Socialist Challenge No. 147, 15 May 1980
The scan: sc-n147-may-15-1980.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.
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Socialist Challenge TORIES TILL NO WAY!
TUC MUST PREPARE GENERAL STRIKE
INSIDE Fighting the Tories:
Eric Heffer MP Dave Cook (Communist Party)
Steve Potter (International Marxist Group) - pages 8 & 9
Tariq Ali on May '68 - page 5
How militant is the Militant? - page 12
DANES plus SAS assassins named - page3
Kramer v Kramer reviewed — page 15
petrifies them.
1984?
HYSTERIA! That's the only way to describe the reaction of the Tories and
An unprecedented barrage of anti-trade union, anti-working class rantings have poured forth from Maggie Thatcher, Jim Prior, the Daily Express and the rest of the millionaire press. Trades unionists have been portrayed as little better than terrorists.
Now the courts have chimed in with their vicious ruling that calling out the printworkers was 'illegal'.
There's a method in this madness. They fear nothing more than the working class taking strike action. The dynamic towards a general strike
The Tories have a huge majority in parliament. If we left it to the Labour leaders, the Tories would be in power until 1984. They can easily cope with any amount of resolutions and speechifying. But mass action on the streets
can't cope with.
not even the SAS murderers.
counter-barrage through mass rallies and so on, to
back the Tories.
massive resentment
The assume its
general strike.
No.147 15 May 1980 20p and in the factories is something they
When millions of workers take direct action, then nothing can stop them - not the police, not the SPG,
The Tory offensive must be answered. Instead of retreating, the TUC General Council has to step up the action. The whole labour move ment needs to mount a massive
of propaganda, meetings, leaflets, explain why political strike action is essential to defend workers' interests and throw
Millions of workers will take some form of protest action on 14 May. The
against the Tories must now be taken forward.
TUC General Council must responsibilities, to organise the only form of action that is certain to throw the Tories out - a
Page 2 scan of this page
Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper Street, London N1. Editorial 01-359 8180/9. Advertising and circulation 01-359 8371. We can't wait four years
OUR POLICIES
Capitaiism is in crisis. The leaders of the Labour Party and the trade unions offer solutions that are in the interests not of the workers but of the capitalist class.
Socialist Challenge believes that the two vital tasks confronting revolutionary socialists are:
• To build broad-based class struggle tendencies in opposition 10 class-collaborationism in the labour movement. These should De r non-exclusive in grouping together militants hold ing a wide range of political views
• To begin to fight for the creation of unified democratic revolutionary socialist organisation which can, through an application of united front
begin to be seen as an alternative by thousands workers engaged in struggles.
Such an organisation should be based on the understanding that:
The struggle for seeks to unite the fight of against the
WOrKCES with that of other oppressed layers of society — women, black people, gays struggling for liberation. This socialism can only be achieved by creating new organs of power and defeating with all necessary means the power of ine capitanst Stalt.
Our socialism will
infinitely more democratic I than what exists in Britain today. with fail rights for political parties and currents that do not take up arms against the socialist state. The Stalinist models
"socialism' in the USSR and Eastern Europe have discredited socialism in the eyes of millions of
throughour the world.
We are opposed to them and will offer full support to fighting for socialist democracy. Sona world cat Captain The interests of workers and
on a world scale. Capitalism has not only created market. it has created world politics. Thus we fight for working
scale. This unity will in the long run be decisive in defeating both the imperialist regimes in the West and the brutal dictatorships they sustain in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
In Britain it implies demanding the immediate withdrawal British troops from Ireland and letting the Irish people determine
The Communist 4 tur Europe are in crisis. Neither
'Eurocommunist' the pro-Moscow wings meaningful strategy overthrow of the capitalist state.
New revolutionary socialist parties are more necessary than before. Conditions today more favourable than preceding three decades. But such parties can
rejecting sectarianism and seeing
internal democracy not as a luxury
but as a vital necessity. This means
the right to organise factions and
tendencies.
If you agree with these principles
and wall involved
activities by Socialist Challenge
supporters in your area, fill in the
form below and send it to us.
interested in information about activities in my area.
• I would like additional literature and enclose sup to cover costs.
(Delete if not applicable) Socialist Challenge 15 May 1980 Page 2
character,
WOeS and blems. socialism
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their
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be
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EDITORIAL
THATCHER's first year of government has shown one thing: we can't afford to wait four years to get rid of the Tories! Thatcher's is a government of the rich for the rich. Tories have made their intentions quite plain. They want to solve the crisis of their system at the expense of working people.
Massive cuts in welfare spending; unemploy. ment zooming upwards, with BL and British Steel being given free rein to sack tens of thousands of
while prices go through the roof. add insult to injury, Prior's Employment Bill to shackle the unions is almost certain to become law.
Thatcher, Joseph and Howe show no sign of being persuaded to change their ways. They want to push home their attack. What's happened over the past year is only a small glimpse of things to come. We can't allow this government to go the full course of five years in power. mobilise the strength of the labour movement to kick them out. But that's only the start of our pro-
Murray and the TUC leadership are a pathetic opposition to the Tories, while right-wingers like Chapple and Duffy are openly aiding the govern-
Callaghan and his cronies front bench are no opposition at all. The TUC and Labour Party leaders have to be forced to organise a fightback. The Day of Action on 14 May is a very
The steel strike, the turn out for the 9 March demonstration called by the TUC, and the initial response to 14 May show that a willingness to fight against the Tories is there. But the Tory Party and their allies in the media, have unleashed a tremendous barrage of propaganda against the trade
is being waged under the spurious ideological banner of the right to
Street
Downing
Street-
with a
vengeance
By Geoffrey Sheridan
Cheap on MILLIONS of people Delicy will be taking action on 14 May, but you would Day of Shame' hardly know this from
Over the past week, teams on Saturday.
Cores nave been put to work to tina evidence in the labour move- action
the press pro21• mel government are furiously try-
- opposition to group of trades unionists prepared to grin and DOTT TOI
has pear me homes ponces lave been guaranteed a place on
Chaos.
Following the High Court decision last Wednesday that on Friday
cannot
be called on by their unions to
action 111% Day' no bane
eadline has been complet without the word 'revolt' or a
WORKS
The headline writers must by now be having difficulty
The
test is enough
push home its offensive.
We have to The alternative to government.
level of the labour movement
the Labour keep pace with inflation.
ployment.
Cummings
union Thinking lo tresa bosults co
the millions who that Thatcher's all the unelected policies are unacceptable
'Rank and file rebel over
declared the the
up with 'Flop of the Century!'
whose boss Matthews, brought the court
the print • has provided a 'Day of Shame' logo for its vitriolic coverage of 14 May.
The Daily Mirror, which passionately declares its sup-
•the Labour Party. decided that trades unionists will be engaging in a "fiasco fiesta' on the 'Day of rorists'
concluded its editorial with the message: "Ine only Day or Acuon ina counts in a democracy is Poll
That's the hope
and TV included. Never mind
hat the Tories aim to cripple
on the lucast be no collective resistance.
The abuse of the trade
choose' and 'individual liberty'. Yet it only has the possibility of success because of the indecisiveness and timidity of the trade union leaderships. Their failure to issue a firm call for all-out strike action on 14 May has opened the floodgates for the Tory press to mobilise people not to strike.
But even worse is the TUC's notion that the Tories can be made to 'change course', or that pro-
Far from the government responding to the TUC being 'responsible' ', it seizes on the spinelessness of the trade union leadership to
We have to get it across in the labour movement that 14 May is just the beginning; we need to go on from here to launch an all-out offensive to bring down the Tories. As the 'general staff' of the labour movement, the TUC General Council has to assume its responsibility to get rid of the Tories by preparing to organise a general strike.
the Tories is a Labour But we can't afford another Labour government like the last one. That's why in addition to simply struggling against the Tories, we have to initiate a fight for socialist policies at every
As British capitalism reels into an ever deepening crisis, there is an urgent need to develop a programme which can solve the crisis, but in the interests of the workers not the capitalists. What we need is bold socialist measures which put all the major decisions about investment and planning of the economy in the hands of working people.
Such a programme must include:
*A sliding scale of wages to ensure that wages
*A 35-hour week with no loss of pay and a massive programme of public works to cure unem-
*A freeze on all prices and the introduction of price controls to stop runaway inflation.
leaders "the unelected Lenin Murray and Bully Boys' as the Victor Matthews put it in his personal note pad, Daily Express already surpassed the media's treatment of the public sectoi strikers during the 'winter of discontent' which preceded the Tories' election victory. snatcher necos to muct a clear defeat on the labour movement to be confident of imposing the measures in the Employment Bill, and tons of newsprint will now be devoted supporting Lask Anyone who stands in the way will be granted the coverage meda accoras
It is not hard to fathom the love affair between Fleet Street and Downing Street.
The capitalists hand out over £100m a year to support their national oress. ov way ol advertising. The press owners themselves, many of them al c relying Employment Bill crush the closed shops of the print unions, so that they can
vestment and planning.
Hicasure
and austerity.
fensive must continue.
remains the urgent task of the moment.
towards such a class struggle leti fight back.
Action shows that the fight is in earnest.
working class government.
the Tories
responsibilities; to general strike to kick out the Tories. boost their millions through large-scale redundancies
How long will the labour movement SuC travesty of press freedom to continue? There are signs that the enders or areast on of the print unions NATSOPA, will fight back. It has retusee to accepi Court ruling over 14 May, Tuesday night it led a mass picket of the Daily Express.
Hoperuly tnis millanc. will encourage printworkers
that the press barons' screed does not continue to roll off the presses willoul a reply from labour movement.
After the 'winter discontent the brine not and sections of the labour leadership launched the Campaign Freedom with the object of exposing
bias of the existing mas
of alternatives which would be valuable to the working
registered strong support
of attendance at
*The nationalisation under workers control of the major monopolies, the banks, and the finance houses to give the working class control over in-
would immediately hit at capitalist anarchy — the source of unemployment
After 14 May the fight to roll back the Tory of
Given the scabbing role played in the build up to 14 May by the right wing, it is obvious that a major fight against class collaboration needs to take nace inside the trade unions. The building of a class struggle left wing
Such a left wing would have to link workers in different unions across industry. If the Labour Co-ordinating Committee were to push ahead with its proposal to organise Labour Party supporters in the unions it would be a decisive step forward
But on a broader scale during the build up to 14 May, delegate action committees have been formed in numerous places to co-ordinate the anti-Tory activity and build up the mobilisation. These committees can be made the tocus for developing lit anti-Tory struggle; they should be kept in existence to push forward the fight on cuts, jobs and so on. They can be an invaluable springboard for the
The response of the Tory Party to the Day of
The Tories have responded hysterically because they know the stakes are the very existence of this anti-
If things are left to the TUC General Council,
will be let off the hook. The crucial task of the hour remains to mobilise and organise to force Len Murray and company to assume their
force them to organise a rallies and by way of membership, with some 150 labour movement organisations joining up trace unions at national level The campaign should now arguing nicola unions for a commitment to support the right of reply by all those facing media hostiliCane soul. pubish a guide as to how this right can be secured, by way of pickets, occunations and the like mass daily for the labour movement has become a matter of urgency, and the Labour Party and should be urged to launch it now. wild lie Drovision Or tIc right of reply and open debate to establish at least the basic tenets of press freedom in the workers' movement.
The Campaign for Press Freedom's AGM and one-day conference are to be held on Saturday, 24 May, :10.30am to 4.30pm, at Conway Hall, Red Lion Sq, London WC1.
To join, write to: Campaign for Press Freedom, 274/288 London made ya. desear Tel 0702 553131.
Page 3 scan of this page
asSASsins Those who can't cheer any more
HOMENEWS
By Geoff Bell AFTER the SAS operation at the Iranian embassy we are all now, according to Margaret Thatcher, 'proud to be British'. 'Our lads' did what the Yanks couldn't do in Iran itself and freed the hostages.
And just to teach those brown-skinned terrorists lesson, the heroes who dared to win shot dead all but one of them.
A person by the name of Jean Rook informed us in the Daily Express: "At least we now know that Britain is still a great nation - and so does the rest of the world.'
"They sniped that we were a second class power, going bust - until we blasted open the Iranian Embassy... In 45 minutes flat we provca lo Labille world that we're still a Super Power - and a super people.
•Super' indeed. Patrick McVeigh would testify to that. Who?
Patrick McVeigh was shot dead in Belfast in May 1972. No one ever suggested he was a nasty terrorist or anything like that. His crime was that he was a Belfast Catholic.
Mc Veigh was a victim of
of many so-called 'motiveless murders" which were becoming common Belfast in those days.
But a funny thing happened after the killing of McVeigh. The three men who killed him were in a car and atter the shooting the vehicle straight through a British Army checkpoint without being stopped.
There it is, in the SAS handbook, 'Counter Revolutionary Operations', duties include: ' naison ana Orgalisauol, ani" ing and control of, friendly guerilla forces operating against the common enemy
Patrick McVeigh was shot by the SAS as part of the at-
intimidate Catholic community. George Lennox elsewhere on this page, such is the pattern of SAs activity.
But back to Fleet Street and this time the Daily Mail: bold and successful sortie has restored the balance and the forces of law and DaCk UlUD...
"This success cannot fail to have wider and very beneficial effects. It shows to our own
people that men of violence can
of violence'
perhaps, James Taylor,
was shot dead by the SAS in
September 1978 on the shores
of Lough Neath in the North of
Ireland. And Taylor certainly
was violent — he shot ducks!
Mr. Taylor and his son Jason
Iranians,
drove
SAS: chocolate colour on their faces.
the As writes
It was while he was out fowl The hunting that the SAS struck.
James returned to his car with put his uncle Given
tyres on the car had been let down. James strolled over to a car parkea neardy ask the occupants if they knew anything about the tyres.
He was like, bullets. Said his uncle later:
was a shocking thing to happen. There was no given.' The killers, it was confirmed, They were never prosecuted.
The Daily Star wasn't even in existence in those days. But it was last week and its 'political editor', David Buchan, mented: "The SAS troops have made the rest of the world hold its breath.'
Billy Hanna holding his breath since 21 June 1979. In the early hours of the morning of that day he was on his way home to the Loyalist Shankill Road Belfast. The SAS struck when he was walktag in the vicinity of three members of the IRA.
unarmed, who they were and shot them dead. Just to be sure no one,
sitting on the floor, and when
he was pointed out by the
asked him to stand up, and
then he was shot. It was a
war situation. They killed
two terrorists and the third
went down to the
with the hostages.
The asSASsins in Aden
GEORGE Lennox was a corporal in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps stationed in Aden in 1964. Here's his experience of the
I knew that the Special Air Service was
called into Aden to act as an undercover, covertly to act in an overtly provocative role.
The SAS and other volunteers were stationed inside Aden and those who could speak the. language were dressed up as Adenis, with
They went out into the streets and they had the names of suspected so-called terrorists and those who were heading the then illegal political opposition, and they had instructions to seek them out and to assassinate them, kill them.
Shuter. - se
deflated
met with a hail of
warning lalc were in the SAS
Coll
Billy Hanna has been even an Hanna well.
district
the anything Duel were but the SAS knew Wins.
One of the terrorists was
the commandos
Inside Aden you groups, one was the NLF and the other was the Front for the Liberation of South Yemen. 'The SAS's role was to create confusion within both political organisations.
They would go out and bump off a couple of the FLOSY guys and in turn this would be put out by the Army press as being an inter-group fight.
And of course this would make the FLOSY group take on a retaliatory role and go and seek
off a couple of these people. *Taken from British Soldiers Speak Out on Ireland, produced by Information on Ireland, 1 North End Rd, London W14. Price 30p plus 15p p&p. police. in court.
ture in
Many workers? innocent like Billy Hanna, lived to tell the tale,
assassinated true Brits
But forget that, after all the Sun tells us: "The SAS are Britain's crack Secret Army. They
go-anywhere, SAS troops. And heroes, their bold motto is: Who dares unionists
John Boyle didn't win. He was: killed by the SAS on 11
garden
had iwo main political out the NLF and take revenge and bump July 1978 when he was trying to be helpful. He discovered an IRA arms dump in Dunloy in the North of Ireland, and told his father who reported it to the
The next day James went back to the graveyard where the guns were hidden, , just to make sure the Army had collected the
That's when he was shot in the back and died. The SAS killers were later acquitted
But what, it may be asked, have such incidents got to do with the British working class?
few Irish people may killed now and then; the SAS might have a long record of tor-
Kenya, Malaya, and Oman, but does this really have
British recalle . lU
Back to Jean Rook: 'On 14 May we may turn strike crazy. But, today, we are heroes and
not scared by union mobsters or stirred by little Len Murrays.'
Note the connection - the
and strike breakers are "terrorists' and trade are 'mobsters'.
Which makes it very simple: the heroes of the ruling class are
Secret?
We name names
IF you believe everything you read in the Fleet Street press, the SAS are so secret that no one knows the names of those in the regiment or the bases from which they operated. their work, the names of the officers and men are known to only the top Army brass', said the Daily Mail on o May. easy to penetrate. As well as the headquarters at Bradbury Lines in Hereford, the SAS is also stationed at Chelsea barracks in London. In the North of Ireland it operates from Holywood barracks, a few miles from Belfast. the SAS is Colonel B M Franks. The head of 'intelligence' at Chelsea barracks is Major Andrew Nightingale. leading officers are Major Derke Newell and Major Mike Wingate-Gray.
Sgt Barry Davies, one of the top secret' SAS men who assisted the German commando unit which stormed the hi. jacked Lufthansa jet at Mogadishu. 1974 he was awarded the MBE. What for? Would you beneve 'services to community Ireland'? poral Ronald Temerley and Sergeant Allan Bohun.
'Because of the dangerous and clandestine nature of
In fact the much-vaunted security of the SAS is quite
As Socialist Challenge reported last week, the head o
• Two other
Further down the ranks there is the interesting case of
Davies has also served in the North of Ireland, and in
relations in Northern The two SAS men who murdered John Boyle were Cor.
Socialist Challenge 15 May 1980 Page 3
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Page 5 scan of this page
INTERNATIONAL
By Tariq Ali
THE general
France in May-June 1968
underbolt out of a clear blue sky. For
ten years France had been
General de Gaulle. While Britain was in
the throes of an economic crisis and the
United States was crippled by the costly
war in Vietnam, Gaullist France presented a facade of total stability.
In 1968 most of France's population lived in the towns. Industrial workers represented 41 per cent OI the population;
workers accounted for a further 15 per cent. Together they represented the majority class in the country.
Six per cent of the population was engaged in small-scale production, while the majority of peasants owned their own land.
Since the Second World War the French ruling class had been unable to find a stable political instrument. stability of the Fourth Republic in which the annual making and breaking of ministries had become Europe's favourite joke.
De Gaulle seized power in 1958 and proclaimed the Fifth Republic. parliament were drastically reduced; decisions would henceforth be arbitrated through the Presidency. The aloof and arrogant style of de Gaulle was an apt symbol of the new Republic.
Thus the lack _oi a political party was to be compensated by the creation of a strong state with a Bonaparte at its head. De Gaulle spoke directly to the masses through a tame mass media. The Gaullist state was not dependent on any political party.
The General was everything.
Students
The new administration, however, required a strong bureaucracy and this was to form the lynchpin of the Gaullist apparatus. Though the mandarinate was indispensable Republic, at the same time it insulated Gaullism from the masses.
In 1963 a draconian wage-freeze was imposed on the workers. In 1968 unemployment had reached the half million mark.
The development of French capitalism had necessitated a large expansion of the student population in order to meet the needs of the third industrial revolution. students in France had rocketed from 100,000 ın 1961 to 500,000 in 1968, making them an important intermediary between the contending social classes in the urban centres, especially Paris.
The authoritarian and the system of instruction hopelessly out of date.
Towards the end of 1967 there were signs of increasing militancv in the factories. same time there was a student strike involving ten urousara sludents.
Barricades
In February 1968, the impact of the heroic resistance of the Vietnamese partisans was felt in Paris. Tens of thousands of students occupied the Latin Quarter and renamed it the 'Heroic Vietnam Quarter'. the students' leaders which revolt.
Barricades went up in Paris and on the night of 10 May the students fought an all-night battle with the hated CRS riot police and won. The government capitulated rested student leaders. general strike was called.
The day after spontaneous factory occupations began. An aircraft plant in Nantes and a Renault factory near Rouen were taken over by the workers and the red Within the following week there was a tidal wave of factory occupations.
strike which erupted in
was not a white-collar Hence the notorious in-
The Dowels of
stable ruling class for the Fifth The number of the
sion.
was totally . It was the arrest of The sparked off the
standstill.
and released the ar- below.
Meanwhile a one-day
flag was hoisted.
France, May 1968
By Ernest Mandel
AT the CSF factory in Brest,
the workers decided to carry
on production, but they pro-
duced what they themselves
considered important,
notably walkie-talkies to help
strikers and demon-
strators to defend themselves
against the forces of repres-
At Nantes, the strike com-
mittee tried to control traffic
town;
distributed permits for the use
of vehicles, and blocked the
entrances to the town with
barricades.
same committee even issued "cremil-lokens wich were ac-
cepted as currency by certain
shopkeepers and farmers.
At the Mureaux cement works, the workers voted in a
French working _class blooded revolt. The communications system was paralysed and soon the power stations, printing presses, and une sapyards
The scale of the strike had become clear. It was a spontaneous general strike from
The general strike had a number of imporda tant features. The first was that it had no clearly defined economic objectives. against Gaullism. The Gaullist state trembled. Isolated and paralysed by the strike it took comfort in the fact that it was not yet facing a frontal attack.
‹ The largest genera
strike in history
WHAT THE WORKERS ACTUALLY DID
general assembly to remove the manager. They refused to accept employers' proposals for a new vote.
The manager in question was thereupon sent off to a different branch of the same cement works, where, out of solidarity with those from Mureaux, workers immediately came out on strike — for the first time in the history of the factory.
At the Wonder Batteries factory, at Saint-Ouen, the strikers elected a strike committee, and in order to show telr disapproval for the reformist line of the CGT, the Communist Party-led unions, they barricaded themselves inside the factory and refused to let the union officials in.
At the Rouen naval yards, the workers took people selling revolutionary
was in full-
came to a
serious results.
The strike
It was a revolt
down any
go all the way.
literature under their protec tion, and prevented the CRS who were following and trying to arrest them from entering the factory.
In several Paris printing works, the workers insisted changes headline (Le Figaro) or refused to print a newspaper (La Nation), when the content was directly damaging to
In the Peugeot plant at Sochaux, the workers built barricades against any intrusion by the CRS, and chased the latter victoriously out of the factory.
Perhaps the quent. case of all: in the Atlantic Yards at Nazaire, the workers cupied the plant and for ter days refused to submit a list
despite constant from the union apparatus.
Georges Pompidou emerged as the leading bourgeois strategist. He accepted that France confronted a 'pre-revolutionary' situation. But he insisted that the state should remain inactive, since any provocation could have very
had no political objectives either, and the only workers' party capable oi giving a lead refused to do so. The French Communist Partv (PCI) became the ultimate bastion of the French state. It did not even lay
conditions for its support to Gaulie. The favourite slogan of French workers occupying the factories was: 'This time we will
interpreted this way:
which we have always fought... with the revolution.
LUIS. lilas. democracy.
tal assault at that stage.
Communists
vinced if the
need for a test of strength.
The French massive wage increase Agreements and a million new unionised. toe-hold in the tactories.
television:
either in
bourgeois were the
Revolution
most elo-
Saint-
UC•
of bold, agrarian reforms. demands,
experience of
paratus (the army).
de
books.
The PCF's leading trade union bureaucrat, Say, All the ed thi for us trades unionist call in the following means the satistaction of the demands for
. "All the way" means no wage less than 600 Francs a month...' The PCF sought to defuse the political potential of the strike into wage demands.
The general strike was the result of a combination of old and new contradictions which confronted French capitalism. The transformation in consciousness affected virtually every social layer and occupation in France, excepting the bourgeoisie and the state bureaucracy. Even the conscripted soldiers were infected
Without clear objectives, the strike fizzled out after three weeks. It was defused not by repression (even the banned far-lett groups re formed under new names a few weeks later), but by a combination of two interrelated fac-
reformism and bourgeois
elections which ended May 1968 Gaullism was prepared for a frontal clash, but took great care not to initiate one. Ten million workers wanted a fundamental change, but were not convinced of the necessity for a fron-
The only way they would have been con
factory occupations had developed into a network of urban and rural soviets, thus enabling millions of workers to experience socialist democracy for themselve Having no experience of dual power, French workers could not spontaneously perceive the
Communist Party won through the Grenelle workers were The revolutionary left acquired a
Waldeck-Rochet, the PCF leader, stated on
truth is that throughout the grave events which we have just lived through the French Communist Party conducted itself as a responsible party.? It was one of the few truths spoken by French Stalinism in 1968.
May 1968 revealed in the space of two weeks the central problems of revolutionary strategy which will confront socialists in the West.
The Fifth Republic proved to be a more
resilient enemy than Tsarist Ruse is democracy as the torices
professional soldiers of the French Army on the Rhine. It was further aided by the non-existence of a revolutionary party.
Petrograd in 1917 had fallen to a revolutionary party basing itself on a strategic minority of the population. It then wooed the majority aided by an inter-imperialist war and a series
In the West the opposite will be the case. The involvement of the majority of the working population will be vital right at the start before a socialist revolution is possible. It will be the
socialist democracy through organs of workers' power that will create the best conditions for challenging the bourgeois democratic state and defeating its repressive ap-
This elementary lesson first learnt in Paris was confirmed seven years later in Lisbon.
The revolution has undoubtedly suffered some setbacks in Europe, but the working class has not been defeated. The big tests lie ahead That is one reason why the French general strike needs to be studied closely. It is the reser voir of experience which aids the elaboration of a revolutionary strategy much more than text
socialist Challenes 15 May 1980 Page 5
Page 6 scan of this page
FEMINISM IN THE '80s
URSULA Hurley started work as a night waitress at a Bistro in Kentish Town, London, but on her first night, when the owner learned. that she had children, • she was fired. dustrial tribunal backed up her employer, agreeing that, smaller business, women children were 'unreliable'.
If this was one isolated case, which could be easily reversed, it would not be too shocking. But it is not.
The Employment Bill going through Parliament at the present time, codifies the attack on every woman's right to work. with less than 20 workers will no longer be required to hold jobs open women have babies. All employers will have greater freedom to refuse women the same job they had before after having a baby.
Alongside these legal attacks on a woman's right to have a job, are the effects of the provision of school meals, run- down of state facilities for the under (meagre as it was), the declining provision for the old and sick and the drift of women's employment towards part-time working compared to the early '70s.
Abortion
The attacks on fertility con, trol also threaten freedom to do what they choose with their lives. Despite the deteat of John Corrie's restrictive abortion Bill it is likely that their will be further attempts, perhaps event a government-backed Bill, aiming to reduce the time limit on abortions to at least 24 weeks.
Back door attacks on fertility control are going on at the present timé. The DHSS Pregnancy Advisory London charity clinic, to remove all posters advertising their serVices from London The offending words were: Abortion Help? Phone PAS. Jenkin, Secretary of Social Services, (who thinks that mothers are the best people to care for children and that they should stay at home fulltime to do so), has seen fit to allow only a three month renewal for two pregnancy advisory bureaux, one of which is London's PAS! Feminism
The right to work gives women financial independence The right to fertility.
sexual freedom, WUlLICI allows them to separate their sexual activity from having children. Both allow women to control their own
Both these fundamental rights are under attack. How should the women's movement respond?
The fact that so many women in Britain today understand that abortion should be the woman's choice
be credited to
Abortion Campaign. petitioning and campaigning on tne
streets against restrictive laws, NAC has brought the issues of women controlling their own lives British homes.
But NAC has come under fire in-
side the women's movement. least from the women on the TUC sponsored 28 October demonstration state, women must decide their fate',
Socialist Challenge 15 May 1980
SEXUAL POLITICS
four
'An in- found
in with was born.
Firms
who leave to
nonthe
childcare
fives
women's
told the Service,
Transport.
Patrick MP, were speaking.
State for These
women,
but they alliances SOCIOW
of feminism.
serious about
business,
cillor,
The
from men. ycal . contro gives
because it
children properly.
Unions
for the Tories'
the National Through mass charge
into How
Hually
done, Not millions of
Page 6
TEN YEARS ago this February, the first ever women's liberation conference was held at Ruskin College, Oxford. women turned up to express their new
confidence as women.
Women's liberation movement in Britain
Ten years later women have made their mark on British politics. discrimination legislation has been passed, battered women have gained some protection in the eyes of the law, repeated attacks on the 1967 Abortion Act have been repulsed. Above all the women's movement in this country has created a when Marie Ratterson, chairperson of the TUC, and Jo Richardson, Labour
some of whom were revolutionary feminists, were a tiny minority of the demonstration,
reflect a feeling that with the trade unions are wrong — a 'compromise'
This Tory government is deadly
its economic philosophy. Nothing is being allowed to come before the needs of big
certainly not the needs of women. Marion Roe, a GLC Coun-
made this crystal clear at the lory farty conterence eariler this
women's liberation philosophy, she argued, was responsible for juvenile crime and vandalism because it had 'brainwashed' women into being ashamed to look after their
Women will become the scapegoat economic policies,
forced out of work, back to the kit-
chen sink, having to provide - free of
the very facilities that the
state should be providing. Freedom
of choice for women is not a Tory
can it be suggested that
urging the trade unions, as NAC has
to take up the demands of
women is a 'compromise when there
women who are
members oftrade unions today. How
else can women expect to rebuff the
Tory attacks unless they seek, the most
600
The
Antipowerful allies the organised labour movement?
Does such a strategy challenge the autonomy of the women's movement, the right for women to have their own independent organisation? No, it makes it even more important that women build a strong independent movement that can fight for women's demands at home, at work, at school, in society at large.
By Megan Martin
FOURTEEN years hard labour for carrying out an
abortion
posed by Queensland's
government in an anti-abortion bill they've just in-
troduced into the State's parliament.
A woman trying to pro-
cure ner own scarnate will
be liable to three months jail.
This penalty was originally
seven vears nara labour WIlCI
the bill was first drafted in
September 1979.
Loophoies
The bill originally propos-
ed that
legal only in cases where the
woman was nkely to che li the
continued
cases where the woman was
ukey to commut sucoe
Since then sérious risk lave incest, major
foetal abnormality have beer
as grounds for abor-
tion. But cases. of rape must
changed attitude towards women, both among men and women themselves.
But the heady days of the '60s and early '70s when more and more women gained economic independence as they filled offices, shops, canteens, and light engineering factories, are over. Women's unemployment over the last two years has been three times the rate of men's. The economic recession, coupled with the monetarist philosophy of the Tory government is hitting women hard.
Here VALERIE COULTAS takes a look at the future of feminism in the 80s.
The trade unions will not move unless they are pushed, the whole experience of the last ten years underlines this point.
The become both in unions, the more the unions will respond to demands for womens' equality, the more women can raise feminist society women's movement in Britain has
14 years for doing an abortion
that's the barbaric punishment pro-
right-wing coalition
have been reported to the veerstand DOlICO within seven days and the doctor must get a certificate from the polict accianne complaint has been made.
Similar provisions apply for cases ouncest Abortion has never been freely available in Queensland. 1 NC allul abortion laws are already the harshest and in Australla ment has motivated the bill by saying that it is necessary to up loopholes in existing legislation.
They want to close down the one cinc mar nas been able to function in Brisbane in
ternational Should
women
women should
attacks.
The
their prisoners.
sal,
lost.
organised women and outside the
at larger The use ase two vears ana to Dre vent Queensland women from guill interstate get aboron. Any coctor who ad vises a woman about an abortion (for example advice to colo New boule wales, could be regarded as 'frustrating the
the and occasicica
Any person who counsels
wontal abou would be liable to be charged with conspiracy to commit a crime • 1 ne governments in tention is to close down the referral agencies which at presell sent mousand women to New South Wales each year.
Ana US In Cast woman is enterprising enough to refer herself to New Soutl Wales, rumoured that women crossing ine • porce will have pregnancy test
end of the debate the first reading, the
always been strongest and most effective when it has mobilised women on the streets, to publicly demonstrate, to women and men alike, that they have power and confidence. The In-
Women's Day marches the Reclaim the Night marches, are all a vital part of winning women to a broad understanding of their oppres
Production
But while the women's movement should continue to develop its politics on a broad range of issues, , there is one area where its response has been weak. Since the passing of the equality legislation in 1974 (the Equal Pay Act and the Sex Discrimination Act) the problems facing women at the point of production have received less
than the issues i ot reproduction (fertility control, domestic violence, domestic labour).
This was perhaps understandable given the tendency of many socialists to completely ignore the centrality of the problems of women in the home. But, now that women's right to work is so severely threatened, it seems vital that the women's movement turns its energies to this arena of struggle.
women support the removal of protective legislation for
workers to allow them to
women male. dominated areas of employment, par-
those that require skills? How are we going to stop the drift of
into part-time work? How women organise themselves within the unions? These questions must be answered if women are to respond in a rounded way to the Tory
women's liberation movement has not met for two years. The Cents were amal affairs, anough il International Women's was a big step forward that 250 British women went to Armagh to express
solidarity with Irish women
If large numbers of women, from all walks of life, are to be mobilised against the Tories it does seem that the women's movement will have to come to grips with its present disper-
both at a local and a national level. For it is clear that without such forums for debate and discussion and
powerfully organised women's movement, the enormous potential of feminism in the '80s could easily be
NAC National Conference 17 18 11a!
Belle Veu Centre.
Belle Yue Road.Leeds.
Ring VAC: 01-278 0153 for details
Bjelke-Peterson, allowed his National Party MP's to vote
- as long as they dian't vote against the bill The bill was carried by 49 votes to 16.
Fernan. most disgusting aspect of the affair been the role of the leader Casey: A member of Right to Life, Casey led the attack on presenting petition 9.5 Queensland Parliament August 1979 calling on th government to close down Brisbane's only abortion He voted for the new bill at the first reading, says that. while he would not vote against it, he can see no supporting legislation because it contains Wolle make it possible for some women to obtain lawful abor tions in Oueensland.
Page 7 scan of this page
The British disease and
Dr Thatcher's
IN EARLY youth the patient contracted chronic capitalism. Although initially a source of tremendous vitality, the disease rapidly gained control of the higher mental functions and formed a destructive parasitic growth, the capitalist class.
This renders the whole body subservient to its insatiable needs, weakening it and producing pronounced symptoms of inner decay.
remedy
The parasite secretes a drug, jingoism, to which the body By Alan Freeman becomes addicted, rendering it incapable of ejecting the parasite.
(With acknowledgements Previous history
to John Harrison)
Patient engaged in a wanton spending spree abroad in later youth. Lived by bullying the rest of the world for a while. Now lives in the past, refusing to overhaul basic industry, and scrounges off former victims and partners in
Symptoms Since the war the patient has suffered low productivity growth, loss of international competitiveness, and loss of export markets. Acute symptoms began with the end of the world boom, notably a much sharper decline in profit rates and feverish inflation. While the world economy was expanding exports could grow despite a declining world share, covering up the underlying weakness.
Deprived of a healthy international environment, the patient experienced an absolute decline in sales abroad, and headlong decline of old exporting industries.
Inflation and unemployment reached epidemic proportions everywhere and the patient, who was already ailing, caught it worse than anyone else.
Former victims and part began to slam the door in the patient's face. Severe psychological and side effects followed. North Sea oil has paradoxically made matters worse. The strength of the pound makes it harder to sell abroad. High interest rates, resulting from a strong pound, discourage investment. The patient is in danger of losing all its industry.
Treatment First developed by patent medicine salesman Dr Friedman of Chicago. Applied without success in Chile but still recommended by the world's bankers. The aim is to make the body cure itself by creating an environment in which the free market can restore competitiveness.
The main policy prescriptions are:
1. Monetarism, or holding down the money supply
However unpalatable, and whatever short-run shocks to the patient, the medicine is the central component of the treatment, and industry must adapt to it.
It is supposed to work like this: tight money makes credit harder to get and cuts down spending on tick. This cuts back production and employment, and makes it harder to finance losses by borrowing. Bankruptcies increase.
This is supposed to produce self-induced surgery. The weak firms go bust, so average productivity rises. The bankruptcies are concentrated in the least internationally competitive industries, so competitiveness perks up. Competition for work forces down wages, and competition for survival gives management that keen fighting edge.
Unfortunately, as with any major surgery, the body as a whole is weakened in the short term. The theory is that by cutting out all the weak bits, the whole must improve in the long term.
The other measures are medical back-up intended to make sure the treatment takes:
2. Anti-trades union legislation
Designed to weaken worker resistance and speed up the process whereby the body produces scabs.
3. Reduced aid to industry
Clearly the treatment requires that the lame bits are not propped up, but are allowed to fall off decently.
4. Cuts in state spending
To re-enforce the fall in expenditure and employment, to make sure the market is allowed full sway, and to transfer income to the richer parts of the system.
5. Income tax cuts
Local anaesthesia for the rich.
The treatment is best summed up by 'Keynesianism in reverse'. Keynesian techniques used blood transfusion to keep ailing parts of the body healthy. Monetarism uses the same methods to carry out the mediaeval remedy of bleeding the sick. Unfortunately the effect is to strengthen the parasite at the expense of the patient.
Side effects
Increasing attention has to be devoted to holding down the healthy parts of the patient which react to the treatment with violent convulsions, attempting to eject the parasitic growth that is the underlying cause of the malady.
Further complications are created by the alarming rise of psychopathological symptoms of military aggressiveness and delusions of grandeur. If continued this may well lead to early death.
The most painful side effects are unemployment and lost production. If this was made good, over £43.56 billion of new goods and services could be made available, which could pay for a 50% rise in pensions and social security benefits, minimum earnings of £105 all round, a 75% increase in house building, a 25% rise in health and eduation, and a 50% increase in investment.
Prognosis
It is unlikely that the treatment will be allowed to run its course. If completed, previous experience suggests that although the patient will die, the treatment has a 50% chance of success.
Socialist Challenge 15 May 1980 Page 7
Page 8 scan of this page
WHAT DO W
STEVE POTTER, ING
'Building a class-
struggle left-
wing in the
unions'
I DON'T think the Tories have much cause i for satisfaction. They have claimed a series of successes for a strategy that was designed to avoid the calamities which befell the Heath government.
The deflection of the general strike threat in South Wales öyer jobs; the removal of Derek Robinson obstacle in British Leyland; and the decisions of some local and one national trade union body to oppose action on 14 May have been examples of a policy designed to split the working class and sap its tremendous organisational strength.
while real, have to be set against the fact that 14 May will be a massive display of working strength; that the cost for the Tories of not entering into conflict with powerful sections of the working class, such as the miners, has been a rate of wage increases that has kept abreast of intlation; that the Treasury has been forced to mark. up public sector wage costs to 25 per cent in the public expenditure estimates, and that the principal aim of Tory strategy against the working class in the first year - smashing some of the weaker sections was confounded by the great struggle of the steelworkers.
The steelworkers' strike sums up the situation very well. Tories' steelworkers as a lesson to the rest of the working class was frustrated; but the steelworkers did not win a settlement that was in any way adequate They were sold out.
the Tories have admitted that their attempts to secure a more solid alliance between the West European powers and US imperialism have been a series of blunders. Only in Zimbabwe have the Tories any cause for satisfaction, but even they realise the political stabilisation of the country is of a temporary character.
The labour movement has resisted major defeats, but it has not scored any major victories either. The greatest threat facing movement today is the danger that the international crisis is used to convince the British people over a period of years that they must be ready to die in wars to preserve British profits abroad and accept austerity as the price of increasing profits here.
There is a pacificist tradition British labour movement which can be led in an anti-imperialist direction that's why Labour Party demonstration called against the Cruise missiles on 22 June is so important. It is the most significant call to have come from the Labour Party for years.
Since the predictable success of the left at the -Labour Party conference following the election, and then over the terms of reference and composition of the commission or inqulry into the Labour Party, I think that the performance of the party must be disappointing to many of its HECTOCS.
The of the Parliamentary Labour Party has, of course, beed;
scandalous. The right-wing leaders have aided the Tories in their attacks on the trade unions — Eric Varley's speech supporting state-financing
Socialist Challenge 15 May 1980 Page 8
movement.
of ballots and incomes policy being the latest example. But even the left MPs have not been prominent in building activities like the Day of Action, and Tony Benn manifesto he issued when he refused a place in the Shadow Cabinet, by limiting his efforts such as they are - to building a parliamentary opposition.
The stalemate in the class struggle has been reflected in the Labour Party, and this is a direct result of the situation in the trade unions. It is dramatically shown in the shift to the right in the Engineering Union.
Some people obviously think there has been a shift to the left in some TGWU. The Communist Party is trying hard to consummate an alliance with Moss Evans; an effort which is sharpened by the failure so far of their attempts in the AUEW to reverse the trend started by Terry Duffy's accession presidency.
It was the TGWU which initiated the proBosal ay, a so tal is pentacle important
and this is a potentially and development if the conference were used to plan the fightback against the Tories' attacks.
But this 'swing to the left' seemed to have been sharply arrested when Moss Evans sold out the thousands of Leyland workers who went out on strike, with their union behind them, against the Slaves Charter of Michael Edwardes. The CP has treated this episode as a victory for the Leyland workers; with, it appears, the sole aim of covering up for Evans' role in the affair.
I think there is a way out of the stalemate in the fight against the Tories and the stalemate inside the labour movement. Unfortunately it will not be a rapid process, given the stakes that the Tories are playing for.
As the big defensive struggles against the government restart after 14 leaders at every level of the movement will increasingly be drawing political lessons about the way forward. Right now the number engaged in messes and this is not large. Those drawing lessons about the way forward are organised in different currents inside the labour movement; in national tendencies, like the Broad Left or the Defend Our Unions current, or they are isolated as individuals in shop. stewards committees, Labour Party branches, or sometimes any combination of these. the labour Unifying this militant minority in the trade unions is one of the first steps that can be taken to break out of the stalemate. It would be a step mass of towards building a new left-wing in the unions; based on class struggle policies rather than class collaboration. Such unity in action could start to have profound developments within the Party, too, because the left in the constituency parties also needs organising. the The proposal ordinating Committee — to organise Labour Party members in the unions valuable catalyst in both respects. Such a proposal should apply to all trade unionists who are counted as members of the Labour Party by virtue of having subscribed to the political levy as well as individual members.
Neither socialist policies nor a new left-wing in the unions will be fought for without constructing a revolutionary organisation in Britain. The depth of the crisis on a world scale means that we have to construct an international party; a party which simultaneously builds on a national and an unaccountable international basis.
Today there is only one such organisation in
Britain: the International Marxist Group, British section of the Fourth International.
How successful have the Tories been in their
plans to defeat the labour movement? After a
year of Tory rule that will be the question many
will be asking about the performance of the
government and the resistance of the labour
Socialist Challenge spoke to ERIC HEFFER
MP, a leading left winger on the Labour Party ex-
remained true to the unions, such as the
to the
important and that's dangerous
May, workers'
DAVE COOK, CP
'Forging
alliances
between the
the working
class'
in tne
made by the Labour Co- could
destroy them.
to the community at large.
bination punches
back them up.
9 March demonstration: marchers show their anger with Len Murray - but will he be allowed t
combine
various parts of
play.
THE Thatcher government is not a re-run of Heath's. They have as their aim not just to cut the welfare state, public ownership, and comprehensive education; they want to faced.
The Tories are also in the battle of ideas.
Take health: for every hospital they threaten there is also a barrage of propaganda, aimed at undermining the basic democratic idea that the responsibility for looking after the sick belongs
And so it is on every issue; a cluster of com-
- both hard hitting policies and a fierce drive to push reactionary ideas to
The Tories have made much popular mileage out of issues like law and order, racism, rates and
ecutive; DAVE COOK,
Communist Party; a member of the Interr central committee. We asked them: Ho ceeded in their strai movement? How effec tion of the labour mov taxation, state bureaucracy and edycation. The
cold war international Solicies wit their reactionary offensive in Britain.
Right at the heart of the Tory strategy is to g for the organised trade union movement, both t cripple the unions' ability to mobilise to figh back and to weaken the influence of progressiv ideas in society.
In their campaign against the Day of Action the class character of the Tory offensive become very clear. Big business, the Conservative Party the media, the judiciary — all have their part t
I do not think the Tories have succeeded i this strategy. However, building the fightin takes places in a political context which provide a hard arena for the left. This context include the Tory offensive, and a growing awareness an fear among working people of the depth an severity of the economic crisis
Coupled with much foot-dragging 'leade ship', this helps to explain the uneveness of th fightback and some of the setbacks the left ha
Right from the general election, the Com munist Party said that we should not accept th Thatcher was here for 'the duration' The fir question is how to create the political condition which will force an early general election.
The determined fight by the left at last year' TUC which resulted in a commitment to na tional demonstrative action' was an importar stage in this. . The right wing in the trade union and in the Labour Party always oppose the use o industrial action for political ends.
One of the big lessons of the fight for the Da of Action is that it is where the policies have bee
Page 9 scan of this page
'E DO NOW?
tional organiser of the STEVE POTTER, a
onal Marxist Group's
ar have the Tories sucy against the labour a has been the opposient?
more struggles? argued out, on the shop floor, that stoppages take place. This has been the approach of the Communist Party.
At the heart of the left's political alternative k the 'Alternative Economic Strategy'. munists and the Morning Star have played a big part in developing and winning support for this DAVE COOK
the trade unions? strategy. What is needed now is massive argu ment and initiative to turn the many hopeful signs of rejection of Tory policy into positive support for the Alternative Strategy. Com- The launching of a major campaign for selective import controis, several trade unions, is important in this context.
The policy document being presented to the special Labour Party conference contains some elements of the alternative strategy, but in some ways it is woefully weak. ment to reject incomes policy and the need fo free collective bargaining. pledge on selective import controls. Only small cuts in arms expenditure are proposed. There is inadequate recognition of the need for higher wages to power expansion of the economy.
On domestic issues there is no clear commitment to repeal racist immigration laws; no mention need on devolved Scotland and Wales; no proposal to break with the shameful bipartisan approach on Northern Ireland. Intimately connected with defeatingthe Tories is the need to ensure that a future Labour government begins to operate radically different policics.
In achieving this, the fight for democracy in the Labour Party is very important. What is also crucial is the degree to which the Labour Party and the trade unions are won to developing the overall political alternative they offer, and make them issues of mass politics. Communists work with the left to help this happen.
Socialism, descri. Our "The alliances between the various parts of the working class, as building a
What's the significance of the shift to the
right in the Engineering Union, and the fact that
the Labour Party's special conference has been
called at the instigation of the Transport Union?
And what of Peter Hain's proposal that the
Labour Party should organise its supporters in
as part of the AES, by be so transformed.
Union's national There is no commit-
There is no clear However,
wrong
shopfloor. For Leyland stewards by
assemblies right wing has made.
is particularly important.
unity can stop this.
British Road If it happens, , describes this difficult task of forging
Broad Democratic other than electoral ones.
cerned.
Labour
the advances conférence, feltiance. No other section of the left has this ob.
Without the contribution of an independent,
revolutionary party, rooted in the working class, and based on the revolutionary ideas of Marxism, the labour movement will not
There has been a highly organsied, relentlessly executed, media-backed campaign to reverse the previous left majority on the Engineering
committee. The right-wing advance reflects in some measure the debilitating influence of years of social contract.
I think it is important to guard against final judgement with this union, and it is
to assume that the irresolution of its leadership necessarily reflects the mood of the
example, the sell-out of the can precedented number of branch protests. producea an unl effectively.
But we have to work to reverse the gains the
The defence of union democracy through the process of rules revision
The inner right-wing caucus is out to eliminate the many democratic active features of the AUEW constitution. Maximum
Some of the points made by Bob Wright about the Broad Left in Marxism Today seem to be significant; in particular, the need to broaden its concerns to include wider political questions.
As far as Peter Hain's proposals go, 1 ve the unions. heard the idea that the Labour Party should organise factory branches for a number of years.
great! The problem is that the dominant reformist trend in the Labour Party is bitterly opposed to any conception of politics,
that.
ERIC HEFFER MP
'The left in the
party has to fight
for its policies in
the unions'
UP UNTIL now the Tories have done much better than they ought to have done. Unfortunately they have been reasonably successful in dividing the working class.
Their wages policy in particular has succeeded in dividing the working Class dividing private sector from public sector works, and creating divisions within the public sector according to the relative strength of the workers con-
What should not be underestimated is that the Tories' biggest weapon is unemployment, which is bound to have an effect on the working
The opposition has been better than the media has given it credit for, but one of the pro blems is that the alternative strategy which the Labour Party executive is putting forward is not supported by everyone within the Parliamentary
Party, therefore the lead the parliamentary leadership has provided has not been as effective as it should have been.
Again in the trade unions, the lead there has not been as effective as it should have been
There is no doubt that the shift to the right in the Engineering Union can be a real setback to
made at last year's Labour Party but it's still 100 early to • say categorically that the proposals on the manifesto and re-selection will be defeated because of the AUEW's position.
The Labour Party special conference is a very important development, because it gives the op. portunity for the Labour Party and the trade unions at the conference to organise around a very progressive, socialist and radical statement.
It's surely no accident that it was the biggest union, the Transport Union, which asked for such a conference to be held
At the Tribune meeting at last year's Labour Party conference I said that there had to be considerable work done in the trade union movement over the coming 12 months, and that if we were going to win it would depend on that.
We have to build on our contacts, and that's precisely what we have been doing, although it
and should be done more The Parliamentary Labour Party meets top leaders, but the real work has to be done among the rank and file in order to win support for our policies
The rank and file in the Labour Party are all
Thousands thousands of party members hold positions in the unions. Many of them happen to be local councillors. They're interchangeable; all part of the same thing.
But there has to be greater concentration. The left in the party has to fight for its policies in
It wasn't the constituencies which swung the vote at the last conference, it was the unions. The right-wing leadership in the unions thought they had it sewn up, but they were wrong. Now there has been a setback for us, there's no doubt about
Socialist Challenge 15 May 1980 Page 9
Page 10 scan of this page
REVOLUTION THIS weekend sees the first national conference building a youth organisation. Revolution newspaper. Colin Talbot interviewed terview, together with an article by Ann veteran Trotskyist, Harry Wicks, on why he is Henderson from the National Committee of going to the conference and on the early history Revolution on the significance of the launching of the revolutionary movement's approach to conference this weekend.
Youth Against the Tories
much to lose'
As far as the organisation of young workers
is concerned it's been the weakest point of talabour movement of this country, its refusal
face to the organisation
kers. So the tradition of a youth organisait is weak in this country.
What you did have was the Socialist Sunday
ool movement which was pre-First World
and then there was the attraction youngsters in the immediate period after the first war into the revolutionarv movement. into the ILP (Independent Labour Party) and the Labour Party with the leftward swing that took place in 1919.
But there was no youngsters doing youth work. from outside, from the young communist internationai, that the pace was set for the building in this country of a revolutionary youth organisation.
In 1920/21 the youth first came together internationally. In Britain in the early '20s there was the Young Workers' League, tionary youth organisation heavily influenced by the British Socialist Party - itself the largest constituent element in the founding of the British Communist Party — which merged with another communist youth movement to form the Young Communist League (YCL) in about 1921.
From about September 1920 you had the start of a big recession and crisis following the boom for about 18 months after the first war.
"YOUTH.
I AGAINST
TORIES
NEW badge, only 20p:
Order from Revolution,
PO Box 50, London N1.
Send cash with order. £1.50 for 10.
Socialist Challenge 15 May 1980
of revolutionary socialist youth organised by
'The youth have got so
— Harry Wicks
of young work.
to an adult worker
solid organisation of it was realv a revolu-
labour.
Cululate
Mcalci workers.
By Ann Henderson, Manchester Revolution THE SUMMER of '78 saw thousands of youth on the streets, organising through the Anti Nazi League Racism. That's Revolution was born — a revolutionary socialist fighting to win youth just getting into political understanding that its the whole system which oppresses and which needs to thrown.
Revolution has come a long way. We produce regular number 10 is just out - and we have Revolution youth down the country from Aberdeen to South Wales. volved in organising the first national young women s comerence last yeal. a recent young workers' conference in Manchester and the successful youth against South Wales.
Kevontor members
active in lots of other political campaigns round racism and Ireland. Around the world, always in the forefront of the struggle the capitalist Nicalagua they gave their lives for the fight for freedom from the Somoza dictatorship. In South Africa students shut down their schools organising against discrimination and the apar-
Page 10
That recession placed the burden on the young workers as far as organisation and their standards of living were concerned — there was no
'Unemployment to a young worker is something more than
You had the cutting out of apprenticeships and the tightening up of conditions on them so that young workers were separated from their workmates really. If a young worker came out on strike and he was apprenticed to a firm it was legally recognised that his indentures (contract) were broken. He could have done two years of craft training but be reduced for ever-more to the ranks of the unskilled worker.
A lad left school at 14 and went straight into industry into the mines, engineering, whatever job he could get. If he became unemployed he became part of a giant reserve of unskilled
I knew some youngsters in the Rhondda valley who left school at 14 and I knew them when they got married at 22 and they had never been to work. This was not the exception it was
That is an example of the intensity of exploitation of young theid system.
on the police in Bristol.
Rock Against also when and our own future. youth paper This weekend,
activity to the tion, electing
them, be
resources and organisation. paper three immediate groups up and want to build a mass the Tories'
We were centrally in- alongside all the
wait another four years
unemployment National al C also Students and
youth are
join with us in that project. soleill
'The "Upstairs, Downstairs" labour force was supplied from the valleys in South Wales.'
And for young women in South Wales leaving school at 14 there was the recruitment of girl
Here in Britain black youth took
There genuinely is no future for youth under this rotten system, which is why we need a revolutionary youth organisation to fight for a society where we can control our own lives
17/18 May, Revolution will be launched as an independent national youth organısa-
its own leadership, deciding on its own programme and running its finances. Up until now we have been dependent on the international Marxist Group for much of our
Our first national conference has
tasks. Firstly, we 'Youth against movement to work other Hovculculle organising to get rid of Thatcher and her government. We are not going to
Secondly, we want to build and stre Nationa unions School
Union School NUS well as establishing young workers' committees in the trade unions. Thirdly we want to build Revolution and fight for all revolutionary socialist youth to
More than 200 youth will be at the Revolution conference this weekend.
You should come along too and help us build a large and effective revolutionary socialist youth organisation.
Here we reprint some excerpts from that in-
tion
technical this
with their class.
your ordinary
autonomy to stir things Saturday/Sunday 17/18 May
REVOLUTION
NATIONAL CONFERENCE
at The University of London Students Union Malet Street, London WC1 (5 mins from Euston Station)
Guest Speakers from:
America, Ireland, plus Filmshows and Workshop Discussions Rock Against Thatcher Spectre and The Pack Saturday 17 May, 9pm, at University of London Students Union,
Malet Street, London WC1.
Admission: £1.50 (£1 un-waged)
Admission to Revolution and gig combined £3 (include accom
Transport from every major city, for details telephone 01-359 837.
labour to come to London to go into domestic service. And if it was not that, it was into nursing in the Poor Law Institutions.
The young workers were doomed, if they left school at a period when there was no work, to unskilled labour for the rest of their lives. That's worth remembering in the current situa-
With the cuts in education, the closing of
colleges, the reducing of apprenticeships, it's necessary more than ever for the young workers to organise licuiscives
In addition to organising as revolutionaries it's necessary for young workers to think in terms of directing their efforts into the trade union movement just as efforts were made by the YCL in the 1920s to get influence in the unions to get conferences of young workers 'If you're not romantic when your young, what are you, you re notning, are you
The young have got so much to lose. They are living in a precarious situation with the hotting up of the imperialists' war ambitions, with the American youth confronting the draft, and
country registering the youth for national service cannot be ruled out.
The revolutionary youth will be interested in the growth of the anti-nuclear movement too. Another thing that seems to me to be vital about the organisation today of revolutionary youth is for them to be intimately connected
There is a tendency to break away from
lifestyle when you become a revolutionary. This is the greatest fallacy as far as the young worker is concerned.
Because the issues that confront the youth are so grave today it's necessary to have a viable youth organisation that has the organisational up and create an impact.?
France modation).
Page 11 scan of this page
EDUCATE, AGITATE, ORGANISE
Steelworkers international
AGENDA.
IMG 1980
CADRE
SCHOOL
AT THE 1980 IMG Cadre School comrades from all over the country together with visitors from Europe will be able to meet and discuss questions of Marxist theory and strategy in a relaxed environ ment.
Marxists, in contrast to reformists and centrists, have always stressed the importance of theory in building a revolutionary organisation that is confident in its programme. This school can be a step in this process.
The main sessions of the school will ex-
in 20th century Europe and the Third World to help deepen our understanding of the central historical tasks of the working class in our epoch.
We will study the relationship between the world imperialist crisis and the colonial revolution, looking in particular at the nature
nationalist relevance of Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution. We will look at the Stalinist global
By Brian Grogan
ON May Day steelworkers
from South Yorkshire
renewed the worldwide
links with other
during the steel strike.
number of leading rank and
file militants went to several
countries for May
celebrations, carrying the
greetings and
British steelworkers for the
help given during their 13
week strike.
The trips were organised
under the of : Stocksbridge joint
stewards committee in contact
with rank and militants
abroad.
Brian Molyneux, secretary
of the Stocksbridge committee,
who went to Venezuela at the
invitation steelworkers
there, explained: 'We have
many common problems.
bosses have international links,
so should we. At some stage we
have to take on the Common
Market's plan for steel,
Davignon plan), so we have
ideas. for international
bulletin.'
Brian visited the Southern
Venezuelan CILY of
Guyana which is the biggest
industrial complex
It holds a steelmill
COULLY.
employing 12,000 workers and
producing 2.5m tonnes of steel
per year.
The workers in this region
have managed to construct a
class struggle union in the face
inaction
against the
WOMEN in Action has pro-
duced new fundraising
badge, in pink on purple, 20p
plus 10p p&p.
Box 2, Sisterwrite Books, 190
Upper St, London N1.
tional) upheavals movements and the
the stewards who invited Brian. "I want to explain our experience or one cry get from them some of their exsteel- perience democratic union as of
relate our experience strike' • ne says Other shop stewards set off for Sweden, Longwy in France,
Day Germany, Switzerland
Belgium.
of Other international link ups
between rank and fle workers have also taken place recently. Two weeks the international meeting of rank and file Ford workers was held
the in Cologne. Representatives of shop Ford Cologne,
Copenhagen and Ford UK were presclil.
The
for £6,000 to be raised urgently.
(the
just paid for my new boss.
Ciudad
will go to continuing this work. It was
workers to dig deep.?
national steel strike.
policy of 'peaceful co-existence' from Yalta to the invasion of Afghanistan.
When looking at Europe the school will focus on the role of the workers' dual power and insurrection in the context of developed bourgeois democracies.
The school is designed to combine *A forum for discussing questions of Marxist theory and strategy *The opportunity to hear authoritative lectures by Ernest Mandel, Charles Udry, Margaret Coulson, Robin Blackburn, Tariq Ali, John Ross, and many more * A variety of recreation facilities including: Filmshows, relaxing in the sun, sports activity to watch or join in (Tariq will be leading morning jogging sessions - op*Socialist Worker/Socialist Challenge cricket match on Saturday afternoon A DEPOSIT of £10 will secure your place, but the full £47.50 has to be paid in full by 31 June. This sum covers accommodation, all meals, morning and afternoon coffee and the full programme of events.
Detailed programme reading lists and information regarding the exact venue will be received on registration.
Attendance at the school is open to nembers and sympathisers of the IMO levolution and the Fourth International. To avoid a last minute rush and disappointment - there are only 150 places available - send off your registration immediately.
Send cheques/postal orders to: "The Weel Society', PO Box 50, London N1.
The meeting responding and made plans for a full interbuilding national meeting to be held in well as
international develop in the heat of big struggles and all that an alternative policy to ulat of bureaucrats Sirs, who see salvation through import controls, possibility. second made at the expense of foreign WORKeRS But the reality national links shows that pracFord tical internationalism is a growing trend inside
The IMG doesn't often blow its trumpet. So I'm going to blow it a
- not too much. The IMG is asking
not a massive sum to ask for, especially if you compare it with what Thatcher has
As a steelworker I appeal to all readers of Socialist Challenge to give generously. The IMG wants the money to help the working class. I know that in the steel
It was meeting IMG members up and down the country and reading Socialist Challenge that made socialists out of many sound trade unionists. Your money
our experience of the steel strike is the sort of thing that the IMG wants the money
Colin Herd is ISTC Convenor at the Warrington Works. He has just decided to join the IMG on the conclusion of a tour of European countries speaking to meetings sponsored by the Fourth Inter-
on the lessons of the British
He is also a contributor to the IMG
government, parts; the Third World
Afghanistan
2)
3)
Spain, 1936 discussed to a redundancy Copenhagen
As the steel strike showed,
solidarity can
This demonstrates above
like Bill
Their solution real
of inter-
the British
I appeal to all workers to dig deep'
Lessons of the
Steel Strike
* & the
WORK PON
the
pamphlet: The Lessons of the Steel Strike and the Fight Against the pamphlet is now available from: PO Box London N1 2XP, Bookshop, or local IMG branches.
ERNEST MANDEL
MAIN SCHOOL SESSIONS The main sessions are grouped into three Permanent Revolution and Strategy in Stalinist Global Policy from Yalta to
The Cuban Revolution Revolution in Nicaragua *Debate on Cuba Today Political Revolution in the Workers States - Hungary and Czechoslovakia *Debate on Afghanistan The German Revolution 1918/19 Revolution and Counter-revolution in Revolution in Portugal 1974/5 Nature of the Coming British Revolution *Debates on State Capitalism and the Trade Unions in Late Capitalism.
COLIN HERD
fight to
kick out Tories
With contributions from Bernard Connolly, Ray Davies, Colin Herd, Brian Molyneux and other strike leaders.
An IMG pamphlet
Tories This
from The Other
OPTIONAL COURSES
series of optional three part courses.
1)
Politics
on:
Marxism and the Family Labour Movement
tional courses.
The Other Bookshop Reading List
Bookshop
NLB £4.50
Special offers
Mandel, special price £2
Socialist Chalienge Socialist Challenge Special introductory subscription offer £1 for 5 issues sent to your door! Only for subscribers from this week's issue.
Name ...
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I enclose a donation for the Fund Drive of Make all cheques, Challenge, PO Box 50, London N1 2XP. INTERNATIONAL
Insick
*h
frag
men t
As well as the main lectures there will be a Two introductory courses are planned:
An Introduction to Revolutionary
There will be two other subsidiary courses An Introduction to Marxist Economics
Aspects of the History of the British
It would be very helpful if comrades would state their preference on the applica tion form provided. It will not be possible for comrades to attend more than two op
A full reading list per topic will be provided on registration, but the following will be generally helpful background reading. All books available on request from the Other
—Revolutionary Marxism Today, Mandel,
— Transitional Programme, 30p
— Lessons of October, Trotsky, 90p
Trotsky — A Study of the Dynamic of His Thought, Mandel, special price £2.
From Stalinism to Eurocommunism,
Socialist Challeng
TRIFREI SAbl APOLICE postal orders payable to: Socialist
OUT NOW! New issue of International, IMG theoretical journal. Contains major articles on the Labour left's 'Alternative Economic Strategy' 'Beyond the Fragments' and Italian Communist history. Also reviews and a reply to the SWP on the crisis of the European far left.
Single issues: 85p. Subs: £3.50 for one year. From The Other Bookshop, 328 Upper St, London N1.
Socialist Challenge 15 May 1980 Page 11
Page 12 scan of this page
HOME NEWS
How
militant
is the
Marxist wing of the Labour Party. THE media's failure to generate a witch-hunt against the Militant within the ranks of the labour
report by Lord Underhill being dropped almost as rapidly as it had been seized on.
Militant was intended as part of an offensive to counter the gains made by the left within the Labour Party, the outcome can only be regarded as a victory for the left as a whole.
previous occasion, when the chief inquisitor was Shirley tant was able to mobilise considerable sympathy. Unfortunately, as with the previous witch-hunt, Militant limited its defence to Marxist 'respectability'
that the acceptance of the constitu-
and socialism was a condition of member-
The response by Nick Bradley, a well known Militant supporter and the Labour Party Young Socialists' representative on the Labour Party executive. was to say: ' To her demand for unequivocal answers from us on
achieved democratically, we reply,
policy of calling for the nationalisa-
workers' control, to be achieved by means an Enabling Act through when Labour is in government.
There is only one interpretation taht can be placed on this policy: that Militant believes that socialism can be legislated through parliament. orientation is summarised in its main slogan, 'Labour power
SCEVENTS
ABERDEEN:
Phone 20298 for more details on sale at The Ramp, Fr Sat 10-4. For more info phon available from Fourth Ide
val in the Trade Hall, Willesden High Rd NW10.
GON: ror into onone Nick. CUUs. RISTOL: SC on sale 11-1, 'Hole in Ground
42 Gloucester Outside Woodc sis 1 230 Carin Bire Hones are ur Road, Carat. HabIe Irom to Socialist Challenge 15 May 1980 Page 12
Militant?
THE MILITANT current inside the Labour Party, which was recently subjected to an unprecedented inquisition by the Labour right and its friends in the media, has emerged unscathed and even strengthened by the
DAVE HUDSON takes a critical look at this self-styled
socialist programme'. The problem of une stale Is aosent mom unis senela.
Years of burrowing away within the Labour Party has meant that Militant bases its activity on the internal rhythms and routines of the party,
policies is waged on terms which the labour bureaucracy can accept
of seeking to break reformists from subordinating workers' struggle to concentration on the Labour Party' programme leads its followers to engage in somewhat abstract debates
lennon on quesuons or government
Labourism, Militant confines this to the Labour Party and Parliament, side-stepping in its propaganda the fact will seek to put paid to any
the political framework of the reformists, as can oe seen in Its lanure o pose the removal of the right-wing leaders of the labour movement.
Removed
Wall, a leading Militant spokesperson, said that the post election divisions in the Labour Party were not about personalities — the removal of the Callaghan leadership - but about amendments and policies. He merely put fighting for a change of policy, but
necessity of fighting for leadership, and lets the Labour leaders off the on hook. Moreover it has become a
DUNDEE: SC
London Divisiona Hacker, • ca. Earl me 210 Hector Re HUDDERSFIELD: aceworks. The Plaza. SCals available at Peacer BAton The SCale Hand Hit Biosk
Lausati boxes preaching from the
chiro about local a res: Tel SWINDON: Sc on sale il-1 every sar.. kegen Cread Centre and on Lintone ki
dlesbrough,
Maliant
TORIES OUT!
One disastrous
Porough for working reople
Force general election NO
LABOUR TO
POWER ON
•ASOCIALIST
PROGRAMME
substitute for active involvement in
Militänt counterposes, in a secbreak out - partial and for limited demands — with the historic tasks of
united, titude is seen in their assessment of
tarianism Out Movement. Militant has never
movements because they were not initiated by the 'labour movement'. What they really mean is that they were not initiated by the labour bureaucracy. In effect this leads to tail-ending the reformists and abstaining from the struggle to win
demands, like 'For a woman's right to choose', is somehow opportunist! So, like all sectarians, they stand on soapdemanding that the masses fall behind them after some process of religious
Their sectariaism has an obverse side: economism. They adapt to what
Socialits, which Militant leads, has a worse record on the struggles of the oppressed than the Young Liberals! The 'problem' of women's emancipation is relegated to the future socialist society - Militant has denounced the women's movement as a force that is
Militant has almost nothing to say about Britain's imperialist past, and the benefits that the British working class reaped from the rape of the colcritique of the chautinism and patriotism that permeates the labour bureaucracy — they certainly neither
organisation is simply seen as divisive
socialism. Only the trade unions, the Labour Party, and Militant organised
WHAT'S LEFT Money 19 May Som May, spa
VOLVERHAMPTON: ursday to Frida Inion Friday 12-2pm and Mander Centre, nea
RATES For ads ber col. inch. Deadlin bat. prior to pul RES. PoSe
CELEBRATE liberation %6 Dalston Lane Afrodisco, bar/food, cI.
THA CROIS TV MONTAST A series of lectures in Britain by a membe of the Revolutionary Communist League of Egypt.
CHIL
exclusively inside the Labour Party, have this role to play.
Its economism is especially visible in its treatment of the Irish question It behaves as though the Protestant and Catholic working class of Ireland
and argues for mutual struggle for higher
analls unemployment and so on. It tries to avoid the real historical roots of sec.
— partition, the status of the Catholic minority in the Six Counties, British imperialism - to argue that the struggle for a united Ireland is a diversion from the class struggle (i.e. the economic struggle).
Miltant does not give unconditional support to the anti-imperialist struggle of the Irish people, nor to the republican movement; it tends to concentrate its fire against 'sectarians' British imperialism
Labour Party and trade union lefts have failed to produce policies that begin to organise the fightback, the far left remains very weak. In these
where the working class has to force its leaders to actually lant a lead, a great responsibility is placed on the door of currents like the Mili-
bureaucrats the far left has to concentrate on building a left opposition in-
This is not to say that trade union
Labour Party. On the contrary, this class struggle opposition has to be
Party. But the reformist leaders of the party have to be forced to break from their parliamentarist perspective and put the emphasis on building mass action - starting with action against
Militant tendency does not achieve decisive blows against the Tories now, nor will it achieve decisive blows against capitalism in the future. That is why we have to reject the methods
The RCL - an illegal organisation under Water Road. Ortord Te 2
COUNTERACT socialist Clerkenwell Close, London ECIR OATT.:
Report and analysis; major review of Harr Hay Defense fence mobile near i near Dion
Welsh TUC:
no lead
By Celia Pugh UNEMPLOYMENT dominated the discussion at the Welsh TUC at Llandudno last weekend. A recent report produced by Bangor University estimates that 173,000 people will be out of work in Wales by 1983 -that's an increase from 8.7 to 14 per cent.
Emlyn Williams, the South Wales NUM president, warned the conterence Inal Inis could be zu pe cent in I some mining communities following an NCB plan announced last week to call in zi purs for un
As a rest ine conterence voter without dissent to give the 'strongest possible support to the dav of ' on 14 May ane pledges itself to work within Wales subsequent action which the TUC success of reels is necessarv
After this decision the delega tions from NALGO, NUPE
and UCATT sent a letter to local authorities informing them that their IC DC would be requested to stay away from work on 14 May. The miners reported that they would be recommenaing strike action at a specia conference next weekend Action
Explaining the mood of the delegates. George Wright. Genera Secretary of the Wales TUC. demanded more action from the
But we have heard all this before from George Wright. In March this year, at his request, the General Council of the WTUC call. ed off Welsh strike action planned for 10 March, leaving miners and steelworkers isolated in their jobs fight.
Some delegates reminded the conterence or tnis recora. colwyl Williams, a delegate from Swansea trades council, explained that 'call ne acuons on ana or acmoralise. people. Paper speeches. become paper resolutions reflecting a paper eddersimo.
However, despite these contributions, the General Council and yeorge hook With obvious reference to
the 10 March sell-out, the NUM
resoludon deplored the fact that many unions
hide behind British union constitu mons to avoid nickent o decisions of the WTUC.
Vith accusations from Geor
Wright that this resolution woul disrupt the unity for 14 May, the NUM withdrew, leaving any challenge to his leadership without a focus
So it was with some relief that
Wright was able to sum up the con Terence with tie doseranone un. has been a quieter conference than usual. Indeed there has been no rea •evale or dissent at ali.
Many crucial issues were lef unresolved by the conference and stroncer caa will nave lo be round in the fight for jobs. Welsh TUC did not provide that lead.
IMG NOTICES
Defence Committee and Oldham Defence
Committee; and Armagh POWs struggle. Price
(SC), 49 Railron Road, London SE24 OLN
Mer, Martini, 63, EN cr. Zinzers please
phone 061-236 4905 to arrange collection
ANTIAR fraction. Sat 17 May lam,
Bbeth, Bar Sun one room to apre
Fi aggregate June in
Page 13 scan of this page
WEST BANK
INTERNATIONAL
Letter from
Paris
From Charles Lister ON May Day in Paris, tens of thousands of workers take to the streets and display their strength in huge marches through the capital's wide and shady boulevards. Traditionally, May Day demonstrations are massive and united.
This year, however, things were sadly different.
There has been an open and violent split between the two halves of the French working class movement its trade union federation, the CGT, on the one side, and the Socialist Party and the trade union federation it supports, CFDT, on the other.
Split
Ever since the break-up of the CP-SP
'Union of the Left',
tions in 1978, the split has become more
Union ruined the possibility of the left com-
ing to power in the elections, and it was
followed by a period of stunned shock during By Tom Marlowe THE Israeli occupied West Bank is on the verge of open revolt.
This follows a new wave of repression by the military authorities as the ATaD
of the West Bank continue to struggle for self-determination.
Discontent came to a head on Thursday 1 May when an unarmed 17-year old schoolboy was killed by Israeli officer in the small town of Anabta. The next day the Palestinian Liberation Organisation launched an attack on an illegal Jewish settlement in the town of Hebron, killing five Israelis.
The Israeli military followed this by a series of draconian
Hebron was placed under curfew and mass house-to-house raids were launched.
Faced with a general Israeli soldiers forced shops to stay OuCI and dispersed demonstrations including one of Arab schoolgirls - with gunfire.
Hoods
On Saturday 3 May, three West Bank Arab leaders, including two mayors, were summariv deported. One of the them, Mohammed Milhem, Mayor of Halhoul, has given an account of his treatment:
"There was a knock on my door at lam and an Israeli officer told me the military governor wanted to see me.
'He told me there was no need to take my car because I would be back home in minutes. When we arrived at the barracks two other officers took hold of me and escorted me to helicopter. cheatingly told that I was being taken to Tel Aviv to see the Minister of Defence. But then they put hoods over our heads and we flew for about three hours. All of a sudden, landed in southern Lebanon and we were escorted to a military checkpoint.?
workers. - the Communist Party and on the eve of the elec-
The termination of the Left
REBELS E
Arab
CAIRO
Sue
strike
Occupied by Israel km
The neither been accused or found guilty of any crime. It was their support for Palestinian determination which has 15 ed the Israeli authorities to punish them.
Meanwhile Israeli settlers in the West Bank are allowed to was exercise nervesE "law and order' have set up retaliation squads and rampaged through Arab areas. Two weeks Arab-owned cars in the towns of Ramallah and El Bireh were smashed as were windows in shops and houses.
The essential reason for the
which it was possible for the government to buy off major workers' struggles, such as that of the Lorraine steel workers.
Yet over the past few months there has been a big rise in the combativity of the
School teachers came out on massive demonstrations, calling for a general strike run by local committees. There has been a growing movement among health, rail and postal workers. In all these movements the French section of the Fourth International has been active.
Immigrants
The struggle which won most sympathy, and had a profound effect on May Day, was the victorious strike by immigrant workers who sweep the Paris metro. Their demands were for f45 a week and the right to use the same showers as French workers. bourgeois Le Monde said: 'How can one contest the legitimacy of such demands, which one is even ashamed to mention..
Yet it required a bitter six week strike for the immigrant workers to win against the state owned RAPT transport company. Through this struggle immigrant workers began to discover their strength. A large part of May Day. belonged to them.
May Day this year was paradoxical. The various union federations held their own marMediterranean
-Gaza rt Said Arish
S. INAL
P
Sharm Sjeikh
150 had conflict cupation of the West Bank by Israel, first seized in 1967. Even self- Hebrew Ha'aretz recently Causthis: "The excuse for the recent deterioration was the Jewish
of Ramallah. at will. They deep regret
deeper...the fatal flaw of rule by military ago 130 repression leads to terror and terror to greater repression "The reality is that on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, one nation is trying to rule another against its will.'
MEETING 10r MAI PARIS MARCHE POUR L'UNITE
BEAUBOURG
13 H
Even the
ON
-Haila GOLAN
•Jordan Nablus Tel AVIV• AMMAN
O JERUSALEM Hebron Dead Sea ISRAEL Eilat • • Aqaba Ked is the continued oc-
forces show
newspaper rebellion. admitted another of the
: in the streets of Its roots, to our
are much
occupation where our country is free.
'The
dead end.'
ICR PARIS 28 AVRII
ROUGE
UNITÉ
1er MAI
ches, while the bureaucrats shed crocodile tears about the lack of unity. Amid this disgraceful division were large numbers of immigrant workers organised in their own con tingents, making up half the CFDT ranks and a third of the 40,000-strong CGT march.
Another new factor in French politics is the momentous call at the base of all the
O DAMASCUS SYRIA
Four
38
Inacio da Silva, "Illegal'
JORDAN solid
series
Two
new SAUDI ARABIA
still-lucrative
more
Yet the Israeli occupying
no sign of suc- breach. cessfully crushing. the growing
As Rijab al-Tamini Arab leaders Volkswagen deported said last Sunday:
rer Kins
'We will not kneel down, we will not give in. We are a proud ble :to people and we will continue to resist. What they have done in deporting us will only increase the struggle of our people until stooges
Zionists have gone beyond the limits of oppression, but I say to them that their ways will only lead to a
country.
tion'. Last December a number of 'personalities' within the major reformist camps
ty and union rank and file to pressure their respective leaders for unity in struggle
of the FI - has put all its weight into organising this campaign, collecting 80,000 signatures in support of it. The LCR together with 40 union branches in Paris, organised a march for unity in the struggle which altracted ouw peopie on May Day Although hundreds of CP steward prevented them linking up with the CGT
around the slogans of unity.
Meeting
fight for unity in struggle, leading to a general strike. As Alain Krivine said at a
from the unity mobilisations.
working class.
Brazil:
Army moves in,
workers stay out
By Stuart Piper On 1 April, 300,000 engineering workers came out on strike in the industrial belt of greater Sao Paulo. demanding wage increases of 15 per cent above the cost of living index, recognition of their shop stewards and security of employment.
weeks later their unions had been taken over by Callul the military government, mass meetings had been banned, and
trade unionist and organisers of the strike fund had been arrested.
these including Luis better knowi Lula', the most famous of Brazil's new trade union leaders, were still being held incommunicado, facing direct possible prison sentences of up to 12 years for 'incitement to strike'.
But the 'illegal' strike remained
Defying the government's ban, progressive clergy had opened the doors of their churches to
which firmly decided to stay out until the demands were met.
years these same engineering workers had been the first to break the silence imposed on Brazil's labour movement by a decade of police repression ana a 40-year-old union structure based on Mussolini's Carta di Lavora.
Economic problems Carter's
"liberal' foreign policy, squabbles among the ruling groups
divide the Brazlilan cake lad forced the military dictatorship in- sia to setting about insulationaisilig a 'acceptable', and made. 'stable' face of exploitation. Mockery with
cated
The workers stepped into the
Previously wages, already pitiful, had tended to fall behind inflation, but major strikes at the
of Ford, Chrysler, Diesel and Massey Ferguson showed that it was possi-
win increases even slightly above the inflation rate
They also showed that it was possible toget rid or goeround,
'pelegos', government WHO. since the military coup in 1964, had run most of the unions as harmless welfare bodies For the next 18 months an un precedented wave of strikes swept through just about every sector of the economy and every part of the
unions and workers' parties for 'Unity in Ac.
began a unity offensive, appealing to the par
Since then the LCR — the French Section march, it did link up with that of the CFDT
For the LCR the fight for unity is the
2,500-strong meeting on the eve of May Day: "The call for a general strike is not a rabbit pulled out of the LCR's hat, nor is it wishful thinking on the part of the LCR central committee, but a real issue which has come direct
In 1981 the presidential elections will be held - not in a situation of calm, but in the context of renewed combativity of the French
They were
The regime responded with the and the they imn'emented. a sere. ot clever alie superficially liberal measures tended to divide the opposition and prevent the creation of a genuin workers' party. To take the stean out of the strike movement, they automatic indexlinked wage increases every six months.
But this was combined with inrepression: strike leader. were sacked and intimidated, and colleanc made mockery of wage increases by laying off large numbers of workers and re-hiring omen worker • or even the sami Lower grades and caper osa grades and cheaper rates That is why the crucial demands are no longer about wages but about job security and the recognition of stewards.
Force
For a time it seemed as if the governmenl s manoeuvre. might be working but the engineers' strike and a resoundingly successful dock strike two weeks earlier showed the opposite Without social security or other funds to draw on, it will be impossible for the engineering workers to out much longer. But the political point has already been
On the one hand, the hardliners in the army, ог one invalicu the government's sophisticharade of "democratisahon. have been torceato olay cu hand. in a not entirely convincing show of force Solidarity On the other hand, the huge wave of solidarity with the strikers and their imprisoned leaders that is Brazil and beyond is giving boost to the Workers Party tie labour strategy in mins The Tie about strategy coming weeks will see who is he able to pick up the pieces.
In a - rulure issue Socialis Challenge will be running an in-depth analysis of the current political situation and the stale of the left in Brazil.-
Socialist Challenge 15 May 1980
Page 14 scan of this page
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Page 15 scan of this page
UNDER REVIEW
Making
good
again
By Jude Woodward
and up, the marriage rate goes up faster still.
essential nature.
families don't end with divorce.
THE film opens with Joanna Kramer, played Dy Meryl Streep, walking out on her husband and five year old son.
After the initial shock, Ted Kramer (Dustin Hoffman) gets on with bringing up his son, with Coitous repercussions for his job and his emotional life. Then, after Sen all. and divorce, Joanna reappears to explain that she feels better now, has a job, and wants her son back.
The two parents go on trial - which one should have the child?
There's no doubt where the audience will line up in this court room drama. With all the feminist best intentions in the privileged insight into the close world, after being relationship that develops between father and son, it is Ted Kramer that has all (or nearly all) our sympathy.
It is precisely this which has allowed reviewers imply that the film "progressive' content. It's not just another film about love, romance and marriage, but it suggests that can play traditionally Temale
without being peculiar. Or to put it another way aren't crazy to like kids.
In fact that just about sums up the element in the film which
doesn't have you grinding your teeth (at least in retrospect -
Letter: coping
with politics and children
WE'VE all had the never-ending
discussion and debate within and
without our branches, the left, the
women's movemen. alu sU Ull
It's the hardest struggle to put
real feminism into action, even
harder to try to make 'socialist
men' put it into action. But I've
found in my four years of
political activity a greater handi-
cap — children!
Comments from the left have
ranged from irresponsible' (of
me), to 'aliens' (of them).
My children are older
teenager, so a babysitter is no
longer amaroonate uicy are iou
old for that. But as any person
would, they react strongly to be-
ing lent on tael own.
Kramer vs. Kramer
men feel
THE durability of the family is beyond question. It is clichéd to point out that while the divorce rate goes up
The fact that one in four marriages ends in divorce (at a conservative estimate) has had an impact on the style and values of the family, but has hardly affected its
This is the subject of the smash hit film, Kramer vs Kramer, where Dustin Hoffman, high powered advertising whizz kid, reveals that he can be a mother too, and
it's a bit too weepy to think about at the time).
Among the more minor irritations is the utterly saccharine view of children that the film consistently portrays: Billy is always charming, blond, and moist eyed, evell being bad. How his mother could bear to great puzzle of the film - and really the main reason that the audience takes against her.
Courage *How much courage does it take to walk out on your child?' asks Ted. Margaret, friend, stops defending her and falls silent. But not she's awed by this proof of her friend's extreme unhappiness, she admits betrayal of her son.
No reasonable person ever leaves a child — the film never herself. We intuit that she was lonely because we see how involved Ted is in his job. And we see his insensitivity leaves: 'She's ruined one of the five best days of my life', he Toler wails.
We also guess she felt trapmen ped in the house because once she gets past the door she can't bear to go back rather leave her behind. And we know she gets a job and likes it.
As revolutionary activity is seen lo be alichulls mcclugs almost nightly, plus demos, pickets, weekend conferences, and the like, I have found it increaschildren that revolutionary politics does not mean and neglect: indeed | otten nave not had the time to argue anything with them!
When my 8-year-old daughter told me that she realised how inconvenient it was for me to have to stav in toecause she was bal ticularly upset that evening), that she knew my meeting was added: 'You should have had an abortion!' Anyone with, or caring children will know how chillIOT. ing that was.
This has been a turning point for me. I felt that as the left cannot give me any support ol answers I must concentrate my politics on the children to ensure That unev become revolutionaris:
But we are not shown the
re and more, daying
mother, cleaning, deprived of real communication with her husband, trapped in a small apartment. We are not -encouraged to experience the frustration that women in when he's that position must feel.
Her freedom after leaving leave him is a Ted is trivialised both when she
explains it to him, and when she questioned Therapy, boyfriends and a job. feminists in the audience may read between the lines, people surely react thinking her self-centred and Joanna's shallow.
'Were you a failure at the
because single most important relation-
ship in your life?' Joanna is in the dock. Her answer to the Joanna's question may
whether she is granted custody of her son. reached its emotional climax.
explain Ted tearfully meets her eyes
and shakes his head, tearfully meets eyes and admits her failure. when Those members of the au-
dience who can still see through their tears make their judgement - Joanna is a weak selfish shouldn't have her son.
If we needed any confirma-
she'd tion as to which side we should
be on we get it when Ted is on
Suitcast
Lue , witness point of the case against Ted is
and not reactionaries.
with similar or periences to write to me and the paper, pernaps wiln more optimism than my contribution.
The complete lack of 1 desertion understanding and positive ideas
of how to cope with being an activist and a mother other than can l your the weekend' is dismaying, and leads to the question of how do we nose to recrun workus cas. people with any sort of personal commitments? bad mood, she tivists are either single and/or
male?
KAY CARTER, Leicester
(Anyone wishing to write to Kay should send letters c/o Socialist
on. Please make it clear when the letter is not for publication.)
tant human relationships, cooking, looking after Billy,
lost his job.
Nurseries
court. spending too his son.
California We
but tionship in your life'. by
radically determine
and the film has Hollywood film.
pointing but she the lawyer's pecting Billy
major ability as a mother. final
female, and
her husband.
The high beginning of the
and We
I'm now appealing to anybody
may well try again too.
into a nicer person.
and have a modern,
SIster Rave CHI I0I
Is it any surprise that most ac-
andor
Ted Kramer (Dustin Hoffman) and Billy (Justin Henry) share domestic bliss in their kitchen. not his total failure at impor-
but the fact that he felt guilty when Billy fell off a climbing frame and cut his face, and that he
We know that Billy's fall was an accident, and that he lost his job because he was
much time with This hardly measures up against being 'a failure at the single most important rela-
The film claims to be about custody and childcare but it is really about marriage and the family. It would be hopelessly idealistic to expect the film to present some solution to the problem of childcare that goes
outside framework of the family. It is a Very
But it is nonetheless disap-
that nurseries don't even get a mention, and that ex-
wait twenty minutes at a friend's house is a
indictment of Ted's
The only solution to the whole dilemma is to get married battering and stay married. The film ends with Margaret, divorced with two children, trying again with
Joanna reenters the flat that she left so definitively at the
film, once more referring to it as home,
with possibility that Ted and Joanna
After all, the experience of being a mother has turned Ted
and they could both keep their jobs, and share child care and cooking,
liberated kind of nuclear family instead.
The Other Bookshop
Housing for people or for
profits?
By John Cowley Stagel, £2.50 Southall 23 April 1979 — The
Report of the Unofficial
Committee of Enquiry
National Council for Civil
Liberties, f2.20
32d on Ne. Ter. O1-226 057
Divorced from
reality
THE film Kramer vs Kramer claims to be about 'real feelings' and 'real emotions'. They may be real, but the situation is highly unusual.
In the film Joanna Kramer walks out on her happy, well-oiled middle class home, and leaves poor over-worked hubby to take care of their child. In the real world it is more often men who leave home, abandoning wives with the children. One in nine families only have one parent, and seven out of eight of these parents are women.
Moreover, in the real world, most people are not middle class with plenty of money. Working class women struggle to bring up children in cramped conditions, on tiny sums of money. Jobs for mums are few and far between, school hours are not linked to normal working hours, and there are no 24-hour nurseries.
often. women in this position maintenance payments from their ex-husbands. The sums fixed by the courts are usually low— it's only Britt Ekland and Bianca Jagger who get millions for leaving their ex-husbands alone. Non-payment of maintenance is the norm, and, although the courts can impose stringent penalties, the procedures are long drawn out and alienating. And many women find the idea of pursuing their exhusbands for money downright frightening if the marriage ended due to violence and
And if you don't fight for the maintenance money then you can be refused social security payments!
In the Kramers' world the judge was biased in favour of the mother when the custody case came to court. But this is not reality. If men contest custody cases with any fervour they very often win — especially if they have remarried but their ex-wife has not.
If it can be shown that the mother's sexuality is not 'normal' (promiscuous, lesbian), or that her ideas are 'dangerous' (ultrafeminist, Marxist), or that she's not 'balanced' (takes the occasional valium, then the father has an open and shut case. Custody
Of course in general women do win custody of the kids when a marriage breaks down, and why not? Throughout womens' lives they are told that having kids is the one thing that will make them feel really fulfilled, it's what women were made for and it's their one route to becoming real people
Until women have a really equal role to play in society, and are not seen as primarily wives and mothers, then to change legal practice so that they can more easily be denied custody of their children is just to weight the scales even more heavily against women.
The implicit view peddled by the producers of Kramer vs Kramer is that the bias of legal practice in favour of the mother is unfair to men: It implies this through promoting a further assumption, that Joanna Kramer lost her right to be a mother because she chose not to be a mother for 18 months. In other words, women. stay at home with your boring husbands in your claustrophobic lives, because if you put yourself first, and cease to be a mother for a minute, you lose all right to be a mother at all.
Socialist Challenge
are dependent on both distasteful and humiliating • and
15 May 1980 Page 15 csooter21
Page 16 scan of this page
Socialist Challenge ALL THE WAY WITH THE NGA
Black leader under attack
Registered with the Post Office as a newspaper, Published by Relgocrest Ltd. for Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper St, London N1, Printed by East End (offset) Ltd.
STOP
THE
COVER
UP
WEST 'London coroner John Burton is trying to get himself invited as the guest of honour the next time the SPG holds a policemen's ball.
Or at least so from. his running of the Blair Peach inquest Hamnersmith. Last Friday, in
prejudice it showed, Burton interrupted a wi to tell the word that as as he was con. cerned, the pollee had nothing to do with Blair's death.
He informed the jury that the 'police murder theory' was 'unacceptable':
showed which side he was on when he added, 'what have been
less sensational explanation' but just who the 'we' were and searching Button didn't es should plain.
The same day the coroner here utese remarks ie cout heard allegation from Professor David Bown of Charskull was 'unusually thin'.
Yet evidence already heard
would have had little chance of survival however thick his skull
Dr Richard Bentail told the
he operated on Blair in a vain. attempt to save his life, 'in
come across a fracture of this severity. The skull, said Bentall, 'seemed that it was split in
The coroner's court has also seen a farcical search for the
quest. Professor Bowen said that none of the vast array of
the SPG unit which attacked Blair could have been the wes bod.
This is hardly a surprise since even a member of the SPG would have enough sense to dispose of the murder weapon before any search was made.
зас овуоно і te t the inquest is under enormous pressure to whitewash the SPG
cumb to this pressure remains to be seen.
'The News', Portsmouth.
MASS pickets Portsmouth's evening paper,
The lock-out, initially. over pay and conditions national dispute between the National Graphical mom an provisa newspaper proprietors, has become an attempt. to break one strongest unions in the print industry.
It is one of only six provincial papers attempting publish during the dispute -over the NGA's claim for an £80 minimum and a 37.5 hour week — ana lor severas days il went as far as hiring a £150-anhour helicopter to lift over the pickets in an effort to demoralise the NGA members.
Management hopes after weakening the NGA it will be able. " to bring
On Its wiping out 80 to 90 NGA composing room jobs.
The company's managing director has said he looks at the Nottingham Post, print unions Pave systematically prevented from By Dave Stevens,
Nolverhampton Anti-Racist Committee RACISM ' has
violence and police harassment.
the of wolverhamnton Anti-'ncist Committee and
Association.
racism,
ine IW.A.
•gainst racism will be seriously restricted:
* 90m we
in particular the schools.
suppress the cultural identity of the black com
and the wearing of turbans in some schools.
By Jeremy Gardner, NUJ deputy father of the chapel,
are planned to stop production The News, SLADE, and some NUJ members are locked-out.
organising, tne . Stabilly .
News Associa- wants to implement the Tories'
Employment Bill becomes law, the told the NGA that it aims to end the closed shop.
It is insisting that staff will return on an individual basis; that NGA membership is not obligatory; that no action can be taken against the handful of NGA overseers who have conpapers tinued work strike; and that
SLADE been locked out after refusing in new to work with management on the scab paper, and journalists were threatened with the sack when a minority refused to cooperate on the paper.
Four of us were dismissed, although management later accepted that we were in dispute with the company. Two other where the NUJ members then joined us, been but management has threatened that if any more journalists long. history in Wolverhampton. In the winter of 1978 the town achieved national 'notoriety' when black youth took action against racist
A leading figure in exposing the racism of
police was Narajan Singh Noor, president
national president of the Indian Workers
An outspoken critic against all forms of
Noor now faces a libel action taken against him by a local headmaster for alleging that he is 'racist'. With legal fees alone likely to exceed £5,000, this could cripple both Noor and
Moreover, if the courts and libel laws are: used against anti-racists whenever they allege that someone is a racist, our ability to campaign
Wolverhampton permeates trade unions, where people live, and
From the refusal by the local Labour-controlled education authority to provide tuition in ethnic ninority languages and Afro-Asian studies, it extends to overt attempts to
munity - such as the banning of Sikh bangles
INGA,
while
an "ideal of
management
. before and has already
during the *no strike'
members have
sacked.
NS NOOR - facing libel action
refuse to co-operate they will be
faces
Portsmouth Trades Council presence is to organise the first mass pickets at The News, and has called for support for the
PICKETS at the 'Wolverhampton Express and Star', where over 40 have been arrested
regular daily picket, which
La large-scale police
NGA militants expect that union members at some half the dozen newspapers will remain
now faces a libel action
Junior School, home for wearing a turban.
be
The
and the IWA as hooligans.
Equality, Rhoden
Andrew
Wiard (Report)
leaders who is under attack,
ton.
locked-out when the national dispute is settled - all of which emphasises the need to back the struggle now and to get rid of proprietors'
Tory protectors
It is because of his attempts to defend the right of an 11-year-old Sikh, Kulbinder Singh Bhamra, to wear à turban at school that Noor
In April 1979 Kulbinder, & student at Grove
Wolverhampton, was sent The headmaster, Rhoden, a local JP, insisted that he would not
allowed back until his parents agreed that Kulbinder would not wear & turban.
The local IW A and representatives from all the local temples and Sikh organisations set up a Turban Action Committee to fight this deci-
school picketed.
Wolverhampton Express and Star, where oyer 40 pickets have been arrested in the curren NGÀ dispute, ran editorials attacking Noot.
But with threats of a parents' strike and legal action from the Commission for Racial
WaN forced to re-admil Kulbinder and allow him to wear a turban. Now Rhoden is hitting back with the libel aetion against Noor, which is due to be heard a Birmingham Crown Court within a month.
The black community in Wolverhampton considers that it is not simoiv onecot: then
but their whole culture. The court hearings will be picketed.
Donations to: Turban Action Committee', c/o Wolverhampton Anti-Racist Committee, Students Union, Wulfruna St, Wolverhamp
London E2.
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