in
All that was now needed to the transformation was Tory support in the paper's editorial- columns, and the "Dirty Digger' provided that soon enough with his take-over ten years ago. Even the labour leaders must have baulked at that development.
The Other Booksho
L-Beyond the Fragments: Feminand the Making of
[ By Sheila Rowbotham, Hilary Wainwright, and Lynne Segal A new revised and enlarged from Merlin Press,
Add 30p p&p
your socialist and -feminist books
328, Upper Street, LONDON SI
mainly sought advertising from businesses least
Advertising should only be viewed as a medium term necessity. The main goal must be to develop a guaranteed base-line of paid sales
Hull News did not build up a reservoir of adverts before its first launch, hence the ease with which the first run' on the
In anchoring Hull News in the workplaces a
leading factories committed themselves to taking weekly subscriptions.
organic relationship could be the factories and the newspaper for mobilising the anti-Thatcher
During the engineering strike, for example, the trade union organiser on the paper was
on the AUEW propaganda strike. The concept of a city-wide rally of all those who supported the strike, advertised in Hull News was put forward as the way of uniting the
By relating to all those in struggle - from
Abortion Campaign to local Hull News could play an important role in the fight against the Tories. To succeed, the paper would need to involve these militants,
who see their role as
page 15
Page 17 scan of this page
Socialist Challenge
Socialist Challenge, 328/9 U THE Rhodesian troops which last week invaded Zambia are the same ones which will form the bulk of an independent Zimbabwean under the proposed Tory settlement.
Helicopter-borne troops cut roads and destroyed bridges Zambia, with the aim of restricting still further the country's supply of food. One of the bridges blown up was on the main highway to Malawi 45 miles from Lusaka.
Landlocked Zambia is dependent
and rail traffic through neighbouring countries for exporting copper and importing food, including the staple, maize.
The Benguela railway Angola remains closed because of the attacks of Western-backed UNITA
Earlier this guerlllas.
Rhodesians sank the Kazungula ferry which is Zambia's vital food link with Botswana.
Now, with the destruction communications with its neighbours on the east coast, Zambia is more than ever dependent on food supplies from South Africa via Rhodesia.
Starvation
Recently the Salisbury stopped maize supplies 1o over the Victoria Falls bridge. It is only a matter of time before there is mass staryation in Zambia.
These measures are intended both to weaken the Patriotic Front forces based Zambia and President pressure on the Front to accept worse terms in the éeasefire talks
House conference LAlasLel Zimbabwe. Kaunda's hws deuy baycu da lnobrtall bari
the Front's acceptance unfavourable
Registered with the Post
British hands off Zimbabwe
NO DEAL
WITH
SMITH'S
ARMY!
The attack on
'protected villages' deep into much of the country.
Unprovoked
the country, empowered to LIOPS
Malnutrition and disegses
through
starvation: the SYCAL
bulk of the of being trade forced starvation and murder.
Much is made of black composition.
Tal, only
answering the corDs 15
Zambia TauuC Lieutenant-General Whicu. with
niques with the British army.
Mercenaries
to force The lucuse his forces
al lne Atrican regular troops intervention
of the Zimbabwe.
Office as a newspaper.
ipper Street, London N1 2XQ. Editorial: 01-359 8180/9. Distribution and advertising: 01-359 8371
Zambia is only an .extension of the weapon of starvation freely used by the Rhodesian security forces against the black population of Zimbabwe. The forced moyement of hundreds of thousands of people into
megnt the destruction of effective agriculture in
With martial law in 60 per cent of
the army is legally destroy homes, and livestock. It is a power that is frequently enforced.
related to it are now widespread. In one area 80 per cent of deaths in protected Villages in their first year were from
•Aid agencies report that the army often prevents food supplies from reaching those who need them.
This is the army which will form the
'new' security forces under the British plan - its stock in
unprovoked invasions,
its increasing Yet the black oraru das vecn sugulary uisuceess'
tiny percentage call-up. Ihe ofiicer overwhelmingly white its commander Walls, having learned its counter-insurgency tech-
backbone of its fighting some 15,000 TOELE
mercenaries [the largest contingent
British] and several thousand: South
This is the army which the Patriotic Front has been forced to accept as the guarantor of 'black majority rule' in
Publisbed by Relgocrest.
Such a deal will mean disaster. Already the security forces have liquidated the private -Reverend Sithole, himself a supporter of the present regime though opponent of Prime v uzorewa This included
of at least 183 Sithole auxiliaries in July.
It is not difficult to guess how much more brutal they are likely to be with the Patriotic Front if the British ceasefire proposals are implemented.
*No 10 any British-sponsored semenicul,
*No British troops to Zimbabwe;
* Hands off Zimbabwe!
ZIMBABWE
INFORMATION NOV.-
GROUP
builetin no.12
YI SMITH
5(20 DEA1
"POWER•
THE latest issue of the Zimbabwe
Information Group b'wlella
contains mach useful material on
the present situation in Zimbabwe,
perspectives for solidarity
campaign, the mercenary recruit-
ing network, and the effect of the
immigration laws
HuAOwCdIN ouu plus 10p p&p
(subscriptions £1:50 JENI
issues) from ZIG, 1 Cambridge
Terrace, London NW1 4JL.
MAY 1980 S M
11 12 13 14 15 16 25 26 27 28 29 30
of
Minister
the
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← Socialist Challenge No. 122, No v, 1979Socialist Challenge No. 125, 6 December 1979 →