Socialist Challenge No. 189, 19 March 1981
The scan: sc-n189-mar-19-1981.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)
Uncorrected machine reading of the whole issue. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from the scan and has not been corrected or cut into articles. Each page gives the headlines first, then the columns in order, so one article runs on into the next. Expect misread words. Use it to find things; quote from the scan.
Page 1 scan of this page
Challenge TORY GOVERNMENT IN CRISIS OUT DITE
Unemployed and strikers 10p No. 189 BATTERED! That's the state of the Tory government after last week's disastrous budget.
Howe's package will
standards higher taxes, and further plunge the economy into gloom.
Even inside the cabinet it's becoming obvious that Tory monetarism has been a disaster.
Through deflationary policies which deliberately put up unemployment, the Fories hoped to smash workers militanc create a pliant and submassive worktorce
At the same time the *lame
CUCK companies would go to the wall. British capitalism would emerge strengthened and the workers would be battered.
But neither has happened.
The disastrous slump is hitting both profitable and unprofitable firms. In the TIrst two monuns or unis year, 3,000 firms went bust. Over the past year industrial production has declined by 1½ per cent.
Despite the outcry
the budget, ThatCHel and Howe Have signalied their determination to plunge ahead with their disaster policies.
Like cornered animals, the Tories will continue to lash out at working people while they stay in power.
The Tory crisis is an opportunity home the fight to finish them off.
April the TUC's week action will MODHISe thousands trade against
audeness.
May the LiverpoolLondon lobs march will end in a monster protest in London.
19 March 1981
Socialist
OUT
remove the
furs he tables on the Tore
cass cuts strategy it will
difficult for much- more Heseltine to force cuts on local councils It Labour
After of turmoil in the Tory Party, including the almost precedented defection of a Tory MP, the task for us is evident.
The Tories' crisis is our opportunity provided we organise now to capitalise on it.
20p
JOBS
NOT
BOMBS
ARMS RACE How the USA leads the race to nuclear destrucnon, p8&9
O: COMBS CIVIL SERVANTS We talk to leading strike mutant in Longdenton, ps
INSIDE
THE COMMITTEE
OF 100
The lessons for today's
anti-missue movemen. from past CND campaigns
p7
CAMDEN COUNCIL
CONTROVERSY
We speak to local union
leader, John Suddaby, p2
ABORTION RIGHTS
A report on the labour
movement conference las
weekena, pri
Page 2 scan of this page
Camden's struggle against the cuts
HOWE AWFUL
By Chris Guthrie AT 3.31 pm on Tuesday 10 March, Sir Geoffrey Howe rose from his seat in the House of Commons to deliver his third budget.
One and half hours later he sat down again, having ensured that the number of unemployed would be at least one quarter of a million higher.
In those 90 minutes nicaoured which November's mini-budget will take f5bn out of consumers' pockets and £1.4bn from oil companies and banks.
Most of this money will be used to cut government borrowing, amount being ploughed back into industry
The details of Howe's measures are, by now, well known. The freezing of personal tax allowances, together with the rise in national insurance contributions in April, will mean that pay packets will be worth less in money terms, never mind real terms.
The huge increases in taxation on alcohol, tobacco and petrol will add about 2 per cent to the rate of inflation.
Tax increases
These tax increases will mean an average fall of £f5 a week in a family's income, according to the TUC economic committee. the budget will hit the poor hardest of all.
The Low Pay Unit estimates that a further 13,000 families will join the 100,000 already caught in the poverty trap, whereby they lose more in tax and benefits than they gain in income if their earnings improve.
Neither were there any big hand-outs to industry. was, In nowe s words, balance between consumers and industry'
vvnie last year trade unionists managea to secure a small rise in their real earnings, company profits
change all that.
But the Confederation of British Industry called it 'at least a brush-off and at worst a kick in the teeth'. The Financial Times share index reacted by largest fall in a single day since Howe's first budget.
Why did a bosses' government give so little of the money it had wrenched from consumers to its friends in industry? The reason lies in the difficulties the Tories have had in implementing their monetarist strategy.
The core of their plan is to boost profits by weakening trade union organisation with the threat of unemployment. certainly been furthered with most forecasters now expect the number ot registered unemployed to top 3m by the end of the year.
Financial aims
Monetarism also has a financial aim. holding down the money supply amount of government famous Public Sector ment, PSBR for short) the government hopes to help industry by lowering interest rates and
However, creasingly difficult. spending cuts, workers to accept a cut in real wages, the goverment's need to bail out BL and BSC, and
capitulation the prevented public spending falling.
Un the other hand, revenue has fallen by more than forecast because the recession has been deeper than it expected. As a result the PSBR was heading for a level twice as high as aimed for last year.
The government's view is that if the extra revenue raised in the budget had been handed back to industry, rather than being used to reduce the PSBR, then the cut in interest rate, also announced in the budget, would only have been temporary.
Last week's budget will ensure that the current recession will be lead to unemployment. monetarist philosophy left him little choice to do anything else.
What Howe is working people will further reduce their wage Claims But if the reverse happens, Howe's third budget may well prove the harbinger of the fall of the Tory government.
Socialist Challenge
Howe announced together with last
with only a small And Yet one of the objects of the budget
to respona to tne In-
- excluding banks and oil comfell. The budget was expected to
La fall of 14.3 points, This strategy has the budget.
By and the borrowing (the Borrowing Require-
the Tories have found this in-
Resistance to further the refusal of public sector
Miners have
the government's even longer and
further company bankruptcies and
Tne logic Howe's
gambling on now is that 19 March 1981 Page 2
THE Tory budget is only one of a number of financial burdens which are being imposed on working people in the next couple of months.
Already, many council tenants are faced with massive rent rises, and higher rates are on the way.
Many of these finan-
source, the Tory's public spending cuts, Dul tiest
often Labour controlled councils.
One such council is the London borough Camden which last week
average of £3 a week and a
cent.
Some 600 redundan-
the council's building department are also under way.
And yet, just two years of Camden council agreed to pay its low-paid WULKCIS crease of between f5 ' and £11 above that agreed na tionally.
How is it that Camden has now capitulated to Michael Heseltine and the Toras sepera?
secretary of the local NUPE branch, John Suddaby is in a good posi-
Where the money comes from
Home News
CAMDEN TOWN HALL
Camden NUPE strike in 1979 - the victory is now threatened
tion to explain what has happened, lessons are for the future. ul uc bast. savs Jon. 'the Labour group leadership's attitude has been to keep its head down, and hope that, as a so-calcu high spending council, it would go unnoticed 'But recently, under threat trom the district auditor, the council reversed its position on a number of policies.
Crucial
It was this intervention by the district auditor vhich proved crucial. Th counci was threatened with court action, and the councillors with having to personally pay surcharges make up for what the auditor considered past 'over-spending'.
Part of this was the pay supplement agreed by the council during winter of discontent. Ihe council are now proposing
._-.144.0 Detence . . . -£36.7 Mealth .. .- £16.7 ...Il/.3 Social security.
£115.3 billion
John Suddaby
withdraw that supplement.
The reaction of the trade unions to these measures la been disap pointing. Originally, John exodus. Wice was ally of opposition to the cuts bv the unions. the district auditor entered Lne scene and we are talking here about the law and the effectiveness of legal intervention that unity was seriously weakened.
"Thus, a NALGO mass meeting agreed …TO cooperate with the council and the building workers
voluntary redundancies.
How it is spent
-LL.
Rate support grant
_ £9.4 • _ Los.
£125.9
'On the other hand we in NUPE had a one-day strike on 1 March, but the Tact unar omer udons de temporarily out of action has had serious : implications.'
Constraints
The reaction from the local Labour Party was also mixed John recounted: 'At meeting I attended last week, there were a large number of Labour Party
who criticised the leadership of the council.
ing thore were legal
saying there were constraints and the council had to obey the law. And, of course, they used the fact that there is not a London campaign against ine cuts, national campaign or campaigns in other boroughs to justify tre dances
The building of such campaigns is, believes John, crucial for the fight against the Tory cuts
Camden : grouping of the Labour
indeed coul cillors voted against the
The Deficit: how it was financed in 1980
Sales of Government stock National savings ..
Ba....__.
Printing money (note oca authorities Other (tax certificates etc).
PICKE
cuts package — supported by many rank and file party members
situation neere
a situation where Labour Parties dissociate themselves from councils who implement cuts. But such a split should not just
directed towards selecting councilors. Outwards
'What is also involved is the Labour Parties turning outwards, involving themselves in a campaign with the trade unions and Leilallls mobilise the community and demand that the coun Cakes a stand.
Such questions are becoming more important with the local elections looming
The twin policy of Lab. our Party members work. ing to council candidates those who implement : cuts, while turning to the community as a whole to mount a campaign to back up such a stance is something which deserve. LNe most acave consideration by militants both inside and outside the Labour Party.
. 70%
- 7.5%
:£10.6
1.5% 1
Page 3 scan of this page
We will bankrupt
ON 9 March, for the first time ever, service unions joined together in a united campaign and went on strike for the day.
ed airports, given smugglers golden opportunities and restricted the operation of Britain's racist immigration laws.
like the 250 workers at Newcastle's Central Office, which deals with national insurance contributions for the whole of the country. DAVE NORMAN and ANN MARIE MALER asked PHIL DEXTER, one of the 250, about the dispute.
Phil began by detailing
the cine cera is for 15
is for per cent, with £10
increase for the lower grades. We regard this as fairly moderate, and lo per cent as une do• solute minimum necessary to keep pace with inflation.
government originally offered us 6 per cent, bút has now Deer licrcascu lu 7 per cent, provided we accept OLIC UCI cent housekeeping" cuts. This otter was an insult, and was totally unacceptable to the unions. Suspended
There is more to the strike than a simple wage claim. The government has suspended the Pay Research Unit (PRU) which has assessed civil servants' pay for the last 25 years.
Phil explains that 'the left in the Civil and Public Servants Association has long been an opponent of the PRU because comparability with similar jobs elsewhere, the principle on which it works, has meant that we have always been vell Desulte receiving our pay rises.
However, year the nave recommended rises of between 15 and 20 per cent This would have embarrassed the government, hell bent as they are on maintaining a 6 per cent limit in the public sector.'
Organised
This civil service strike is the first time Phil's own WHO SeCON employed Health and Sparan Security Department
— has been involved.
Says Phil: 'We are the largest, most active and DeSt Ore see coo the CPSA. The failure to involve us in industrial action in the past was a big mistake and meant that the union was not exerting its full industrial muscle.'
the country
it necessary
all nine civil
Since then other selective strike action has clos-
Some civil servants are on long-term strike —
But now that these workers are volved wouldn't claimants be affected? Phil says no: The strategy to hit the government and to disrupt the flow of revenue into the treasury. The object is not to hit unemployed workers, the sick or penstonels "Those of us on strike
work on the contributions
We hold all the colloutel personal aetalls and records for the whole the Brusn Isles. elfect of our action will be that all claimants will have
be assessed as having paid contributions for full year. This will result in many overpayments.
Nobody will lose their benefits, and it is unlikely that overpayments will be recovered as this would be an extremely costly exer cise for the government. Militant
The mood tne strikers at Newcastle Central Office is, according to Phil, 'extremely militant' and '100 per cent solid'. This hardly squares with Strikers' leaflets read avidly
the media view of civil servales.
But, says Phil, 'the im-
someone with a bowler hat and a briefcase is so alien to the majority of workers
Newcastle that isn't evell duke
'Newcastle Central Office is a clerical factory the majority of the staff are women and we are all
Home News.
3
on low pay. It was no easy decision to go out on strike and if we are going to come out and put our necks on the line for the
of the membership then we are not going to let a bunch of scabs destroy our unity.
'Picketing during the one-day strike was more aggressive in Newcastle than anywhere else in the country.
Such militancy is not a reflection of the lead being given Hallullally. The Losinka, sled the mose CPSA led Kate right: wing of all union leaders. Avoid
In the past the union's leadership has always sought to avoid conflic ecutive do so this time Piti but the national believes they will pay very heavy price'. As tc how the strike should
Phil's views are uncompromising:
"There are real weaknesses in the selective
However, strike strategy. the reality is that a national all-out strike is probably unrealistic at slate the development. The present action is the most extensive involvement that the
CPSA has ever been engaged ir
The main task, for the moment, is to maintain the confidence of those on strike, make sure that all those still working pay the strike levy. But • WE must campaign mean campaign now - to win this dispute. bably be necesary, and woe *Escalation will must be prepared to im mediately respond if
attempt to suspend people. In the end it will onlv be with large scale involvement that we Call Wi
By Keith Legg
CIVIL servants in Cleveland have
prevented a dummy run of World
War Three.
This is because the main target in
the area for continuous strike actior
over the pay has been the
Navy's parts
striking
staff at this Ministry
establisment have prevented stock
records from being kept up to date
Consequentl code-named
which is a dry run for World War
Phil Dexter
Flight departures
Phil's words were a reflection of the obVOUS and determination of many of the civi servants who nave captured the headlines this DONE WICk.
'We have had enough, and we now realise that if we are to achieve decent conditions and a living wage we are go. ing to have to fight. If necessary we will bankrupt the country to win this dispute.'
Strike stops world war rehearsa
turned deliveries,
Fi spoke to them
Royal centre
ships
of Defence
Letters from NATO's military
'Wintex', Offices,
brough.
Socialist Challenge
Civil servants action emptied airports
• Donations wewcaste strikers ars messages of support o Kevin McHugh (chairpe son CPSA) Room CPSA Office, DHSS Benton Park Rd, Newca Three, is being severely curtailed
•na' away 85 per cent of and many suppier. cluding Rolls Royce drivers, will ro deliver until atter the strike is ove
Pickets were in high spirits wre
'Our action will the government where it really hur - right in the ego one of them sai
parte for all British will be held up and mar including nuclear su! marines, will have to retrun to por
of support, especial should be sent to: COCSU, c: 0 NUP Seetallic
83 Borough Rd, Middie
19 March 1981 Page
Page 4 scan of this page
Labour
students to
oppose
union
president
By Ann Henderson, national executive member, NUS LABOUR Party members in the National Union of Students have decided to challenge the Communist Party president of the NUS Dave Aaronovitch, in the coming election.
This marks a signifi-
cleavage the 'Left Alliance' which in the past has been supported by tne Communist Party and the Na-
Organisation of Labour Students, as well
nuclocis of the Liberal Party.
Welcome
Now NOLS is putting up Helen Connors as a challenger Aarono-
These differences within the left Alliance come at a time when the very existence of student unions is threatened at a local and national level, at a time, 100, when education at all levels is facing massive cutcacks.
The policies of the Left Alliance, based as they are on a strategy of negotiacion and compromise with he Tory government, has proved incapable defeating these attacks, and incapable of turning he NUS into a campaigning organisation involving all its membership.
In this respect, the initial move away from the Left Alliance by NOLS is "clullic. Forefront
Yet NOLS is still supportingwo OLIC Left Alliance candidates for membership the ecutive of the union, and there Is a further con:radiction in that NOLS is also backing a candidate of the Socialist Student Alliance for another post on the executive. Socialist Students Alliathe For has been in the forefront of the struggles to defend student unions over the
year, well organising opposition British presence in Ireland, and in support of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarment.
Unity
In the elections the SSA is stressing the need ТОГ unity of all those prepared to build a campaigning NUS and to fight against the Tory govenment.
On these issues the SSA is calling for unity with the Socialist Workers Students Organisation and HILD Inose Sudens VOLS who have shown ...C!1
ighting for socialist
alicies.
Linwood
workers
prepare
to occupy
By Des Tierney TIME is running out for the workers at the Talbot plant at Linwood in Scotland, where 4,800 jobs are threatenened by closure.
At a mass meeting three week ago approximately 30 per cent of the workers voted to accept the redundacy pay.
However, since then there has been the highly success u ment demonstration in Glasgow arallist ployment, and growing SIDOOTL for Photo: TALBOT VOICE workers who are occupy111- their factory Greenock against closure.
Then, on 11 March in Glasgow a rally was held which pledged its support for the Linwood workers.
The rally, which brought together shop stewards from the major plants the west of
calca vy the Talbot Action Committee. It was opened by Jimmy Livingstone, the Transport General Workers Union COn: venor at Linwood. Failure
He stressed that the last ten years had seen a Tanure on the part or lie shop stewards movement
Be recave y redundancies. But then, an example of how such a fight i could be me Was Morgan, spokesperson for the occupying WOrKeTS.
Strikers
hold out for union
recognition
By Pete Clifford
A MASS picket greeted
OUSS Robert Nowak last Monday at the Royal Pride furniture factory in Salford where 18 members of the furniture union FTAT have been on strike for three weeks.
vowak arreca to conccu!
the original demand for a na
tonally negotiated wage rise
unc workers gave up union
membership
When the strikers are mostly women, retused
ne inreatened io close une rac-
went paine
recognise
should be able to ioin
All the strikers treat the closure threat as a bluff.
the west of
closure and negotiate for higher Hugh Wyper
Ellen emphasised Inal the Greenock •c cupiers were demanding that the jobs of all the VF corportation workers in Britain and Ireland should be secured through work-sharing, and that the only way to achieve this was to Phe up the barricades'. VF workers are now it their sixth week of occupation.
Another speaker at rally Hugh regional secretransport union, TGWU in Scotland, who outlined the support which Talbot workers could expect
Gardners' workers who
reaunaancies last vear were amone me ruto suboor une strike with a shop floor collection. They loride were followed by Shell Schreiber, Kelloggs Massey-Ferguson and two local bus depots.
nagnificen collecion of
112 was raised by miners a Ageenoft pit
How you can support the trike:
• Send delegations to the daily pickets and the mass
nickel on Mondays at Royal
Greengate, Salford.
•Send donatons Royal Pride Strike Fund, c/o FTAT, 37 Anson Rd, Manchester 14
• Attend the meeting March at 1pm, Black Horse The
al sentelders, and val mar Social in the pening sat ter. Pride striker Black Horse Women in Action supporters HAs we wen to press we heard that the Royal Pride workers had occupied.
Home News
from the union.
he promised Ilal al.
Peugeot goods would be stopped from that no deliveries Peugeot would take place throughout Britain or at the ports.
But first, he said the Linwood workers would have to give a lead.
In a aramalic lull about for the trade unon leadership in Scotland
Socialist
Challenge
JOIN THE FIGHT FOR
SOCIALISM
in the form below
Name.............
Address..
Age.....
Union/CLP (if any).
London N1 2XP
Cha
lenge
Youth shows the way forward at Glasgow demo
Hugh Wyper declared: 'We've got to draw the line Linwood Workers have got to stop worrying about rocking the boat. If we don't rock the boat we won't get anywhere, This has miners proved Deci by Other speakers also pledged support if the Linwood workers go into Dallic. Dave cooper, If you would like to be put in touch with Socialist Challenge supporters in your area or would like more information fill Send to: Socialist Challenge PO Box 50,
TALBOT
from Govan joint shop stewards committee, reminded the rally of the struggle waged against the Heath government by Upper Clyde Shipyard workers
Sammy Barr, district secretary of the Boilermakers, said that as soon as the Linwood workers reach a decision t.00 would be available from the UCS fighting fund.
Ford threatens
25,000 jobs
pany in Britain.
plants especially Dagenham - are threatened with closure at the weekend.
each year up to 1985
many jobs
ing enorcea reauncancies
Whether or not the
towards over three million.
An urgent campaigu
WINGIS
VOICE
But perhaps the last word should be left to Bridie Bellingham, another of the VF осcupiers. She received rapturous applause from the shop stewards for her
exhortation to the Linwood workers: 'If we can do it, so can Linwood.
Win, lose or draw it's worth the fight to keep our jobs.
BILL Hayden, vice-president of the European wing of the Ford Motor Company, is demanding an almost 40 per cent reduction in the number of workers employed by the com-
Altogether over 25,000 jobs have been earmarked for the axe over the next four years, and whole
those at Halewood and
This emerged at a union-management meeting
Hayden told Ron Todd of the Transport and General Workerr Union that 7,000 jobs will be axed
But Todd's immediate reaction appeared to be one of playing down the threat to There was, Se said, 'no immediate panic, and he offered the reassurance that Ford was not plann-
redundancies are 'volun25,000 plus jobs ushen unemployment is spiraling car workers can ill afford to lose another
of action to fight any redundancies is needed immediately by the Fords
Socialist Challenge 19 March 1981 Page 4
Page 5 scan of this page
Smash the Labour Party
By Ralph Blake THE annual conference of Scottish Labour weekend called on Labour qovernment to withdraw from NATO. This followed a conference vote against Cruise and Trident missiles in Britain and for unilateral nuclear disarmament.
The 'quit NATO' resolution propos-ea by Lotnian regional Labour rarty also endorsed Lothian
suoscree defence exercise 'square leg'.
to prevent
take-over
One Social
Democrat's aim
By Julian Atkinson STEPHEN Haseler is one of the 100 signatories of the first public appeal of the Council for Social Democracy.
the recent Searchlight, have pointed out that for a 'moderate' political colleagues: tank, supporters of the John Birch Society and World Anti-Communist League.
And while that nice Shirley Williams had brief, if embarassing and uncharacteristic on the Grunwick picket line, Dr Haseler writing for Free Nation, journal of the National Association for Freedom (NAFF) which was effectively organising the lockout.
Haseler's book, The Tragedy of Labour, explains one of the important currents behind the emergence of the 'minisplit in the Labour Party.
Devotion
He was originally hero-worshipper of Gaitskell and it was this devotion to the memory ot his late leader that led him in Social democrat leader David Owen. His supporter Stephen Haseler seems no different from the Tories.
the Party last the next
alternative
stationing mon Market;
redistribute Scottish industry.
council's
civil une lumps in A number of articles, most usefully one in
Haseler has some odd
Reaganite think-
a leading member of the anti-semitic
the early '70s to crosS SWORE with some of ElIC other right-wingers such as Jenkins.
Haseler was author of pamphlet
gemocrocv. ond Revisionism which argued that the right could lose out it did become populist.
Learn
It had to learn from Gaitskell who, in rejecting the Common Market, stood up for 'one thouSalte years' of British history and evoked images
and Mage Gallipoli. This was not noeral, progressive or in ternationalist — the curses of the Labour right — but populist.
1980 Haseler has developed these ideas and pushed them to the right. Initially he had the idea in forming the Social Democratic Ananice refoming the Labour Party.
The '78/9 period changed his mind. There was an 'incipient industrial anarchy, a more generalised threat all institutions'.
Haseler's view the aim of the Dallalliculal y
take over the Labour Par-
exaggerates strength in order to draw his conclusion • to avoid a lurch to the socialist left the Labour right has to smash the party.
The gulf between the Labour right and left is too great and a choice must be made: Shore, Hattersley
The conference went on to adopt a radical five-point programme for Scottish Labour. It included rejection of incomes policy and for the Labour left's
economic strategy; for withdrawal from NATO and the Com-
and for a Scottish Assembly with tax-raising powers to
wealth and regenerate
The conference was addressed by Helen Liddel from the Greenock ieans
She longs in dien chost, ine hard
cash and continuous support.
RECOGNITION UNION
YES
JoHN H
S
NO
JoHN
GORGY
The Grunwick picket.
Shirley Williams,
and Healey cannot play at being Mitterand and Marchais at the same time.
A through-going split could leave the LaUvl.
Party like the French CP "isolated electorally, ideologically rigid, proEastern in foreign policy but retaining its power in society through its inplaced unions Strategically Split He also recognises that precondition for this crippling split fragmentation ot the umolis. 'In dramatic circumstances the moderates in the trade unions could take wnole umons or part of unions out of the TUC in order to torm a rival less socialist TUC'
Certainly a split in the unions would disaster. But Haseler falls grasp that a Labour Partv based on a unitied and militant union movement, that had rid itself of
Labour Party
GRUNWICK ILKING HOUT
Social democrat a member of APEX, participated in an uncharacteristic gesture. At
all its crypto-Tories and
was fighting for the work-
ing class, could be enor-
mously popular and a real
threat to established
privilege.
For Haseler the
Labour Party is against the
working class. The party
nas been taken over by a
'new
public sector workers.
These socialists insult the
working class by assuming
that it is potentially racist:
Certainly working class
hostility to Third World
immigration is a fact of
life. But hostility is not
racism.
By the socialists this
hostility vilified
crypto-fascism.
Haseler then engages in
a stomach-turning defence
of Callaghan's 1968
migration Act and the
Tals outburst of Bob
Mellish with his vision of a
thousand West Indians
Victori station and
threatening the housing of
'our people'. It also shows
just how elastic the
Scottish Labour
demands
"Quit NATO'
Gruntrik
StrıKe Comm.
Down With
Aristocracy
up With
Workers
APEL
A
HON
articles the Freedom magazine 'Free Nation'.
Limehouse Declaration is.
Haseler than quickly argues the need for more law and order and defence of the working-class against over-assertive minorities like immigrant and gay liberation groups.
Populist
A new populist party is needed of the real majority that will be "left of centre" (though not as left a the present Labour Party) on economic coright of esnoes and centre' (more so than the present Conservative Party) on social, moral and internation issues and
The real question why does he not go over to the bloody Tories? Pren. tice is happily persecutin he unemployed and Lor Vairey went there yelping about hospitals run for the benefit of Trotskyite porters.
He is obviously temp ted: "The British have in
the same time Stephen Haseler was writing National Association for
Thatcher a very unusual prime minister. One senses that sne genuinely care aout the nation's decline and is untoucnea oy le defeatism and cynicism which surruses British in tellectual and political life.
Others of the Council for Social Democracy are learning new lessons. Roy Jenkins wants to cut socia security benefits strikers. John Horam has written a positive poem about the glory of market
Rodgers wants to
Davic Marquand has tound to his horror that. 'The private sector is so weak that the old slogan of "socialism is our time" is no longer fantasy.
rise the class struggle could cause some of them to reject even more of their old prejudices and go whole hog.
The Tragedy of Labour by Stephen Haseler, Basil Blackwell publishers £7.95.
I won't
die for
Thatcher
E STOP
• CRUISE
MISSILES
Each 20p 11
Bulk order 20) eac
post free. Make che
ques / posta. order
payable to Hackne
Book Group. c/o PC
BOX 50, London N
2XP.
'Be a
democrat
and resigr
By Gary Heaton, Farnworth Labour Party GMC FARNWORTH John Roper has four his true home in i Council for Soc Democracy.
One day after. 'Limehouse Declaratio he announced his def tion to the media
Local Labour Pa activists are disgusted his behaviour. Rope right-wing were a liability in solidly
ming the press
before bothered to tell local pr ty members was the straw.
First the Little Les branch Farnwor Labour Party called Roper's resignation; : management commit sent him a letter expre. ing disgust behaviour, particula his failure to attend : Photo: ANDREW WIARD (Report) GMC meeting. Finally the Walka AUEW oranens al March meeting pass the following resoluno
'We call upon you resign your seat and g the electors of Farnwo a right say political party they wo to represent them in: House of Commons
'We believe that: would be an honoura! decision because the rarnworin Labr Party which played a m jor part elected, not the Cour. for Social Democra Be democrat resign
Bargainin
Report
bi-monthly
Line current..-
• 200 allowances canteen ant
• 45 major drivers' pa•
Be standpoint of bes: =*=
Why ribe Bet your brazi to
Conference Against Cuts Sat 21 March
Central Lindan Ning: n
(Tubes Holloway :
Highbury and Isling.:
Fight the Cuts Fiaht the Torie.
Fight Rent and Rate
Increases Organised bi Sir.:
Organiser and Come : Democr Movemer
Contact: 65 Brokesie, S London t Tickets £1.50 75c creche
Socialist Challenge 19 March 1981
Page 6 scan of this page
Making
demands on male power I WOULD like to take up some of the contradictions
the confused article by Valerie Women, rape and class' co reo).
She attributes violence against wonten capitalism's division of the sexes and vet Says hink of women as their property because womet
been subordinated
certunes.
Women's, oppression -as transcended economic soundaries CuLures. and, Valerie admits,
SlaVe LU ul calise independently to ensure it
into socialism.
Where does she think this oppression comes irom? Men reap material benefits from women's oparession in many ways: :hrough sexual and
in the home; by being able to walk the streets without tear of sexual harassment.
All men benefit (albeit passively) from this and hey have the potential to use the power it inevitably conters on them. This not to suggest any 'innate characteristic' of men — is a social, not a biological product. Nor is it to deny
CaDilallsill also uses and produces women's opPression.
The point about an
women's autonius movement is that women understand their own oppression Class analysis will not always be satisfactory. demands on all locations ei power - the state, and
groups. The left does not need to cling to its notion ai the class struggle as the only real one that explains all other points of oppres-
patriarchy is essential explaining the complexity
experience
A return to traditional aconomist Marxism that at
condemning feminism as a bourgeois deviation would almost be preferable to all
lovelicit the analysis it adopts. SIAN FRANCIS, Newcastle-U-Lyme
PAT Hickey's report (5
March) of the conference
organised by Liverpool,
Newcastle, North
Tineside and Coventry
trades councils misses the
point,
purpose of the con-
terence was to organise
the fightback against the
and
hen slags it off for fail-
ing to do that.
As if anyone would
imagine that the organis-
basis for that
fightback was four
trades councils!
The trades councils
which SOONOCU the
conference al cas
Socialist Challenge 19 March 1981
PAUL Andrews right
Socialist Partv tor the developments that are taking the Labour Party (26 Feb), but he fails to answer all of Geoff Collier's criticisms of the International Marxist Group's approach to building the revolutionary party.
Geoff claims to be a 'supporter of genuine revolutionary
and he wants individual IMG members to join with the SWP to help bring this about.
The IMG has a different position on revolutionary unity is in favour of fusing SWP but as an tendency and on the basis that a fused organisation would have full freedom for minority tendencies, that is real democracy.
The SWP and the IMG have drawn different conclusions TrOm experences tendencies within their respective organisations and SWP's general conclusion is that tendencies are disruptive. comrades point many stances to support this conclu-
THE gang of Social
Almost exactly 50 the day (1 cals March Oswald Mosley his break with
he had the
disillusioned with the
tact
reconstruc-
only five actually
Like Social Democrats, Mosley
in British class politics. wanted his
both and lavoul.
No local vacuum at the
Coventry conference
has had a devastating im-
areas with tradi-
Dall,
tionally strong trade
and
where the unions have
failed provide
overall perspective for
tighting unemployment
The fact that the successfully
defended their jobs and
humilated the
ment was welcomed by
all delegates at the con-
ference. But the miners' vie right does not maKf
TOI jobs
Coventry, Merseyside or
mesee any
the short term.
The idea of counter-
posing the social need of.
Page 6
Letter!
Unity in deeds
sion, but there is one result of Workers organisation s
democracy which place in face up to
The political positions of the SWP majority quately debated, either within or outside their organisation. It is therefore not Geoff only debates a caricature of the IMG positions
as sectarian for no other reason
forces than their disagreement with the
SWP's position developments within the Labour Party are a it class struggle with the individual indriously consider siming rom organised
their sectarian comrades'
There are many aries in in the SWP, who believe that the internal
emergence of a big left wing in the Labour Party has to be taken seriously. does not want to be in the same organisatior with the he wants revolutionary unity' that essen-
SWP tially excludes
ferences and therefore the mainjority of revolutionaries in
Is the gang following in Mosley's footsteps?
He decided that his supporters should cut themselves adrift from the Labour Party and appeal as duch political force, to attract the disparate elements in British society.
At this stage his 'New Party' was not a fascist party. Its appeal, like that of the Social Democrats,
as a counter to the 'sterile the to profit and the "logic' of the market is nothing new. It is one of the fundamental aspects of socialism.
The conference was an attempt to expiore ways in which concrete expression can be given to these arguments.
Not local vacuum, but in the conof developing an LUAL alternative way forward to that OI the Labour idey the basis for a fight wnien also within that party.
If the conference showed anything, it was the search for that
...Political
Leter letters teRs
tain today. internal
they rarely require or even recoolist cuculons
never ade
surprising that
He describes IMG members
the ty. diversion from the He also calls on
members
Clear
revolution-
Geoff unfortunately
these 'genuine
political dif-
Bri- don
class politics' of the other
parties.
by-election at
Ashton-under-Lyne.
Labour seat, gave the New
Party its first chance to put
its policies to the test. Its
intervention resulted in a
Tory victory.
John Strachey, who
was at that time one of
Mosley's main aids,
describes the scene outside
the town hall when the
There is a vacuum on the
left and the danger is that
that vacuum will filled by
the Labour Party and the Alternative Economic Strategy.
It was always likely that the conference would have a tentative, exploratory charadict The four trades councils will themes of the int the the inquiry, developing specific Intitiatives.
It is to be hoped that the International Marxist Group will be more fully involved in these future activities:
WILL REESE, Coventry
Letters
Real revolutionary unity will
basic agreement on of and tactics, and in this respect there are some laroe ditterences between the IMG and the SWP. But there is little chance of clarifying these by debating caricatures of
Only a common organisation can provide the necessary conditions for a real clarification of differences and therefore lay the
Such an organisation must have full freedom of discussion of political alternatives and full rights for tendencies.
are accessible to all members ensure that the line of the majority is understood and put into practice by the whole organisation.
Until a unified revolutionary organisation is achieved, we will
perience debate among revolutionaries that is too often simply utterance of commonplaces on which we can all agree in word but not in deed.
ROY RUDDITT, West Lon-
election result was pounced: "The crowd was violently hostile to Mosley New Party.
LIC roared at him, and, as he he said to stood tacing it. me: "That the crowd that has prevented anyone doing anything in England since tre war.
At that British fascism . was born.
At that moment sion, and of some personal danger Mosley found himself symbolically aligned against the workers. 'He realised in action that his programme could only be carried out after the crushing the workers and their organisations.
One does not wish to carry the parallel too far; the Gang of Four are not of the stuff which produced fascist leaders. But their programme is fundamen tally an anti-socialist and therefore anti-working class programme.
Their intervention might well result in the defeat of Labour and another four years of lory misrule. The British working class will never forgive them for this!
CHARLIE VAN
GELDEREN, London
Racist interpretation
I DISCUSSED your report (5 March)
supporters.
event, felt that you had understood was
liberation and are in favour of it.
understand it,
paper to sell at his factory
support them.
MIKE BAER, Southall
We need an anti-
monarchy festival
TOM Marlowe wrote that the roval wedding will take place in the when 'incidentally' unemployment figtHes will break the Iwo and three-quarters (26 Feb). million mark It's no coincidence.
The wedding announcement was made day as yet one salic another bleak set of unemployment figures were released Back 1973 Princess Anne's wedding was announced in the middle of the Lord which was causing red faces among the ruling class.
Socialists who argue against the monarchy too often restrict themselves to explaining , how much the Queen & Co costs ordinary people.
Unifying the Irish
working class
why Marxists oppose the British SLABOR in the were (5 correctly
having OWIL 'opens up' after national
article!
the unify
organised
The
class United Ireland of its socialis
shabby
Peoples Day of Action with other Socialist iCh Black
Challeng
While it was good to see such in depth coverage of the
assumed all readers involved. example, headline 'Blacks take the streets' assumes that all readers know all about building a mass movement for black
This isn't necessarily the case, and if a reader doesn't
the headline can be seen from a racist viewpoint. For this reason, one supporter didn't take the
We also thought that there should have been more detail about what had happened over the fire, why black people feel angry about it, and why white people should
But there is more to it
such as ine monarchy's massive capital holdings, and its role in maintaining the ideology of the family.
I think that the timing of the wedding and
announcement show that consciously and deliberately the state relies on the monarchy to divert attention from the problems facing the working class.
Socialism Britain has to go with the • abolition of the
As step towards both, the
the Labour Party should call a huge antimonarchy festival on the same day the rova union.
MAX ANDREWS, Manchester pages of our own paper.
While we believe the slogan for an All-Ireland Labour Party is one Irish workers should raise now, the fake "Trots of the Militant tendency counter
the solution JUSC separate mass parties north and south which will then set up a 'liaison com mittee' • io discuss unifica tion.
This, of course only means handing Loyalists a veto against workers' unity ln Ireland
Militant presently mounting a major pro paganda offensive around these slogans in the British
Party, and it will appear all the more attrac uve to young Socialist Challenge workers does
immediately reassert its belief in the leading role of the Irish workers in the Irish Revolution AILEAN O'CALLAGHAN 1/647 TGWU and Brent East CLP GEOFF BELL writes: My article did not argue agains: al-ireland working class party
Indeed in final paragraph it pointed out that trade all of Ireland have arent some clici unitied organisation
and that 'the same prin. ciple can be applied the formation of an all. Ireland working class. parthe point that was being made was that the prospects for such a
mass party, in the sense
that it would involve a substantial number
Protestant workers
would only be
realised after the solv-
ing of the national ques.
Page 7 scan of this page
conference can achieve
THE CND against the missiles takes place next weekend in Manchester.
Socialist ference's publicity HERON, about his personal views on the conference.
SC: What has been the response une conference?
BH: We're very pleased with the response. We have
1Cccivcu backing from the Labour Party national executive, and the executives of the TGWU. the Furniture Workers, the Fire Brigades Union, the Agricultural
orkers and the Sheet Metal Workers.
At the moment it looks as if there will be more than 800 delegates at the conference.
What significance does the conference have?
Fi wo unings First, the labour movement that really has Lne power stop the Tories missile madness.
Secondly, we have to start the fight inside the labour movement
Io win the clearest possible posi-
DURING 1961 the '100'
initiated a series of mass
sit-downs the
bomb: February
Parliament Square, April
Whitehall, al Whitsun
at the Polaris base at Holy
Loch, in September both
Holy Loch and
Trafalgar Square, and in
December at the US bases
Weathersfield and
Ruislip.
By the end of the year
more than 4000 people had
been arrested, and six
leading members of
COMMULLCO wet awaite
trial on charges con-
spiracy which would even-
tually bring them jall sen-
tences of up to 18 months. Decline
But by the end of the year the Committee was
already in a decline, from
which it never recovered.
Yet in the course of the
year thousands of activists
had been prepared to take
part in illegal activity
some personal cost. We
honestly conclude
that the net result of this
activity was nil.
The Committee of 100
was a descendant of the
"Direci Commit-
tee' which was formed in
the 1950s.
CND
What the missiles
Labour movement conference
Challenge talked to the conorganiser, BRIAN
tion within these organisations. There's still a lot of confusion.
Last year the Labour
Party passed 'composite
which
SUDOOILS Ullilaltidi and multilateralist disarmament. Foot
This ambiguity has
allowed Michael root to
retreat on unilateral disar-
malicill. tor example by
appointing anti-
unilateralist Brynmor
John his 'war'
The TUC's position,
supported by the Morning
Star, calls for 'a campaign
education the dangers of nuclear war'. In fact, Betty England pointed out in her recent pamphlet, they have done precisely nothing.
TWENTY years ago the previous wave of British anti-nuclear weapons protest was at its height. The year sponsored attempt to overthrow the revolutionary government in crisis over Berlin and the resumption of atmospheric nuclear tests. In this situation the
Their notion of direct action was heavily influenced by the Ghandian philosophy of 'satagraha'
- non violent civil disobedience and passive resistance.
From the beginning there was a certain contradiction this line.
How have left-wing parties
soones Tne conference?
In my view, the Com-
fashion which could be at
described luke-
warm support.
Consistent with its building
'people's movement' wada coesar concentrate
on the labour movement
Denne middle class opinion, the CP has
The story of the committee of 100
1961 saw the US-
Cuba, the prolonged Some members like Bertrana kussel insistea inal the purpose of civil disobeorence pathy and support, as a dramatic form of publicity.
On the other hand many leading activists posed it as a means of im
Stop the missiles.
done very little to build the conference
For example, the promised feature article in the Morning Star has never materialised.
The best builders of the conference, as far as I can see, have been supporters of Labour CND.
Despite amany differences that and Socialist Challenge • would have with many of these Committee of 100 emerged, pledged to direct non-violent action to stop the bomb.
TONY SOUTHALL, bridge University various times a full-time worker for the Com mittee of 100, tells the study of the campaign and analyses the reasons for its defeat.
I NO H-BOMBSH
- NOT EVENNYES.
mobilising the military and state machine.
But it was completely unrealistic for us to believe that our action could bring the state and military machine to a halt, as increasing numbers of our passively resisting bodies went to jail
comrades, they have con-
sistently taken the most
towards
BUSILIVe
the conference because
they understand the need
carry the struggle
through the labour move-
ment.
What do you expect to
come out of the con.
ference?
In my view the position narrowly adopted by the
organising committee
against having a statement chairperson of CamCND from 1960-62 and at
When the state showed its teeth, with police attacks and pre-emptive arrests of the '100 leaders before the December sit-downs, we had no reply
The real tragedy of the year that the committee emerged at
movement a force that was capable of winning the
CND
LABOUR
MOVEMENT
RENCE day core none in AOUR MOVEMENT CON.
codes sonal to on
Organisation:
Political party:
Address of aims coming out of the conference was a mistake.
our we maor task une conference can fulfill is to
Denie Luc winning the official bodies ot the movement to a clear anti-missiles, mass action salice
The debate at the conference must surely cover LOse Issues Ike we Dallic against the wardrive and
breaking any position which fudges over the class issues involv ed in these questions.
It means that in the debate we have to clearly point out the lessons of EI Salvador, and show who is responsible for the
CND
unilateralist cause - had won the battle for unilateralism at the 1960 Labour conference.
Yet most CND groups and members didn't take up the campaign to con solidate that victory. Instead the initiative inside the Labour Party was taken by the right wing Campaign for Democratic Socialism (secretary Willlam Rodgers) which won the battle to reverse the unilateralism decision at the 1961 conference.
Blame for this must ultimately be laid _at the COOl ot the then Labou left. Shocked by an unexpected victory in 1960, they failed to organise to extend and defend it. In particular Ine. never fought for CND to take up the fight inside the labour movement.
Making politics at that level was never the strong point of Michae Foot al, and most of the activists were intluenced bi the apparent quick results to be obtained through the sit-downs.
This contradiction was highlighted when the biggest sit-down wa. followed by the Labour conference decision reverse its previous unilateralist position.
This period is rich in
CONFERENCE
AGAINST THE MISSILES
Saturday is sch in HESTER
lo secretary of delegating body and returned 1o CND. 11
drive. And it means
should press home the cal
for mass action in the forn
of the call for a
Labour Party,
union, CND demonstra
tion in the autumn. CND has my view Labou
shown itselt a
the vital forum through
which i to take the debat
into the labour movemen:
The resolution
as week ovene • Scottis:
Labour Party — no Cruise
Trident,
disarmament, and Britain
out of NATO - is exactl
the direction in which the
and Labou
CND can take the move.
ment.
lessons for us today. Again there Party committed ism. And while there is no sign the rebirth something like the Com mittee of 100, there is crucial lack of drive and direction in the
something which could open the way to schemes which promise quick results. Failed
The • lessons of 1961 reinforce the importance of the labour movemen conference to ensure tha:
victories.
This doesn't mean tha: mass demonstrations
al c without value • indeed it is potentially very damaging that CND is not ye: committed major demonstration for 1981
But it means also tha: we need an effective national co-ordination to do what wasn't done in 1961 — lo lake our messare lt! every CLP, trades counci and union branch, alili make it impossible for the 1981 Labour conference o defeat unilateralism. 'Jobs not bombs NEW badge from Newcas
oUrLerS catn •ost anc packing each for bulk orders, pay
advance. Orders , PO Box 50, Londor Cheques To borest Chaneroe
Socialist Challenge 19 March 1981 Page 7
Page 8 scan of this page
As
To justify his call for a sharp increase spending while SOCa expenditures $41.4bn, to an old theme Americans have to catch up with the Russians.
According to the new president, Soviet Union has invested $300bn more in its military forces than has the US.
*As a result of its massive military build-up, the Soviets have significant numerical adnuclear delivery LaCu Ca marines, artillery and anti-aircraft defence. To allow this imbalance to continue is a threat to our national security.'
This propaganda campaign, tray the United military as a pygmy about to be swamped Soviet juggernaut, been echoed uncritically in the entire US mass media.
It is always easier to sell big arms programmes and
the US spent
trillion dollars
mılitar abroad if they trayed as defensive moves.
DUL UNG TaCl Washington has introduced every weapons system Second World War (se panel).
Each time system was introduced, it was claimed that the Pentagon was simply catching up with the Soviets. Gaps
1956, warned that people
gap'.
Kennedy. te presidency on une oasis of a supposed gap'. In 1967 the spectre was raised of an tiballistic missiles gap'
As Michael Parenti of the US Institute for Policy Studies explained in the July 1980 issue of The ProSocialist Challenge 19 March 1981 Page 8
By Will Reissner From Intercontinent: ' Press WHEN President Ronald Reagan addressed both houses of the US Congress on 18 February to lay out his economic programme, his nationally televised speech called for sharp cuts in all areas of federal spending except for the military.
Reagan told members of Congress, the Department of Defence is 'the only department in our entire programme that will actually be increased over the present budget figure.'
arms slashing by Reagan resorted the
ment *since 1970 the that
made
strategic systems, SUD-
sallic
which tries to por States
by the has
Between 1970 and 1979 $1,048,700,000,000 on the military. That's over one
interventions are Por
new since the
new American were there was campaigned for 'missile
'an-
the assembled
gressive magazine, in each instance it was subsequently discovered that nó such gap existed and that US capabilities were superior to the Soviet Union's.
In 1975, the Depart-
of Defence warning or a new gap This time it was claiming
the US behind the Soviets developing MIRVs multiple independently targeted nuclear warhead: that are mounted on a single missile. Truth
But the MIRV 'gap' was simply more of the
Even as the Pentagon was issuing its dire warnings about the defence analyst James McCartney calmly noted that 'the United States has had MIRVs for years. It has hundreds of them ready to use, while the Soviets are Just gelling unem.
How much there in Reagan's assertion that the Soviet Union ha been outspending the Us
arms for a decade? None at all!
Accoraing to its own
, between 1970 and spent $1,048,700,000,000 on the military. For those who have trouble counting zeros, that comes to over one trillion dollars.
Is it credible that the Soviet Union, with economy that is only two-thirds the size of the US economy, not only matched that rate, but exceeded it by $300bn? Just on the face of it, the Soviet Union would face a big strain simply matching spending, much less spending 29 per cent more.
There is an old maxim
with statistics.
CIA's figures military spending, Keagan used to push hi claim that, the Soviets are
HOW THE US
was falling
in
MIRVs,
truth
recently did.
the calculating spending
In the tually spent dollars what the SOCHIL
the Soviet
But an
spending.
CIA US
SOCHIL
the Soviets on soviet they
which
That.
THE ARMS I
outspending the US, are a case in point.
If the figures do not support the charge that the Soviets outspend the US the best thing to do is to change the way arms spending is calculated, and that is precisely what the CIA
A detailed analysis of
CIA's Soviet was made Franklyn D Holzman of
, University. It ap peared in the issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
past the CIA compared what the US ac
on arms, in the iet union Soviet rubles in USSR. By that method of figuring, which is the most accurate as we shall see
Union spend only 60 to 70 percent of what the Pentagon spends.
since that across the 'catch up with the Russians' theme, the CIA retroactively changed the way it computes Soviet
The CIA went back and recomputed Soviet ex penditures on a totally dif-
compared how much the US actually
in dollars in the with what would spend if everything in dollars in the also our chase United States
simple change
which flawed, parent Soviet
the US.
arms
by
1Y8U
defence. The
with
the
comparison
Each cuts
own
Each
of
in short cessively expensive.
different
US and
Multiple warheads on a single nuclear weaponry to increase limitation agreement
suddenly made it appea that the Soviets had beer spending up to 44 per cent
annually than the US. This method,
is fundamentally maximises ap spending while minimising that of
In 1978, the US's allies in NATO spent $75bn on
Soviet Union's allies in the Warsaw Pact spent $12bn. Reagan does not include this in his arms
governmen structures its armed forces to take maximum advantage of the strengths of its
economy and minimise reliance on its economy's weaknesses
side maximises the use of resources and technology that are readily available in its own coun try, while minimising the
resources technical methods that are
supply or ex-
The CIA further skews the comparison by using
methods determine the effects
Soviet improvements in weapons.
Page 9 scan of this page
EADS
ACE
3.616 ket (MIRVs) allowed en after the SALT I arms
or example, when the eplaced the $65,000 rick missue witt une
effective $25,000
the CIA ed that US arms spen-
vantage $40,000. at when the Soviets the same kind of Itution, replacing
with the er (but 30 per Cell effective missile 'B', IA figures that since ew missile is 30 per
12110 MOre effective, ILS NATO will be calculated as
Have r cent higher than the e it replaced. other words, when, ilitary parlance, the ts 'more bang for the
US 's go down, while the change makes Soviet ing go up. le CIA, and Reagan,
act that the.US and oviet Union are each ers of military But in 1978, for ex-
the US allies in 3 spent 575b on
while the Soviet i's allies in the WarPact spent only lective louldn't those con- pinpoints
quation! fter making his false that the Soviets out-
the Pentagon,
went true, gue a highly selective armed
aL cas where the
But
more
Union
and totals.
Soviet missiles
points
Soviets are 'ahead' of the US. Let's look at some of them more closely.
According to Reagan 'the Soviets have made a significant numerical ad- money
in strategic nuclear delivery systems,' meaning, in plain English, that the Soviets have more nuclear armed missiles and bombers than the Us.
Soviet This claim is a distortion for two reasons. First, it ignores the fact that Bri-
France both allies of the US
missiles and bombers aim- sians.
The Pentagon's record
The United States produced:
• The first atomic bomb in 1945.
• The first intercontinental bomber in
1945.
• The first hydrogen bomb in 1954.
• The first nuclear submarine in 1954.
• The first submarine launched ballistic
missile in 1960.
• The first multiple independently target-
ted warhead (MIRV) in 1970.
ed at the Soviet Union. which Reagan does not inCluac In us Lolar
Mine importantly
delivery system without taking into account the number of nuclear warheads that can ding be delivered.
The Soviet Union, it is
has more nuclearbombers and missiles than the US.
U.S.S.R.
The warhead gap. The above diagram shows how in the period 1972-77, the American lead in warheads increased. (2,504 compared to 2,058).
the US delivery systems are equipped with
than 9,200 warheads, while the Soviet
has 6,000. Again, these tigures do not take East into account the British
French warhead
Cynical
Furthermore, while no
nuclear bombers US can reach the US, the US Air Force has hundreds of threat. bombers West Europe that can hit the main cities
of the Soviet Union
In addition, the US has a place an additional ans already announced
1n West Europe that are capable of hitting Soviet cities.
Reagan also cynically
to the Soviet
Union's more sophisticated air defence systems as proof that US military spending must rise. But this is a totally spurious argument!
No matter how much mon, it ld not spend the Pentagon that money on air defence systems simply because the
can reach the US! Soviets have no planes that Union
US bombers can hit the
Union, So the Soviets build anti-aircraft
defenses Soviet bombers cannot hit the US so the US does not build them.
Hardly an argument for state. catching up with the Rus- Nevada.
building
rersming surop
SUUKe would
The US military does not have to catch up with anyone. The big increases contemplated the Reagan arms budget are
Chalacer ding frogrammes spen
ICaCLOl that to be true.
More, than $17bn is earmarked over the next five years for the Rapid Deployment Force (RDF),
U.S.S.R.
a military force specifically designed to intervene abroad in defence of imperialist interests.
The the RDF are the Middl
and the Central America and Caribbean region. Already the RDF has carried out practice invasions of both areas. The
is aimed against revolutionary struggles that threaten the profits of
corporations, not against the mythical Soviet
The second huge new the MX
missile system which could cost as much as $106bn. This would be made up of DCLWCCI and 275 missiles shuttled around
No Soviet nuclear bombers can reach the US, while the US Air Force has hundreds of bombers in West Europe that can hit the Soviet
underground between at least a ouu shelters covering a large portion of the
Utah and
Ine purpose of
this system, together with the introduc tion of 572 new Cruise and
(from which they
ould hit Soviet targets i
maintain a
stainst the Soviet Union.
the Reagan ministration has its way, arms spending would soar
above one trillion dollars over the next five years while social services
are slashed. War spending
rise from cent of the federal budget in 1981 to 32 per cent in the 1984 budget.
when Reagan presented his budget proposals to congres were met by s hat The New thunderous ovation. The
American working, people, as the cuts begin to be felt, will not be to applaud. But it may well be thunderous.
By Ana Maria Hernandez in El Salvador DOMINGO Garcia years old. He comes from a little village in the La Paz region in the centre of El Salvador. In October his village was occupied by the army, with the help of members
the para-military organisation, ORDEN.
Domingo's father and many others were killed, but most of the inhabitants managed to escape up into the moun tains. But not Domingo. He was left alone in the village.
When they found me they took hold of me. One held me firm and the other hit me with his machete, here, and here.'
Machete
Domingo points out where he was hit. Both of his wrists are scarred and swollen forming terrible around this small boy's arms. He showed me the right side of his neck, where a lone scar aiso swollen. no cares where he was hit by the machete. He explains at the same time why he has to carry his head bent to the left all the time
He takes off his cap and shows me a large bald patch right in the middle of his head. I thought I was almost going to die,' he says
The army tried to kill him. But he didn't die. He lay there for two days where the soldiers had thrown him unconscious, with the blood drying on his body and the flies buzzing around the open machete wounds.
'He looked dead, says his sister When we came back to the village and found him, we were sure that he was dead. But he wasn't. Thank god that he is here with us now. there.... the boy just lay there swollen up, completely still. We were sure that he was dead. But here he is, here he is...
Domingo's sister pulls him closer to her, but she doesn't start to cry. lifts his scarred arms and says: how they tried to cut the boy's hands off. Look at them. What did they think
could have done?' che 'That is what I ask myself. What do they think he could have done?'
She doesn't cry. her voice either; she appears calm and collected
Domingo and his sister are together with 4000 others in one of the eleven refugee camps in San Salvador, the capital. Almost all the people in these camps are women, children and elderly people. Camps
The president of the military junta, Napoleon Duarte, said that these camps are camouflaged hiding places for the rebels. According to him people from these camps are given weapons training and recruited to terrorist activities.
When I asked Domingo's sister what she thinks about this she just shakes her head while she looks straight into my eyes. I wonder if Napoleon Duarte could look her in the eyes like this - if he ever dared to come down to these camps.
Other people do camps. Three times uniformed Civilian entered the camp, where Domingo and his sister are now staying. The last time
ficial 'truth' and what people tell you is so great that it is sometimes difficult to comprehend.
After the January offensive the official propaganda, which
THE HORROR OF
EL SALVADOR
*Look how they tried to
cut off the boys hands..
is twelve fascist here, and bracelet way.
sive. are
But when he lay the Catholic
She "Look
List continues.
there is no fury in rather
now the dead.
Salvadoran were on the list. has
Wing. Nobody COAST
Rights
witch-hunt?
Erect when he says
come into the and violently
Domingo's sister told
But there is no
totally
Socialist Challenge
National Guard motorcyclist
all the newspapers, radio and television, carried out an agressive lie campaign against anyone who objected to the junta in even the mildest
The starting point for this propaganda is that the armed rebel groups were totally defeated in the January offen-
Those who are left, say the junta foreign mercenaries and armed
The government is using systematic lies to spread this falsification of reality
One of the lawyers who works for
church legal rights organisation, the only institution since the Commission for Human Rights was forced underground a few weeks ago to record what is the real state of politica and human rights, shows an example of how the propaganda works.
He shows me a special feature article from one of the morning papers, where the rebels are accused of blowing up a bus and causing the deaths of 20 people. The paper includes a list of
In reality, explains the lawyer, three of the names belong to people that are known to have been killed a week ago by a uniformed army patrol who stop ped their car. A fourth passenger who was in the car succeeded in escaping.
"Now I ask myself, he continues 'where they killed all the others who
The campaign in the press is constant, vicious, inflammatory and menac-
dares to say anything Circulars from the Church human rights organisation, the Human
Commission and the politica organisations don't reach many people.
What will be the effects of the press
Won't people finally believe what they write? Will they come to believe that Napoleon Duarte is cor-
that the refugee camps are nests of subversion? Won't they believe that the armed groups are responsible for all they are accused of?
No, not yet. Too many people have seen too much in El Salvador. I'm stil surprised that almost everyone I mee
against the official version. Someone says: "Today it is not enough to just speak against them, we have to act. But to act is the same as risking your life."
19 March 1501 Page S
Page 10 scan of this page
How not to build the Fourth International
Where you can buy
Socialist Challenge
BATHI SC BATH: at 1985 Books,
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LONDON TOM eeting te Library opp. March. Town Hall. BrIXIC
Revolution Youth notices MEMBERSHIP CARDS: Cards
Socialist Challenge 19 March 1981
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0.30-12.00 outside Woolworths, Ux-
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WOLVERHAMPTON: Socialist
Stop the merica wa 7 pm. port the people of El Salvador
Cneakers from frich Spade uns to women stoops fact
Lanchester Poly Corker from Saa dor 25 March, 7.3 Solidarity speaker
SOCIALIST Humanist Ass Sian onz
meeting. 2.30pm Club Room, Conway Strike, Patien Town all, Tues 24 ach right Racism! Fight Imperialism
Imperialism
cast London Workers Acains
Racisn Week of Action Against Tues 31 March Lond All Im No Nationality Act! Smash migration Controls! Public Rally Creakers fromili French Immigrant • ELWAR: 7.30pm Friends House Euston Rd., London NWI (Euston
Public Rally. Speakers invited from Wed 1 April - Mancheste Cross Massacre Action committe Hotel, Lloyd St. Sout , Moss Side.
by French immigrant groups. Protest
details.
Sun 5 April - Brick Lane to
Hyde Park
*Rajnit Nationaliy A fast I.ondon,
Smash Page 10
By Brian Grogan AT the end of last year a new so-called 'International Committee of the Fourth International (IC)' was set up.
the French Organisation (OCI) described it as 'an important step forward reconstruction of the Fourth International'. In reality the IC is a formation set up to disrupt and attempt to destroy the Fourth International.
The IC claims the allegiance of groups from 40
but most of them are tiny, as with the Socialist LabUllI Dillall. 1anoll 0 members] split at a national level into the diverse groups from which the IC originated.
The significant organisations in the IC are the
Socialist (PST), and the groups from Brazil. Peru Colombia, canada. venezuela and rortugal. the OCRFI, organisation, fusion with the rourth Inter
of the Nicaraguan revolution changed that. Reaction
The OCRFI masterminded a split in the Fourth Inter
sectarian reaction against the revolutions notably Central America Nicaragua. It formed a Pari-
committee TWO group, the Bolshevik Faction which split from the FI,
and Leninist TOLVSKS ended.
These forces characterised the Sandinista leadership of
Nicaraguan revolution (FSLN) 'detinitivel
ship' (La Verité, OCI paper,
which
reconstructing the bourgeois state, bourgoeis army and the
economy (cor respondance emernanonale No z, Journai or the Parity
THIS 15 OUR NeWEST WEAPON NEW Socialist Challenge Anti-Nuke postcards. Set of four beautifully pro-
packing.
SCD (Postcards), PO Box 50, London N1 2XP.
Socialist Challenge News
International Committee rides again
One of the main sponsoring organisations
Internationa Communist
on the road to the
Committee).
Despite all the advance made the Nicaraguar revolutio the Parity chose see only counter-revolulon was no workers' government or revolutionary leadership in Nicaragua tatorship intent on suppressrights achilalic allu Lne WOrKers organisations.
Proof of this was alleged the expulsion from the the coveramnenl une Bolvar Br0a0e a formation inspired by the Argenti-
абано. the revolution Accordingly, the main in lenalullar callipalti Parity Committee throughout autumn 1979 was 'a campaign repressior caragua' with an imperialist witchhunt aralnst ine nicarazuans o unel alleged violations human rights. sectarianism is new. It took OCRFI to ycals Ictugilise revolunion nad actually occur. red in Cuba. If anything its atto the Nicaraguan revolution so tar worse
Discipline
One immediate reason to! the split from the FI by the BF and LTT was the FI's decisior
tral stenca waere unere werc no recognisea secuions undel the discipline of the United ecretariat of the F nis step stemmea Iro IT DESTROYS PEOPLE BUT LEAVES PROFITS INTACT duced black and white original designs. 50p the set or 15p each + 12p post and One third discount on bulk orders! Payment in advance. Orders to:
International Committee left, Nemo, Moreno and Lambert the Simon Bolivar Brigade incraeli and olner seclarian lac
groups calls process and discrediting he fi aanerence to ine ti wno were harming revolutionary skyism in the process
de Pan Comarace is
quidation of Trotskyism'
The largest of the groups affected in Central America was the Costa Rican OST led by Fausto Amador a leading figure in the split from the Fl. but oy Deplemocr Iyou ne was
Unis ear The Parity Committee declared: departure of Amador from Central America was the only
senou political problems that his presence in Central America
Three of the four Central American whose 'liquidation" organisations was the
pretext for the split from the
therefore refused try to ine 'Open (SIC) Conterence which established the
wert any othe organisations which didn't accept the leadershi role advance of the OCRFI or the
Only were present at the conference as ooservers. one wrom brazı
The founding conference of the IC We formation of a breckon therefore more than ine lwo mall organisallons tne rrench and the Argentinian PST
In this regard, their claim to operate according democratic centralism IS a
NUCLEAR WASTE A present for our children's children's children
'Gang of Three' leaders -
The draft BUKe slalules aconted give tendencies is bacions indi receives a 15 per neit majority decision binding
June 1o-Dersor Interna tional leadership • I nis com mittee has the power to clude any
sense ragements is clear: it permits a nypercentralisl runcuonl wien use two die components of the IC are
no space of a minority practice in th OCI and the P
There has already been an internand commited functioning according regime in terspersed
Heals the Israeli section of the OCR…h. use ceparture or ne bor vian POK-LOra and Argentinian Politica Obrera are just some of the products
mode 0f whier treats _Dolluca ferences as 'criminal affairs'
ference of the IC a letter was sent lo une unitca occrelalla suggesting a joint meeting
all the possibilities oming together the crisis of the FI'
and Dalau breathtaking manoevure. The
at its founding conference defined the USFI as 'a block between an openly revisionist cur a cust cull cal wica does not break 10r
formulations, is nevertheles.
18 March at 2pm
20 March at 8pm
21 March at 7.45
24 March at 5.30pm
25 March at 8pm
26 March at 1.15pm
26 March at 8pm
28 March at 9pm
30 March at 8pm
integral part COT rev!. sionism: there is a de facto division of labour nuances, a relation very similar to that which ex
nautsky romy 4 onwaros. How is it possible to open fusion talks with an organis ion characterised in the sam was Trotskyists appluall Inc Second International?
No purpose could be serv.
turned - Ine very thing we are in business to promote Only when they have , abandoned their sectarianism revoltor. Cenlra America and the Caribbean could discussior be taken seriously Our Icaucis why we have devoted so muci space lo sucn a small group lI reason. their sectarian method unfortunately dominates much of
journals of worker. A CLIOT and Workers Socialists have both endorsed many he IC's criticisms of the
necessar 1o agree SOMe version of the history of the FI as the basis for fusion of Trotskyist forces Colone the an enterna Committee's new 'Fourth In the deep hold "British LUISA YISL tarianism.
PATH WEST SPARE
ERNIE DALTON LA MONGREL AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ONE MAN DOG SHOW Dogs of the World Unite We've nothing to lose but our chains
Manchester Poly. Ay toun St, Mancheste Hattersley Community Centre, Hyde Clarence Hotel, Bolton
Ealing College of Further Education Pentameters, Three Horseshoes, Heath Street, Hampstead City University, Nor thampion square, Lon
Hemingford Arms, Hem
ingford Rd, Islington, London The Globe, High St west. Gossor Everyman Bistro, Hope St, Liverpoo
Page 11 scan of this page
Now lets get going
MARCH 14™
Photo: JOANNE O'BRIEN
THE labour movement conference on abortion and positive legislation, organised by the National Abortion Campaign (NAC) and the Labour Abortion Rights took place last Saturday.
There 183 unions, 23 from trades councils, and 70 from constituency Labour Parties.
had been so involved in Labour's national executive supported conference.
JOAN TWELVES reports ference and what needs to be done to carry forward the struggle for a woman's right to choose on abortion.
'ONLY the organised labour movement has the sort of muscle that can win changes 1n society that would bring women's rights.
'But the labour movement needs the National Abortion Campaign give a lead U11 positive
What trade union leaders and MPs say 'As a sponsor I naturally fully support the general aims of the conference to discuss the ways in which the law may be changed to give women the right to choose tor themselves the right for abortion both in
'I have always believed that the NHS should provide abortion facilities nation-
women who suffer terrible worries and anxieties which non-availability of facilities brings about and which drives them into the private sector or condemns them to bear an
MARIE PATTERSON, national officer, Transport
'Not only myself but my union executive is firmly of the opinion that we must maintain the TUC and Labour Party policy on abortion!
BILL SIRS, general secretary, Iron and Steel Trades Congeaeration
'I feel very strongly that the labour movement must not only defend the contents of the '67 Abortion Act but must do everything
changing the way in which NHS facilities
'We must ensure that the defence of these facilities is mounted in the most energetic way.
GWYNETH DUNWOODY, MP
JUVEMEN
Jo Richardson MP addresses the labour movement conference on abortion
Campaign (LARC),
delegates from trade
It was the first time that the Labour Party
the campaign. the
on the con-
legislation' that was Kate Holman from NAC summed up the teeling at the conference. _ he conterence was an overwhelming success.
Although the Abortion Act is not directly under attack from MPs, the number trade
'It is important to stop the exploitation of in its power to stop the present government ara available to those needing terminations*
Women's Rights
WIllUNiL HBUKION
CAMPRIEN
unionists and Labour Parly members auenaing lne conference showed that ADO ON clans a col cern of the labour moveMeRL Positive
The main discussion
on obtaining better facilities for abortion under the National Health Service; repealing the laws
an offence, and working
legislaLowarus tion for a woman's right to choose when and if to have children.
Over the last few years many trade unions have formed tion it 1s no longer a minority woman's' issue. But as Kate Holman said: 'In some unions the argument is still not won.
The action proposals aeciaca by ne conrerence will allow delegates to take tne issues DaCK unions and local Labour Parties.
Shadow
The support of the trade unions ana TUC in the campaign against Corrie anti-abortion Bill was seen to be a turning point.
Now was the time to go torward to bulla ine pro-choice movement, since,
tant general secretary of
Workers'
LIC Union, explained: 'We are not under shadow of restnichve legislation.
The conference was a milestone in the campaign Ior a woman's right choose. Not only did it have many delegates from the unions but for the first time delegates from the constituency Labour Parties were also present. Party
LARC speaker SuE Freund argued that the Labour Party HOUST made to see that abortion is as much a senous Issuc as any other. We want to see members campaigning
NAC/LARC Trade
Union Liaison Committee
Tuesday 14 April, 7pm
Friends House, Euston
Rd, London NWI
Meeting to discuss the
follow-up to actior
proposals passed at the
labour movement conference
for adoption of candidates who support party policy on abortion.'
The 'right' of MPs to voTe according their conscience and not accorAllg to party policy was condemned by Sue Freund
Iviarsiana the loud applause of the come cice.
As MP Jo Richardson said, it was important tha abortion was part of the nexu Labour manifesto and that women were top of the agenda'
The main theme that came cut or tre comerence was for delegates to go
MAYA
to fight for better facilities for abortion and to lay the support for positive legislation.
tivity were suggested, and the C wil be asked to back demonstrations called in support of legislation to go through parliament Freund put forward the message: "The Coate showed that it is possible for the obiectives of the women's movement to be upheld in the labour movement. Push
"The rank and file of the labour movement have been able push the leadership into helping defend women against restrictive legislation. 'It is time,' she added 'that this acauersip stop• ped thinking with their consciences abortion and started with their socia and political consciences.
This needs to be taken up by trades unionists and Labour Party members.
FESTIVAL
WOMEN'S RIGHTS
TH
-BANDS -FILMS -PLATS" MEETINGS-EXHIBITIONS ETC
women?
A MYSTERIOUS disease strikes,
even death. described.
market is controlled by Tampax and
tion'.
absorbent',
use of similar tampons.
The 'Authorised
Version' of being
a woman peal.
ment Law under the Tories, by Jeremy McMullen. Pluto Press, £1.95.
No sex, please,
you're under 16
cessible to older teenagers.
traception.
the pill to women in care
age daughters.
sent.'
ing an abortion
part of the 'responsible society'.
The Insane Sociely
Is anything safe for
resulting in high fever, vomiting, diarrheoa, skin rash, and a sharp drop in blood pressure leading to shock and
Such serious symptoms would normally have the medical protession rushing to tinc the cause, especially when a large proportion of the population is at risk. But this 'new disease' has hardly raised a murmur in the medical profession, let alone made
Maybe it is because toxic shock synarome los only artects women. ine disease occurs in healthy, menstruating women. A toxin or poison enters the blood stream, causing some or all the symptoms
Where tampons of affected women have been tested, the bacteria of TSS has been found to be present in 90 per cent of cases.
Tampons are big business. The British
Southalls, a subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson, which sells Lillets. Last October the Monopolies and Mergers Commission found that the duopoly in the tampon market operated against the public interest, as prices were higher than would be expected 'in conditions of keener competi-
Playtex, which is attempting to move into the British market has produced a tam. pon which increases the risk of TSS. It is scented (for no good reason), 'super-
, and is inserted by means of a plastic applicator. In the United States, 40 women are known to have died from the KIM Turley was sacked from her job at Aliders department store in South London while she was pregnant. She did not have sufficient length of service to bring a claim for unfair dismissal.
Kim said she was sacked because she was pregnant, which amounts to being sackec because she was a woman. This happens to be illegal under the Sex Discrimination Act, but when her case went to an emplovment appeals tribunal, two male adjudicators rejected her ap-
They said: When she is pregnant a woman is no longer just a woman, but "a woman with child" as the Authorised Version accurately puts it, and there is no masculine equivalent.'
Other useful cases can be found in EmployPREGNANCIES for under-16s have increas ed in the last ten years, while the number among 16-19 year olds has fallen. An important factor is that contraception is more ac
Over the past few months several right wing pressure groups have been formed against the 'permissive society. They are concerned that under-16s can obtain con-
Dorset county council is trying to stop women under sixteen in care from receiving contraceptives. The council has been lobbied by an organisation called 'Responsibility and Welfare, run by a general practitioner, Dr Rogers, who refused to prescribe
Rogers' outfit is part of a larger organisation, the Responsible Society. One of its other offshoots, Parents in Suffolk, has complained about a doctor in Glasgow who prescribed a condom to a male under 16. In Suffolk a GP has agreed to a father's de mand not to prescribe the pill to his 'under-
Gerard Vaughan, Tory health minister, has sent out guidelines stating that doctors 'will proceed from the assumption that it would be most unusual to provide advice about contraception without parental con.
But all this will only result in more pregnancies, not less sex. As Susie Hayman at Brook Advisory Centre puts it: 'Young women who are told by their doctors that the best contraception is "no" end up hav-
Perhaps this is what is meant by being
Socialist Challenge.. 19 March 1981 Page 11:
Page 12 scan of this page
Ireland: a cause for concern in are the labour movement
FRANKIE Hughes Sands on hunger strike in Long Kesh. the latest stage in the Long Kesh and Armagh prisoners' demands.
The campaign outside the prisons has achieved wide backing, with support committees throughout the 32 Counties of Ireland.
The National Smash H Block/Armagh Committee in Ireland has won support in the labour movement, among young people. and trom local councils.
the North councillors have withdrawn support of the prisoners LUll local Coulicus demands and retake their seats until the issue is settled.
International support is growing. The Portugese
declared
support. In France the CGT, union federation and CP leader George Marchais have called on the British government to grant the prisoners aellands.
Support committees are widespicad wes Europe and North America.
The strength and determination of the campaign show that it is more than prison conditions which are at stake. It is part of the struggle OI the nationalist population of Ireland to oppose the at-
of the British government to impose its rule in the Six Counties.
Since 1976 the policy of both Tory and Labour governments prelena lal all is 'normal' in Northern Are lu
The active involvement of British troops in the 'security forces' has been reduced, and the role of ine Royal Vister Con. stabulary and Ulster Defence Regiment been stepped up.
The special category status' previously granted to Republican and Loyalist prisoners has been withdrawn and a major propaganda campaign waged to brand them as terrorists and criminals.
nationalist population relalls coll vinced that these prisoners are fighters for the right of the Irish people to decide themselves how their country should be ruled and that the first step is to get the British out.
Speaker from National H-Block/Armagh Committee in Ireland plus Alistair Logan, solicitor, and others.
Support Irish
prisoners - grant the
five demands
Socialist Challenge 19 March 1981 Page 12
While a single British soldier 1 cilalls on the streets of Belfast or Derry, it is evident that Britain retains its 'right' to rule and bolster the
occlanaul statelet formed to protect unC Interests unle Loyalist population.
incle is a wal golng on Ireland and the
that war.
Only when the British government acknowledge that these political will the five demands have any chance of being conceded. Tasks
And that campaign to force the government. to recognise its political prisoners will be a first step
challenging Britain's right to rule in the North of Ireland.
It is the British labour movement that has the major responsibility in the campaign for support of the prisoners and to get the troops out.
One of the most important tasks confronting the trade unions and Labour Party is to get the leadership of the Labour Party to break from its pact on Ireland with the orles. The policy of 'bipartisan-
which it SHID both in and out of office must be overturned.
The labour movement leadership has followed the lead of the large majority of Labour MPs and allowed oper
ion of Ireland. The media have done the same, with a resulting wall of silence around the events in the North of Ireland. Labour
But as the resistance of the people of the North of Ireland has continued it has been impossible to maintain the silence. There has now been two serious attempts to the history Ireland television. The Daily Mirror has called the British government to set a date for withdrawal and to resolve the prisoners' issue.
The most significant developments have been within the Labour Party.
Public meeting
H-Block hunger strike
Friday 20 March, 7.30pm Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1
National Demonstration Saturday 25 April, in London Called by H-Block/Armagh (London) Committee
* SOCIALIST REPUBLIC
SUPPORT THE PRISONERS FOR WORKER'S ACTION
New issue just out.
*Support the Prisoners.
Make the British Concede *H Block/ Armagh Strategy
for Victory *Reviews: The Troubles and
Victory to the Armagh
Women Available from PO Box 50
The Labour Committee on Ireland argues within the Labour Party to commit the next Labour government to withdrawal.
While it supports the prisoners' campaign, Lne LCI's annual general meeting last weekend rejected a long-term orientanon o naK bo wild le solidarity movement outside the Labour Party
The Labour Party's consulative aucument on Ireland gives the labour movement the best opportunity for years to discuss the Irish situation, and for Lose commited fighting for British withdrawal to put their position across to a wide audience.
Much education will be needed to win the support OTI aDOl movement for immediate STILSO wildelawal part of that support will be to campaign to detend the hunger strikers in the North of Ireland jails.
Ireland
UPLES ATE TO:
INTEKNATIONAL
SUPPORT
AAGH
magh jail on Sunday 8 March
Women's Day. A
countries.
women's and
and Frances de la Tour.
(Report!
DEREK
oto:
to Socialist Challenge for detailed infor-
husband's life.
ing their lives,
adamantly opposed
presence in the North of Ireland.
It was never
A THOUSAND people took part in a picket of Ar-
International large international contingent was present from Britain and other West European
Messages of solidarity were read out from
labour movement organisations throughout the world. Solidarity greetings were sent by Bernadette McAliskey, Vanessa Redgrave,
No progress until the troops go
BERNADETTE McAliskey refers reporters
mation on the attack on her and her
Despite the British army's part in savBernadette was still to the army's
based on personal
POLITICAL STATUS
FOR THE WOMEN
@WOMENS DI
THE
WOMEN
of armed Royal Ulster
movement perialism in Ireland. tional emotion, press
Ireland while they are here.
publicity officer Block/Armagh Committee.
While the demonstrators stood outside Armagh
Internationale
Constabulary men and women. British soldiers looked on from a distance.
The display of international solidarity with the women in Armagh was a boost for the Republican
and all those fighting British im-
Cha
eng
VICTORY
TO THE
MINERS!
animosity, prejudice or any other irra
she told the conference. 'Historical reality is that there will be peace or progress in
As the hunger strike continues, Ber nadette plans to resume her activities as
for the National H
Page 13 scan of this page
What's a feminist like me doing
Doralee, Judy, Violet and boss Editor, Sally Feldman,
Love Affair 'ОН, God, Greg - I want you,' I murmured as he crushed me to him and covered me with fierce, hungry kisses. 'I.I love you...'
This is the stuff of real-life romantic fiction - the kind of fiction that you can read each week in Love Affair. As its title suggests, this IPC magazine deals primarily with love, romance, sex -matters of central concern to young teenage women.
With a circulation of arourid 120,000, it is obviously an enticing package.
Justified
The sort of accusations levelled at publications like OUTE You're
presenting an accurate pic
ture. of life Should you
seall be ten an
girls boys romance are the most important factors in their ex-
istence? Aren't
populal WYLUs about the relationship between the sexes?
To some extent these accusations are iustitied.
A magazine with a title like
Love Affair, with a moon-
ing couple on every cover,
basic content
slodc doout roilalcc allu
sex, is undoubtedly appealing to girls who are
obsessed with boys. And, yes — I guess it's feeding that obsession
But within that Coex! what exactly do you find? Fate
First of all, our
stories, with their ir-
repressible first-person
narrators, are not really
romantc in form. Our
characters never rely
Fate stepping in and rescu-
them from cruel
destiny.
The stories are, rather,
confessions, which means
that Oul heroines ai c
wrong-doers. They are
people who have learned
from past mistakes, and
Walt lO pass on their
Socialist Challenge 19 March 1981
on a magazine like this?
EVERY WEDNESDAY
10th JANUARY 1961
ACTION
STORIES
OF
TODAY
DICIE DRMGER ROLLERCHA DRUKRUS OBECRY
RUTHEESS SCHEMER
TRAVEL:
FASHION:
Use your starsign to create a great new style! wisdom to the reader, by telling their stories. Once that form is established, the field is wide open.
In the past year, for example, we have had heroines who are race orejudiced; sniff glue; fight at football matches; break the confidence their
blackmail; shopulales. lift; tease a friend who's
been raped; trap boyfriends into marriage; are too possessive; run away from home; neglect WOKSHCICCDUlisibilities...
In each of these stories, the "sin' is used not simply to create an exciting story,
Page 13
ove Ahoir
but to pinpoint attitudes or forms of behaviour.
Our heroines are rarely passive or helpless. We've had stories of girls who form a rock band, girls who drive minicabs, girls who choose their own destuv and make their own futures - and the atmosphere we try to create is one of constant excitement and challenge
While we won't sugges alternatives that would be LOU remotlives, from our readers' always trying to comment on the choices thev do have.
What's a feminist do-
Under Review.
EVER
BEEN
SACKED?
We look intol!
rights and
wrongs of the
jobscene...
ing working on a magazine
like that? I think l'd be
answering 3O1 NIOSL of
Love Affair's staff by say-
ing that we have a commit-
ment to our readers F a ere or ine we are
well aware pro-
paganda fed to young girls
about topics like abortion,
contraception, rape.
If these subjects come
up in stories or in our pro-
blems page we are caretul
present an uncom-
promising, nonest and
often radical stand
Though our CHC UHEC
are sinners, their sins are
never: v teo naoc N I killed an innocent un.
born child'. Our heroines
may choose abortions or they may decide against them. But, either way , the stress is on theır rignt Ic make the choice, and we
Etc be unemotiona about the subject.
Rape is a frequent fac-
but we lor in our stores. try to discourage any impression that girls 'ask for
But we do our best to combat the rampant sexism Wiln •walCa SuDJeCIs like this are treated in the rest of the popular media
A girl may fancy someone because he's 'tough'; she may think it's glamorous to be knocked about. But our stories are used to show how widely unhealthy this kind of atUtUUC Is Love Affair also tries
positively to guide and inform readers on all kinds of modern problems; unfair dismissal work; unemployment; alcohololll. sexism: race prejudice; premenstrual tension; overeating. Far cry
It's a far cry from the feminism of Spare Rib or Shocking Pink. It's a mass paper with cience.
We all feel that, given a large, remac readership who trust and enjoy us, we must continue to strive for balance between the enter tainment we know we do wel, ana tne mstracuol and inspiration which
more than just lilakcs us another love comic.
From the March-April 1981 issue of Free Press, o letn of the Campaign for Press Freedom.
The 8-page bulletin inciudes articies on une Polish workers' struggle tor press treeaom how the press sells-out over davertising the background to Thatcher's Times, and much more.
Free Press costs 10g (plus (plus pap) from: CPF
London Rd, Hadleigh, Essex. It sent tree to campaian members, for whom the individual membership fee is f3.
An office
worker's
By Pam Singer MY only pleasant memory of my first ped, office job is of my success in organising Memos the women workers to refuse to type a letter by our chauvinist pig which read: 'My girls and I would like company
express... We were neither nor his, we said.
Imagine my delight when I misses him. saw this illiterate Jerk s counterpart shot lassooed harassed,
generally outmanoeuvred by a team of 'his girls'.
Fantasy
was transported, and relived all my old fantasies.
And this is the strength of Nine to Five. It's comic labour. fantasy WilA positive twist - instead of women being degraded and humiliated in the name of 'humour', women are getting even with the petty Lyranl: who plague our working lives.
A trio of Doralee, Judy and Violet (Dolly Parton,
It ulc and Lily Tomlin respectively), from various rungs of the office hierarchy, are LATOWI together by disgust of their boss. Over a joint, they swap revenge tantasles
Justice
Through events. thev get the opportunity to act out these feats
DOCLIC justice They
This own house, while gathering enough evidence
- Other
THE / BOOKSHOP
movcuicut.
face the future'
ty.
Includes Eric Hobsbawm on
Corrigan on 'The Bolshevik Legacy'.
1 The Other Bookshop:
point of view
to have him sacked for moonuenu?
But wh ile he ker the
they take running of the office.
They put out memos in male his name raising salaries, boss instituting o-slalis flexi-time, setting up creche, reinstating sacked girls, making the office a plea WOlKen and generally sant place And nobody
And why should they After all Viole trained Doralee does all his poisoned, kidnapped, and work. Those who actually
work the office are shown as being much more competent at running than he is But what we see in the film not .simply the absolutely uselessness 01 lowe echelon management, but the infuriating injustice of the sexual division Wrong Women do all the behind-the-scenes work (just like we do at home) all the organising,: managing, planning and men get all the credit, promotions and top • Salarics Unfortunately, the
movie's answer is dissatisfying and just plain wrong. shared Outwit these privileged twits, we're told, and you? too can make it on your individual merit and itiative. Within the system of course.
But if for nothing elsed the movie is worth seeing series of for audience reaction. Co! lectivity may be lacking ir the film, but women in th audience were certainly then hold the boss hostage unified in our whoops and
cheers of delight watched and reflected.
Feminist Review Spring 1981, £2 Includes articles on abortion, women in the labour
Valerie Coultas on 'Feminists must — about the state of the women's movement and its relationship to the Labour Par-
New Left Review, No. 125 £1.50 'History and the Future', Tamara Deutscher on Poland, and Philip
328 Upper St, Londor N1 2XP. Add 15% to each title if ordering by post
Page 14 scan of this page
Police occupy factory in
By Mike Eaude THE judge in the trial arising from the black rebellion in St Pauls, Bristol, has instructed the jury to acquit three defendants, in one case because the accused had not. been mentioned once in four weeks of Selle evidence.
Nine blacks still face trial for 'riotous assembly' and other NO CSCHUUS By Oliver New, in Southall IN A major operation, police and immigration officials removed five workers from the Lyon's factory in West London on 5 March.
office of Lyons Sol Cafe in the early hours of the morning and told security officers not to leave or make any phone calls. was effectively sealed off.
Police and immigration officers then entered ine main part or lne lactory and arrested four Ghanians who worked as packers.
Although they only had a warrant for the Sol Cafe site, the police also wCili llito the ncal dy Lyons Tetley factory to alICSL Ken Barber Nigerian worker who had recently transferred there.
Ken's wife had gone Nigeria for health reasons taking one unelr "wo Cartoten WILa her. The other was in the care of a child-minder. was left to shop stewards from Ken's uliull. the TGWU to discover this and arrange for the child to be taken to a relative. Held
A worker from the Tetley factory who nipped into the Sol Cafe while the raid was in progress was held for two hours.
The police later complained the Lyons management that shop steward had managed to 'escape' and phone a lawyer.
This is not the only reçent raid for illegal imDavidl Baah, A month ago David dye worker, had been rested at his West London factory and deported to
wamt to David's holse
went to David's and seized a 17-year-old
Immigration and nationality LABOUR MUST ACT
All London Labour Parties conrerence Sunday 29 March 2 pm.
Kranant koao rade
Union and Community Centre, Wood Green
3874. Phone 01-675
Socialist Challenge 19 March 1981 Page 14
charges
Hue lasi arises trom the events in St Pauls on 2 April last year,
wicu lucai residents exploded in rage after years of racist harassnicul oy luc Donce.
bank Was burned down, nine police cals were destroyed, and police were ejected from the area
African night-shift
Police suddenly appeared at the security
The factory
Ghanian who lived there with his parents.
Surjit Mann, the TGWÜ convenor-elect for the group of Lyon's factories in Greenford, told Socialist Challenge that the raids could only
the of culallce SCuIsC anger and frustration in the immigrant community.
'You see people asking if you have got your passport - next time it's your turn, ' he says.
Organise
'If we had a movement to fight this sort of thing people would lOlOW it, but tne absence of a movement people will sit back and take it.'
Surjit Mann believes that shop stewards in factories like Lyons where there are immigrant workers should organise to be ready for raids before they hapOCul He says: 'We told
management that it you don't stop this sort of cooperation with the police, one day we will all march to the police station - and you wouldn't like that sort of publicity.'
In the past 18 months there has been a steady increase in the number of police TaIOS T WOlK -places. They are part of a growing trend towards
CAMPAIGN AGAIST RACIST LAWS
NAIST MNIGRN
STOP
MATOHALTY 3 THE
BILL
DEMONSTRATE
Nine blacks still on trial
for St Paul's rebellion
for five hours.
Several hundred people were detained and interrogated after 2 April, bul tne ponucal cost of convicung a whole commounutv was loo area
The 16 who were singlca oul tor prosecuuon nad their charges changed and shuffled about, showing hands of an Asian youth in
"legal' and illegal persecution of blacks.
The detence of biack workers should be seen
as dl ureenl lask or une
labour movement. The demonstration call bv the Campaign against Racist
Laws on 5 April against the Nationality Bill will
important defence.
Vishnu Sharma, Com-
munist rarty speaker at
a meeting in Southall
against the Nationality
Bill.
Roy Hattersley. the
shadow home secretary,
withdrew his aoreement
to speak on the grounds
that Sharma is standing
calot Labor mn tne
forthcoming GLC elec-
tions.
Home News.
the random nature of the arrests.
Three of the 16 didn't reach triai decause ponce evidence was so confused ucrie the six WCCK. committal proceeding that the police were forced to admit that their notes were concocted several days after the event. A fur-
= immigration
clamp down
THREE skinheads slashed the initials 'NF' and a swastika across the chest, stomach and
Southall last
week. The attack took place at 9.45am while
ther case was dropped, and now three others have been acquitted.
The whole community
"guilty" o s-cerence and nine people should not oe vicumasee
The defence committee sel up in une communly has sent out 'A cry to all black organisations and the youth was waiting for a bus.
a pattern of racial attacks in the area'.
ethnic minorities pathetic to the destruction of racism WILBUl the British society to hear the cry of St Pauls.
'Ask questions in your local
corumuuues. possible organise a trip to Bristol during the period of the trial. The right to live in ans British COHL munity is at stake. Racism harms every community.
Further information from: Pauls Advice Centre, 146 Grosvenoi Road, Pauls, Bristol. Tel 0272-552981 556925.
Police say that the attack 'was not part of
to New Cross Fund JUnN La ose
for the relatives.
over the country another of whom is in a mental hospital.
to send donations to: New Action Committee, Road, London SE24.
CARIBBEAN
LIMES
New black newspaper promotes Grenada
revolution
By Toni Gorton CARIBBEAN Times, mass circulation newspaper aimed at the national black munity, •launchec week Allnougn inere wa statement as to its editoria policies, the oe more radical in its politica Stanici llal wes Inular wora. me oresent mass cu culation black weekly
son, the eding to arip ke per
Ali supDOTTS lacals Grenada revolution and the features 16-page supplement Grenada. with a long Minister lhltci• view prime Maurice Bishop.
British
outline of laws on inmierauon viner iems inciuce back unemployment. the Cross Massacr Áctior Committee's Day of Actior and El Salvador Times Cariooean available from any newsstand/price 20p Defend New Cross marchers A NUMBER of demon. were arrested @urine Ine DIaCI People's Day of Action on 2 March especially in the Blackfriars area I ne Iven uros.
Iviassacre Action Com mittee is organising a defence cam. paign for them ine mirsu case s oe ing heard at Marlbor
LE
to any of the events t contact them and attend the court neaninos For further informa tion contact the New
Con Massacre Actio
vomiuillce •makes seare MOCe London SE24. Tel: 01-737 2268
Building workers give
, chairperson of the New Cross Massacre Action Committee was given £248 by building workers at the Barbican last week
Deptford fire victims and their
This is typical of the sort of response that the fund is getting from working people all
The staff association at the TUC has given £50 and the fund, which will continue until 30 April, has now received more than £16,000.
Its purpose is to help Mrs Ruddock, who lost two children, her home and belongings in the fire; to help the other families who lost their children; and to help the families of the injured, two of whom are still in hospital and
Get your labour movement organisation
LOSS MASSace c/o 74 Shakespeare
Page 15 scan of this page
East End Newse
_ Council staff
defy the cuts Good news for East London
By Geoffrey Sheridan EAST Londoners who picked up a new local newspaper last week would have had no difficulty distinguishing it from the usual amalgam of crime-scare-stories, potty pranks, and anti-union huffing.
The weekly East End News, launched on Friday with a print-run of 14,000 copies, unmistakably linked to the working class community on which it is based.
Lead
The front-page lead is on council workers defying The t against the fees increases Tor overseas sudeal. ov position to council house sales, and the local Labour Party response to a Social Democialy defector among the news stories.
History is there, too, in the shape of an account of
rebels who ticipated the 1381 Peasants Revolt, and an article on Tom Mann's influence on the East London labour movement.
The local women's movement has contributed
column women's news and events. and there is a promising youth page. There is also sport in the 24 pages, together with radical entertainments coverage, and an ethnic cookerv column.
Missing are the contrived and often trivial stories which decorate the pages of local newspapers,
age of a community which usually emerges.
Target
Although the East End
News co-operative is close
£25,000, the project
advertising ICYC nue of about £1,200
week to be viable.
An important avenue that could be explored is to secure a commitment from
shop stewards committees to contribute to and sell
the paper.
Tower Hamlets council
manual workers, for ex-
ample, have voted for
one-day strike to greet the
Liverpool-London march
azallsu unemployment.
The East End News will no
doubt be helping to build
such action, and support
for the newspaper irom
Ene sa mana Workers
could generate a healthy
devale mis colulills
alternatives to the That-
cher axe well as
aiding the paper's SUl-
Details from: East End
News, Victoria Park
Square, London E2. Tel
01-981 1221.
By J Silberman, Ferranti worker WORKERS at Measurements in wood, Manchester, significant victory redundancy last week.
The company backed down TUSU olie day after meeting had overwhelmingly voted in favour of industrial tion to meet the threat of 40 compulsory redundancies.
As one Engineering
'No one in this factory can now say that it is impossible to nignt agalnst redun dancy and win.
By Colin Talbot, deputy secretary, Westminster branch POEU (personal capacity)
THE national executive of the Post Office Engineering Union has rejected by 11 votes to 10 a call for a one-day strike against the Tory attacks on the Post Office.
jor Post Office unions, the UCW and CPSA, are to hold a delegate lobby of Parliament on 1 April.
Squatters оссиру Wandsworth flats
By Piers Corbyn
SQUATTERS occupied a newly-completed
block of flats in Wandsworth last Friday.
Situated on the East Hill estate, they were
scheduled to sold
controlled Wandsworth council.
overcome the difficulties of selling private dwell-
ings on an estate designed for council tenants.
tenants Against groups ory Housing (WATCH)
Sales (SAS).
the council re-house the squatters
Tory attacks on public housing
01-701 5691 or 01-237 8277. Homeless welcome.
FERRANTI JOBS VICTORY
The stewards' had negotiated voluntary redundancy and early retirement, but Ferranti HOSE month the Hollin- nounced that workers had agreed to go won a against that compulsory ficucosaly •COT was mass cutbacks. was ac- workforce, increase productivity and boost profits.
Ferranti Union duces electricity meters and the company wants fewer parts and so would need a smaller workforce.
Post Office unions plan
lobby on telecoms bill
Instead, the POEU and the two other ma-
off by the Tory-
A private estate agent was due for a fat fee to
The occupation, which is supported by local
was organised by wane swore and Squat and They are demanding that all the flats are let to local people and those in need, and that
The South London occupation takes place at the same time as the occupation of Sherry's Wharf in Hackney, East London, which also aims to thwart
Information from: WATCH, tel 01-870 7511; or SAS
Home News
committee compulsory move an- reduction.
not enough
and redundancy
of the recession given as the reason for the Management's goal rationaise une
Measurements pro-
this produce a leaving The Union of Communication Workers anc the Civil Servant's Union are calling for a mass turnout, but not the POEU 'This is not intended to be a mass lobby' is the stirring call from the POEU leadership who aim 'persuade MPs, whatever their political complextion, to vote against the sections OI the Telecoms Bill which we find objec. tionable.
Steam-roll
Led by the Tories last November them power hive-off profitable parts of both posts and telecoms, while splitting the Post Office in two. For the two months the Bill has been in parliamentary committee the govern. ment has used its majority to steam-roller over all objections. it is due for it. third reading in April POEL annual conference decided to use industrial action in order to defend the monopoly, and the Broad Left within been pushLne TOll llas ing for this policy to be implemented.
In its view, only a campaign of industrial and
Ferranti needed a victory on
ahead to massive job Management re jected short time working and even went so far as to reruse 59-year-old women and 64-yearold men early retirement.
The unions took up a position of 'cut hours, not jobs. calculated that 40 redundancies were equat to a two-nour cut i the working week.
When management refused
meetina decided to go on a 38-hour week,
hours early every Friday and also to take industrial action to stop the redundancies.
TELECON MONOP
taut
Tory attacks on the ta-
attacks on the naindustries, the miners have shown.
Scared
The POEU has the power to cripple the City London, the banks, finance houses, big companies and government departments. But the right-wing majority on the union executive refuses to take up the challenge.
They are so scared of mass action that thev have even stopped union branches using local funds cover the wages of the delegations to the lobby.
A national conference has POEU Broad Let or 28 been called the March to organise the fight to commit the POEU to action. The only action that will make the Tories take note is — All out on l April!
London Broad Left meeting on 23 March in the Marquis Corn. wallis, Marchmont St, WCI at 6 p.m. Further infrom Dermot Hunt, tel 01-928 9329.
Tom O'Carroll Two year sentence for PIE defendant
LAST week Tom O'Carroll, chairman the Paedophile Information Exchange prison for two years
He will almost certainly spend this time in solitary confinement because of the hostility from prisoners
guards against those accused of child-
Because there was little evidence that PIE
Lowdown
Of buccaneers and criminals
ONE of Britain's most eminent prisoners lost his appeal against sentence last week. But for Lord Kagan there are at least 325,000 consola tions for his tribulations
Kagan collected 10 jail and a fine of £375,000 for stealing money and fiddling the accounts of one of his companies. He had skimmed a known £700,000 from this bit of free enterprise, which like a good patriot he deposited in a Swiss Bank.
So as the days tick by at Rudgate open prison Kagan can while away the time by working out the compound interest on £325,000. But for the Wilsonenough Wilson-
appointed lord. He is cha
fing at the bi to get back
harness. His "briet' Gilbert Grey QC, knows
MaKe good capitalist
In an impassioned plea for a reduction of sentence Scots protest US role in El Salvador
SEVERAL hundred peo ple marched to the US consulate in Edinburgh last Saturday to protest against Reagan's aid to the military junta in E Salvador.
supporters were engag ed in anything criminal the Department of Pub. lic Prosecution charged the defendants
aret with conspiracy to corTUOU public morals for publishing its contact Halazill
This 300 year old lan which had virtually fall en into disuse, estab lished the power of judges to punish what-
they or their jury considered to be SUD versive of 'public morality'
The dredging up this law and the vicious sentence against O'Carroll represent a serious attack democratic rights. he told the court: 'Whatever may be said in
buccaneering sonality and his capricious and cavalier behaviour
, it 1s the ver stuff of which merchan: adventuring is made.
Grey and astute man. He knows that buccaneering, defined b! the dictionary as piracy, is an indispensable quality necata by every capilals
All Kagan's friends and competitors are engaged in buccaneering
Most of them don't get caugnt out because the employ smart lawyers
and «cullalls know the right people. buccaneering was an offence under capitalism the jails would be full
Even when those like Kagan are caught, they generally seem some understanding judge who is prepared not to t
too harsh A net profit o: £325,000 for 10 months is not bad odds
It is a pity Tom O'Ca:roll of PIE could not find a judge like that.
march has to be taker
into the labour movemen
where
unaware of what was go
the Centra
Amarian Solidarity .,
Edinburgh
paign, oreaniser
the march, is to hold :
series public meetings
in major Scottish towns
Further informatior.
Edinburgh Trades Cours
Picardy Place, Edinburgi Socialist Challenge 19 March 1981 Page 15
Page 16 scan of this page
TAKE ACTION
Shef field
'IT'S the first time I've read a newspaper that puts the working class point of view.' That's how
steward from Pride in Manchester Socialist Challenge last week.
Printing the truth naner has been costing £1300 to print each week. This week, we face a rise in typesetting and design costs of £200 per
CUT sales Die lu Because we take the side of working peopie, we don t carry expensive advertising There's no Tiny Rowlands or Rupert Murdoch to ball us out creature of any Fleet St magnate.
paper is subsidised sacrifices of thousands of dedicated sup-
We can't another f200. It is beyond our reach.
This is why with great regret we are increasing our price to 25p from our next
Our stayed months. We know the burden it places or ; ou. Fleet St haven't held back as we have. in the same period the Mirror has gone up three times, from 8p to 12p — 50 per cent; the Sun, four times from 7p to 12p
Socialist
Challenge
FALL OUT
бати THE LUTONIUM AC ELONDE Touch CND Sheffield marchers against the bomb MORE than 10,000 people marched against the missiles in Sheffield last Saturday. This huge turnout occurred despite teeming rain — an indication of the massive support which CND now enjoys.
If the movement can gather this many for a regional demonstration, how many more can be gathered for a national demonstration? See pages 7, 8 and 9 on the missiles. Watch next week's paper for more photos and full story of the Sheffield demonstration.
The price of your paper
Royal described rake in profits.
Our LUDLO
£900 each week
we are not the tame
— by ine system.
put this subsidy up tions and subscriptions.
put for 18 lies. They
70
London N
per cent; the Star, three times from op to 10p; the Sunday Express from 18p to 22p the News of the World and the Sunday Mirror from 14p to 20p; and the Sunday Times a staggering 22p to 35p.
wress doesn't But it's still squeezed by In the same months
Weekly from 10p to 20p, the Morning Star
20р, and Militani and Socialist Worker both from 15p to 20p.
We feel bitter that just when our sales are going up, bringing socialism to hundreds of new readers, an insane economic system forces us to put 5p on the weekly bill of the very people hit hardest by this
But we appeal to you not just to keep buying Socialist Challenge but to sell it, and if you can, to help us with your dona-
Every hundred papers we sell cuts our loss by £20 and reaches a hundred potential new socialists.
Their pences won't grease the paths of Fleet St barons or help them print their
will be working for your cause. They wii be working to get rid of the media millionaires and to build a new society in which freedom of speech 1s -for the first time - really free
By Tessa
van Gelderen
'WHAT we're looking
for is a change
policy - it's not the
job of the TUC
bring down govern-
ments.' Len Murray,
like the rest of the
trade leader-
ship, is full of verbal
appeals for the gov-
ernment change
course.
When it comes to ac-
tion such as the occupa.
tion of the VF jeans fac
tory in Greenock,
battle against
closure OT the Talbot
plant in Linwood, and
the civil servants TUC is
dispute, the
nowhere to be seen.
Building support and
activities around
Liverpool-London
march TO P jobs
begin to put the likes of
Murray on te spot
actions like that
Tower Hamlets council
workers who have
voted for one-day
strike to greet the mar-
chers.
Support
Despite the efforts
of the march organ-
isers, particularly
Party,
restrict the numbers on
London
leads
the way
LONDON supporters in four different boroughs each raised over £100 on the same weekend for Socialist Challenge's £100,000 Development Fund Drive.
Tower Hamlets, Hackney, and Camden sup-
the tillic honoured method of fund. ing tie revolution - they held jumble sales - while comrades in Brent organised a 'Russian Evening'
For a small sum over fifty people enjoyed a Russian meal, a nip of vodka ailli Eisenstein's home-screening classic film
'Battleship Potemkin.' good time was had by all and aaken on the road to buas another
ing us a building
Also in the post this week was the £5 honorarlum received by a supporter from his position
an bree honds writest le
another agree "Kick Ont slogan, namely The Tories' I would like however to add the follow-
- completely, absolutely and for ever
We agree 100 per cent,
keep the donations Culillie in Remember, anything considered: honoraria, legacies, used stamps, pounds, shillings
to the the
the the march and activities
planned, it is proposals can like those of the Tower
Hamlets workers that will begin to take noid of Support for the
march grows by the day. The public employees union, the transport union, building workers union UCATT, local government. and the print union SOGAT are all officially supporting the march.
the When the march
Masses throuch the main urban areas which MARCH
FEB
JAN
EAST LONDON
Our fund
drive
and pence: organise to house your paper Our thanks this week to: MB £20.00 S Sleath 5.00 Standing order 98.50 laryhill Coppe 5.00 collection Ed Mahood €10.00 Under Freds Bed 5.00 Des Stevens 5.00 Cardiff 75.00 Hackney supporters 150.00 Bath 16.00 Wolverhampton 1.00 Southampton 10.00 .o.b Hemel supporters 32.00 Canterbury 5.00 Total £456.65 Overall total £16,758.88
FOR JOBS
LIVERPOOL TO LONDON 1-31 MAY
ONTHEMARCH *
THE
TORIES
are affected by rising
unemployment the best
support for those on the
action.
Tories
The day the march
arrives in Southall,
West London on Friday
29 May, there should be
the bineest demonstra tion yet organised
against the Tories The
Communist Party has
called for a march
Southall on that day and
Ealing Trades Council is being asked to organise
SOUTH WALES SOUTH ENGLAND WEST MIDLANDS EAST MIDLANDS
Socialist
day.
which costs f6.50 in the Dynamic of his Thought.
and return Europe airmail and surface. Introductory offer -
Name Address
strike action.
Murray and his cohorts want an alliance with , the bosses and the Confederation British Industry order to 'restimulate This is their answer to getting , Answer The left leaders do see the need to mobilise the labour movement to the government. They wan the Torie removed the earliest oppor. tunity'. But they are not prepared to call for inaction to kick out the Tories.
So a demonstratior on a week day that is bigger than those Glasgow or Liverpool will start to show the Tories that the labour
business.
That's the answer that should be given to Murray and the TUC there is ar alternative to making the government change course kick them out!
So let's make Liverpool to London March, and especially 29 May. time the Tories won't forget
6000 15
15,000
SCOTLAND NATIONAL
NOTY WEC NORTH EAG CALTY VODE
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