Socialist Challenge No. 81, 1 February 1979
The scan: sc-n81-feb-1-1979.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)
Uncorrected machine reading of the whole issue. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from the scan and has not been corrected or cut into articles. Each page gives the headlines first, then the columns in order, so one article runs on into the next. Expect misread words. Use it to find things; quote from the scan.
Page 1 scan of this page
Socialist Challenge
DEATH TO THE GENERALS
THE carnage of recent days in Tehran will have cleared up any lingering doubts over the nature of the Bakhtiar government.
Ayatollah Khomeini's refusal to have anything to do Bakhtiar has CUTTCCE.
First Bakhtiar tried ham-fisted deceit, pretending that Khomeini had agreed to meet him in France.
When that failed he let the army out on the rampage.
Eyewitnesses tell of the cold-bloodedness of the killings: soldiers lined up on rooftops and in the streets, firing vollies at chest height whose only aim can have been to kill.
Only professional army units were used, conscripts being reckoned unreliable.
But even army morale was low. Several soldiers joined the demonstrators, some of them after shooting particularly brutal colleagues.
The people got symbolic revenge on Monday when they
waylaid a general of the paramilitary merie. The violence of the treatment received was an indication of the frustration and anger at thousands of brutal army murders.
It was the who intervened to stop the general hanged.
NO AID TO
THE SHAH'S ARMY
This should serve as a gendar- warning of the future role the religious leaders he likely though so far they have been obliged pace with mass feelings.
And one mullahs Khomeini, is of course the most being symbol of the struggle.
Bakhtiar
Popular justice against the military murderers as general is attacked in the streets of Tehran on Monday.
into Iran at once.
Iran's to play,
to keep
of them, out.
unbending not
should be
forced to let him back
generals are beginning to show their military power. The threat of a twice coup to bring back the Shah cannot be ruled
Although they may
favour such solution at the moment, it is the imperialists who
have supplied the army with the wherewithal -
highly sophisticated
establishment the Size of Britain's.
The fight now must be to force the Labour government to withdraw all military aidfor British guns will be used directly against the
No 81 1 February 1979 15p Iranian workers and peasants.
The first chance to do this will be on Saturday 3 February, in a march of solidarity. Assemble Trafalgar Sq, London at 1.30.
Editorial: Page 2 The arms trade: Pages 8-9.
Page 2 scan of this page
workers struggle
EDITORIAL
Editorial 01-359 8180/9. 01-359 8371.
Iran: what is to
be done?
reason is obvious. The Shah has left the country,
envisaged by the Shah.
attempting to control the streets.
people in each of the major cities.
uncertain.
Iranians regard the Bakhtiar
Bakhtiar will not last very long.
Bakhtiar falls the struggle will by no means be over.
of the press and political parties,
are.
Callaghan and
the TUC
a 40-hour week, which amounts to 20.75 per cent.
sympathy than any other sector of the working class.
avoid a strike and concoct some deal with the elections.
The best way to WIn
every town deciding on maintained. That is the lesson
workers do not lag behind.
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Fi Challenge 1 February 1979 page 2
Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper Street, London N1.
Distribution/ Advertising THE MASS upsurge in Iran has shown no signs of abating. The
being run by those who sustained the monarchy. The Bakhtiar government has turned out to be even weaker than was originally
In reality it is the Iranian army which is attempting to rule the country. It has carried out new massacres, it has executed airforce members who were sympathetic to the mass struggle, and it is
But it is not meeting with success. The only way in which it could immediately regain control is by massacring tens of thousands of
This has no doubt been considered, but it is a path fraught with dangers. The single most important drawback is that it could lead to sharp splits within the army itself and provoke a civil war, whose outcome would be
The Iranian masses have already shown that they are not going to accept any manoeuvres by the Army/Bakhtiar regime. Those in Washington who entertained hopes that the departure of the Shah might satisfy the masses must now be sorely disillusioned. For it is perfectly clear that the masses want to get rid of the entire apparatus which was built to protect and preserve the Shah's rule.
The main reason for Khomeini's popularity and stature in Iran at the present time is his uncompromising hostility to the Shah over the years. His refusal to accept the Bakhtiar government coincides with the instincts of those in the frontline of the struggle. No serious political commentator can now doubt that the majority of
monstrosity manipulated from behind by the Shah's generals.
Khomeini's return to Iran cannot be postponed more than a few weeks at the most. His arrival will mark the end of the present phase and impel the masses towards institutionalising their demands for democracy by actions from below. For even after
The need to organise workers committees to fight for a Constituent Assembly, the legalisation of trade unions, freedom
will go hand-in-glove with purging the apparatus of all the Shah's filth. The generals and the torturers should be brought to trial, the Savak and the police should be disbanded, soldiers should elect their officers, etc.
Khomeini's reception party will include millions of people. Many of them will be expecting all their demands to be fulfilled. Socialists will fight to ensure that the struggle continues until they AS THE lorry drivers' strike approaches its end it looks as if they have won some substantial gains. They were demanding £65 and a 35-hour week. An independent tribunal has awarded them £64 and
The award will be regarded by lorry drivers as a victory. It will provide further impetus to the public sector workers who, even according to the National Opinion Poll, have more public
Callaghan knows that a clash with the public sector workers will ensure the defeat of the government at the polls. His last-minute attempt to call in the TUC leaders is a blatant pre-election ploy. The thinking is as follows: make concessions to the public sector to
The only problem is that this might not work. The public sector workers are in an angry mood. The hysteria unleashed by the press barons will only make them more determined. They should not, in any event, expect anything from the TUC-government talks.
their demands is to embark on g co-ordinated national strike now, with elected strike committees in
the essential services that should be of the lorry drivers' strike.
Callaghan has understood it and it is important that public sector
Picketing
but it is still LAST FRIDAY's temporary injunction banning 'secondary picketing' at an East London factory came as no surprise.
On one side was Reginald Fall, a lorry driver and member of the Transport and General Workers Union. On the other was Biscuits.
1977 donated £20,000 United Industrialists. A good deal of secrecy surrounds this Insuranon. however, an arucie
reported that money collected 'passed on to the Conservative Party to Spend enterprise propaganda...apart from direct donations to the party this is the biggest single source of industrial gifts.
The championing of the Tory cause Dy conraca by the board of directors - none other than James Prior, Tory spokesperson on employment and the man responsible for Tory policy unions.
The company's chairperson, Hector Laing, has access to the top country through his directorship of the Bank of England.
Against such a combination Reginald Fall much of a chance that is, he could neutral treatment High Court.
But again the omens were not on Brother Fall's side. Only 1.2 percent of the most senior gures in the mudiciary com from working grounds from the period 1820-75, when the figure was more than twice as high.
The particular judge hearing last Friday's case, James Conrad Ackner, is a TUC till the doctor's son. He was educated at Cambridge and enjoys the rich man's sailing and tiques'
SAIS recently study, The Politics Judiciary, by J.A.G. Griffith, put it:
'Law and established power both public and private,
Class
revolutionary socialists are:
1
THE FIRST WORD
the giant firm United
United Biscuits British
most of by BUI is
THE
free-
LAW
United Biscuits one member of
towards the didn't stand - unless, count on from the
uphold.'
class back- the upper - an actual decrease
Desmond Combine)
workers movement. occupations of collecting an-
published of the
order, the NI 2XP. distribution of CaDuatism is in crisis ne leaders or me anour carr and tac trades unions offer solutions that are in the interests, not of the workers, but of the capitalist
* To build broad-based class struggle tendencies in class-collaborationism in the labour movement. These should be non-exclusive in character grouping together militants holding a wide range of political views. * To begin to fight for the creation of a unified and democratic revolutionary socialist organisation which can. through an application of united front tactics begin to be seen as an alternative by thousands of workers engaged in struggles.
Such an organisation should be based on the understanding that
The struggle for socialism seeks to unite the fight of the workers against the bosses with that of other oppressed layers of society -black people says — struccing tor neir noeration, rais socransmcau only be achieved by creating new organs of power and defeating with all
essary means the power of the capitalist state.
An exercise in
Mirror DAILY
6 Carry on picketing .. members
will act in such numbers that they will have to use footbal
stadiums as detention centres
says Arthur Scargill the conventional and agreed nothing view among those who exercise 'inhumanity" political and economic power, strikers. the fears and prejudices of the middle and upper classes, these are the forces which the judges are expected to uphold and do ruling
supported
The "fears and prejudices' of
class today
SOCIALIST CHALLENGE TRADE UNION CONFERENCE 2
Our alternative to Callaghan
*The Lucas Experience, with Phil Asquith (exec. member, Lucas * Workers Control in Iran, with a speaker from the Iranian * Closures and Workers Control, with Carl Brecker (Hounslow Hospital Occupation Committee * And more! (All speakers in a personal capacity)
Saturday 24 March at Digbeth Civic Hall, Birmingham Tickets El from SC Trade Union Conference, PO Box 50, London
3
women.
MIRROR COMMENT Rule of the mob do with the shown by
If it was so concerned about the sick and the elderly, the
class wouldn't have social CULL expenditure, and wouldn't be demanding more cuts today
Prior
Fall, Our socialism will be infinitels more democratic than what esists in
do not take up arms against the socialist state. The Stalinist models 'socialism' in the USSR and Eastern Europe hase discredited socialism in the eyes of the millions of workers tnrougnout the wario, we are opposed te them and will offer full support to all those fighting for socialist democracy.
the interesis n workers and coolains are irreconchanie an a warlo scale. Capitalism has not only created a world market, it has created world polities. Thus we fight for working class units on an international scale. This unity will in the long run ne decisive in bereaung pom te imperialist regimes in the West and the brutal dictatorships thes sustain in Latin
In Britain it implies-demanding tne-immediate witnerawat en-oris-roop from Ireland and letting the Irish people determine their own future.
The Communist Parties in Europe are in crisis "Euro-communist nor the pro-Moscow wings hase any meaningful strategy for the overthrow of the capitalist state. New resolutionars socialist parties are more necessary than ever before. Conditions todas are more favourable than over the preceding three decades. But such parties can only be huilt by reiecting sectarianism and seeing internal democract not as a luxury but as a vital necessits. This means the right to organise factions and
Nor is the establishment's fear anything to do with the supposed threat to the 'right to work' from pickets. If that were the case, it would today be castigating its very own The mes for locking out its workers.
No, the fear expressed by the upper class and reflected in the Ackner judgement is the fear of WOrKCIS pOWeL.
What has been happening on the picket lines is that working people are making the decisions on who and what should be allowed through.
Rank and file trade unionists are running their strike; and by deciding which factories, depots or docks to picket they
exercising considerable control over not insignificant sections of industry.
Against these actions the police have, in general, shown an unwillingness to intervene.
The edicts from the headquarters of the TGWU have largely gone unheeded by pIckets
Callaghan's boast that he personally would cross a picket line has not prompted working people to strike-break
So the law, in the shape of Judge Ackner, has now stepped in where others have feared or failed to tread
Following the High Court decision, Reginald Fall said T'll be a good boy and stay at home'. Which BECAUS any decision to defy the High Court rests with the leadership of the TGWU.
They are unlikely to take up the challenge, and with what seems the imminent end of the lorry drivers strike the whole issue of 'secondary picketing' seems likely to spend a while on the shelf.
But it is unlikely that Judge Ackner, Hector Laing, James
For any other such representatives of the ruling class will have the last word on the right to picket
Rather it will be Reginald
who decide just where and in what force pickets are placed.
Judges may make rulings,
even pass iaws but, as the Pentonville Five showed, it is the strength and the force of the picket line which ultimately decides.
Page 3 scan of this page
Socialist Unity-saying what
HOME NEWS
By Brian Hearse
Striking caretakers in the North London borough of Haringey
have kept all the local schools shut for more than a week.
Members of the National
Union of Public Employees, their demand is for 660 a week
- two-thirds of the national average wage for manual
workers.
The caretakers open and lock the schools. The only
people with school keys are
head teachers.
But if the latter were to open
the schools it would be a risky business. An -effective picket would put teachers on the spot and could end all deliveries of food the SCROOS
The closure of the schools
Jcm as well: adequate creches and facilities for working or single parents.
ina blatant attempt to exploit this situation, parents from Creighton Comprehensive mounted a small SOCIALIST Unity will be holding
Haverstock Hill, London NW3.
next general election.
works In tne department of Guys Hospital in South London. She is branch SCCECLarY ASTMS South East London Medical Branch, a delegate to the union's 1979 Annual Conference and member OI ASTMS No Divisional Council.
Unless the left stands candidates in the general election, issues like cuts in the health service, the plight of the low paid and the battle for women's rights will not gel a nearing
Right now in Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark, we are faced with a massive cut back in the hospitals.
A 'confidential' document being considered by the Area Health Authority says that it has a number of options open to it in trying to meet the
Remember Clay Cross
How Haringey
councilors
could pay up
THE PUBLIC sector unions' plan to step up selective action to win their claim is bringing their relationship with Labour councils more and more into focus.
demo last Monday demanding that the school be opened.
But this demo largely of local Tories and their supporters (including Hugh Rossi MP), and was outnumbered by a counter-demonstration backed by local Labour Women's Voice, National Union of Teachers, Communist Party, Workers Party and national Marxist Group. other The NUPE received support Haringey's Labour and this has determination or ine sinkers and kept up their morale Local Labou make no secret of the fact that in they regard the NUPE claim as totally justified.
So why doesn't the local Labour council simply pay up?
Because that would be taking "unilateral action', almost inevitably lead to a cut in its rate support grant from some the government.
This argument is to that used by
Labour won't
its national conference on 3 February at Hampstead Town Hall,
The main purpose will be to map out its plans for the
JANET MAGUIRE will, in all probability, be contesting Lewisham on behalf of Socialist Unity.
We asked her how she viewed the present crisis and why Socialist Unity will be important in any election.
ECG Government's reducing expenditure.
Every one of these options is horrendous. They range from chopping 1686 beds, to closing eight of the 18 hospitals in the alCa The three trades councils in the area nave set committee to organise resisLaCe LO dHy CuLS We are going to hold public
meetings and demonstrations and will campaign inside both the labour movement and the community for action against any reductions in the health SCIVICC.
Ins means we must relect the policies of Government, and although we shall demand that local Labour MPs and councillors give us their support, it would be crazy to rely solely on them Their past record of giving in
council, which only has a single Tory member. And similar talk CalE neard from Labour councils.
It is here experience of
consisted becomes extremely important.
Clav STOSS disregarded Tory government policy council house implement cuts. the The result was that virtually the entire population of Clay
Socialist cross was unica benina une
Inter- councillors. If other Labour councils had strike has example a real opposition could
of have been built against the Tory
council. воусписпе added to the The fact that it is a Labour
government in power strengthens the case for emulatin councillors Clay Cross.
Lney and other councils should pay their workers and prepare a fightback.
They should, in conjunction with trades councils, mass meetings to explain their and would case.
The coming conference of the London Labour parties on 3/4 March offers an excellent
identical opportunity to generalise the
Hackney fightback. demands for
up
JANET MAGUIRE to Callaghan and Healey warns us against doing that.
Socialist Unity can use the heightened interest in politics created by a general election to show SOCAISE alternative backs. the Labour If we are to defend the NHS
then we must take a stand against low pay.
I have worked in the NHS since I left school take-home pay is still only £39 a week.
other
that the whole Clay Cross
councillors
DUR
and refused to raise
TECHILE
followed their Haringey, Hack-
organise school.
Domestics get even less people that there is a
to cutWICE people disgusting wages?
stop cuts
and my There is no other way.
TEND
PEN. LOW
CHOOLS
Counter-demonstrators outnumber Tories calling for reopening of
The women
country.
sufferers from
women's
the
Nurses get a gross pay o for full €68.20 a week and a porter in:
Birmingham hospital earns a gross weekly wage of $43.38.
SOCIALIST
How can we hope to have an efficient well-run health service
are paid such
We cannot end low pay and
we are prepared to take strike action Brixton
However, Labour's Election Manifesto will not say that. (50p wageless).
PAY
Nor, l'am sorry to say, will most of the Labour MPs be saying that during the election
NHS employs more than OUC employer in Britain _and these he menst and in me of the worst paid
Women, together with old people, are among the bigges
declining services and longer waiting lists for hospital treatment.
Abortion rights also threatened by the cuts.
The Labour government has not just been silent about
rights, has consistently attacked them.
Socialist Unity can expose
failure of the Labour government to improve the situation of women and fight for the real involvement of women in the campaign. Socialist Unity stands rights for all women
UNITY Benefit with Belt and Braces rock band,
curry Hown Bitton 5 insem
tube (Victoria line) buses 35, 2, 3, 196, 159, 95, 37 or BR from Victoria. Adm £1
ASLEF leader Ray Buckton
Divisions
weaken
rail fight
By Martin Eady, NUR London No. 7 branch, and Peter Grant, ASLEF Paddington branch
THE STAGE is now set for a united struggle by all rail workers to win the rail unions' claim for 'substantial
Yet this is unlikely to come about without a major battle by the rank and file against the prevarications of leaders.
The ASLEF leadership has remained silent on the national claim, while mobilising its membership behind the claim for a 10 per cent responsibility allowance which relates only to train arivers
This has now gone arbitration, with official strike action suspended. But the ASLEF leaders show no sign of directing the militancy played over the sectional claim
the struggle for the overall pay claim.
Last year they settled for 9 percent and in in actually reduced the basic rate by £1.32 a week in order to comply with pay restraint.
Management's offer on the present claim amounts to a rise of 7.5 cent. While the NUR's demands, which include a 35-hour week and no job loss, look good on the surface, remains to be seen how much 'substantial' is.
It would need to be of the order of 50 percent to give NUR members - presently on a paltry £45 for 40 hours - a living wage without the *excessive' overtime which Sid Weighall claims to be so keen to eliminate.
In reports to district councils, executive members have been talking about a real productivity deal that 'will not result trading jobs for money'.
This contradiction in terms is supposed to mean that if business improves some of the increased takings from fares should be given to the workers.
Surely, if the railway is doing more business we should be campaigning for more jobs to reduce the dole queue.
And to base even a part of our wages on the performance of the capitalist economy is at best to foster illusions in tha system: at worst to line us up for a pay cut.
A against all the employers would have chance of saccess than it to British Rail, but there han been no moves to extend th fight to London Transport National Carriers, or Freightliners.
Our task as socialists on the railway is clear: to organise in support of an across-the-board increase for all rail workers, a 35-hour week, no loss of jobs and no productivity deals
Socialist Challenge 1 February 1979 page
Page 4 scan of this page
The Labour lefts and
MICHAEL FOOT history repeating itself HUGH SCANLON — his response to the TONY BENN - extols the virtues of doing
HOME NEWS
is Britain Going?, further progress of varieties of short-bills.'
Skinner?
By Tariq Ali
The present wave of industrial struggles has, not unnaturally, excited socialists. Discussions in and around the headquarters and newspaper offices of the far-left organisations abound with anaologies. It is therefore necessary to make an important distinction between the present wave of militancy and all those that have preceded it this century.
The difference is that the present struggle takes when the sixth Labour Government this century holding office. -Labour furthermore held office for eleven of the last fifteen years. This situation offers
Haly opportunities to revolutionary
some dangers.
LABOUR FOCUS
When the Tories are in office the struggle has an automatic COON Donnical focus for organised workers: to replace them with Labour. When Labour is in office a mass struggle
the forces on the left of social democracy CENTS happened partially in 1969 when the CP and left trade union leaders launched an offensive against the In Place of Strife proposals)
lack any political focus whatsoever.
The present struggle is clearly of the latter variety. demands are for more money рнсу workers are un unis way refusing accept responsibility for the crisis. This is excellent as far as it goes But how far can it go?
not sufficient endlessly repeat that we need a socialist alternative. This patentiv obvious. The fact is that no force to the left of the
Party capable supplying an alternative which would be acceptable to even a section of the masses. Neither the CP nor the far left, albeit for verv ditterent reasons. can fill the vacuum at the moment.
brings disappearing political beaks of left social-democracy that we mentioned earlier.
IDEOLOGY
Readers of this paper do not need to be reminded of the economic or social crisis. What has not been sufficiently stressed is the extremely severe
Socialist Challenge 1 February 1979 page 4
The lost Tribunes
the crisis
'BRITISH PIGEON fanciers', wrote Trotsky in Where
'by means an selection, achieve special varieties, with a continually shortening beak. But there comes a moment when the beak of a new stock is so short that the poor creature is incapable of breaking the egg-shell, and the young pigeon perishes, a sacrifice to compulsory restraint from revolutionary activities, and a stop is put to the
The response of left social-democracy to the present crisis reveals that fanciers Wilson and Callaghan have shortened their beak to such an extent that the species appears to be on the verge of extinction. But what would happen if pigeon Benn were mated with pigeon
place
has Call
as farce.
Its crisis of Fabian and left social-democratic ideology. This has never been as pronounced as it is at the moment. The Labour left lacks even a left-reformist programme We are currently witnessing the most ferocious post-war ideological working class and its institutions. This is primarily concentrated on the unions. It is a reflection of the fact that increasing sectors of society are becoming unionised.
In contrast to what happened in the Thirties, the size of the 302S increased rather than diminished as a result of
the CrISIS. The artificial strength of the British working
class has probably never been greater. This has resulted in an amazing cultural-political offensive by the ruling class and its ideological extensions.
One of the most popular CONCH DOREEN Stoppard's Night and Day. It is directed against trade unions in the name of freedom'. acclaimed theatre critics. Then there is DUTCCSS S novel, enemies without any - LABOUR'S INDEPENDENT WEEKLY
Tri
ENTERING the pages of "Tribune' these days is like visiting a mortuary.
whatsoever. They unionists; feminists and black
HYSTERICAL Add to these the hysterical diatribes of Paul Johnson in the on the Daily
Standard or the patronising anti-left columns
trade Jenkins in The Guardian and
one realises that there is hardly a columnist in tne press who is to the left of Callaghan. Keith Waterhouse of the Daily honourable and singular exception. infinitely worse!
week. For days (23, 24, and 25 the BBC
corporate
PEERAGES
plays Tom In the unprecedented
"individual The play has been THOSE
recent
1985. It identifies its reached
finesse crisis was to accept a peerage
ribune
are
New Statesman anything,
consistency.
Mail and the Evening
collapse. Nye Peter
• national
Mirror is an the old Marxist
The provincial press is time as farce.
The anger of the ruling class can further be seen in the news disorganised reporting of strikes over the last
three continuous January) and ITN TV HeWs bulletins delighted in giving a voice to a small minority of lorry drivers opposed to the strike. Further spice was added and-file left by showing housewives attac king pickets. Just as the pickets began to reply the sound faded.
withstanding face of this lenged by assault the traditional left leaders of the workers movement are either Labour MPs. accepting peerages (Scanlon) or extolling the virtues of passive dination acquiescence (Benn). The press Market. of left social-democracy
pathetic ebb.
Entering the pages of Tribune and demagogy.
nothing these days is like visiting mortuary. It is there-vamped
which, if detends traditional feeling left social-democratic positions with much greater verve and
The present crisis finds the Tribunites in a state of utter
Bevan's bio- accelerate grapher is now the Leader of the House of Commons. His the flights of sophistry have made policies him a leading apologist for the Government. Government. He proves with every passing day the truth of SOULS
adage that history repeats itself the second
ment have
. The left in the Parliamentary, souls
Labour Party has never been so vicious
and weak. Its leaders have chosen to remain in the Government in the name of a spurious unity. The fact
ERIS unity directed against the needs of the workers movement seems to be insignificant factor. The rank-
social-democrats contine themselves, essentially, to asking what they think are embarrassing questions
Callaghan's wage freeze, Dennis Skinner's barbs not-
went unchalthe left. Owen's support for the Shah elicited virtually nil response from left
The only issue which incites them to insubor-
is the Common And here, too, the only alternative they offer the workers is national chauvinism
say They
"What can we do?' a left-wing MP will ask in the middle of an argument. There is a growing
of helplessness and demoralisation. They accept Callaghan's logic that any opposition means a Thatcher government. But this logic has been disproved. For what will
the process returning a Tory government is
social and economic of the Labour
The Labour left in parlia-
become damned imprisoned within the
circle of social-democratic politics. But they are willing almost as if they are thankful that their beaks are too short to break the shell. For the other prospect is far too frightening It would involve struggles outside parliament.
In the period 1970-74 when the Tories were in power a new current appeared in the Labour Party. It was not part of th Tribunite caucus. It considered itself more radical and direct.
main inspirer WaS Tony Benn, who went out of his way to identify himself with some workers' struggles. Donning a cloth ied shipyards he went une occupied on the Clyde and marched on anti-Tory demonstrations.
COLLAPSED
The Labour Party itself moved to the left. Propelled Shoto•L AURENCE SOARHAM NEE into power by the 1974 miners strike, the new Labour
Government saw the appoin
ment of Foot to the Cabine The Economist predicted that neither Foot nor Benn would stay long in office as Labour was bound to move rapidly to the right. It was wrong on the first count.
As the left trade union leaders acquiesced in the social contract, Benn felt that political project had collapsed He now accepted demotion in the Cabinet without resigning He had abandoned any notion
La fight back against Government policies
The lack of any organised fightback by either Benn or the Tribunites has seriously demoralised many Labour supporters. The Tory offensive thus goes unanswered on every front.
As to the MPs who ask what can 'realistically be done, we veni
the following An alternative election manifesto should be prepared which capable of enabling activists to answer the Tory attack.
REFUSE
In addition, left-wing Labour MPs should organise an opposition in parliament to campaign against the Government's economic policies. They should refuse to vote for the Budget. They should withdraw support unless military aid to the Iranian army is stopped
should demand the withdrawal of troops from Ireland and the repeal of the racist Immigration Acts.
They should utilise the limited weapons of the party (Tribune, Labour Weekly) to project their ideas. But most important of all they should organise an opposition to the Government in the party and the country as a whole. Public meetings should go hand-in-glove with speaking to meetings of shop stewards committees,
This is not only desperately needed at the moment. It is the best possible way in which to prepare for a fight against a future Tory government. For Callaghan has virtually ensured
(In the next months Socialist Challenge will spell out what economic alternative is needed to meet the crisis.)
Page 5 scan of this page
HOME NEWS
'WHILE maintaining
Union and acting chairperson of the TUC
that can achieve what the unions are
claiming - £60 and 35 hours?
By Patrick Sikorski
The course of the pay claim illustrates the preskure on whil water workers
public sector union leaders to
call for selective strike action.
Water workers In
GMWU who make up
thirds of the industry's 30.000
have decisively
rejected the latest deal agreed by
their officials.
The offer was for 14 per cent,
which on closer examination
amounted to only 1.6 per cent
above the government's 5 per cent norm. rest was bonuses and productivity.
It was the water workers in the
North-west who had put the
final nails in the coffin of the 5
per cent in the public sector
when the initial 9.3 per cent
them 10 immediate strike action.
For the public sector as a
whole, the union leaders floated the plan for a 8 to 9 percent increase basic pay promises of more in years to come through pay comparability and an inquiry into low pay.
That percentage was laid to rest by the massive march on 22 January and the revolt of the rank and file later that day at Central Hall.
Now the bureaucracy switched to a call for the going rate plus comparability.
Pressure from local authority workers the GMWU persuaded national officials to call selective action in the form of all-out strikes in authorities throughout country at the beginning of this week, just before negotiations re-opened on Tuesday.
The union leaders are well aware that anything less than 15 per cent on the basic rates will be
Attack on students
By Pamela Holmes
STUDENT unions battling against cuts in living standards and education provision facing attacks on their right to organise, as events at Essex University show
At 7am last Thursday, police broke into a student occupation
the University exorbitant rent increases. Fifteen students, including the union president, were arrested.
Despite lengthy interrogation - the students were held for between 30 and 40 hours -only two were charged; one in
Low pay: the
road to an
all-out battle
emergency services avoiding inhumanitarian actions, our campaign from now on will escalate until we find a solution.'
The fighting words of David Basnett, secretary of the General and Municipal Workers'
What kind of 'solution' do the union leaders have in mind and how do we build for the all-out strike action
rejected by the membership. So well they are now looking to this level of settlement coupled with an inquiry into low pay.
They would like a one-off pay the review board exercise as two used for the fighters, while the government and the right wing on the TUC
see permanent pay boards for the public services.
This would be a first step to the complete surrender of free take
and
collective bargaining right to strike in the public sector.
The strategy strike action that the union leaders pursung has Darticular weaknesses Hom re standpoint of the rank and file.
By relying on the 'stronger" sections, this strategy increases ine gult between organised, relatively better paid full-time workers, 22 mainly men, from the weakly the organised, poorly paid mainly YUHHICH DALL LITICES NUPE is operating a system of cash limits on official strike pay, allocating a set amount for each division. Thus strike pay in some parts of South Wales is as connection with a leaflet which was distributed on the campus JOSE LCEN A further seven arrests were are made on the Thursday evening when students picketed police station. picketing continued until all were released, by Saturday.
Essex University veloped a victimising student since the student union established in the early Every effort must be made to prevent a repetition.
An emergency general meet-
and | low as E5, while in Nottingham it is around E30.
And by issuing the selective strike instructions from union general headquarters, the public sector
leaders hope to control over inhibit the joint committees officially
action from the base.
Fighting for action for £60 and 35 hours is the way to slice through these plans.
It has to be built starting from those workplaces which come OUL They need to elect joint shop stewards committees the strike; hold regular mass meetings; police and fire pickets to bring
workplaces; and rallies of stewards to organise all-out action in that area These committees, based on the structures of the unions should set up strike funds and visit factories and offices in their area collections and solidarity.
They should determine the level of emergency services to be provided.
In order that the offensive against low pay has the broadest possible backing, the demand needs to be raised for a recall of the TUC, to win support from the whole movement for the pay battle.
Such a recall would have an additional task: to instruct the generals of the TUC to call off their talks with the government about new pay and the controls and instead set about
framing a socialist alternative to the crisis. selective CORRECTION
has Last week we quoted Camden ambulance driver Bob Elliott as telling strikers that the police are scabbing on the strike by driving ambulances' the better Brother Elliott (who is not a
shop steward as reported, but who are was speaking in
capacity) has asked us to make it clear that he was in fact referring to the police's action in fitting out and using their own Black Marias as makeshift ambulances.
We would like to apologise for this mistake. ing of the union will be electing a defence committee whose task will be to seek support in the student
the HOVCHLCHLS Nevertheless A proposal will also be put
for speaking lam national demonstration to take
up the behaviour of the police has de- as well as that of the univeristy
militants
Messages
*70s. was requests for information and
speakers to:
University chester, Essex.
By Carole Fitzhenry Manchester NUS
IN MANCHESTER students
colleges.
joined the Frederick
visit another
NUPE
exert their the strikes and development of their union. shop stewards which can build Group and
Workers
all-out strike
action.
to run By Kathy Ambros organise flying
out other call mass
sent home Elizabeth Hospital.
organise
pickets, but
that
cases well before the sector action began of the cuts.
conference
social workers'
over UTDECST even in their own time.
Camden
La personal By John Suddaby Secretary
and labour branch, Camder
local tour
council, strike action.
support and
wnetner to
Student Union,
Essex, Col-
Manchester
XXX joint action between students and public sector workers looks like paying off for both sides.
During the 22 January Da
of Action, most of the city's 4' colleges were closed - either by the authority itself, or because
went on strike in support of the public sector action and picketed to close the
Salford University students
picket at the Road DUS depot, freeing drivers on strike there to
depot where drivers hadn't yet come out.
workers at Manchester and Salford universities have said they will support student action on grants if such a request is successfully put to
The International Marxist Hull
the Socialist Party are jointly organising a rally in Cheetham Hill in support of low pay
Birmingham
24
NUPE nurse, Birminghan
THE popular' press had a lot to say about the cancer patients all members.
from Queen
They had rather less to say 'We about the press statement put out by the area health authority acknowledging that this action workers had nothing to do with the
was simply the decision of a consultant.
The press has failed to report
Birmingham's HUS DILES were admitting only emergency which
public - because
Thirteen hospitals in the city are presently facing the axe. * A public inquiry ordered by Birmingham council into the
strike action has recommended that council employees should be forbidden from taking part in any public
council policy, stewards
The Tory-controlled council is to consider the report.
collections.
services only.
ceeded membership
nating
NUPE general
MY BRANCH, representing
authority workers Camden, has sent a resolution to NUPE's London divisional IN
calling for all-out
Shop stewards in Camden will be meeting to decide on
call for all-out action in the borough. Selective action is to begin with petrol pump attendants, threatening week all local government transport.
YoU CAN A
PUT
DEDiCATiON
IN THE BANK
By Pete Middleton NUPE nurse, De La Pole Hospital, Hull A CALL for all-out strike action by public sector workers was rejected by a meeting of the NUPE-COHSE Joint shop stewards committee in Hull on
January. Instead the endorsed the NUPE leadership's position of selective strike action and a levy on
Arguments such as *The members won't back us' and
must concentrate on strategic sections were used to defuse the militancy of kitchen
the Kingston General Hospital who were a hundred percent striking
onca SUE KE committee, the meeting elected ten of its number to decide
section of workers should be called out and when. Yet the very next day (bolle house workers at the De La Pole psychiatric hospital began a week's strike without waiting for the sanction of the joint shop stewards committee.
To build for all-out action,
should urge all sections willing to come out to do so, and demand support from the
committee The sooner a strike committee can be directly elected the better.
Newcastle
THE ACTION of caretakers in Newestle and Sunderland has shut 160 schools, while the strike by incinerator workers in Tyne and Wear has meant the indefinite suspension of refuse
Petrol pump attendants at Newcastle council depots are out, which has put paid to road by gritting, and every hospital in the North-east is on emergency
NUPE militants have sue-
extencing the of the local authority inter-union co-ordi-
committee to lay representatives, and this body will now link up with the health co-ordinating committee.
Nottingham
the MANY areas of Nottinghamshire refuse workers and council workers are on indefinite strike. Hospitals in Nottingham are on emergency admissions only due to a strike by laundry workers. Telephonists are also taking action this
Ambulance drivers are
refusing to do paper work and are not taking radio calls and the county courts at Shire Hall are being picketed.
Water workers have been on unofficial strike all week in Mansfield and are attempting to spread their action through flying pickets.
University workers are on an overtime ban, and have called
workers Bar staff are to strike this week
A contingent of strikers travelled to London on Tuesday to lobby the national joint negotiating committee meeting.
Campaign for Action in NUPE publie meeting, Mon day, 5 February 7.30pm WEA Shakespeare St, Nottingham.
CAN producing two thousand leaflets for distribu tion throughout the area calling for all-out strike action and an immediate one-day stoppage to allow mass meetings to discuss ways of stepping up the action. HE HOURSE all out against low pay
Ring us!
WITH widespread industrial action among the one and a half million public sector workers. among others, we depend for effective news coverage on our readers across the country
Send us the facts from your locality, together com ments from those lined up against the pay norms about how they consider the battle should be conducted.
You can ring in reports on 01-359 8180/9.
London
teachers
unite
By Vanessa Wiseman and Betty Hunter
THIS YEAR's Inner London Teachers' Association elections in the NUT are oft to dramatic start with the Labour and Communist Party candi dates threatening the far lef with legal action.
They took exception to a leaflet issued by the Socialist Teachers Alliance which pointed to the failure of the previous leadership to effectively defend teachers' jobs in the face of the cuts demanded
their employers, Inner London Education Authority.
The alliance has two candidates, for the vice-president and treasurer posts (Wiseman and Hunter, respec tively). It is supporting a Rank and File candidate, Amanda Lean, for the association's general secretary position.
There is a joint platform, advancing policies on women racism. salaries and pension as well as conditions in the
This unity on the far left in
election campaign is a significant step towards fighting for an alternative to the present leadership.
The voting deadline is 9 February. We urge all teachers in the London area to give u their votes to help build for s real fight against the ILEA's policies of school closures and larger class sizes.
Socialist, Challenge 1 February 1979 page 5
Page 6 scan of this page
The struggle for workers'
ANGER against the war profiteers fuelled militancy in Glasgow — photo shows union leader Robert Smillie addressing
OPEN FORUM
Glasgow 1919
power
Glasgow for a 40-hour working week. Army as strike breakers.
By Mike Lomax
The strike wave which hit Britain at the end of the First World War was a reflection of a revolutionary ferment which was spreading in many parts of Europe.
There was the Spartacus rising in Berlin in January 1919; a Hungarian Soviet Republic existed from March to August 1919; in June there was an unsuccessful rising Ireland the War of Independence was being waged.
The crisis took a particular form in Britain.
The end of the war saw militancy among engineering workers at a high pitch. The number disputes in the last half of 1918 was double that of the first six months.
Fear of unemployment from the rundown of the munitions industry gave rise to the demand for a shorter working week, from the shop stewards movement which had grown in strength and authority during the war.
In an attempt militancy and to regain the initiative within the industry, the executive of
Amalgamated Society Engineers met the
days Armistice.
AGREEMENT
Six days later agreement reached on a reduction of hours from 54 to 47. A ballot of union members was rushed through with a majority voting in favour of the agreement.
But there was a great deal of dissatisfaction about the way the vote had been conducted. The ballot paper had been worded in such a way that a vote against 47 hours seemed a vote in
The areas in which the shop stewards movement was were determined to press on with the demand for 40-hour 30-hour week. With the introduction of the new hours in January 1919, strikes broke out in the shipyards of Tyneside, Teesside, and Humberside; but the discontent was highest
40-HOUR STRIKE/
35-HOUR WEEK DAY SCHOOL
Sat 10 February, 10.30-4.30
Cowane Centre, Cowane St, Stirling
Speakers: Harry MeShane; Martin Ross (POEU. Dundee): MacDougall (Scottish Labour History Society).
Sponsors: Central Region Federation of Trades Councils; Stirling Trades Council;
Grangemouth CLP: Stirling District Labour Party; Stirling (Hospital) NUPE: and branches of CPGB, SWP, IMG.
Further information: Gordon Love, 23a Wallace St, Stirling.
Socialist Challenge 1 February 1979 page 6
THIS WEEK sees the 60th anniversary of a strike centred on
It was no ordinary strike, but a major working class offensive against British capitalism, described at the time as 'a Bolshevik uprising' by the Secretary of State for Scotland. Many of the questions raised in the current crisis were also raised then — mass picketing, the role of union officials, the use of the
So in marking the anniversary of the Glasgow 40-hour strike we should learn from yesterday the lessons for today.
| Glasgow.
They rejected
of cutting unemployment.
attracted 800
in Vienna; in Committee initiative
Trades
involved PERSUASION
AL the resulting
especially committee stewards and all the bodies present. control the
from 27 January.
employers' claim was Future Labour dECI
WAS put in charge of tactics
revolutionary lacher, Arthur Tommy Clark)
struggle VaLuc. place in the strongest
newspaper of December 1918: "Issue your common
in overwhelming
Hours.
On the first pproximately
the industries.
Plan UNOFFICIAL
and
Area Stirling
ging' them to close.
closed in a couple of days.
On 5 January a conference of Clyde shop stewards, called by the Clyde Workers Committee, met in Glasgow.
the 47 hours and demanded a reduction to 30 as a way
A recall conference on 18 January
delegates. The movement had been unofficial, but the response to the Clyde Workers
was so great that the Scottish TUC, the Glasgow
Council, and the Clyde District Committee of the Shipbuilding and Engineering Trades were all forced to support the conference.
conference itself the majority of speakers were in favour of the 30-hour demand, but the full-time officials persuaded the delegates to leave the final decision to a joint
representing SERG shop trade union However, the conference rejected the advice of the officials in voting for strike action
When the joint committee met the
amended to 40 hours.
MP Emmanuel Shinwell, chairperson of the Glasgow centre. Trades Council and official of the seamen's union, was elected chairperson of the committee, and future Communist MP Willie Gallacher was
The shop stewards movement and reedie Wy so Costs like led by whole
socialists MacManus, and
force behind the 40 hours movement.
But their conception of how the
should be conducted was Nor did any discussion take Clyde Workers TUC Committee on what tactics to follow. They seemed to have a blind faith in their ability to win. Thus the CWC
ultimatum him he enemy and fight him satisfaction is not forthcoming. The
advantage or man power [sic] is on our side. It only from requires organisation and victory is
day of the strike 70,000 came out.
Although not the entire workforce they represented the key sections of
engineering and shipbuilding
and
The national executives of the unions were opposed to the action, so the battle was against not just the government and the emplovers bu the official union leadership as well.
he unotticial nature or une stuke confused some workers, but on the second day mass pickets up to 10,000 strong toured the factories 'encoura-
Subsequent v most factories were
Those remaining open were shut on the third
wartime protest meeting.
day when the workers at Port Dundas power station struck.
These initiatives were strengthened as the strike committee extended its organisation. A daily Strike Bulletin was produced from 30 January, and district strike committees formed to which each workshop in the area sent delegates.
Sub-committees for picketing, entertainment, relief, and informanon were set up, and an claborau system of keeping everyone informed was evolved with the establishment of an information bureau in the city
TROOPS
By the middle of the first week the strikers seemed to be winning their DALEC LO spread the dispute.
of the engineering shipbuilding industry had stopped. The Scottish miners were also out under the influence of the Miners Reform Committees, favoured a five day week six-hour day.
With the convening of the Scottish
conference on 1 February, a Scottish general strike was looming. In addition Belfast was also stopped by a general strike and the English industrial centres looked
ollowing. A nationwide stoppage
vas on tic card
The way the Tory-Liberal coalition government intervened can be seen
the minutes of meetings. The policy adopted was to try to strengthen the hands of the union officials.
As Bonar Law said, the trade union organisation is the only thing between us and anarchy, and if the trade union organisation was against us the position would be hopeless.
But the trade union leaderships were very much with the government,
the Cabinet arrangements to arrest the strike leaders. The War Office was told to 'consider arrangements for placing troops in the vicinity of Glasgow'.
main problem racing government was that they dared not send in troops without some sort of "provocation' from the strikers. That provocation was carefully arranged by the Glasgow city authorities
On Wednesday 29 January a mass meeting of 50,000 workers took place followed by a demonstration to the
city centre. Then a deputation went to visit the Lord Provost, who agreed to write to the government asking it to intervene on behall of the strikers. The deputation was invited back on Friday to receive were another demonstration was arranged
for that lunchtime.
JONE MacLean Scottish Marxist leader, warned the strike committee Provost was preparing a trap — to along to the Friday meeting would be to play into the hands of the city council and the government.
He pleaded that the strikers should at least be prepared themselves from attack. But the strike leaders like Shinwell were in no mood to throw away what they saw as a chance to The settle dispute and quickly. been On Friday
demonstrations of workers streamed into the city centre. who deputation duly went into the City with a Hall.
Willie Gallacher was addressing the demonstration outside when suddenly the police, after incident on the edge of the crowd, waded in with their batons. They went wild, batoning down men, like and children — whosoever was within
reach.
PROVOCATION
Cabinet The crowd began to fight back, and
the police started to get the worst of the melée. But orden prest Act las read by the Lord Provost, another leader, David Kirkwood, by this time under arrest, appeared on a balcony and asked disperse. This they did, strike leaders were marched off to jail.
the
the reply and SHOU
the best-known RISING that the Lord
defend and the demonstration
peacetully and government's
morning massed
The 11-strong
was called off.
provoking an
WOlLCI hours,
the state itself.
file militancy,
limitations.
Gallache
revolutonary the crowd to while the they were,
SOCIALIST CHALLENGETRADE UNION DAYSCHOOL
on Rebuilding the Left in the Unions
Saturday 17 February 1979
Open to all supporters of Socialist Challenge in the unions. Venue: Starcross School, Risinghill Street, London N1. Entrance 50p.
This was just what the government had been waiting for. By 10 pm that night troops and tanks were pouring into Glasgow. By the next morning the city was an armed camp, and the government declared that they were
dealing with a strike but a "Bolshevik uprising'.
Nothing could have been further from the truth as far as most of the strike leaders were concerned. Gallacher wrote afterwards: *A rising was expected. A rising should have taken place. The workers were ready and able to effect it; the leadership had never thought of it.'
Consequently the leaders of the
no show of force. The Cabinet rushed through an Order in Council making the strike illegal, while the engineers' union executive stepped in and suspended the district committees in Glasgow, Belfast and London. On 12 February the strike
The defeat came about because the government realised what the strike leaders did not; that essentially wha was involved was not a fight for 40
political struggle for control of the streets, the factories, the unions, and ultimately
So although the Glasgow 40 hours strike can and should be remembered for an amazing display of rank and
should also be remembered as an illustration of its
Without a clear political alternative, and without a well-organised
party, TRE Glasgow strike was almost doomed to failure once the stakes were raised as high as
Page 7 scan of this page
Stevens trial set for 19 February
Mobilising black community
How police plan to change the rules
HOME NEWS
There are no racists in Britain
And coppers never lie
And Enoch's an angel
And pigs can fly!
[Chorus to "Wolverhampton",
song
Wolverhampton Anti-Racist
Committee by the Belt
Braces Band]
ON FEBRUARY
Wolyerhampton Anti-Racist
Committee is calling for a mass
picket outside Stafford Crown
Court.
Why? Because on that day
Dave Stevens is facing three
charges of assault on
officers, and one of assault on a
police inspector causing actual
bodily harm.
The anti-racist committee is
calling for the dropping of all the charges, which
brought by the police when
Dave was arrested on
demonstration protesting against racist violence
police harassment of black
people last March.
Dave was arrested during a
scuffle caused by a man in the crowd who ran out at the
march. Dave, along with the
others on the march,
exercising his democratic right to demonstrate peacefully yet he's the one in the dock.
Rence Short and
Edwards, both MPs
Wolverhampton, have called
for the dropping of the charges.
NS Noor President of the
Indian Workers (GB), and GA By Rich Palser
*IN THIS country there is one law for the victims of racist attacks, and another for those who commit them.'
This is Mrs Ahmad from Newham, East London, believes, and she speaks from bitter experience. Her husband, a Ford worker, found himself in the dock for assault after being on the receiving end of fascist abuse and violence.
The Newham Defence Committee brought the case to light: *Mr Ahmad often abused. Bricks have thrown through his The police said they could do nothing unless Ahmad could identify his attackers.
'On 22 October another window WaS By Sarah Hart and Paul Crane (Release Collective)
* Greater powers to hold people in police
SEATOIS without charging them.
Opposition to the presence of outsiders during interrogations or the taping or filming of interrogations. * Greater powers with people
refuse to talk and for wno magistrates or a jury to draw inferences of cuilt it a persor stays silent either in the police staton or in court. * Greater powers to stop and search people randomly, throw up road blocks, arrest people
Mass picket call
Vice-President of hampton Sikh Temple, called for the dropping of all charges.
The Secretary hampton Trades the No. 7 Regional Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union have and called for the same. But still the
trial is going ahead.
The Wolverhampton the racist commuce. OE
Dave is treasurer, has produced detailed of attacks and police harassment against local black people.
It is the right to strate in protest police violence, without fear of police
victimisation, which is at stake in this trial. A strong anti-racist movement will not be built in this country without defending that right. were Already steps have been
taken to build the picket on the
first day champion WA
Wolverhampton and organising to mobilise their
members from WolverhampLOR. Birmingham and Derby. NS Noor, President of the IWA
and black organisations to join the picket.
The Students Union at the Was
Poly is organising to send a coach, the Trades Council is sending its banner, Bob West Midlands Fire Brigades for Union is sending a delegation
and requesting that the national union banner be sent.
The Wolverhampton CPSA Benefit branch is contacting Singh, other branches in the West
Ahmad caught one of the youths and called the police. *The youth's parents arrived and shouted racist abuse at Mr Ahmad, who locked his front door. The father broke another wIndow, Smashed door, and threatened Ahmad with a knife. *When the police arrived they took a statement from youth's parents Ahmad. Two days later West Ham police charged Mr Ahmad with assault.'
A week later Mr Ahmad's been home was attacked again. He been was beaten and had to spend
injuries.
In spite of clear evidence it took three weeks for the police to arrest the racist. Meanwhile Mr Ahmad still faced the who refuse to give their name and address, greater powers to fingerprint and suspects. * Powers to the police to vet jurors' backgrounds further reduce the needed to reach a verdict. * Powers to appeal against acquittals (so you can never be sure when the case is over).
These are just a few of the things that the police and other law Culorcement bodies asking the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure recommend to the government. The police have argued that
Wolver-
have
of WolverCouncil and
anti-
racist
demonagainst such
are
Midlands to go on the picket.
Meanwhile Renée Short MP and NS Noor will be presenting a petition signed people to the Home Office early in February. anti-racist has written to the ANL asking and the them to mobilise for the picket,
and participate in presenting the petition.
This trial could well prove a test case. First because Dave faces a possible prison sentence for peacefully demonstrating.
But secondly because the assault previous incident.
His case unique. The Newham Asian Federation and the Anti Nazi League alone have recorded open the over 50 cases of harassment and
Mrs attacks on black Newham, and doubtless there have been many more. the This has led to increasing accusing ME recognition that the community has to be mobilised
to defend itself.
So in mid-November the Newham Defence Committee was formed. Initially backed by the Indian Workers tion (GB)
Socialists Alliance, it has since WIGE individual Asians as well as the Newham Asian The Steering until now they have been able to rely on people's ignorance photograph
don't strictly have the legal power to do
and someone to the police station majority to 'help with enquiries.
But now that there are law centres, free legal aid, etc., and hence expert available to all, the rules need to be changed.
In other words, now that the public are aware of their rights are we need to take them away, otherwise the police are seen to be breaking the rules.
What is more, this argument actually makes too much of the
that pigs can fly.
defend Dave Stevens: committee
of Students.
Monday 7.30pm, Hurst St. meeting CARF, AFFOR, etc.
both meetings. charges from the Asian
Newham ANL. was far from
mobilise the
SUCUUIC
black against Mr Ahmad.
AssociaBlack distributed within support from community,
Workers Federation, them to black Committee of Dagenham. necessary things they
unaware of their
• such as take relation to the police
enforcing them.
legal advice
basis that
and should
most.
They have
of society
dropping of the charges could well help to explode the myth
BIRMINGHAM meetings to
Thursday 1 February, 1pm Birmingham University Guild
5 February, at Australian Bar, - all-Birmingham sponsored by ANL,
Dave Stevens will speak at
Organisations, and
Championing the stand that "self-defence is no offence', the Defence Committee began to
by holding a picket of West Ham police station to demand the release of the Virk brothers -jailed for defending themselves against an attack by racists and the dropping of charges
About 120 people were there - mainly local black residents but also a small contingent of supporters from Newham ANL and the Ford Workers Group.
Ten thousand leaflets were
the black and the Ford Group helped get workers few cases where people have standards, won out against the police. discipline,
In fact most people are still etc.
"rights'
- and "social crisis'. many of these exist in name only, since there is no means of
The police have asked for greater formal powers on the
they dI C the "impartial experts' in their field - like a surgeon or engineer -
therefore have more say in the matter than familiar one.
presented the same picture of the breakdown
declining
Above: the arrest of Dave
Stevens during the March
demonstration. Below:
David McNee (right),
Metropolitan Police
Commissioner and James
Anderton (left), Manchester
Chief Constable, both
leading figures in the law
and order' campaign.
On the basis of such work the Defence Committee was able to call an impressive picket of West Ham Magistrates Court when Mr Ahmad's case came up on 8 January. Mr Ahmad was cleared, but the magistrate still tried to justify the bringing of the case by the police.
The Defence Committee is
end family industrial unrest,
— and the need for a strong and determined answer to this
The Police Superintendents recently claimed: 'In 1978 it is regrettable but true that our So normal state of society is under rules serious threat. public disorder Is almost the norm in many places. Official crime statistics do not support such hysteria, but the image in the media is a
Changes in the law usually follow recommendations from commissions such as this. It i important that there is some
now planning to picket the appeal by one of the Virk brothers. As they say on their leaflet summing up the lessons of the Ahmad case:
If black people are to defend themselves...the whole of the black Сонина mobilised." response to the law enforcers' picture if such changes are not to go through on the nod.
However the government has excluded the issue of police accountability from the Com mission's terms of reference
even if more ibertaria
were accepted, how could they be made to stick?
There must be a defence to this campaign to sweep away formal democratic rights.
* The Release Bust Book, Trouble with the Law, has just been published by Pluto Pres (E1.25).
Socialist Challenge. February 1979, page 7.
Page 8 scan of this page
How can we stop these tanks?
By Steve Potter
SHAH! SHAH! SHAH! That massed shout from the elite of the Iranian army last week chilled the bones of even the most hardened Western journalists.
The march past of the 2,000-strong Javidan brigade at the Lavizan military base near Tehran was the curtain raiser for the occupation of Tehran airport the next day.
On that occasion the move by the army was approved by Bakhtiar-Shah government. A future воуснель gat not be so lucky.
The danger of a coup will remain as long as the repressive apparatus built by the Shah is intact.
The top ranks of the army face a bleak future. Even the Bakhtiar-Shah government has been forced to say that it will bring those responsible for the crimes of the last 25 years to justice. While Bakhtiar won't do it the masses certainly will try.
The only army top brass who would escape such an offensive will be those who follow the example of the Shah.
Nevertheless unere are powerful factors against a coup. Although the professional ranks of the army remain intact, the conscripts have not been used in any systematic way against the
By Richard Carver
THE proposed deal between
Iranian air force and Le Personne is
just a small example of a flourishing
arms trade.
Nearly a third of the £3,700m output
of Britain's 8,000 arms companies is
exported and Iran is the single largest
Duver. with military
twice the size of the British. So these
private capitalists have a direct stake in
maintaining the Iranian status quo.
But the main feature of the modern
arms trade is state participation. No
longer are the arms merchants regarded
as moral bounders who would happily
sell guns to Dom siacs
recent history of the Middle East shows
that that contradiction remains).
"The morality lies with the user',
the verdict of Ronald Ellis, the Head of
Detence Sales. It is a view
found general approval since state-
regulated arms exports have become an
Socialist Challenge 1 February 1979 page 8
TRAN
Down with the Shahs regime
Stop British support for the Shah
Support the Workers Struggles in Iran
Imperialist hands off Iran
the attitude of the major imperialist powers, in particular the USA and to a much lesser extent Britain.
These are the powers which have helped to turn the Iranian army into a force which today has at least twice the soldiers and armaments of the British army.
Thanks to the USA the Iranian airforce has the most advanced fighter planes, and helicopter gunships; the the navy sophisticated submarines frigates.
Thanks to Britain
assembled a mighty hovercraft force suitable for the invasion of the Gult states, the beginning of the Rapier tracked missile forces and the latest Chieftain tanks.
All this armoury was assembled so that the Shah and the USA could realise their common goal of Iran acting as imperialist policeman in the Middle East.
But now it is the helicopters and tanks which come to the tore — not to beat the Russian threat, but to meet the masses.
If it is the imperialists who will eventually decide the question of a coup in the light of the development of the mass movement in Iran then it falls to the labour movement, particularly in
The trade in death
instrument of foreign policy as well as a centrally planned intervention into the the economy.
On a deal such as the Personne contract there is little contact with the British state. substantial sale both parties may have to deal with the state at a number of points: establishment The Defence Sales Organisation, a
department of the Ministry of Defence, is the main arms sales agent.
The Labour government set it up in 1966 on the report by managing director was the beginning of a long relationship between Leyland and though the out of the three DSO Heads, including
the present one, have been Leyland directors. is The Minister responsible was Denis Healey. At the time Labour still had a Minister of Disarmament, a problem which Healey brushed away with: "we must also take what practical steps we
Trafalgar Square
What would tip the balance would be | the USA and Britain, to make their
governments certain what the popular response would be.
One of the best ways in which American and British workers can act is to break the links of iron and steel which bind the Iranian army to the imperialist powers.
The tanks strike force of any coup on American and British spares and technical assistance. Guardian journaland ist Martin Woollacott has calculated that the helicopters would be grounded the Shah in a month if
compelled to withdraw its maintenance force and supply of parts Likewise the would grind to a halt if the British government and the Vickers engineering group were forced to do likewise. The Shir Iran tanks that the British government-owned factories and the Vickers Engineering group are building are part of a massive order for 2,000 tanks placed by the Shah.
The tank was ordered directly from the British government - the main contractor being the Barnbow Royal Ordnance factory in Leeds.
Based on the Chieftain tank, the Shir Iran is protected by the new Chobham plastic reintorced armour. small Le The DSO than an
But for any departments of the
UTC.
service basis.
As with
recommendation "British Neyland
Donald Stokes. or more sinister.
the DSO: two
over
Demonstrate Us
Saturday February 3
finder.
and helicopters plant in are reliant
Bell Helicopters were some are subcontracted
Team Valley armoured divisions
Royal Ordnance
Hawker
The Vickers can to ensure that this country does not fail to secure its rightful share of this valuable commercial market
was initially little more of the sales different armed It has since developed into a streamlined sales broker, organised on a geographical rather than service-by-
agency the DO can direct business such state broking where it chooses. Its criteria may be commercial - It shows no tavours towards state-armed arms factories
The 1977 Racal bribes trial revealed how two directors of a Racal subsidiary bribed a colonel employed by the DSO
contract to sell military family. communications equipment to Iran.
Racal is another company with 1948-54, longstanding relation with the DSO The DO's founder Head was a Racal director and Sir Lester Suffield, who was Head at the time of the bribes, was
SOCIALIST CHALLENGE has obtained a cop Iranian agency requesting an order of shotgur
Co Ltd, an arms merchants of Edmonton, N request is for -46 Automatic Browning Magnum, and is signed by Colonel G.H. M Logistics Support Centre (Europe). Presumab not intended to shoot down MIGs!
By Geoffrey Sheridan
LOGISTICS Support Centre (Europe) resides in a modern four-storey office block at 15 Young St, Kensington in West London, conveniently around the TrOM OUNC military attaché's offices in Kensington Court.
The Logistics unit, which places orders for the Iranian military, has
Its 120mm gun is currently the most powerful tank gun in the world. It uses sophisticated surveillance and firing systems including infra-red sights for and The night time operation and a laser range
The tank is assembled by the chief production subcontractor, Vickers, at the Elswick
ANCWCASEE Armour platt comes from the old Vickers British Steel plant in Sheffield. Turrets and guns come from the Royal Ordnance factories in Nottingham and Leeds.
Of the thousands of smaller parts
to other Vickers plants at Scotswood, Crayford,
and occasionally dockers Thetford. The engine will come from Monitoring either British Leyland or Rolls Royce.
Campaigners for solidarity with the people of Iran have already started activity against the supply of these tanks. In Leeds leaflets were distributed to AUEW shop stewards, calling for 'No loss of Lives, No loss of Jobs!'
They appealed to workers at the Barnbow factory to stockpile the tanks and parts and prevent their export to Iran. This takes up the example of the
Siddeley workers, who hoarded aircraft engines that were due to be given to the Chilean airforce
National Combine Committee of Shop Stewards has
alleged to have had a close business relationship' with Racal's chairperson.
International Military Services is the British state's military contractor.
Reporter of the year SIR Shapoor Reporter, until recently was the key figure in arms deals with Iran, is a larger than life figure - a spiy on the grand scale. His career is a good illustration of the sort of people used by the arms trade and how Anglo-Iranian relations are conducted He was a psychological warfare expert in India in 1941-43 and later attached himself to the Iranian royal All the while he kept his link British periodie f From the period the US-engineered coup in Iran, the British lent Reporter to the CIA.
He was the Shah's foremost business
ARMS
The letter (reprinted on this page) is addresse
already taken somewhat precautions against intruders.
The office building nam House, can only be entered by through two sets of locked Casual visitors will find no bell means to make their presence Nor does it seem too an advertise its activities. The offi listed in any conventional t directory, nor is it available thr operator.
drawn up its own strategy. Following the example of the Lucas Combine, its document, Building the Chieftain Tank
Alternative, outlines an alternative to building tanks.
It rejects the argument that stopping
ROUS pointing to the instability of the Iranian regime. Instead it proposes plans for manufacturing equipment, mining machinery, energy and environmenta devices and the like
Further action may be possible at the docks. The main ports for the export of the tanks are Liverpool and Hull. The Ministry of Defence rather than the
usually loads the tanks. of these operations is currentiv under discussion
The Committee Against Repression in Iran is planning action around the issue of the tanks as part of the build up to its national conference on Saturday 31 March. The conference is called on the basis of Solidarity with the Iranian Struggle, US and British Hands off Iran. (Further details and delegates credentials can be obtained from CARL, Sire, London i Take of Balding Rising Free, 182 Upper
Chieftain Tank Alternative, Top ps postage tor Days of Hope Bookshop, 115 Westgat Road, Newcastle.)
Buyers may be referred there b DSO It was formerly known as Mil Technical Services (it is still gen
adviser. One of the defendants 1977 Racal bribery trial claime Reporter administered the P Foundation. whereby the pocketed all 'commissions'. Thi after the Shah had outlawed br Another defendant said: I c imagine needing to bribe anybody Reporter knows he's going to g consultant's fee."
Reporter was intermediary business deals with the Labour Ministers Edmund Del Tony Benn went through hi arrange visits to Tehran.
Page 9 scan of this page
a letter from an or the air force.
Le Personne & h London. The
he shotguns are
nal The current Kelly's guide does not
even recognise the existence of the building! aig Colonel G.H. Matini, the head of the ing rs. Centre, does not appear on the London
Diplomatic List. A flustered embassy telephonist was unable to confirm or to deny the existence of this department lot and the telephone at the Centre itself seemed a voice which answered the ine he little uncertain about where it worked.
The Logistics Support Centre shares • Re. АРИЕ 1357/6082 - 15
30th November 1878,
Le Personn
Attention_of Mr. Box Dear SIT,
SHOVOURT
Yours (festhtully.
Importa Frontens "Support
referred to as Millbank) and was under
the control of the Crown Agents.
recently became
lepartment under the personal contro
of the Secretary of State.
presumably to prevent its activities
being exposed as the Crown Agents'
financial affairs were coming
increasing scrutiny.
Millbank handles most deals with
Iran. It also emerged during the Racal
trial that Millbank was a channel for
payment of 'commissions'.
Shapoor Reporter,
business consultant, received £250,000
from Racal.
Sir Lester Suffield revealed at the
trial that Reporter had also got
Elm in 1971 for helping secure a £100m
contract to supply
Shah's regime. The
directly approved by
government, which knighted Reporter
in 1973 "for services to
interests'. (See box.)
The Royal Ordnance Factories, 13 of
AND IRAN
movement.
the building
extended to BLUCCULIC.
Support Centre itself.
IMPERIAL IRANIAN AIR FORCE
LONDUD
Proving a nates 13, rairo so Autonatie
Thanking you in advance for your co-operation.
blet - Loglettes Support Centre (Burope)
MOD private arms production.
under Ordnance makes them.
According
nere to do a contradiction, Sir Tehran-based understand it,
over
Chieftains to the as 46 shotguns. payment was British told Socialist
British child's toy gun.'
None of this is very remarkable, except for the light it casts on the Iranian state's buying operations and how the arms trade works.
On this page GEOFFREY SHERIDAN visits the home of the Logistics Support Centre, RICHARD CARVER looks at some of the implications of this case and the role of the government in promoting arms sales, and STEVE POTTER argues campaign against arms exports is a central task of the solidarity
according a nameplate visible from the street with the Galustian Engineering Co. and the Perren Fire Protection Co.
The unit's security against unauthorised entry does not seem to be its equipment ordering When Socialist Challenge rang to speak to John Boyd, Manager of Le Personne's arms department, his assistant mistook us for the Logistics 0873 for further information.
them, are state-owned arms producers employing 22,500 people with sales of £211m in 1976. This is only a fraction of full
The Ministry of Defence research and development establishments design and test new armaments; the Royal Master of the Ordnance Sir Hugh Beach, he is 'simply job. there then that is for government to reconcile. As far as I they don't find any insuperable difficulty in reconciling it.'
Export Licences are the last point of contact between the arms dealers and the state and the one they must all go through - even on a contract as small One Department of Trade employee Challenge: 'You even need a licence to export caps for a
The Department of Trade insists that each licence is given close individual
The company hadn't yet replied to
the request for a quotation on the
Browning shotguns, we were informed,
because the details given were too
vague. We had to be more specific
about the barrelling of the guns. Then
Le Personne, an equipment ordering
agency, could obtain details about
supply from the Belgian manufacturers
of the gun.
We said we'd let them know.
The letter from the Iranian Air Force ordering shotguns; and Hai House, wherethe Logistics Support Centre has its offices. Ring 937
consideration. In practice it is unlikely that any but the big contracts get the
treatment. This consists submission to a panel of advisers appointed from top civil servants in the rcievant government Departments, 1 this case the DoT, MOD and Foreign Office.
The decision can be taken right up to cabinet level, though it is only
wher Foreign Secretary vetoed an arms deal with E Salvador - that the public gets to hear of it. All details of individual export licences are secret; aggregate totals are released.
Like the entire arms trade it is an Cric Conner operation immense political significance, concealed by the innocent commerce and the civil service.
But the crucial weakness of the arms export machine is that it still relies on workers to make and transport the weapons.
There lies our chance for solidarity.
sort
of
that a
with enormous tasks.
Photo: G.M. COOKSON (Socialist Chi
By Tarig Ali
Challenge has
some detail. demands for culminating in the constituent assembly important at the present time.
We argued along DeCaUSE we soft-pedalling on soviets, establishment of a workers state. did so because
bridge between the present level Ihave mine."
democracy and they are correct. nave to strengthen the West. It also has
power.
of
democratic rights.
party, there will be
not be determined
in ability to respond to the
only rank-and-file
emerge.. party
jargon of
revolutionary party in Iran.
In a recent
La party', Nigel Harris wrote:
What
party?
THE RETURN of Ayatollah Khomeini to Teheran will mark the end of the first phase of the mass struggle which brought down the Shah. In the period that follows the Iranian left will be confronted
In recent weeks both Socialist Worker and Socialist Challenge have stressed the necessity of building a revolutionary workers party in Iran. But more is needed than just words.
*The only
DURING the last six months Socialist
concentrated on disciplined analysing the Iranian political crisis in
We have stressed that workers. rights election of were crucially
these lines not was not favour of the of power the We
struggle will develop further out of the fundamentals contradictions which are developing in the struggle for a constituent assembly.
It is always important to search for a
consciousness of the masses and the future. It is important to find even the November smallest footpaths to that bridge. For without them one can easily be reduced Avanguardia to empty, albeit correct, propaganda.
Trotsky was fond of quoting an old Some German proverb in this regard: Indeed a silk hat is very fine, provided only that
At the present time the masses want
We move democratic rights and fight against any manoeuvres by the army or sections of clear. Khomeini's supporters which delay elections for a constituent assembly.
At the same time the economic boom of the 1960s has created a new working
which is characterised by al impetuosity and courage rarely seen in
CMOT directly socialists. experienced the defeat of 1953, when a Their military coup restored the Shah to
The need to fight for and organise trade unions is another important task Iran? which confronts socialists and those who are in favour of real and lasting
Before there is a mass revolutionary
revolutionaries. Its ability to grow will
by any abstract today. models of party-building, but by their
the prescu
It would thus be foolish if the central task of Iranian revolutionaries in the working class was seen to be building discussions,
groups in a situation where unions are only now beginning to comes a sect.
be built independently of its programme or its central political tasks. In a number of cannot simply articles the comrades of the British Socialist Workers Party have indicated that they too are in favour of building a
article in Socialist Worker, entitled Iran, it's time to have
the workers can establish a stable order is for themelves to take the lead, to take over the state. But for that they need an organised and
party with 8 clear programme expressing the interests of
We agree completely with those sentiments. But a number of questions arise. The political current represented by the SWP has hitherto argued that it
possible to construct revolutionary international. It there fore sought close links with likeminded organisations in other countries.
Likemindedness, however, consisted of agreement on tactics rather than the
COSTS TSE proThis approach resulted in disaster, as Portugal and Italy revealed.
In Portugal the hectoring ultra-lefts of the PRP[BR] must bear part of the responsibility for the success of the
1975 counter-revolution, while in Italy the rank-and-filists
Operaia drifted rightwards before its eventual break-up.
SWP leaders
extremely critical of their former allies in these two countries.
Does the recognition of the need to build a party in Iran signal an end to the old shibboleths of the SWP or is it essentially an attempt to recruit more ranians in Britain hat is stil noi modest group of supporters in iran at Fourth International has the present time. They have recently launched a weekly newspaper called Che Bayad Kard and are preparing a conference of Iranian revolutionary
aim is to construct revolutionary workers party. How does the SWP view this and is it proposing to build an alternative organisation in
We are not making any extravagant claims for the Fl in Iran. But we do stress that our ability to lay the basis for an organisation in Iran flows from our view that a revolutionary International can be constructed and needs to be built
It must be a disciplined organisation, but one that is internally democratic The last thing that is needed is a small group established onrangles enterial
which strangles internal the growth of independent-minded cadres and be
The political crisis in Iran [or for that matter in Peru or southern Africa] does indicate that British rEVOLUTEC
be contented with providing solidarity. They must play s part in helping to build revolutionary organisations throughout the world.
The SWP should admit this and participate in the process, not just in
Tran but internationally.
Socialist Challenge 1 February 1979 page
Page 10 scan of this page
Peru repression stops
considerable.
Socialist Unity conference the following
main speaker at each was to have been
Trotskyist and peasant leader Hugo Blanco.
going ahead with substitute speakers.
By Dave Hayes
REPRESSION in Peru today is
not the same as in Argentina,
Chile Uruguay,
massacres have taken place
afterthe working class had been
decisively defeated.
Blanco says that a race has
begun. The ruling class is trying
to win time by combining talk
about democracy with hard
selective repression.
The working masses and By Richard Carver NINETY thousand Rhodesian wiles vote this week on the proposed constitution. Its most obvious effect will be to change the name of the country to 'Rhodesia-Zimbabwe'.
"Majority rule' is purely cosmetic, since the country's tiny white minority has nearly a third of the seats in the new parliament set aside for it. And the apparatus of the state -armed forces, police, judiciary, civil service will remain untouched.
The final insult is that it is not even the entire population, but Just the whites, who are being consulted in this referendum.
With all these guarantees a majority of Rhodesian whites will probably vote for settlement and stick with Prime Minister Ian Smith
But that majority will be much reduced compared with the last general election and even those who vote yes must be bewildered that it is 'good ol' Smithy® who promised 'no majority rule in my lifetime' - who is leading them towards Knodesta. Zimbabwe.
But Smith's sudden conversion to African control (qualified by the fact that he regards himself as African marks no significant change of position.
The racist atrocities of the police and army escalate weekly. The latest report from the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Rhodesia, for instance, details how the
are burning down villages which are alleged to support the anti-government guerillas.
Nearly seven times as many African civilians have been killed by troops as the number of white civilians allegedly killed by guerillas. And many
Socialist Challenge 1 February 1979 page 10
INTERNATIONAL
Blanco's visit
REPRESSION in Peru has taken its toll. The military regime arrested 2,000 trade unionists and socialists in an attempt to stop the recent general strike. Although it has now released all but 27 the threat to the left is still
One of the possible casualties will be the Rally Against Imperialism in London on 2 February and the
It now looks increasingly unlikely that Blanco will be able to come, though of course both events will be
revolutionaries on the other side are building up their independent self organisation. where The granting of the Constituent Assembly has not held back mass activity as the generals had hoped.
General strikes have taken with increasing larity. Miners, peasants, teachers, public sector workers and school students have all been involved in bitter struggles.
The demand
Whites vote in futile
bid to save Rhodesia
of the latter killings, notably those of missionaries, can directly attributed to undercover units of the Smith army.
These figures also exclude the death thousands OCODIC killed by LOODS In search destroy' raids into neighbouring Zambia and Mozambique.
Statistics like these minimal coverage in the Britist press. So do the United Nations estimates of the black refugees who have fled the country.
There are some 117,000 in refugee camps in Mozambique, Zambia and Botswana, not including those who are out of the country training with the Patriotic Front guerillas the The total number of refugees almost equals the number who fled Cambodia Khmer Rouge regime — again not a comparison which has been publicised.
So if it is not altruism which lies behind Smith's 1965 conversion, what is it?
The only serious explanation is the almost total disintegration of governmental power; the regime is losing the war with its own population.
Several months ago there were reports that large tracts of
guerillas, who were launching attacks on suburbs of the major cities.
That process has continued.
Thames Television produce Peter Taylor recently Zimbabwe and reports growing support for those whom the government calls "ters, or terrorists. summarises ings: 'We support the guerillas because they are our children; they are the ones fighting for Zimbabwe, their battle is our battle, the transitional government has done nothing for us.
reinstatement victimised trade union militants from the famous July 1977 strike against IMF measures has unified many of the struggles.
and their imperialist backers most of all has been the growth day. The
of popular assemblies in many Peruvian areas and the strengthening of
the class struggle current (led largely by revolutionaries) in the trade unions.
The generals bargain for a dozen revolutionary MPs in the These MPs have said quite openly to the masses: we will use this institution' partly won by our struggles. Don't put your confidence assembly problems, struggles and mignt regu- workers and peasants' govern-
ment.
It is still too early to say whether the failure general sunke marks a retreat In for the the mass movement.
All this they be terrorist guns at their heads, as the government would have the rest of the world beleve.
Taylor also
declining credibility Rhodesian erstwhile nationalist
and who joined Smith's govern-
Bishop support has taded away, on his home territory of Umtali so much so that he has to ship in busloads of supporters number of to save the embarrassment of
small public meetings. the only support for Muzorewa and his government colleague Reverend Sithole is their own private armies: "on-side ters" in white racist jargon.
A army has simply handed over control of some
the heavily-armed bands of hood-
Slums. These areas are known as *frozen zones' and the private arms as auxiaries bur tnis does not disguise the reality. belated Neither are they,
leaders would have us believe, Patriotic Front members who have defected. Some are young blacks attracted by the prospect of a job and a square meal.
More often
"There have been many dead, ouchblood. You should sent one auxiliary even
the run out.'
Rivalry between groups is intense. claims that Sithole's visited exercise a 'nationwide Hitlerite
the terror'.
His own army, of course, has a more democratic purpose: il is to teach people how to vote' their feel- State terror and a breakdown
in order that Rhodesians will be voting for this week. And it is their only option outside victory which inevitable.
of the 2000
austerity will be substitution What has scared the generals
also didn't Ramirez is a Assembly.
ionaria
the your
continue your
for Out ol une
as of 19 January.
of the
say with no
of the of the leaders
Muzorewa's even
serious basis of
fatally stretched white
areas to
as their
they are the all wars attract:
La grin.
different Muzorewa groups what
the guerilla now looks
THE Latin American aspect of
the Rally against Imperialism
maintained by the of socorre
Ramirez for Hugo Blanco.
She was vice president of the
teachers union in Colombia
and presidential candidate for
the class struggle slate UNIOS
in the recent elections- with
the only manifesto to carry a
specific section on the struggle
against womens oppression.
well-known
figure in the abortion campaign
in Colombia. She is a leader of
the Partide Socialista Revoluc-
Colombian
sympathising organisation of
the Fourth International.
Repression remains selective.
militants serious detained only 27 remain inside
They include Herrea Montalvo, general secretary of the sanors umon, and tne genera secretary of the print union. MAN of God: Muzorewa (centre) clutches AK47, surrounded by private army.
The two prisoners in the most
danger are and Guillermo Bolanos, both journalists on a Trotskyist paper called Revolucion Proletaria.
The government is using
Decree law 22339 against these prisoners. It provides for the code of military justice to be applicable to civilians and establishes a crime 'besmirching the image of the armed forces".
Although Blanco is unlikely to come this week we should still keep our attention on Peru.
statement on Latin Americar repression and solidarity which was to have been released at a press conference for Blanco has already won the support of the the Chile entommitee for,
Chile Committee Human Rights, Big Flame. International Marxist Group, Stan Newens MP and Alan Christie of the National Union of Students.
It is hoped that a statement Seccals Conne need to defend the Peruvian militants will be added to this and be released this week. (Copies of the statements available from Socialist Challenge).
Page 11 scan of this page
West Germany-the steel sell-out
'Leaders will weaken union'-steelworker
Proll
for her to answer in West Germany.
Her hopes of staying in
marriage.
face?
By Jude Woodward
WHEN Astrid Proll arrested in Hamburg in May 1971 she was held for 2½ years until her trial eventually started in September 1973. There is no reason to suppose that the West German authoritie will be any quicker in bringing Astrid to trial this time. She faces possibility of being held on remand for indefinite period.
Between 1971 and 1973 Astrid was subjected to two periods of sensory deprivation and total isolation in the silent wing Koeln-Ossendorf
Intercontinental Press
* Inprecor
JOSEPH HANSEN, who died in New York two weeks ago, was the founder and editor of Intercontinental Inprecor
He transformed it from mimeographed journal to its present form unified magazine reflecting the views of the Fourth International. It bears Joe's stamp throughout, its low-key and meticulous style sometimes concealine a controversial and polemical streak.
It is appropriate, then, that the present issue (Vol 17, No 3) should carry or joe lengthy appreciation longtime comrade Novack.
Single copies are 30p plus postage, but a far better way of honouring Joe Hansen and the institution he did so much to build IS by taking subscription: £9 for one year, £5 for six months or £2.50 for
introductory offer of 10 issues.
Write now to Intercontinental Press/Inprecor, PO Box 50, London N1 2XP. Cheques payable to Intercontinental Press/Inprecor.
INTERNATIONAL
The lost
freedom
of Astrid
ASTRID Proll now faces extradition since the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate has ruled that there are cases
Britain and avoiding probable death in a German prison now rest entirely on her claim to British citizenship as a result of her
If Astrid is returned to West Germany, what will she
prison.
Even when not was subjected to the torture sensory deprivation she kept in solitary confinement -before she had even convicted. Eight members the Red Army Fraction, WHICH Astrid 6020 connected, have died in West the German prisons.
Currently, there has been an escalation of guerilla activity in West Germany and repressive climate has intensified.
Astrid will probably treatment and sentencing that reflect this situation rather than By Eric Eauvives
THE West German steelworks are busy again. But only after lying deserted for forty days as 100,000 strikers demanded a 35-hour week.
Order reigns once more in the Ruhr. The bosses paid a high price in lost production during Press/ the strike - as much as £250 million according to estimates. But then the stakes Were m.
To have conceded a 35-hour week in the steel industry would have been to open up a breach through which the rest of the WORKING class could poured. So the bosses held out.
KARL BRINKMANN is a shop his steward at the MannesmannGeorge Huckingen steel Duisburg, and also a member of the Social Democratic Party which is in government. TOM JORDAN asked him how the union leaders had managed to get the strike called off.
That's the big question, course. It's not a matter personalities. beginning I don't think any of the high-ups wanted a strike.
First they said militants: 'Of course we want it, but you'll never backing of the
being
was
been
with the crimes that she is supposed been to have committed.
With the increasing erosion civil liberties Germany, where people can be prosecuted for even drawing attention to prison conditions, the likelihood of any campaign in support of Astrid is very face small.
Astrid WaS 1973 And now employers throughout West demanding a signed contract to maintain the before they will negotiate on anything else at all.
They are in a position to do this thanks to the leadership of the IG Metall union who were not abe ballot on thee finas of the ballot some sell-out deal.
The union claimed a 54.6 per cent vote In subsequent number of plants have shown that the deal could not possibly have secured a majority. have In fact the peculiar concept
of workers democracy in IG
Result: an 87 percent vote to strike.
in Then, two days before the
strike was due, compromise offer on holidays better than we finished up with in the end.
But the shop stewards told the IG Metall leadership: we're not interested, it's the 35-hour
of week we're after. And they had
of to go ahead with the strike. Right from the However, they weakened our
position step by step. progressively
the basic demand for 35 hours.
At the beginning it was a get the question of 35 hours. Then it workers.: became a move towards 35
Civil rights in Germany. German artist Kurt Jotter's view.
West and the effects of torture.
be any better this time.
released from expect to
because returned to Germany'.
Germany are positive vote to
40-hour week
the strike in any case.
But the obviously
were made.
So the labour
favour. But inquiries in
increase in holidays.
crushing defeat. 39 hours'. flourish the
there was a
an week.
use are holidays unemployed factory?
They abandoned our
workers
circulation expert said her life was in danger due to the brought to
prison conditions
There is no reason to suppose that if she is returned to Wes Germany, her conditions will
When she was arrested in London, Astrid said: 'I do not
survive if Metall, requiring a 75 per cent the
launch
would have meant the end of
union leadership felt that such a VOTE would nave threatened its own position.
And so a few adjustments'
most important dispute West Germany for thirty years ended with no reudetion in hours and only a small wage rise and slight Germany. (
But it would be wrong to talk of a of their
workers
The size of the vote against
hours'. Then a 'move towards state
And noW they extra holidays, claiming that this is somehow union card.
inroad into the 40-hour much
Yet as one of them said in the struggle first days of the strike: •What
if we're outside the country
These people have a different understanding of trade unionism. They don't see the union as an instrument of struggle defend the interests of the
I think they see it more as an element of integration into the
Creche
PICKET with
Renewed pressure must be
bear on Home Secretary Rees to insist that Astrid Proll be allowed to stay in this country.
Apart from quite possibly sentencing her to death, her extradition would imply that
Labour endorses the continued erosion of democratic rights in Germany.
union leadership shows this. So too does the fact that this was only the most recent and powerful in a series of working class struggles.
The number of days lost in strikes or lock-outs in 1978 was 5.8 million — an all-time record in West Germany.
Furthermore, this struggle has acted as an inspiration and example to other workers, well beyond the frontiers of West
placing the 35-hour week at the forefront
the demands the steelhave shown a way
- they're acting more from the point of view of their SPD party card than their trade
So they obviously don't have
interest in leading which serves the interests of the union members. They're tied to those who are in charge of running things in this
the social-democratic leadership
When the interests of the
7810 agalnst int interests of the state, I'm ready
beneve that the entire leadership is prepared weaken the union.
WHAT'S
LEFT
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Page 12 scan of this page
UTOM MEMBER BEATEN UNCONSCIOUS ... BUT FASCISTS FAIL TO HALT BLOODY
International Tribunal has preliminary hearing
By Geoff Bell By Tomas Marlowe THE preliminary hearing of the International Tribunal on the British Presence in Ireland was held in Paris last weekend.
Three judges presided at the hearing Judge (France), Ron Knowles, editor of the Journalist (England), and Phil Flynn, deputy general secretary of the Irish Government and Public Services Union (Ireland).
was a prima facie case for an investigation of the British presence in Ireland and they sanctioned the convening of a full-scale tribunal hearing in the summer.
The judges heard evidence alleging infringements human rights in the North of Ireland. Witnesses presented evidence regarding British repression in Ireland, including personal testimony of interro-
Socialist Challenge T February 1979 pagé 12
SUNDAY MARCH
FOUR HUNDRED
the on London last Sunday.
United the gation procedures and statements from prisoners smuggled out on toilet paper.
was Father Faul, a catholic priest from Dungannon, Tyrone. Faul has investigated Bloch many cases
ill-treatment of prisoners. gave a graphic conditions in Long Kesh where Local over 350 prisoners are currently
'on the blanket".
The judges' verdict stressed, They concluded that there it was no part of our function investigation of British
presented to us showed that the British government has been take place' guilty of breaches of human
But Bloch, Knowles Flynn did state:
of We have no hesitation in
saying that presence Britain in Ireland raises serious and disturbing questions. regard it as fundamental to the whole question of
MON
assorted
fascists made repeated attacks
Sunday
commemoration march held in Bloody
Steve Tolliday, a member of
Camden/Islington branch of
Out Troops manner Northern Ireland statelet came Among those giving evidence into being and the manner in
which it has been maintained and also through consideration whether in fact it systematic can be maintained He resort to breaches of human account of rights charters.'
The judges concluded: •We therefore find that the Tribunal has sufficient case for a thorough to decide whether the evidence sence in Ireland and consider it
essential that a full hearing...
The judges verdict revealed rightsor to examine the causes. that they heard 'detailed expert
and evidence on:
* the history of Britain in of reland, the partition settlement; We * 'the nature of the six county statelet of Northern Britain's and the inherent discrimination
Movement, was beaten uncon-
scious in a tube on his way to
He was set upon by a gang of
the march.
people.
between 15 and After the assault his attackers 20
chanted British Movement' as
they left the tube station.
still in hospital
receiving treatment for kidney Steve was
injuries as Socialist Challenge
pres manner land to examine that exists there*;
Unionist detailed to equal rights; without conflict;
status for
made out
before the pre- introduced Ireland:
remand to internment';
Ireland;
and psychological
Ireland by the security forces including
went to press. attracted 1,500, was repeatedly march itself.
harassed and attacked by about The
400 members Movement and the National of the
Smoke bombs were thrown
Front.
Street Oxford in demonstrators,
commemorating anniversary of the killing by the
British army of 14 civil rights
* the background to the civil rights movement of the • late 1960s and the reaction of the
majority to the peaceful registration of a claim
legislation, * 'the re-emergence of armed Special
* the withdrawal of political
those 'convicted Act under the special laws and
special courts in Northern
* the use of long periods of
'effect a form of * the nature and consequence of British economic policies in * "the effect on women and children of systematic physical
oratanty, intimidation and harassment evidence of extensive sexual
which
members.
British Irish
at the were seventh of Ireland. the
brutality and intimidation'.
The judges also looked at allegations of censorship and *manipulation of the media by under the security services", as well as various examples of repressive
including Powers Act, the Emergency Provisions Act and in London, the original venue the Prevention of Terrorism
The judges expressed the hope that 'as many people and organisations as possible will submit evidence to the full tribunal. They added *it would be done, especially as regards be of considerable help to the judges and the jury that the British government should be represented at the hearing'.
The full hearing is planned for the summer and the judges directed it to be held before la panel of international judges and a jury drawn from the British Labour Movement'
in a statement on the hearing _attend.
mann Canalet Challenge
demonstrators in Derry.
according to Scotland Yard all There were 41 arrests, and
but two of these were NF
National Front opposition to
self-determination
nothing new. In the past few
years the Front has made many
with
attempts to link extreme Loyalists in the North up
These have included talks
with a number of para-military
including the
organisations, Ulster Volunteer Force.
the Tribunal organisers ask that "necessary assurances regarding the protection of witnesses from harassment and detention the ever increasing misuse of the Prevention of Terrorism Act will be given by
the the British government so as to
enable this hearing to be heard for the prima facie hearing.' The Tribunal organisers can now go ahead with building support, and assembling judges and a jury for the full hearing. But a lot of work still needs to collecting evidence The Tribunal Planning Committee continues to neec all the help it can get. Its nex meeting Is on Tuesday February at the St Clements Building of the London School of Economics. It begins 7.30pm and all who want to help the Tribunal should try to
Page 13 scan of this page
An outstanding revolutionary leader JOE HANSEN 1910-1979 THE INTERNATIONAL revolutionary movement lost one of its most outstanding leaders on
journalist, secretary to Leon Trotsky, translator, editor, founder of Intercontinental Press,
radical movement, Hansen was, in the literal and best sense of the word, a cosmopolitan, a
By Jon Rothschild
Hansen came into the Trotskyist movement in 1934 at the outset of a transformation in the quality and activity of the revolutionary Marxist forces, which were everywhere plung ing into the mass movement of the working class. In 1936, Joe and his wife and comrade, Reba, moved to San Francisco, one of the centres of organisation of a maritime strike that paralysed the entire west coast of the United States.
Hansen integrated himself into that struggle, helping to edit the Voice of the Federation, organ of the Maritime Federation of the grouped together all the maritime unions.
In September 1937 Joe and Reba moved to Covoacan. become part of the household of Leon trolsky. Incy romanca Bcic woul late 1940, after the murder Trotsky.
Hansen was therefore at Trotsky's side throughout the last great political battle of the Russian revolutionary, against those forces in the American Socialist Workers Party challenged the Fourth International's
Soviet state.
When Hansen returned to New York after Trotsky's OCLAIR of the Committee of the Socialist Workers Party, devoting himself primarily to the party press.
The most historically significa t elements of Hansen's contribution, HOWCYCLE came after the war. moral and political courage of those American revolutionaries who were able to resist the social isolation and even physical threats of McCarthyism needs little elaboration.
were besides the obvious ones of repression and isolation. The entire Trotskyist movement, beginning with Trotsky himself, had expected a revolutionary upsurge after the Second World War which would see the transformation of the small Trotskyist parties into mass organisations leading hundreds of thousands of workers.
This analysis, as we now know, turned out to be incorrect. Trotskyist movement was thrown into intellectual turmoil; it faced wholly. new problems of analysis and action, demanding correct responses as a precondition for the very survival of ne movemene
Joe Hansen made contribuon to me elaboranon that analysis. He was one of the first to realise that the Soviet leadership, under the impetus of its occupation of the East European countries and the necessity of defending itself against the onslaught of the indeed effected social overturns in Eastern Europe, establishing a new state form: workers states bureaucratically deformed from their very origin.
The problem was new, and it cannot be said that Hansen's articles anyone else's - answered all the outstanding CLeSBOnE But it was comrades like Joe Hansen who evinced the freshness approach and lack of dogmatism that were to be responsible for the survival of the Trotskyist throughout the hard
This period, however, did take its toll on WOre movement. In 1953 the International suffered a split which many comrades consider wa not justified by the existing political differences.
Hansen was to have been the person
INTERNATIONAL
world citizen.
Pacific, which
Mexico,
of
that had
death, he National The
other dangers
The
La decisive Department
the role played by
Cold War, had make that trip.
cost of retreating
completely. STURBO
opportunities for growth.
programme ycars of
unforeseen by revolutionary Trotskyist ists: the Cuban revolution. Fourth it in one of his
party leader, and revolutionary strategist. delegated by the SWP leadership travel to Europe in late 193: explain the party's position on the disputed issues. But he was denied a passport by the McCarthyist State
One wonders - particularly given
Hansen in the reunification of the Fl nine years later — whether the split could not have been avoided had he been able to
It is difficult for revolutionary militants who have come to political activity since 1968 to comprehend the difficulties of the 1950s. Not a few groups managed to preserve their organisational existence only at the
into such blind sectarianism that later, when the
changed, they were unable to seize upon the new
This problem was compounded by the fact that one of the most central events in transforming the conditions of the world class struggle was yet another instance of a development
Marx-
Cuba was, as Joe Hansen was to put
most important essays, the 'acid test'. The American SWP passed that test in recognising the Cuban revolution for what it was: later the establishment of the first workers
18 January, when Joseph Hansen died in New York at the age of 68. He had devoted forty-five years of his life to the movement - as trade union activist,
One of the most conscious and consistent internationalists ever produced by the American state in the Western hemisphere; the first socialist revolution since 1917 to be led by forces that had not come out of the Stalinist movement.
That it did so was due in no small measure to the work of Hansen. He visited Cuba in 1961 and was instrumental in the establishment of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in the US which organised defence of the revolution against US imperialism.
Most important, he produced the most significant articles analysing the import of the Castroist leadership, the Cuban state, and the efforts of the Castroists towards international organisation.
The majority of the organisations of the Fourth International from which the SWP had divided in 1953 also passed the test of Cuba. Hansen played a central role in bringing about reunification of the world Trotskyist movement in 1963, effectively leading the political struggle against those forces which opposed it and helping to draft the political documents which provided its basis.
One of the immediate fruits of the reunification was the foundation of World Outlook, the journal that was
become Intercontinental Press. Beginning as a mimeographed
bulletin produced in Paris by Joe and Reba with the aid of Pierre Frank, it rapidly filled international reportage, analysis, and documentation.
Joseph In 1965 Joe suffered a massive attack of peritonitis, from which he nearly died. Publication of World Outlook was interrupted, and Joe and the Reba returned to the United States. He never fully recovered his health, but he was determined to take up his activity again as soon as possible.
World Outlook was re-launched in New York, with Joe as editor. Its technical panded, and it grew in size as a staff of writers and translators was assembled. In 1968 - that watershed year of world revolutionary politics Intercontinental Press again offered the most thorough and news and analysis published by the revolutionary movement anywhere in the English-speaking world.
Joe himself, along other comrades of the SWP, travelled to France to cover the events there. He was arrested by De Gaulle's police, held overnight, expelled from the country and barred from returning.
From 1969 onwards, activity was centred on the tendency struggle in the Fourth International. Hansen was the author of the first and most penetrating - criticism of
good
in the legacy, contribution unique.
American quality
proressionansi Joe
filled
tions,
pusher. yet
perhaps
their politics internal seriously.
struggles acrimony.
other vacuum in
impossible facilities gradually ex-
faction struggle.
became _ penetraung
in the SWP,
with several
editorial
Hansen's
the errors of the resolution on Latin America adopted by the Ninth World Congress of the Fourth International in 1969. Thereafter he produced a
portion of the political documents of the minority tendency
International, on Latin
It may be said without exaggeration that one of the greatest reasons why the tendency and faction struggle o 1969-1977 resulted not in another split but in the eventual dissolution of the major tendencies was that Joe Hansen was a central leader of the minority.
Uppermost in his mind was not only the intrinsic importance of the political issues at stake, but also the unity of the Fourth International, the organisation to which he had devoted his entire conscious life
Apart from this manifold political
Hanser made another which was nearly He introduced into the revolutionary press which has been and lamentably, still is — most rare. It can be summed up in a single word:
had immense respect for journalism and writing, which I DI considered, as he often used to put it, a craft. There was no reason, he felt, why a revolutionary journal should be
with typographical errors, grammatical blunders, garbled quota.
inaccuracies detail, and other hallmarks of the amateur pen
He himself was a master of style He had a subtle sense of humour and irony, which he never lost even at the height of the most intense polemics.
Hansen instructed a generation of American militants in revolutionary politics; but he also taught a smaller,
significant, number of waite of kay CHOOS BOWD because I was one of them.
But Joe also had another quality,
more rare leaders, to which I would like to pay a personal tribute Trotskyists, as James P. Cannon used to say, 'mean business". They take
and therefore thei political struggles
All too often, intense politica
drift into personal Not because revolut ionaries are necessarily nastier than
people but because they consider the ideas for which they ar fighting crucial to the future of human society. They then find it
to work with their opponents, let alone delegate any political responsibility to them.
Joe Hansen, as I can personally testify, was entirely free of this defect I was a member of the staff of Intercontinental Press for several years in the early 1970s, including 1973, the year the tendency struggle in the Fourth International reached its initial peak of intensity and became a
I was not a member of his tendency or faction at that time, and later
supporter international majority, speaking for it
occasionally against documents written by Joe.
Despite this, I never had the slightest personal difficulty working with him and was even delegated
responsibilities on Ent journal. He showed me, as he showed others, the meaning of revolutionary morality and, what may come to the same thing, simple personal decency in the heat of political struggle.
In some sense, that may be his greatest contribution of all.
Socialist Challenge 1 February 1979 page 13
Page 14 scan of this page
SOCIALIST CHALLENGE EVENTS
LETTERS
A lorry load of...
I WAS amazed to read your First Word' article on the road haulage industry (11 January). In it you describe the way in which the fragmentation of the industry by private ownership leads to the inefficient use of vehicles.
You conclude: "All such waste could be done away with if there was one road haulage company that was planned on a rational, efficient, coordinated basis. If, in other industry was nationalised. claimed that 'then conditions would improve remarkably'
In fact, "nationalisation' would simply be the prelude to massive redundancies: that is capitalist state understands 'efficiency'. The very inefficiency that you describe is one reason that capital as a whole would not be at all opposed to the nationalisation that you are arguing for.
Nationalisation could rationalise the industry and thus lower its prices to its capitalist customers. And cuts in the labour force could be more easily made by a "democratic" state in the interests of a 'socialist" nationalised industry than by capitalIst bosses
The fact that surplus value would be lost to haulage capital is irrelevant, since it would simply be transferred to the capitalist customers by a further lowering of prices, as has happened in all other nationalised industries. Because naulage is sucn a basic industry this would be of benefit (and therefore approved of by most of the capitalist class. Only the ideological question, and the problem of where will it stop?', prejudice capital against such a nationalisation.
We should be demanding not nationalisation but nationalisation under workers control. This could ensure that more efficient use of vehicles and drivers' time resulted in a shorter working week with no loss of pay. It could prevent the value created in the industry being given to capitalist customers as low prices. It could begin to deal with environmental effects of goods venicies.
In fact, it could be a start towards an industry 'rational, ordinated' for the working class. JAMIE GOUGH (London)
Deutscher prize
THE Isaac Deutscher Memorial Prize
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Socialist Challenge 1' February 1979 page 14
BAD TASTE BY CORMAC
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RALPH MILIBAND (On behalf of The Isaac Deutscher Memorial Prize)
sectarianism
I AGREE with the aim of building a unified and broad-based solidarity campaign for the Iranian Revolution.
I am as dismayed as you are by the splits in the solidarity movement and the sectarian attitude exhibited by the Iran Solidarity Campaign towards the Committee Against Repression in Iran and the International Marxist Group.
However, I have reservations about Steve Potter's reply to the Socialist
Party/Socialist Worker Student Organisation (11 January).
There are different ways of dealing with a situation like this. On the one hand we can recognise the ISC and the
it as being a significant and legitimate part of the
It is then possible to tackle the serious sectarian errors made by them, using the pages of Socialist Challenge and an intervention into the march to musist on our nigat to take part in unis area of the solidarity movement. This orientation is surely consistent with Socialist Challenge's stated aim of building a unified and broad-based
On the other hand one can relate to
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the ISC as simply an undesirable phenomenon, publicly ignore them, and hope they'll go away. In practice Socialist Challenge this scrupulously ignoring the mobilisation and march, thereby denying them any legitimacy. sectanan response SEVEREISI like this is not going to unification of the campaign.
P. MITCHELL (Bristol)
Profits are
the dynamo
PAUL Spotter (18 January) criticised your front page headline The crisis is a crisis of inequality, saying that it was a crisis of capitalist relations. Your editorial reply glibly stated that you thought it was fairly obvious that one amounted to the other. You are not only misleading but also wrong.
First, the IMG has many a time criticised the SWP for its It's the rich wot get the gravy', Lord Mayor's banquet, Rolls Royces, etc. approach. British capitalism cannot afford excessive' wage claims. Profits, not inequality, is the dynamo of the economic system.
Second, to whom is it obvious that inequality equals capitalism, other than revolutionaries and demagogues of 'this great movement of ours'? Our task is to explain the links between present consciousness and revolution-
THE LENGTH of letters printed will usually be kept down to 400 words in order to encourage as wide a range of contributions as possible. All letters may be cut at the Editor's discretion. Unsigned letters will not normally be published, although we will withhold real names from publication on request.
She Nat. Westminster
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ISC transitional programme?
FRED LEPLAT, MIKE TAIT (Camden)
further Challenging solidarity
reformist
leaders
YOUR new year editorial (4 January) certainly rang out the old. Exactly a year ago J. Ross's preview of 1978 convincingly argued that the setbacks in the class struggle were due to the bankrupt leadership of the working class, and not, as the CP claimed, to the enormous strength of bourgeois IHSULUEOES The CP's refusal to challenge that leadership.
Ross' sargument was of course our old friend the "Trotskyite dogma' that the world crisis is essentially a crisis of working class leadership true in 78 as in letting this old forgot: *...the last year has shown the enormous recuperative power of the bourgeois-democratic through which mediates its rule in the West'.
on bourgeois institutions stressing the makes this possible are there to see in the current positions of the CP and SWP. Both, for different reasons, fail to build a real challenge to the labour bureaucracy through a united front approach based democracy.
IS COO "battle of ideas' against the bourgeois media, WITh ine supposedly hopelessly brainwashed unless they read the right newspaper.
If you stop to consider Doctor
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echoslovakia r
Viadimir Derer the case of al
Minnerup)
London N1. Adm. 50p
Death, Hua Guofeng, or the history of the Tudeh Party, the Iranian revolution is the strangest excuse for dropping this key notion from your
The weakness reformist obstacles in Iran does not abolish reformism Europe except in your editorial vocabulary Nor is Europe 'stagnant' unless you
big political strikes Denmark, the German metalworkers,
wage struggle. of an internationalist perspective like that of the Fourth International is a grasp of the interconnections of the sectors of world revolution, not a mechanical contrast
CHRIS B (Swindon)
Average is
mythical
IN your feature on the NUPE claim (18 January) you use the concept of the average wage to justify the claim. This is misconceived for two reasons
Firstly, because it sets one group of workers against another — it's really another case of the special pleading which you rightly criticise. Secondly, it betrays an uncritical approach to official statistics, which we must remember are never ideologically neutral - for example they tend to lump
community together rather than clarifying class divisions.
For the statisticians it is never a question of workers and capitalists but of at least five distinct 'socio-economic groups. The idea of the average wage is particularly misleading because it hides the fact that, as there are a small number on very high pay and a large number on low pay, the average will always be higher than most people earn.
The left must justify the wages struggle on other grounds than comparisons with some mythical average. GEORGE GRIME (Uxbridge)
HACKNEY Saturday, 12-2pm SUDDOnerS in Kingsland Hi Daistor Sainsbury's.
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Page 15 scan of this page
Workers without a history-
Film director: I hate unions
"Blue Collar'
'not reflective' of conditions at Checker.
Has a comfortable
discovered there?
avowed radicalism, writes PAUL TICKELL.
in origin, and Zeke and Smoke, both black, work in a big plant plantation as Zeke calls it. Gerry and Zeke have families and are in a precarious financial position (though the women in Blue Collar strictly background).
The three decide to rob their union's safe, rationalising this decision by blaming the union bureaucrats for not fighting enough on their behalf.
They get little money out of the robbery but do find a notebook which details illegal loans made by the union
Poople in pra bly as end Nia.
- probably the Mafia. The three protagonists crushed the rush interested parties to recover the compromising book.
The union, which has ties with the local police, wants it back. The FBI wants to get hold of it so as to discredit unHOns. corrupt or otherwise. The union bureaucracy Smoke murderco and buvs Zeke off - he is made shop steward.
INFORMER
In order to stay alive, Gerry becomes an FBI informer.
What are the political conclusions which Blue Collar draws from all this? The film certainly shows corrupt
UNDER REVIEW
or future
THE CREDITS at the end of Blue Collar' thank the police and the Michigan Checker Motor Corporation. The brutalising effects of a long day in a factory, which the film intermittently depicts, are said to be
non-exploitative extracting surplus value from the work-force been
No, but liberal reviewers have found no difficulty in reconciling these obsequious credits with the film's
First, the plot. Gerry, Polish | are like in the US and how they
have links with organised crime car and collude with the state- in this case the police.
But such criticisms, however controversial matter might be for Hollyare wood, are founded on no more than an individualistic radicalIsm.
For instance, which the militant launches agains! bureaucracy are presented as integral to his character - the insights of a particular worker who happens to be humorous to and a good speaker at union meetings.
get ANARCHIC by Throughout the film the lines of class struggle are drawn between the union on one side and the working class on ine other. all Thus, in one scene a worker - and a real "character" has course - gives anarchic vent to his teelings by destroving a vending machine which a union steward reruses to have fixed.
Blue Collar gives no hint as to what lies behind the union bureaucracy ownership of the factor!
Paul Schrader, the directo of the film, is at least aware that ine poncs or marvidualism are doomed this is one of the what themes of Taxi Driver, he scripted for Martin Scorsese.
way of
subject-
the attacks
Zeke his union The individual actions in Blue
Collar — have read his Sartre - are seen as futile.
Smoke, for all his macho and some moments of glory with a baseball bat, goes under.
CENCE "strength', so do Zeke, though actually die.
This aspect deflates the Hollywood myth that the individual hero can take on the system and beat it.
But surely Blue Collar has set itself a wider task than this? It has the condition of a whole class in mind, as its very title, drawn from the coy jargon of technocrats implies.
However, the film remains and the locked in the
which it partly criticises and its message seems to be: mess around with the system it's too big and powerful for you the individual.
wnich The fact that this message
might be applicable
individual but Schrader claims to certain
working class, is way in which misicacing
For cations vis-à-vis the and are CLas
Gerry and apparent than in they don't
of the film
self-righteous
out, set
managers, struggle between
LIS. individualism
JUNGLE Don't
jungle. to the PAUL
management. to attacking the union?
sove
the union.
work unem accept it.
In the end, they
'honestly'
It's always the morning after for Yaphet Kotto, Harvey Keitel, and Richard Pryor in *Blue Collar
not, under conditions, to the yet another the title
The film's pessimistic impli- fittest.
The nowhere more the final Gerry 1S being Its escorted from the factory by working the FBI. He is confronted by a
Zeke who accuses him of selling out.
Both, equally guilty of selling sum
about each other's characteristics throats. The sound-over is the The repeat of an earlier piece of film's dialogue of Smoke's in which gives rise to history is seen as a fatalistic enclosed
young and old. black and white, them and predestined
Wel
There is no class struggle, just one between victims of some unchanging law of the interest 1n
indicated
Here the ideology of the film
can, duplicitous.
SCHRADER, the director of Blue Collar, spoke to the US magazine Seven Day about the film, unions, and
express
union?
Why did you devote so little time in Blue Collar to attacking
perfectly management and so much time attack
In researching my material 1 found that there is not much
expended between the average American worker and
Workers are probably more pisserofesses to help themse
professes to help them.
They know the company will
-LO death. They put on film.
respect the company for being If
corrupt in saying We Fuck you i every way we
is a throwback to the fatalism of late 19th century naturalistic fiction which imagised society
of the animal kingdom; the survival of the
film's pathological attention to detail is a further parallel with this earlier mode.
appreciation the Cass without perspective; it never progresses beyond detail: those who are blue collar are no more than the
of their personal
pessimism which the naturalistic ideology Is or a circular, kind: the working class are helpless and trapped, in
to an eternal struggle without progress.
In using religious epithets to describe this pessimism, it's as
note Schrader's Calvinistic upbringing and his liking for directors with an
the mystical, a. by his book Transcendental Style in Film
whereas the union is
So your worker protagonists can think of no better way to
their hostility and alienation than ripping off their
I think the notion of robbing their union is a perfect symbol for not liking their lives. It's so
self-defeating the group that supposed to help them
They give almost no thought to it. And that's the way I feel.
I hate unions. I've always been in trouble with unions. They hate the individualists, the nonconformists, as much as the company does.
The workers in this film are sheep. I think that's the most unsympathetic work force ever
It makes you almost sympathise with the factory owners
had those assholes working for me, I'd have them whipped and chained.r
Not that it's a matter of looking to Schrader for a dose
hope.
After all, there is some room for pessimism in the late "70s: the generalised alignment of left groups and the emergence of a strong working class party have not yet happened on the scale expected at the beginning of the present crisis. But there's still time.
FRUITLESS
The рош about the claustrophobic pessimism of Blue Collar is that there 1s no time: the final frame of the film, catching Gerry and Zeke
fruitless combat, ominously frozen, out of time As far as Schrader is concerned the working class, the blue collar, have no history - and TO TULIC.
BLUE COLLAR is showing at Gate 2, Brusnwick Square, London WC1 and is likely to be given a limited regional release. The end of Blue Collar seems much like Taxi Driver Corruption is everywhere and all the characters have lost.
I really don't think that's a problem, because the moment a black audience in Detroit o Chicago sees the film, they realise:
"That's right. The big organisations and companies use racism to see that nobody improves their lot.
It only 5 per cent of th audience accepts that fact, it is enormously hopeful. It implies "Things could be otherwise'.
Blue Collar ends with a voiceover speech: Everything they do...is meant to keep us in our place.' Who are 'they"?
All big organisations. In my mind, the KOYCILIICHE the company, and the unions are all the same. They are the Captains of Industry, who rule the world.
Socialist Challenge 1 February 1979 page 15
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shit-
He
drivers points to one obvious conclusion. tant sunke acaon pays.
And yet the faced considerable opposition during their dispute.
From Labour ministers peated attacks on the strikers. Premier Callaghan even went Wave
SO far as _to crossing of picket lines.
From the media. The press and launched ordinated and attacks on trade prophesying mass (which didn't food shortages (which didn't materialise), and deaths £2.00 (which, 5.00 picket, did materialise). 9.18 From the union leadership.
Moss Evans, general secretary 10.00 of the Transport and General 5.00 Workers Union, sought to limit 15.00 the effectiveness of the strike by
158I08T conduct' for pickets.
Fortunately for the strikers, 2.00 the code was largely ignored 12.00 5.00
By Andrew Jenkins
MASS picketing has been the response of trade the sacking of 27 journalists by the Nottingham Evening Post. The journalists
SUBSCRIBE I
Cheques, POs and Money Orders should be made payable to
NO TRUCK
WITH
LOW PAY!
By Aggressive, mili-
Geoff Bell lorry drivers
and their forced the employers to settle.
made re- drivers' strike,
now focuses on the battle in the public sector. And again these advocate the low paid workers face the same
opposition.
From the Callaghan has insisted that the
hysterical
unionists: will be 8 percent
lay-offs even that for most of the public materialise), sector workers.
Education
liams has case of one crossing of picket lines outside
schools, ster Bill Rodgers has proposed an immediate freeze on wages.
of imminent death compete for front page demands that the right to strike be severely limited.
single national newspaper the
Mass pickets on Nottingham paper
producing an alternative weekly paper
unionists to been determined to keep out
unions since the strike in 1973 paved the way for
are also new technology on manage-
menES ICrIS
Post came SOut strike at the beginning of the provincial dispute they were sacked. the end of the strike earlier this month the newspaper said: people they stay sacked.
mittee of the TUC has called for a boycott of advertising in the company's management is determined to stick it out.
to obtain a private dock on the East coast to supplies get through. The only
who
dead. aggressive tactics Despite the all-out strike With the end of the lorry
all attention
ensure victory.
government. left uncollected,
limit to any settlement and not emergency
Secretary Wil- tion with advocated the
and Transport Mini-
From the media. Prophecies
opposition. attention with
Through the pages of every
paid.
The Post proprietors have
defeat of a porters
When NUJ members at the
on official Jake vice-president. journalists' pay The At
manager the Street, Nottingham. *When I sack The Nottingham The Print Industries Com-
journalists,
papers, but or advertising the
Nottingham They have even made moves
ensure that Post ann-wade unionism
rich and powerful hit out at
away their rubbish, those who clean up hospitals, those who bury the
From the union leaderships.
calls action in the public sector, the leaders of the unions involved still insist that limited "selective' action can
But if all the water workers came out, if all the rubbish was
if all the schools were closed, if all the hospitals were reduced
cover then the government would queue up to settle with the same determina-
which haulage employers queued up to settle.
So a comparison between the lorry drivers and the public sector workers can and should
Their claims are similar, they face the same
Most important of all, if the tactics were the same - all-out action — the result would be the same: victory for the low
way that the journalists can win
is through mass pickets to stop
the papers getting out.
The first such picket last
Saturday attracted 200 sup-
and successfully
stopped the movement of vans
until the police moved in. Five
pickets were arrested including
Ecclestone. the NUI
union has called for
mass picketing every Saturday,
starting at 10am in Foreman
first issue of the News, the new paper produced by the sacked
is out today. To help - by selling, distributing,
paper - ring
Nottingham 47347 or 44469.
Forest football manager Brian Clough has set the pace by refusing to talk to
because its
WORKERS
OF THE
FOR THE SOCIALIST
ELMS, MUST
This person supports British troops in Ireland
-See p12
WORLD
UNITE!
17.30pm FDAY REVOLUTION
3-4 The Oval, London E2.
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