Socialist Challenge No. 135, 21 February 1980
The scan: sc-n135-feb-21-1980.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)
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Socialist Challens TUC CALLS 9 MARCH
AGAINST PRIOR'S LAWS JOIN THE PICKETS JOIN THE MARCH JOIN THE STRIKE
SUPPORT THE STEEL STRIKE
THE Tories are shaken. They have been shaken militancy of the steel strikers.
Shaken as well by solidarity shown to strikers by workers all over the country; by those like miners who have joined them on the picket line; by transport and dock who have refused to handle scab steel.
The result? First, steelworkers have victory in their sights. The leadership of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation still
about settlement, but the cry from picket line after picket line is clear, simple and without any hint of concession
"20 per cent, no strings'.
At the start of the strike that demand was almost a whisper, today Il Is a roar defiance against the steel bosses and the Tory government; a roar of warning to Bill Sirs and others in the ISTC who might be thinking of selling out.
Laws
Result number two is to found in the very heart of the Tory government, whose leaders now battling in public about just how the working class can controlled and whether the Tories' proposed union laws are tough enough.
The row between Chancellor of the Exchequer Geoffrey Howe and
by the
the
those
the
the workers
the
compromise a roar or
Industry Secretary Keith Joseph on the one hand Secretary Jim Prior on the other is not about whether the traditional be union rights of the working class should be attacked, but how they should be attacked.
Prior remembers
be most the Heath years and how the strength of the movement swept from the statute book the last attempts of a Tory government to savage union rights.
DEMONSTRATION
VICTORY! Steelworkers outside the Hadfields private steel plant when news came that the mass picket had won a walk-out by the workers inside.
and Employment LICaSUICS promise
better than disposal. trade one way misnamed
He wants to be a bit more subtle
this time, but his target is the same. As Thatcher said about Prior's
last weekend they very considerable restriction on the right to picket.
And that in a phrase is why these proposals have to be fought by every means at the trade unions?
The steelworkers have shown
by developing 'secondary picketing' into a campaign in itself and by
the type of
struggle she will face if she goes ahead with her plans to outlaw such effective picketing.
But exemplary as the action of rank and file steelworkers has been, it will not in itself be enough to smash Prior's plans. For that, fighting response from the entire working class is needed.
The first chance is on 9 March, when the TUC is organising a demonstration in London against Prior's Bill. That protest can be a start, and should be built for by every trade union militant. Memory
But again, one march on a Sunday afternoon in London won't by itself force the Tories to retreat.
Only when demonstration is followed by one on Monday, and then Tuesday and
Wednesday and Thursday, and then Friday - and every day of the week until the Tory offensive is smashed -Prior's law be no more than a bad
In other words organise for 9 March, but note well that tens of thousands of Welsh workers following the call of the Wales TUC by planning take general strike action the following day.
That is a lead that followed. Organise for 9 March, but organise demands to be shouted at the TUC leaders demonstration. One particular should be in the forefront
- a general strike against the Tory offensive.
TITO
STEEL
closures... pages 2, 4 and 5 ABORTION
choose.. page 6
to 10
IRELAND
has People... page 11 AFGHANISTAN The road to civil war... page 12 NICARAGUA
Sunday ...page 13
ZIMBABWE then
will Jim
of Socialist indefinite different from usual -
could be
paper have
that demand in the past week.
No.135 21 February 1980 20p
strikers price
THIS WEEK
The man who turned an imperialist war into one of socialist revolution... page 3
Holding out for 20 per cent and against the
Where should we go from the campaign against Corrie? On to a woman's right to
BLACK LIBERATION The 1.75m black people in Britain are chang ing the face of politics here. We examine the major task for socialists - helping to build a united black liberation movement... pages 7
Yet another of Britain's solutions to its war
passed away. Obituary of the Peace
Learning to spell 'revolution' and 'libera tion'. Nicaragua's mass literacy campaign.
As the British governor does his best to eliminate the whites' opponents, Zimbabwe lurches towards civil war... pages 14 and 16
This week's issue
READERS might note that this issue
Challenge bit we have more
feature material and less news than
normal. This is because most of us
who write, design and typeset the
been attending the of the
International Marxist Group during
A full report of the conference
will be in next week's issue.
Page 2 scan of this page
Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper St, London N1. Editorial: 01-359-8180/9. Distribution and advertising 01-359 8371. Steel troops without a general
OUR POLICIES
Capitalism is in crisis. The leaders
of the Labour Party and the trade unions offer solutions that are in the interests not of the workers but of the capitalist class.
Socialist Challenge believes that the two vital tasks confronting revolutionary socialists are:
• To build broad-based class struggle tendencies in opposition to class-collaborationism in the labour movement. These should be non-exclusive in character grouping together militants holding a wide range of political views.
• To begin to fight for the creation of unified democratic revolutionary socialist organisation which can, through an application of united front tactics, begin to be seen as an alternative by thousands workers engaged in struggles.
Such an organisation should be based on the understanding that:
1seeks seeks stole one fight on
The struggle for socialism
workers against the bosses with that of other oppressed layers of society - -women, black people,
struggling for their liberation. This socialism can only be achieved by creating new organs of power and defeating with all necessary means the power of the capitalist state. inite more democrate Our socialism
than what exists in Britain today. with full rights for all political parties and currents that do not take up arms against the
of socialism' in the USSR and Eastern Europe have discredited socialism in the eyes of millions of workers throughout the world. We are opposed to them and will offer full support to all those fighting for socialist democracy.
The interests of workers and
on a world scale. Capitalism has not only created a world market, it has created world politics. Thus we fight for working class unity on an international scale. This unity will in the long run be decisive in defeating both the imperialist regimes in the West and the brutal dictatorships they sustain in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
In Britain it implies demanding the immediate withdrawal of British troops from Ireland and 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 meaningful strategy for overthrow of the capitalist state. New revolutionary socialist parties are more necessary than ever before. Conditions today more favourable than over the preceding three decades. But such
be built by rejecting sectarianism and seeing internal democracy not as a luxury but as a vital necessity. This means the right to organise factions and tendencies.
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Address. ocialist Challenge" 21 February 1980
EDITORIAL
considered 'wet" by his colleagues. The hawks' in
not go tar enough.
public on these proposals, now it appears peace has
been restored and an agreed package will soon see
the light of day. The Fleet Street press is divided on
whether the 'hawks' or 'doves'
debate. But we should be clear on one thing —
whoever won, trade unionists were the losers. and
described how doveish' the 'doves' are:
of on secondary picketing,
could swiftly find himself in jail.
Immunity
It seems that the
refuses to handle "blacked' goods, By Geoffrey Sheridan IT IS unlikely that the miners in South Wales will wait until 10 March the date set for the Welsh general strike - to begin all-out action over jobs.
South Wales NUM is to hold a special area conference on 20 February to consider whether to begin strike action on Monday next, February.
The reason for the conference is a decision by the Port Talbot strike committee that there should be no return to work at the steel plant until they are given job security.
Conference
Last weekend the Llanwern strike committee urged that jobs should be made an issue in the steel strike. This nor means it is likely conference will the recommendation from their executive tat a South Wales should begin on 25 February.
Twenty thousand steelworkers at Port Talbot and Llanwern redundancy in the cutbacks proposed by the Steel Corporation, would lead to the loss of 15-16,000 jobs in the local coal industry
We've been pressurised by our own members to press action, says Don Hayward, South Wales NUM's administration officer. 'Our task is to join the steelworkers. We can't wait until 10 March. in This determination to ensure that action over jobs is coupled with the present steel strike will be bad news for the TUC, which has been doing its best to delay general strike in Wales.
Decimation
Having already postponement from the original date
mid-January, TUC secretary Len Murray persuading his counterpart Wales TUC George Wright, that the problem of the decimation of jobs and communities should be left to negotiations with the government.
Last week's hint by Sir Geoffrey Howe, Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the government might be willing Page 2
IT SEEMS the Tories' Employment Secretary is
the cabinet led by Keith Joseph and Geoffrey Howe believe his proposals on shackling trade unions do
For weeks now the Tories have been arguing in
won the cabinet
This is evident from what the right wing Daily Telegraph's editorial said last Wednesday which
Mr Prior has frequently asserted that the Employment Bill already contains drastic restraints
and he is right. The secondary picket who defied a court order to desist
Such, in a sentence, is the meaning of Prior's proposals. The lifting of legal immunity on what the Tories define as 'secondary pickets' will mean, inevitably, that trades unionists will end up in jail. like?
secondary pickets category is now to be extended to include any worker who
Welsh miners
to vote on
all-out action
to speak to the TUB about the steel corporation's plans was greeted by Len Murray with the announcement that he took such moves seriously Murray Wales TUC to call off its conference scheduled for 27 February, at which plans for the general strike are to be discussed.
their action on 25 February, Murray and the Wales TUC leadership will have their time cut out trying to restrain other workers from joining
•We will be calling on all other unions to back the action by the steelworkers and miners', says Don Haywood.
that the miners' have
miners' strike
face
and this
for strike indefinitely the
secured
general has been the
Extending the attack on unions, Thatcher
announced at the end of last week that the
government plans to reduce strikers social security
payments by the amount they would be 'deemed' to
have been paid out of union funds. Only last month
Thatcher was declaring that such a policy would be
"very, very difficult to implement. Indeed even
Keith Joseph was against such a scheme in 1971
when in a Heath cabinet diseussion he was reported
to have said, 'Beware, we shall have the television
hunting hungry families'.
If such proposals are spearheading the biggest
attack on trade union rights since the start of the
century, it is some comfort that they are being
launched by a government which looks neither so
secure nor so confident as it did a couple of
months ago. The public divisions, the changes of
policy, the hesitation in carrying them out hardly
the 'smack of firm
associated with the Tories.
Credit for this lies overwhelmingly with the steel
strikers. At the start of the year they were seen as
easy piekings by the Tories.
colleagues must now be wondering whether if these
are 'easy' pickings, what will the difficult ones look
The damage the steel strikers have inflicted on
the Tories they have done largely at a rank and file
level. Bill Sirs, the union's general secretary, must
Trades Councils.
of NALGO demonstration.
immediately asked the
If the South Wales miners begin
factory.
SHRESTRENGI
SIDER LYNE DISTRICT
SOLIDARITY with the steel and British Leyland workers were among the themes of the anti-Tory march in
case of all troops and no general.
last few
working day would have. government Militancy
Thatcher and her
other
opportune as well.
TEN THOUSAND CALL
FOR MAGGIE OUT
'MAGGIE OUT was the most popular chant of nearly ten thousand people who took to the streets of three cities on Monday to oppose the Tories' cuts.
Sheffield saw its largest demonstration since the war when 5,000 marched to the city-centre in response to a call from South Yorkshire Association of
Members of the local government union, NAIGO formed the largest confingent, and they marched with other public sector workers, miners, engineering workers, the Eire Brigades Union, and steel strikers. A delegation
members from Lambeth in South, London joined the
Altliough a majority of workers in 14 engineering factories in Sheffield had voted for a day's stoppage, a meeting of AUEW convenors decided last week that there was not sufficient support to call a one-day strike. The farn-out on Monday, however, showed the strength of opposition to the savaging of the
In Manchester, some 3,000 trades unionists, students, and pensioners joined the march led by the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions, and in Liverpool 1,200 demonstrated against unemployment. Among them were Meccano workers who have occupied against the closure of their
Speakers at a rally in Manchester, who included Tony Benn, urged support for the TUC demonstration on 9 May against Prior's anti-union laws, and a resolution urged the TUC to make its 14 May day of action a national strike.
There was loud applause for Brian Molyneaux, from the South Yorkshire steel strike committee, when he invited all those at the rally to join a mass picket of Manchester Steel on Wednesday.
Manchester on Monday
be as surprised as Thatcher at the militancy of his union members. Certainly he has done his best to curb it: first by instructing that Denning must be obeyed, then by suggesting there should be no picketing of private steel, even after Denning was overturned, finally by entering into talks with the steel bosses until his negotiating committee forced him to walk out. The steel strike has been a
The same thing can be said for trade union movement as a whole. The role of the TUC in the
months has been negligible. A few occasional warnings to the government is all its resistance has amounted to. True, they have called a national demonstration against Prior for 9 March, but that being a Sunday it will have nothing like the effect a national demonstration during a
Whafall this amounts to, and what needs to be argued now on the factory floor, in offices, at trade union branches, is that both because of the government's weakness and because of the militaney shown by hundreds of thousands of workers in the steel strike, in South Wales and in
areas and industries, is that a full-scale TUC-led offensive is not only necessary, but it is
Photo: Morning Star
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TITO'S ACHIEVEMENT
TITO in Moscow, 1945..
By Michele Lee JOSIP Broz-Tito was on his
deathbed in Ljubljana,
main town of Slovenia, as we went to press.
Born into a poor peasant family in 1892 in northern Croatia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, Tito became a metal worker and in 1914 was drafted into the Imperial army. As a prisoner witnessed the October Revolution, and in 1919 returned created state OI committed communist.
1920, in the first elections, the young Communist Party (YCP) emerged as the third strongest party and claimed over 80,000 members. afterwards, however, it was banned and driven underground in a red scare of continent-wide dimensions fuelled by the generalised unrest of DUSL-Wall Europe and Yugoslav case, the revolution of 1919.
The ban was never lifted, and the party declined, its leaders imprisoned or exiled. Outsider
An outsider to the intense inner-party conflicts of the '20s and '30s, Tito was appointed party secretary in 1938 after the almost total physical elimination of the existing leadership in the Great Purges. His return to Yugoslavia in 1939 was followed by a growth of party membership about 3,000 in 1939 to about 12,000 in 1941.
In the ensuing years, Tito and his hand-picked Central (most of whom were some twenty
of socialist revolution. the
guerrilla against Franco.
Breach of war he
It became to the newly Yugoslavia
could
popular
Yugoslav
La moment (the Shortly
OLIC the
in the Hungarian
Yugoslav killed, other Communist parties
At one
'road to socialism'.
trom
market elements into
Committee
SLaLC
years younger than him) succeeded in turning the imperialist war into one
By 1945 the role. partisan army was 250,000 strong and in virtual control of the country. An important contribution to its military which victory was made by veterans of the Spanish Civil War who learnt the art and
warfare in the fight
increasingly clear, however, that the Soviet leadership
not tolerate an independent state within its "bloc'. In 1948, grave economic and political provocations. by Moscow led to an open breach.
difficult personal whole suffered in first including Tito himself, suffered those months a series of neurotically induced illnesses) and a dangerous
revolution. Having entered the war under the banner not only of national liberation, but also
Of defence of the Soviet And inste
leadership found must suddenly isolated and boycotted by
and states, at a time when the Cold War was freezing international relations. vision
time Stalin seriously contemplated invasion of the country in order to replace 'the Tito clique" But the Yugoslav regime passed this test of its popularity with enhanced prestige and embarked on a distinct (self-management) was accompanied certain devolution of power by the progressive introduction of
the hitherto the centralised economy. The centralised
vas weakened in tavou of republican centres and a re-definitior include
of the role of the party emphasised its spiritual rather than administrative
Yugoslavia also helped promote a 'non-aligned' movement,
gave it TOOH manoeuvre between the Soviet Union
the West. Although involved in all major policy decisions, Tito always had a preference for foreign affairs, which he conducted through frequent travel abroad.
At the same time he remained emotionally tied to the first land of socialism', which like so other militants of his generation — he had learnt in his young days to revolution. (in this he defered from identify with cause Mao and Castro, for example,
visited Moscow only establishing themselves as supreme political leaders in their countries.) Equality
Any review of Tito's leade
give a special place solution of the country's na question. The Yugoslav revo was successful because it offe
of Yugoslavia base equality of all its peoples. In s te of the revival of nationalist sent..nents in the early 1970s, the fact remains that no ethnic unit can be said to be oppressed with the exception of the large Albanian
th car, goslav , more optimistic days, both the CP and Comintern foresaw the division
Albanian and Macedonian nations being healed by the creation of a Balkan federation, which was to
Yugoslavia, Albania,
Bulgaria and hopefully Greece. This plan was dropped, however, in the face of British and Russian hostility.
to
Product
to
deeply Yugoslav leadership must centre on
the questions of internal democracy, economic planning, internationalism. deformations present in the Yugoslav revolution were a much of Tito's mistakes many Stalinist degeneration of the October
Revolution In replaced the perspective of world world revolution by the monstrous theory
of socialism in one country who The Yugoslavs carried through after their socialist revolution because they
did not accept the own theory; but
itself subsequently, above all after their break with Moscow.
Ever since then, economic and political insecurity has -hip continued to the from its original onal tion alignment' capital. The has often in policy
ed mea.it tactical accommodation with
on
imperialism and collaboration with reactionary feudal regimes, and a sacrifice of proletarian internationalism to possible interests of the Yugoslav state. Passivity Historically, the emergence of a the workers state
of decisively dependent
consolidation of the feature quite typical of proletariar revolutions in the 20th century In 35 years, the working class has
grown
A revolutionary critique of the
and proletarian
But the Yugoslavia
product not So light of
as of the politics.
USSR which
development,
logic of that this fact. it nevertheless asserted Positive
the country's
positive contribution exact a further price working
revolutionary victory,
of 'nonpractice Cuba) that the
or bourgeois
era. the short-term It
Europe
SUCCESS developed militants Yugoslavia was and
on the prior and
YCP achievements, pressing working political stage.
from numerically and economically (though not politically) small minority to a position absolute social dominance. Yet at the same time it has been characterised by a deep political passivity, while an ossified and bureaucratic structure commands the political life of the country in its name.
The original Maoist charges that
was reverting capitalism look a bit thin in the neon
contemporary Chinese Yet there is no doubt that market forces have been allowed far too much freedom: uneven regional
neglected infra. structure, large-scale unemployment and emigration, as well as the return
old-style nationalism into Yugoslav political life all testify to
History will pass a critical but
judgement on Tito's to the international class movement. By the Yugoslav revolution confirmed (like those that came afte it in Albania, China, Vietnam and
Russian revolutior was no historical accident, but the beginning of the end of the capitalist
furthermore showed that was ASTERNE tc revolutionary success. even if this
had eluded its more regions. Revolutionary should support the unity independence of Yugoslavia defend its revolutionary while all the time for the return of the class to the centre of its
Socialist Challenge 21 February 1980, Page 3
Page 4 scan of this page
Is Bill Sirs losing his grip?
PICKETPOWER VICTORY
By Valerie Coultas
IT'S NOT only the Tories who are shocked by the militancy of the steel strikers. The steel union leaders themselves are reeling under the strain.
Steelworkers, looked upon as trade unionists, the power and initiative of the working class in action.
In Sheffield, miners, and steelworkers last threatened a Saltley-gate style mass picket to put a stop to management's campaign at the Hadfields private steel firm to get the workers to scab on the strike.
In Scotland, at Sheerness Steel, mass picketing also took place to convince private sector workers not to scab. Strike leaders on Teesside have been discussing support action witn oter unions in mel ared.
Miners in Yorkshire
By a Sheffield engineering worker
MASS pickets showed their power by forcing the closure Lonrho's Sheffield steel firm, Friday.
Arthur Scargill led 300 miners to join 1,200 steel and workers who then threatened storIl une gales or me cast riecra plant unless the plant was closed. Earlier that morning 600 police had forced 'back to work' ISTC members through the picket.
COSuC marks
victory for the steel strike. Norton, the manager of Hadfields, had received
La secrel from Bill Sirs, ISTC secretary. This gave the Hadfield's management the go-ahead organise a mass meeting. collaboration of right Socialist Challenge 21 February 1980 • Page 4
considering workers to join
prospect of a three-day week.
The rank and file in
previously "moderate have shown
because he
engineers to work.
week Keith Jones, expressed the Sheffield STEIKAS
union
rank and
are convenor, trom 6 other
of Hadfields,
cover the event.
The Tories between the
CIHECCNY
to the craft workers'
that only total
winning the strike.
Derek
dispensation Snetite a
general After throughout the to
with the By
wing ISTC
requests from steel the picket lines.
Dockworkers in Sunderland face the
steel strike is reaching a crucial stage.
the steel unions are clearly making the running in the strike. The Rotherham strike committee has even called for Sirs, general secretary of the Iron and he Steel Trades Confederation, to resign
tried give 'dispensation' to Hadfields to return
WOHIOG an ISTC official, feelings of the when said: 'Having won the legal battle in the House of Lords it was ludicrous to allow workers in the private sector to weaken the strike at a crucial time.*
priding Tse T on its ledaers moderation is facing a revolt from its
file which threatens to permanently transform the balance of Porkshire strikers have set the pace the union. The South
Mick Adams. Observers private plants were invited to this meeting and press and television were given every tacility to
hoped that divisions privalc and public strike. sector, and any sell-out negotiated by
leaders would smash the strike. They were wrong.
BSC strikers are now convinced stoppage movement of steel can lay the basis of
The next step is rank and file control of the dispute through a national strike committee strike. which is being pushed by militants in
AOTaOR 45 ZETCSLS week, the picket became more and more of a focus
Thursday there 1,500 trade unionists outside Hadfield's
throughout the strike.
But what about the man at the centre of the dispute, Bill Sirs? The cumnonaran uron tedocr wno ukes to run a tight ship' seems to be losing his grip.
Sirs, former Hartlepool butcher's boy, no doubt considers he has made good. One of a family of ten
was farmed out to grandmother until he was 14 to 'stop the means test man taking money off my father's unemployment allo-
He started working in steel after being on the dole for a number of years. He told the Sunday Times it was 'one thing my father did for me'.
Today Bill Sirs lives in a fine house in Hatfield part of London's commuter belt; hobnobs with TUC
and top politicians; smart suits and is driven around by his chauffeur in a Rover 3500. He is also a fitness freak and has managed to find time during the steel strike to play squash with a top steel civil servant. East Hecla plant. Brown Barclays, the other Hadfields plant that has not received so much press attention, was already out again by that time.
Eventually the East workers took the hint and voted to
The events at Hadfields have posed the trade union movement in Sheffield some problems that need to be tackled head-on
No. 28 Confederation of the Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions will need give a clear lead to overcome the divisions between the public and private sector in the steel
Private sector workers need to be motivated not only by calls for solidarity but also by a view of what the future of the steel industry is as a whole in Britain.
The unions need an offensive strategy. Jobs can be saved through
Despite being reduced to tears by the solidarity of Welsh miners and steelworkers during the one-day all-out strike, and saying he would go to a BeCCu BIDIS HOS HOLOs
his sympathy for management. In the tradition of steel union bosses, prides himself on the principle that what is good for the company is good his for the workers.
Sympathy
Talking to the Sunday Times, he expressed management. getting low wages, just won't care Managers will have no control over them. problem is work discipline rather than the poor living Wedrs MICmOCIS
Bill, Joseph is a nice man in his way very responsible union leader. magistrate he was in a particularly sticky position worksharing. Private company books should available to workers
to develon Heclas nationalisation of the entire industry rather than allow Villiers and Derek Norton to dictate sackings when and where they choose.
In Wales solidarity has given a massive boos to the steelstrikers in both public and private sector. Throughout the length and breadth of Britain that solidarity will be crucial if the steel strike is to remain solid and be brought to a successful conclusion.
The Tories are not the invincible force they appear to be. Class-wide actions, such as those at Hadfields CeOIsLaLc the organised labour - Britain.
That power must be backed by
private
The and
bourgeois
men.
sympathy Men in the industry him.
For the steel union leader, the
standards of his
steelworkers who thinks that "Sir Keith
is a As a be ready to law throne and public policies be made in the steel this world the case tor
building a and in Yorkshire defend
jobs.
barrage tomatoes and
arrived to
up a continuous hall demanding the 'Maggie powei movement in WItn Closure
intervened to try and prevent the
called out in sector being solidarity with BSC workers.
There are many excellent private companies and I felt a bit hurt that we had to bring them into the dispute he told one reporter. "Reasonable
responsible" working class leaders like Bill Sirs are courted by the
press, which loves to present the 'human' faces of such
While the pressure is on Sirs he Will be torced to some extent to blai the game to keep his ranks behind
But as soon as the pressure is released he will be running to the steel corporation bosses and the Tories to negotiate away jobs for a lousy pay
That's why Sheffield are right to call for a national strike committee that will place the struggle in the hands of the rank-and-file, and - if necessary
displace Sirs from his that can counter the paternalism of the Derek Nortons of
who pretend that the workers in the private sector have common interests with management and instead emphasise the common interests of all steelworkers have in
strong union that can both living standards and
OTTRE eggs, rotten flour bombs greeted BSC boss Sir Charles Villiers, as he
address a Middlesbrough on Thursday. Three hundred Teesside steel workers kept
chant outside the O20, er ce", an: and Out, Out, Delegations from plants threatened
-carrcu placaras- WELI 'Unite and fight for Consett".
Page 5 scan of this page
It'stime the TUC thought about it — they can't go on selling jobs forever
STRIKE NEWS
accept. The pickets outside had other ideas. THE BRITISH Steel Corporation and those union leaders who want to rush to a settlement - any settlement
- received yet another decisive slap in the face from steelworkers Thursday last week.
The 200-strong Coordinating Committee, representing the smaller craft unions involved in the steel strike, met in London and overwhelmingly rejected that their negotiators had the previous week.
A miserable 10 per cent on the basic and a blank cheque to sell jobs was the offer originally accepted by craft union leaders. But not for long!
WYN BEVAN, Union convenor at BSC Port Talbot,
Photo: P.M. Grant
ПИЕШ ENITY'S O STRENST CUNT CORPE DISTRICT OVER 500 angry craft workers in the steel industry gathered outside Congress House in London last Thursday to picket the meeting of the National Craft Coordinating Committee. The delegates to the NCCC had come to London to discuss the latest offer from BSC which union leaders had recommended they
The message to those talking inside was loud and clear: 'No sell out — no job loss', they chanted. If the delegates at the meeting had been in any doubt as to what union members thought of the offer they had no excuse once they
Steel craft union negotiations
Ine. mittee met last week.
National Craft
the offer CaLL through accepted streamlining operation. to 12,000 jobs at Port Llanwern. This
Port Talbot.
Electricians' MECCANO
SI PPORT
again. talked to Socialist Challenge before
National Coordinating Com-
6 Apart from the size of the
increase on the basic, which is only 10 per cent, the main thing that we are opposed to is the iniquitous clauses in the agreement which would allow the British Steel Corporation to
the whole its
This would include the loss of up
Talbot and would mean an immediate loss of 300 electricians at
This offer is an attempt to drive a wedge into the solidarity of the strike.
We have a unanimous mandate from
trade unionists.
ILL
arrived at Congress House.
our committee to use every means to
oppose this deal, reject
streamlining or slimming proposals
and to protect jobs
As far as we are concerned ans
agreement now reached with the BSC
must contain complete guarantees of
no redundancy and no job loss.
It's about time that the TUC stood
and thought. The unions can't go on
selling jobs. The TUC has a record of
doing this from the '20s onwards. We
cant't have it this time.
There will be a bus load
electricians going to London for the
TUC rally and march on 9 March.
There will also be a trainload of trade
unionists from the Swansea and Port
Talbot area. factory have been on strike for union recognition for several months.
been slow off the mark in organising support for the pickets. struggles was union solidarity.
DO 20% Wyn Bevan was outside Congress House, together with several coachloads
of other steelworkers from South Wales. He thought that the officers of the
NCCC should be forced to resign if they dared accept the offer.
But in the end there was no need for resignations or further anger. The
NCCC roundly rejected the offer by a majority of over 100, and made it quite
clear to BSC that they would need a lot more than 10 per cent to get them back
Of course we any unanimous support for the Welsh general strike March. They've tried to buy off the miners in South Wales with the new subsidy on coal imports. This, and the Development Agency, pathetic £48m for unions with cold comfort. CULCCELCO attempt We want a positive commitment from the Welsh and British TUC to of protect all jobs in industry. government want - which it unions and the T have got to stand and fight against this government all the way. CHIX WORKERS WILL WIN! OVER a hundred local trade unionists picketed the Chix sweet factory in Slough on Wednesday 13 February. The mainly Asian women workers at the
The dispute has won mass support from the Asian community of Slough, but the union concerned, the General and Municipal Werkers' Union, has
Jerry McMullen, GMWU regional officer, told pickets how management had been trying to farm out their distribution to other factories. These attempts had been stopped by flying pickets and solidarity action from fellow
A group of workers from the Meccano factory in Liverpool attended the picket. The Meccano factory is presently under occupation by the workforce which is determined to hold off management's plans for closure. Frank Bloor, GMWU convenor at Meccano, told the pickets that the key to victory in both
mittee
week steelworkers flagging. pickets Hadfields
Yorkshire, frustration.
Confederation
are giving scheduled for 10
the
the Welsh
part of a buy oft
of the appeal was:
street', he said.
If the won't give us what we won't - then the 77 days?
Cracks
showed widespread
the dilemma steelworkers engineers
finished products
movement
sectors.
Fighting
Whether
the Tory
and kicked out.
The
Socialist Challenge 21 February 1980
The nuts
and
bolts of
struggle
By Ron Thompson
Chairperson shop stewards com
Eclipse Tools, Sheffield
AS THE steel strike enters its eighth
the determination the no sign of But there are signs of
increasing anxiety about how long the
strike is taking to bite. The growing
dissatisfaction with the way the strike
is being conducted was expressed by
the South Yorkshire strike committee
when it passed a resolution of censure
against Bill Sirs last week.
The recent pitched battles between and police outside only express the
militancy of the steelworkers in South
but also express their
Frustration
That frustration was highlighted
at a recent meeting, about 200 strong,
of shop stewards and officials of the
of Shipbuilding and
Engineering Unions in Sheffield. An
appeal was made to the meeting b
Bernard Connolly, from the Nationa
Crafts Coordinating Committee of
steel industry, and backed by
Keith Jones of the ISTC, for the
Engineering Unions to step up thei
solidarity boycotts to cover all stee
products rather than just raw steel.
clear the engineering workers what the object
•We want to see you out on the The reaction of many of the engineering shop stewards was that this was an unrealistic demand. How could they ask their members to virtually lay themselves off within
The discussion which followed
signs OT cracks in the support which SECCI workers have been receiving since the beginning of the strike. It summed up
now facing they cannot win unless the strike begins to hit key sectors of manufacturing industry, at the same time they need the support of the very workers that will be thrown out of work by the strike!
The strike is at a crucial stage — it is now recognised by most workers that the steelworkers fight is a struggle against the Tory government. That recognition has to be turned into
Bernard Connolly's wish to see the
on the SUCCES go beyond a discussion about what are
and what constitutes raw steel, and become an explicit call for an all-out onslaught against the Tories. This is how the rank and file leadership of the working class
should motivate the spreading of the steel strike to other
nuts and bolts are finished products or raw steel does not matter. What does matter is that
government which the steelworkers are fighting is defeated
logical outcome of the extension of the steel strike to othe sectors of workers is a general strike The steelworkers should take the lead in raising precisely this call.
Page 5
Page 6 scan of this page
What next for the National Abortion Campaign NO COMPROMISES WITH CORRIE
SEXUAL POLITICS
BAD*% TASTE SY CORMAC THE CAMPAIGN Against Corrie started out with what looked like an impossible task. The Corrie Bill threatened to dismantle nearly all the gains of the '67 Abortion Act, and with a long session of Parliament allowing more time for debate, and an even larger anti-abortion majority than usual in the Commons it
DAVID STEEL, Gerald Vaughan (Minister of Health) and Stan Orme (shadow health spokesperson) have all come out in favour of a restriction of the '67 Abortion Act to bring in an upper time limit of 24 weeks. Even the 'prochoicers* in the House of Commons divided on this issue.
The National Abortion Campaign, which over the past five years has built a massive campaign in defence of the '67 Act, is opposed to any restrictions on a woman's choose.
We have to step up the campaign against all compromises. There is a danger that the sense of relief if Corrie's Bill as a whole is rejected may blind us to the necessity of fighting any restriction to the 67 Act.
Choice
NAC is the only section of the abortion movement which clearly stands restrictions on women's choice. It has plans for a Bill that really would embody a woman's right to choose - we should start campaigning for that kind of positive legislation as a counter to all talk of reducing time limits.
The National Abortion declaration of aims spells out the kind of things we are fighting for (as opposed to what we are fighting against): day-care abortion clinics, changes in the NHS, no time limits and so on. It explains NAC's positions and why it is vital that no compromises are accepted.
It is not just that Corrie must be stopped, nor simply that we must resist all attempts to reduce the time limits, but we have to take our
campaign forward towards winning legislation for a woman's right to choose. The dynamism of the campaign that has been built up against
Corrie should not be allowed to dissipate but be turned on to a more aggressive footing.
What are the steps towards achieving
positive campaign? Initially we
'women's right to choose' contingents on the
International Women's Day and May
demonstrations this year.
Conference
In the next two or three months NAC will be holding its national conference. For the last
few years the event has not been very well
attended, but this year there are enormous
possibilities to take the campaign forward.
Let's aim for a conference as big as in '76, with
at least a thousand people there.
Women's groups. students,
and community groups - all the people who
have actively campaigned against Corrie -
should be invited along to discuss and debate
the way to build a mass campaign around NAC
to win legislation for a women's right to
choose.
The Labour Party and the TUC are already
committed to 'free abortion on request'
now we have to encourage them to turn words
into action.
Socialist Challenge 21 February 1980
YOU ARE, OF COURSE, ENTITLED TO YOUR DISGUSTING VIEWS ABOUT YOUR SO-CALLED RIGHTS BUT DON'T FORGET THAT MANY, MANY FINE WOMEN VEHEMENTLY S
DIGAGREE WITH YOU!
are
right to for no
Campaign's
choice.'
If the Labour Party were to pledge itself to positive legislation in its next manifesto then our fight would be taken forward considerably. It wouldn't guarantee that Labour government would actually introduce such legislation, but it would strengthen the hand of the pro-choice movement. this The Labour Party conference next autumn
have still seems a long way off, but it is not too early
to start putting down Day constituency Labour Parties and trade union branches calling the amendments to the '67 Act that do get through and for a manifesto commitment to a woman's right to choose.
The main focus for the fight for positive legislation will be the conference on this subject that has been called for the autumn. We should fight for regional TUC conferences on positive legislation as part of the build up to the autumn conference trade unions The Campaign Against
holding a forum on 1 March to discuss the future of the fight against Corrie. CAC must obviously continue organising support against any restrictions to the '67 Act, explaining the importance of refusing all deals. broad forces that support CAC the role of NAC is continue position for no restrictions and to win people to the ongoing fight for a woman's right to
Page 6
looked unstoppable.
But now, eight months after the Bill first appeared in the Commons, success seems within our grasp. We haven't won yet - there are manoeuvres to win more time to discuss the Bill alongside talk of compromises from MPs on both sides of JUDE WATSON: "The coming months will make or break the mass campaign for women's
the next NAC.
resolutions
repeal of any
strength to win on their own. labour movement
Corrie will be build campaigns. dominated' trade unions.
Within the
to press for its own
I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU, SARAH, BUT I'M BEGINNING TO FIND THESE ANTI-ABORTION MARCHES A BIT OF A BORE! facing the abortion movement.
what the options are.
Such
and set up if
In
We want to win the masses of people who have campaigned against Corrie to the fight for positive legislation. We want them to join
Within the broad abortion movement there will always be differences about how to win abortion rights. NAC, though led by women, itself. has many male supporters and members, and the campaign has emphasised taking the issue declaration into the labour movement. NAC thinks that the most likely road to success is through the joint action of the women's movement and the labour movement on the abortion issue.
Women alone are certainly fearless fighters for their rights, but they do not have the
The politics behind such a strategy differs from that of some women who tried to storm Parliament on 8 February or those who seized the front of the demonstration on 28 October.
Not all the women who did these things saw it as a complete alternative strategy, but some sections do see direct confrontations with the police and spontaneous actions as the way to
The same people often disagree with forging alliances with the male
Fridays
NAC thinks that direct actions should complement the ongoing mass campaign, and that they are the exact opposite of 'doing your earth, own thing' in a way which cuts across the campaign in an undemocratic and confusing there!
the debate - but now is a good time to look ahead and examine the choices
JUDE WATSON, a member of the National Abortion Campaign steering committee and of the IMG, discusses
manner. Direct actions must be well planned and their timing decided in a democratic way or they end in unnecessary arrests, heavy fines and splits in the mass campaign.
spontaneous actions are alsc alienating for many women, especially those who may be on their very first political event
who are not prepared for physical confrontation with the police.
Many women who went to 'storm" Parliament on 8 February literally did not realise that the police would use force and violence to stop them getting in. We may think such violence is unjustified but it is how the police always behave — the women who led that escapade had a responsibility to warn the other woinen of what was likely to happen.
A further difference within the abortion campaign is over the role of illegal or 'selfhelp' abortion in fighting for a better law. Networks
Some sections of the women's movement are calling for illegal abortion networks to be
the Corrie Bill goes through. countries where abortion has been unavailable for years defying the law has proved useful in pressurising the state for abortion rights in law and practice.
Italy, the USA and France such networks have been used in this way, but Britain is in a different situation. Clandestine networks would be limited to women in the know' - probably white, middle class women in the women's movement. It would take years to establish a network with mass pressure and this should not be done at the expense of fighting for a law for all. However big it might become, such a network is not a solution in
NAC, on the other hand, should organise a of doctors and nurses who are
willing to break the law if the Bill is passed, and we should also be ready to defend any doctor or woman who is prosecuted for
performing an illegal abortion.
But NAC must urge the women's and labour movements to campaign together for
positive legislation. We must not end up with
the women's movement organising illegal abortions and the labour movement organising
The coming months will make or break the
mass campaign for women's choice. We have
to ensure that we take everyone who has
campaigned against Corrie into a campaign for a positive law.
Finally, on the Corrie Bill front there is
some bad news. It appears that a further three
may become available for discussion
of the Bill. But we are undaunted. Events will
begin at Lincoln's Inn Fields at 6pm ever
Friday until this Bill is wiped off the face of th
Watch the press or ring NAC (01-278
0153) for details. But most important - be
Page 7 scan of this page
THE STRUGGLE FOR BLACK LIBERATION
ideas
ABOUT 1.75 million black people live in Britain today. The vast majority either settled in Britain during the post-war period, or are descendants of those who did. changed the political face of Britain, and that process is continuing.
Treated as second class, citizens, people suffer oppression which is met with indifference and even condoned by the labour movement and its racist leaders.
When resisting the racists, black people have been forced to act independently of the
TO SAY how a united black liberation movement can be built in this country, we must first know what sort of movement we are trying to build. It must be independent black liberation movement.
Independent from what? independent of the state, for it is the imperialist British state which ensures that black people remain second class citizens.
Everywhere black people turn they meet racism from politicians, state officials, employers, trade union officials, from ordinary working class people at work and on the streets.
But racist ideology - the ideology which holds black and non-white peoples to be 'naturally inferior' to the white races — cannot simply be deteated through argument education, because it has material roots.
From its earliest days, the British capitalist class embraced racism. The early slave trade and the super-exploitation of slave labour in The American colomes provided capital for early industrial expansion in Britain.
This bloody trade in human beings was justified on the grounds that the African peoples were 'sub-human'.
ica and Asia, aires or the violent Africa and Ane British embrace of the Empire, brusn capitansmn win cheap labour and raw materials. It was justified by notions of the mother country civilsing unese chua-nke people living in the dark ages.
Divisions
Today the racists use identical arguments to justify Britain's imperialist role in Zimbabwe. They claim that the people of Zimbabwe 'need" the white settler minority.
Not only did racism serve to divide white British workers from the peoples of the colonial world, it also served to create divisions in the British working class itself.
The supel-pronts achieved by exploitation of the third world enabled the most organised and skilled workers lo considerable concessions from the capitalist class.
These workers began to see their future prosperity as oeing assured by continuing dominance as an imperialist power, cherishing their privileges against the unskilled
battle
They have
black an
First, and
violent furnished
British
win
and unorganised sections of the working class in Britain.
Britain's Since the Second World War, racism has
again well served the capitalist class; this time on British soil. In the 1950s and '60s, cheap
labour movement, relying only on themselves to begin their struggle for liberation.
Unlike large sections of the white working class, who have wrongly come to see their interests as lying in the continued prosperity of Britain as an imperialist nation, the black people living here strongly identify with the march of the third world against imperialism.
That is why no socialist can afford to ignore the struggles of black people decisive force for internationalism within the working class and will play a major role in
expanding social services.
place, the - they are a
in Britain. labour was required in the clothing metal production, and food industries, as well as the
The availability of one traditional section of the reserve army of labour - women -
breaking the hold of racism and national chauvinism among the white working class
At its conference which has just taken
International Marxist Group discussed how this new situation in British politics needs to be incorporated into our strategy for socialist revolution in Britain. On the following three pages we examine the major task which the IMG is setting itself in the course of elaborating that strategy - aiding in the building of a united black liberation movement
declined as white-collar employment rose and rationalised production involved shift overtime working, providing jobs for women Continued overleaf Socialist Challenge,, 21 February 1980 Page 7
Page 8 scan of this page
THE STRUGGLE FOR BLACK LIBERATION
Continued from Page 7
The capitalist class turned to the New Commonwealth' for its reserve army of labour. Racism again supplied the justification for the super-exploitation of immigrant Britain.
Discrimination in jobs, housing, education and the social services has ensured that black people remain ghettoised in the worst jobs. Living in the inner-city areas and industrial conurbations, escape the role of second class citizen allotted to them.
While the state itself discriminates against black people, it also resistance to racism.
State and police harassment under the guise of searching for illegal immigrants is used to intimidate and demoralise black people. denial of basic rights of appeal and legal aid to those picked up for deportation adds to the insecurity of black people.
The militancy of the youth is met by blanket police operations in black areas; in Southall, for example, when the Asian and West Indian community opposed a National Front meeting during the general election, and in Notting Hill during the annual carnival. And it is countered by the use of arbitrary laws such as Sus. Insults
The racist insults and violence which are an everyday occurrence in black people's lives are directly stimulated and encouraged by racist politicians and state officials.
For these reasons, therefore, we must reject any strategy for ending the oppression of black people which is based on an alliance with capitalist politicians and state would be to make an alliance of the oppressed and the oppressor.
Rather than looking to the capitalist parties for allies, black people in increasingly turned to organisations.
Despite the support for racist immigration controls by the Wilson ard Callaghan Labour governments; despite trade union support for tighter quotas for work permits in the catering industry and their acceptance of discrimination in jobs, black people have thrown their vote behind Labour, and the evidence suggests that
membership is higher workers than it is among whites.
A survey conducted by the Commission for Racial Equality 24 constituencies with population showed the following support for the Labour Party in the last general election: West Indians and Asians, 90 per cent; Asians, 86 per cent; and whites, 50 percent.
There can be unity between
and black people struggling to defeat a common enemy capitalist state which
of white oppression of black people.
It is this alliance which socialists must seek to create, and it can be done. But it will not come about while the white working class gives its support to the bourgeois state and opposes black people. Unity
To create unity in struggle it is necessary first to recognise the divisions which exist. Black people cannot hold back their struggles until the white workers understand the need for an alliance against a common enemy.
They have to begin to fight now on their
account. Only by confronting the labour demands for its active support in struggles, will a genuine unity be created.
Far from dividing white and black workers, as some socialists claim, movement independent of the white workers' organisations would create the best conditions for uniting black and revolutionary struggle. It will be black people themselves who lead the liberation, or there will be no liberation.
We can go further. As socialists we believe that only the overthrow of capitalism can begin to establish the conditions for defeating racism. Only when the material basis for destroyed the non-white peoples is ended finally possible to defeat racist ideology.
Only the capitalist
defends that system of
destroyed will black liberation be possible. The strides towards eradicating racism that have been made in Cuba are testimony to this.
But the black people of Britain will only be convinced that this is the case when they see that WOrKerS conditions on their liberation; that the labour
movement respects the right of black people to
determine their own tuture
themselves whether they wish to build a new
multi-national state
morNing class.
Socialist Challenge
WOrKeTS In
they have little opportunity to
acts to break their
The officials.
Britain have the workers' among black
parliamentary high non-white
the white of Britain the
-CHIS LICS both the
wOrKers and
doing that, and movement with those
La black liberation
white workers in a
fight for their
racism is - when imperialist exploitation of
will it be
which exploitation,
movement places no
atheir
and decide for
alongside the white
21 February 1980 Page 8
The labour movement must say to black people: "We will join with you in defeating our common enemy, the imperialist state, for that is the pre-condition for your and our liberation.
"We wish to create a workers' state with you so as to build a socialist society you wish to join with us in this must be your decision. We only ask that you judge us by how we act in the course of our alliance to defeat the common enemy.
Without black people having their own independent choosing their own route to liberation selecting their own leaders, it is not possible for them to determine their own future.
If a black liberation movement has to be independent of the imperialist state and its parties, and able to act independently without waiting for the labour movement, it must also be a united black liberation movement.
When black people came to Britain in large numbers after the war they brought with them
traditions, cultures, languages and even political formations.
The continued links of black people with their country of origin through their family, political organisations, and agencies, their tendency to be concentrated
AS.
BLAIR
•PEACH
FOUGHT THE
MNAZIS....
THE POLICE
MURDERED HIM
DISBAND THE SPG
together in
of these
but whether
the
deciding and
and
parties.
oppressed
religions, Commonwealth
Committee
government ume agam
SOUTHALL
NOMENS & GIRLE
MATIO
the inner-citv arreds necessity of collective self-help in the face of a hostile white society, all enabled the retention
national traditions despite the pressures of British society to abandon them.
This is most clearly revealed in the growth of welfare and political organisations of black people based on different national minorities
Indian Workers Association, Pakistani and Bangladeshi associations, Afro-Caribbean groupings. These reflect the divisions between the national minorities and within them, such as the split in the WAs along the line of the split in the Indian Communist
But in spite of these divisions between the national minorities, they suffer essentially the same oppression in British society - they are
black people. This increasingly led to the formation of political alliances between the different black peoples.
In 1961 this developed in opposition to the
Immigrants brought the formation of the Co-ordinating
Against Racial Discrimination.
Similar coalitions have been created time and
the most recent being the Campaign Against Racist Laws,
and the
growing
repatriation and citizens, the need for
minorities.
the
the
For Pakistani youth movements decade.
their own organisations.
has
people.
which
this page
All photos: G. M. COOKSON [Socialist Challenge]
With each new generation born in Britain. grouting y facing the clamour of the right for up as citizens of this country
treated as second class BaCK political unity against their oppression in Britain increasingly overrides the divisions between the national
One example is the formation of Asian Youth Movements - rather than, say, Indian
in the last
For this reason we are confident that it is possible to build a united black liberation movement; one based on united political action between the black peoples which respects the right of the various national minorities to retain
That political unity can be forged by united campaigns on the crucial issues confronting black people as black
The policies for which the IMG believes it is necessary to fight in order to build a united black liberation movement are presented on
The fight to build such a movement alsc necessitates the formation of a new leadership. In particular it will, require challenging the
Page 9 scan of this page
THE STRUGGLE FOR BLACK LIBERATION
Black people
mustbefree
to determine
their own
future through
their own
organisations.
The task of
revolutionary
socialists is to
unconditionally
defend that
right
strategy of the existing reformist black leaders. Their argument is essentially as follows:
Black people are only per percent of the population in Britain so they need allies. They must seek allies from the labour movement. especially the labour leaders. The latter cannot always be relied on, so we have to organise ourselves for mass action to pressurise these leaders and sometimes that will involve standing independent candidates to those of the Labour Party.
But we must not let that action go too far in case we frighten off the labour leaders altogether.
The concessions we expect from the labour leaders, the argument goes, are aimed at making discrimination illegal; stronger Race Relations Acts and greater involvement of the black leaders in policing those laws are needed.
SHOTE UNIS strategy
subordinates the struggle of black people to gaining an alliance with the leaders of the labour IT CHICHL with the objective reforming capitalism.
Increasingly, however, new activists has emerged among the black peoples; activists who reject this strategy. After seeing
the labour leaders promise a lot and deliver little, their silence on the Southall show trials, and their defending these activists consider that black people can no longer rely on such allies.
They are saying that black people must rely only on themselves; that they must decide on their own demands and objectives without tailoring them to labour leaders; and that they should go out and fight for these demands now
In the past this approach has been taken by organisations such as the RAAS and the Black Peoples Alliance. It has now stimulated those involved in the Asian youth movements and black women's groups, and it has led to the formation of committees which stand against racist violence.
It will be from these activists that a new and militant leadership for movement will come. To be able to win the support of the majority of black people they will need to offer a credible alternative to the strategy offered by the black reformist leaders.
There is a discernible among the present activists which correctly says that black people must organise themselves to fight, that they should not tailor their demands to suit the struggle is against imperialism, but this does not fully answer how a revolutionary alliance is to be built with the white workers.
While the struggles peoples of the world weaken and paralyse the imperialist ruling class
Britain, final imperialist British state can only be achieved by the black and white working class in Britain itself.
White
It is not enough to say that black people will struggle on their own account and then see who supports them - they have to go out and fight for that support, to win the white workers away from their present racist leaders.
The task of socialists in fighting to build a black liberation movement is to show how a genuine unity with the white workers can be forged; to show how it is possible for the black peoples to fight for united action with the abour leaders at the same time as seeking to win their followers among the white workers to giving active support objectives of the black movement
As the next steps towards building a black liberation movement, the IMG must fight for the following:
First, to unite the black peoples as a whole in action. The broadest possible mobilisations of black people can only be overcoming the divisions between the national minorities, and through a consistent struggle to force the reformist leaders into action.
This has been most successfully achieved around specific cases in a number of localities, leading to une creation committees - the Ahmed defence committee ALCHISE campaign in Oldham against the deportation of police victimisation,
Abdul Azad, the campaign against racism in nightclubs in Birmingham.
Even where it is not possible to force the reformist leaders into united defence bodies of this kind, a consistent fight for joint actions such as demonstrations and necessary, as nas Newham Defence Committee.
Self-organisation
Secondly, these campaigns should aim to increase political organisation among black people in a struggle for liberation.
This requires moving beyond the limited welfare, social, and organisations which currently exist, towards organisations which can involve the mass of black people in a day-to-day way — at work, in the unions, and cultural institutions, and as tenants.
Thirdly, mobilise black people to force the working class and the movement to act in defence of the rights of black people.
The successful Abdul Cathan, Trades which involved Oldham Council, possibilly achieving struggles of black people over the past few years have already had an impact inside the WICH labour movement.
The resistance of black youth to blanket police invasions in Lewisham, Notting Hill, of and Southall resulted in Labour's election manifesto pledge to This was for opportunist electoral reasons, but layer of it opens the way to force the opportunists to act on their words or face a fight to remove them from the leadership of the labour movement.
refusal to support black people themselves against racist violence,
what is acceptable to the local for self-defence
La black liberation
political current
labour leaders, and that their
of the non-white against imperialism
overthrow the their oppression.
operations in 1975.
achieved by racists
united
the defence
affirmative action.
pickets been carried out by the
class and the British state. and self-
part political
own organisations
in schools, colleges, youth clubs
the campaigns need to aim to
white organised labour
Azad defence the ANL and indicates the this. Indeed, the repeal HERE Dus laws.
STOP RACIST MURDERS
ID MORE POLICE RACISM:
Here to stay,
here to fight for...
*Opposition to all immigration controls Tory politicians continually try to tell black people that the tightening of immigration controls is in their interests since it 'allays real fears' among white people in Britain.
In reality the tightening of immigration controls is because the ruling class has decided its reserve army of labour is sufficient now that the post-war boom has ended, and because it provides a means of heightening racism among the white workers.
Each Immigration Act has been racist introducing 'non-racist immigration controls. *For the repeal of blanket and unspecific laws such as Sus, and an end to blanket police operations in black areas; disband the Special Patrol Group There are widespread police operations to search and arrest black people under the pretext of hunting for illegal immigrants. These laws are just one means by which the state maintains constant harassment and repression of black people with the aim of breaking resistance to
Thus it is in the areas with the highest concentration of black people that the use of the Sus law is most widespread. For example, 17,000, the SPG stopped and questioned 14,000 people and made 400 arrests in blanket
*For self-defence against racist and fascist violence Racist and fascist violence is a constant feature of the lives of black people in Britain, and it is met with indifference by the state since it aids the intimidation of black people. Only when such attacks provoke a mass upsurge among black people does the state intervene against the
Short of that it is black people themselves who are victimised for defending themselves. *For an end to discrimination against black people — for affirmative action programmes to end second class citizenship While it is easy to point to the cumulative effects of racism in jobs, housing, and education, it is hard to pin down individual acts of discrimination in these areas. Attempting to end discrimination by putting a stop to individual racist actions is the trap of liberals and reformists who see things in individualistic, human rights terms rather than as social issues
The only way to end these types of discrimination is through the demands taken up and fought for by the Afro-American, Chicano, and Women's movements in the USA -
Only through affirmative action can the black and anti-racist movements go beyond purely formal (and fictional) equality and fight for actual equality *For an end to imperialist oppression of the peoples of the third world The most effective solidarity that workers in the imperialist countries can provide for the anti-imperialist struggles around the world is to challenge the imperialist role of the British ruling
The objective of campaigns in solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe, Iran, or Ireland, must be to limit the room of British imperialism to manoeuvre by mobilising the labour movement against imperialist intervention. *For the right of black people to determine their own future through their
Black people must be free to determine their own future through their own organisations. The . task of revolutionary socialists is to unconditionally defend that right.
Recognising national rights extends to other questions, such as housing and language. Take for example the Greater London Council, which proposed to create all-Bengali areas 'for their protection'. It is clear that the only consistent, democratic policy is to demand that Bengalis themselves must decide on their housing.
We defend the right of national minorities to learn their own languages, and to have facilities in schools, the media, libraries, etc to use their own language.
We are absolutely opposed to any policy of integration which forces black people to abandon their own languages and cultures. *There will be no black liberation without women's liberation Black women will increasingly play a central role in the struggle for black liberation. This has already been demonstrated in the workplace struggles of black people
The newly-emerging black women's movement is beginning to play a leading role in promoting actions against the sexist and racist immigration controls (the AWAZ pickets over "virginity testing') and police and state harassment
The black women's movement has a vital and legitimate role to play within the black
- there is no possibility of the ruling class in Lewisham, which has a black population of about
Socialist Challenge 21 February 1980 Page 9
Page 10 scan of this page
THE STRUGGLE FOR BLACK LIBERATION Black people as an oppressed nationality
THE Fourth International, the organisation of Trotskyists, regards the black people of the United States as an oppressed nationality minority. We are not alone in this - an important section of the Afro-American masses regard themselves as an oppressed nationality.
For us this is the key thing, for we have no pre-conceived notions as to what constitutes a nationality minority. It is primarily a matter of how they see themselves. As Trotsky wrote: 'We do not obligate the negroes to become a nation; if they are then it is a question of their consciousness, that is, what they desire and strive for...
That black people were striving to become a nation was evidenced at the time Trotsky said this by the Garvey movement which had over 1. million adherents in the USA. It has been shown even more clearly after the growth of the black nationalist movement in the 60s. Fixed
Trotsky based himself present consciousness of black people, the objective factors which could lead in that direction. He argued that nations were not fixed for all time, but were created objective conditions.
'In any case,' he wrote, 'the suppression of the negroes (under slavery and after) pushes them towards a political and national unity...
The Socialist Workers Party in the United States, of International, conditions which into a nation in the light of experience of the SEXUES
*Black people America as slaves. They came here speaking different languages. totally different levels of historical and cultural development. Ency- came here different nations, and totally different tribes,
totally different Certainly none of these characteristics was a common denominator.
"Their common denominator became their servitude, the destruction languages the destuction cultures by their slave masters. What happened was that on American soil, conditions, these black slaves became a new nationality not directly linked to their original nations or tribes, which languages, nao no common bond waatsoever and often didn't know each other. Afro
"That was the origin of what today we call the Afro-American nationality.
These unique conditions welded the American Indians into a nationality
are not repeated importantly black come here as slaves.
savery immediate and violent suppression aspects of their original social life, including the family and/or tribal people coming to Britain brought with them the culture, religion, language and traditions of their nation or nationality.
While these are under forces accept language, black people have been able to resist and maintain them, even if in a modified form. Continued links with their country of origin continues to reinforce those traditions.
SCULICE national minorities.
STILIST society, however, distinguish between black people according to their national origin. black people.
Different aspects of that oppression affect different nationalities in different ways or even to different degrees. For example, the strong family network of the Asian people Socialist Challenge
world
For national or nations! not only on the but or
nationalities and
material certain
the Fourth have spelt out the objective were forming black people
were dragged to North
They came here from
from totally
sections of Africa.
of their native of their native
under unique
spoke different
LABORATE black
which also
Britain. Most people in Britain did not
black people suffered an
of
Black under the SLEUCLUTC.
they
threat as society
British
Black country LOSE GE national does not
oppresses them
common makes
21 February 1980 Page 10
them more subject to the forcible separation
immigration controls. But common to all is that they are easily distinguishable
are black.
This common oppression as blacks is even more apparent as each generation of Britishborn youth tries to grapple with life in Britain — they are British yet they are not accepted by
society. They 'return to', yet the debate over repatriation continually hangs over them.
While the traditions of the
minorities continue to divide the black communities in Britain, oppression forces them towards a political unity in response to their common oppression.
As the pressure on the national minorities to modify and blunt their cultural and social identity increases,
and as the necessity political action oppression increases, we can expect a 'black
The American experience
objective tendency
country that in any
oppression. different
their commor
fOr state on against their them every assistance.
identity' to increase within and between the black peoples in Britain.
At this stage it is not necessary to say with any firmness whether a single nationality will
forged from the national minorities Britain. What is important is to understand the
towards a unity of the national minorities at the political level, but
case there can exist national minorities in Britain who face a particular
What should be our political response to the oppression of these national minorities? The Fourth International defends the right of self-determination for the Afro-Americans that is, the right of the black people of the USA to choose for themselves their future, and if they decide to carve themselves out a black
American soil, unconditionally their right to do that and give
was the Garvey
political struggle today
can be created
struggles of all the oppressed. ideology Practice
to test this in practice
struggles of convinced. In so
workers' bourgeoisie to aid
masses will be won to socialism.
self-determination
they, too, determination.
in the USA to
unconditionally supported.
All these
in
movement organises
from the unions.
But whatever fundamental
As they enter
their oppression
defend they defend the
Trotsky first advanced this position when the only evidence of a mass current. which wanted separation from the American state
movement. It was not a question of whether black people then wanted a separate state or were calling for one it was a question of their having the choice
For Afro-Americans moving into common
common oppression a simple question was and is posed: Is it possible to end our oppression through creating a non-racist multi-national state, or are we forced to create our own separate state?
For whole sections of the black masses this question will only come to the fore as they are drawn into political activity; as they begin to feel the force of their movement, and are for the first time grappling with the problem of achieving their liberation because some sort of major change seems on the agenda.
-That is why Trotsky argued that it was very likely that on the brink of the revolution itself the Afro-American masses would be likely to raise this slogan, and socialists could not base nemselves on present levels of consciousness What will be true for the masses tomorrow is of concern for a vanguard of the black people
We believe that a non-racist workers' state
- indeed we believe that a successful socialist revolution depends on the working class championing the demands and
Not only will ending the private ownership ot the means of production eradicate the material basis of racism, which is the product of imperialist exploitation of the third world and slavery, but the existence of mass workers' democracy will create the political conditions
a struggle against the vestiges of racist
But propaganda on the material roots of racism is not enough to convince the bac masses that this is so. They will (correctly) wish
In so far as a mass revolutionary current develops within the white working class which genuinely champions the specific demands and
black people they will be far as that revolutionary current respects the right of black people to determine their own future, and fights within
movement mine blad painple the
separating if they so choose, then the black
That is why our support for the right of
unconditional and requires us to say nothing more than that it is for black people to decide — our efforts must be geared to convincing the white workers that
must defend that right to self-
Furthermore, in order for the black people
exercise the right of self-determination, they must be able to exercise it through their own organisations - their own political movement with their own leaders. The autonomous organisation of black people, or self-organisation of black people, must be
considerations apply to the national minorities in Britain today.
It is true that in Britain black people form a far smaller section of the population and that political separation would be in some senses more difficult. It is also true that the labour
black workers in its unions, whereas in the United States the black workers remember when they were excluded
these differences, the issues remain the same: capitalism cannot end their oppression
into political struggle, the black masses will find the reformist leadership of the labour movement either complicit in
For incapable of carrying through the fight to end it, and they will come to judge the white workers on how seriously
rights of black people, including their right to self-determination.
Page 11 scan of this page
BEH Block—why you should be marching
The Peace People: an obituary
IRELAND
A NUMBER of protests are
planned in Britain to mark the
fourth anniversary
abolition of political status for
Republican prisoners in
North of Ireland.
Here, in a letter
originally appeared
Derry magazine Seven Stars, is
why you should
these protests.
NO DOUBT over these past few
years and especially in recent months
you have all become familiar with the
terms 'H Block' and "blanketmen'.
Undoubtedly you all know that H
Block is the name of the prison in
which the "blanketmen'
held, but do any of you know of the
true living conditions
prison and of the treatment meted
out to the 'blanketmen'? No? Well,
let one here try, in this brief note, to
bring to you H Block.
Tomb
Firstly, picture in your head a
"tomb', a cold grey box of concrete
just like the tombs in your own city
cemetery. Picture this tomb' with a
window. Only on the window have a
large metal grille, surrounded by a
WOTECH bar-like SLUCIUIC
inserted fibre-glass panels.
Mairead Corrigan is embraced by
By Geoff Bell THE North of Ireland Peace People' have split. perhaps the only surprise that there was still a Peace People to split.
The news came last week when Betty Williams and Peter McLachlan announced their resignations Ene organisation. Williams, with Mairead Corrigan and Ciaran McKeown, was a co-founder of the Peace People in August 1976.
McLachlan became of the organisation in October 1978. He was a Unionist Party member of the now defunct Northern Ireland Assembly and a former staff member at Tory central office.
The immediate reason for split was the support from McKeown and Corrigan for some
which in the
be part of
are being
WEENID BETS stink of old
white body
blanket.
Lump
Furniture
with old dirty, THE Peace People in happier days at a London rally in November 1976.
US folk singer Joan Baez. Jean Loyalist
But is demoralised organisation other.
North of from and along together themselves.
different. chairperson
Peace People, the their banners.
form of
Now in your dull 'tomb' look at all of the walls covered in human excreta and rotten food, your floor littered with decaying food, soiled paper and splashed with pools of urine and water. As you picture the cell imagine the smell, the unbearable
moulded food, excrement and urine. Along with the stink, feel the cold as it pierces your
as you try to cover yourself with a smelly, damp-soaked
Have you got this 'tomb-like cell' in your head? Add a blanketman'.
La large damp lump of smelly foam his bed; a ragged piece of coarse cloth which serves as his blanket; a plastic chamber pot and an
filthy water gallon from shaggy alongside. political status for Republican and
prisoners in the North of fired Ireland. But behind the divisions is a familiar pattern — the leadership of a
and moribund IRA. against each driver
So now those who once promised to bring the entire population of the
Ireland together in sisterly LOVE have proved incapable of even staying The interana Years a i read shot,
Mairead Corrigan proclaimed: 'Believe me, in a month's time there's not going to •be a bombing, or a hi-jacking, or a shooting. There's going to be peace.'
That was in the early days of the TEO
when thousands marched in Ireland and Britain under IRA'.
The spark, or rather the shot,
which two men have to drink.
With this cell' pictured in your head think now of the young men
London demonstration and rally
Break the wall of silence on the H Blocks
Blanket protests, Fleet St, 6pm
assemble outside the Law Courts
Rally at 7.30pm, Conway Hall,
Red Lion Square
Speakers
Arrowsmith, Des Warren, Paul Foot
Tariq Ali, Alan Thornett and speakers
from the Relatives Action Committee
Sinn Fein, Irish Republican Socialist
Party.
who languish and rot there, young men, now old men, with long grimy which led to the movement was that
by British soldier August 1976. It was fired at a car being driven The soldiers bullet killed the a member
and the car went out control, careering onto the pavement and killing three children.
The way the leaders of the Peace People dealt with those deaths was an early indication of their approach. They did not blame the British Army soldier who fired the
but rather they castigated the dead Provisional for getting in the way of the soldier's bullet and hence being unable to control the car.
Betty Williams made
intentions clear when she explained
the Daily Express, in headlines, Why I Must Stop
From the start the movement was directed against the Provisionals. But
beards, rotten teeth and their bodies aching from hunger, cold and endless beatings, beatings which occur daily during cell searches, wing shifts and coming and going on visits.
Along with the blanketmen' have to undergo the most inhuman which consists of firstly, the naked blanketman' being forced into a spread-eagle position over a large mirror, then STS thumped down into Pat position, the mirror is then raised up.
to his buttocks, probing fingers prise his buttocks apart and a large torch and meta detector are used in a thorough search of his anal passage. Dragged With this part of complete, he is dragged up hair, and in front of four Ewart-Biggs, wife of assassinated British ambassador in Dublin, walks
it was not this thinking that brought
11 Catholics
behind the banner of 'peace' during of the the first few weeks. Rather it was a
general war-weariness, a simple and
of understandable desire to see
violence end.
What in the end destroyed the Peace People was prescription for general violence was the defeat or surrender
of the IRA.
That emphasis did attract a good deal of support. peace marches was 'guarded' by Loyalist paramilitary Ulster Defence Association. her
When the Peace People came to banner Britain their supporters ranged from the the Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland
to the Labour lifted a ban on Irish demonstrations in Trafalgar Square so that Williams,
thoroughly searched.
Picture
in your mind. denied.
beatings, the
degrading search
We, the
kicked and
a squatting SIGNED:
Campbell, McCallion, McCormack Adrian
McGowan, Eamon MeDermott,
the search Micky
by Connolly Brady. five. H Block
there.
1976,
Effective
SUBSI
What.
Catholic
The would
Back Army.
Backing
concerned.
the explanations OLLO SUCCE
Corrigan the
movement. that its only analysis
end the
last ten years, One of the early were
because group, the about
Today
Politically they ROYCHECHL which
time ago.
Socialist Challenge
screws his nose, mouth, ears, hair, penis, testicles and pubic hair are
We hope that through this short note we've put the true picture of life inside H Block for 360 blanketmen'
Could you imagine what it would be like for these men to be able to smoke a cigarette, hear s tune on the radio, read a morning paper, write a letter to either their families or girl friends? Just these, the small natural things of life, have been denied to these men for over three years now and will go on being
The endless suffering and beating and inhuman treatment will continue unless you speak out now and tell the world the truth and help stop it all.
"blanketmen', write this letter to you, begging you to help us now before it is too late, before some mother's heart is broken with the news of her son's death in H Block.
Liam Carlin, Kevin Denny Hutton, Eugene Gary McCool, Eugene Kieran Fleming, Callan, Frankie Doherty Patrick McCourt, Joe Rodgers, Peter
Raymond McCartney, John Cassidy, Devine. Tony О'Нагя,
Corrigan and company could rally
Williams told the British ruling
class media, which fell over itself to
promote the Peace People, that Jim
Callaghan supported them. Even the
Queen gave them a special mention
during her Christmas broadcast in
Broader still, the Morning, Star
also gave its support, on one occasion
approvingly quoting the view of the
Communist Party that the
Peace People were. 'an effective way
to defeat the bombers and assassins.
united all these
organisations, groups and individuals
was hatred for the Provisional IRA.
But that was never the feeling in the
Catholic ghettoes, as is clear from the
following report of feelings in the
working, class area of
Ballymurphy in Belfast:
Army is viewed with
unconcealed hostility as forces of
occupation. the hostility and hatred
was unremitting and there was never
a chance that the peace movement
might gain a foothold there.
The source of this quotation was
not a Republican newspaper it wa
Visor, a British Army journal.
The British Army was the one
source of violence the Peace People
never condemn. The odd
criticism was made here and there,
but the essential message of Williams,
McKeown and Corrigan was summed
up in an October 1976 headline of the
Daily Mirror: *Ulster Peace Brigade
It was that backing which sealed
the fate of the Peace People as far as
Catholic working was
Contemporary British media for the movement's
decline concentrate on the money-
grabbing attitude of Williams and
Lne fact that they
pocketed the money from their Nobel
prize rather than donating it to their
But that trivial
The Peace People, like a host of
other "solutions' offered up in and
outside of the North of Ireland in the
failed because they politically worthless and they had nothing to say the central issue in Irish
politics - Britain's presence in the
six north-eastern counties.
Peace People are
reported to be financially bankrupt
, were never anyth
else. Their obituary be being
written now, but they died a long
21 February 1980 Page 11
Page 12 scan of this page
By Steve Potter A FULL SCALE civil war is going on in Afghanistan. Rightist guerillas are fighting the Soviet and Afghan armies. American imperialism has attempted to polarise world opinion in favour of the withdrawal of the Russian troops.
What attitude should we take?
The Soviet troops entered one of the most underdeveloped countries of the world. Out of 15 million inhabitants only 15 per cent live in the towns. The infant mortality rate is the highest in the world; the literacy rate one of the lowest. There is a tiny working class, perhaps only 150,000 strong, employed in manufacturing and construction. But there has been a rapid expansion of a new 'middle class' made up of state employees, doctors, technicians, engineers.
Power
In the countryside the landowners maintain practically unlimited power, because in general the rich landlord also assumes the functions of community leader. formed close links with the mullahs (Islamic clergy) and chiefs of the local communities where they are not themselves big landowners already.
Together they make up a reactionary bloc whose aim is to Afghanistan and that suits the businessmen in Kabul.
So when the Popular Democratic Party of Alghanistan took power on 27 April 1978, they were facing massive problems have been difficult to deal with even if the PDPA was a revolutionary government. It was LEOL
The chain of events which brought the PDPA to power started in the late sixties. Student mobilisations had broken out in the cities. The king, Zaher Chach, closed down the universities. The number of strikes. Two years later the peasants responded to two years of famine with a series of localised uprisings. with extreme brutality by the army. Toppled
The instability of the confirmed in 1973 when a coup led by the foremost ruling class politician, Daoud, toppled the king and established a republic. But the chiefs and landowners refused to give up the slightest part of their privileges when he tried to advance a timid agrarian reform.
Of course, Daoud would not and could not turn to the urban masses and peasants to help him implement his programme. abandoned its main reform proposals, set up a dictatorship and turned to reactionary allies abroad to prop it up.
Repression against the nationalist officers worsened as the crisis of the Daoud regime deepened. Mir Akbar
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army officers, teachers and
These landowners have
defend the status quo in
which would working class launched a
These were put down
fell. monarchy was
Mohammed Instead he
PDPA and the
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21 February 1980 Page 12
Afghanistan.
Part one:
intellectual and trade union leader, assassinated on 17 April 1978. widespread repression the POTA plotted a coup against the regime in alliance with officers in the army. Ten days later Daoud
The overthrow of the Daoud regime was therefore much more to do with a classical coup d'etat than with revolution. Certainly the mass movement did take to the streets in the days immediately preceding the coup. workers and peasants were not mobilised and organised in the struggle for power, but only to back up the limited efforts of the PDPA to defend itself. Perspective The PDPA at the time of its formation in 1965 adopted the perspective of a national democratic revolution as a stage to socialism. A section of the PDPA led by Barbrak Karmal
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Right wing guerillas make up the reactionary bloc whose aim is to defend the status quo in
THE CONFLICT IN AFGHANISTAN
The road to civil war
Was Fearing leaders *Foundation
But the
In its
massive
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took this to its logical conclusion when thes participated in the 1973 government of Daoud
Divisions in the PDPA were systematised only two years after its foundation. Ethnic and personal factors combined with political ones resulted in the formation of two factions; that of the Kalq (People) faction led by Nor Taraki and Hafizullah Amin and the Parcham (Flag) faction led by Karmal.
first months in office Revolutionary Council formed by a reunited PDPA decreed reform which aimed to end the
indebtness of the peasants in the countryside and to hit the big through imposing strict limits on the amount of land that could be held by an individual. Equal rights were decreed for women and a literacy campaign was to start in 1979 with the target of educating 2.5 million children and 5.5 million
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which the reform programme through
eventual execution replacement by Amin. Dismayed
congratulatory social impact
which would
by popular insurrection Gulf'.
against the PDPA government. the
landowners
Amin
Of course University
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adults. Trade unions were set up and in one year had organised 160,000 workers
matin in the ess the romes ope dramatic in its impact on a country Afghanistan, meant that the government was heading for direct conflict with the reactionary rural alliance which had already defeated Daoud's tame plans — heading for a civil war. Disagreements on the bureaucratic way in
was carried were reflected in bitter factional struggles inside the PDPA. Disputes within the Khalq came to a head with the overthrow and
of Taraki and his
The Kremlin, although they sent the usual
telegram to the victor, were undoubtedly dismayed by this turn of events They had wanted to slow down the
Amin was in favour of speeding up the reforms by the same unpopular methods. The number one question in their minds was the advantage that imperialism would accrue from the crisis in he country. The imperialists had feared an lefeat for the reactionaries in Afghanistan. Th
would have repercussions throughout the area, but particularly through the possible revival of the Baluchi movement
destabilise neighbouring Pakistan. These fears were massively booster after the overthrow of the Shah in January 1975
The toppling of the Shah also caused problems for the imperialists. Who would act
dramatic consequences Afghanistan developments? Israel and Egypt instead started to fulfill this role along with the bloc of countries headed by Saudi Arabia who had formed an alliance for the defence of the
The plan was to support both directly and indirectly the efforts of the rightist force!
(This is the first article of two based on a resolution of the Fourth International shortly to be published.)
our readers pockets are as badly affected by price rises as our account books, but we still have to ask you to dig deep and find "Send us a fiver' appeal is going very well. A large number of readers have already managed to find at least one of the blue ones to send
But just a note to the rest of you who haven't found the spare cash yet we really are not asking for a lot. One fiver buys us... one picture for page could send journalist half way to South Wales to talk to steel workers Our paper has 16 pages and more than 20 pictures each week and we hope to get further than Somerset for our interviews, so we need help.
We know everyone is hard up, but in class struggle from socialists. in! Send us a fiver Our apologies to those who did send money this week. A note on page 2 explains why we haven't been able to give the details this week.
Page 13 scan of this page
Masses in El Salvador rise against junta
How Nicaragua will teach 900,000 to read and write
IT IS only a few months since
General Romero
Salvador was overthrown in a
military coup. But the
regime that replaced him is
already falling apart under the
hammer blows of the
resistance.
Earlier this month
spoke to MANUEL,
representative of the Popular
Liberation Forces
which is linked to the Popular
Revolutionary Bloc (BPR).
MANUEL described the coup in
October 1979 as
North American imperialism to hold
back the revolutionary process which
people
maintain its influence given the situation in Nicaragua'.
At first the new military regime was able to attract support TOL
Christian Democrats, but also from
the Communist Party, which stressed the *democratic and character of the new officers. ICH DOE LOOK the minister in the government.
also benefited participation of the Popular Forum, an opposition front ranging from the The following article is based on an interview with Octavio assistant minister of education, Managua on 3 January.
THE literacy campaign is something our people greatly heed. We are going to organise some brigade members, but need more. We estimate that between 850,000 and 900,000 persons above the age of ten do not know how to read. We need on average one brigade member for every Tour huterates. In reality, however, there are rural areas that are very hard to reach, and we'll have to send many teachers to these areas.
and we are hoping for the help of companeros from around the world. Our problem that undergoing economic crisis.
We are a small country, with a debt approaching $1.8 billion. This is equivalent to the debt held by some countries with four times population. That gives you an idea of the scope of the problem.
In addition, 40 percent of our industry lies in ruins, as well as 40 per
our establishments. In agriculture, crop as important as cotton, only 30 per cent was planted last year, which means a loss of millions of dollars at the very least.
Finance
In short, we don't have the means to finance those who come to help. Every day I receive letters from all over the world, from Europe Australia. We say the same thing in reply to all of them: 'Great. Come help. We'll greet you with open arms. But we can't provide you with a single cordoba while you're here.'
The only possible solution is the one that has been worked out with the teacher companeros from Their gesture human solidarity,
INTERNATIONAL
Christian of El Popular League (LP28) and new
mass through support for the coup' we
(FPL)
a manoeuvre of
SE SALVADOR ana to in the area
some civilian
from
nationalist' of the loudest A CP Job or labour political prisoners.
from the
government says or does.
Rivas,
170,000 literacy
we actually amos le oracid
are unprecedented
our
commercial In a Cuba. genuine has
Democrats to the leftist of 28 February Front for United
People's Action (FAPU). Manuel
stressed that our organisation, the
BPR, stayed outside to deepen the struggles and demands of the people,
instead of holding back mass action
LP28 and FAPU soon withdrew from the Popular Forum, however,
call as popular struggles continued. One
demands since the coup has been for the freeing of the
But no amnesty
has come. Every demonstration for political freedoms has been attacked
by the army regardless of what the
Los guerrilleros vencen a los generales
generales
Age ne ra les
Na La undertaken to pay them during their stay here. We have provided the only thingsiour country can offer - a roof over their heads, food, and our great
That's all we can provide.
those who have the means to come
In reality the government does
not govern. It has no power over the
army, the national guard, and the
rural police, which were the three
pillars of the old dictatorship. In
addition paramilitary
grouping, ORDEN, is also receiving
official encouragement.
AS Manuel comments:
*Imperialism wanted to set up a more
respectable government with more
support, to modernise ProducHon
But it kept the army intact in reserve,
and now it is being used.
things get really bad, it can also call
on the military regimes in Guatemala
and Honduras.' Quit
On 2 January the Communist
Party, Social Democrats and left
Christian Democrats were forced to quit the government under mass pressure. Nine days later a new opposition coordinating committee
was set up, involving the BPR, L.P28, FAPU and also the CP. The declared aim was to unify action against the government, take forward the armed struggle, and draw up proposals for a
This was a sharp about-turn for the CP: to change from supporting the government to signing a joint call to arms against it. But this was the only way it could avoid being left on the sidelines.
EIF.S.L.N. condujo al pueblo a la liberación
liberación
li be ra ción
lo lu le Lo Lu Le communities where they will work,
We are very interested in having teaching companeros come from a number of countries. You are well aware that reactionaries around the
On 22 January demonstration of more than 200,000 people took capital, San Salvador, repression. fascist says Manuel,
the ones used for crop-spraying and began to spray an insecticide called "Malathion" on the crowd". The demonstration
And if 'THE heroic
Nicaraguan people, led by the FSLN, is an inspiration for our unity will to fight until Sandinistas' victory has opened an epoch of revolution America... •We Salvador as a part of this Central American revolution and as a step in the fight for the liberation of all the peoples of the continent. victoria siempre! Venceremos!' from communiqué issued on 10 January
continued peacefully began to fire on us from the National Palace, from the Ministry of Defence from the newspaper La Prensa Graficia.
'The self-defence
CRUZADA NACIONAL DE
ALFABETIZACION
héroes y
mártires por
la liberación
de Nicaragua
Aling-nene-Nuna - Nino La Li Lu Le Lo le lo la lu l León - loma - Quilall-revolución- Yalagüina
SCCr
- -
Lola Lelc Lea
LUIC LUL LeC OIc
Evo vi vu ya ve * Luvi lovo lava la lo li le h
Viva velo vilo Luvi lava la vela
world have violently criticised the
This is a manoeuvre designed to
sphere and to refuse us the aid that
other countries could easily provide.
We want to initiate a counter-attack,
huge organised demonstration, to the streets of the defended
against the Immediately it set out, 'aircraft appeared little the
Metropolitan University, from the air. then
struggle of the
their and victory. The
Central
see the revolution in EI
the junta'
Hasta la
an opposition
people's insurrections,
against the "they
offices of the
brigades, the masses.' the world.
structurally don't hide this;
themselves
changes themselves. Literacy
democratic revolution,
be really free.
On speak three
La ola Lola lee will be
Lula lía
preserved. isolate uS Crusade,
the economic
Socialist Challenge
and trained for this covered and an organised retreat, because we could not get involved in
a stupid and unequal battle. Little by
people withdrew to the Cathedral and the where we were attacked
But such was the situation that the government was persuaded by the Red Cross, foreign diplomats and a number of political leaders to allow more than 150,000 people to leave
refuges churches, the Cathedral and the University.'
By this time, however, more than 100 people had been killed and 500 wounded according to estimates from
rights sources. Four days after this massacre, the press in E Salvador reported that 'the United States has reiterated its support for
And what does the FPL see as its major tasks in the situation? Says Manuel: "In a situation of prolonged
Wal partial uprisings of whole peoples and their armed self-defence
army, we have set ourselves three tasks: to build a Marxist-Leninist party; to build the FPL to take part in guerilla struggle, the militias and self-defence brigades; and to build a revolutionary front of and are seeking teachers from all over
This is the real spirit of our revolution, which is a broad and democratic revolution that is going to lead us towards a different society, a
different society. We we aren't trying to fool anyone. This is a revolution that is marching towards socialism.
But we also say and repeat over and over, that the Nicaraguan peopl
are making this revolution. Here reforms and changes
introduced step by step, accordance with the degree to which the people attain the necessary level of consciousness to carry through these
The literacy campaign that we are going to carry out in the first year of the revolution is a clear sign of the
character of this for the weapon of knowledge is going to enable each individual to obtain an education, to
the Atlantic coast, people languages Spanish English, and Misquito. So , there we
carrying this literacy campaign in three languages. This is all part of our culture, and we are going to preserve and protect ever element of our culture. That means all the songs, dances, and fables - the entire oral culture — will be saved and
In closing, I would like to appeal to the teachers' unions, to the trade unions in general, to ask that they donate an hour's pay in support of the literacy campaign. That would be a concrete way of assuring its success.
*Money for the literacy campaign can be sent to: Nicaraguan Literacy
Cooperative Bank (Ealing branch), London W5 2XL.
NEXT WEEK: Special eyewitness report on life in the new Nicaragus.
21 February 1980 Page 13
Page 14 scan of this page
Zimbabwe lurches back towards civil war
PEUGEOT
HOUND
MILITANT
TO DEATH
By Martin Meteyard PHILIPPE Marchan revolutionary shop steward at the
plant France. Was. On 8 February he shot himself, driven to suicide by management witch-hunt.
former Chrysler plants in Britain -has Jong history intimidation of its workforce. Many of its plants are terrorised by a pro-
of Free Trade includes known fascists among its bully-boys.
In many shops the foreman is a CSL •For the immierani workers who make up much of the workforce, joining the CSL is the price they pay for avoiding the sack and the long journey home.
Al the Aulnay-sous-Bois factory the biggest French union, the CGT, has had the works council elections annulled time after ime for CSL malpractices. In 1977 the CSE replied by a terror campaign on the re-run and only 30 workers out of 5,000 even voted.
Marchau himself was a member of the CGT. How management responded to his election as a steward can be judged from the list of provocations given in the statement issued by the CGT section at Sochaux after his death.
According to this, Marchau was the victim of 'too many of the worst insults, provocations, punishments, several letters, serious warnings ... and sixteen days suspension in two years, including six in a single month.
The CGT federation accused management of 'ferocious exploitation' organising "permanent repression', declarig that for three years Marchau had been the 'object of persecution by hand-picked management finks.
Stoppage
Management described "shameless propaganda, the workforce to judge it in their hearts and consciences'. workers stood could be seen on une morning of the funeral, when a fiveminute stoppage took plant in memory of Marchau.
But Marchau was not just a trade unIon militant. He was member organisation, the Communist League (LCR section of the Fourth International).
In its own statement, said: 'It is with rage in our hearts that
salute the memory
the daily repression of the Peugeot bosses, their systematic against militants...
•Peugeot management wanted to break this CT delegate, organiser of the defence and the struggles of the body shop workers. the most exhausting multiplying harassment suspensions. As a result he is dead, victim of his determination not to yield to the intimidation, exploitation and repression of the system...
*The LCR calls on all the workers organisations, militants and workers for a united struggle to put an end to the Peugeot dictatorship.'
That dictatorship Britain. It is already strength with its redundancies at the Linwood plant in Scotland. Solidarity against killers of Marchau will help convince all Peugeot workers of the common enemy they face.
Socialist Challenge
INTERNATIONAL
By Richard Carver IT IS whether the was
Sochaux,
Zimbabwe
by Robert Mugabe.
Unions), which
very
of Zimbabwe
disastrous.
exclusively
Continuity
plots, ragging,
fraud both internationally.
The
hardly a police metalworkers'
and nationalist guerillas.
white reservists.
service body practical preparations,
this
calling on
Where the
turnout!
place in the
April's, will martial law also
revolutionary more than Revolutionary constitutional
French
the LCR been suspended.
of this Seats
Rage against
The British
witch-hunt
Muzorewa victory. win.
They gave him
Heavily and Africa, National Council
Peugeot DICSS.
Yet Muzorewa support drift away
extends Lancaster House
proposed
the substance.
Muzorewa compromised
21 February 1980 Page 14
STILL
uncertain ceasetire in Zimbabwe will hold until the start of next week's elections.
The main reason for doubt is the vicious campaign by the Brilish colonial power and the white Rhodesian state against
National Union (ZANU) led
The root of the problem lies in the
of the ceasetire agreement. The belief that the people
could achieve liberation courtesy of the British state - an idea pushed in the workers movement by the Labour lefts and the Communist Party - has proved
It may be surprising that Soames has been so openly partial to the whites and Muzorewa. But it was inevitable that his power would rest
racist state apparatus — for the Lancaster House agreement provides no alternative.
So
As a symbolic demonstration of continuity the elections for the 20 white and 80 African seats are even being held on different days. The elections will be run by the same team which produced Muzorewa's victory in the internal settlement' election last April - widely denounced as a ZAPU
Zimbabwe and
same police force will
haperise the polin to the in it is
in the conventional sense, being more used to paramilitary actions against the
As happened last April its ranks will be reinforced by the mobilisation of some 35,000
The Election Directorate, the civil
which deals with is virtually unchanged from April. There will be no registration of voters, leaving the way open for widespread fraud. The adoption of a similar procedure last time meant that some constituencies recorded a more than 100 per cent
Above all, the election, like last
be conducted under and State of Emergency. Lord Soames will need
This share of British expertise to explain how democratic elections can be held when all democratic guarantees have
have thus done everything in their power to ensure a
Yet Muzorewa he is unnkely even te get the 31 African seats needed give him a majority in coalition with the white members of parliament.
financed by South the Bishop's United African (UANC) superficially the best equipped party. (The Patriotic Front parties are even WILD having problems finding a printing allowed
has seen his the from him even though he returned to campaign for the election a month before the came
accords were signed, and a full ten weeks before Mugabe was allowed back. He has all should the trappings of power but none of its
is hopelessly by his years collaboration with the white regime.
ZANU supporters turn out to greet Mugabe
the British and the Rhodesians are badly in need of a second string - a black politician with mass support who can be trusted to abide by the settlement and look favourably upon Western capital. Joshua Nkomo is enthusiastically auditioning for this role.
The Patriotic Front alliance of
and ZANU broke up only days after the Lancaster
ZIMBABWE DAY OF ACTION Saturday 23 February MASS PICKET 1pm to 2pm of the Foreign Office Downing Street RALLY 6.45pm to 8.30pm at the National Liberal Club 1 Whitehall Place SW1 Speakers from ZANU(PF) and PF(ZAPU)
Alex Lyon MP
and a representative from the
International Defence and Aid
Fund (recently returned from Zimbabwe) 50p BENEFIT & DANCE 9.00pm to 12.30am
at the National Liberal Club
1 Whitehall Place SW1
Bands from Southern Africa
JABULA IMMIGRANT (a special reunion benefit performance) €2.50 Rally and Benefit £2.25
Publicly responsibility for this seemed to rest
•ZANU, ZAPU to pose as defenders of unity and thus inherit
Patriotic Front label undoubted electoral asset. Hear least crossly for ple
least equally from leadership of Nkomo's party. Its idea of unity was that the ŻANU cadres
"rejoin' ZAPU, which they had left in 1964. Such an attitude could only harden ZANU hostility.
The British have aimed for a split in the Patriotic Front for as long as the alliance has existed. But even they
white cannot have expected that Nkomo would be so obliging.
• His long British multinational proof of his ultimate sympathy for imperialism, but he has than that. His armed forces have fully co-operated with the British monitoring forces, to the extent of lodging House ZANU ceasefire violations. Endorsed
Nkomo's endorsed When longtime leader community, urged blacks to vote for ZAPU in preference discredited Muzorewa. However, this was something of a mixed blessing which Nkomo may yet regret
The problem for the British is that Nkomo is also unlikely to win the election. Mugabe has a far stronger base among the country's majority Shona people and indisputably played the major part in the guerilla war.
It will be surprising if ZANU does not emerge Nkomo has precautions against this by informally approaching the Thumber of the smaller African parties with proposals for a coalition.
Lord Soames can be relied on to co-operate. Under the terms of a report by the supervisors at the February, appoint Nkomo as prime ministe even if Mugabe wins!
Nkomo's attempts to patch up a coalition, British
against attempts on Mugabe's life all indicate the deep fear of a Mugabe victory the feeling that this would mean the final destruction of the racist state. After such a result it is difficult to believe that the African population would willingly return to a daily grind the of low wages, tiny plots of land and humiliation by the white state. which the Weakened
Zimbabwe is thus lurching back towards civil war - though this time one in which the nationalist have been politically weakened. The anti-ZANU coalition, ranging from Nkomo, now threatens the elections themselves.
Defence of movement therefore immediate necessity for the Western labour movement. The most effective
VOTE
association with une
Lonrho was Many done better have
complaints against alleged
Zimbabwe's
credentials were
Plan - Smith, the all its troubles. of the white
the
resolve his supporters guevance Results
as the largest party.
already taken
UANC and
What
British election beginning of Soames will be able to
administrative
ZANU, and the
and militarily
the white army to
BENEFIT (NU(PF) the nationalist becomes an VARY
way to do this is by campaigning for British Governor and his troops
ZANU supporters (anc rank-and-file ZAPU members) may
gone into the settlement believing that the British presence was a guarantee against intimidation, but few can believe it now. In the space of a few weeks Lord Soames has made it clear that far from being
symbolically at least — the source of
The deployment of British troops is strikingly reminiscent of their use in Ireland in 1969. There too their arrival was tentatively greeted on the nationalist side as some protection against reactionary attacks. There too the British government believed that short-term military means could
long-standing colonial
The results of the Irish experience are there for all to see. No doubt the British government does not want a repeat performance, but it has yet to
problem of how to withdraw its forces.
could easily happen is a swift decline into civil war with the British troops still in place and, of course, playing a far, from impartial role. In that case the British state will once again be embarked upon a long and bloody colonial war - a war in which the Western labour movement cannot afford to be neutral.
ZANU: WE ARE OUK
OWN LIBERATORS
THE PASSIONS
FRIDAY 22nd FEE ONDON POLY OXFORD CIRCUS, W.i
ICEEDS TO ZANUF) £2
Page 15 scan of this page
The stinking rich
UNDER REVIEW
By Phil Hearse IN the 1950s Tory and Labour leaders alike told uS never had it so good'. post-war CLORORE made politicians academics alike assume class inequalities were pearing and class antagonism becoming a thing of the past.
But today inequality is no longer concealed.
Thatcher and Keith champion the cause inequality. The new Tory myth is not to deny that inequality
but mystify source.
We have the unequal', Margaret claims, because result of effort, initiative and, above all, enterprise. It is this myth which a new CIS report, The Wealthy, concentrates on exploding.
The report reveals the vast scale of inequality Britain; the huge scope conspicuous I wy consumption of the bourgeoisie; and shows how this wealth is not the result of effort' or 'initiative', but derives from accidents
birth. luck, exploitation and swindling. Taxation
It also exposes the impotence of efforts at re-distribution through and innumerable ways in which those who have keep it away from those who have not.
The report looks at three crucial areas of power and privilege; first, the cisT on or rotar wear second. the distribution of income; third, the pattern of ownership of a vital raw material land. Its conclusions are
It is. virtually impossible calculate total wealth. wealthy make every precise facts. Nonetheless indicator is the ownership company shares.
The pattern of ownership of company shares is because as the report says, decide what goods will be produced, who will work to produce these goods, what they will be paid. and what the prices of those goods will be.
The value of privately owned shares is about £17 billion in total. staggering 80 per cent of shares in private ownership are owned by one per cent of the population, and just five per cent of the population own 98 per cent of all privately owned shares. Shareholder
The growth of giant financial institutions has ownership and control of shares even mOIC. at the expense of the small shareholder.
The existence of a large number of huge firms today might impression of a dispersal of power and control. In fact the growth of huge corporations has concentrated economic power. The CIS reveals this vividly in relation to the board of British Petroleum.
Every single director is also the director of up to a dozen other large concerns. And LUIS system of directorships extends also between industrial and capital, especially between the large industrial companies and merchant banks who have enormous power. As the report indicates: "The directors of the merchant banks are regarded as the core or me establishment. Most of them hereditary firms, and families still dominate most of the boards.
Elite
Despite the proliferation of unit trusts in the 1960s, economic power still rests in the hands of a tiny elite who control the major financial and industrial concerns.
The Diamond Commission on the Distribution of Wealth came to the
'we'd The boom and that disap-
Margaret
Joseph of
its
right to be
Thatcher wealth is the wealth and
complete
the
and effort to conceal
0110
important, concentrated
give the
report
interlocking land and housing
finance Ownership concentrated. the table shows concentrated.
Distribution of
are
Top 1% Top 10% The rest.
mesear en
The top one
conclusion that ownership of shares,
were the most constituents of wealth. all three is highly The accompanying precisely how
Different Assets 1976 with, income.
Shares Land Housing
54.2 52.0 8.6 89.6 84.1 37.5 10.4 15.9 62.5
Source: Royal Commission and Labour
per cent of the population own 8.6 per cent of all
housing, while the top 10 per cent of society own nearly 40 percent of all housing _ a fact well worth bearıng in mind when you next have difficulty finding a flat or getting a mortgage!
The same people own the most shares, the most houses and the bulk of the land. That's why it is possible to talk of a ruling class
The wealthier you are to start
the Wealth generates and high interest rates only give this process a boost. Lending money to
government, building societies, or indeed large firms, even for a short period of time, will lead to huge profits.
Therefore it is no surprise to learn, as the accompanying table shows, that income is also highly unequal.
The CIS report is full of juicy little details of the mechanisms by which
The Distribution of income in the U K
Income share of the:
Top 1% • Top 10% Next 40% Bottom 50% wealth, Source: Royal Commission and Labour Research. the rich rip off the tax collectors and the rest as. interesting are some of the charming portraits of our betters. For example, there is the Duke of Westminster who, apart from a few other minor interests, is a landowner
He owns 15,000 acres in Cheshire, 14,000 in North Wales, 100,000 acres
Shropshire,
Belgravia (this
chaps
over each other.
Even
Tory leaders table shows:
But
to Oxford. 1978
Lord Carrington
Rio Tinto Zing Hambros Bani Sun Insutance
Royal Worcester
Bovis Peter Walker Adwest Group
Jim Prior United Biscuit Avon Products IDC Group
natonal
Charrington) the CIS report;
% pre-tax 1949 1976/77 11.2 5.4 33.2 25.8 43.1 - 49.7 23.7 .24.5
-Ink Links
611 Ti even more
Socialist Challenge
in Scotland, a mere 900 acres in
an estate in Northern Ireland, together with property in Canada, Hawaii, Australia, not to mention 300 acres in Mayfair and
300 acres alone is worth t1000 million).
As the report notes: Part of the celebrations at the stag party for the 26-year-old Earl of Grosvenor (the Duke's other title) involved young
pouring E100 bottles Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1961
more interesting 1s breakdown of the directorships, the wealth and the background of the
To be in the Cabinet it helps to be a member of the landed gentry like Lord Carrington, who owns about half of Buckinghamshire, George Younger, the Scottish secretary and heir to the third Viscount of Leckie, or Sir Ian Gilmour, a hereditary baronet.
An alternative qualification is to be a director of at least a few large companies, as the accompanying
whatever precist background you must have breeding of the 19 Cabinet ministers who went to public school, six went to Eton, nine went on to Cambridge and seven
Tory Cabinet
Directorships
Humphrey Atkins Foster, Turner and Benson
Barclays Bank and Barclays International Cadbury Schweppes
Amalgamated Metal Corporation Geoffrey Howe Alliance Assurance Associated Business Programmes Phe-London Assurance bun Amance and London Assuranc
Patrick Jenkin Continental and industrial Trust
Tilbury Contracting Group Sir Keith Joseph Drayton, Premier Investment Trust
Wigham Poland Holdings
Norwich Union Insurance Group Christopher Soames N M Rothschild and Rothschild Inter
National Westminster Bank George Younger Tennant Caledonian Breweries (Bass
These are the people of the wealth and privilege who are now launching a huge attack on ordinary people. Arm yourself with the facts and figures to fight them by buying
fascinating reading and a weapon of struggle
THE OTHER BOOKSHOP
War and an Irish Town,
by Eammon McCann
-Pluto Press € 1.95
Ireland: Divided Nation, Divided
Class, Morgan and Purdie (Eds)
£3.50
Irish Voices from Irish Jails,
—Prisoners Aid Committee £1.50
328 Upper Street, Islington, London NI 2XQ (Tel. 01-226-0571)
21 February 1980 Page 15
Page 16 scan of this page
Socialist Challenge MUGABE FRAME-UP BLOWN APART
BRITAIN GET OUT OF ZIMBABWE!
THE GREAT confidence trick has apart in Zimbabwe. exposure that the Rhodesian security forces are carrying out acts of 'violence intimidation' came when a car allegedly carrying blew up prematurely.
Inside were two members of the blood-thirsty Selous Scouts
the elite of the Rhodesian Army - posing as members of Robert Mugabe's ZANLA. There is strong evidence that the British were involved in framing Mugabe. Just look sequence of events.
On Sunday 10 February a second assassination attempt was made on Mugabe's life. The place right next to a Rhodesian army garrison. The following day Mugabe announced that he joint government with ZAPU Patriotic Front party.
The following Thursday someone BUL desperate. Rhodesian arrested three of ZANU's candidates and held five party officials for interrogation.
The same day British imperialism's watchdog Salisbury, banned Mugabe holding meetings in two of the areas where he expected considerable control.
In what was obviously calculated to appear as retaliation, a wave of bombings hit Salisbury. outside the hotel where the leaders of the Commonwealth monitoring force were staying, and another in a curch.
But something went wrong. A car blew up. Inside there were members of the Rhodesian army.
The Guardian newspaper noted:
Belt f
of an anarchist race
accidental
GHTLY
It's back from 22nd February
Top price tickets for 63 on production of this ad until 8th March.
Wyndhams Theatre.
Charing Cross Rd.
Box Office 01-836-3028
Credit Cards 01-379-6565 Seat Prices E1.80, £3, £4
BRITISH fallen The
and
'terrorists'
up at the
attempt took
would form
Nkomo's
police
Lord Soames,
from
Again
One was managed to
well planned
at a senior level in the unit.
level of command the
will inevitably raise Registered with the Post Office as a newspaper. Published by Relgocrest Ltd. for Socialist Challenge,
"The fact that the two Scouts had
place such a large amount of explosives... points to a
operation for which authority would have been required
*The apparent fact that at some
Rhodesian military authorised urban bombings to influence the outcome of the poil
doubt in minds of the nationalists as to British
ability to monitor or control the regular army.
The 'Cease fire Commission' established by the British has already received reports of 175 violations of the ceasefire. Up until the car blew up only two had been reported as caused by the Rhodesian Army forces. Isn't it strange that the first time that there
any real proof who responsible it turns out to be the Rhodesian Army?
Lord Soames pretended to be independent of the white racist regime. But ever since he arrived he has Rhodesian police and army to carry out his instructions.
organised Nor could it be otherwise - Soames Was is there to protect the interests of British capitalists. stopping Robert
has always gaining the
relied on
He has been glove with the people who the frame-up bombings.
That means get out now.
Mugabe
328/9 Upper St, London N1. Printed by East End [offset] Ltd. PO Box 82, London E2.
overwhelming victory that he would if the elections were free of imperialist interference.
A defeat for British capitalists like Tiny Rowland's Lonrho, in southern Africa is a blow struck against the same Lonrho which is attempting to break the steel strike in the private sector at Hadfields.
That's why we say Britain should
Let the Zimbabwean people decide their own future
← Socialist Challenge No. 134, 14 February 1980Socialist Challenge No. 136, 1980 →