Socialist Challenge No. 128, 3 January 1980
The scan: sc-n128-jan-03-1980.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)
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Page 1 scan of this page
No. 128 3 January 1980 20p
Socialist Challenge
KICK OUT
THE TORIES
STEELWAR
THE 1980s have started in the best possible way with 100,000 steelworkers on strike in a direct challenge to the Tory government. Already the battle lines have been drawn.
BATTLE LINE ONE is over the mis British See Corporation so
British backed by the Tory Industry Secretary Keith Joseph. With inflation running at 20 percent that would mean a slashing cut in the living standards of steel workers. And this is what the Tories are out to do to all our wages.
BATTLE LINE TWO involves what the Tories call "secondary picketing'. The steel unions have called for the stopping
steel imports. That means solidarity action by dockers, railway and other transport workers - the very typ of action the Tories want to outlaw i their 'reform' of trade unions. BATTLE LINE THREE concerns the Tories industrial strategy sacking workers to pay for the bosses' crisis. Joseph and his puppet Charles Villiers -the highest paid boss of any nationalised industry - say 52,000 steel jobs have to go because the industry is in a mess.
But who is BSC losing money to! BSC's interest payments on loans increased from a rate of 8.2 percent in 1972 to 13.4 per cent in 1978. Compare that with the American steel Industry interest and dividends payments which amounted to 6.5 per cent in 1972 and 6.05 per cent in 1978. It is BSCs payments to the bankers which should be chopped not workers jobs.
These are the issues in the strike. A victory for the steelworkers would be a defeat for the Tories' attacks on jobs, wages and union rights. That's why the steel confrontation amounts to a War against a whole range of Tory policies.
It's & war neither the steelworkers, nor the rest of us can afford to lose. This government must be brought to its knees. THE KEY TO VICTORY
*No movement of steel or raw materials, either at the docks or on the railways *No special exemptions for private industry, run down the steel stock and boycott the use of all private and imported steel Photo: LARRY HERMAN *For all out strike action, the craft unions and steel workers in the private sector should join the strike *uropean and merican steelunions im *For International solidarity boycotting the British industry *Every trade union and Labour Party branch should support the steel workers by setting up local labour movement support committees through the trades councils.
MAKE SURE THE TORIES LOSE
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Socialist Challen: , 328/9 Upper Street, London NI. Editorial: 01-359 8180/9. Distribution and advertising: 01-359 8371. A New Years Resolution
Corrie-a tremendous responsibility for the women's movement
OUR POLICIES
C'apitalism is in crisis. The leaders of ihe Labour Party and the trade unions offer solutions that are in the interests not Ine workers but of the capitalist class.
Socialist Chailenge believes that the (wo lasks rerolutionary socialists are:
• To build broad-based class struggle tendencies in opposition
crass-collaDoralong I labour movement. These should
non-exclusive grouping together militants hold ing a wide range of political views.
• To hegin to fight creation unified democratic revolutionary socialist organisation which can, through
united tactics. begin to De seen as an alternative thousands workers engaged in struegles.
Such an organisation should be based on the understanding that: norers again the passed The struggle
unite the fight of seeks lo
with that of other oppressed layers of society — women, black people, liberation. This socialism can only struggling be achieved by creating new organs of prwer and defeating with all necessary means the power of the capitalist state.
socialism infinitely more democratic than what exists in Britain today, with full rights for political parties and currents that do not take up arms against the socialist state. The Stalinist models of 'socialism' in ine lok Fastern Europe have discredited socialism in the eyes of millions of workers throughout the We are opposed to them and will ofter full support to all those fighting for socialist democracy.
& sina work seat: Capitin The interests of workers and
on a world scale. Capitalism has not onl! created
created politics. Thus we fight for working class unity scale. This unity will in the long run he decisive in defeating both the imperialist regimes in the West and the brutal dictatorships they sustain in Latin America. and Asia.
In Britain it implies demanding the immediate withdrawal British troops from letting the Irish people determine their own future.
The Communist parties in Europe are in crisis. Neither the •Eurocommunist' the pro-Moscow wings have any meaningtui analys overthrow of the capitalist state.
den revolutionary socialist parties
than hetore. C'onditions today
more lasourable than over the
preceding three decades. But such
parties he
rejecting sectarianism and seeing
internal demneracy not as a luxury
but as a vital necessity. This means
the right to organise factions and
If you agree with these principles
and want 10 be involved
activities by Socialist Challenge
supporters in your area. fill in the
form below and send it to us.
am interested
information about activities in my
area.
• I Hould like additional literature
and enclose 50p to cover costs.
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Socialist Challenge 3 January 1980 Page 2
contronting
DEAR COMRADES
the
character,
for the
and
keep Socialist Challenge afloat. front
of
socialism
their he By Penny Duggan
all
take place.
and committee examining
world.
Bill.i
majority second reading last year. action, world of the labour movement, world government international recognise the
strong resistance Africa doctors.
Bill and the
Ireland and
February.
for
and ever are should be country.
built hy
Ocwber demonstration
organise
its • neck out
the Tories. "Che Scottish HOrt
about the Corrie. It revealed
tion in October
civil servants, trades council delegates.
EDITORIAL
THE future of Socialist Challenge is in danger. Sustaining a 16-page weekly paper requires at least 5,000 sales each week through local groups, as well as a quarterly £2,500 for the fund drive. We do not have the rich backers, the advertising or the mass
which shore up the bourgeois Presently we face a stark choice — unless we can increase both the sales and the fund drive to the required figures we will have to reduce the size of the paper to 12 pages. Local group sales are up to 4,000 per week, but we have to go beyond this to
The election of the Tory government presents the paper with new tasks and new opportunities. The Tories are on the attack, while the politics of the Labour leaders are inadequate to fight them. The need 1o hammer home alternative socialist policies has never been greater. The hostility of the working class to the Tories attacks has already erupted in big struggles — abortion, cuts, steel. There is a massive audience waiting for our politics THE THIRD and final reading of Corrie's anti-abortion Bill will soon
Changes arrangements of the parliamentary
the Bill will ensure that it returns to Parliament for a final vote in February. Now is the time for anti-Corrie campaigners
redouble their efforts against the
It is ualikely that enough MPs will change their votes to reverse the huge
Bi won in But mass particularly by large sections , still has the potential to stop the Bill. The Tory
would forced weight of opinion against restrictive legislation and it would point ahead to the problems of implementing the Bill in the face of
from women and
The Campaign Against the Corrie National Abortion Campaign are proposing a week of action against the Bill beginning on 2
Demonstration
A recent Scottish trade union conference on abortion decided to organise a Scottish demonstration on 2 February. This proposal has already won the backing of the Scottish TUC
the Glasgow Trades Council.
Such demonstrations would set the the week of action off to a good start, and
repeated around the
Trade unionists cannot ineir laurels because of the TUC 28.
and good initiatives like that in Scotland.-The TUC is presently saying that it cannot
further action against the Corrie Bill as it would be a diversion Party from the major struggles against the cuts. If the TUC was prepared to stick James
and fight democratic rights of women against Corrie it would be a tremendous boost
to the confidence of all those fighting
trade union conference can teach us many lessons
coming fight against that although many unions were prepared to go on making the big TUC sponsored demonstra-
were not consistently involve
themselves in the campaign. The
attendance at the conference. • was
limited to local government workers,
teachers and some
The conference made a commit-
if we are prepared to reach out to it.
to be stuck at 4,000 local sales.
press.
sell more papers. common here too. ment to go out and win support for
week of action by among women, in the trade unions, among youth and students and in the Labour Party. The possibilities for winning support in all these sectors is by no means exhausted.
Pollok
Kathy Finn explained how won Pollock Constituency Labour despite the tact that the local MP is oppose Corrie nishine ven notorious abortionist. such unpromising situation much support CHE De WOR Whether the Corrie Bill is passed
or not we have to go on building the abortion campaign.
the falls we have ic immediately start the fight for the full implementation of the 1967 Act abortion facilities obligatory in every area. The campaign is also committed to opposing every NHS cut, we don't want one section of the health service played off against the other
We have to move beyond defence of the 1967 Act and start thinking about the positive gains that women need to strengthen our ability to face
In the present situation there should be no major problem in selling the paper; we don't have
However, to take the paper outwards to its new potential audience there has to be an end to the conservatism that exists among IMG members and Socialist Challenge supporters who do not believe they can Targets
Every IMG branch has been set a target for the number of papers it should sell. Half the branches outside London have already met these targets; # small number have already gone over them. There is absolutely no reason why the London branches and those in the rest of the country which have fallen behind should not meet their targets - if they did we would see an end to many of the financial problems that heset us, let alone the boost it would give to the political influence of the paper.
ONE-fifth of all patients in this San Salvador hospital are victims of illegal abortions — Corrie will make this more
future attacks. should be pressurised to fight - both in and outside Parliament - for a woman's right to choose Despite the demonstration and the strides that have winning support for abortion rights in movement she primarily women who will have to lead the fight for their rights. It is the independent pressure of women that has forced the labour movement to act, and this pressure must be kept up anti an to maintain and increase this level of
support.
Abortion campaigners
NHS
action.
against the Tories.
But all this carry forward the aiternative.
The Labour Party
TUC-sponsored
been taken
has already
everywhere.
How to campaign against the Corrie Bill
Meeting, 5 January, London. Phone NAC: 01-278 0153 for venue.
THalf a million signatures on the petition by 14 January. Available from/return to: CAC, 374 Grays Inn Rd, London WC1. 01-278 0153.
Trade union month of action in January.
•Local and regional demonstrations on 2 February to start week of
Mass lobby and rally, Central Hall, Westminster, 5 February organised by CAC and supported by the South East region of the TUC.
•Women's Assembly, Central Hall, Westminster, 8 February.
We need a 16-page paper. Every week we are forced to make harsh choices about what not to print, such is the scope of the anti-Tory struggle. If anything we need more than 16 pages to take in all the developments in the class struggle. At present we are installing a new computerised typesetting machine to ease our production problems and improve the design and content of the paper; to win more people to socialism and to build the fightback
depends on our readers and supporters, and time is not on our side. Either we go forward very rapidly or we will be forced to cut back. This is why we are making this urgent appeal to every IMG branch, eyery Socialist Challenge group and every individual supporter of the paper. We are asking you to expand your sales and raise money for the paper as quickly as possible. We are not asking for anything impossible or unrealistic.
Make sure that your New Year resolution helps
strugle socialist Here the women's movement has a tremendous responsibility to ensure mobilisations against the Corrie Bill in February. Not only do they have to bring women to the demonstration, but spearhead the struggle to win the organised power of the trades unions to fight alongside us.
The National Union of Students committed itself to national stoppage of support of the mass lobby and rally agains the Bill on 5 February. This support has to WOL
welcome to NAC National. Planning
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SUPPORT THE STEEL STRIKE
HOME NEWS
Showdown 80
By Patrick Sikorski
THE TORIES want a showdown in
steel. The wage 'offer' - representing
no new money — came in the same
week as the announcement to
the British
Corporation wants another
redundancies.
This is in addition to the 15,000
jobs that will be lost as a result of the
closure of the Corby and Shotton steel
plants, which was announced last
July.
Sir Keith Joseph has made it clear BSC chairperson Sir
Villiers that the corporation
balance its books by nest March or
make the "necessary" cuts.
This makes a nonsense of ibe
Tories' caIm that the
intervene in negotiations
management and employers.
Industry Secretary, Keith Josept is in
effect chief executive
nationalised industries.
Productivity
The miners were able to settle for a 21 per cent pay rise without any productivity strings despite being told
that there was no money for riss on 15 per Tories
500 esperally ibe LoE Confederation, ibe confident thai the steel morkers are a soft option.
As well as the closures and mass redundancies, what's on offer to the steel workers is a wage cut, through the removal working week and weekend working, producuivity dealing, and money when inflation will reach 20 per cent this year.
The Tories' plan is to rationalise the steel industry by shrinking the present production capacity of 21.6m tonnes into line with demand, now
at 17.6m and BSC will probably notch up an even bigger loss in 1979 than its £309m deficit previous corporation has lost over £1,000m since 1975.
Looking at figures like these it would seem that the arguments of the mass medra. Tories, management that BSC's problems are which read or prazy viler paid which lazy, workforce'), foreign and a cash cnsis must have some foundation.
Symptoms
A cash crisis does exist in BSC and British steel is being undercut by imports. But these are symptoms, not the disease.
The crisis in the steel industry is a structural WIC. The heart matter is that the British steel industry failed to adopt the oxygen making methods after the Second World war, Instead the owners clung to the outdated open
How the
steelindustry
tumbled into
the smelter
hearth method.
of collapsing profits.
Only the the Steel 60,000 take this.
job loss.
Investment
Charles
Rodar. Ravenstai
DIOT AS
the astraitine
restructuring the industry.
эсте
GET HI DEN TE 0 = 9 7
Ribbons guaraniced
new
still falling.
year. The nationalisation was
and the
overpaid competition,
hived off to the private sector.
OI the
steel
private
To modernise the
industry would have taken around
€4,000m at 1967 prices in a situation
state could spend this
kind of money. BSC was formed by
the Wilson government in 1967 to
step. the
investment required was the need to
scrap old plant with resulting mass
The aim was that instead of the 30
or so major steclmaking plants BSC
should concentrale production al five
planis. These were to be Scuntborpe,
Port Talbox of the insector progra
ISE LEI I became dear *
solid not
storay or at de marised industries are regularty accused?
The simple truth is that private capital was not prepared to invest in L BOST modern, steel mills in West Germany, Japar and the USA had cut 14 major British companies to ribbons. British capital needed bailing out and Harold Wilson obliged. The 16-year gap between the two nationalisations meant that the today are much more acute than they
on clear capacity and production during the BSC in the 1960s was to eliminate costly and outdated plant on a large
well. through massive restructuring in bulk production to serve sections of British industry which would have to more for steel from abroad, and to provide basic steel for the privately-owned specialised producers. Profitable sections of the industry will be
owners and their Tory representatives
the industry has been to extract the maximum profit from steel at the least risk to their private capital. They have not been interested in a British steel
It would be fatal for the labour
SHOTTON
• 6,400 JOBS TO GO
LLANWERN
• 400 JOBS LOST
WHITEHEAD
PANTEG
CLYDESDALE
CŁYDEBRIDGE
• UNDER THREAT
LANARKSHIRE
• TO BE CLOSED
DALZELL
• UNDER THREAT
RAVENSCRAIG/GARTCOSH 7,390 men
• UNDER THREAT
HALLSIDE
CRAIGNEUK
GLENGARNOCK
EBBW VALE
ORB/COOKLEY
PORT TALBOT
• 2,300 JOBS TO GO
TROSTRE/VEUNDRE ibe Brinse ser has to be made "viable profitable before can re-expanded. That is to accept the need for massive rationalisation
The workers' interest is to defend their jobs and living standards. The fate of British steel is responsibility. The farce of worker directors and union officials like Bill Sirs who sit on the BSC board at present and who are powerless to stop mass sackings and closures makes this
What is needed is a campaign based on the independent self-activity of the rank and file steel workers. The national strike on pay must become an all-out strike against all job loss as
Elections
Mass meetings workforce should elect steel action committees in every plant to run the strike. It was strikes led by such rank
Velindre and Trostre
turned back Labour's plan to cut the wages bill by £179m at the expense of
These committees will have to immediately move to shut down th private steel mills. Bill Sirs has said that they are exempted from action and has even suggested that
10,725 men
9,235 men
1,030 men
960 men
2,615 men
1,150 men
395 men
1,110 men
605 men 1,385 men
290 men 4,400 men 2,750 men 12,485 men
5,250 те
Plotti g the closures
that
be ise strike before x side's
Protection
not their vuccessful and the closure plan were
needed is protection against a reduced sion or technical change. What should workload should be shared by same number of workers with no loss
taken up in the course of this strike -not after it. If it isn't then the strikers will have no answer to the attacks from the management and the Tories that their strike will only drive the
with no loss of pay would unite all
conticis, struggle in secondary wrangles about whether this or that plant closes
work-sharing with no loss of pay This is why BSC is so keen to get rid of it. Far from being sacrificed, this gain must be extended
BARROW WORKINGTON
SHELTON
JARROW CONSETT SKINNINGROVE
ROTHERHAM RIVER DON
SHEPCOTE LANE SCUMTHORSE
COLEY IT IT 300 Co whether through reces
A fight for this demand must be
The demand for work-sharing
and avoid tying up the
the principal o
435 2,545 BEWSEY RD/MONKS HALL 1,075 ml
650 BILSTON/WOLVERHAMPTON 2,505 mel • 2,000 JOBS LOST
325 гл 4,335 • 430 JOBS LOST HARTLEPOOL/STOCKTON 3,075 ша REDCAR/LACKENBY 17,685 • 1,200 JOBS LOST
1,045 STOCKSBRIDGE / TINSLEY 8,135
9,540 2,440 • 400+ JOBS TO G0
2,361 17,385
11.02 • 5,000 J0.5 10 60
to the strike paid to see okes hoo workin & December the ISTC strike to begin on 2 January.
dancies on top of the 25,000 it had demanded earlier
ment for BSC to show a profit Socialist Challenge 3 January 1980 Page 3
Page 4 scan of this page
SOUTH WALES RESISTS JOBS' SLAUGHTER
SUPPORT THE STEEL STRIKE
By Celia Pugh
workers are engaged in their first STEEL national strike since 1926. Then, they struck in solidarity with miners' struggle to defend jobs. and conditions. This time it's the other way round. The miners are throwing their weight behind the steelworkers.
BSC's decision to double its coal imports, as well as its proposed closures, threatens many miners' jobs.
Along with transport workers and dockers, miners and steelworkers are preparing to stop steel coming into the country, movement of steel between plants, and force BSC to give in to the wage demands of the steelworkers. They know this strike is not just about pay: It is the first national challenge to the Tory government. Not only are wages at stake but also thousands of jobs.
In South Wales, Llanwern and Port Talbot steelworkers. face redundancy. George Wright, General Secretary of the Welsh TUC, argues that this will mean the loss of 15,000 miners' jobs and the closure By Denny Fitzpatrick THE Liaison Committee for the
Defence of Trade Unions is probably
best known initiating
unofficial strike action against
Tory Industrial Relations
December of 1970.
It continued to put pressure on the
official trade
throughout the life of the last Tory
government which was toppled by the
miners' action in 1974. Since that time
it has kept a low profile.
The British shop
movement has suffered one of the
biggest insults in its history with the
suspension of Derek Rohinsor.
Backing from the LCDTU, which
meets on 26 January, will be crucial to
the campaign being
AUEW to remove Duffy from office
for his refusal to defend Robinson.
The ten per cent support needed to
win a recall ballot of the membership
on this issue could be gained if the
LCDTU decides to endorse the 'Rule
15' campaign.
With a national steel strike nod the
Tories preparing lo try zed enforce
on effective picketing the
communities prevent any strike action
right. steel plants. three quarters of the
Will the Liaison Committee
fight the Tories?
against the
the 'no chains on the unions'. The LCDTU central focus for movement
spending cuts,
need to be met stewards
win if they are resources.
Solidarity
waged in the
nffice.
Ernes not si ply to t left Wis in be pe
Socialist
of 21 South Wales pits. In its wake will follow the livelihoods of dockers, transport workers and thousands who service the mining and steel With this threat looming, the Welsh TUC is laying plans for a day of strike action to defend jobs on 21 January. Miners, railway workers, engineers, dockers and of course steelworkers, are discussing support for this action, Emlyn Williams, South Wales president of the NUM, has already received pledges for strike action. re from five other British coalfields if Welsh miners take action on 21 January.
Some doubts are being cast likelihood of this regional general strike in Wales, because the ISTC national executive has not yet given its backing and South Wales steelworkers are reluctant to strike out alone against job loss. They don't want to see their struggle isolated and defeated, as happened at Corby because of the inactivity of the national union, despite a massive local campaign. The head of steam built up through national can be used to challenge the passivity of the union leaders on jobs. George Wright predicts that the present strike over pay will run into another ISTC January in defence of jobs'. Let's hope he's With proposed boycott action by transport workers and dockers, the steel strike is off to a good start. As stocks of steel run out, whether in the car or can factories, trade unionists will havé to be on the alert against steel imported from other countries or sneaked in from private Bill Sirs has threatened that 'we will put pickets wherever they are necessary regardless of Jim Prior'. If he sticks to this, then the whole of the trade union movement must turn out to make sure that the steel strike is brought to a sucessful conclusion.
This means that solidarity action must be prepared in every town, whether there is a steel plant or not. The steelworkers are taking the lead against the They support of every trade unionist and Labour Party member in Britain.
I No a
The mass movement at the base must be strengthened in their fight
Tories. The conference should adopt the Code of Practice if it really wants to ensure that their are
could provide a opposing all the Tories' anti-working class measures.
The attacks on women's rights, attacks on black people, the vicious spere and more pepte on she dole the attempts to
co-ordinated response from the left in the • 0: 1: • unions. Even the steelworkers will not
left to their own
action is key. The Labour Party and the trade unions locally and nationally must be forced to act in defence of workers rights and use their power to get the Tories out of
The Lisison Committee has the power to build a movement at the base that could force Tony Bean and Moss
Fact ic.
Challengs sapponters
shoade pat motions lo their. BRION
ladles nor arging sapport for.
over • the strike from 21 deserve the
Crossing of picket lines; ce of 100 per
decision making by tradit
democratic procedures —no enforcer
secret ballots. 4 Somes toes Pickets to be postice
are observed:
Rance for disputes to be cartie
out wherever practicable; 6 Support calls made by strike
committees for mass and sympatty
pickets;
Code of Practice
*Strike action against the cuts on 18 February called by the Yorkshire Council of the Party.
*Support for the Code of Practice.
Party
Sides for the conference short. besent to J Hiles, 137 Warsiead Park RD, Ilford, Essex.
PORT TALBOT steelworks near Swanses
By Geoffrey Sheridan
BL is not the only company playing the victimisation Aerospace trying dispense shopfloor leaders candidate is secretary of the Lucas combine comittee.
Having first brow's job as a product engineer ai the company's NW London, he was then made an offer he could only unsuitable job at & plant in Hemel Hempstead. When turned it down, he was sacked.
That was on 5 December. The response from the caused the company South mind — at least temporarily. Labour
Tactic Mass meetings bekl
- three quarters of the workers could go
Fight over combine
secretary'sjob
to decide how game. Lucas industrial action has been with VAriOuS the latest
Ernie Scarbrow,
Aerospace Bonus
eliminated Scar-
plant in walesuel, Robinson
refuse
Scarbrow duly AUEW(TASS)
Union's shopfloor has officially change its ment.
working party
nancent'
destres
Now management has withdrawn the dismissal notice, but it has yet
Scarbrow is to be employed. He expects that further
will be necessary when the company offers him other unacceptable jobs.
Commenting on the Derek
sacking BL, Ernie Scarbrow says: "We just do not expect support from the official trade union moyement. If we get it, it's a bonus.'
union, the Engineering white-collar supporting his reinstate-
Srarbrow is co-ordinator of the
established by the Confederation of Shipbuilding and
Unions to examine alternatives to the redandancies and
oposed by Laces pace. He is the foorth member martine party the conapany bac
Page 5 scan of this page
HOME NEWS
By Brian Grogan and Steve Potter
THIS TORY government has declared war on
all working people. Youth, women, and black
people will be hit the hardest. But at present it is
the steelworkers who stand in the front line.
The Tories have picked out these workers for a
test of strength with the whole working class.
Every section of society will be affected.
That's why all possible support needs to br
given to the steelworkers, particularly by the
miners, railworkers, and
steelworkers' strike is a defensive struggle, but it can be turned into a movement to pave the way for removing this government.
The speed and ferocity with which Tory policies have been pushed through reflects the urgent requirement of Britain's rulers to make the working class pay for the cost of the world decession prcaried or 198V
The Tories claim that the crisis is due to the working class not working hard enough and that it is paid excessive wage rates. faithfully echoed by every
In fact, productivity has risen many times over the past decades. capitalists is a feature of their own system — the tendency for the rate of profit to fall. Misery
So the rate of exploitation of labour must be raised. Schools, hospitals, and public housing
all vital. to the working unprofitable for the ruling class - must be cut back. Unproductive sectors of industry like steel must be closed down without regard to the misery of unemployment for thousards.
Thatcher has enthusiastic support for these policies from the ruling class internationally. Because what is happening in Britain is only part of an international drive to reconstruct the capitalist system at the expense of the working
For example, the Villiers plan to deprive 52,000 steelworkers of their jobs is only part of the Davignon plan for the Miest European stee! industry decided two years ago. a tat ail ato take the jobs of 80,000 Belgian and Freat cor workers.
Living standards, publi employment policies are allowed to succeed. But more is
For the Tories to win, they also have to remove some of the basic rights that have been
ron py tac working class.
are deadly serious which, they say want to dismantle all the gains made by labour movemen: sime te Secooz Firit die Inflation
Public services have been slashed, with a further budget to come this month. The plan to remove 25,000 jobs in British addition the jobs accompanied by a deliberate campaign, against the unemployed. Dole money will be callously cut by allowing it to fall substantially against
Living standards are also VAT has doubled, the cost of mortgages has reached record heights, increases have been forced through. will top 20 per cent this year.
But these are only the first steps of this government. To go further, the strength and unity of the trade union movement has to be undermined. This was the number one lesson of the Heath government for Margaret Thatcher.
The suspension of Derek Robinson, the British Leyland convenor, was complementary to the aim of the Prior laws to take away the most powerfui weapons of the rank and file membership of the effective picketing, direct democracy, and the closed shon.
The working class will be further divided on rarough the Nationate Bill is allowe peo fle Taclai Ines # ine allack ahead. Reactionary
Women, who have made up the large majority of the new recruits to the trade union movement over the past two years; forced out of employment at a far higher rate than men back into the nome ministerial the promoted the reactionary attacks against the 1967 Abörtion Act.
The Whitelaw proposals on prisons and the huge strengthening of the police are part of the drive disciplihe and particularly black youth, who against the conditions of life which give them no future. Sid aios the Tor United States closed government. While other capitalist countries in West Europe have protested the stationing of
the dockers. The
This lie is Fleet Street
The problem for the
class, but Solute? - The talen
Had sufiet ii these
is why the Leyland in steel has been
the Cruise and
under attack.
and rent and rate contribution to the war drive.
Inflation
armies, of the black population. Ireland
the right
are not losing control.
Ireland masks a are being for troop withdrawal. The fact Through steelworkers'
Tories have
policies.
attack youth,
are rebelling
about saving jobs.
United
IMG statement
Prepare for
confrontation
with the Tories
Pershing missiles on their territory, the Tories welcomed these weapons, along with a commitment to boost Britain's
In an astonishing precedent, Britain has acquired a new colony in Zimbabwe. But the comic aspects of Lord Soames' reign should not obscure the deadly seriousness with which the Tories are now leading the military forces of this white racist regime against the liberation
which have the overwhelming support
In Ireland, the Tories are trying to persuade worried imperialists in other countries that they
The faltering attempt by Humphrey Atkins" to provide a 'political initiative' in the North of
tightening security, reconsideration of some form of internment along with the maintenance of torture, and the barbaric conditions in H Block.
The Prevention of Terrorism Act continues to be used to intimidate the Irish community in Britain and to deter the growing sentiment
the traditionally moderate been forced into national strike action against the provocation by the British Steel Corporation shows the extent of opposition to this government's
The call by the Welsh TUC for a strike in South Wales against unemployment, which is supported by steelworkers, miners and railway workers, shows the unity that can be built if the steel union leaders declare that this strike is
Not only is this the way to win active support from other unions, it is the only way to unify steelworkers in towns like Corby and
Consett which are under sentence of death. For them, 2 per cent, 5 per cent, or 20 per cent of nothing is still nothing.
The defeats already sustained by the steel workers should not be forgotten. people in Corby initially refused to accept the closure plans. They fought, protested, They were left isolated by the same Bill Sirs who is now leading the steel strike, and they were forced to retreat.
Thousands of British walked out without brompuns leadership when the news of Derek Robinson's dismissal broke. Left alone, they witnessed the 'strike crumbling as Terry Düffy, the AUEW leader, refused to call the official action that would have had Robinson reinstated within a -week.
The message is not that the unions cannot fight back, as some who should know better are now claiming. The lesson is that the trade union leaders are terrified of centralising a movement against the Tory policies that would threaten •the existence of Thatcher's government and take on a socialist direction.
That sort of movement has to be fought for, giving those who feel isolated and powerless the confidence that a national mass movement is by their side.
Action
Such movement is demonstrations like that called by the TUC against the Corrie anti-abortion Bill; through the 60,000 strong demonstration against the cuts called by the Labour Party in November and the mobilisation.of workers against the racist laws.
These disparate aims and actions can only be knitted into a common movement politically by raising the perspective endorsed by the Scottish miners last summer .
unified and generalised Tories.
people of Britain.
Rights
opposite direction
sure that the Tories
the Labour Labour polices and strategi
The
TE
I AC
Organise
I the Fri
counter the Prior OCOT
logic of the capitalist system.
Working The
and
these problems.
Leyland workers
Strategy
then
Such a • breaking with all
the working class
reformist ideas
the Tories. struggle. the decision built through Revolution to
black industrial perspective
and for a socialist alternative.
that was first
weekend.
the need to kick out the Tories. Increasingly
actions will run together. The logic is towards
strikes against the
When the miners threw out Edward Heath in 1974, they dispelled the myth that Parliamen
and the law stand above the needs and wishes of the majority of the population — the working
Labour councils should now take up tha challenge and call mass action to support thei refusal to implement the Tory cuts.
Lord Denning has made it clear what be thinks the law is for in his judgements against the unions, and others fighting for their rights. Such law has always been changed when it has collided with thousands of people going in the
The such a movement would be socialist.
That is what Tony Benn and his supporters in the Labour Party claim to be fighting for. They say that the main struggle today is to make
replaced with another government like that of Callaghan. So they call for support in their struggle inside the Labour Party against the right wing
But they refuse to link up their campaig i Party, through sach bodies as th Coordinating Committe, wick number one roadblock i socials atana -
I' IE
8577: the Code of Practice to defead campaien. In the course of ta: =a united front, a new leadership for unions at every level can start to be forged around policies which start to challenge the
class does not have the leadership, nor the consciousness to overthrow that system today. What can be done is to build a revolutionary organisation that fights for the building of the mass party that can resolve both
party will be internationalist, notions that there is any common interest between workers and bosse
reactionary ideas of 'national interest. In fighting for united action against the reformist misleaders, such a party will forgi a new leadership devoted only to the interests of
This sort of strategy is capable of winning many militants in the unions who presently owe their allegiance to the left reformist leaders. I can break some members of the Communist Party disillusioned with its carbon-copy left
It will involve youth who are awakening to i revolutionary ideas under the hammer blows of
They can play a major role in the Therefore support must be given to by the recent conference of • build a revolutiona youth organisation to be launched later this year.
We consider that those who agree with this
should International Marxist Group in the battle against the Torie
*The substance of this article was approved at a meeting of the IMG Central Committee las
Socialist Challenge 3 January 1980 Page 5
Page 6 scan of this page
THE DECADE TH THE RULING CLA
Red Mole
IRELAND The people hase rive up agains it Prange police state and Brilind traps
Red Mole
TO THE
BUTCHER OF AMMAN:
Your frients, the inperialists,
may support you to
the last drop of Arab oil,
but your enemies.
the Palestinian Arab masses
WILL NEVER SURRENDER
SOLIDARITY
WITH THE FEDAYEEN Red Weekly R
CHILE: END OF
PARLIAMENTARY
Militants call for national strike,
Red Weekly &
SMASH THE TORIES ON ALL FRONIS
ALL OUT
WITHTHE
MINERS
Socialist Challenge
• 1110
convulsions saw Tanaka,
celebrated by Hurope
from democracy was and
in the
1974-75.
-ROAD
that the
Warming continent
close
cictatorship
was in imperialism
indigenous
IMG TO FIELD 3 CANDIDATES
From
MORE
PICKETS
3 January 1980 Page 6
By Charles Howard
SEVENTIES nothing action-packed. A diverse set of
the fal of nixon.
Fanfani, Caetano, Bhutto, Thieu. Tanzania invaded Uganda to
Amin; Vietnam Kampuchea to dislodge Pol Pot; Cuba sent its soldiers across two continents to help Angolan nationalists defeat the South Africans, an event
the Soweto insurrection.
United States suffered a crushing defeat with the fall of Saigon, followed less than four years later by the overthrow of the Shah.
The decade saw a furious attempt by the United States and its allies to preserve social and political stability. But the social forces generated by the continuing economic crisis refused to be tamed. Their eruption in the very heartlands of capitalism, long considered a secure and stable imperialist zone, shook the ruling
If it was Portugal that came closest to a revolution, the situation in spain was none too easy. In both countries a turbulent transition
. bourgeois dictatorship to considerably aided by forces based inside the workers movement itself. In Portugal the Socialist Party and in Spain the Communist Party ensured, in ways, that the mass struggles did not overflow the dams erected by the ruling classes in the shape of new bourgeois democratic institutions.
The revolt in Portugal was itself a novel event: a combination of the social and economic contradictions in Portuguese society failure of the colonial army to liberation movements in Angola, Mozambique
Rarely has relationship between the anti-imperialist struggle
*third world' and the revolution in the metropolis been demonstrated in as striking a fashion as it was in Portugal in
Though the scandal which led to the resignation of Nixon was not unconnected with the defeat in Indochina. It was one of the Vietnamese leaders who stated
Watergate crisis had begun battlefields of Southern Vietnam.
In Latin America the United States was successful for most of the decade in preventing new social upheavels. It did so by backing and
the most reactionary has known: In Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay. But as the decade drew to a
the guerilla struggle launched by Sandinistas in Nicaragua culminated in a mass insurrection which toppled the hated Somoza
The structures of the capitalist world revealed that the system was weakest at its extremities. II
Asia, Africa and Latin America that suffered its worst reason for this was the continued inability of the
ruling classes to develop sustained and stable basis of support for their
rule. The overthrow of the Shah and the fall of Somoza demonstrated that even the most brutal and well-oiled instruments of repression were of no avail against the power of the masses.
But it would be false to present a
picture. It is worth recalling that the very first
year of the last decade saw the defeat of the
Palestinians in Jordan. The Hashemite monarch
King Hussein (aided by a then obscure Pakistani
military officer named Zia-ul-Haq) ruthlessly
crushed the Palestinian resistance in the month
which became known throughout the Arab world
as Black September.
that time the leaders
Palestine Liberation Organisation turned their
attention away from any serious opposition to
the existing Arab regimes and deepened their
reliance on Saudi Arabia, Libya and Syria.
The Pinochet coup in Chile was aided and
RE
if not political WEEKE Heath, Bandaranaike,
invaded
The
classes in
bourgeois
their different
and the
defeat the
the inter-
proletarian
Watergate
on the
regimes that
Argentina,
the The reverses
a self- NOW
one-sided oI Ine
D INSIDE FORD WORKERS N THE FRONT LINE
VIETNAM: A GIANT STEP
FOR HUMANITY!
DEMONSTRATION DEFEND THE PORTUGUESE REVOLUTION
ALL OUT AGAINST THE SPANISH
SMASH FRANCOISM!
SHREWSBURY 2 States.
• lE sponsored terrorism against left.
working class saw
influence.
order.
right-wing re-elected to
years of the new decade.
mass unemployment
contain in the samé way.
From 1970-74 the undeterred by
majority
many workers government important radical reforms.
SLAUGHTERED!
- - AVENGE
THESE
ELDEATHS
D INSIDE THE CIA 4-Page special
JAILED BY TORIES-
KEPT IN BY LABOUR
abetted every inch of the way by the United
Within a fortnight thousands of trade unionists and leftists had been butchered in cold
neighbouring Argentina a state unleashed a bloodbath Brazil, however, the phenomenal increase in the size of the urban
the birth Illas. oppositions, which continue to grow in size anc
It was the instability of capitalist Europe which worried the general staff of imperialism. For if the fortifications were breached anywhere in Western Europe the effects on a głobal scale would be catastrophic for the capitalist socia
defeat Portuguese revolution in November 1975 inaugurated a temporary stability. In country after country
governments were elected office: Spain, France, Italy Sweden, Britain, Portugal. A victory for Straus: in West Germany would (if it occurred) cast long shadow over the whole continent in the firs
The hold of bourgeois democracy and mas: reformism proved to be a winning combinatior for the Western European ruling class — thougt
and the continuin economic recession are bound in the next ter years to create fissures which it will be difficult te
In Britain the beginning of the Seventies saw : build-up of steam inside the labour movemen against the policies of the Heath government
British working class constitutional niceties, led sustained struggle against the Tories. The fall o Heath in 1974 led to two general elections, fron which Labour emerged victorious, but the smal
secured disappeared Nonetheless the election of a Labour governmen on the heels of a mass working class upsurge le
to believe that the Labou would at least implement som They were to disappointed. Neither the Wilson nor Callagha
Page 7 scan of this page
SSES
Socialist Challenge
MULD A SOCHUET OPPOSION
BATTLE
GRUNWICK
SCABS SHALL NOT PASS ON 11 JULY
«We call for this
to be the most
mighty display of
strength and unity
in defence of trade
unionism that our
movement has
seen in'years."
Socialist Challenge
IRELAND
TORTURED
Scream as loud as you like Europe won't listen
DEMONSTRATE 29 JAN
Socialist Challenge
CHINA A
KEEP
OUT.-
OF i
VIETNAM
AT SHOOK
working
for capital.
INSIDE
First equally new against Jesus
population
sections Chinese
casualties,
powerful world.
governments did anything which benefited the
class. Bọth sought traditional role of policing the labour movement
The anger of large sections of the population was reflected negatively The Tory victory was massive and the popular vote in favour of the Tories was the highest recorded in favour of any British political party since the
World War. Armed with legitimacy the Thatcher government embarked on the most profound attack on the working class and its living standards Thirties. The future of the Tory government and of Thatcher as leader of the Tory Party will be determined in the coming decade by the ability of organised labour to resist the onslaught and mount a counter-offensive.
In the non-capitalist world the picture was
contradictory. While the administration appeared stable and secure, the growth of organised dissidence grew apace in virtually every Eastern European country. Czechoslovakia and Poland the oppositions could not be blackmailed. harassed into submission.
wave of intransigence symbolised by Rudolph Bahro and his critique of bureaucratic socjetv.
In China the death of Mao produced more instability. The central delands of the Chinese oppositionists were for The processes of the Cultural Revolution in the previous decade had created a populace with a greater political awareness and self-confidence than those in most of Eastern Europe. This was utilised by Deng Xiaoping to climb to power, but it remains a weapon which could be turned
him. fact that most oppositionists in China utilise Marxist ideas to attack the bureaucracy is also an important feature of contemporary Chinese politics.
But the most disturbing development in the non-capitalist world was seen in Kampuchea The scale of the American bombing and the savage repression of the Lon Nol forces laid the
ferocity •of Rouge. The Pol Pot regime was thus a product of imperialism and Stalinism. It was the extreme application of Stalinist methods by Pol Pot which led to the forced deportation of the
from town to creation of "agrovilles' which were seen
For ine population as camps; and an unbridled chauvinism.
The resulting instability provided openings for imperialism. The Vietnamese invaded Kampuchea to overthrow Pol Pot. The
invaded Vietnam to Vietnamese a lesson and destroy the myth of Vietnamese invincibility' (Deng Xiaoping). The Chinese were forced to withdraw after heavy
while Vietnam Kampuchea and established a new government headed by Heng Samrin.
The shennanigans in Indochina led to a
and well-orchestrated offensive by imperialism against Vietnam. purpose was both to decrease the authority and influence of the Vietnamese (a by-product their unprecedented tenacity and heroism) and to prepare American public opinion for further interventions.
But the events in Indochina did nothing but harm the cause of socialism. They showed once again the pernicious effect of Stalinism inside the international workers movement. once again the central importance of the struggle for socialist democracy in the non-capitalist
None of the problems faced in the Seventies hate been resolved. As we move into the Eighties we will see a continuation of the conflicts which began during the last ten years. If the Seventies represented a stalemate, the Eighties will have to see it resolved one way or the other.
By Roy Alexander
to fulfil their
place
election
electoral capitalist economies
attempted since the
United States Brezhnev Britain France Cermany Italy or browbeaten or
nists emerged, neir
emerged,
"socialist democracy'. Decline
restriction
Other collect.
the Khmer
United States
countryside; the Britain
by Japan France concentration Germany Italy
militarily
*teach the play the role of the
The TenanCe
ideological energy-sources -
Oil
They proved market would bear.
A classical
ACCORDING to one commentator, the history of the world economy in the last decade can be summed up by the fact that in 1970 an ounce of gold was worth $35 and a barrel of oil $1.20, whereas in 1979 gold has topped $500 an ounce and a barrel of oil will cost you more like $40.
dramatic behaviour of these commodities on the world market summarises very clearly the growing crisis of the imperialist world system, the shifts of power that are taking
within it and the inability oi bourgeoisie to control its future course.
If the 1960s witnessed the gradual run-down of the long capitalist boom after the post-war recovery, then the '70s saw it transformed into outright stagnation. The following table sums up the economic performance of the advanced
the members Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) — both as a whole and some major individual cases:
Annuat average economic growth (in real terms]
1960s 1970s
OECD as a whole 5.1% 3.5%
4.6 2.8 2.8 2.2 10.3 5.6 4.0 3.2 5.3 3.6
In the years 1974/75 stagnation turned into a full-scale recession, with almost all the major economies going into reverse gear. Inflation, mass unemployment — all the bogies of capitalist crisis which were supposed to be 'ancient history'
- reappeared. In the 1960s the average rate of inflation in the QECD countries was 3 per cent a †year; in the '70s it was 8 per cent; in 1980 it will be over 9 per cent: In the 1960s the average rate of unemployment was under 3 per cent; today it is over 5 per cent and rising.
This is a classical capitalist crisis, brought on by the long-term decline in the rate of profit in the major imperialist countries and the resulting
of capital accumulation reinvestment by capitalists of the surplus value
tron the exploitation workers). The following table shows this clearly:
Average growth of business investment
1960-73 1973-78
4.9% 0.7% 4.0 3.5 14.3 0.2 4.2 0.2 4.6 -1.2
Inevitably this has produced a shake-up in the world economic order. The most spectacular development has been the relative decline of US imperialism. It has been increasingly unable to
world's banker post-war international monetary set-up based or the US dollar came to an end as early as 1971
second shift was the O1 oil-producing countries with the formation of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and the 'oil crisis' of 1974. For almost three decades the growth of the world's capitalist economies had depended heavily upon imported
especially oil.
In all this time the price of oil had hardly riser at all. However, the so-called 'oil sheikhs' ha‹ progressively been turned into 'oil capitalists' and began to approach the matter from a strictly capitalist angle: they set up a cartel and started to jack the price of their product up to whatever the
While the Western-based oil companies have also been major beneficiaries from this process, there is no doubt that the rise of OPEC represents a real shift in the balance of power in imperialist system. The following figures on 'current balances' (ie. how much a country has left over from its sales of goods and services abroad, after it has paid for imported goods and
capitalist crisis
services, fund investments, measure of this:
two OECD as a whole
US Japan Germany OPEC 1974-1979
will add another $80 billion.
Reminder
of the
ahout to enter
present period of crisis.
last recession and * whole and all its major countries.
over from the military).
(the its recent oray
production). of the
the prospects
the
the
major
11th world congress.
the
FI's world
such things foreign loans, aid, etc.) are a simple
Cumulative current balances
1960s 1970.
$30 billion -$57 billion $33 billion -$400 million $3 billion $32.5 billion $40 billion $224 billion
In 1980 it is expected that the OPEC countries
As we enter the 1980s the imperialist system is
another recession reminder that there is no end in sight to the
What imperialism is doing at the moment is muddling its way from slump to sluggish recovery in a way that is laying
generalised crises. The international interdependence of the world economy explains the character of both the
this one. simultaneously affecting all the major imperialist countries
The rise of OPÉC prevents the crisis being softened at the expense of one set of raw materials producers, but the non-oil producing countries in the Third World are still the worst-off victims. In 1973 these countries came out of their exchanges with the world economy $7.5 billion further in debt; in 1980 they will be $60 billion short. And little of the needed cash is coming from direct investment or'aid' — it has to be obtained on the world money market at ever-rising interest rates.
Some pointers for the 1980s * A continuing crisisof the imperialist system as a
Watch out for further shifts in power. The row with OPEC is bound to hot up (and could spill
economic to the political and And keep an eye on Japan. - it has suffered far the least from the crisis, has quietly built itself an economic empire throughout Asia tar bigger than anything dreamed about in the "30s, and is starting to compete with the US electronics industry on its home ground (not to
• European car
Continuing impoverishment of the non-oil producing third world countries, in turn fuelling
for further revolutionary
The least that can be said is that the 1980s will certainly be a challenging decade for socialists.
Intercontinental Press 1979: Year of Crisis for World Imperialism
grene Statement on Spill from Four '1979: Year of Crisis for World Imperialism' is Intercontinental Press/inprecor [Vol 17, No 47]. Other material includes on-the-spot reportage from Iran, an assessment of the Nicaraguan revolution so far, and the statement on the splii in the Fourth International issued at the end of its
Individual copies cost 30p plus 10p&p, subscriptions work out much cheaper at £ll for one year [48 issues], £6 for six months (24 issues), or £3 for 10 weeks. And if you subscribe now you will make sure of getting the special issue which will include all the main documents adopted by
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Socialist Challenge 3 January 1980 Page 7
Page 8 scan of this page
THE DECADE IRELAND
IRELAND
By Geoff Bell
TEN YEARS ago James Callaghan described the North of Ireland this Tat•
"The troops organised a meals on wheels service for Londonderry, took youths
climbing in the Mountains, organised dances and so on. As Christmas approached, soldiers be cinmeatmost embarrassing. flood invitations One senior inhabitants in his area in Belfast as, "the nicest, friendliest, hospitable and sometimes maddening people in the which I thought summed it up rather well.
For Britain the decade followed these optimistic, patronising words saw many false According to the last Northern Irish Prime Minister, Brian internment in 1971 would 'weed out the gunmen'.
Three years later government promised its Constitutional Convention would *command the most widespread throughout the community. Optimist
One of the greatest optimists was Roy Mason,
state. No 1996 he daretary ne
State. 1976 he declared, security forces have an increasingly detailed inventory of significant terrorist figures are... leaders face a chilly prospect'. next ycal his message situation will get better... terrorist there can be no hope, and in
The promised 'gradual marked progress to the restoration of normality'. Mason's last year, which he shared with Humphrey saw more British soldiers killed in the North of ireland than in. anv vear since 1972.
At the start of the decade there were 2,500 British streets of the North of Ireland, today there are six times that many. With CS gas, plastic bullets, rubber bullets and police computers, "security'
North of Ireland's industry in the last ten years. Britain the 1970s was the decade when Ireland refused to lie down and be quiet.
Symbols
Why it did not is best symbolised by three occurrences, all of which
the first half of the took place in decade: internment in 1971; the fall of Stormont in 1972; the fall of the
and its executive in 1974.
The first showed that the British promises of civil rights were a mirage and that the age old policy of coercion was their preferred 'solution'
The fall of Stormont Northern Ireland 'home rule' parliament — in 1972 displayed the failure of coercion.
The fall of the Assembly two years later — brought about by a Protestant general strike in protest against the idea of sharing power with Catholics
suggested that Protestant working
Socialist Challenge 3 January 1980 Page 8
DIDN'T
GO AWAY
which went with it.
old people in . what was
from reaction to Black b Note
the
individual Pledges
the Executive most unworkable most world", Kingdom would reconsider her that pledges on all matters.'
dawns. James Callaghan did
Faulkner,
Wilson government
British followed suit.
acceptance
to
years.
decade's longest
the three bourgeois politicians
who the
Swept
LIC The
was. 'the From
for the
170,000 votes. the leader Atkins,
on the Provisionals.
regard such electoral asset. only growth
For
attained the positions
shared by the different communities.
today if anti-imperialist North and power-sharing
saw
years, but which few the old with today. It the
Provisionals:
Prophecy
class was
concerned, while the North of Ireland state remained they would spring to its defence along with all the injustices
The consequences of each of these dramas were not immediately clear;
involved the British them, OI rather the this, written just before the fall of the Assembly:
"If at any time the Assembly and
should be made through deliberate refusal by the majority to play their part, then in my judgement the United
entitled position and her
The writer of that sentence was but when the exactly what he warned against, Callaghan and the
in served stood idly by. By and large the rest of the British labour movement
There are signs that this at last is beginning to change. It is much easier
praise Andadiscuss the issue of Ireland in the Labour Party and in the unions than it has been for six or seven
For the most part this explicable by events in Ireland itself.
The three turning points have worked themselves out in the shape of
who dominate Irish political life today.
the Northern Protestants there is lan raisey wno swept all before him in the recent European election when he amassed a total ot
For the Catholics of the Democratic and Labour Marty, John Hume, has proved himsell the most enduring politician. In the South the new premier, Charlie Haughey, began the decade as an alleged ally of the
That Haughey was chosen by his party to lead Fianna Fail in the next election suggests that many
reputation
Paisley, Hume and Haughey have each in their own ways insisted that the over-riding issue in the North of Ireland is partition; that they have
of authorit they have suggests their estimates are
majority in 'their now?
None would be where they are wak 101 for the movemen the particular Provisionals. It was the Provos who
before anyone else that what counted in Ireland was the unresolved national question; a contention which has been disputed much in the last ter about
would argue 1970s cas beer anyone's decade it has been that of the
As to what the next ten years. offer, the last ten have shown how uncertain'a business prophecy can be.
BERNADETTE DEVLIN MeALISKEY, still fighting JOHN HUME, SDLP leader IAN PAISLEY, Loyalist hero There was, , for example, the Peace People and their promise in 1976 that they would end the violence 'in a few weeks'. • Where are the Peace People
Nevertheless. couple predictions can be tentatively suggested; that Britain's political initiative, Humphrey Atkins' constitutional conference, will fail to solve anything is the most obvious. This in turn is liable to lead to more . self-questioning in British
just what exactly government and army are doing in the North-east Ireland. according to an article in the Sunday Times Margaret Thatcher somewhat shocked het colleagues at a recent cabinet meeting when she asked, 'why don't we leave Ireland?'
Perhaps the safest bet of all for the • 1980s is that many more in Britain will be asking that question as the months and years proceed
JAMES now Lord
of
latest
prison.
society
its
Indeed
None of these Loyalists was arrested.
possibility of a prison sentence.
GERRY FITT, deposed SDLP leader BRIAN FAULKNER, Last Unionist PM PEACE PEOF Where are they now?
Women's trial begins
The trial of 11 feminists arrested in Armagh during an International Women's Day picket last year began as Socialist Challenge went to press. The women were assaulted and held during a demonstration outside Armagh women's
At the initial hearing on 31 October in Armagh the accused, including members of Women Against Imperialism and playwright Margaretta D'Arcy, entered the court room wearing T-shirts bearing the feminist symbol and the slogans: 'Prisoner of War Status Now' and 'Smash Hl-block'. They refused to stand when the magistrate entered the court.
Most of the day was taken up by the evidence and cross examination of the chief prosecution witness, Inspector Donaldson, and the police doctor. The Inspector's exeuse for the unprovoked attack on the demonstrators, numbering about 50 women and children, was that he acted to prevent an ugly scene developing between the women and some Loyalist counter-demonstrators.
Some of the women charged faced serious double assault charges and the
CHICHESTER-CLARKE - former Unionist PM,
Page 9 scan of this page
REVOLUTION ROCKS THE BOAT
ZANU blood on British hands
YOUTH
'TRADE union leaders like Duffy won't give full rights to apprentices anu yours workers because lty are scared about what we would do if we got the power.' That was the view of one of young workers attended the first national conference called by the socialist youth paper Revolution in mid-December.
Given success conference and the number of young workers at it, he was dead right. The conference was attended by 70 people from all over Britain representing a membership of 200 IN Revolution groups. It was called to prepare the launch of Revolution as an independent revolutionary youth organisation in May 1980, The wide ranging HANHCSIARY showed Revolution had come a long way since its launch in 1978 by the IMG.
In opening the conference, from Wandsworth explained: we're going to set up a revolutionary oroanisation we need to be crystall clear on the programme we want to base it on; the political perspectives we are fighting for; who we want to reach with our ideas; and how we are going to organise ourselves so we have a fully democratic organisation, and one which can strike together once we have decided on action.'
That's exactly what ference did deal with — building sa independent youth Workshops were held on the track unions; the National Students, the National Union School Students; racism imperialism; Ireland; youth oppres
women's
It was agreed that Revolution needed its own programme as a guide to action in the class struggle. Mark,
draft #HELLE explained that in his view Revolution shoule be committed to bild a party
for amite car caton
for tim International - and that this world be an important part of the leading up to the launch of the ner organisation.
No vote was taken on this at the conference because it was felt that such could meaningful once Revolution actually establishing itself independent HE HAILEDI such making its own decisions about its relations with other organisations on the basis of complete control over its own affairs.
The conference decided to begin moving from a federal structure to one based on the principle of unity in action and freedom of discussion
INTERNATIONAL
RHODESIAN TROOPS were against Patriotic Front guerillas on Sunday. Unly InIs ume it was all because the Governor; Lord Soames.
The troops were instructed to patrol the border areas supposedly 'infiltration'. This followed a Rhodesian troops and a ZANU group on Saturday night in which killed, several injured, and ten captured. Here too the Rhodesian troops were acting under Soames' authority.
This bizarre use of one side in the ceasefire to monitor (and kill) the other was an utterly predictable outcome of the Lancaster House agreement. have a fair chance would be if Britain pulled out completely instead of giving 'legal' cover to the white regime's murder gangs.
The first victim of the ceasefire may well have been ZANU Tongogara ironically architects. Unless the car crash in Mozambique in which he died last week was the most absurd d historical coincidence, the likely culprits are to be found within the Rhodesian security forces.
Such a murder would be easily within the
WAO
of the
local
that
Alix "If
the
organisation.
Union of
of and
• Fourth
detente Revolution for single youth organisation,
only
was fusion. as
and
tion Committee conference demonstration
16 women and 14 men ordered in
right, of course,
from the British
to DICYCIN clash between been
two guerillas were The only way the guerillas would
murdered -
commander Josiah
Vol its main
By Redinond O'Neill The family is fundamental. Fareats can get amay with the right to beat kids, just like teachers do.
amited in approaching Rebel and the Socialist Youth League for discussions about
The conference was a tremendous step towards the launching of a new proletarian socialist youth orgamiss-
Britain. The National elected from itself good of Revolution's working class youth to revolutionary politics: it has
— 1 of then capabilities of the white regime, which puts aside considerable funds to finance right-wing oppositionists Mozambique. speaking whites have been reported at the scene of a series of atrocities against Mozambican civilian targets.
Tongogara's prestige among the guerillas and tie Landabwean peopie cotta Mardly Lave higher. He was probably nationalist leader whose reputation party lines. When he died he was on his way to Salisbury to call upon fighters in the bush to move to the ceaselite rendezvous points. Murder Tongogara's death makes this exercise all the more difficult. since many queriles wil draw the obvious conclusion — and that the ceasefire is therefore not worth the paper it was written on. This again points to Rhodesian responsibility: Now that the Patriotic Front has agreed to the Lancaster House compromise, forces have everything to gain if it drops out of the settlement. The British would committed to 'supervising elections involving only the whites and Bishop Muzorewa. The press has enthusiastically picked up on
years which political relations with organisations, at the same time does so from a position of retaining its own organisational independence:
The aim between now and May is a dues-paying membership of 300 organised local Revolution branches and a successful fund-drive of £3,000 to put the organisation on its feet.
Donations be sent
Revolution, PO Box 50, London N1. (Cheques/POs made payable Revolution).
English-
the only crossed that he was
Tongogara
the white
then Tongogara
in May. system.
dows our throats to. ORL
CAST
to was known as an advocate military and electoral unity. speculation that Tongogara was killed ZANU members opposed to unity with ZAPU,
of Patriotic was known as an advocate of military and electoral unity.
Political murders are not unknown within the liberation movement, and so the possibility
COME TO THE BRANCH MEETING
-BUT YOU CAN'T VOTE
'THE workshop on the unions bighlighted the problems young workers face in industry. Derek, an apprentice in the Boilermakers' nnion from Middleton, put forward his view:
"The union does little for apprentices. We get terrible pay, the mors conditions and when I started to kick up a fuss I was invited to cons along to branch meetings — only to find out I couldn't have a vote! Al first I thought of getting all the apprentices to resign to win us rights in the union, but my friends told me that this was a cop out. "It's not the mis that are bad, it's the leaders. We can't fight them outside", they lold
Barbara from London agreed, but she thought the NUSS cond do lot more to introduce school students to union principles. The morkst decided to call a special school for Revolution supporters organising inside the unions prior to the launch of the new organisatio
Jim from Birmingham explained the more general problezas of yout in the workshop on youth oppression:
'The capitalists want a society where no-one rocks the boat, challenges the status quo, where the rich get richer and the poorer. Youth aren't trained to fit into the •designed not to educate us, but to make us part of th
"The family is fundamental. Parents can get awa they have the right to beat kids, just lik
NOTVT ME
FOR
NAZIS
to cause
Front is bi
elections on its own.
agreement.
power"
Patriotic Front
by come even earlier Front.
be pulled out now.
Labo
mould so the
→ CHESTER
cannot be finally ruled out — but more often such killings are Rhodesian operations dressed
the maximum confusion Tongogara himself was the victim of just such a frame-up in 1975 when the ZANU chairperson, Herbert Chitepo, was murdered in Zambia
In any case, the break-up of the Patriotic
means just a ZANU tactic Although ZAPU now poses as the defender of unity, it is equally keen to contest the February
This split - and possibly many smaller ones - will add to the general fragmentation and paralysis of Zimbabwean politics which will be one of the first fruits of the Lancaster House
The Tory government hopes that Zimbabwe will remain just this side of civil war until the February elections are over and the 'transfer of
completed. Then, the plan goes, the can consequences of the deal they have done.
Asthings are going at present the crisis may
The white forces could use the privileged position given them by Soames to provoke a total breakdown before elections can take place. British troops would be far from neutral in such a conflict. That is why they must
Socialist Challenge 3 January 1980 Page 9
Page 10 scan of this page
LETTERS 328/9 UPPER STREET LONDON N1
Threat to women in Iran THERE were two full pages on Iran in Socialist Challenge (6 December). But they completely missed out the women's struggle.
There will be no accurate analysis of the Iranian revolution and the ensuing events without analysing the economic and social position of women. The women's issues are the real issues, and the real political struggle today for at least half the population is on that front.
Under Islamic ideology it is possible to create a patriarchal, male chauvinist, sexist state in which women, whose position is centred in the family, would be totally subjugated to men, Such a state could function and continue by enslaving women at home in free domestic labour, child producing and rearing,
childien, and also of the old, sick and handicapped in the usually large patriarchal family.
The new Iranian constitution has all the provisions for such a state, and the authorities have already started enforcing them. That is why it was so crucial to read behind the events of the US embassy occupation in Tehran when the referendur on the new constitution took place.
Although the genuine anti-imperialist feelings of the Iranian masses cannot be doubted, the main
government with clearly reactionary internal policies (e.g. on nationa minorities, women can be capable of fighting imperialism at all?
Along with defending the Iranian revolution and the overthrow of the Shah's regime, we must say loudly that all is not well on the Iranian front; that the situation is a 'return to the dark ages' and to medievalism as far as the women's position goes. The danger is that the masses are behind the clergy and religious ideology in Iran today.
I feel that the beginning of a new fascism is taking root in Iran. We can only struggle eifectively if we are aware of it and ready to combat it with all our forces. Revolutionary socialists must come down to earth from their high theoretical programme on nationalisation of the banks and planned economy to deal with everyday issues like discrimination against women, basic democratic rights, unemployment, physical violence against the people.
The best fruit of our revolution is the birth of a women's movement
conference), along with the upsurge in the struggles of the national
The movement is small and needs all the support it can get from socialists — - unless they think that a male socialist state would do for now.
If women are crushed by the fanatics then the socialists will be next to go. Remember Indonesia. Khomeini is a leader able to repeat it on a larger scale.
MANNY (member of Iranian Women's Group)
Cost of 'The
Thirties'
MEGAN Martin's review of 'The Thirties' (o December) misses out on one important point.- - the cost to the public of mounting such a prestigious and meaningless exhibition.
Rumour has it that one, temporary, mezzanine floor in the exhibition cost £150,000 — enough to fund a community arts project for ten rears. Meanwhile the Arts Council is cutting back on everyone eise's
SHIRLEY FRANCIS (London ES]
"The Tirties exhibition is at the Hayward Galery, South Bank, London SEl. untl 13 Janeary. Precedent for
Terrorist' swap
THE aternational pressure on the Inst por ernment to sign the ruling Jasses global agreement on the
Socialist Challenge 3 January 1980 Page 10
OH LOOK! IT'S
SANTA CLAUS! exchange and return of 'terrorist' suspects is an example of history repeating itself.
As the contradictions and tensions of the feudal mode of production deepened in Europe in the 16th century, it resulted in a growing oppression of the serfs. The peasantry
farm. The feudal backlash from thé.... barons and landlords entailed collective agreements for the exchange and return of captured casalile
The increased repression of members of the working class engaged in national and anti-imperialist struggles is just one feature of the growing contradictions of the capitalist mode of production and the heightening of the international class struggle. N. LONG [Woolwich]
Ultra-left?
IT was "ultra-left' of Julian Atkinson, writing on the Labour Party (13 December), to state that Ralph Miliband 'could not be described as left, let alone ultra-left'. Miliband who has contributed so positively to socialist literature and has been instrumental in setting up centres for Marxist education, certainly has every right to be described as 'left". GREGORY CAREY (Leeds)
*Weagree. The sentence in question should have read: Jenkins fails to point out that this mytholory" (about Bevanism) is itself the product of a rather broad current including Ralph Miliband, David Coates, and a host of writers who could scarcely be described as left, let alone ultra-left.' We apologise for this error, which occurred in the course of editing Julian Atkinson's article.
The role of journalists I MUST reply to the criticisms by Geoff Collier (SWP) and Brynley Heaven (13 December) of my article on the demise of Hull News (29 November), as important lessons can be learned for alternative media.
Geoff accuses me of "waffling' and 'mistakes'. Hesays: "What does seeking advertising from "businesses mean?' Well, what is the difference between Ford Motor Co. and Joe Bloggs Corner Garage? Inability to distinguish between the two, reliance on Dis adverses, was a Mal icasol for the collapse of Hull News.
He argues that the paper collapsed because of the Trades Council's isolation from the labour movement. But this begs the question. Hasn't ( sectoralism and poor cross-union organisation always been a historical weakness of the British trade union movement? Hull is symptomatic of many trades councils. And isn't this what the Defend Our Unions Campaign is trying to counter?
On the question of donations from the movement, if the comrades hadn't jumped overboard as soon as
... AND HE'S accurate record of the financial situation.
In the future battles against Thatcher the mass of workers will rally round their traditional organisations and leaderships. Hence
initiatives like Hull News deep into the labour movement. When, as in 1974, the left leaders of today betray the mass struggles of tomorrow, a mass fighting opposition will be necessarv to remove them. The fleecing of non-competitive capitalist subordinated to this political task. down the middle on Hull News. The majority agreed with Tony Cliff's an 'adaptation to Bennism'. In reality this division flowed from the SWP's confused attitude to the united front.
adapted not to Bennism but to the elitist ideology of professional journalism. They lined up behind the editor 'not literate enough to write Hull News'. Therefore it would have to.be a paper for the workers rather than of the workers.
supported the editor's refusal to publish the Trades Council's 'Statement of Principles' in the first issue. Apparently, before we could. publish our policies in our own paper we would need the OK from this erstwhile Bernstein and Woodward! Such antics reduced the paper to a parody of a bourgeols tabloid, the foibles of a clique taking precedence over democratic decisions. On the media scare, both radio and YTY uncritically reproduced the statements of the car dealers that they were not backing a 'trade union paper'. What's this if not snowballing a 'run' on advertising?.
journalists not to substitute for but to service the activists in the field. Ultimately, however, the responsibility for the situation lies with the Trades Council for not initiating a hard political discussion before selecting personnel.
NOEL HIBBERT (Hull)
WARF comic -missing the point?
of Leeds WARF's comic (6 December), we would like to make the following points.
os white women alempung te analyse our own racism and confront institutionalised racism in society, we in no way presume to speak for the black community — nor would they expect us to. Weenvisage the comic being tsed as a föcus for discussion in predominantly white areas where racist attitudes and prejudices are often totally ignored or go unchallenged.
Bisi Williams seems to have completely missed the point by attacking one remark out of context of them'. This is, after all, a common
THE OTHER BOOKSHOP Combal in the Erogenous Zone, by Ingrid Bengis — Wildwood House,
Gender Advertisement, by Erving Goffman — Macmillan, £2.95 Spare Rib Women's Liberation Diary 1980 — £2.00
328 Upper Street, London N1 2XQ (Tel. 01-226 0571)
LEFT ME A PRESENT! the paper sprang a leak they' d havean | comment about blacks, an
the importance of driving cross-union
Moreover, Hull SWP were split
view, expressed at the time, that it was
possible in a 'comic'.
But Geoff and the minority, however,
•— who viewed workers as being
Even worse, Brynley and Geoff
mislead readers.
The lesson is that it is the role of
members in the AUEW.
WITH regard to Bisi Williams' review
lesson to us.
'He's on the scrounge like the rest
workers
£2.95 "participation"
WHUMP
uninformed and wrong comment. today' Moreover the teachers and discussion leaders who will use this comic should have the nous to amplify the stupidity and ignorance of such a remark.
Yes, we do know about, have discussed, and have taken other action on institutionalised state racism, but we decided to start at the level of white adolescents who may
been given an explanation of how the state does enforce racist laws and controls. We have written teachers' notes pointing out that the types of racism illustrated in the comic are only the immediately apparent types. Racism is ingrained in society — we hope the comic (which was never intended to be a major analytical treatise) will generate discussion of the question at a deeper level than is LEEDS WARF (V. Anderson, W. Collins, G. Lacey, J. Keogh)
The numbers game
YOUR article on the conference of the Socialists Workers Party (6 December) was good, but one point worried me. Duncan Hallas has been quoted as admitting that the effective membership of the SWP is about Road, 1,500, and their own members confirm this. Even if it has a paper membership of 3,600 you should make it clear what sort of members you are talking about, or you will
Lying about numbers is a bad habit and we should stop it. It misleads militants outside the organised groups and can mislead us in deciding our tasks. There is the danger of over-estimating our collective strength, and there is the opposite danger of pessimism about the political impact a small group can have in a favourable situation.
We should tell the honest truth about our numerical strength and set an example. Probably there are no more than 3,600 people active in revolutionary organisations in Britain all together. Let's at least be honest about our resources when we discuss Lelalls our political objectives. And if we can overcome the tiresome competitive attitude we know so well we will also be able to discuss political differences honestly in terms of what we call on the workers to do, not who has more
I'mafraid the largest revolutionary organisation in Europe is probably the OCI in France, with Centre. 1,800 to 2,000 members, although they claim 6,000. That should be a CHRIS YOUNG (Oxford)
Inevitable betrayal GEOFF Bell's report on the past five years at British Leyland (6 December) is an excellent explanation of how the recently victimised workers helped to Fargate. prepare the ground for their own victimisation. It is a thorough indictment of the reformist nature of the Stalinist leaders of the Leyland workers — unable even to gain reforms in the interests of the
But if defence of those victimised is to be effective and is to take the Leyland workers forward it must be combined with more than even unremitting criticism of the policies put forward and carried out by those same leaders; it must state clearly the need to replace the plant and national umen caders as well as mnel porcies
It is not good enough, in fact it is wrong, to conclude that 'If Robinson, Brindle, and the rest had rejected
...they would have
AND HO-BLOODY-HI TO YOU TOO, MATE!! been in an infinitely stronger position
. The policy of the Stalinists and other reformist riff-raff is inevitable, and they are not misguided socialists as some readers of Geoff Bell's article might be led to believe.
The point is that it is revolutionaries in Leyland and throughout the labour movement who have to offer a socialist alternative to the present mis-leaders like Robinson, not pin hopes on what might have been if only the reformists had not done what they did.
NIGEL BROWN (Dudley)
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
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Page 11 scan of this page
We must not play with fire'
INTERNATIONAL
RUDOLPH Bahro is
months after his grrest by
'People's Police', trial on trumped-up charges of 'espionage', the
author of The Alternative in Eastern Europe was
recasco uader me amnest acclareo on tae suln
anniversary of the
Republic and allowed
Germany.
An interview was arranged easily enough. Having pieced together his analysis of 109gt European 'socialism' with only a minimum of Rudolph Bahro was only too keen to talk to West European socialists.
On learning that I represented the press of the Fourth International, Bahro showed great interest, and a lot of respect, for Trotskyism: *The Trotskyists — even though I disagree with them — have the most developed theoretical analysis,' he told me. But for Bahro, that also meant that the Fourth International would have to give up its organisational independence if it wanted to make its analysis politically effective.
Bahro's political project is the unification of all socialist currents in a single organisation; the overcoming of the sectarian divisions on the left. He is very eager to learn more about the various tendencies, and a bit incredulous when
described to him the tendencies to be found. 'No, not really - they can't be serious!'
Eurocommunist
Bahro describes himself as a EurocommunIst, but is ready to concede the opportunist' aspects in the practice of the Italian and French. Communist Parties. The parties have not thought out their strategy thoroughly enough. Yet a strategy of achieving
*powerful ideological majority' in order to 'isolate the state from the monopolies', "peaceful, revolution against monopoly capital', is what Bahro has in mind, and where he agrees with Berlinguer, leader of the Italian CP
Of course, we disagree on this. I challenge his preference for the Italian as opposed to the French CP on the grounds that the Italian party has persuaded the trade unions to moderate their wage demands, protests against the
For Bahro, the ever widening gap in living world and the poor countries of the Third World must be overcome by an austerity policy of the working class.
I am not sure that we are still speaking the same languare. that, despite such statements, Bahro remains a true revolutionary at heart. It is difficult to imagine him, who speaks so eloquently about *the communism that wanted', selling out the Fiat workers to Italy's bourgeois government.
Premature
A similar problem comes up in relation to Eastern Europe. Bahro declares himself against any 'premature' political Germany, and insists that until changes have been brought about in Moscow all one can do is
discuss theory ideological struggle'. 'It is no use artificially forcing political action in the GDR, nothing is gained by it. outright.'
But when pressed on the possibility of mass explosions, the revolutionary in Bahro comes through, against his theoretical reservations: 'Of course, should anything happen in specific countries, we must show revolutionaries and cannot act as a brake on history.'
I challenge him on some of the more controversial aspects of his insistence, for example, that there should be a one-party system. In reply, Bahro maintains his View that and that there was no justification therefore for à multitude of parties once private ownership of the means of production and thus bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie had abolished.
But there is, as it turns out, more to it than that: "If one acknowledges the reactions of the masses, in the GDR for example, who are still condemned to an unreflective life by the nature of their work processes, then it is unavoidable that there should still be a justification for saying: Here the party, there the masses.? Enlightened
In other words, Bahro freely admits that he does not see the masses as capable of exercisingli power yet, and that he historical period during which an 'enlightened' elite,
free. Twenty-three East Germany's
15 months after his secret
German Democratic to leave for West
official sources, full spectrum of Eurocommunist
consensus of . the
democratic while the French CP of its austenty pians
between the develoned imperialisi
but somehow never doubt
Marx and Engels
learned
guiding concents.' activity in East
what he calls *the
They will simply defeat us of the
boldly.
ourselves be
book his
parties represent class differences,
the been cause for
still there,
foresees an entire
'League of LICW
RUDOLPH BAHRO, Communists', will have to guide social progress in what he sees as a democratic dialogue between leadership and masses.
from the whole history movement that one cannot translate some
principle directly
It soon becomes clear that two experiences dominate Bahro's political thinking: that of Prague in 1968, which makes him doubt the possibility of any fundamental political change in Eastern Europe until there has been some change in the Soviet Union, and the experience
fascination that the model' holds for sectors of the masses in the GDR which, in his opinion, would lead to a collapse of the state if reforms were enacted too
Fatalism
Hence his hope for a "guided' process, 'guided' by enlightened sectors of the bureaucracy: If the hour strikes, as in Prague 1968, if. they drop their guard for a single moment..., that opens up other possibilities. In such a situallon the emancipatory would make themselves felt right up as far as the high ranks of the apparatus.
Until that happens, fire.. out of revolutionary subjectivism and voluntarism'.
There is definitely a contrast between the revolutionary fire of The Alternative in Eastern Europe and the cautious fatalism of the author now that he has been released. ambiguities were, of course, already contained in the book - but they frequently contradicted by bold statements of
tans cente disappointment: product of his background.
The enthusiastic communist and Marxist is
the belief in the alternative "socialism or barbarism' unbroken. Marxism has been shaped in an environment in which the masses cannot be trusted, in which Western capitalism remains the yardstick of
Rudolf Bahro interviewed
socialist, has recently been freed after spending
nearly two years in jail on a charge of spying. His arrest followed the publication of his book, The Alternative in Eastern Europe, by a West
'We should have burcaucracy of our
into tactical the labour capitalism unsatisfied.
West German reform
interests
'we must not play with
The theoretical
Yet there is no Bahro is a true
of But his
German German company. progress, and in which gradualism even appears | revolutionary compared to the dead hand of the
At the time of the interview, barely spent a week in the West. His curiosity, his thirst for information about the realities of
and socialist movement tresh
His declared intention is to build a united socialist movement to the left of the SPD (the
On this page GUNTER MINNERUP recounts a conversation he had with Bahro in West Germany after his release.
Bahro had
Marxism under reformism of the Eurocommunists. largely *The full
of New Left Review.
RUDI DUTSCHKE,
become an one of the founders (Socialist Students
German student movement.
February
Liebknecht in protest imperialism.
head-wound tragic end.
tribute is to carry on the struggle.
German Labour Party) on the model of the
Italian Communist Party. Disillusionment will
be rapid; a further clarification of political
ideas necessary. Time will tell whether Bahro's
future evolution will be towards revolutionary
towards the bureaucratic
His present ideas contain the seeds of both. will
published in the January February 1980 issue
who died on 24 December, was above all an internationalist. Born and brought up in East Germany, he fled to the West, but unlike many others he did not
anti-communist but a radical. As of the German SDS Germany) in the mid- 1960s he helped to form the politics of the
Whatever its other weaknesses the Germar SDS was internationalist to the core. It made solidarity with Vietnam its central concern. In
1968 it organised a Congress for Vietnam in West Berlin, the centre of the Cold War. 25,000 people marched behind red flag and portraits of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl
against American
A few months later a young Nazi, inspired by the inflammatory newspaper campaign of the reactionary Springer Press, shot Dutschke in an attempt to kill him. He suffered a severe
but recovered after a number of operations. He came to convalesce in Britain, but was deported by the Tory government at the beginning of 1971. He then settled in Denmark.
But the injury to his head never fully healed. It was this which caused him to faint while having & bath and drown: an unecessary and
Rudi was a dedicated socialist. Our best
Socialist Challenge 3 January 1980 Page 11
Page 12 scan of this page
Socialist Challenge SOVIET TROOPSOUT OF AFGHANISTAN!
By Tarig All
THE DECISION of the Soviet Union to send troops to remove Hufizullab
General Secretary People's Democratic Afghanistan (PDPA), replace him pith of the muntry scape parts country condemned on every count.
It disregarde the rights of the people of Alghanistan to determine their own future. it tramples foot the rights of the PDPA (limited though these were to choose its own leaders: and it wi ad the reactionary and backward-looking forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Ever since the overthrow of the. Daoud dictatorship in April 1978 in a military. coup, struggled to establish its rule. It was a
antly dif country in which to make 2. sociat
factories îm the whole country and the size of the working class is extremely smalt.
Shopkeepers
If you add to that the proliferation of small shopkeepers in the cities, and a deeply-rooted tribal structure with tribal property rights,
which leaders becomes obvious.
These problems could have been overcome only by a patient process of educating the masses coupled with a series or radical social measures. But cheSted st tradition of oxinty Ar coupled proximity Moscow, ruled out this course.
To institute a regime as autocratic as the one it replaced - despite much talk about democracy — was hardly likely excite the Afghanistan. Only a thoroughgoing revolutionary democracy could have allowed the new regime to win the support of the masses. Instead the press was curbed and the model of the
government (in propaganda) was clearly the Kim Il Sung regime in North Korea.
Factional struggles in the PDPA were solved by expulsions ultimately killings. sor, Taraki, was killed in September 1979 during one such struggle. right-wing religious leaders utilised all this to strengthen their rebellion. The use of napalm and Soviet helicopters and planes to bomb the tribes into submission was bouad to fail.
Popular
Now the Russiaris have committed sense wesliter regime whose initial popular support in the first few months after overtitow: ot the hated baond has now totally evaporated. Their style of intervention is not unfamiliar. Shoot the recalcitrant leader (Ime Nagy in : Hungary: and 11OW Afghanistan), . replace Aim more amenable figure, and use Soviet troops and tanks to ensure stabluty.
But Afghanistan is not Eastern
Kegistered with the
of the
Party of.
thust
under
MILOS 1
has
only
Soviet troops al
Miles Km.
the magnitude faced the new IRAN citizens of.
of its
and Amin's predeces-
The
support
Russian
proxy. shore up
the been arguing that US should play
Brezhnev's.
Amin in Karmal:
with a
Gemano revolutions
Post Office as a newspaper Pablished by
300 USS R Herat
Afghanistan
Kandahar
Baluchistan
a ki
Europe. The Russian intervention will enable the right-wing rebels to win
internally and externally. Afghanistan will become the frontline for the cold war, where
soldiers (carefully chosen from Central Asia) can be killed by
The Soviet intervention will also option: give succour to all those in the United States and Western Europe who have
imperialism a more interventionist alding role in different parts of the globe
message Babrak ongratulating him on his election to office must surely be on of the more cynical gestures froni a Stalmist leader in recent years.
can only Relgocrest
-Badakhshan™ KABUL gram Kunar.
O
S' ISLAMABAD
Paktia
INDIA
succeed with mass attempt to substitute Russian soldiers fortie people of Afghanistan can end only in disaster: Either the Russians will have to withdraw in any event and accept a goverament of a different complesion, or they will get bogged down in along war. There is no third
That is why we have no hesitation in calling for the immediate drawal of Russian troops. Far from
the struggle against imperialist forces- Afghanistan, they can on binder it. All observers are agreed the the motley collectior of religious C ositionists have mass support, but fo coherent project. The entry of Soviet troops may well help to give them one.
Is Socialist Challenge, 328/9 t Ltd.
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the Tories'. Start the deeade as you
mean to go on and send us £5 today.
Last quarter's Fund Drive total ended
ti,500. Our thanks to: disappointingly at just under
2.00 2.00 2.50 3.00
'Avenge Scrooge Front 5.00
7.50 £1,471.75 Printed by East End (offset) Ltd,
← Socialist Challenge No. 127, 20 December 1979Socialist Challenge No. 129, 10 January 1980 →