Socialist Challenge No. 139, 20 March 1980
The scan: sc-n139-mar-20-1980.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)
Uncorrected machine reading of the whole issue. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from the scan and has not been corrected or cut into articles. Each page gives the headlines first, then the columns in order, so one article runs on into the next. Expect misread words. Use it to find things; quote from the scan.
Page 1 scan of this page
Socialist Challenge Steelworkers must win
STOP
THE
SCABS
THIS is the ugly, threatening face of Tory Britain - a scab lorry driver for the private steel giant of Hadfields in Sheffield outside the factory gates last week.
He is threatening pickets with an iron bar. The same day this picture was taken, on 12 March, Margaret Thatcher's cops arrested - not the trash in this lorry - but over 90 steel pickets outside Hadfields. That is what the Tories mean by "law andorder'.
And this is why the steel strikers must win. The unofficial national strike committee is already recommending that steelworkers step up their action.
Committee member Brian Connolly told Socialist Challenge that a resolution was passed at last Friday's strike committeemeeting saying negotiations with the steel bosses must stop 'immediately.
The union leadership was told to direct its energies towards obtaining fullest support from the TUC'. Connolly added: 'We also recommended that safety cover be removed, that steel users are now picketed, and that further pressure be put on the docks.'
The fact is that the strikers have been drowned in sympathy. Now they need support from the rest of the trade union movement. Action
*The Engineering Union declaring that all steel be boycotted in all engineering plants.
*The leadership of the Transport and General Workers Union working overtime to make sure no TGWU lorry drivers cross picket lines.
*The TUC calling solidarity strikes of engineering and transport workers.
Already rank and file engineering workers have shown their solidarity. In Sheffield at GKN Shadow, GEC Traction and Davey Loewy production has been halted
This is the kind of action which can win the steel strike and make sure that no scabs - with or without iron bars - pass the picket lines.
No.139 20 March 1980 20p
Hadfields
NUR CALL:
General Strike
14 May
THE 180,000-strong National Union of Railwaymen has called for a general strike on 14 May.
This date had already been chosen by the TUC as 'a day of action' - a phrase which can mean all things to all people.
Now the NUR has demanded that the TUC general council calls upon all trade unions to instruct their members not to report for duty on 14 May in order to demonstrate the depth of feeling in th movement against government policy.
Speaking ealier this week, NUR general secretary Sid Weighell said that the union executive felt that it was not sufficient to wave banners in Trafalgar Square.
Added Weighell: "This government is not listening. The only way we can influence them is to stop Britain for 24 hours.
The NUR call should be backed by every trade unionist.
Every day a new Tory attack is promised or launched — whether it be on union rights, on the welfare state, or on the living standards of working people. More cuts are promised in next week's budget. In this context Wednesday, 14 May should not be seen as 'influencing" the Tory government, but as a pointer to the way the government's whole offensive can be defeated. And that does mean a general strike.
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Labour's new left meets
OUR POLICIES
C'apitalism is in crisis. The leaders of ihe Labour Party and the trade unions ofter solutions that are in the interests not of the workers but of the capitalist class.
Socalist Challenge helieres that the two vital rasks resolutionars socialisds are:
• To build broad-based class struggle dendencies in apposition to class-collaborationisen in the
These should EJI-LICENC in krouping together militants holding a wide range of political views.
• To begin to fight for the creation nif unified democratic revolutionary socialist organisation which can, Through
application of united front hegin lo he seen as alternative by thousands workers engaged in struggles.
kuch an or action should be nasco on ine understanding nar.
The struggle for seeks to unite the fight of SHOCKER against with that of other oppressed layers of socier! - women, black people.
struggling for gats liberation. This socialism can only he achieved by creating new organs o1 power and deltating with necessary mean, the power of the capilalist state.
socialism
I than what exists in Britain with full rights for political parties and currents that do not take up arms socialist state. 'The stalinist models of "socialism' in bartern burope have distredited socialism in the eyes of millions of workers throughout the He are oboosed io them ang w!l| offer full support 1o all lighting for socialist democracy.
The interests ot workers and capitalists are irreconcilable on a world scale C'apitalism hals treat market, hai created politics. Thus we fight for working
scale. This unity will in the long run he decisive in defeating both the imperialist regimes in the West and the brutal dietatorships thes sustain in Latin and Asia.
In Britain it implies demanding
inimediatt British troops from letting the Irish people delermine their own future.
The Communis parties in Europe are in crisis. the •Kurocommunis' the pro-Mascon wings have any meaningful for merthrow of the capitalist state. Yes resolutionary iocialist parties are more necessary than before. Conditions today
lavourable than mer the preceding three decades. But such parlies can only rejecling sectarianism and internal democracy not dia luxur! but tra vital necessity. This means the right to orgunive factions and tendencies.
It your agree with these principies and want involved artifice bo Socialive (hatlenge supporters in sour area, fill in the torm below and send it to us.
interested information ahout activities in my
• I would liht additional literature and enclose Sup do coper coats. (Delore it not applicable)
Name.
Address
Secialist Challenge: 20 March 1980
confronting
increasing against the government. before of been little better.
socialism
bosses
their
all British athletes
South Africa.
all Namika
apainst the
IsiR and
government complaint against the
world.
The
majority
world world
By Geoff Bell
Africa larly successful
Ireland and
conference economic
Seither
the its objectives as: 'To ever constitutencies are clarification Labour's programme. built "To work
seeing
our party.
Vague
these aims.
the agreements
Other
campaigns, League Page 2
EDITORIAL
THE massive 13 per cent swing against the Tories in the Southend by-election demonstrates the
resentment among working people savage policies of the An opinion poll published just Southend election revealed that a general election today would result in a Labour government with a majority of over 100.
Later this month Howe's budget is likely to include huge increases in VAT and taxation on consumer goods. Only nine months after the Iron Lady came to power, a tidal wave of working class resentment and opposition is building up. But the response of the TUC and Labour leadership has been pathetic. Callaghan can't even bring himself to support the steelworkers who have been in the forefront of the anti-Tory offensive. Murray has
At the 9 March demonstration, faced with hecklers who demanded action, Murray pleaded for more time for 'talks' with the government. But talks will change nothing. Thatcher and Joseph are WHILE the government is doing its best to prevent
from going Olympics, Rugby Union selectors are drawing up lists of players for this summer's tour of racist
South Africa has been in illegal occupation of
since 1966. Its troops Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe - in every case to fight the forces that now make up the governments of these countries.
has recently sent in an forty-four Angolan territory launched from January of this year alone.
South African government holds the whole black population of the country — the vast
in a state of universally condemned AFTER organising the speciacu-
Debate of the Decade' on Monday, the Labour Co-ordinating Committee. meets in Birmingham this weekend.
On the Saturday there will be a
'alternative strategy' The next day LCC members will discuss the future strategy of the organisation.
The LCC was established in 1978 by a group of Labour Party members, including a number of MPs. It defines
co-ordinate action in the and trade union branches to facilitate the defence,
ana premiut of
closely with other campaigns and pressure groups that work alongside the Labour Party so to harness their unique expertise and experience in the work of activists and
All this is rather vague, but through a number of conferences and publications the LCC has attempted during the past year to give flesh to
Some of its leading members, in country genuinely democratic'; third,
articular Stuart Holland MP, have
een associated with the alternative economy strategy, the core of which is
of planning aimed at giving trade say in the running of the industries in which they work.
suggestions coming from the LCC include the involvement of constituency Labour Parties in mass
as the Anti Nazi and
Actions not words
Thatcher is action. General Strike unemployment, millions in the name of profit..
Olympic hysteria
the Moscow
government is
have invaded Africa.
The Angolan boycott? No.
official on
Namibia in
what will she demonstrators.
movement, and the reform of the
media', in particular. 'the break up of
the big press monopolies'.
The latest proposal, advocated by leading LCC member Peter Hain, is
for the organisation to call a rank-
and-file trade union conference.
These and other ISSUES
thrashed out at the LCC's "strategy'
discussion on Sunday.
take place around
prepared by the LCC secretary, Nigel
Stanley, in which four priorities are
suggested.
First, the fight unemployment; second, 'to make this
reform of the media; and lastly, 'to soreignity visavis the economic re-assert political
Taken as a whole, there is no doubt that these proposals and th
general history of the LCC over the
past year mark the organisation out as
currents to have emerged within the
Labour Party for a long time.
That its members include Stuart anti-nuclear. Holland, Michael Meacher MP, and a
determined to smash the steel strikers. Prior has 'staked his political future' on pushing through the anti-union laws. And no amount of "talk' deter Howe from pushing up taxes. What is needed
In order to throw out the Tories it is necessary to mobilise the strength of the whole working class. Instead of begging the Tories to 'change course', the TUC should prepare a general strike; the alternative is the dismantling of the welfare state, the destruction of trade union rights, mass
the impoverishment
The 'day of action' called by the TUC for 14 May is fragile beginning. Typically, the TUC has given no firm guidance about what kind of action should be taken by affiliated unions. The TUC General Council should make 14 May a one day general strike, as the beginning of the preparations subjection. The British government has issued one statement, before the decision to tour was made, stating that it thought it inadvisable. The statement was as lukewarm as it could be, given that the
signatory to an international agreement opposing sporting relations with South
Will we now hear the mass Tory ranks baying
Will we see threatening British players with the sack, cutting off their money, and crusading for the moral pressure of the nation to be hurled against them! No. If there are demonstrations against the tour,
do? Probably arrest Meanwiors, Brilain's highly profitable trade,
number of politically with Tony Benn also gives the LCC the many Labour Party and trade union
influence be used? will be document has Debate will minuses On the plus side, document •We do not believe it is sufficient to rely on electoral policies alone to win socialist advance. number of areas, such as the women's against movement and the black community, in which Labour Party members need to be involved.
should call a 'local government conference, TOM all OVEr denounce the cuts...and seek support for left-wine growth of public expenditure.
excellent starting point, but unless it organises action against the cuts and reaches out to establish links with
will London Divisional
branch calling for all-out strike action.
offensive opened up by the steelworkers.
of
based in the workplace.
Tories. No amount of 'talk' will do it. conditions
human rights.
World War
the
codeworo for anti-communist war nvsteria public Ideas and
do is
Woolly
tne least, individuals associated
potential to influence does not
The question is, how will that
There In answering this, Nigel Stanley's assertion
both pluses and imperial
Stanley says:
of ' He goes on to list a Similarly,
movements'
Stanley also suggests that the LCC
inviting Labour councillors the country...to Hopefully policy of planned
Such a conference would be an
for a total stoppage to bring the Tories down. Militants should follow the example of the NUPE
Council who have unanimously called for all-out strike action that day. Resolutions should be put in every union Building in the localities
The struggle against the Tories is at a turning point. Militants must prepare to ram home the
What was evident on the 9 March demonstration was the absence of any organised left alternative to the TUC leaders. The first step towards such an alternative would be a joint campaign by the LCDTU and Defend Our Unions Conference, at a local and national level, to force the TUC to take general strike action to kick out the Tories. This campaign would aim to build local committees
Such a programme of action can finish off the investment and business links with both Namibia and South Africa - through which rich Tories grow fat while African workers suffer abominable
That is why the Olympic boycott campaign has nothing to do with the right of self-determination, nothing to do with the defence of democracy, and nothing to do with
Like the clarion call to 'defend small nations' with which the imperialists launched the First
- during which they trampled over every small nation in Europe — the call for the 'right of self-determination' by the imperialists is not worth the paper it is written on. It is a straightforward, naked and totally hypocritical
workers, would remain something of a talk shop. of the more genera problems the LCC face; it retains the Flavour of a discussion group, rather than an organisation going out to the working class and placing itself in the torettont of the struggle against the Tory Government 'strategy' are all ver! well, but what the LCC now needs to translate these idease into
There is also the problem that some of the ideas offered are, to say The Stanley's document on internationalism concentrates on "disengagement' from the EEC, , but he spell out what type of internationalist strategy the Labour Party should follow. rather peculiar that Britain is "former power", and while Stanley argues Britain 'must respect the right of all nations...to control their own future', there is the glaring omission how this principle should be applied to Ireland while it is argued tha Britain should support *liberatior not specified whether this would include southern African freedom fighters Confusions thest and other confusions will be sorted Birmingham this weekend. If not, the LCC could remain what it is — with a membership of only two hundred; an organisation with plenty of chiefs but not enough indians.
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Taking power or sharing power?
AUL FOOT talks to TARIQ AL! just before the debate begins. Both the Socialist Workers Party and the International Marxist Group put the case for revolutionary change in Britain today nset: HILARY WAINWRIGHT, one of the authors of Beyond the Fragments; and TONY BENN, main speaker on the Labour Party side
HOMENEWS
Photos: G M COOKSON (Socialist Challenge)
By Valerie Coultas
tionaries.
TARIO ALl, speaking for the International Marxist Group, received a massive ovation for sayulg that, after a decade which had spawned the most right-wing Labour government since the war:
'Labourism is a sickly, Well pathetic ideology. We want to dislodge it."
Audrey our coordination chairperson of the Labour Committee, got caught up in a net of her own making. Trying
reply Tariq Ali,
revolutonary perspective, she asked:
'What are these people who acquiesce in repression if not ordinary working people who have to be won to our side?'
"The state, you fool!' came the reply from some wit in the audience.
The debate was interrupted
During the speeches of both Paul Foot and Tony Benn, the disruption tactics of a gang of anarchists- - calling themselves the 'autonomi' infuriated the vast majority audience who had come to listen to the debate.
steelworker Sheffield expressed the feelings of the bulk of the crowded hall when he said:
'The steelworkers in
'Debate of the decade'
DESPITE a spirited defence of reformism from Tony Benn, the 2,500 strong audience in Central Hall, London, at the 'Debate of the Decade' on Monday night, saved their loudest applause for the revolu-
Sheffield could teach you lot a great deal about solidarity. You can shout now but if we don't win this strike; you won't be shouting later on.'
Sheila Rowbotham, one of the authors Beyond raements. pointed out that 1t was sectarianism
"autonomi', which had made the women's movement wary of far left politics. anarchists finally and failed in destroying the meeting and filed out.
Applause
Tony Benn put forward the case for socialists to loin the Labour Party. was not that Labour's reforms had failed, he claimed, that Labour has not reformed enouch, He wanted to see a new, reforming govertient His attempt to Labour's record in office from 1974-79 did not cut much the particularly following Foot's bold indictment of Benn himself for remaining in from cabinet of such a right-wing Labour gov ernment Benn did win applause fo his attachment democracy of the ballor box;
and for his view that the labour movement can use parliamentary democracy.
He said that many workers feared that if the far left groups came to power democracy would be ended.
The critique of the far left made by une authors Fragments lent Benn's view. The Communist Party's interventions from the floor also endorsed this view. They argued that the 'British road to socialism' had to br through winning a parliamenary majority.
and
Hilary that of the platform speaker
the authors rraements.
The she rejected the strategy of both completely
IRONIS revolutionary left She explained Holland, the LCC, had intervened into the struggle against closure at Vickers, Scotswood, The problem been responsible for diverting it
into parliamentary while he became
'but Vauxhall.
But she thought that the far Labour left had also failed to take a
approach defend parliamentary' activity. It did
Fact as
ice struggle, instead
Paul impose itself
the
La thi -shop stewards wom
the
line.
semi-syndicalist
then such the labour movement'.
But ne won anti-authoritarian
of Beyond the and other Labour lefts
and so on,
Vanguardist
Wainwright,
and one of because they the made it clear that
left and of the
how Stuart the first speaker for coup d'etat',
and had
channels the possibility MP for Pinochet, ' he stated. As the
Tario Ali democratic Sweden,
"catalyst for
trying to that none existing
revolutionary democracy committees. answered. the democraci power,
Paul Foot echoed Hilary's
theme of 'going to where the power lies bourgeois - on the shopfloor' and of the need to win the argument for socialism in the 'foundations of
Labour applause for truly exposé of the left in the Labour party - he quoted from Benn
Fi sayıng that cuts, prescription charge
were regrettable' when Labour was in office.
jibes
When he asked the audience democracy. whether the lack of demand for manage steel was due to the fact that "India is stuffed with steel' or
"have a glut of steel in Latin America', there Paul was a roar of cynical laughter. Wainwright,
It was left to Tariq Ali to giye a full reply to the reformist about left. Benn had accused the far left of seeking a 'vanguardist
but Tarig Ali pointed out that Chile showed explained it was not the far left which was inclined to lead coup d'etats. Commons as 'We should not forever exclude struggle.
of British an Labour Party never having actually tried out use. a reformist road to socialism
listed the quite governments Germany.
Australia and Austria, and saic
them had legislated for socialism either.
Tony Benn's critique of the
left was roundly Audrey Tariq argued that popular popular control and
workers' councils is a far higher
level of democracy than that of
democracy, which
never goes beyond the right to
vote once every five years.
He also suggested that if the Partr was realy the democratic 'socialist
federation' described by Benn
then it ought to allow far left
groups, like the IMG and the
SWP, to affiliate.
Audrey Wise, who spoke last from the LCC side of the debate, failed to answer the
at Labour Party But she did in to underline Tar left's armoury that evening.
sa dari Hilary
Hilary had failed explain that the debate is not
whether to use Parliament but how to use it. Audrey Wise caricatured their anti-Parliamentarianism and
that the working class should use the House of
all arena for
She cited the Corrie Bill as example of where Parliament had been of some the
In fact revolutionaries are
willing stand for Parliament, and will argue for revolutionary ideas if they get elected. Hugo Blanco, in Peru, has shown that this can be an
part of revolutionary tactics
Wise, subordinate the needs of the mass struggle to the needs of the constitutional process
which exactly what the Labour lefts did during the last five years of power
The dilemma of the Labour lefts. — the constitutional road
became clear when some members of the audience held up a banner which read: "Are you with Benn or the H-block men?"
Tony Benn, the true democrat, said that he had been brought up to believe that partition was a crime against the Irish people, but he was not
• favour of the immediate withdrawal of British troops. He had nothing to say about when, if indeed ever, the troops should be withdrawn.
The problem for the Labour Party today as in the past is not whether to reform enough, but whether to reform at all. This is particularly clear with an issue like Ireland. allowed to represent socialism Such a vision • cannot be in the '80s.
As Tariq Ali said. revolutionaries will enter into united action with anyone prepared to fight to turn back
offensive of this Тогу government and to defend working class rights
They will fight for joint action with Benn and the rest of the Labour lefts. But they will not subordinate the task of building revolutionary party to building such united action
1S 1n this with maximum united action and maximum political debate, that socialists can socialism in the '80s Socialist Challenge 20 March 1980 Page 3
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Welsh workers won't go to the wall
HOMENEWS
five or even ten years.
They experienced
where the famous conditions were not nearly so bad.
memories of those days of devastation.
Wales they stand to suffer more than most. By Jude Woodward
THE efforts of the Tory government, which determined that those workers least able to defend themselves will pay most for the economic crisis, combined with those of the British Steel Corporation, which wants to make a quick ouck Taller unan save oos, are driving Welsh workers to the wall.
Twelve thousand steel jobs were due to go in South Wales by 31 March, but the angry response from Welsh workers has stay execution until August. Related
But it doesn't stop at 12,000 steel jobs. Every job lost in steel will probably mean two three other jobs lost in related industry in South Wales. Even officials in the government's Welsh Office reckon that the steel cuts will lead to the loss of 50,000 jobs.
There are already 92,000 unemployed in Wales, and this could easily be swollen 125,000 by the end of the year.
Unemployment scale death for communities of south wales. The twin steel towns, fifty miles apart, OI Port Talbot Llanwern. dic particularly threatened.
Llanwern is a real steel town - it is only there because the steel plant is there. Like many of the steel towns in England — MARTIN comes from Liverpool.
is 17 and"
Recently he has been staying in South Wales to help sapport for the youth march.
He talked to Challenge about why important that youth join the fight to defend jobs.
What impact will the closures have on Port Talbot?
The closure of the steel works here will mean certain death for the town. It'll not just affect the steelworkers, miners and others linked directly to
steel works, but community. There will be the same
in Liverpool where I come from. What part have the youth played in de write so far?
The dosures mill hit the young people especially hard. They'll be the first to be lid off because of the 'last in first ut principle. Most of the apprentice Sacialist Challenge 20 March 1980
Youth march for jobs
IN the 1930s there were men and women in the Rhondda in South Wales who were unemployed for
hunger, poverty, humiliation that flows from them. Even in Jarrow,
"30s hunger marches started,
Older people in South Wales still weep at their
Now the conditions of the '30s threaten to return to South Wales. As the crisis hits British industry all sections of the working class suffer, but in South
Corby, for example — it was buit as a direct answer to the unemployment of the '30s.
Many workers Llanwern with the promise that at last there was employment and prosperity.
But the Tories and don't care what people think about their lives:
Quiet
Port Talbot has been a steel or iron town for three hundred years, our now it too laces Ine slow death imposed by the crisis.
The people of these towns are not prepared to just sit quiet anu lel u nappen. ine. move towards a Welsh general strike earlier this •Cal militancy with which the people of South Wales are meeting the threat of unemployment.
The weak-kneed leadership of Len Murray and the TUC ensured that LETS came to nothing. workers have not given up. to People
this Now the youth have been the drawn into the struggle to save jobs. Miners and steelworkers are joining with young people and to launch a protest against the bosses' plans for South Wales.
In The Times on 17 March, Bill Sirs said: 'We objection to streamlining. have always done it on the basis. wastage year after
'Closures would mean
opportunities will go. unemployed. for most school leavers build and the inevitable result
this area.
Socialist
The union it's
older.
youth into the strike. Now march kuljils up
the winning of this strike.
Why have you and the Port committee?
Well it's obvious
Page 4
year. ' But each job lost through 'natural wastage' more youth without a future.
and the of South marching through the valleys to demand that deprived of a future.
workers not to sell jobs that the next generation of workers will need. They will be lending their energy and willingness to fight to the struggle communities of South Wales.
They will 4CU0O closures and redundancies.
The march officially backed by the South Wales Mineworkers? execute. Dy National Union moved lo and by the Port Talbot strike
stable wallice the march will be swelled by BSC apprentice steelworkers, who stand to suffer on the basis of 'last in first out?, and school students who want Jobs they • education.
Alliance
This link unions South Wales is a step to the fighting alliance that can turn back the Tories' offensive and reveals the demand a workers' solution to the crisis.
«vital, otherwise the closures will destroy just about every astect •TOI industrial South Wales. militancy But Welsh
Agony
But protest insufficient - the death agony of Speke Liverpool revealed that. Only direct action unions can turn the growing sense of outrage at the Tories policies for South Wales into a have no mass movement to stop them. We The South march is a small step towards LENS.
a mass exodus of youth'
There will be no job opportunities unions
in this area will be a mass exodus by young people from other
leaders are always saying that the steel strike is not just about those working now but is a fight about whether there will be jobs for future generations in Wales. about whether those at school now will have jobs to go to when they are process
the strike is about the future of the area, but before now they have done little to organise the
with this youth in South Wales have a chance to play a part in
involved the NUM Talbot strike
that the youth themselves could not possibly fight against the closure plan effectively.
For this reason we approached the
means one
From 4 to 9 April the youth
Wales will be
they are not
They will be asking older
to save the
demand joint
stop
being
Union Welsh of Students
The numbers on
miners and
young workers
students
finish their
between the and young people in
An alliance of this scope is
Dates:: people of AT. 5th AP Route.
alone
plant
by the trade
Wales youth NUM and the strike committee. The
are obviously the key defending jobs, but they also have to mobilise and support the actions of
sections of the community against the Tory attacks.
What are the aims of the march? Two things really. To draw attention to the situation of South Wales youth under the Tories and to begin the
of getting the organised to fight for their rights alongside the steelworkers. Is this a one-off march?
don't see this march beginning of an 'on-going' campaign like the Right Work Campaign Against Unemployment.
This march is just one of the sort of united fronts we need in order to fight unemployment.
It will be a long term struggle, for which we will need to build alliance of the employed and unemployed. This is just a start.
Sponsors to date include: South Wales Exac. NUM
VEDNESDAY 9tR APRI
BSC Port Talbot.
Pat Sikorski was in Wales and spoke to him about the youth march employment.
Why are you going on the march? With the redundancies here and in antern South Wales, people through, of course.
youth How do you think the closures should
be fought?
The jobs issue is a big thing down here in everybody's minds, but the leaders have not put it up alongside the pay fight in this strike.
The Wales TUC started to propose
the action under pressure from the miners, Youth but this was called off because of the
actions secretary of the leaders of the British
We've now
the an convincing people to fight nationally
against the jobs losses.
SOUTH WALES YOUTH MARCH AGAINST UNEMPLOYMENT
NO RETURN TO THẺ 30
EVER
AGAIN
MARCH
FOR UNITED ACTION NOW TO
STOPALL CLOSURES AND REDUNDANCIES
EEPTU Shop Stewards, Port Talbot
Port Talbot ISTC/NUB Strike Ctte.
Annio Powell, Mayor of Rhondda
Further Details: S. Wales Youth March Against
Unemiloyment.
Mount Pleasant. Swansea.
• CO 12 Chaddersley Terrace
i'll be redundant
within three months'
BOB TAYLOR is a weighman at What are your job prospects:
South straight away. against unthe pIocess September
there'| be nothing lett in Section , especially for the young that's if the closures go weighman,
union the
Murrav Manual TUC, and the other trade unions.
got a long way to go in redundant
CONTEMPT
NOT If the closures go through I'll be out
I work on the quality control end of
We were told last • or October that there wit be job losses on our section due to a modernisation programme.
There are three jobs on my section:
, furnace recorder and mill recorder plus one floating spare. I was the last floating spare to be appointed with no meal-time relief. The union has not fought to replace the jobs.
An arrangement was reached with
mama cemen before •LEE • strike, under which the jobs on our section would be taken over by a computer system leaving only the manual jobs.
Before the new redundancies were announced we were offered transfers to the manual section, but now unless there is a fight over the jobs l'll be
within three months going back to work.
Page 5 scan of this page
Thatcher's hit squad
Why capitalism means crisis
HOME NEWS
MARGARET Thatcher's hit
squad swooped on pickets
outside Hadfields private
steel works in Sheffield on
Wednesday of last week.
Socialist Challenge
reporter CLIVE
was among
the 90 pickets arrested. He
was charged with obstruc-
tion and using
language.
MARGARET Thatcher doesn't like workers. She has made that plain, very plain.
Most of all she doesn't like them because they haye refused to lie down and accept her
job-slashing philosophy.
So what does she Outside Hadfields last week she Baye Une alswer → sena 1 ne. inues in blue uniforms to arrest and beat up pickets.
There were about 800 of us there on 12 March. As well as trom Sheffield, pickets come from Rotherham, Stocksbridge and Warrington.
We assembled at 1pm, time for the afternoon shift.
•The aim of the picket was not to close Hadfields. It was a demonstration aimed showing the steel union leadership, the Tories, the British Steel Corporation and all the rest that steelworkers are fighting on as hard as ever and would not be sold out.
Five coach loads of cops were waiting when the pickets arrived. George Burgess, chairperson of Warrington Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, later described what happened:
•There was a body of police outside Hadfields' gate. They were standing across the road with their arms linked.
•We stood ten yards away, shouting Hadfields to come out and Join the strike. Without warning the police made a rush. We stood our ground, thinking the police would stop.
By Roy Alexander DURING the two decades of spectacular economic growth that Second World War reformist 'theoreticians', Crosland and Douglas Jay, discovered a new 'truth' — capitalism as a system had fundamentally changed its nature; the days of capitalist crisis had gone forever.
According to this view, the right-wing of Labour had accomplished what se sale and the beneis o al would revolution. could be aside amployment and the weltare state reaped for the indefinite future.
In the '80s, after ten stagnation, erosion of state benefits this superficial forecast
been But
Despre alt UnIS the same
'Like a blood bath'
foul do? had
in for "The next we knew the Two police dragged him along the floor by his hair, kicking and
followed the a vast array of back such as
nothing , years of patient work by production
require social
benefits BESTIAI
years of capitalist with growing dole queues and a steady li productive
the political and
kind social
Hadfields 12 March: 'There was one lad who just stood there.
ARGUMENTS FOR SOCIALISM
democrat argues that the problems of capitalist
having
state expenditure, a dash of import controls - and
course the social
In reality, however, the crisis-ridden character of the capitalist economic system remains identical to maras day. All tre demaro management anc 'neo-Keynesian' economics in the world will
to change HALUI C
Under capitalism, production is in the hands of private capital. Private capital has only one master
that is profit. The constant attemot to expand
means that compete with one another. a restrained form, for the big monopolies.
o gal duvantages tricy constanty revamo tre
process, substituting complex and more expensive machinery for the living labour of the worker. capital invested in production constantly grows.
Production and productivity also grow, but the
was like a bloodbath!' de not grow as democratic the rate of profit falls
In an
other funds
capitalist capacity is expanding.
competitive firms, throughout the economy.
Capitalist
have to • This is even the case, in
can't tundamentally alter
fall in the
thumping him... they charged at us like a troop of soldiers. It competition between capitalists and the struggle of the working class to benefit from the increase productivity of their labour (which, at a time o expansion, is likely to succeed). means that profits
etfort to counter this, capitalists will slow down their rate or caonal accumulation.
and more remunerative outlets for their foreign investment in labour-intensive service industries)
De a decie investment goods, just at a time when productive
cutbacks, closures .of and so on transmit the slump
governments can tinker adopting. various Stads ti demand, investment subsidies, and so on. But they
its cause, which lies in the structure of production
Indeed, by stimulating spending at a time when capitalists are cutting back production due to the
rate of profit, governeis introduced a new dimension to capitalist crisis —
lines, chronic cano olen acure, Inacion.
doing
decade of the 'great depression' and over the past years:
seeking British
1970s
'Worst' year '30s "70 -6.7% -1.4%
less (1931) (1974)
with this by little more than it did in th
'slump-and-boom
bourgeois whereas the former
Socialist Challenge
police coming in kicking, thumping and punching. There was one lad who just stood there, completely terrified. Two police dragged him along the floor by his hair, kicking and thumping him. 'There were 50 of us who got through the police line only to find another body of cops. They charged at like a troop of soldiers. I1 was like a blood bath. "They sealed us off.
Police at the front, police at the back. An inspector came down and said we were ali under arrest.
Then the cops found they hadn't enough room in their vans to take us all, so they forced us to walk back, one at a time like school children, through their lines. '
Many militants were handcuffed after arrested. Some spent up to four hours at West Bank police station with their arms 'cuffed behind their backs. The arresting officers were still down at Hadfields with the keys. Some of the pickets were "cuffed with plastic straps.
When they finally gol round to booking charges ranged from threatening behaviour, obscene language to, in most cases, assault.
The scab lorry driver who Chall threatened pickets with an iron bar was noi arrested.
And yer no way was the picket a failure or defeat. pickets had shown their determination to keep up their Photo: CLIVE TURNBULL struggle. That Thatcher and her cops needed to be as vicious as they were at Hadfields was a sign of their fears and their anger at the pickets strength. whether it's inside or outside police cells; Hadfields or er Picker the morale steelworkers :from South' Yorkshire remains high. That's the message from Sheffield. All that the social democrats have succeeded in altering the shape happened in the The
, what happened - the 1930s -
economic growth, 1930s and
'Best' year Decade as a '30s '70s 30: 70s +8.8% +8.2% +21% +23% (1934)
In other word», the economy grew in the 1970.
'30s but the cycle Trotsky once compared the methods of franl politicians and reformists by
wanted to attack the working Serlha: class with a knife in the back the latter emplos small but regular doses of arsenic. That is true o their economic policies as well as their politic.
20 March 1980 Page 5
Page 6 scan of this page
Asian youth march for Black Freedom
Corrie goes down
HOME NEWS
JUDGE Irven Sunderland ruled last week that it was all right for a teacher, to call his "sambo' and a 'nig nog'.
Even if the expressions had been used, 'they could not by any stretch imagination described as discriminatory'.
Once again, the Commission for Racial Equality has lost its case.
Asian youth in Bradford, aware that the race relations legislation is
combatting Britain today, have organize a black Treco bite from Bradford to London.
They aim to make it clear le racists like Sunderland and Graham Bramble, the teacher concerned, that they are 'here to stay, here to fight", whatever the courts may say.
In Bradford, where industry, texiles, in a state virtual collapse, black finding it harder and harder to obtain work.
Unemployment
11 unemplovment reaches million next year, as predicted, it will be even easier for employers to refuse black people a job.
Not only the courts but the police in Britain abuse black people if they protest about discrimination. Southall Asian community punished for daring to oppose racist bigols nac lic Nauonal rront, walcu deliberately provoked community.
Rather than the National Front being stopped from
meeting Southall April, the whole community brutally attacked by the police. heavy lines and prison sentences that followed were meant Southall Asians a lesson — if you ask
choose.
victory.
When the Tories won election it was inevitable that sooner or later we would be facing another
threat 1o our half-way liberal abortion
law.
Once the results of the Private
Members'
SPUC, the anti-abortion
group, and Life,
grass-roots organisation, turned their
attention 1o John Corrie MP,
had drawn first place.
Delayed
Corrie delayed until the
moment before publishing
contents of his Bill.
The
finally published only three
and many of the MPs who voted that
day little idea of
contained.
But SPUC and Life's carefully
orchestrated campaign of foetus scare
stories, all of which have since been
shown to be false, had clearly worried
many of them. backed by the Minister of Health Dr They were urged
Socialist Challenge 20 March 1980
pupil racism decided march of youth are
Photo: CHRIS STEELE-PERKINS 2.5 stopped!
The and unemployed.
Wak
the entry of immigrants. their
holding last citizen. was The The aware the
teach JOHN Corrie's anti-abortion Bill will not become law. Last Friday it fell after running out of parliamentary time.
That the Bill has fallen is a tribute to all the anti-Corrie campaigners in Britain, and particularly women. It shows that women, organised in a powerful movement which looks to the working class for support, are a force to be reckoned with by the Church, the state and this reactionary Tory government. Now pro-abortion campaigners should go on the offensive and fight for a law that really does give women the right to
JILL KENT, who has been sitting in the House of Commons following the debate, explains now near John Corrie came to
the 1979
I0 order 10 problem of the faetuses.
gress of concern
lobby could be found. tne. anu-abordon
Debate
who
last the full Bill.
Bill Writ days
what standing committee.
Corrie, MPs opposed to Corrie.
Page 6
for your rights too loudly you'll be
Harassment of West Indian youth is a regular feature of daily life in concept
laws virtually make it a 'crime' to be black
Now, following the tightening of the 1971 Immigration Act to restrict first
plan a new Nationalities Bill which will attempt to reduce the status of nearly every black man and woman in Britain to that of a second class
Asian youth movement is meaning of these that attacks. White workers facing more focuses hardship through unemployment will Gerard Vaughan, to ignore the Bill's many obvious failings and vote for it
solve this distressing WELL. mistakes could be ironed out later and
fully Some compromise, it was suggested,
When a vote was taken after 4/2 each hours of debate, 242 MPs voted for the Bill and only 98 against. This majority was the highest yet for the second reading of, an anti-abortion
None of the previous Bills had managed to reach a third reading, but Corrie had an unusually long parliamentary session ahead of him. Things looked bleak as his Bill was sent into
The committee held one meeting before the summer recess and from 24 Octobel beran to sit in earnest for 2% hours every Wednesday morning. was constituted in proportion to lhe vote on the Bill, including only five
people as scapegoats.
"Black freedom', , which refers not just to equal rights but to the whole
of our dignity as people', according to the Asian youth in Bradford, has to be fought for by building a united black movement. The march they are organising is the
step to building such
Adequate
"Isolated demonstrations have not proved adequate weapons as means of fighting back. We feel it necessary
action takes place the attention of the black community nationally.,
The immigration laws will be a JOHN CORRIE MP — he came near to victory
• Known supporters of the anti-abortion lobby held the majority, and it soon became obvious that this was a full-scale assault on the Abortion Act.
As the committee went through clause of the big in turd.
Corrie's supporters used
majority to push through change
when we looks era cla to appeal to MPs in the next debate at
the report stage, in fact considerabl!
tightened up Corrie's proposals.
Power
It was at this slage that an entirely section was aqued giving int Secretary of State the power to lower (but not to raise) the time limit at his own discretion, by means of a 'stalutory instrument' which could pass through Parliament
particular focus: 'We feel that these laws are of overriding importance to us as they threaten the whole basis of black our existence in this country.?
The marchers supporters to set up Black Freedom support committees in the towns they are passing London. These committees collect accommodation issues the marchers are raising.
The march will culminate in a rally and demonstration in London on 19 July. If you can help and wish to participate which information, Movement, Bradford, Lane, Bradford: 8. 49931. minimum of debate.
The Bill emerged from committee before Christmas more damaging and more confusingly drafted than ever AS parliamentar February approached it began to look sabotaged their own Bill by making it too long and complicated to pass the report stage in the short time available to it.
They began asking for extra time, and filibustered the committee stage of the Seat Belts Bill in order to keep 15 February clear.
As the February Corrie resorted lo desperale tactics: he tried to withdraw all those parts of the Bill which had yet to be discussed and would reaching the third reading vote. Majority
By this point a 24-week time limit had been imposed by the 1967 vole and the grounds marginally improved. But the remeyal of subsequent clauses meant that no provision was left to allow doctors their to saye a woman's life belween 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy, and abortion of a foetus on the grounds That il would became illegal altogether.
Bill its second appalled by Carrie's lactics, however. The Bill had been butchered by its own sponsor in a vain attempt to hulldoze it through and onto the statule book with his name allached. Many hardened anti-abortionists now fell 1 would be better to withdraw the Bill altogether and rally their forces for
next parliamentary session.
THE march
Manchester conference Against
are being Tories.
New
tightening up
are asking In
the use • through on the was blacks.
should 20,000 arrange food proposals on and advertise the •November.
ANL
want further
contact: Asian Youth
266 Tel: Bradford NATIONAL
Contact: 8
had
discussed, The
Bill dragged on through
vole
prevent it
would
Bill had been handicapped another, Many MPs who had yoted for the
reading were
of the more effective Bill in the discussed.
Altendance al the debates tell off
DETAILS OF THE MARCH
ANTI-RACISTS across the confere ne coming Campaign
Campaign Racist LaWs next
Saturday in London. Black people
hit hard under the
restrictions on immi-
gration were brought in by thie
Tories from 1 March and a furthe
is planned, along
with & new Nationality Bill
the courts Judge
Sunderland and his ilk sanction
racist abuse against CARL mobilised some people against the Tory immigration last
With the relative demise of the anti-racists should con-
centrate their efforts on building
CARL into a mass anti-racist
campaign ceutring on the question
of iminigration.
RECALL CARL CONFERENCE Saturday 22 March 12 noon to 5pm
Friends Meeting House, , Euston
Rd (opp. Euston Station)
PO Box 353, London NW5 or ring 01-485 2872
rapidly, and on the first closure vote of the 14 March debate Corrie was defeated 147 votes to 140. This meant that MPs were not willing to push on for a thind reading and the Bill finall: ran out of time on that Friday, with several voting divisions left and (wo amendments which had not yet been
anti-abortionists had mel with defeat once again.
Imposed
By this point a 24 week time limit
grounds marginally improved: But the remoyal of subsequent clauses mesat tha no provision as left lo allow doctors to save a woman's life between 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy, and abortion of a foetus on the grounds that it
severely handicapped became illegal altogether.
Many MPs who had voted for the
its second reading were appalled by Corrie's tacties, however. The Bill had been bulchered by its own sponsor in a vain altempt lo bulldoze it through and onto the slutule book with his mame allached. Many hardened anti-abortionists now fell it would he better to withdraw the Bill altogether and rally their forces for
more effective Bill in the next parliamentary session.
Attendance at the debates feit off rapidly, and on the first closure vote
14 March dehale Corrie was defeated 147 votes to 140. 'This meant that MPs were not willing to push en for a third reseling and the Bill finally ran out of time on that friday, with several voting divisions left and Iwar amendments whith had not yet beet
anti-abortionists had met with defeat oner axain.
Page 7 scan of this page
HOMENEWS
By Geoff Carroll and Bernie Kavanagh MERSEYSIDE'S fight for jobs suffered a blow last week when 140 High Court bailiffs successfully stormed the Meccano factory in Liverpool. The factory has been under occupation since mid-December when the owners, Airfix, sacked the 940 employees at 40 minutes' notice.
supported by the Merseyside police force, surrounded the factory in a pre-dawn swoop and smashed their way In to lne prail.
were frogmarched out. By the time angry pickets arrived at the plant, management security teams had the place
the struggle for the right to work in an area which has suffered closure after closure.
Liverpool workers had learned the lesson of Standard Triumph and Dunlops, and were not wiling to face the dole without a fight.
Meccano, was in no doubt where the blame lay for this setback: 'People will be very bitter after this. We've been
By Pete Clifford
NOW in their fifth week of
occupation, workers at the
Stone Platt textile machin-
ery factory in Oldham are
stepping up their action to
resist closure.
held at the Al a lechillg
Engineering Employers'
Federation headquarters, the
LIFE 170
immediate redundancies and
offered 'meaningful negotia-
Los on ule clusule
Harold KINSON
chairperson of the
BLACKS
JUNIOR ARCHER is the latest black victim of Photo: GEOFFREY SHERIDAN (Socialist Challenge) police in
Hornsey, North London, where five members of the
Earlington family were assaulted and arrested in
their home last April.
Junior, aged 18, was stopped near his home by the nolice in the early hours of 7 March. Within minutes seven
other police officers arrived
itey atallist their van, and jumped on top of him. He was struck on the
head with
LULLICOLE
leaving a deep gash over his
right eye.
After being kicked and punched, a second truncheon
blow left the right side of his
face badly swollen.
noubway station Junior was. subjected
The
Sciacall called him a viatr
audill
punched in the face. _by this
face and WelC Cavercy He was charged with the theft of a vehicle and punched until he
written py ine police
Junior pleading not guilty to the charge and has
• DUlLE Casc has been
Job-killer squad
moves on Meccano
Squads of bailiffs, armed with axes and iron bars,
The handful of workers guarding the plant overnight
The Meccano occupation was a militant high point in
It showed that some
Bernard Riley, the Engineering Union convenor at
STop THE committee, commented: "As НЬ Не СОНЕ Ш«U" ingful negotistions are meaningless until management tell closing plant.
The strike committee's response has been to step up
for the Engineering executive to make
official.
British Aerospace workers in Oldham have promised a
POLICE CURFEW FOR
taken a Family Defence Committee.
Trevor Earlington says. "If VOU wilcie you're scared to go oul al night in case you're picked up the coppers last summer iney ware around beating up blacks just for a laugh. I you gol away you were is ucky It seems that the police in
least by our own national executives."
Despite widespread leaders of the AUEW and GMWU have offered no
Airfix goods. Foil
continue. Meanwhile a hard core of workers, many of whom are women, who played an extremely active role in
the occupation, are determined to continue the struggle.
move some f2m worth of stock out of the factory. National efforts to get the dispute made official should
stopped.
despite being officially unemployed, no one has yet received proper benefits. support to: Meccano Hardship Fund, Liverpool Trades Council, 1 Victoria St, Liverpool 1.
STONE-PLATT
OLDHAM
DIENCIAL
CLOSURE + SAVE JOBS
CSEU
OCCUPATION
Manchester area to build
support. res nave been sent to
the other Stone Platt plants in
Crawley, well as to the Scraggs SubsIdIary oT Stone Platt in Oldham Supplies have been turned and DICKS AA arguing for a strike through out the company on the basis
of opposition to any job loss.
zonators fine messares
of support to: Eddie Holland,
Stone Platt Dispute Fund, c/o Ine area are maxing renewed attempts to impose a nigheLinic curiew on black Highbury Corner Magistrates' court is to be picketed on 21 April when the Earlingtons COILE for trial. Donations to the Earlingion Defence Committee, c/0 Railton Road, London SE24.
crapped on from all sides; first by management, but not
local support, the national
financial aid; they have consistently refused to make the dispute official or call for a countrywide boycott of
Negotiations to find a new buyer for the factory
Plans are now afoot to foil management plans to
be stepped up and the movement of Airfix products
The financial plight of the workers has worsened,
Donations and messages of
Penguin
boycott
A BOYCOTT of books at
Penguin has again been
imposed by
Union of Journalists
members following the
failure of management to
negotiate over its proposed
redundancies.
With 22 editorial jobs to
be axed, management's only
was to say that if the NUJ chapel made out a case
for any othere
retained, it would have to cut
others instead.
lte 01 Dooks Deing
boycetted includes all the
main titles in the Penguin,
Kestrel boycotted are am Pes Also
I are all Pelican and
titles, added lo the list because
management's reorganisation rencan area
threaten NUJ jobs.
action is in
defence jobs, and
persuade management to
negotiate meaningfully.
Swindon
sit-in
By Mark Wooster
A SUCCESSION of redundancies in the so-called boon
town of Swindon has at last
met resistance.
On Monday of last week 150 garmen workers Comptor Sons Webb occupied the factory prevent Its ClosuIe.
The workers, mostly women, had at first accept minimal redundancy pay, but when its tzm profis last learned Compron's year they threw management
inside factory are uniforms for
Beefeaters. local Post Office supplies depor is being picketed the movement postal workers" uniforms. So far district officials National nIOR of Tailor! and Garment Workers has consisted of limiting the and number NICKelS barring outside supporters from the occupation Donations and messages of support to: Compion Strike Committee, c/o Farmsby St, Swindon.
Support your local
teachers in Bristol
By Mike Eaude A DEMONSTRATION called by the National Union of Teachers in gained the backing of public sector unions, groups, and Council.
The demonstration, to be held in Bristol on 27 March, is to: show solidarity teachers who are attempts by Avon council to push through cuts in education by revising timetables.
For the past six weeks there have been strikes at schools in the area.
am this
ountr
futur
...and Ealing
SCHOOLS in Ealing, West London, came to
a halt on Tuesday of last week when members
half-day strike against
demonstration led by the union was joined by
1,500 people.
Ealing council, controlled by the Tories, is
proposing lo cuts its education budget
inflation this amounts to a drop of 20 per Lencies
cent, which will leave some students withour
Among the
demonstration
which is fighting
decision to delav admittance fo school until
children have passed their fifth birthday. The
majority of the protestors were mothers and
school students who
vociferous in their attacks on the Tories
Speaking on behalf of Ealing
Council at a rally after the march, Peter Gran
said that the Tories were cutting all areas of
public expenditure, and drew attention to the
trades council's campaign against the closure
of Perivale maternity hospital.
TUC blocks discussion on Jreland By Chris Murray TAMESIDE trades by he sed seen of o
and sections of the local labomr morement to prevent any discussion on Ireland
Irelane
disallitat
This |
On e Irades council de ine conterence. A WEEK the trades council was reported to the Communist members and again threafened with
Tameside is fighring the witchhunr. Statements o SAVOUR
COUNCIS Kings Rd, Ashton-Under-Lyne, Greater Manchester.
Stop
Avon has
parents Bristol Trades
and
with
fighting
county
loca three-day
offer.
disruption
and Local executive calls
COCALI clarified, strike government others.
Tower
the cuts.
boroughs.
allowing for
supporting LUTE
3-5 Action
clear policy. were the most
Trades April'.
Rank By Dick Wiles OVER 1,500 people marched in Ca Saturday agaiast the siting of Craise
I almost as many joined a demonstration
Be objective. chees corale the Cold War , Wedor
• 15 air Upper Heyford demonstration is planned to be Party Heyford on 17 May.
Oxfordshire Missiles Woodstock Rd, Oxford. Tel 0865 54701.
Socialist Challenge,
collecting
rates
rents!
NEARLY three-quarters of a million
government white-collar workers have been instructed to impose sanctions in pursuit of their 14 between unions and employers broke claim, after talks down on 5 March with an 8 per cent
With a possibie ban on handling council rents and rates, town hall could be severely disrupted.
The action could also lead to the closure of Luton Airport and the
of services at Heathrow and Gatwick over the Easter holiday.
The instruction from the National
Government Officers' on all air traffic controllers to take strike action. It also advises members not to handle rate claims, and urges members not to
with 'consultants,
contractors and outside agencies who Photo: P M
work with local government'.
Instruction
The latter instruction has yet to be GRANT
but it could mean total action for • some local workers and not for
Hamlets branch of NALGO has decided to refuse to handle both rates and rent.
Trina Shane, a member of the branch, says: "Tower Hamlets' main source of income is through council house rents inclusive of rates. It will be the same for other large inner-city
make the sanctions effective we will have to stop handling rents as well as rates.'
other areas follow Tower Hamlets' example the effects of the sanctions on local government expenditure will be dramatic. But NALGO nationally seems reluctant to pursue a
The executive has called for a day of national strike action 'some time in
and file activities in NALGO should push locally for firm action on rents and rates as the first step to a nationwide strike in pursuit of the 14 per cent claim. Anti-holocaust marches
• Oxten
were the start of a
held at linges
Details from: Dick Wiles, Campaign Against The
(Campaign ATOM), 99
20 March 1980 Paral
Page 8 scan of this page
In place of capitalism's anarchy
Photo: LARRY HERMAN
drastic surgery in pursuit of profitability.
sack.
THE over-production of steel in the West, where nearly all the industrialised countries are cutting steel output, dramatically reveals the depths of the international capitalist crisis.
The shrinking markets increased competition from the new steel producers in the 'third world' have resulted in a sharpening imperialist competition and a drift towards 'protectionism'.
Steel consumption States is expected to drop from 99m to 90m tonnes this year. The US government has been forced to intervene to . protect home producers against the 'dumping' of subsidised foreign steel.
This move towards protectionism has its parallel in West Europe with the
Market's Davignon The EEC now expects production to be below 140m tonnes, compared with a previous planning prediction of 228m tonnes for 1980.
In Britain, the plan is for an annual production of 15m tonnes (over 10m
1970-71 despite massive, and completed, programme of modernisation which originally had a production target of 30m tonnes a year.
These figures have implications far beyond the steel industry. As a primary industry, the production of steel is one of the main barometers for measuring industrial performance.
Any starting point for a workers' plan for steel has to be context of deepening world recession and anarchic market forces. However, the policy for steel promoted by Bill Sirs and the rest of the ISTC union leadership has as its starting point the ability of the Steel Corporation compete 'on equal terms' with its main competitors in the world market.
This approach has more in common
capitaliss
SOTE STACES.
cialist Challenge 20 March 1980 Page 8
THE British Steel Corporation has embarked on a policy of
'We are bust,' says BSC chief Sir Charles Villiers, as he
falls into line with Keith Joseph's philosophy of laissez-faire economics, and threatens 52,000 steelworkers with the
The Tories' plan is that the Steel Corporation's £300m losses must be born by the workers through redundancies
and Is ecual to
export arive on lne part of inter- management.
Even Il 1t
in the. United framework
necessity of subsidy.
management plan. annual steel will breed inefficiency
workforce, of a workers'
large- scale production. figure!) nearly Waste put in the been used.
incompetent
and the Tory 'cash limits',
business 1.40111k
It is a totally inadequate response to argue — as Bill Sirs did in an article in the Guardian on 14 January entitled A salesman's key to production' - that the productivity of British steelworkers As oblem is the lack of an aggressive and that the main
of BSC's
were true it would nos solve the problem of declining markets This approach is entirely within the
of ISTC policy, which focuses on two main issues: the need to eliminate bad management, and the
increased
that bureaucratic is bad management. In both the public and private sectors it
— only workers' control of production by an informed
and within the framework plan for the whole industry, can eliminate inefficiency in
The waste involved in the £250m Anchor plant in Scunthorpe, which is capable of producing the lowest cost steel in the UK at the rate of 108,000 tonnes a week - now cut to 45.000
is just one example of the mihons spent on plant and buildings which are under-used or have never
But this is not merely the result of
mismanagement. The collosal waste of resources arises from a wrong planning prediction due to the chaos of the capitalist market.
In relation to government subsidy
, the union leadership reasons that BSC is unfairly treate in companson to its overseas
'Will the up for steel and allow us (sic) lo
and reduced living standards.
unions long-term
capitalist market. compete
"Tory slackers not helping BSC'
While we can say that the demand for the abolition of cash limits is in the short-term interest of defending jobs -and has to be fully supported — it is not a substitute for a socialist strategy for steel, as the ISTC seems to think.
Fashioning
workers'
With the catastrophe of mass unemployment facing the working class in some regions, the question alternative workers' solution has become urgent.
Here DAVE HUDSON takes a critical look at the steel
policy, and strategy for steel has to break with the anarchy of the
the offers no long-term
of economic collapse
a
plan
for
steel
of an
argues that a socialist
context . of intense competition for a declining demand, it
solution. Worse still, it does not tackle the problem of a spiralling trade war, and the possibility
Within the capitalist franework of Bill Sirs, the next most logical step is the Labour left's policy of import controls.
To date the ISTC appears t ambivalent attitude to this p
Import controls are entire to the interests of the workin is illustrated by the present s The international solidarity steelworkers and their all block the export of steel nationalist response would undermined by
The struggle for jobs i tional. Protectionism not ol mines workers' solidarity, other reformist policies it is of maintaining the productiv of British industry.
The much vaunted coll between unions and manage BSC's modernisation ard t tion plans in the 1970s was a l this approach of accepting th the market and of profit.
It has resulted in the loss i jobs since the partial nationa the industry in 1967. Under economic conditions of the 1! be disastrous.
growth of mass unemployment' affecting industries and regions require different policies to those pre the ISTC leadership
provided a focus for a s defence of jobs, and the lau an alternative workers' industry. In this strike the policies of the Sirs' leader been brought into sharp relie
Despite this the steel s shaken the Thatcher
the beginning the dis been a confrontation with go policy. Challenge
Sections of the workfor nised this at the start of the st understood that the most effe to win was to extend the actio workers in order to challenge 1 nead on
A clear focus is needed t the growing anti-Tory around which genera movement could develop
The defence of jobs facing all sections of the movement local • can act i focus. It immediately interests of miners, dockers, rest of the working class with the steelworkers.
The failure of the ISTC lea to take a clear stand on jobs wa the elements in the setback rep ballot on all-out strike action. Ine deteat of the Welsh
Defending jobs requ
centring on: no closures; abolition of the T limits; defence of the guarante
Page 9 scan of this page
Saturate the South with pickets!
Steel blockade at Leyland plan
te an
unter without
productivity strings rike. latter would be other
Snouts itain
is the best possible way in which to ernanderlike sable economy.
Drawing up require a thorough-going discussion at ation every over 3r The demand for the opening of BSC'S lisa- and the government's books and free et of access to information will be crucial for c of : this task.
,000 a of
will
aral
ave
in the
challenge private property. They would challenge the bosses' control over the economy.
can only be seen as an interim measure, however, achieved in a single industry.
crisis requires a complete 're-tooling' of the whole economic system -which can only be implemented by a workers' government, which would have nothing in common with the last Callaghan administration. Control
have to wrest control of the economy from the ruling class. To implement a workers' pian would have to expropriate the core sectors institutions, and organise a regime of workers' control over production.
To soak up OROCHCLON demand for steel embark On a crash useful public works, building homes, schools, hospitals besides. The idea of over-production is a sick joke in the context of the needs of working people in Britain and the rest of the world.
Such a government,
would have monopoly OI foreign different in its aims from' a policy import controls) to check the effects of marker orces. Power
sharp contrast to the failed strategy of sharing power reformists like Bill Sirs. workers' plan in the steel industry and for a workers' government require the construction of vi taluste left-wing labour movement, those who are for a class-struggle line against the Tories.
Revolutionary be in the forefront of the construct this movement militant policy which is clearly in the
interests of only reveal the total inadequacy of the reformist leaders, inadequacy of the Labour Party itself instrument of socialist advance.
in the steel industry; and the national
witheme toss no pay and fee no
pay, attached. The first step implementing a full sliding scale of
perspective of mass action to Steel defend jobs on the basis of such policies
build a mass current committed to the Cheshire. fight for a workers' plan for the steel industry and eventually for the whole
such a plan would
level in the labour movement the some areas, completely picket lines.
planning for.
The
Policies of this kind would directly
'rights'
ALCOOLS
Work-sharing and related slogans
particularly if they are only Deals
A workers' solution to the capitalist
La task vity a government other
A real workers' government would officials to
for the economy,
of industry and the finance
unemployment and including the - it would need to programme of
and much else
received
if it was to planned economy, impose a complete trade (quite However,
matter what.
This policy of taking power is in Sirs. kind
national peddled timid which
The first steps in the fight for a
La new and militant throughout the consisting of all
socialists, who will fight to By Martin Hill new 'minority convinced that FLYING steel Yorkshire working people will not
DIET the total bite by
and down the
COLIN HERD is the Iron and
Trades Confederation at Warrington,
Workers from the
Warrington steel plant have
been some of the most active
flying pickets in the dispute.
Their militancy has won them
nickname of the
'Warrington Brick Brigade'.
By Colin Herd
DESPITE the massive support for
the TUC march on 9 March, the
union leaders have still failed in
their duty to back the steel unions. Individual unions with the
exception of the docks, rail and in
the miners have ignored our official
This must stop or it will open up a divide within the trade Anion
movement. And this is exactly what the Tories have been hoping and
reopening of talks with no money on the table, and the disgusting remarks by Bill Sirs in the last issue of Steel Workers Banner, are no way to alter the situation.
Sirs' concessions are shameful. He principle locally negotiated productivity deals — but 70 per cent of all his membership are in no position to increase productivity, they can only sell jobs.
He also accepts that these productideals will form the major proportion of the national award, while other unions are turning down 19 and 20 per cent straight cash deals.
Sirs agrees on co-operation with the management to reduce absenteeism, abolish overtime and reduce industrial disputes. He wants us to be paid by bank transfer, rather than cash in
words Bill Sirs do management's dirty
Sirs also agrees with adjustments in the guaranteed week. This is something we will not tolerate. Ihe loss or the guaranicta weck would oc suicidal 101
cent of steelworkers, as they would then not get a full weeks pay.
With this type of leadership it's not surprising that BSC was able to pull off its so called "ballot about a ballot'.
Warrington strike committee would like to express our complete disgust with the media cover-up of the rigging of this ballot. Literally hundreds of people who have never worked for BSC
these ballot forms. No enquiry has been made and no action has been taken by our union.
Sickening
sickening, were the disgraceful scenes that took place at Corby, where narrow minded workers (or should I say mice) decided to call a return to work' meeting, no
Corby's strike committee must take the blame. There is an alternative to the
of leadership meetings have been taking place. But despite constant invitations, Corby has failed to attend any of the meetings. even though both regional and national officers are free to attend.
pickets from South have been British Leyland's Pressed Sieel plant at Cowley in Oxford aiming to make the strike
closing down BSC's main pickets aim fo shu plant by stopping the movement of essential supplies
The national strike committee could
the that this minor crushed.
From the national strike committee South-west moves are being made to decisively step up the picketing of major industry. The loopholes
couple of weeks.
oxygen and so on — as well as steel.
Transport aand Workers' Union officials have tried to
steelworkers' picket lines, so that steel and other goods are not stopped from getting into the plant. Transport Union sympathetic to the steelworkers,
cop
have provided the answers to ensure full-time officials covering up their
rebellion was easily complete blunders Through the South, there effective picketing. were results will clearly be seen in the next national news last week.
meeting, picket lines
actually
members, the strikers -
IRON-STEEN
TRADES
In the meantime, we are faced with
NOW be and mistakes South-east and has been little These massive confirmed on the
The Warrington strike committee
lobbied their union's district committee in the local labour movement.
and it was confirmed that Several should
Tuesday night a Steel Strike Support Pond of 60 people on pounds have beee raised for the strike Committee was set up in Oxford. It aims to provide practical assistance for efforts; they are bringing down more
accommodation, food pickets this week, and are contacting and so on — and to publicise their case Corby for reinforcements.
BSC
Photo: GM COOKSON (Socialist Chanenge,
feels that the South of England should
saturated with hardened effective pickets instead of the dealmaking, dispensation-giving moderates that fellow trade unionists in the South are having to put up with
The message from Warrington is quite simple: 20 per cent, no strings. No productivity deals. No sell-out.
union, and student meetings have already been addressed by steelworkers, and several hundred
The pickets plan to infeasil! thei
Socialist, Challenge 20 March 1980 Page 9
Page 10 scan of this page
The crisis on NATO's southern flank
the extreme accounted for 700
October.
A SITUATION of economic chaos hangs over Turkey. country's debts mount daily, and have now reached $25m. Between 1975 and 1979 inflation increased by 319 per cent. The pound has been devalued three times since 1978.
The peasantry, three-quarters of the population, and the working class have been hardest hit by the economic crisis.
For several years Turkey has been the scene of violent class struggles. but in spite of the fascist terror, the workers' movement
again in October 1979.
government in. 1978-79.
well as a police organisation.
Turkish
sapport to the Ecerit government.
TURKEY -
ON 8 February the Turkish army
moved against the workers of the agri-
industrial complex of Izmir, south of
Istanbul. Attacks on the workers' dis-
tricts over several days left 50 people dead and thousands under arrest.
Terrorism in Turkey, notably by
right, has
Demirel government took office last
CHRISTIAN PIQUET reports on
the repression and the resistance.
has shown great combativity.
The The ruling subservient to
Ecevit and Turkish have failed in this objective.
who •make up stability through control working class LOUISIL. backed these
economic measures. repression and The Ecevit ECEVIT (left) and DEMIREL (right). Chaos hangs over Turkey
WHO'S WHO IN TURKEY
Justice Party: reactionary party of the current prime minister, Suleiman
Demirel. It was pushed from office in 1971, but returned in 1975-78, and
People's Republican Party: created under Mustapha Kemal, it is led
by Bulent Ecevit and is linked to the Socialist International. It formed the
Party of Nationalist Action ('The grey wolves'): fascist organisation
led by Alpaslan Turkes, who was prime minister in the previous Demirel
government. In the partial senatorial elections of last October it gained
6.7 per cent of the votes. They have large finances and control a Union as
Turkish Workers Party: small reformist party.
Communist Party: clandestine. For a long lime it has
adrocated a 'democratic, national front' with the PRP. It gave critical
Age 10
already lives since the
class, which American and west German imperialism, has attempted
Demirel governments
In 1978 the People's Republican Party of Bulent Ecevit formed the
TESTOR over the and holding down The Turkish bourgeoisie COHE pound. measures and prepared to pay dearly in long-term
Party government began negotiations with the International
Party Sunnite sector
ments', per
BUL
BURSA ESKISEHIR
IZMIR
AYDIN
DENIZLI
DITERRANEAN SEA
Monetary Fund which culminated in
*economic stabilisation' gramme accompanied by a 43.0 per
devaluation in the Turkish
Political violence rose siderably, much of it initiated by the
. of Nationalist Action which had, been part of the preceding coalition government.
This extreme right-wing organisation, whose leader, Colonel Turkes, does not hide his admiration for Hitler, had made a breakthrough in the 1977 elections when it gained
important base among unemployed. The militias or the
of Nationalist Action then stepped up their assaults and assassnators.
Emergency
Steadily losing the confidence of the bourgeoisie, Ecevit proclaimed a state of emergency in 19 provinces in 1979, in the hope of heading off an army intervention. This came after
provocation that brought the start of hostilities between the Alevite and
communities. thousand died during this period.
The workers' movement, including the Communist which had critically supported the government, now feebly challenged Ecevit's policies.
Unable stem the tide terrorism and faced with a worsening economic crisis, Ecevit's modernising solution collapsed.
Meanwhile, the proclamation of the state of emergency, the repression against the May Day demonstration last year, the arrest of militants in the Confederation of Progressive Workers Unions (DISK), the Turkish Workers Party and organisations, lost Ecevit the support of sections of the working class. He fell from office last October
The Justice Party of Suleiman Demirel, which had led the previous coalition government, returned to office and launched a programme o economic recovery. The
was granted every Foreign investment was favoured by the removal of 'bureaucratic impedimening and pectronics. especially agriculture,
Sectors such as the mines were denationalised.
The Turkish pound was devalued, by 48 per cent. By the end of 1979 prices had risen dramatically Butter, for example, went up by 70
73 per cent These moves found favour with
CORUM
ANKARA®
*KONYA
MERSIN_ CYPRUS
pro- Kurds in the firing line
THE position : parlicularly con- which only achieved unity after the
First World War.
COURIE was divided Greeks, Armenians, Jews and Kurds. There 19-8 mainly concentrited
republic. 1923, heavily oppressed.
consciousness among the minority grown,
Haut organisations have Kurdish struggle strengthened these developments.
Independent gained The ruling class increased repression.
The stale of emergency in 1979 brought the six under attack. Hundreds of people wer arrested and accused of separatism and terrorism.
the IMF, the Economic Three Development, and
Bank, and negotiations with these organisations Party, for the postponement of Turkey's
debts.
In order to solve the crisis, government undertook a policy brutal confrontation working class. An 'anti-terrorist' law WON passed, supported deputies of the People's Republican Party.
Repression became
Left-wing teachers hunted; the Progressive Policemen was banned; and leaders of the steel, other workers' and bank workers' unions
were arrested. The DISK newspaper, Politika, was banned.
The fascists assassinations without fear of arrest. The workers' remains strong, fightback against Demirel's policies private began in
of the There 4,000 arrests people were killed when school and university students went on strike The strike of 20,000 tobacco workers. again murder of one of their representatives
and the stubborn resistance of the textile workers in Izmir show that Demirel has not yet fulfilled his aim of breaking the popular struggles. After the Izmir
SAMSUN
DAMASYA
I SIVAS
KAYSERI MALATYA
MANMARASO
ADANA GAZIANTEP
IŞKENDERL.
8Y
February,
minorities Turkey's
Prior to that the
Turks,
million Kurds,
South-east
they have been
years national
SAUTOISI and cultural, The
and political
deve woed
Iran has
wanner in recent elections. European has responded with
ruptcy.
Kurdish provinces
being
Organisation for Co-operation and of domination.
with the World Demirel opened
Middle East.
the of standards, with
the further massacres.
systematic. were witchAssociation
building
continued their
combativity
however. Their
December, the anniversary Kahramanmaras massacres.
and six
Istanbul
following the
done?'), supporters
clashes in
TRABZON
ERZURUI
DIYARBAKI when 50 people were killed, the army general staff declared that they would restore the authority of the state 'one way or another'.
strategic position NATO's southern flank accounts for the concern of the imperialists about developments in the area.
A month ago France's council of ministers declared that Turkey was 'an ally whose stability is essential to the region's equilibrium', and it paid tribute to the 'courageous efforts of the Turkish government in the face of the difficulties they encounter'.
West German finance minister has stated: 'We cannot let Turkey disintegrate economically and lose its canacitv to resist Russian attacks.' He will be touring the West
capitals to raise $2.5 billions to save Turkey from bank-
The OECD's secretary general is proposing to postpone repayment of the Turkish debt.
At the same time, attempts are
made to strengthen and modernise Turkish military potential.
For the Turkish ruling class it is a race to re-stablish stable mechanism.
For imperialism, restoration of order in the country would help secure a strong NATO bastion in the midst of an agitated
For the working class in Turkey the success of these measures would mean even deeper cuts in their living
, widescale unemployment and a critical weakening their
quite apart from journal Turkish of the Fourth International. Available from The Other Bookshop, 328 Upper St London Ni. 40p plus 20p pop
Page 11 scan of this page
INTERNATIONAL
By Tom Marlowe FOLLOWING the victory of his ZANU Mugabe last week announced his cabinet members. Included are two whites - one a member of Ian Smith's Rhodesian Front — four members of the defeated ZAPU wing of the Patriotic Front, led by Joshua Nkomo, 14 members of the ZANU central committee and three women.
As well the post of prime minister, Mugabe has reserved the crucial defence ministry for himself. This means it will be largely up to the ZANU leader to decide what will happen to the armed forces, in particular whether the white officers in the former Rhodesian Army remain in control.
Among others in the cabinet are:
*Simon Mzenda, deputy prime minister, minister for foreign affairs. carpenter Mzenda has a trade union history and has also been involved in the liberation struggle longer than most and is a strong the past he has helped to hold ZANU together in times of internal wrangles
Mizenda is on record as criticising the Soviet Union for not giving more help to ZANU. As foreign affairs suggests he could favour friendly relations with
China. proclaimed, "the people is colonialism, capitalism, imperialism and their agents.
*Bernard Chidzero, minister of economic pianning and development. Not attached to any party Chidzero has in the past advised both Nkomo and lan Smith's puppet in the last government, Bishop Muzorewa. An economist. and civil servant he has spent 15 years with various United Nations agencies. Chidzero can be expected to be on the right wing of the Mugabe cabinet
*Edgar Tekere, minister of manpower and planning. presentiv the secretarv general Of LANU. He spent the years 1965-74 in thought to be both personally and politically close to Mugabe. Now a member of the innerpolicy making group in the cabinet.
*David Smith, minister of commerce and industry. One of the two whites in the cabinet, Smith was a member of both the Muzorewa and Ian Smith governments. Although now letting it be known he was critical 'in private" of some of lan Smith's policies, he has said he will retain his membership of the Rhodesian Front.
Born in Scotland, David Smith emigrated to Zimbabwe in 1946.
He has been given the important "business post in the cabinet but Smith is not a memoer of the inner cabinet policy making group.
' Maurice Nyagumbo, minister of mines. Nyagumbo can be expected to be one of the leading left wingers in the cabinet. As he is now responsible for the industry he could prove one of the major thorns in the flesh of the white former member of the Communist Party, Nyagumbo has spent 19 of the last 21 years in jail. He was released just before the arrival Soames. A long standing member of ZANU.
*Nathan Shamuyarira information. One of the lew ZANU members in the cabinet who is not on the party's central committee.
1970%. Shamuyarira has journalist background. correspondent for the Cuardion. Politically he has said that his ideal government would be a synthesis of the best of both capitalism and socialism,
* Denis Norman, second while in the cabinet, party political experience. A large scale maize and calile larmer he wis clected preskient of the Rhodesian National 1978. He emigrated from Oxfordshire in 1953.
Although he is not a member of the innercabinet policy group, Norman heads a major ministry — over X0) per cent of the Zimbabwen population earn their livings Normal UH's scale re-distribution of farming land.
Mugabe's cabinet
The masters now?
landslide election party, Robert one time
Catholic. In
Mzenda's history
December 1978 he enemy of the Zimbabwean Son of an Anglican priest Tekere is
prison. Tekere is He is a large scale farmer. white-controlled mining
settlers.
South African
in Zimbabwe of Lord
This is probably because of his
an academic and former
agriculture. I Ne Norman has no
farmers Union in
off the land. not scom likely to lavour large
PHOTOS: from top to bottom, Simon Mzenda, Bernard Chidzero, and Edgar Tekere poreity in charle of escuing ZAN * Richard
international links,
among the left wing of the cabinet. He has
already stated that in order to increase the bay
of black civil servants the salaries of the whites
lil government adminstration may have to be
reduced.
minisier.
cabinet members and one of the two women in
thic inner policy making group. She is a member
« the ZANU central committee and has been
the party s secretary for women's affairs.
public services.
love could find st
*Teurai Rope Nhoge, tou and sport
Nhongo is one of the three women
29 March
THE FIRST national conference in solidarity with the people of Nicaragua is now little more than a week away. Sponsored by the Labour Party and the Nicaraguan Co-ordinating conference will be held in London on Saturday 39 March.
It aims:
build
material and political solidarity
with the
Nicaragua:
I0 Dile into local
already underway:
Nicaragua's
the Literal! Crusade and Medial
Aid.
With eye-witness
conference will give participants i
happening in the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship cight monchs ago, and to hear the thinking beind the policies of the new
SOLIDARITY WITH THE
PEOPLE OF
NICARAGUA
One day conference Saturday 29 March, 10am - 6pm University of London Union, Malet St, London WC1 Sponsored by the Labour Party and the Nicaragua Coordinating Committee Delegate's credentials £2 from: Jane Mackintosh. c/o Third World First. 232 Cowley Road. Oxford (tel 0865 45678)
Funds to aid reconstruction in Nicaragua can be sent to: Account 5014079050, Cooperative Bank
(Ealing branch), London W5 2XL.
Nicaragua solidarity
conference for
The Committer revognised
Committee. the
Fi mass campaign ot
ICLOLILLULLELH of
campaigns
appeals for depends priority proicts conterenie.
esperially reports from Oxford.
Nicaragua, the
GRIN aruntry since the WHAYANRIRRNCA open
HUGO BLANCO
IN LONDON
HUGO BLANCO
Speaks at London rally
FRIDAY 21 MARCH
7.30pm, Friends House, Euston Rd, NW1 Tickets (£1 and 50p wageless) in advance from The Other Bookshop, 328 Upper St, London N1.
Sandinista-led government.
Nicaraguan Coordinating (NCC). which che Nicaraguan government. will present proposals for developing a dynamic network of local and regional action committees baied in the labour movement. AnJ Workson will discuss the dilterani components of this national solidaric campaign such is unions and local labour parties, links with the women's morement. •INJ supree or the literacy rare.
future Nicaraguan solidarity eftorts in Britain largely
the of this Every ING branch send branches in Covenirs, Newcastle and Sherfield where local campaigns have alread! move into dition. Branches should also get deletes do the conteronit from kwal Labour Parry and trade
The conferenit all organisations and interested individuals.
Socialist Coudone 20 March 1900 Pito LI
Page 12 scan of this page
Who is Brynmor John?
Armagh women - Communist Party double standards
IRELAND
By Geoff Bell HANDS up all who know what a Mr Brynmor John know? Well here's a clue, in May 1977 Mr John said:
1 join the right gentleman... in paying tribute to the security forces in Northern Ireland. Their campaign against terrorism in the last year met with considerable success
I believe it greatly undermined the organisations. would also tribute the contribution which the Defence Regiment played cruisited.
That's a fairly generous clue someone who backs the British Army, likes to say the IRA is about to be beaten, praises paramilitary band of Loyalist killers known as the Ulster Regiment.
Still not guessed who Mr John is? Here's a final clue. Last October he
*Roy Mason did Northern Ireland'.
Solved the riddle now? right, Brynmor John is the Labour Party's official spokesperson on Northern Ireland.
By Valerie Coultas Last Saturday, on International Women's Day, the Morning Star carried a report of the brutal treatment Republican women prisoners are receiving in Armagh jail.
It was a fitting tribute to the women who are suffering beating and wardens because of their request for political
Slopping ceased. They are facing similar treatment to the men in the A Block.
The Morning Star article points out that the women in Armagh are being persecuted not only for their Republicanism but because they are women:
Mocking
One woman, Rosemary Callaghan, had her breasts exposed to the mocking, jeering eyes of the wardens, including the Governor. Women have been refused adequate sanitary towels.
have
repression suffering today at the Imperialism' said the Star. 'It has been women
have stazed the demonstrations against the British presence'.
Ine blar went on to explain utal women would again be International Women's Armagh jail in protest at the conditions of the prisoners and in solidarity with the 11 women arrested by the Royal Ulster Constabulary in a similar demonstration a year ago.
One thing. you would reading the article is that the members of the Communist Party on National Union of Students everything they can to stop students in Britain karning pilgal or the Armagh jail, let alone protesting about it.
Blocked
Pauline
recutive, bas been blocked all the way along the Ine by the Left Alliance, a Labour and Communist Party block, from bringing the
Janie Glenn, a CP member on the Women's Committee of the NUS, went over for the last court hearing of the Armagh 11 in January this year. When she returned she suggested that a resolution should executive calling for support for the Armagh protest and to send a representative to Armagh on International Women's Day.
'I put the resolution forward but everyone except the far left voted against, explained. The reason given for this was that the issue was 'irrelevant to women students in ,.
Socialist Challenge
does? Don't too much doesn't think about. •So
honourable granted cabinet status?
appointed such
bipartisan
terrorist ada a valuable Ulster be equally obscure. Effort
almost
Defence
one on the issue of Ireland. well
That's job military establishment.
Parlamentary DCLWCCI punching from male
out of their cels has also
been subjected to "This is the extreme violence and
Northern Ireland are hands of British
intimidating ILUOL
demonstrating that day
Day outside
not know from
the executive of the have done
women l
Roe, an IMG member of NUS
be put to the national
*They women's
• Pauline
20 March 1980 Page 12
He's not actually in Labour's shadow cabinet, or anything like that; after an ine Labour rary docsit pay
attention to Ireland and should talked agencies why should the party's spokesperson on this non-issue. be
That also explains why Callaghan
non-entity Brynmor John to the North of Ireland post. In fact it's a further example of
services pursued by Westminster politicians.
Nobody had heard of Humphrey Atkins when Thatcher appointed him as her North of Ireland secretary of state, so the Labour 'shadow' had to
John hasn't made much effort to
his post ten months ago. Nevertheless it is at least of passing interest to with. record some details about the politics of the Labour Party's official number
First, Brynmor John possesses the first important qualification for his
— close links and support for the defence. 1974-6 he was undersecretary of state for Defence in the
The Women's Committee did not agree. It had already decided to have a session at the forthcoming women's conference on the 29 and 30 March on violence against women in the North of Ireland. But when they took agenda to the executive they refused to ratity it. The Women's. Committee decided, in the PAULINE ROE, International Marxist Group member on the NUS executive, has had her mailings censored because the Party argues that the torture of women in Armagh jail is 'irrelevant to women students in Britain. face of such plough ahead regardless. prepared advertising the session.
But when I went to Belfast on 24 February they interrupted the mailing and took out all the information about Armach interview with a woman student whose relatives were in Armagh jail.
Censorship
Pauline was furious about this censorship: had nOL consulted anyone committee.' She executive 'are afraid of being identified with da the anti-imperialist struggle. cowardice is becoming a scandal. They've sat back and done nothing about the Irish issue for years. Now they're even trying to sabotage a campaign highlighting the
Wilson government. His chief task, not surprisingly considering what he does now, was Army recruitment.
In all, John used seven advertising
to try and entice public school chappies to be officers and the unemployed to be squaddies. explained what he saw as his role in January 1975:
My object will be to ensure that the young man who is placing his future at the disposal of the armed
will know what he is doing and will be appreciated and valued.
Career
In the same speech John went on to say: There will be an extremely fine career for suitably qualified men and women in the forces', which the friends and relatives of the 300 plus British soldiers who have been killed in the North of Ireland might find some difficulty agreeing
But John's enthusiasm for the British Army and the importance of 'defence' in general is not qualified by worries about dead soldiers; nor has he proved overly concerned about the vast Albums r molcy spent
Said John in 1977: "Too little expenditure on defence is dangerous'
women in British jails'
in Scotland, line with NUS policy. the
of the Irish Women's
feminists, Perturbed
CRATY
showed.
seems to wish.
Communist
manoeuvres, to The mailing was
— incuoing an
on the
believes the
They're political
the MCE and PTE. torture of Irish
and I believe undue weight on social programmes military considerations could disturb the overall balance of what we are trying to achieve'
As far as the North of Ireland He goes, John has said little. But in an interview in the Irish Times at the end of last year he did offer a number of views which suggest he may even be to the right of Humphrey Atkins. Firm John criticised the Tory minister for not being firm enough with those American politicians who demanded that Britain do something about the North of Ireland. He added that the North of Ireland should 'always be regarded
As to 'solutions, little. He did Times that the 'troops out campaign could cause violence in Britain and that the movement only aggravates the situation'.
The one positive suggestion he did make was that • the Special Branch strengthened'
fairly represe alve Parliamentary Labour Party and its views on Ireland.
When Pauline first visited Belfast she was taking the women's campaign into the colleges
Wales and the North of Ireland in,
She made contact with the Belfast Women's Collective and with the women on the executive
Union of Students.
Campaign has work women in the North of Ireland.
it's not up to us to tell women ir Ireland what their needs are. We will campaign on all issues of Irish women's rights.'
But one issue that women in the North of Ireland, as in other parts of Europe, are quite
perturocu Republican prisoners as the sucessful picket of 500 women on International Women's
"Their plight as women who suffer from not only physical but sexual degradation because of their commitment to fight for the freedom of their country cannot be ignored — as the NUS
'As English feminists it's our government, our army and our responsibility to challenge and break the barriers of silence in Britain
(Spanish section of the Fourth International).
disregarding United Kingdom
John has said suggest to the Irish
Southern Irish "should
All in all Brynmor John seems about Ireland.'
It's no wonder
Armagh they said 'No comment!'
'The NUS which you can help:
As British with the Court, Hamstead Birmingham for a speaker. *If you executive urging attitude the
this.
evidence about Day
interested contact
phone Sue on 0232 40465.
BERNADETTE Devlin-McAliskey speaking at a rally of three thousand people in Bilbao in the Basque country, held a fortnight ago to support the election campaign of the LCR-LKI The LKI stood candidates on a common slate with iwo other revolutionary organisations,
THE mystery man
when the Morning Star phoned up the NUS about the women in
If you are interested in helping break down the barriers of silence about Armagh jail in Britain there are the following four ways in
*Contact Pauline Roe, Flat 32, Hamstead
Road, Handsworth, are a student write to the NUS them to ieconsider their . women In jail. If possible get your student union to back you in
*Women Against Imperialism in Belfast are organising a tribunal to investigate the case for political status in jails in Ireland and to hear the
the maltreatment of women Pat Arrowsmith and Jill Tweedie have agreed to act as judges. The Armagh 11 have decided to boycott their court hearing and attend the tribunal instead on 9 April
*A delegation is planned to visit Armagh jail and demand to see the conditions in which the prisoners are kept. If you or your union is imperalism, on Broadway, Belfast 12 not Women
Page 13 scan of this page
Putting a premium on Marxist ideas
AGENDA 1980 IMG Summer School SUMMER SCHOOL MAIN COURSE Session 1: The German revolution 1918-23 Session 2: Revolution and counterrevolution in Spain
1933-39 Session 3: Stalinism Session 4: Hungary 1956 — political revolution in
action Session 5: Social overturns in Eastern Europe 1945-9 Session 6: Permanent revolution Session 7: The Cuban revolution Session 8: Revolutionary events in Nicaragua Session 9: Bourgeois democracy and revolution -
Portugal 1974-6 Closing session of the school: A Programme for Britain SUBSIDIARY COURSES: 1. An introduction to Marxist economics 2. Issues in Marxist economic theory
Oursalesdrive
Socialist Challenge sales reached a record level last week. 4,586 were distributed through IMG branches which was 75 up on the week before. But an extra 1,775 were sent out for the TUC demonstration on 9 March for the protest against the Tory government's Employment making total of 6,246 altogether, the highest total over the last year.
However there are still some branches that are not reaching their targets. These branches, given that so many others are working hard to build up new sales, are letting everyone else down:
BRIGHTON, HULL, NEWCASTLE, BRENT, CAMDEN, HACKNEY ISLINGTON, NEWHAM.
We're aiming at six sales per member,
5,000 distributed to branches every week.
If the branches who are not selling their full quota would pull their socks up and sell the extra 414 papers we would reach our target.
If you're in a branch that's slacking PULL YOUR SOCKS UP!
Is your branch
slácking?
Fiver to Fight the
Tories Campaign
target. Who would
Bill, distributed you enable
of our overall total so far. comrades?
CONFERENCE centre where IMG Summer School will be held TWO major decisions of the recent ING, national conference were to launch a campaign to get a large proportion of its supporters into industry and to help the foundation of a revolutionary youth organisation. These two tasks put a premium on the ability of revolutionaries to explain Marxist ideas.
AS DaM of a campaien to step un the level of Marxist education in the IMG, we are organising a summer Just two weeks to go to reach our £2,500
have thought when we launched our fund drive that the steelworkers would still be out on strike at the end of the appeal? Their determination hardened as the strike progressed and the cynical role of the Tories was exposed. But to stay out that long with no pay has meant a tremendous sacrifice, sustained by determination to call the Tories' bluff and show them that the steelworkers are not the easy target they thought they were.
We're not asking our other readers to make such a massive sacrifice. All we're asking is that
us to keep getting across the steelworkers' case with the best reportage on the left. To do that we want your Fivers to Fight the Tories. That's not much to ask. Exactly 250 supporters have sent us a fiver, making £1,250
Just as the steelworkers are making a last sustained effort to win their struggle let's make a final push over the next two weeks to reach our fund drive target of £2,500. We still have hundreds, indeed a few thousand readers who have not sent us a fiver. We could smash right through our target if just a small proportion respond to this last appeal. How about it
school for 150 of our supporters from 12 to 18 July. The school will concentrate on discussing the experience of revolutions in the wentieth century and the fundamentals of Marxist economic theory.
will be nelo al conference centre about 30 miles outside London; the all-in cost of the school, including accommodation and meals, will be f47.50.
Apart from the political education
'Rebel' conference
8 and 9 March.
organisation should be.
a letter to the newspaper SWP. spelt it out:
'We do not share organisation.
squabbling.
Debate
from branches. and no documents were
Tony Cliff, John Deason and Simon Turner were examples.
away more than a little disillusioned
this way
Fourth International within the youth organisation.
Party
course we think that it is. But we do disagree
training temselves as revolutionaries.
and Lenin.
organisations that have stifled the development of their own youth groups by stifling their independent development. In the case of the British Labour Party it repeatedly resorted to bureaucratic expulsions when the youth got out more restimony to the Militant's alignment with the bureaucracy than any liberalisation in this regard
re-establishing the Leninist approach to relations between the youth and the party -collaboration and voluntary political solidarity. An important part of badd for that conference is to convince other revolutionary youth of the necssiy st such a revolutionary youth organisation. Fed the MC
and discussion, there will be a number social events. The conference centre is situated in the countryside and has facilities for a wide vanety of sporting activities.
Attendance at the school is open to member of the IMG and sympathisers by invitation from local branches. A deposit of £10 secures order made out to The Week', PO Box 50, London NI.
Restricted debate at
BETWEEN 60 and 70 youth attended the national conference of Rebel, youth wing of the Socialist Workers Party, over the weekend of
The organisation and content of the conference revealed some of the differences within the left on what a youth
It was made very clear that Rebel is under the control of the SWP. In fact in
Revolution, Simon Turner, national secretary of the
your view of the need for an autonomous youth We reject the anti-party notion that independent organisation is necessary so that youth will somehow drift to revolutionary politics. We believe that suen an organisation would not lead to greater unity but rather to sectarian
Following the logic of this view, the Rebel conference did not take motions
• sinibuted berorenana. on ine contrary nearly every session was introduced by an old guard of the SWP -
No votes were taken. As a result many of the Rebe! branches who had sent in resolutions went
Revolution members argued that a youth organisation cannot be built in
under the strict tutelage and organisational control of the adul party. But this does not mean that we see Revolution as some sort of loose youth movement. On the contrary Revolution has a Marxist programme and at its founding conference will take its own decisions on building a revolutionary
IMG members will argue for political solidarity with the IMG and the
The difference with the SWP is not over whether a party is necessary; of
over the best form revolutionary organisation to win youth to Marxism and to aid youth in
In fact, contrary to Simon Turner's assertions, it has always been the Marxist, revolutionary wing of the workers movement that has argued for the organisational independence of the youth organisation — an approach that goes back through Trotsky to Luxemburg
On the other side it has always been the social democratic and Stalinist
nand. The long standing stability of the Militant tendency within the LPYS is
The Revolution founding conterence in May will mark a new step in
based on the right of the youth to decide things for themsetra
Page 14 scan of this page
LETTERS
Enormous culturai differences
I WOULD like to take up one of the points in your article on black liberation (21 February), which stated the need to 'unite black peoples as a whole in action'.
While it is perfectly true, of course, that there are objective tactors leadine to unitv between the various black minorities, the article seems to ignore the very much stronger forces at present pushing them apart.
State racism oppresses all black people, but it does so in a selective way. Asians are not normally picked up in the street tor bus' and wes Indian houses are not normally raided by police searching for illegal immigrants.
Furthermore, the media exploit state racism in a divisive way. Asians are convinced that all West Indians are thieves and muggers. Many West Indians believe the Asians are 'spoiling things for black people by continuing to come to Britain.'
Although there are individual friendships between West Indians and Asians in multi-ethnic schools, there is considerable tension between the two groups. Many African Asian children arrived in Britain with a deep loathing and contempt for black africans. which was then often transferred to the West Incians.
We should not underestimate the enormous cultural differences between the two groups.
While many West Indians are deeply cynical of a social and educational system which they correctly perceive as having little to offer them, Asians have tended to arrive in Britain full of hope (otherwise why come?), and many still believe that hard work, thrift, and conformity to the values of bourgeois society will bring rewards. (There are signs of revolt, of course • ike the Bradtord Asian Youth -but these are as yet few.)
And, we should not forget that apart from the very politicised, most Asians do not define themselves as black — when they speak of black people they mean West Indians or Africans.
Obviously socialists would like to see a united black movement, but it cannot be wished into existence. A lack of undersianding of the forces militating against it can only make solidarity work with racial minorities more difficult.
JENNY FLINTOFT, Campaign Against the Immigration Laws (in a personal capacity)
Avoid religious
sectarianism
THE picket of Armagh jail which
was supported by the women who travelled to Ireland from various
parts of Britain was a hopeful sign
that at last the WLM here will take up the struggle of their sisters in
It was great that Socialist
Challenge had half a page to tell
everyone what is going on, but the actual reporting reflects some of the
most vicious sectamanısm which al revolutionaries involved in building a solidarity campaign with the Irish struggle must avoid.
Descriptions like 'the Protestant population', 'a few Protestants
hanging around' and 'a Protestant socialist feminist' reflect a crass
ignorance of the way in which the
British state has used religion to divide and rule.
But the repetition of the conversation about Protestant women not supporting the Armagh pickets because they are terrorists is the most serious. All Protestant women?
Have Valerie Coultas and Pauline Roe never sat in a women's liberation group in Britain where it has been almost impossible to talk about the Irish struggle because 'what has women's liberation to do Socialist Challenge 20 March 1980 Page 14
with terrorism?'. The picket is the first step, but it has taken ten years.
You are on very dangerous ground to dismiss 'them'
Many
religious divide was fostered by the British state; the enemy is the British and in Britain, the Loyalist para-
Loyalist and Protestant are not
and petitioning last Saturday against
are 99 per cent likely to be Protestants. offered to sign. Should
MARIAN KEOGH, socialist
A disgraceful
article?
WHAT a disgraceful article you magnificent working class demonstration against the lory
This demonstration, of at least 100,000, was the largest since the 1971 marches against Heath and — together with the opinion polls, which show that an election would
willingness of workers to fight this government. Instead of pointing this out Socialist Challenge busied itself with spreading despondency and
First, in an even-handed manner you split the difference between the police and TUC estimates of ridiculously low figure of 60,000. Instead you should have pointed out that the police estimate was a politically motivated attack on the attacks on paper sellers and
Secondly, the article bemoaned that despite the 'valiant efforts' of some, ine atmosphere of the march was not up to that of an ANL carnival. That might be of interest to revolutionary tourists, comrades, but we assure you it's not the main concern of the hundreds of thousands of workers who want to bring down this government.
Were they to look to us for a lead in doing that, all they would find in the article is 'general strike plus rank and file organisation'. The problem of dealing with the Len Murrays and Moss Evanses of the labour movement is thus ignored. But, as the steelworkers are finding with Bill Sirs you can't do that. JOHN SEXTON. MARK TURNBULL, Liverpool
THREE Socialist Challenge supporters made separate counts of the 9 March demonstration. Jigures varied between 55,000 and 60,000.
THE CRACKS ARE BEGINNING He sought the facts without despair From information stored with care: ns empty desk is sell ensured
n stacks of papers left behind
Meteyard
acilvues.l
The real problem
CELIA Pugh ("The Labour left in
League in the 1930s when she says that "it saw no need to link up with League speaker Stafford Cripps «earned labour movement...
organisations created out of the necessities of events by the demand
inese attempts at united action
the labour movement.
'Cripps and friends thought their role was to give Labour a left-wing manifesto for the day it came to
Unity Campaign declared, 'Let the Movement not wait for Genera Elections, but now by active demonstration win and organise support' for a series of demands.
SCEVENTS
CAMDEN: Camden Labour Rooms, Thurs 27 March, 7.30pm. Their
MARTIN METEYARD
MOVES ON
• N. Racine-Jaques, 198| and Socialist mass struggles against the National
Committee subordinated mass struggle to inner-
On the contrary, the Socialist League went to the point of joining
January 1937 to launch the National Unity Campaign. At its first public
Are we up to it?
unflinching determination to defeat
moment in our political history, for presenting a united front within the
"There have in the last year or so laws.
of the workers themselves. The time has arrived, we are convinced, when
should be crystallised into an orderly and concerted union of forces within
It is equally one-sided to say that
March.
office'. In fact, the manifesto of the
The problem wasn't that the Socialist League saw no need to link Group banner
In dovance.
Hearse
Carden Labour am, or Baylam Stand
Bayham St Combola, children's clothes.
Balham Forest Town Fall! 7.30, Magnet Can, Wellition Rd Norin
50p unwaged
up with mass struggles, but that it had no idea what to do with them. A marked feature of the Manchester speeches of Cripps, Maxton (ILP), and Pollitt (CP) was that none of them mentioned the need to challenge the right wing for leadership of the movement as a whole. Cripps summed up their approach perfectly when replying to criticisms of the campaign 'as.. designed to create splits or disunity'. His answer was: "It takes two to make a quarrel and we do not intend to be one of the two!'
In other words, the Unity Campaign was not prepared to 'quarrel with those practising class collaboration in the name of the labour movement. Just as it was not prepared to break with the capitalist
operated. This is the same test facing the Labour Co-ordinating
But equally vital is the test facing the revolutionary left outside the Labour Party: not to retrace the sorry role of the Communist Party in 1937, but to pose within the framework of joint action a clear and unified alternative to the vacillations of left social-democracy.
TOM MARTIN. London E5
Where were you?
YOUR article Manchester fights racism' (28 February) mentioned three cases of Asian people fighting back against the racism of the British state and its immigration
The article said: "Although these campaigns centre on individual cases a victory in any one would be a victory for all black people. ' It added: 'If the campaigns are to be successful, anti-racists and the black community will have to stand firm.
The article publicised the demonstration organised by the Anwar Ditta Defence Committee, which was held in Rochdale on 1
This was the opportunity for Socialist Challenge supporters in the North-west and Yorkshire to show Inal tney wete standing min. But there were only a few Socialist Challenge sellers on the demonstration. There was no organised contingent, or Socialist ralenge or mternanonal Marxis
even from
WHAT'S LEFT
ENTRIES are 5p. u word; semi-display £2 a column inch Deadline: 5pm Friday before publication. All payment
BUILDING WURKER group second national
29-70 March Digbeth Hall,
contact: 30 Houghton House, South Lambeth Estate, Meadow Rd,
VORTH EAST LONDON POLYTECHNI ATTHELUS A Friday 21 March, 4pm.
Organise ly NEt pot unions. • Sal 29 March London W. one 01838c. Must have comn
••LET US REDUCE IT RUBBLE!
Manchester, which is a few miles down the road.
Black people have to stand firm just to survive the day-to-day harassment meted out by the British stale. Alu Licy stood wrm In support of the Anwar Ditta demonstration, with a large contingent from the Bradford Asian Youth Movement, and black organisations from Bolton and London.
Socialist Challenge has to realise that it's practical support which sorts out anti-racists from liberal dogooders.
The Anwar Ditta Defence Committee is holding another demonstration in Manchester on 26 April, two days before Anwar's appeal hearing. A large demonstration is vital for the success of his appeal.
This should be the time for a full-scale mobilisation in the North; a time to show that Socialis Challenge is committed to fighting racism not only in Manchester but in the whole of Britain.
LEROY SMITH (Bury) 'Maggie" sexist?
WHEN Heath was Prime Minister was the chant 'Teddie, Teddie, Teddie - out, out, out!'? Are Callaghan or Wilson colloquially referred to as Jimmy or Harry?
Yet Thatcher is referred to as Maggie. We believe this use of the first name for slogan purposes when the person is a woman is sexist. It is disheartening enough to have to listen to it on a demonstration, without Socialist Challenge screaming it in a banner headline (last week's article on the 9 March TUC demonstration).
Would you not have criticised the use of racist slogans? It not only adds to our humiliation to have Socialist Challenge ignore working class sexism, but is a disservice to the working class itself. We believe that Socialist Challenge has a responsibility to explain how militants should confront and fight sexism wherever it occurs.
JUDY WATSON, London
SPECIAL OFFER TO SOCIALIST
of •Afghanistan and the Trotskyist movement'.
centeri major arlicies wom WORKERS ACTION.
*Behind the Kabul Corps
*Don't Join ine impenanst ourc
*Afghanistan: What we think
*Communism against Stalinism -
sene outlining post-war Trotskyist movement's attitude to Russia's occupation of Eastern Europe their or positio positions or in the case of a public debate a postions or the tendences shoulder overt to it 24 Janwary issue of Socialis! Challenge
Page 15 scan of this page
Coward of the macho county
UNDER REVIEW
ACCORDING to Cathy Porter: *The struggles which Alexandra Kollontai lived through and wrote about continue, and constantly draw new from a greater understanding of their historical origins.'
Kollontai, as a Marxist, held that women's position in society is directly dependent on the historical stage of economic development. But she also insisted that women have particular problems relating to their sex, some
often make them more politically backward than men. She saw that socialist parties must make a special effort to organise and educate working and combat appeal of bourgeois feminism:
She stressed that emancipation was a vital factor of the class struggle. Working-class morality had to be worked out in the struggle against capitalism, and not left until after capitalism was defeated.
For Cathy Porter, Kollontal is an exceptional woman," enormous historical and inspirational value ano extraordinary Unfortunately this view is a trap for biographers.
Uncritically
uncriticans danger of biography.
sympathise subject, and, in view, Porter tends to shape the historical context around Kollontai, rather than place her within At important ideas and events are lost in a mass of detail, even of trivia.
However, the more serious lack in Cathy Porter's book is the absence of a critical framework. she implies that Kollontai did not become a terrorist because it would ental chastity It she unwanted pregnancies!
Kollontai herself did not have a theory of contraception; she thought women's solution to this problem could onlv be personal - a matter of individual conscience, not legislation. Kollontai's view described *tantalisingly inadequate'. quate, certainly. Cathy suggests that Kollontai realised, and deplored the backwardness of Russia
liberating universally available But she was also unwilling to take on the more conservative Party members who might want to inhibit women's sexual independence, and emphasised increasing the birth-rate! Ambivalent
Porter describes position on this as 'ambivalent'. On the contrary, it seems only too clear.
we can strength the
women's
*a feminist of
orginality".
is to
with the
Cathy
times,
For example,
was to avoid
in 1917, Opposition from diplomat from 1923.
The rise
InadePorter future generation
effects of
children, explains Cathy Porter. birth-control.
social duty.
Kollontai,
Kollontai's necessary, but temporary
Kollontai
ALEXANDRA Kollontai was a Bolshevik, a commissar in the first Soviet government
La member 1920 and a Soviet
of the modern women's
Many Bolsheviks thought the only assurance of Russia's future lay in the
the socialist equivalent of capitalist accumulation.
This is the reason for Kollontai's and stress on the social duty of having
Where is the ambivalence in this?
Social function has already become
On abortion, Porter claims that
like most Party leaders, regarded it as a liberating and long- the overdue measure. But these leaders in fact supported the abortion law as a
evli -the wording of the law itself reveals.
often attacked the
Kollontai: a sentimental view
the Workers' feminist.
Biography by
JANE McDERMID
sexual hypocrisy of bourgeois cuiture, yet frequently reiterated traditional sexual attitudes. Her Theories were concerned only with heterosexual,
general The implication toas with monogamous sne thought any olet form or sexua attraction to be 'unnatural'
It's true that Kollontai wrote that there were a whole range of possible 'erotic trendshios' between the sexes but she did not elaborate. Whatever
forms of relationship, presupposed the sallell y motherhood.
at great length, on the need for relationships to be freely entered into, for women to be
worshipped
cold.
Although
played out.
admirable seal proves it to be a youth not fig despile rneryth dead father Then be fell
three of them".
He got surprisingly,
movement reawakened interest in her, mainly because of her role as a pioneering
Alexandra Cathy Porter, published by Virago, is here reviewed by
equal and independent. And yet, once she is pregnant, Kollontai holds that a women is subject to the collective,
simply carrying resources within her.
Cathy Porter does not adequately the contradictions in Kollontai's views.
In her anxiety Cathy Porter makes mistakes, and assertions. all she of Bolsheviks thought that the Leninist Party would be formed of the between employers and producers'.
Apparently, Lenin
By Bridget Elton I'VE long since ceased paying attention to those 90 per cent of pop songs which daily inform me that women are angels to be
For cockteasers who lie and cheat, and if I'm not one I must be the other. But when someone leaves the body of his thrice raped wife, and goes off to prove himself to his dead father, I turn
Becky in Kenny Rogers' song "Coward of the County' is not dead as a result of the rapes, she is nevertheless only a body. She doesn't exist. Having been brought into the song for Rogers and others to exercise their manhood on, she doesn't get ancther mention. She is a vehicle on which an old maie fantasy is
The singer was leagle "You don't hare to fiel
I tore (with one of the sione married her. One day white he was out 'the gambling boys came call ing; they look lurns at Becky and there mas
home and found her, crying. 'The' torn dress. shattered look, was more than he could stand, He reached above the fireplace, took down his
very OILCI
1922!
working
curcies,
Brusnev when she husband; implies that her
Opposition?
temper.
Purges
Kollontai.
recently
Indeed!
not
individual identity, future labour
unexplored
ambiguities and
unsubstantiated book
sentimental that the subject.
"people Socialist
of
15210 that the CELLAS
when you're a man'.
Leavin; her,
bargain. Honour restored at last.
After all those
This manhood
Becky himself. of a!
not is irrelevant
beaten her up as well.
experience of history had shown that the dictatorship of individuals was vehicle for dictatorship of the revolutionary class (no source is given). She holds that Stalin was already secure in power in
Finally Cathy Porter claims that the first attempt to take up the conditions Russian women, and give political direction to them, appeared at the end of 1900. In tact. from at least as early asky there had been a network of women's malles on textile workers, which were linked to the organisation. This organisation claimed to be Marxist and was anti-intelligentsia Cathy Porter has put much effort and dedication into her subject, hence it is a shame that she makes silly mistakes: neither the ILP nor Keir Hardie (by implication) are English!
Kollontai herself is undermined. Is it recessary, or useful, to describe how attractive Kollontai was, how young she looked for her age; to record 'fell in love with her to call her relationships 'affairs'? If Kollontai had to find a new vocabulary to discuss ideas of sexual relations and the new women, should we not also try?
Porter claims for Kollontai a 'pure revolutionary consciousness', yet she politics were often heavily influenced by her emotions Why did she refuse to join the Left Apparently Kollontai Trotsky's
She sees Kollontai as an individual woman fighting on two fronts. How did she survive the purges? Porter writes that Stalin had 'a peculiar old-fashioned resistance to subjecting to punishment.
What is necessary is a critical analysis of Kollontai's work. We do need to erect authorities, LeACH would agree Despite her immense effort, Cathy Porter fails to achieve what she set our to do - to cast light on some of the experiences of the Russian Revolution Ultimately, the criticism she levels at an earlier biographer of Kollontai, Isabel Palencia, is only too apt; her marred by certain over-reverence ior its
Challenge will interviewing Cathy Porter in a future issue where she will respond to these daddy's picture — this time it was too much. He realised that 'Sometimes you have to fight
crying, shattered, and probably bleeding and pregnant as well, b went off and beat all three of them up single handed, exorcising his father's ghost into the
(his honour, that is) is
years of being called coward, he fought back. Note that: he fought back. Because it is he who has been attacked
assaulted. "Twenty years ol
fighting property rights. The fact that Becky.
- the singer would exaclly the same thing had she bad ser with man of her own yolition. Except be would have
Socialist Challenge 20 March 1980 Page 15
Page 16 scan of this page
Socialist
Challenge
WANTED
for murdering
Blair Peach
?
Inspector SPG constable Alan Murray White
?
?
SPG constable SPG constable Lake Richardson
IT'S OFFICIAL. Blair Peach was killed by a team of Special Patrol Group officers, led by Inspector Alan Murray. This is the conclusion of the investigation by the police's own investigation department, CIB 2.
The report of the police investigation, details of which have been published in the Sunday Times, reveals that Murray led the charge from the Special Patrol Group van in Orchard Avenue, Southall, where Blair Peach was killed late in the evening of 23 April last year.
Murray's team - including constables White, Freestone, Lake, Richardson, and Scottow — was a marauding band attacking Asians, West Indians, and other anti-fascist demonstrators as they made their way home from protesting against a National Front meeting.
Despite the conclusions of the police report and the fact that "unauthorised weapons', including lead and rubber coshes, were found in SPG lockers in Barnes, the Director of Public Prosecutions decided to take no action.
The circumstances sürrounding the report made by police commander John Cass reveal a major cover-up mounted by senior police officers to protect the SPG murderers. With the collusion of senior Scotland Yard officers, members of the SPG who were on duty in Southall refused to answer questions about what happened when Blair was killed.
AVNIVE disappeared when they returned
officers.
SPG constable
announced.
Freestone
•
SPG constable Scottow
Southall defendants.
They spotlight the import organised by Bradford As
April
Britain:
Abroad:
Name Address
ciatist Challenge'
STRATE
SUNDAY
APRIL 27th
EMEMBER BLAIR PEACH-DISBAND THE SPG AMNESTY FOR SOUTHALL DEFENDANTS STOP THE TORY RACIST LAWS Assemble Ipm Speakers Corner Marble Arch arch via Scotland Yard to Rally in Trafaler Sor
When the police investigators searched SPG lockers, they were called from the room. and some of the lethal weapons had
Members of the police investigation team felt that attray charges should be made against the SPG eficers involved. This has been quashed by the DPP, under pressure from senior Scotland Yard
The police confirmation of the accounts given by Southall residents of the events surrounding the murder of Blair Peach comes at a time when a 're organisation' of the SPG has just been
The re organisation - giving the SPG more senior officers and restructuring the group into four rather than seven groups -amounts to no more than a cosmetic operation. Both the police and the government are determined to maintain the SPG as an élite force to use against demonstrators and strikers.
The treatment of the police murderers is in stark contrast to the ordeal of the 350 Asians arrested in Southall on 23 April. For them, there have been huge fines and imprisonment following their conviction on crudely invented evidence.
For the SPG murderers, there have been apologies, lies, a cover-up, and protection. The latest revelations underline the need to step up the campaign to disband the SPG and for an amnesty for the
nice of the Black Freedom march being i Youth in June, and the national demonstration being organised by the Blair Peach Committee for 27
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